Minimum Wage and the Need for a Working People’s Long-term Approach (Revised)

Minimum Wage and the Need for a Working People’s Long-term Approach

Preamble

The world is undergoing an interesting time. Less than two decades after global capitalism declared victory over ‘communism’ (read Stalinism), mass revolts and revolutions have convulsed the world again, with global capitalist political economy being in its worst precarious state in decades. Working and oppressed people are throwing away the burden of the past, and they are rejecting the status quo. From the revolutions and revolts in Middle East and North Africa, to the occupy movements in the centres of capitalism (Europe and North America); working class people and youths are demanding a better socio-economic order. They are challenging the power of the 1percent to control the resources of the 99 percent. In Nigeria, the struggle against deregulation of the petroleum products prices has drawn the ire of the mass of the working people, youths and the poor in general. This as we are writing this lines has led to widespread mass protests and strikes, with the government being suspended in the air rapidly. It is with this background that this essay is written.

As an active participant and observer of struggles of the working people and the workers’ movement, including the recent (or should we say current) minimum wage struggle in Nigeria, several things have been observed that require enunciation. This work was first conceived as a short article in the media around June 2011, as a contribution to the debate and struggle of workers for minimum wage in the country. However, in the process of gathering materials for the write up, coupled with continuous participation in various struggles over minimum wage during this period, the need to expand the areas and frontier of this work became apparent. Since then, yours sincerely has been engaging in tedious effort to bring the work to conclusion. The problem was that as the struggle for minimum wage continued throughout the year; new facts emerge and the urge to bring this work up to date, further extend the period of completion of the write-up and indeed its size.

Consequently, this work may not be conceived as a conventional essay but a polemical material that require criticism and review. It does not claim to represent a seminal work on the theory of minimum wage, but a contribution to the debate on the role and task of the labour movement in neo-colonial country like Nigeria, especially in an era of globalised neo-liberalism. The struggle for minimum wage is only used as a premise for this work, because aside being a fundamental and central issue in all working class struggles with the capitalist class; it is also a continuous struggle that bring to fore several other issues, especially those relating to the fundamental basis of the capitalist system. It can easily be argued that popular issues like the fuel price hike should have been a basis of this work. Nevertheless, while agreeing that fuel price deregulation has been a raging debate since the emergence of civilian rule in Nigeria (and indeed since the late 1970s), fuel price deregulation, no matter its importance, cannot be said to be central to working class-capitalist class relation. The same way the issue of education commercialization, despite its long history cannot be said to be central to the socio-economic foundation of the neo-colonial capitalist system in Nigeria. This however, does not stop one from taking the effort to address these issues in an extensive manner.

In this work, normal formats of writing theses are not strictly adhered to; and the reason is as given above. This explains why, despite use of lots of data – primary, secondary and even tertiary, the sources are generalized in the footnotes and bibliography. In addition, the footnotes seem much and more like extension of the main work; this is because of the extensive nature of the issues covered and its link with several other issues of discourse in the working class movement and economy. Furthermore, yours sincerely was torn between presenting this essay in a manner accessible to ordinary working class people and activists, who are interested in issues affecting the working class movement and the political economy on the one hand, and making it a contribution to polemical debates among socialists and leftists on the other hand. Therefore, it follows strictly neither the traditional ‘intellectual’ thesis approach nor vague and officious ‘Marxist’ doctrinaire approach.

Finally, this work was written as a contribution to the intellectual and ideological debates in working class and anti-capitalist movement. It not only raise issues concerning the political economic state of Nigeria’s capitalism but also the strategies needed by the working class movement and activists in challenging this obviously unacceptable capitalist state. Centrally, this work argues for a revolutionary, democratically organized working people’s party to champion this course. It is the contention of the writer that working people cannot continue to vote their enemies to power every four years, only to fight the anti-workers’ policies throughout the regime. Why not have their party. Indeed, strike action itself raises the question of political power as the whole country is at a standstill. Globally, movements are growing against capitalism, one hopes this essay contribute to the growing consciousness of working class people and youths for a better society away from the current iniquitous capitalist system, especially its backward form we have in Nigeria, nay third world countries, and the world at large.

Kola Ibrahim

(08059399178, 08067939674, kmarx4life@gmail.com, kmarx4live@yahoo.com)

P.O.Box 1319, GPO, Enuwa, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria.

January, 2012, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Blogs: www.ibrolenin.blogspot.com, www.socialistagitators.blogspot.com

_______________________________________________________________________

Kola Ibrahim, a labour and youth activist is a Civil Engineering graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He was a student activist both on campus and in the national students’ movement – a role that earned him many forms of victimization by the government and pro-establishment university administrations. He has written many articles and comments on national and international issues, which have appeared in many local and international newspapers, news magazines and journals – print and electronic. He is presently working on a pamphlet on recent revolt in the Middle East and North Africa, and an edited collection of his past write-ups. He has also been active in labour and youths campaigns and struggles, ever since his student days. He is a socialist.

CONTENT PAGE

Preamble

Content Page

Introduction

Section I: Political Economy of Minimum Wage

1.1 Class nature of the Federal government’s wasteful spending

1.2 Are States too poor to pay?

1.3 The question of Minimum Wage and Inflation

1.4 Are Workers Redundant?

1.5 The Neo-colonial, Anti-development Nature of Nigeria’s Capitalist Class

Section II: Labour Movement’s Responses

2.1 The “Trade Unionist” Approach versus Revolutionary Approach

2.2 Labour leadership handling of the Minimum Wage Struggle

2.3 Labour leaders’ pro-capitalist positions and policies

2.4 General Pictures of Crisis in the Labour Movement

2.5 The “Trade unionist”[1] theory in Labour Movement

2.6 Bureaucracy in labour movement

2.7 History and Trajectory of Union Bureaucracy

2.8 The roles and limitations of Stalinism in labour movement

2.9 Political and Ideological degeneration of Workers’ Movement today

Section III: Looking Forward: Arguing For a Revolutionary Socialist Alternative

3.1 The historic limitations of capitalism and the case for revolutionary democratic socialism

3.2 The Question of Political Power

3.3 Rebuilding the Labour Movement: The role of Left and Socialist forces

Appendix: Special Contribution

Anti-Fuel Price Hike Uprising and the Task of Building a Revolutionary Labour Movement

Sources

INTRODUCTION

The history of minimum wage globally surely is more than a century. In Nigeria, struggle for a minimum wage indeed predates Nigeria’s independence. That is, workers have always made attempt to secure a minimum basis of existence. However, a basic question is whether at all times that workers had struggled for minimum, there has been a permanent improvement in their living conditions. If not, does this imply that workers and the working people in general should jettison the struggle for a living minimum wage? What is the reason behind workers not being able to secure a permanent improvement in their living conditions? These questions should agitate the minds of working class and youth activists. Surely, workers need to and have the right to demand for better working condition. Even, a layer of the employers on their own side, know that improved living conditions for their employees are sine qua non to improved productivity. Then, why then is the struggle for minimum wage if the two sides are agreed on basic improvement for workers. Why is the state/government that claims its rights to monopoly of power of coercion and decision-making on the ground of defending the interests of the majority always sees workers demand for improved wages as a threat?

The answer to this has to do with different understanding of each other’s role in the economic situation. For the employers, improving workers’ wages is magnanimity, and a question of the impact of that on profits. To the workers, wage is just a part of the wealth they produce which is released to them. They believe that they are committing their lives and time for the employers, therefore they are worth improvement in their conditions. This explains the bitter struggle that accompany wage increment demand. This underlines that the interests of capital and labour are somewhat antagonistic, no matter the attempt to gloss over or deodorize it. State/government is opposed to increase in wages because the state is an employer state; ruling on behalf of the employer class but claiming the right to rule from the majority. This is clear, in a society where capital and profit is a fundamental decider of economic progress or retrogression, the state, as a matter of necessity must defend the system, which it is presiding over. The end of the profit system signals the eclipse of the state; the same way that a workers’ state will defend the system dominating in such society.

However, while employers are opposed to wage increment, the limitation of workers’ struggle to minimum wage is a major advantage to the employer class. It allows them to escape from fundamental question of the ownership of the source of wealth distribution – the question of who control the rein of economic power. Even at best, when the employers are compelled to give up part of their share of society’s wealth through wage increment, they can get it back in manifolds because they have control over instrumentality of the state. Therefore, while wage increment demand of workers is a fundamental issue in the relation between the employer and the employees, limiting demands to minimum wage will deny workers a permanent improvement in their living conditions. In such situation, wage increment demand can become a blackmailing tool in the hands of the employers to force down the throat of the workers, worse working conditions and exploitation. Of course, minimum wage is an improvement over normal wage increment, as it takes as basic factors, economic indices, and it involves the collectives of workers on a national scale. This nevertheless does not stop employers from further driving down the real value of wages through various policies – increase in working hours, reduction of workforce, increase in working age, cut in basic services and privileges to workers and their dependants, and state’s diversion of society’s resources to the employer class.

In the past twelve years or so of civilian rule in Nigeria, there has been clamour for improved wages by workers, either on a national basis or at industrial level. However, aside the fact that the employers and state always wage bitter resistance against any demand for improved wages, they have on the other hand used their control over economic resources and policy making to drive down drastically any little gain in workers’ wage. This has meant worsening living conditions for the majority. Therefore, the question of wage increment must go beyond demand for minimum wage, it involves the question of who controls economic power. This requires that working people in Nigeria, while struggling for minimum wage, must link this with other demands that will make minimum wage demand a worthwhile venture. This will depend on the ideological orientation the workers’ movement is bringing to its struggle and indeed the character and orientation of the workers’ movement itself.

While any improvement in the living conditions of the working and poor people, no matter how minimal will be welcome by any progressively minded activist; however, it is important to put the struggle for minimum wage in proper and wider perspectives, especially as it relates to the political economy of neo-colonial society like Nigeria. More importantly is the need to address the issue of wage increment in the country as a subset of the long-term improvement in the living conditions of the working and oppressed people, especially in relation with other policies of government and socio-economic situation in the country. This is with the aim of making the labour movement to be the vehicle of change needed to transform the conditions of not only the working people but also indeed the poor and oppressed people in the country. This will also raise the question of how the minimum wage struggle is conducted by the labour movement vis-à-vis the methods and the manner of struggle.

Concept of Minimum Wage

Historically, minimum wage started on an industrial level, as a basic minimum wage that a worker can collect from his/her employer for the productivity added to business or production. Subsequently, mass of workers, through their collective platforms on sectoral and national levels; have ensured that minimum wage is passed as a fundamental law in countries. Minimum wage derives from the idea that workers contribute values to production and businesses; therefore, a marginal amount of the value created by workers should be given to them. This in itself generates a problem/contradiction: workers will seek for more of the values they create while the employers seek to reduce it in order to have more profits. The employers too, despite unending quest for profits, also have to ensure the continuity in supply of labour for continuous exploitation, in order to generate profit. Therefore, employers – by virtue of the need for self-survival –have to use part of the created wealth for the upkeep of its workers and their ability to reproduce for the capitalist production.

However, the contradiction goes beyond this. For the capitalist to make profit, he needs workers to add values to the raw materials or capital. This implies, it is the added value of the workers that creates the profit the capitalist rely on to make profit. It is from this value also that workers are paid the minimum to keep body and soul together, and the cost of expanding capital (and labour) for improved capitalist production. The higher the capitalist gives to the workers; the lower is the amount available for profits and capital expansion. Therefore, while capitalist have to give workers wages to survive on, it also has to limit such, for profits to grow. But the issue also goes beyond this. As capitalist exploits labour, and take a lion share of the labour-created values, it is also creating problem of consumption and sale. This is because workers constitute a major economic bloc in the market. Aside being a major buyer in the market, working class also to an extent, determines the purchasing power and income of other section of the working population – artisans, peasants, etc. Thus, as workers create values, but paid just fraction of the wealth they create, they cannot consume a major part of the wealth they create. They will surely be able to purchase a fraction of the wealth they create.[2] This creates glut in the market, as there are more goods than effective demands.

