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Mass Investment In Oshiomhole By Kola Ibrahim
Watching the campaign train of the governorship candidate of the Action Congress in Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is very exciting and thought provoking with the mass support and unsurpassed rousing approval of the downtrodden for his candidature. Looking at the character of Oshiomhole, one could only conclude that the support is hard earned looking at the relatively progressive leadership of Adams Oshiomhole. Though there are many costly mistakes here and there, but his leadership still provided courage for the masses that were ready to combat the anti-poor government then.
The mass support for Oshiomhole has made him to start making some radical statements and condemning many anti-poor nefarious policies of the government of the day. This has further gravitated the masses towards his campaign. The mass participation of the poor people of Edo State in Adams’s campaign has given it a qualitative character unlike in other states and even nationally where mostly there is mass apathy to their insipid campaigns except for monetarily mobilized supporters (many of whom also fight over pennies after the campaign). Even the national campaign of PDP where President Obasanjo has become another stand up comedian cannot match the radically different Adams campaign. I always linger for his campaign in the teevee.
To me, Adams would have been another Hugo Chavez (of Venezuela) if he had not limited himself to the confine of Edo state; if he had courageously believed in the mass movement and support of the downtrodden which he had utilized for his eight year sojourn in the Labour House; if he had embraced a radically different, working class, anti-neo-liberalism and anti-imperialist socio-economic cum political views which would have made him to be the genuine vanguard of the masses unlike several NGO bureaucrats, armchair intellectuals cum critics and bar-constrained legal “luminaries” who prefer to consult historically static theories than testing their ideas in the living struggles and yearnings of the masses. He would have represented in its full essence the genuine yearnings of the masses for a socio-economic and political systemic change from this rotten, decadent and highly corrupt bourgeois system in its neo-liberal phase which has appropriated the sweat of the masses to a handful corrupt elements in power. He would have shown to the world that the huge monetary, natural, human and mineral resources of the country could be used to better the lots of the vast majority who lack the basic means of livelihood.
While Chavez has not fully embraced the mass yearning, his response to mass radicalism has been far more accurate than that of Adams. While Chavez has embraced gradual nationalization and democratization of economic policy coupled with massive spending of oil money on the social need of the poor masses – education, health, etc; and his open condemnation of neo-liberalism, capitalism and imperialism especially the United State version, he has also moved closer to the masses of other poor countries especially in Latin America. On the other hand, our own Oshiomhole despite evolving politically from the masses has tried to mend fences with the neo-liberal policies of the government of the day while accommodating very backward politicians into his campaign.
In fact, his decamping from the Labour Party (which of course is not labour in essence but has the potential if given a clear-cut radical ideological leadership) to Action Congress (the minority section of the corrupt ruling class) has shown his total lack of sensitivity to mood of the masses. The same Oshiomhole who the masses regard as the people’s president is now sitting with highly corrupt, highly undemocratic elements of yesterdays. Can’t the labour activist see that his popularity is been used by these elements to regain their lost position in the sharing formula?
But the masses will not suddenly drop their support for those they see as their leaders even in the presence of open treachery until they push such leader to the critical point. This is where Oshiomhole is heading. I share the yearning and aspiration of the masses for a radical leadership and in fact support Oshiomhole’s candidature while explaining the need to build a strong radical-ideologically rooted platform of the masses beyond an individual. This is a more realistic and dynamic approach to the ultra-left position of some persons who feel that the masses should be spat at for supporting Oshiomhole and that of those who want to be carried away by Adams popularity (many of whom are opportunists who want to feather their pecuniary nests at the expense of the masses) and want to deceive the masses. The extreme section of the latter is those opportunists (camouflaging as poor people’s friends) who support anything against the central government in the name of “Democratic (?) Front” without looking at the class nature of the so-called opposition.
Conclusively, Adams, the people’s hero, should know that the same masses who call him their president today will throw throws at him if he let them down.
KOLA IBRAHIMDemocratic Socialist Movement (DSM) Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife |