Nigerian elections: a bid to stabilise capitalist rule

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NIGERIA 250 Satate, BORNI SOKOTO M+d = MIOER Yal.t dion GUNGOLA ONO •Makurdi LAGOS|T BENDEL IMO Since January 1966-less than six years after its nationalist movement had won formal 'independence' from colonial BritainNigeria has been ruled by military dictatorship.

The ban on political parties is now lifted and this month sees a series of elections calculated to provide bourgeois rule with a more acceptable "democratic" skin.

The transition to civilian government in October will be watched with some apprehension by imperialism and the indigenous bourgeoisie: although it is certain that a bourgeois party will win the elections (only bourgeois parties have qualified to contest them), it is by no means certain that the Nigerian masses, whose pressure has to some extent prompted this move, will consent to submit to continued poverty, exploitation and repression-even when its superintended by their 'own' elected representatives.

Disappointed

The people's expectations of civilian government are bound to be disappointed-for the electon mctos ma. continue the essential role of the military: to weave Nigeria ever closer into the rotting fabric of international capitalism as a source of profit and as a vital imperialist agent in Africa.

Vague promises of welfare state benefits have been made by all five contesting parties, but the necessity of producing profits for the capitalists and the effects of the international capitalist crisis will ensure that the military government's anti-working class economic and political policies remain at the head of the agenda.

Stalinist and reformist labour leaders will no doubt enthusiastically connive at the attempt to convince the masses that a civilian repression is worth suffering for, and that a return, to military rule would be the awful consequence of any fundamental challenge to the new regime or of any pressure for a solution to the appalling poverty of the masses.

Such deceptive and treacherous politics must be vigorously opposed and the fight taken up for a programme, party and leadership based on the independent class interests of the proletariat and the strategy of permanent Coups This is the only way to carry forward the struggles of both the industrial workers and the masses tied to the crumbling subsistence-farming system.

The present dictatorship goes back through various coups, counter coups and attempted coups to its origin in the instability of the post-independence government.

The emerging national bourgeoisie, weakened by competition between its sectors (particularly between the traditional rulers of the largely Islamic north and the newer Ibo bourgeoisie of the southeast) was confronted soon after independence by the proportionally small but increasingly militant industrial working class which had expected something more than attacks on its living standards from its independent' General strikes in 1963-4 quickly led to the posing of questions of political control and prompted political slogans: 'Down with the Balewa government!' and "Imodu (the leading Stalinist union bureaucrat) our Mirins.

KIWARA bad.un Abkokut.l Lagose Hugu 0NOO GL Obasanjo leader!"

The treachery of the leadership during this strike followed the established Nigerian pattern.

First, mass pressure forced a fragile unity on the major union federations-the Stalinist Nigerian Trade Union Congress and Labour Unity Front, and the reformist United Labour Congress of Nigeria and the Vigerian Workers Council.

Niger KIANIO KonO KADUNA Batul6 ht jokiadun BIADT PLATEAU ABUJA SArix: BEN ANAMBARA CROSS H8 HERS inea Then the resulting Joint Action Committee used its unity to collaborate with a government-chaired reconciliation committee to sell out the strike, before retreating to its original constituent structures. Widespread political and economic dissatisfaction among the workers after the strike aggravated the problems resulting from the internal dissension of the ruling class-which came amnls Chad Gowon was left in power with an enormous army, as the base for his political moves to diminish inter-state and intertribal rivalries and conflicts within the ruling class.

His overail strategy was to stabilise Nigeria for development as an imperialist agent in Africa and a site for imperialist exploitation.

Gowon's rule lasted only until July 1975.

His government proved unable to controi prices and to accelerate infrastructural and industrial development and despite mounting opposition to military government he cancelled the programme for hand-over to civilian government in 1976.

Killed

One of the first actions of the new government under General Murtala Muhammed was to set a new date for handover.

Murtala Muhammed . was killed in an abortive coup seven months later and was succeeded (there being no shortage of generals in Nigeria) by the present ruler Olusegun Obasanjo.

The central function of the military regime is revealed in the mass of legislation it passed restricting workers' democratic rights.

But the strength and willing. ness to fight of the Nigerian working class has been equally revealed in its day to day struggles.

In 1970-1 and in 1974 illegal mass strikes took place in defiance of the repressive laws, securing large wage risesthough not large enough to secure a decent standard of living for workers, with inflation running at an annual rate ot about 30%.

In these struggles the Stalinist and reformist leaders played the treacherous role at Ironsi which they are so adept-refusing joint action over economic demands boreither can belis, anc interests to their own and to the 'necessity' of achieving bourgeois democracy and capitalist economic growth.

Whenever economic strikes threatened to move beyond the limits of narrow economism, these leaders are quick to insist on the proper function of trade unions.

Dr. Otegbeye, leader of the banned Stalinist Socialist Workers Party and of the NTUC waxes eloquent on the necessity of a "natural front of the army, workers, farmers and progressive businessmen" as the only way forward.

Adventurist

Anybody, he suggests, "who talks of a revolutionary situation in Africa is an adventurist" (Dr Otegbeye is no adventurist: at present he is appearing on the platform of one of the major bourgeois parties).

The Nigerian workers, who have so often been betrayed by the bureaucratic. disunity, as well as the reformism, of their trade union leaders, have to fight against the type of 'unity' imposed on their unions by the bourgeois state in 1977-78.

Banned

The whole trade union structure was reorganised and the four former union federations banned and replaced by a government sponsored land controlled) Nigerian Labour Recently this NLC revealed itself as the true heir of Nigerian trade unionism (corrupt and bureaucratic to a degree which would astonish even British workers) when it collaboated with the government's latest austerity programme-which continues a wage freeze and makes fresh attacks on workers' living standards. The National President of the NLC, Hassan Adebayo described the anti-working class budget as desirable and in the best interests of the nation.

But mass pressure forced even sections of the NLC leadership to backtrack and to confront the government with an ultimatum demanding some concessions to sweeten the pill and to help the NLC to maintain the vestiges of its credibility.

The ultimatum has now been dropped in favour of a joint agreement to "negotiate" on the demands.

This latest evidence of the treachery of the Nigerian labour leaders reveals dramatically, once more, the urgent need for workers to struggle for independent trade unions, as well as for an independent political party, which will fight for the workers' own interests.

Conditions are ripe for workers to break from the leaders who have so conspicuously, so frequently and with such contempt betrayed them. They must reject the favourite Nigerian method of governmental Wages Commissions and to press for wage rises in line with their independent assessment of their needs.

The bourgeois civilian government that comes to power in October will by no means find a working class crushed by 13 years of military repression-despite the generals' best efforts.

Militant

And in schools and universities, too, there has been a militant response to the government's attempts to make anybody but the bourgeoisie pay for the deepening of imperialism's international crisis.

Government spending cuts, restructuring of courses and attempts to post military personnel to secondary schools "to maintain discipline" have met with staunch resistance.

In 1978 when universities were closed in response to student riots, students took to the streets where they were joined by workers protesting against rising food prices.

The military dictators again used their teeth and many were killed or injured in the savage repression.

This repressive force will remain to attempt to crush the struggles of workers and youth so long as imperialism reigns in Nigeria-whether the government wears generals' stars on its shoulders or not.