This will result in over-production, which will lead to overcapacity, as there is capacity to produce more while there are fewer demands in the market. Effective demands reduce not because the working people do not need the goods but because what they are paid from their created values is far less than the value they create. This will create crises for capitalism as this leads to reduction in profits. This crisis is worsened and deepened by the globalization of capital (where capitalist class scouts for more wealth in the remotest part of the world, especially where labour is cheap, mineral resources cheaply available and newer markets) and growth of finance capital[3] as been witnessed in the current historic global capitalist economic recession.

However, in a neo-colonial economy like Nigeria where the major source of wealth is sale of mineral resources, where sharing arrangement is presided over by the state[4], the contradiction of the capitalism will surely manifest in the attempt of the capitalist politicians in power to reduce workers’ share of society’s wealth. Besides, it will manifest in the available resources for the welfare of the majority of the population as the capitalist class organized as politicians, big business people and multinational corporation overlords, will have to cut in public spending, including workers’ income. Of course, there is marginal industrial workers, because of the neo-colonial, parasitic nature of the capitalist system, the other section of the working class are needed to sustain the state for the continuation of the neo-colonial arrangement. This however does not mean that the few industrial workers are not exploited. Indeed, they are far more exploited than even the public and non-industrial workers (the white-collar workers) are. Because of the lazy and clearly parasitic nature of Nigeria’s capitalist class, most of the industrial productive activities are contracted out to foreigners (Indians, Chinese, Koreans, etc), even where such businesses are owned by Nigerian capitalists. With this, the foreign capitalists are given the opportunity to exploit more, Nigerian working people through casual labour, as this ensures more profits for them and their local capitalist partners. This is even made worse by the huge army of unemployed, created by the terrible contradiction of the neo-colonial economy.[5]

Therefore, the question of minimum wage is a fundamental issue in a neo-colonial economy because workers are the wheels of capitalist super-exploitation by both local capitalist class and their international masters.

SECTION I:

POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MINIMUM WAGE

Three years ago, workers across the country, organized under the two trade union centres, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), started agitations for the increase in the minimum wage from N5, 500 to N52, 200 (about US$360). However, the Nigerian political class, in their characteristically crude capitalistic manner rejected this proposal. When confronted with massive campaign, the federal government set up committees to look into the wage demand, and after severe opposition from state governments and private sector – who were not prepared to add a kobo to the poverty wages workers were collecting – a paltry N18, 000 (about US$120) was agreed. Following threat of workers’ showdown during the April 2011 elections, Nigerian politicians collectively agreed to pay the paltry minimum wage of N18, 000. But after the elections, all the state governors – most of whom campaigned for votes in the April 2011 elections, dangling the carrot of minimum wage – immediately reneged on paying even the minimal N18, 000. After a long vacillation by both the federal government and the labour movement leadership, there was agreement to pay N18, 000 minimum wage for all categories of workers with effects from August 1, 2011.

However, as we are writing this piece, none of the state governments has paid the new minimum wage. While of course, workers' industrial actions (or a threat of it) forced most of the state governments to cough out some concessions in terms of increment in wages[6]; indeed the increments fall far short of the national legislated minimum wage. Although, many of the state government promised to implement the new wage law of N18, 000 when the revenue sharing formula of the nation is structured in favour of the states or when the states’ revenues improves, surely this is another lip service[7]. In fact, there has not been any attempt to compel private sector employers to implement this new wage law[8], as a significant proportion of the private sector employer from construction to manufacturing, banking, insurance and finance, service and even state governments (like Lagos, Osun, Imo, Oyo, etc)[9] engage in casual labour schemes – employing tens of thousands on poor working conditions.

1.1 Class Nature of the Federal Government’s Wasteful Spending

Whether the minimum wage agreement will include non-retrenchment clause under any guise or a clause ensuring there is no shortfall in the working conditions of workers, as an excuse for the implementation of the law is yet to be explained by labour leadership. This point is very important when viewed against the backdrop of the obstinate decision of the governments at all levels to cut spending on workers while being blind to the burgeoning cost of maintaining political/public officers. Already, the Abia State government (in the southeast region) has sacked close to ten thousands of those it termed ‘non-indigene’ among its workforce. This is meant to reduce the wage bill of the state. This policy, which was not resisted by either the state or national leadership of the labour movement, is a mockery of the wage law, which is meant to place the burden of implementing the new minimum wage on the workers[10]. While governments, in an hypocritical manner and under the guise of maintaining economic prudency, will want to adopt capitalist economic approach of expenditure-revenue (fiscal) balancing with the aim of cutting workers’ share of the national income, it will keep mum on the huge expenditure on few capitalist politicians in the corridors of power, and the big business (including multinational corporations). According to newspaper reports, the federal government claimed that the new wage would raise government wage bill to N1.5 trillion from N973billion annually. What the federal government did not however state is whether this amount include the over-bloated salaries and allowances of retinue of advisers and assistants. If it does not, we need to know how much the handful political and public officers collect from the public till.

In the 2010 federal budget, according to Lamido Sanusi (the CBN governor), over N500billion was spent on overhead cost of which the national assembly took N136billion (a whopping 25 percent) while the federal executive took the remaining over N360billion. It should be recalled that the overhead has nothing to do with workers’ salaries or allowances but salaries and allowances of public and political officers. It also include the cost of maintaining their ostentatious but parasitic lifestyles on the public treasury (including close to a billion naira spent on feeding in the presidency alone in 2009), and cost of subsidizing dilapidated facilities like the over N900million spent on fuelling generators by the presidency. In the 2011 budget, close to same amount was budgeted for overhead with only national assembly reducing their N136billion share by 25 percent (to N102billion; you can be sure that other sundry spending will compensate for this reduction[11]). When the supposed workers’ wage bill of close to N1.5trillion is compared with the salaries of public and political office holders, the larcenous nature of the Nigeria’s federal government will be glaring.

Given that there are over 1, 500, 000 federal employees[12] compared to around 3, 000 political officers (including the executive, legislative and judicial officers and their hangers-on); that is 500:1 in numerical ratio but an average monetary value ratio of 1 to 110+ (based on the above data), annually. This implies that what a federal political and public officer consumes is equal to the average salary of over one hundred and ten federal workers! This calculation is conservative when viewed against the background of the fact that workers’ wages included that of the senior bureaucrats like directors while majority of the labour force (more than 70 percent) fall far below the average annual wage of N1, 000, 000 (or N83, 000 monthly). Note that capital budgets include overhead cost for ‘supervision’ by political officers and bureaucracy (ministries, legislature, etc).

The simple implication of this is that those consuming the larger chunk of the nation’s wealth – the capitalist politicians and big business – are the ones determining what the workers will earn. However, the Nigeria's sovereign wealth, because of the neo-colonial, neo-liberal, rent-seeking capitalist nature of the economy, is relatively fixed on a source – dependence on the crude oil royalty; thus only the income distribution will change. Therefore, that workers forced the federal government to concede to this demand (i.e. wage increment) will mean that the federal political officers will see reduction in the amount available for them to consume from the national wealth. They will surely reverse this by squeezing the workers’ income through other means such as retrenchment, cut in workers’ living conditions, commercialization and privatization of public services (like education, health, etc) in order to reduce the part of the wealth going to workers and the general populace so as to have more money to loot. Already, President Jonathan, with the support of the state governors, is working strenuously to remove fuel subsidy (another name for fuel price deregulation and fuel price hike – expected to increase by over 100 percent) despite widespread opposition. Indeed, prices of diesel and gas have increased drastically due to government’s price deregulation of these products[13]. These increases, coupled with other commercialization policies of the government and collapse of public infrastructures like road and electricity (for which billions have been wasted without any tangible results), have resulted in chronic hike in inflation rate, especially for consumable and household goods like foodstuffs, consumed by majority of the poor Nigerians. There has been an average of 50 percent increase on basic foodstuffs in the past two year. This hardly affects the political class’s income, as their opulent lifestyles are subsidized and indeed covered at public expenses.

It is thus easy for politicians in power to attack workers’ income and indeed general cost of living of the general populace in order to sustain their expensive lifestyles, in many ways. Therefore, the labour leadership should clarify what extent the new wage will go in improving the incomes of the workers such that it will not lead to retrenchment and subsequent fall in the living standard of workers. This raises the question of whether the labour leadership is prepared to take the struggle beyond workers' wage increase.

1.2 Are States Too Poor to Pay?

One of the common excuse is that the wage increase does not favour states which collects less than 30 percent of the national wealth as against the over 50 percent collected by the federal government. While it may be true that the revenue allocation formula tilt more towards the federal government, the same argument of lower revenue has not reflected in the pay of public officers at the state levels. The positions of the state governments are clearly hypocritical and mischievous to say the mildest. While state governments are not opposed to the setting of salaries of political officers from federal agency (RMAFC)[14], they are however opposed to minimum wage being set from the national level. Are the state governments the ones setting fuel prices or inflation rates? If the states does not fix interest rates or any other basic economic indices, how can they then claim right to fix wages according to their whims or deny the necessity of living national MINIMUM wage? Indeed, the same state governments demanded the federal government to hands off the subsidy on fuel[15], so that they can have more resources to pay minimum wage. In the real sense, what the state governments wanted is not more money to pay minimum wage, but more resources for their personal and business interests.

There has been the argument that state governments will have little left for capital projects if new minimum wage is implemented. While it may be true that many of the state governments incur huge recurrent expenditures relative to the capital budgets, the fact is that the so-called recurrent expenditure consists majorly of wasteful spending of the state governments on political office holders and white elephant budgets, than on workers’ wages. For instance, the editorial of Punch newspaper of 4 August, 2011 reporting the reckless financial activities of state governments, stated that “…The financial irresponsibility and recklessness (of state governments – Ed.) cut across party lines. For instance, the Ogun State governor, Ibikunle Amosun, who claims he cannot pay civil servants the new minimum wage….appointed 17 commissioners, 20 special advisers and numerous special assistants. In Enugu, Governor Sullivan Chime named 24 commissioners, 12 special advisers and 22 special assistants. Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State appointed 21 commissioners and 12 special advisers (and of course several executive and personal assistants – Ed.) …” The editorial continued “The story is the same in all the 36 states, including Lagos, where the usual level-headed (?) Governor Babatunde Fashola empanelled a 37-member cabinet made up of 23 commissioners and 14 special advisers (don’t mention personal and executive assistants)”. Indeed, all the state governments and in fact all the tiers of government have offices and budgets for wives of the elected and unelected political officers! The editorial compared the current situation with those of some governors in the second republics who had average of 13-member cabinet and made some significant improvements in the social infrastructures in their states a la Lagos, old Imo and Kano. Aside these retinue of commissioners, advisers and assistants are many appointed board members of agencies, parastatals, corporations, etc, who practically do nothing but collect fat salaries and contribute to huge running costs of the governments.

Furthermore, the state governments are found of irresponsible budgets. For instance, for a country that is not officially at war, you have state governments spending hundreds of millions on ‘security votes’. Examples of this brazen fraud are glaring even to the blind. A poor state like Ekiti State budgets N100 million as monthly security vote for the governor’s office, while another poor state, Osun allocated N200 million for security votes in the 2011 budget. This is an average of N1.8billion (US$12 million) annually; an amount that is enough to establish some agro-allied cottage industries across these two agrarian states. Assuming conservatively at this average for all the thirty-six states of the federation (indeed more than half of the states spend multiples of this on the fraudulent ‘security votes’), it means N64.8billion (US$ 432 million) is spent annually on this ghost budget. In four years, these amount is enough to substantially expand and improve educational and health infrastructures that will not only provide access to tens of thousands of poor working class and even middle class people but also reduce cost of living and create thousands of jobs for teeming unemployed people. This in itself is a positive way of reducing high crime rate[16]. Interestingly, the spending of the security vote is the prerogative of the governor, who accounts to no one for the use of the security vote. He solely determines what security or insecurity is. For a state government that has no control over any arm of the security forces to budget such amount for security is nothing but a reflection of the rottenness of the political system in the country. Several reports from newspapers and government agencies have exposed how these security votes have been seriously abused and looted. You can be sure that almost the same amount will be budgeted by the local governments for the same ‘security votes’. This is just one of several official tunnels created for the bankrupt political class in the country to loot the nation’s resources.

All this explains why most of these states are not financially viable. Safe for few states like Lagos and the South-South states (that gets much more federal allocations than other states and might have some savings), most of the states could hardly survive without federal allocation. This was well buttressed by the Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Central Bank Governor in much-publicized reports in newspapers in October 2011. Even, the almost N20 billion in monthly internal revenue generated by Lagos State government is a product of the historical and economic importance of the state. The state was a former federal capital with several infrastructures that expanded economic activities, which were legacies of the colonial and past national governments; and not a product of any ingenuity by the current government. Indeed, the internal revenues are mostly taxes from companies and over-taxed poor people, and not a product of sustainable economic programmes of the government. The reason most of these state governments are not economically viable has nothing to do with workers’ wages bill, but indeed more to do with profligacy and commitment to bankrupt pro-rich policies aided by the primitive accumulative character of the capitalist class, especially those in the corridors of power. Either many of the so-called capital projects undertaken by most of these state governments are white elephant projects, which have secondary or tertiary impacts on the living standards of the people or in most cases are cost inflated projects that benefit the politicians in power and major contractors.

For instance, in Osun State, the so-called ‘progressive’ governor preferred to construct several-kilometer road from Osun State to Ogun State, which to the governor, will make transportation of farm produce and goods from Osun State to Lagos easier. Meanwhile, most of the communities in the state lack local access roads, water supply, electricity, medical facilities, etc which are basic for people’s survival and indeed the economy. While there is nothing fundamentally wrong in undertaking big projects, such projects aside being conduit pipe for waste as the state is simply ripped off by big time contractors (in the absence of a functional and well equipped public works department that should handle such projects), will become a white elephant projects when the prerequisites are not provided. Most of the farm settlements, created several decades ago are rotten with lack of basic facilities including hospitals and schools, not to mention storage facilities equipments, etc. All of these have led to unemployment and massive importation of food from not only the northern states but also foreign countries, save for some perishable goods that are plentifully disposed by the farmers because of lack of storage facilities. Even, an elementary knowledge of bourgeois economics requires that basic facilities be provided so that there can be at least a minimal level of sufficiency in the state before thinking of export. Indeed, provision and expansion of these infrastructures and facilities will definitely reduce cost of living for a greater number of people while also providing jobs for thousands of unemployed; all of which will greatly increase the purchasing power of the people.

In Ekiti State recently, a dormant textile factory which used to directly employ 6, 000 workers, established by the legacy conglomerate of the five south-western states (O’odua Investment Company –established during the first republic progressive nationalist government of Action Group led by Obafemi Awolowo), was turned to a ‘development park’ by the state government. This was celebrated as another achievement of the government in “creating jobs”. This is a government that had spent several millions of naira on publicity and media projects to ‘attract’ investors into the state but could not see any sense in restoring the factory and directly employing people but rather created a bogus ‘Development Park’ in an agrarian state. In fact, most of the legacies of the AG government (and those of the second republic successors) have either being sold off to government officials and their lackeys, or destroyed and sold in parts. In Lagos State, where the ACN government has been tagged the most progressive, while some major roads and projects are being undertaken, obviously at exorbitant costs[17], many local roads built several years ago are lying in terrible conditions. Yet, these are roads plied by more than 70 percent of the population. Despite billions of naira accruing to the state coffer, public education in the state is in shambles while health care is in its worst state. Rather than expanding the facilities and reducing fees for students in the state only university, in order to expand access for wider layer of youths seeking university education, the state government proposed to hike fees in the university by close to 1000 percents, raising the fees to between N175, 000 and N350, 000 from N25, 000. In the same Lagos, under the fraudulent public private partnership (PPP) policy, the government of Bola Tinubu in 2006 gave concession to a private company (Lekki Concession Company) to construct a 46-km Lekki-Epe expressway, with close to forty-year concession. Since 2006, only less than 10-km has been constructed while three tollgates have been constructed to extort money from the users of the road (after they have paid taxes to government for the same purpose). When the residents of the area protested this robbery, the successor government of Fashola, only suspended the extortion until after the elections, when it was re-introduced, with brutal repression of those protesting against it. This is aside several such fraudulent PPP projects. Indeed, the revenue collection in the state is contracted out to a private company that collects 20 percent of the N20 billion-monthly revenue as fees.

These are the so-called star state governments seen as the more progressive. In several other states, the stories are worse. For instance, in the south-south (Niger Delta) state of Rivers, the governor allocated $40 million for the purchase of aircraft for the state government, because according to him, he cannot “jeopardize his security so as to pacify the opposition” (i.e. those opposing the extravagant spending). This is a state where the youths had taken to terrorism because of frustrating lack of bright future for them. Meanwhile, the governor, who incidentally is the chair of the Governors’ Forum, was one of the opponents of the implementation of the new minimum wage for workers. In the northeastern state of Adamawa, the governor was reputed to have turned the government to his family business with more than 40 members of the family, including children and wives given political posts. In the south-eastern state of Imo, the new governor, Rochas Okorocha, who rode to power on the basis of his stance on financial prudency created more than 100 offices for special adviser, special assistants, executive assistants, etc.; the most ridiculous being an officer for the Chief Comedian of the State!

Therefore, the excuse that state governments cannot pay the new minimum wage is absurd. Most of the state governments, against their own laws, have refused to implement the new minimum wage law of N18, 000; meanwhile this has not stopped all of them from wasteful spending and looting of the state resources. The recent decision and insistence of the state governments that fuel price subsidy be removed is nothing but a reflection of the primitive nature of these politicians. Elementary understanding of economics should have made the state governments realize that increase in fuel cost[18], a vital product for the nation’s economy, will lead to massive reversal of the purchasing power of the ordinary citizens and lead to further economic dislocation, which will further destroy any effort of any state government to develop and improve people’s living standard. Their interest in getting more money to spend on their extravagant lifestyles from the so-called saved fund from the “subsidy” is far more important than the long-term effects of the removal of subsidy.

1.3 The Question of Minimum Wage and Inflation

The new minimum wage falls short of the cost of living, as the labour movement initially demanded for N52, 200 as the minimum wage that can lift any worker out of poverty. Indeed, a member of the National Assembly, in an attempt to safe governments and the capitalist class of embarrassment had proposed sometime in 2009 a minimum wage of N30, 000. The Nigerian constitution highlights that governments at all levels must pay 'a living wage', which implies a wage that should not fall short of the cost of living, inflation rate, and must reflect the wealth status of the country. If all this is factored into the wage issue, it is glaring that governments have been engaging in unconstitutionality since, especially when viewed against the background of the ostentatious lifestyles of politicians and increasing profits of many private sector. But to expect the capitalist political class to obey its own laws when it comes to working and poor people’s interests will be like living in a wonderland.

Breaking down the so-called minimum wage will reveal that the working people have indeed taken shit in this country. The N18, 000 wage implies a daily living income of N600 for the least paid worker. This amount includes cost of three square meals in a day, transport, clothing, etc. Without being immodest, such a worker will be dependent, either on family/relatives or on debt. Governments argued that they are only duty bound by law to pay the minimum wage for the least paid worker, which justify the divisive level 1 to 6 (or 7) wage increment [19]policy of government. This again shows the bankruptcy and cynicism of capitalist politicians in power to even their own rules. How can a government that set a rule now come to middle of the game to sing another song? Grading of workers on level/years of experience and certification/education is not a new policy; and it is meant to, aside other factors, reflect workers' right to hope for improvement in their conditions as they move towards their retirement. Since workers' salaries are fixed monthly, the idea of protecting them against vagaries of the market economy and meeting their basic needs as they grow older (for instance, raising up children) become vital. It is thus, a general rule of labour practice that workers' wages are increased in vertical (through increase in grade levels) and horizontal (through increase in basic wage, which must reflect the economic indices) directions; and expectedly, one should reflect on the other. This is victory that workers have won in the past, but which the capitalist ruling class wants to take away.[20] The ability of the leadership of labour movement to defend this against the attempt to erode it away will show how prepared they are to defend workers' interests on a long-term basis. What is even in the so-called wage? If fully implemented, the highest paid civil servant will get around N300, 000 monthly (based on pro rata arrangement of the wage increment across grade level in ascending order, i.e. the higher the grade level, the lower the percentage of wage increment). This in a year does not guarantee a house for someone who has spent close to thirty years in public service; even if he/she does not spend the money on any other need. Indeed, the cost of rent will take a significant chunk of this money. This is a country where governments’ modest house costs millions. When this is counter-posed to the salary of the least paid political office holder, the bankruptcy of government's position will be glaring. Is it surprising then why many politicians in power immediately acquire properties when they get to power. It is however worthy of mention that majority of workers – over 80 percent – are not close to this salary, as the higher you go in civil service, the fewer is the number of workers in the category.

Some pundits, especially in defence of the private sector, have opined that the new wage if implemented will lead to spiraling inflation, as there will be too much money in the market. The more appealing of the arguments have been of those advocating that the increase without improvement in the debilitating economic situation of the country will not solve the question of poverty. The first argument is clearly a fly in the face of real economic analysis. The basic fact is that the current and continuous rise in inflation for, at least the past decade have not been caused by increase in workers' wages, but contrarily by the grimly unequal distribution of wealth in the country, and the import capitalism we practise in Nigeria. According to the World Bank reports, just one percent of the population is controlling eighty percent of the oil wealth of the country. Meanwhile, oil contributes up to 40 percent of the GDP and more than 80 percent of the government's revenues. What this mean is that the nation's wealth is concentrated in a fewer hands. Nothing underlines this than the over N1 trillion consumed by just 17, 474 public and political officers in a year (in a total national budgets of less than N10 trillion). When this picture is expanded outside the oil economy, it will be glaring that the level of inequality is very high. The current richest African is a Nigerian with a worth of over $10.1 billion (more than N1.5 trillion) while the next richest Nigerian to him is worth close to $4.3 billion (about N650 billion). Their combined worth is more than the annual budgets of all the state governments in Nigeria or about half of the 2011 federal government budget. A former convicted bank chief was reported to be worth over N600 billion with up to a quarter in liquid asset. The reader will surely agree that these are just a tip of the iceberg of massive concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few. The immediate implication of this is the aggravation of the inflation rates that will affect the poor more. The wealth in the hands of the rich few are hardly released for general good of the public; and where they are released, they are meant to make more money for the rich men/women or to satisfy their luxurious lifestyles. Take for instance, if some of the wealth are invested in businesses, with the nature of Nigeria's neo-colonial capitalist economy, it will only employ very few Nigerians (in comparison to the profits to be realized from such ventures). Moreover, on the account of unproductive nature of Nigeria’s capitalist class and collapse of public infrastructures, such investments are in the service, marketing, import/export and non-manufacturing sectors, which only recycle national wealth but not leading to creation of new wealth. Even where it is manufacturing, aside the few people that will be employed by private investors, many are employed as casuals (or contract workers), which aggravates the wealth disparity scenario. This is grimly manifested in some of the biggest sectors of the Nigerian economy – oil and gas, and banking, where huge profits are made but employment contributing just fractions of the workforce. For instance, in the oil sector, private oil corporations contribute far less than one percent of the around 60 million employed workers but in 2010, Shell, the biggest oil corporation in Nigeria, claimed to have paid $6 billion in ten years as taxes to governments, which is nothing more than 30 percent of the profits of this company. [21]

This also leads to foreign exchange and balance of payment problems as more wealth is pilfered out of the nation's economy which results in more of foreign reserve being used to pay for this, and consequently exorbitant rate of exchange which affects gravely inflation rates in a country that is heavily dependent on import for its basic survival. This kind of wealth exportation is not only carried out by foreign companies, but also many big indigenous companies, who have foreign partners as technical and financial partners; which implies that majority of the capital expenditures will be spent outside the country, apart from profits and payments of the foreign partners. If we take the luxurious lifestyles of the few rich into account, where most of the things they spend money on are rarely available locally, the real cause of inflation will be easily discernible. In the 2011 fiscal year, over $10 billion worth of goods were imported into the country, mostly of course finished goods (including foodstuffs) while lesser amount represent the export within the same period, with the exported goods constituting mainly primary commodities. This will mean continuous fall in the value of the local currency, which has been made free flowing since the SAP era.

The general implication of this is that there is more money in the hands of very few people leading to foreign exchange dislocation, while little money in the society is available for the majority of the population. This will results in ever rising prices of goods, especially daily consumables and foodstuffs (e.g. almost N2 trillion food importation yearly), which affects the majority. Every layer of the rich few compete with each other for more profits and wealth and in the process squeeze the little available from the poor and working people. For instance, as the economy gets messier through the import oriented arrangement (leading to balance of trade and foreign exchange problems), there will be devaluation of the currency while more money are taken away from the economy by both local and foreign capitalists who would have lost faith in the local currency. This will lead to increase in cost of goods, most of which are imported (including toothpicks). Aside the inflation that this will generate, it will also mean government further spending of public resources to save the currency by buying up foreign currencies at exorbitant cost. Added to this will be the rapid quest of the rich few to take more share of the national wealth in order to subsidize their losses to the degeneration of the local economy. The result will be squeezing of the poor and working people. This will mean less money for the majority to spend leading to increase in inflation rates (as less money chases more goods). More than this, government's neo-liberal policies of commercialization, deregulation and privatization, which take more money from the poor to the rich, and hand over the fate of the poor and majority into the hands of private moneybags has wiped out any gain of wage increase. For instance, the recent hike in fuel prices even when the new minimum wage has not been implemented by any of the tiers of government has led to spiraling inflation that has seriously affected the cost of living of the majority, who are living in penury even before the increase.

Therefore, it will be outlandish to claim workers' wage increase as cause of upward inflationary trend. In fact, wage increase demand is a defensive reaction to this obviously obnoxious economic arrangement. In the real sense, rise in wages free up some wealth into the hands of the majority, which helps to reduce widening wealth disparity. Of course, there are situations when more money in the hands of the majority, including workers, can lead to rise in inflation rates; but such analysis is valuable in an economy that is productive (where the purchasing power of the majority is the central and main decider of monetary situations). Besides, this scenario is itself a reflection of the madness of capitalist economic arrangement, which prioritizes profits before public welfare. It is a fact that every wage increase is always accompanied by government's attacks on social services. Within 10 years, public sector workers' salaries have only increased three times while fuel prices (and minimum wage), one of the major determinants of inflation in Nigeria[22], were hiked more than six times (more than 300 percent since 2000), with millions of workers losing their jobs in both public and private sectors[23]. All of this coupled with collapse of public infrastructures has meant continual rise in inflation rates, (as a sizeable chunk of people’s income is used to subsidize/improvise these collapsed or degenerating and commercialized (or privatized) infrastructures and social services (like electricity, healthcare, education, roads, etc) which affects the poor more. Therefore, what workers are asking for is just a minimal social cover against government's failure to reverse this trend. Thus, it is outlandish to claim that minimal increase in workers' wage will lead to rising inflation. It is the ruling elite and the big business who could not afford to lose any of their privileges, even when they do not need them, that stoke rising inflationary trend in order to not only maintain but to criminally increase their wealth while the economy is in ruins.

While it is, true that, at least going by the aforementioned analysis, that workers and their unions cannot assume that with increase in pay, their economic problems is solved. More than this, workers will have to fight for fundamental economic change in order to have improved living standard on a long-term basis. It is however wrong to claim that because the Nigeria's neo-colonial capitalist system is backward, workers should not fight for at least a defensive, minimal improvement in their living conditions.

1.4 Are Workers Redundant?

One of the arguments of the pro-private sector pundits is that public sector workers are redundant and hardly contribute to the economy; on the contrary are major players in the corruption that has engulfed governance. Firstly, the argument that workers are redundant is at best funny. The private sector in Nigeria is dependent on the government for its survival, while government is useless without workers. Therefore, every gain/progress made by the private sector is by extension a credit to the public sector employees. Government runs the education sector that feeds the private sector with over 70 percent of its workforce and brain. If the private sector is then turning around to claim that public workers are unproductive, then it is illogical by extension to claim productiveness for the private sector. However, in the face of the collapse of virtually all the facet of public infrastructures and service, it is easy to scapegoat the workers for the massive problems facing the nation's economy.

For instance, poor electricity supply can easily be blamed on workers of PHCN, which then justifies retrenchment and auction of the corporation to private investors. The so-called private investors will then rely on the quest of Nigerians to have stable power supply to shortchange the whole country through massive hike in tariff (which reduces market and thus excuses the private buyers from further investment), concentration of investment and business on the most profitable part of the company's activities, and not on what the nation, etc. All of these will surely lead to massive dislocation of the economy on both the short and long-term bases. While electricity workers are accused of collecting bribes, which is not in any way justifiable, as it tends to solve societal problems on a personal and parochial basis, it will not be mentioned that more than half of the electricity workforce are casual, with no future in the company or prospect of a secured future. On the other hands, you have politicians and politically appointed management collecting millions as official and unofficial salaries (aside massive looting of billions budgeted for the power sector).[24] Indeed the so-called bribe takers among electricity workers are a tiny minority, but this is generalized in order to justify further attacks on the workers.

The problem with the public service is not whether workers are redundant or not, but the bankrupt nature of the nation's neo-colonial, rent-seeking capitalist political economic system where political power is the major business. This implies that for every one naira budgeted for a project, less than two kobo is actually spent (according to World Bank report). This is unexpected as politicians in power are investors (with many sponsored by the private sector), who sees public service as a cash cow to milk dry. So every available opportunity is used to divert resources meant to develop enterprises and infrastructures to private pockets of politicians and big business (both local and international), either through direct looting or implementation of neo-liberal policies. This explains why politicians in boards and managements of agencies, ministries and parastatals are richer than the entities they oversee by the time they leave. Meanwhile, it is the workers will suffer the brunt of improvising for the public service, when such are turned into skeletons. Of course, some workers may be corrupt; but aside the fact that these are just a very tiny minority as said earlier, this is indeed a reflection of the top-down trend of corruption of the ruling layer.

While there are claims that there are too much drivers in government's offices, no one ask the question of whether there will be enough drivers if governments decide to equip public works departments/ministries to undertake massive infrastructural development. Will there be redundant accountants, economists, engineers, drivers, technicians, even messengers and clerks if such corporations like rail system, public transport, mass housing, state farms, etc. were not run aground by persons in big business and politics. Will there be redundant public school teachers if parents (even the poor ones) are not forced to send their wards to costly private schools, because of governments deliberate collapse of the education sector through chronic under funding and looting of meagre resources to the sector? Interestingly, it is those set of top bureaucrats and politicians, who superintended the collapse of these once thriving public corporations, public utility companies and public and social infrastructures, that have now found their ways into the both the private sector and public offices, advocating the sales of the better parts of these mismanaged enterprises to them and their foreign partners.[25] In addition, their main policy of maximization of profits can only be realized when thousands of workers are retrenched, others casualised and the rest finding their job insecure. In short, since governance is a major source of wealth in the country’s neo-colonial economic system, reduction of workers’ share of the economy is a necessary prerequisite for the increase in the wealth if the few rich. Therefore, the argument that workers are redundant or that minimal increase in workers' wage will lead to collapse of the economy is not only one sided but very hypocritical. It can be easily drawn from the above analysis, why the politicians in power and the private employers are united in their opposition to workers' improved welfare: it is a threat to their expensive and expansive privileges.

1.5 The Neo-colonial, Anti-development Nature of Nigeria’s Capitalist Class

That the Nigerian capitalist class (in both the private – that is big business, and public – that is politics) is primitive and backward in its accumulative tendency itself underlines why the workers will have to continue the defence of their welfare interests. The character of the Nigeria's capitalist class is graphically depicted with the nature of accumulation for the past over 12 years of civilian rule[26]. As against the depiction that Nigeria’s economic woes are compounded by the failure of the political section of the capitalist class to develop infrastructure and liberalize the economy for the indigenous (and of course foreign) private sector to thrive and grow the economy; the reality is that Nigeria’s capitalist class as a whole is bankrupt. It is generally portrayed by some bourgeois pundits that government’s ‘overbearing’ control of the economy is at the root of the nation’s economic woes; therefore, if government remove its inefficient hands from the economy and allow the efficient, unseen hands of the market forces to take over, Nigeria will be a wonderland. While it is true that the political class in Nigeria since independence, with varying degrees, have contributed to the underdevelopment of the country, this is not a pass mark on the big business section of the capitalist class.

In the past twelve years, Nigeria’s three tiers of government has got nothing less than $300 billion since 1999, which has not reflected fundamentally in the improved living standard and economic development of the country. All the basic indices of development, both human and material are still in the negative – infant mortality rate is still one of the highest in the world. Life expectancy is less than 50 years; curable diseases like diarrhea, measles, etc are still daily killers; less than 30 percent of the population is connected to the national grid (with just a staggering 4, 000 megawatts to over 167 million as against 40, 000 megawatts to 40 million south African population). Despite huge wealth, over 60 percent of the school age children are drop outs while less than 20 percent of the over six million youths seeking entrance into tertiary educational institutions get admitted (as a result of the collapse of primary and secondary education system, and lack of adequate facilities in tertiary institutions to accommodate the successful candidates). Despite the huge potential of the country, less than 40 percent of the arable lands have been cultivated or grazed while less than 3, 600 km of rail tracks have been constructed, less than 10 percent of what is needed (with those constructed existing on marginal existence). Road transportation is still archaic and seriously inadequate (with less than 50 percent of the country opened up with necessary transport); etc. This amount, $300 billion is still less than what Nigeria earned from oil and other sources, as what is budgeted as the crude oil benchmark is most times less than the price of the black gold in the market. Thus, we should be speaking of over $500 billion. This is more than ten times of $40 billion spent to rebuild Europe aftermath of the Second World War. In the same period, reports have it that far over $140 billion was pilfered away from the nation’s treasury. This is clearly aside officially sanctioned looting; for instance since 2006, Nigerian politicians in power consume over a trillion naira from the nation’s budget (that is more than to N5.5 trillion in five years). What all of these depict is the bankrupt and anti-progressive, anti-development nature of the political section of the Nigerian capitalist class.

With the unprecedented oil wealth available to the country, Nigeria should have undertaken massive industrial and infrastructural developments to put the country on the sound foot of development, even on a capitalist basis. For instance, with just ten percent of the oil wealth available since 1999, the country can easily build adequate refineries that will effectively serve the whole country and for export, even in an environmentally sustainable basis. Also, the close to $20 billion wasted and looted in the electricity sector since 1999 will not only provide over 20, 000 megawatts (20 terawatts) but also open new, clean and environment friendly means of energy generation (wind, hydro, solar, etc.)[27]. Even on a capitalist basis, this is a practical means of spurring the economy i.e. through a kind of Keynesian economics where the state directs economic development with the aim of stimulating capitalist economy. However, despite this obviously opportunities, the capitalist political class is narrow-minded as to focus primarily on primitive accumulation and dependence on imperialist capitalism as basis of sustaining private wealth. This is not accidental, the Nigerian capitalist class, especially its political section, has no fundamental progressive history; it has always been an appendage of international imperialist capitalism – even during the Bonarpartist military regimes. More than this, global capitalist system, which has now been integrated more than ever, cannot allow such a minimal Keynesian economic arrangement[28], that will reduce the access, influence and profits of global multinational vampires in not only third world but throughout the world.[29] This is more so at a period when global capitalism is trying to survive a historical cyclical crisis that is trying to tear the political and social bases of the system asunder – with mass revolts and revolutions convulsing the whole world. Therefore, it will take a rebellion and bold action of local capitalist political class to enforce this, as the global capitalist class will strive to oppose these even minimal capitalist measures. For instance, how will multinational oil companies in Nigeria in alliance with local fuel importers, banks, etc. take the attempt to build new refineries that will reduce the amount of crude oil exploitable by multinational oil corporations? Surely, they will sabotage such minimal effort.[30]

In spite of these obvious facts, it will be doing disservice to history to limit the bankruptcy and the weakness of the Nigeria’s capitalist class to its political section alone. In the real sense, the business section of the capitalist class in Nigeria is directly interwoven with its political class. The political class are themselves members of the big business class as most of the politicians in power are themselves owners and participants in the capitalist economic concerns in the country. However, unlike in the advanced economies where some form of decency and productiveness is maintained in order to make capitalist political economy credible for continuous exploitation of the working people, the political and economic sections of the Nigerian capitalist class are crude. This cannot be otherwise in an economy where rent-seeking and primitive accumulation is a major source of wealth, ably supported by imperialist capitalism. Thus, the character of politicians in power only reflects the nature of the whole capitalist class. Take for instance, the 10 richest Nigerians who are worth close to $18 billion in 2011, with more than 30 percent of the wealth being increase in 2011 alone, meanwhile their businesses employ less than 1 percent of the population[31]. Most of the growths in the businesses of these richest people are mostly direct product of state subsidization and handouts[32]. Essentially, the wealth stolen by the politicians in power are ploughed into the banks and financial house (through equities, stocks, shares, etc), oil companies and other big businesses (construction companies, conglomerates, and even multinational companies). The wealth is not utilized to undertake fundamental industrialization of the country, but contrarily to store up wealth or at best invest in governments’ handouts such as issuance of bonds and treasury bills, contracts, privatization, etc. The implication of this is that, it is the stolen wealth of the country that is being used to extract more money from governments’ coffer; thus continually and progressively reducing the share of wealth available for the majority working and oppressed people. For instance, most of the oil importers have politicians and ex-military men as major shareholders and/or executives; many of them too sprouted out from dubious government policies like privatization of the oil blocks and state companies and awarding of contracts[33].

The wealth realized from the abovementioned dubious processes are being invested in oil importation after the state oil corporation has been made redundant. Currently, the minister of power, Barth Nnaji and the country’s vice president, Namadi Sambo, are owners of electricity service companies (Geometrics Power Ltd. and Manyatta Engineering Service Ltd respectively); meanwhile it is the same set of people that are driving the privatization of the state-owned electricity utility company, PHCN. Reflecting the lame character of the capitalist class, dozens of licenses were granted to private concerns to build private power plants, yet none of them has added a single watt to the national grid. Yet, the same private sector is desperate, in alliance with international capital, to ‘buy’ the nation’s utility company, not to develop it, but because it is the easiest means of making quick profits. This was the same driving force behind many state owned companies (NITEL, iron and steel companies, minting company, Daily Times, etc) privatized by the Nigerian governments, which were run down after the capitalist buyers (including multinational companies) have milked them dry. Nothing underlines the bankruptcy of the capitalist class than the nature of fraud in the power sector. In the past eleven years, over $20 billion has been wasted to generate electricity for the country; meanwhile most of these funds were looted not only by the government officials, but also by private sectors (both local and international). Nonetheless, the Nigerian political class still wants to hand over the power sector to the same private sector. This is not accidental, mistake or a product of ignorance, but a clear reflection of the nature of the capitalist class, not only in Nigeria but globally – i.e. it is era of neo-liberal capitalism, where rabid quest for quick profits is driving the capitalist class so crazy as to be blind to even the logic of its own rules.

The same fraud extends to the banking sector. While it is revealed less than 10 percent of Nigeria’s banking population [34]own over 80 percent of the bank deposits – with less than 1 percent of Nigerians controlling most of the bank’s shares – Nigerian government, through the CBN, NDIC and now AMCON, used state resources worth over N2.5trillion to insure and cover the financial holes of Nigeria’s commercial banks. These banks went bankrupt due to crazy gambling, speculation and mad rush for quick, short-term profits. Interestingly, those that actually run down these banks are the same captains of industries and big fat cats that run the economy through the private sector. Safe for some few scapegoats made out of few of bank executives, most of the big fat-cats, moneybags who incurred bad loans (mostly without collaterals) are not only walking freely in the country, but are the major deciders of economic policies today, through their stranglehold on the economy. More than this, these fat cats and captains of industries have become richer in the past one year. For instance, the richest African, Aliko Dangote saw more than 60 percent rise in his wealth in the past one year, meanwhile he was one of those whose companies’ debt (running to billions of naira) run down the bankrupt banks. Needless to be emphasized is the fact that it is not only during bank crises that the political section of the capitalist class use public fund to bail out the financial capitalists. Indeed, the state policies and legislations (from local and the national) are aimed at making financial capital richer. Therefore, it will be delusional to think that the problem of underdevelopment is only a product of the political inefficiency of the ruling class; indeed the political class is clearly a representation of the whole of the capitalist class. The reason why the political class is more exposed is that Nigerian capitalist economy being rent seeking, underdeveloped and neo-colonial, depending on the direct accumulation of society’s wealth, requires political class to represent this reality, being the central allocator of the resources.

Furthermore, the nature of the capitalist class in Nigeria reflects the neo-liberal stage of global capitalism, as the international capital itself is not interested in any developmental process that will upset the geopolitical economic arrangement of world division of labour. Moreover, global capitalism, having survived from previous Keynesian developmental economics it was forced to adopt in the aftermath of the Second World War until late 1970s[35] has resolved to recoup, by manifold its lost profits. This it is backing up with military buildup, which has by far surpassed defence budgets during the Cold War era[36] with over $1 trillion budgeted by western governments for military in 2010 alone. This has meant that just 200 corporation globally (mostly located in the centres of global capitalism) control wealth more than the wealth of two third of countries of the world while the richest 87, 000 people in the world are worth more than the combined worth of more than half of the world’s population. Despite the global economic recession that started since 2007, the rich have continued, despite having some marginal fall in wealth at some point, to increase in wealth. In spite of this huge wealth, this has not resulted in massive development of economies of third world countries and people; on the other hands more people are sinking into unemployment, poverty and misery both in the advanced and backward economies.

This reflects the fact that the capitalist class globally are themselves not confident in their ability to stimulate the system through more investment; therefore they prefer to hold on to the wealth, or at best invest in businesses that ensure easiest and short term profits, or investments where their profits will be guaranteed by public funds. This will only worsen the economic contradictions of capitalism. This is because this kind of approach only move more money at faster rate to the pockets of the rich few while denying more working and poor people of economic power to take active participation in the capitalist economy (through effective demands and small scale investments), which will consequently lead to overcapacity and further economic recession. It is thus illusory to expect a fundamental break from the currently arrangement because of investment and direct involvement of global capitalism in Nigeria’s economy, more than it has already done. Only completely economic collapse (may be through wars) or mass revolutionary movement threatening the existence of capitalism, not only in Nigeria, but globally can compel the international capitalism to take this road[37].

Therefore, the Nigerian capitalist class only mirrors the global stage of world capitalism. That they are opposed to minimum wage demand of workers is not a mistake, but a clear expression of global capitalist reality. Even in the advanced capitalist world, where the idea of minimum wage and regular wage increase on the basis of the economic reality have been structured into the economy, wages are being driven down and austerity introduced for a majority of the working and poor populace. This is not accidental, as the capitalist political class cannot afford to take a bold step to redirect and reform the capitalist economy toward productive route, without incurring the wrath of big businesses (who are actually the controlling invisible hands behind the world economy) and/or instigating social revolutions. It is this dilemma that is haunting global capitalism. This basic understanding is necessary for activists, workers, their union leaders and youth so as to know how to adequately respond to not only the failure of the capitalist class to ensure a minimum wage based on the economic indices, but also to fundamentally defend the interests of the working people on a long term basis.

SECTION II

LABOUR MOVEMENT’S RESPONSES

From the abovementioned analyses, it is clear that the issue of minimum wage increase touches on the fundamental issue of distribution of wealth; the precarious nature of the neo-colonial, neo-liberal capitalist political economy of the country and the inherent class relation in the country. Deductively, it is clear that unless the working people challenge the fundamental basis of this ruling and business classes' opposition to the wage increase, the capitalist politicians and big business will always find several other ways of taking back through the left hand and by manifolds, what has been given workers with the right. A closest example is the desperate attempt at removing fuel subsidy and deregulation of fuel prices by the regime, for which billions of naira is being wasted for propaganda. This to the workers will mean raising all the demands that can better the wellbeing of the working and oppressed people by mobilizing the rank-and-file of the exploited and oppressed layers against any opposition of the capitalist class to oppose these demands.

This is necessary because failure to implement these demands, which has provided opportunity for the increasing wealth of the rich few, will not only erode any gain from the wage increment but also lead to worsening of working people’s conditions, which will be premised on implementation of minimum wage. This is what has happened when the state governments insisted on removal of fuel subsidy (i.e. hike in fuel prices) as a basis for implementation of the minimum wage. This implies that for the capitalist class to gain more wealth, the working and oppressed people will have to pay through chronic cuts in their share of the national wealth and fall in their living conditions. This is more critical in a rent-seeking, neo-colonial economy like Nigeria's, which is dominated by the politicians in power, their sponsors in big business and foreign big business. Consequently, every demand of the working people will be a challenge to the wealth accumulation tendency of the capitalist class. This surely will not be taken with a pinch of salt by the capitalist class; it will utilize all available weapons in its arsenal to resist this.

Thus, it is clear the workers, as earlier said, cannot get a sustainable and long-term improvement in their living conditions unless they raise the issue of their welfare on a holistic manner that will checkmate attempt of the capitalist class to attack oppressed people's welfare from other directions. This, aside requiring mass mobilization of the oppressed and exploited people in general, will also mean a fundamental attack on the foundation of capitalism in the country. For instance, public policies that compel employers to pay living wages that are commensurate with basic economic indices (cost of living, rate of inflation, wealth gap, etc); end casualization of workers; massive job provision through mass public work; etc, will mean attack on the profit maximization agenda of all the capitalist elements. This in itself raises the question of the necessity to overthrow the capitalist arrangement upon which exploitations of the working and oppressed people are based; and replacing it with a democratic socialist order that will place societal wealth in the hands of the working and oppressed people. This cannot be done by a labour movement that believes that the current unequal capitalist system can favour the working and oppressed people, if only it can be reformed a little (as if the interests of the working people and the capitalist bosses are reconcilable). Meanwhile, without mobilizing a wider layer of the oppressed people based on solidarity and collective struggle, the defence of a particular victory won by the working people cannot be sustained on a long term (even on a medium term) basis. Indeed, the ruling elites will at best, even if forced to concede to workers' demands, bid their time to not only reverse the victory but also attack workers more with further anti-poor policies, as exemplified in the recent attempt to pooh-pooh the grade level system, so as to water down the wage increase. This analysis also brings to fore the need to evaluate the nature, character and orientation of labour movement in Nigeria as presently constituted.

2.1 The “Trade Unionist” Approach versus Revolutionary Approach

To start with, Nigeria’s labour movement, since the inception of the democratic experiment, has been a major bulwark against some basic anti-poor policies. It will be recalled that it was the national actions of NLC against bogus salaries of political office holders in 1999 (the furniture allowance story)[38], that first exposed the character of the Nigerian political class. It also placed the labour movement at the centre of national agitation and opposition in the country. Furthermore, the labour movement leadership has since been a fighting platform against all attempts to hike fuel prices under various guises. This has earned the labour movement a place of pride in the minds of millions of people, and made it to become a major force to be reckoned with by the political class. This has also given workers confidence at various levels (industry, local, state and national) to defend their living standards and demand for improved working and living conditions. This is a clear departure from the nature of the labour movement prior to this time i.e. during the military rule of Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha. Aside incessant ban of the labour movement during these periods, it was made an extension (or a direct agency) of the various military regimes. However, consequent upon the ouster of military from direct political rule, working people, realizing their new power and rights, utilized the labour movement as an instrument for defending their interests.

Nevertheless, this is just a part of the story. The labour movement leadership, despite representing the wish and aspiration of the oppressed people at some times, is clearly pro-capitalist, and lacks a scientific method of contending with the capitalist class. This has always led workers to defeat or piecemeal victory, because the labour leadership, in most cases were not prepared to go the whole hog to confront not only capitalist bosses, but also indeed capitalist system they defend. This is clearly reflected in the minimum wage struggle.

The manner in which the labour movement leadership conducted the struggle shows the contradiction between defending the interests of workers and taking on a pro-capitalist garb. The labour movement leadership correctly raised the idea of a living wage, which was calculated to be N52, 200. But raising this demand alone is not enough. Labour movement, in realization of the political economy of the neo-capitalist state of Nigeria, should have known that this demand cannot be achieved by mere trade union practices i.e. sending correspondences to government, lobbying government officials and structures (like the national assembly), negotiation, declaring trade disputes, etc, without mobilizing the mass of workers and the oppressed people. The ‘trade unionist’ methods highlighted above, while may be useful sometimes, are completely counterproductive when used without mass mobilization of workers; as it confers credibility on the politicians in power. This approach makes it look as if the problem of poor wages of workers and worsening living conditions of the majority is something that can be resolved with appeals to the capitalist employers and making them see reason; and not that of fundamental class and systemic issue of the neo-colonial capitalist system being defended by the politicians in power. The failure of this strategy is what has led to the current sell out of workers on the issue of the wage increase across all levels.

The same set of politicians, including those wearing the toga of progressive opposition, were united in reducing the N52, 200 minimum wage demanded by workers to meagre N18, 000 (a mere N600 per day). Worse still, all the politicians, seeing a possible backlash of opposing the minimum wage during an election period, supported the wage increase, only for them to renege in paying the wage. This is not a product of the personal character of individual politicians but that of the class character of Nigerian politicians: they defend the capitalist system where their interests are protected. The so-called progressive opposition governments, at the state levels are even more vociferous in their opposition to the minimum wage[39]. Meanwhile, none of these so-called governments is opposed to the obscene pay packages given to politicians in power or the increased wealth and profit accruing to the capitalist class. Therefore, it was wrong for the labour leadership to have limited the demand for N52, 200 to mere lobbying and advocacy work; the issue touched on the foundation of the iniquitous capital system in Nigeria.

It is the failure of the labour movement leadership to address the issue from this basis that made them being at the mercy of capitalist ruling class. Indeed, most of the politicians in power are themselves private employers, who will be affected personally if genuine increase is made on workers’ wages across the board; aside the implication on their economic privileges as politicians. Labour leadership should have made further steps on the mass rallies (first organized in different regions of the country in 2009) by calling for a joint workers’ and oppressed people committees to be set up at all local levels to coordinate the campaign for the full implementation of the N52, 200 minimum wage. Such committees will involve all the unions, and pro-labour organizations like pensioners’ union, peasant movement, market men and women association, students’ movement, intellectual and professional organizations, etc. With such committees, it will be easy to organize mass actions like mass campaigns, pamphleteering, press campaigns, rallies, protest marches, etc. Mass mobilization of the generality of the working and oppressed people is a major factor needed to counteract the capitalist class and government’s attempt at portraying wage increase as a parochial demand of workers alone, who to them are mere ‘minority’ of the teeming poor people.

This will however presuppose that the labour movement will go beyond the “trade unionist” approach of making the issue of improvement in workers’ welfare to be mere minimum wage increase for workers. As earlier posited, minimum wage is a defensive struggle on its own when not linked with fundamental improvement in all facets of social and public infrastructures that affect the well being of the working and poor people. Thus, for fundamental improvement to come the way of the working and poor people on the issue of minimum wage, it is necessary for the labour movement to link the demand for massive job provision for millions of unemployed and underemployed people, through massive public work projects. Such projects will include state substantial investment in integrated transport system (road, rail, water and air); sustainable and environment friendly power and energy supply system (hydro, solar, biogas, wind, etc); environment friendly, mechanized and poor peasant-oriented agricultural system; cheap, public mass housing; accessible water supply. This will be in addition to massive investment in social infrastructures like huge state investment in building new schools and renovating existing ones to national and international standards; employment and retraining (at state expenses) hundreds of thousands of teaching and non-teaching staffs; establishment, rebuilding and reequipping to adequate standards, health institutions (primary, secondary and tertiary), and employment of tens of thousands of health workers, etc.

All this coupled with campaign for free education at all levels, free health at the point of use, etc will readily appeal to millions of youths, working class elements, intellectuals and poor people in general. This will be linked with the demand for the drastic cut in the bogus pays of the political class to that of the highest paid worker, public, open and democratic probe of all looted state resources and the reversal of the obnoxious sale of public infrastructures and enterprise to public looters. Then, having the campaign committees that will not only raise these general demands but also raise all the local issues affecting the local people, will seriously undermine the legitimacy of governments and politicians in power at all levels. With this, the politicians will be ready to concede minimum wage, safe the rest of their privileges and avoid the attempt of the working people to pull the rug off their feet. This method is the only one that can ensure victory in minimum wage struggle.

Whether minimum wage is granted or not, the general demands will have to be continually defended; and the working and the poor people who would have been raised on their feet with these demands, will indeed demand continuation of the struggle. However, these demands are a fundamental attack on the capitalist economic relation in Nigeria; therefore raising them and fighting for them, beyond mere issuance of press releases, will require the labour leaders taking a different ideological political economic orientation away from their current reformist pro-capitalist worldview. Indeed, only revolutionary democratic socialist ideas can serve as a sustainable and credible alternative to capitalist political economy. For instance, there is no way all the aforesaid demands and programmes can be funded and implemented without taxing the rich few in the society (who are organized in the political and business arena); and stopping the economic and financial hemorrhaging of the country via privatization, commercialization, fraudulent financial policies, awarding of contracts to big business (when well-equipped public works units can undertake such projects), huge salaries and privileges for politicians in power; all of which hand over public resources to the already rich few.

This in itself will raise the question of the nationalization/public ownership of the commanding height of the economy, where the state will be able to direct policies, plan and coordinate the implementation of these demands and programmes. However, to guide against the bureaucratic and undemocratic management, which led to the collapse of many thriving state owned enterprises of the 1970s and `80s there will be need to put the nationalized economy under the democratic control and management of the working people, communities, relevant professional groups and consumer associations. The so-called state owned corporations were run by managements composed of and headed by pro-big business bureaucrats and political patrons, leading to massive corruption, nepotism, favouritism, policy somersault, etc. which is the basis of the collapse of these public enterprises; and not the impracticability of public ownership of the economy. With democratic public ownership, it will be possible to plan based on the interests of the majority, who will be democratically represented in the running of all the major facets of the economy from the grassroots to the national level, without undermining the professional/ethical management of these firms and public infrastructures. To expect the current set of politicians in power to execute these projects will be mere self-delusion. This raises the question of who controls the political power – an issue the labour movement leaders is deliberately avoiding. Unless and until the working class realizes that they need their own political party to wrest power away from the hands of the current corrupt capitalist class, none of their demands can be met on the long-term basis.[40]

2.2 Labour Leadership’s handling of the Minimum Wage Struggle

The kind of struggle needed to bring the aforementioned revolutionary programmes to the fore cannot be undertaken under the current arrangement of labour movement structures in Nigeria, unless pushed by the mass of working and oppressed people. This is clearly expressed in the ways and manners the labour movement leadership handled issues affecting the working people. This is especially glaring in the minimum wage increase issue, where the central labour centre leadership (NLC and TUC), preferred to hypnotize the workers with its never-ending ‘negotiations’ with a government that has not for once hidden its interests in attacking workers. In a show of crude “trade unionist” character, the labour leaders were prepared to get not what the workers needed, but any concession from the government, which explains why it preferred to concentrate on federal workers, who though also need wage increment but get a relatively better wages than what state and private sector workers get.

This method is to say the least dangerous, because the central labour leadership used federal government’s negotiation to determine its industrial action. For instance, there was attempt to use strike to force federal government to concede to labour unions’ demands, implying that if the federal government did not yield, the central labour leaders would have declared national strike which may resolve the federal workers’ issue but not that of the state government and private sector workers. This has a tendency of dividing the ranks of the workers. This method is very hypocritical to say the least. The central labour leaders were quick in calling off at 12.00 midnight, the planned three day national strike, only on the promise of the federal government (and some state governors, whose states are more financially buoyant) to accede to workers’ demands including paying the wage increase as from August, 2011.

But when governments at all levels refused to implement the agreement, the central labour leaders, beside preventing state labour leaders from taking actions against their state governments, only resumed negotiation with the federal government. When the federal government agreed to pay, the central labour leaders, rather than taking on the state governments on a national scale, only then asked the state union leaders to start ‘negotiation’ with their state governments on the modalities, after they have “purportedly” agreed to pay (in previous negotiations)! A reflection of the ineffectual approach of the labour leadership is its admission that the federal government, upon which the struggle was centred, had not started paying the minimum wage, in a meeting with the president Goodluck Jonathan over fuel subsidy removal on 20 December 2011. A reasonable approach would have been to start to organize mass action, coordinated by the central labour leaders across the states of the country. This should have also been replicated in the private sector. Contrarily, the labour leaders had another agenda: they did not want to challenge the government or rock the boat or to use the establishment’s term “heat up the polity”. This has made virtually all state governments shortchange workers by refusing to implement the new wage law. A passive observer would have asked what labour leadership was doing all this while.[41] This only reflects a labour leadership that has something at stake if the current unjust capitalist system is thrown overboard. The recent history of labour movement leadership does not provide any other conclusion to the clueless policies of the labour movement leaders. Of course, as a result of the pressures from the pro-labour and left-leaning collaborators of labour movement, the labour leaders, after long vacillation, did declared mass strike and protest marches against the fuel price hike. But it needs to be underlined that the method of the labour leadership in this regard requires review. For instance, warning strike(s), mass mobilization and sensitization should have been undertaken by the labour leadership far before government started implementing the obnoxious policy, which would have seriously stopped the government. While of course the capitalist government will still endeavour subsequently to undermine workers’ welfare, even through the deregulation policy, proper mobilization and campaigns (through educative materials), rallies, protest marches, warning strikes, would have meant created a class war situation, that would have undermined the government, even before the introduction of the fuel price hike.

2.3 Labour leaders’ Pro-Capitalist Positions and Policies

Notwithstanding the terrible perverseness of the government’s neo-liberal policies like privatization and commercialization, which have led to massive retrenchment of workers, handing over of public patrimony to the rich few, widening wealth gap, terrible trade policies, etc, the labour movement leadership is represented in the National Council on Privatization – the presidential council supervising these policies. How can labour leadership fight workers’ retrenchment, which is one of the aims of privatization and commercialization? This explains why the labour leaders are quick to demand settlement of labour issues (read payment of retrenched workers’ entitlements), and not oppose privatization as a policy. To labour leaders, nothing is bad in privatization if done with due process. This was well explained by the Labour’s representative at the Senate’s public hearing on failure of privatization[42]. The representative, Mr. Issa Aremu[43], a vice president of the NLC, had maintained that Labour does not have any fundamental problem with privatization, but the process had to be transparent and open. In fact, he tried to safe government’s face, in spite of the open admission by government[44] that more than 80 percent of privatized firms have failed. This is nothing more than asking the armed robbers to dress neat whenever they are carrying out their heinous crime. Ironically, while capitalists themselves are forced to expose the bankruptcy and the fraud of privatization, the labour movement – the supposed vanguard of the working and oppressed people – had to keep tight lips because the hands if its leadership are soiled.

Indeed, the NLC in a statement issued at the peak of the Senate probe of privatization process wrote, “…As a stakeholder in the privatization of public enterprises, we are particularly interested in the post-privatization activities of the affected companies.” It stated further, “…On its part, the Senate has the responsibility to live up to expectation as true representatives of the people; and not allow its status and integrity to be compromised and ruined by the greed and selfishness of moneybags whose only ambition is to loot the nation and not contribute to sustainability of the economy in the interests of the working people and the Nigerian poor.” [45] From this statement, it is clear that NLC leadership is sowing grand delusion in the Nigerian political class. In the first part of the quoted statement, the NLC did not hide its inclination towards privatization, neither was it sorry for its participation. More than this, it accepted privatization and its rationale: maximization of profit, not for the majority but for the same moneybags it is fervently campaigning against in the other part of the statement. What other way is profit maximize-able if not through reduction of workforce (mass layoffs) and exploitation of the remaining workers (through increase in working hours, reduction in pay, worsening working conditions and casualization)? Therefore, the NLC leadership is indirectly sanctioning these anti-worker policies. What other post-privatization activity is the NLC leadership looking for? In the second part of the statement, the NLC leadership is fooling, not the capitalist politicians gathered in the so-called Senate but the working class by giving the senators the toga of saints; the same Senate that, in conjunction with its counterpart in the House of Representatives is consuming whooping N360 billion annually. If the NLC leadership is calling the buyers of public properties, moneybags and looters, what then will it call the politicians who legally loot the nation blind. Mind you, many of these senators are themselves either investors or supporters of investors in the privatization swindles.[46]

Despite the exploitative character of the new pension policy that compels deduction of workers’ wages for their pensions, which provide fund for the capitalist class to gamble upon, the labour leadership is part of the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) that administers this poisonous pill[47]. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of retirees are dying in absolute poverty because of poor yet unpaid pension arrears; an issue the labour leadership has left for the pensioners to resolve on their own. With this kind of labour leadership, you can be sure that revolutionary programmes that can challenge the capitalist class will be rarely found in labour leaders’ lexicons. Already, electricity tariff has been hiked by over 22 percent while the national electricity utility company, PHCN has been slated for auction; yet this has not received any organized response or action from the central labour leadership. This is despite the fact that the in-house unions in the electricity sector are battling federal government over this issue. [48] This policy of sale of the electricity utility company, if implemented will mean further worsening of the living conditions of the working and poor people, as the private ‘investors’ that buy this company will have no responsibility to develop or expand access to the service but will be interested in short term profits. This will mean massive reduction in the areas covered under national grid, reduction in service quality, more erratic supply, sharp increase in service tariffs and exploitation of consumers, and of course massive staff layoffs[49]. On the general scene, this will further compound the nation’s economic woes as more industries, especially medium and small industries will close down while there will be layoffs in the big industries, in order to offset the increase in cost of energy. Thus, the current unemployment rate, put at 40 percent of the graduate youths (and more than 40 percent of the employable population) will be a child’s play with its attendant social crises.

2.4 General Pictures of Crisis in the Labour Movement

However, it will be incompletely to limit this analysis to the central labour leaders. Indeed, virtually all the state sections of labour leadership and many labour leaders in different industrial/sectoral unions are nothing but extensions of either their state governments or managements. As far as they are concerned, having industrial harmony (another name for class collaborationism), even at the expense of their members' welfare and rights is satisfactory enough. While for some of the labour leaders, it is a case of open opportunism, for others it is a case of ignorance and lack of historical background, which raises the question of education in the labour movement. The minimum wage issue reflects this more. Most of the state labour leaderships, with tacit support of the national leadership, were quick to accept the least offer from state governments, which they now term 'Relativity Pay'. This has nothing to do with even the meagre minimum wage of N18, 000, but a restructuring of the differential between the highest paid workers and the least paid, especially in relation to the differential between the federal workers and state workers. This position itself aside being a sellout of workers is, legally nothing more than playing an accomplice to illegality. In fact, the so-called relativity pay does not relate to the remuneration of politicians in power.

One of the reasons most of these state labour leaders took this road of least resistance is that they are politically committed to various politicians coupled with the financial supports they get from governments, which sponsor many of their activities, buy official cars for unions/leaders, etc. With various industrial unions leaders' commitments to the governments, it will be difficult for a central union, which leadership comprises leaders of various industrial affiliate unions, to be able to fight for workers' interests to a logical conclusion. Even, the best intentioned among the labour leaders are bereft of scientific strategies to win workers’ demands, because fundamentally they do not believe that the present system can or must be overthrown, and that workers have the capacity to defeat the capitalist class, who they see as workers’ natural bosses. They are thus easily blackmailed by the managements and government officials of wanting to disrupt industrial peace. Indeed, they (the labour leaders) use this blackmail, even when not raised by the management/government to hypnotize or scare workers away from taking militant actions that will guarantee victory[50].

Many of the industrial union leaderships are merely prison warders of their members on behalf of either their management or government, and the higher you go the greater is the level of treachery of workers. Many in-house union leaders are sponsored during elections by their local management or bought over through carrot-and-stick method by the management whenever they emerge. The big industrial labour leaders are mere bigger bureaucrats who developed from this process. In some instances where in-house union leaders are genuinely interested in defending their members’ rights or the members take militant actions against their management, the bigger bureaucrats of the same union at the state, regional or national level are contracted by the management or the state to defeat such actions. This is glaring in many industrial disputes, where managements or state governments employ senior labour bureaucrats to break the fighting spirits of local unionists, and force rotten agreement on them. More than this, the industrial unions leaders, even on a national level are more conciliatory towards their employers than mobilizing workers for their genuine demands. Thus, you see union leaders demanding that privatization should not lead to layoffs (as if privatization has better aim than reduction of workforce) or that laid off workers should be paid their entitlement on time (not that workers should not be laid off). Of course, there are some labour leaders, especially at local and factory levels, who are prepared to defend the interests of their members, but because of the pro-capitalist bureaucratic structures of the unions, especially at higher levels, workers are sold out.

2.5 The “Trade unionist”[51] Theory in Labour Movement

However, it needs to be asked how workers got to this state of affair. In the first instance, trade union movement in Nigeria, even in its most radical periods, has some structural shortcomings. In the first instance, the trade union movement is premised from its foundation on a quicksand of trade unionism. By this we mean that workers are classified based on their various trades, and thus defend their interests based on what favours workers in each trade. Of course, this was in itself made redundant by the increasing globalization of capital where workers are exploited by the guild of capitalists, industrialists and politicians in power. This means that if the capitalists can defeat workers in a strategic industry or even in any industry or sector for that matter, it can serve as a template for capitalists all across to exploit the workers in the same line. In addition, the capitalists, with their hold on political power, can organize state policies in their interests. This started nationally but it has grown internationally as capitalists in each country, (especially in the third world) despite some disagreements with the foreign capital, are all agreed on collective means on exploiting workers. The big capitalist multinational corporations can today, move their capital to any place that guarantee the highest profits, i.e. where workers’ exploitation will be greatest. With this, governments, especially in the third world where you have imperialist beggars, have become subservient to the rule of capital and capitalist class, with workers’ welfare as bargain to appease the capitalists. With this, it was necessary for workers to come together to defend collective bargaining that affects all workers.

Therefore, the concept of trade unionism had to grown beyond the confines of each trade, which led to the emergence of trade union centres, on a national scale. This provided opportunity to present what can be termed a ‘united front’ of workers against the capitalists; so that a minimum working and living conditions can be guaranteed for all categories of workers. Nevertheless, this has not done away with the narrow trend of trade unionism in which workers in a factory/industry/establishment belong to different unions; even when what they fight for the same demands or the management/set of capitalists they deal with are the same. For instance, you have various unions in the tertiary education system, which are classified as non-academic, senior staff, technologists, and academic staff. These unions in most cases fight for similar demands but fight differently.

This narrow trade unionist approach deny the workers the chance of mobilizing a wider layer of working people to collectively defend common interests; for instance in the education sector, proper funding of education at all level. One can imagine what powerful force the education workers can pull, if they collectively organize campaign for general improvement in state of education across the country; including massive funding of education, improvement and expansion of educational infrastructures, better conditions of service for all categories of workers, etc. It is very funny that while ASUU (the university lecturers’ union) correctly raise the fundamental issue of proper funding of education and democratization of decision making in the education sector as basic demands in its various strikes and industrial disputes with government, there is little known attempt to mobilize a wider layer of workers in the sector for these demands. It may be true that some of the other unions’ leaders are parochial with clearly narrow trade unionist character, the lecturers’ union also believe that by mere organizing national sit-at-home strike, they can compel Nigerian ruling class to commit more resources to the sector. At best, this will expose the carefree, anti-development nature of the Nigerian capitalist class, and not mobilize mass of people, especially the youths and workers to join the struggle. Indeed, the union even had serious challenge mobilizing its members for mass action like protests, rallies, etc., reflecting the middle class character of this layer of intellectual workers.

Although, it may be argued that as intellectuals, they should traditionally be the intellectual arm of the capitalist class; but capitalism has surpassed such mercantilist phase. As Karl Marx and Frederick Engels espoused in their historic Communist Manifesto that, as capitalism expands its tentacles, formerly middle class layers are drawn into the working class, working as intellectual wage labourers of capitalism. This is truer today than when it was espoused by Marx and Engels. Therefore, the lecturers’ union, while correctly raising progressive demands, need to go beyond the precinct of narrow trade unionism and intellectual/middle class cretinism; they must embrace revolutionary programmes and activities including mass action and mass mobilization in conjunction with other workers unions, especially in the education sector. For instance, issues of proper funding of education require that a summit of fighting unions in the education sector be called to draw up a charter of demands, and necessary lines of mass activities to compel governments at all levels implement these demands. This does not stop each union from raising individual and specific demands and fighting for them. On the contrary, it means increased level of solidarity and class-consciousness. Of course, there are specific demands for different layers of workers of different trades; however, this should not serve as hindrance to collective struggles on issues that affect workers in the same sector/industry or developing solidarity with one another in struggle by any of the unions.

The divisive approach of trade unionism will deny workers of fundamentally challenging the status quo. This is made worse by the character of the labour leaders at all levels. At best, these reformist bureaucrats only survive on the numerical strength of their union. Therefore, there is always attempt to concentrate on the narrow interests of their union members, with a view to sustaining the numerical strength; which deny the working people in general of collectively defending their living and working conditions. This generates mere parochialism in trade unionism. Furthermore, there is growth of competition amongst unions, especially in the same trade/industry/sector with a view to presenting themselves as best defenders of their members – the more the members, the more money to the union. Thus, each union leadership sees its union as a small kingdom that must be protected as much as possible. All this, aside giving the ruling and capitalist class the opportunity to pitch workers against each other, also give a respite to the capitalist system from being challenged by the collective action of the working people in general. Thus, the workers are put in “class-in-itself” level of consciousness and not allowed to grow to the “class-for-itself” consciousness. This relation is carried to the central labour centre. Therefore, you have a central labour union that is trying to bring workers together and defend a collective interest, comprising of various unions whose leaderships are interested in maintaining a little kingdom: a combination of centripetal and centrifugal tendencies.

The result of this is that the central union will be limited in what it will defend for all categories of workers. This explains why the central trade union under this arrangement will continue to have problem with raising and mobilizing on fundamental demands that undermines the foundation of the capitalist system unless it is pushed by working people themselves; or there emerged a revolutionary leadership with a clear-cut anti-capitalist programmes[52], which can mobilize the working and oppressed people. This is expected as most local union leaders will see their privilege position, influence, and authority eroded by the collective actions of all workers. For instance, with a labour movement with rounded out revolutionary programmes that always prioritize mobilizing workers and oppressed people against the system from the grassroots to the national level, the power of many labour leaders, who can hardly defend their members talk much less of defending the general interests will be eroded while the ordinary workers will actually be involved in the daily decision making and activities of the union – a dangerous trend for little gods of these local unions. While workers can of course belong to union of their trades, the continuous growth of imperialist and globalised capitalism, especially in its crudest form in neo-colonial societies like Nigeria demand that local trade unions should not only defend the interests of their members in militant and revolutionary manner, but also move towards working class movement. This entails mobilizing the whole of the working people for collective actions against the capitalist system and its outgrowths.

This divisive trade unionist approach is also reflected in the manner the central labour union handled the minimum wage struggle, where national NLC negotiated with federal government, expecting state chapters to resolve the issue at their levels, even when all the state governments are united in opposition to the new minimum wage. Therefore, trade unionist character, which developed from local industrial unions, has found its way into the heart of the central labour union that is expected to undermine this tendency. The trade unionist method of running workers’ organization is a tool in the service of global capitalism against the attempt of the working class to challenge the basis of its exploitation and misery. With trade unionist approach to workers’ agitations, ‘rules’ will be set for ‘engagement’ between workers and employers, which must not go beyond conditions of service of workers within the precinct of the factory, industry or establishment workers find themselves. This will mean that workers in a particular sector will only engage in issues that affect their well-being within the sector they operate, even when their conditions of service and living is determined or conditioned by other external factor or in other sectors of the economy[53]. For instance, how will textile workers address the issue of poor wages, casualization and insecurity of jobs, when factories close down because of collapse of infrastructures (electricity, roads, etc), high cost of raw materials (caused by devaluation of currency and deficit balance of trade) and the parasitic nature of capitalist employers? This means that even a medium term solution can only be realized if textile workers mobilize other workers in other sectors and the mass of working and oppressed people against the neo-liberal and neo-colonial policies of the government and capitalist class in general. This will require a collective campaign, agitation and struggle led by the central labour unions. In the absence of this, the textile workers’ union is now pushed to appealing to governments to pay workers’ salary arrears and disengagement entitlement, or at best, that governments revamp the dilapidated industries.[54]

For the central labour unions, trade unionist approach will mean that it is only matters affecting immediate welfare of workers are central to it. Of course, it can take up general issues but these are only addressed in an NGO-like manner – issuing press statements, organizing seminars, etc, without mass campaign and struggle. Worse still, acting within the boundary of trade unionism will also mean collaboration with the capitalist government on issues of “common interests” (as if workers’ interests can ever merge with those of the capitalist class), participation in government/employers structures (such as participation in committees, commission boards, etc), which deny the labour movement of a fighting tooth. While workers’ representative may need to sit on the same table with employers at certain times to defend workers’ interests, this should not be seen as a substitute for revolutionary and militant defence of workers’ interests, by a serious leadership. Indeed, the ruling and capitalist class are comfortable accommodating labour leaders and workers’ representatives into their structures rather than addressing the fundamental demands of workers. With a leadership that is not essentially opposed to the capitalist system, the idea of co-habitation and collaboration is a willing tool to selling workers out. Therefore, central labour unions’ membership in such government structures like National Council on Privatization (NCP), National Pension Commission (PENCOM), among several others is an expression of the trade unionist character in its worse form. This explains why labour movement will be represented in PENCOM, but its leadership will hardly take up retirees’ plight as a labour issue – at least, according to trade union rules, they are no longer workers! This also explains why labour will find it comfortable being a “stakeholder in the privatization of public enterprises” but will see no reason why it must mobilize mass movements against mass retrenchment, collapse of public corporations, mass unemployment, etc which are what privatization promotes.[55]

2.6 Bureaucracy in Labour Movement

A major impetus and complement of this narrow ‘trade unionist’ method of the labour leadership is the high level of bureaucracy in labour movement. By bureaucracy, we mean an attempt to revolve decision-making process around officials and hierarchies of the unions without democratic rights of the rank-and-file workers to decide how their unions are run. This is so terrible that the union members hardly know how the finance of the unions are being used and for what purposes. This is made worse by the method in which finances and dues are collected from workers: direct deduction by the government or management on behalf of the unions. This ensures that the union leaders escape from questioning from members. With guarantee of regular supply of fund from members, there is nothing to worry about; it is left for local/in-house union leaders to know how to explain themselves to workers. The reliance of union leaders, not only at the local level but especially at middle level and national level, on managements’ and governments’ help in getting union finances has further put many of the union leaders in the pockets of managements and government structures.

This has made many union leaders to take the road of least resistance when they are forced to confront the authorities. The more conscious among managements and government officials go further to financially induce labour leaders, under the guise of helping the unions. With lack of democratic control of union members over their unions’ finances, it is assured that most of the funds are mismanaged. This further disarms labour leaders from defending the interests of workers, or at least involving workers in decision-making processes, as this opens up the leaders to scrutiny. While it may sound pragmatic for reason of convenience to wanting processing of union dues directly, but this has also generated its own negation: lack of accountability of union leaders to members. It is pertinent that union members know how much the unions are deducting from their wages and for what purposes. Workers must be able to determine for what purpose the union funds are be used.

However, the issue of financial unaccountability of union leaders only reinforces the bureaucratic manner in which the unions are run. While at some shop floor and local levels, labour leaders may be compelled as a result of proximity, by workers, to give account of how the unions are run; at higher levels of union organization, this is not the case. Workers hardly know what is happening within their unions, neither are they consulted over fundamental issues in their unions. The labour leaders, in a paternalistic manner just direct workers to take an action without directly involving workers in their decision-making. For instance, strikes are many times called on and off at labour leaders’ (especially at the state, regional, sectoral and even national levels) whims without direct consultations with or involvement of the workers. Therefore, it is easy for the labour leaders to manipulate the movement whenever their interests conflict with that of the mass of workers (for instance, if the members decide to take a militant course that exposes the rotten relationship between their leaders and the establishment).

A vivid example of this is what happened when Oyo State public workers revolted against their union leaders (under NLC) in September 2011, who had gone to sign a rotten wage agreement, which effectively reduced the minimum wage to N9, 400. The workers had angrily rejected the labour leaders’ proposals and chased the labour leaders away from the congress, where a struggle committee was set up to undertake the struggle. The union leaders, in a manner characteristic of union bureaucracy, mobilized state forces (including police and the state government) to counter the democratic decision of the workers, who had gathered in a congress (called by the same labour leaders). The excuse of course was that workers have no right to remove them in a congress except through the “official” means (this means that it is only the executives or what they call working committee that can sanction the union leaders even without workers involvement!). They even went to the extent of mobilizing some section of workers against others. In Osun State, the labour leaders, despite calling congresses (or rallies) to intimate workers of their meetings with government over the minimum wage implementation, never allowed workers to democratically contribute in the congress or take democratic decisions even when workers were already radicalized and showed intention of taking mass actions. At the end, they (the labour leaders) prevented any mass action by the workers, and agreed to a lower wage agreement at the back of the workers; while the strike was called off without any recourse to the congress. The same trend is seen in Ekiti, Ondo, Ogun and Lagos States.[56] Indeed, virtually all the state labour leaders follow the same pattern, with many of them using strike as a cover to agree to rotten wage agreement with the establishment.[57] The private sector union leaders are hardly different, if not worse.

This bureaucratic running of the unions is so terrible that vital information that has the slightest chance of instigating workers to question their leaders are deliberately hidden away from the workers. For instance, while union leaders collect huge amount from workers as union dues, hardly will they mass-produce union constitutions for members or produce bulletin on the regular activities of the union. While some unions release government circulars to workers or produce special bulletins to workers especially at periods of industrial or union crises, these are merely occasional rather than routine activities of the unions. Therefore, workers hardly know their roles in the union or the means to get their union under their grip, thus giving the labour leaders opportunity to utilize fraudulent official means to entrench and enrich themselves at union expenses. For instance, while there are provisions for delegates during conventions enshrined in various unions’ constitutions, this has only been manipulated by union leaders to seek for power. For instance, in the Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), school delegates/representatives are expected to participate in local meetings, while local leadership represent teachers in state meetings; the reality is that most of these meetings are most times formalities as most of these representatives lack information or understand the operations of the union, unless what they are told. The local and state leaders, who are properly informed would have prepared for how to handle these representatives. This leads to two things: it denies workers the opportunity to contribute to running of the union while also making the union leaders isolated and distanced from the rank-and-file of their membership. The bureaucratic process is carried to the election of union leaders, where rank-and-file members are shut out. The candidates are hardly known to the workers neither are public meetings and manifesto gatherings organized for workers to know what the candidates stand for; yet they are to elect delegates to take decisions for them, when in actual fact, most of the delegates are disconnected from either the workers (they are supposedly representing) or the union, or both.[58]

What results from this are: (1.) Workers are disconnected from the labour leaders from the beginning, and thus the leaders are given the blank cheque to run the union the way they want. (2.) On the basis of lack of transparency in running of union accounts coupled with undemocratic and trade unionist methods, unions are turn to ground for horrible and dirty politics with many labour politicians relying on supports from bourgeois politicians, governments (and/or their officials) and managements. This gives the state and the establishment the chance to infiltrate the unions, etc. The financial involvement through bribes, etc will mean that the union finances are made more opaque from the members and indeed run down. This will necessitate that the union leaders that emerge from this process isolate the union away from the workers to avoid their prying eyes. The outcome is that the labour leaders become petty bourgeoisie at best, but in many cases bourgeois elements. This means that those who do not have the same class character as workers will be the ones leading workers in defence of their interests. Many of these labour leaders do not live the conditions of workers they purportedly represent. Thus, their defence of workers’ interests will be at best half-hearted.

It can easily be argued that, while labour leaders most times sell workers out, they still defend workers, and their right to have a union, which the capitalist class is against completely. There is no contradiction. The union leaders, despite their pro-capitalist, petty bourgeois character, also want the union to exist, because it is their major means of finance. They have to wrestle it from the main capitalist bosses, but at the same time use it to negotiate with the capitalist bosses with a view to extract more crumbs from the capitalist class. In the process of maintaining the existence of unions, the leaders will have to stand on existing traditions while at the same time eroding those traditions. This means that they have to defend workers’ immediate interests at some time so as not to invoke the mass anger of the workers, and in order to justify their control over the unions. However, while they do this, it is with a background of limiting it to mere little gains or at best reforms in workers’ conditions, and not to challenge the profit system that exploits workers or challenge the political basis of the capitalist rule. This explains why the methods are most time short of mobilizing mass of working and oppressed people for militant actions, unless under mass pressure or when jilted by the capitalist bosses. At the slightest opportunity, they call off any industrial action, on the altar of the least concession from the ruling capitalist class, except when pressured by conscious workers.

2.7 History and Trajectory of Union Bureaucracy

It can be asked if this was how the labour movement leadership has always been. This seems to be a complex question. It needs to be stated that bureaucracy has always been in the labour movement, even at the peak of the radicalism of labour movement; and this has been a major impediment toward development of a revolutionary labour movement. Of course, as a result of the leftist ideological orientation of labour leaders in the 1950’s to 1970’s[59], the labour movement got a pan-working people and pan-national character with labour movement declaring a socialist aim and orientating towards capturing political power so as to form a workers’ government. More than this, militant actions were organized, especially under the leadership of Michael Imoudu, Gogo Nzeribe, et al, which forced fundamental concessions from both the colonial and post-independent neo-colonial governments. Moreover, the labour leadership then (under TUC) organized politically under the most progressive nationalist political party, the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroun (NCNC) – before it was led by Nnamdi Azikiwe.[60] But, hardly had this platform settled down that the colonial government was able to infiltrate it, leading to its fragmentation (with the breaking away of some unions – Nigeria Civil Service Union, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Federated Union of Native Administration Staff – leading to the formation of Supreme Council of Nigerian Workers) ably supported by the state. This only set the tone for future cleavages of the labour movements both at the central level and at industrial sector. In this period was the most rapid transmutation of labour movements in nomenclature. [61] It was this schism within the labour movement that gave the military rule of Olusegun Obasanjo (with support of all the capitalist bosses) to intervene and undemocratically decree a central labour centre, NLC (and streamlining of around 47 labour unions to less than 20) in 1978.

While neo-colonial capitalist state’s intervention is not deniable (and indeed should be expected), the reality is that the schism is somewhat self-inflicted. It is a fact that the divisions and schisms were products of ideological and political struggles, with the left-wing trends defending the most conscious interests of the working people; however, the absence of revolutionary programmes or mobilization of the ranks of the working people against attempt at division is a major cause of the sustenance of the divisions. For instance, new labour centres were formed, especially by the left-wing trends without mass campaigns amongst workers in the factory, workplaces and shop floor, but by mobilizing and recruiting leaders and main activists of affiliated industrial unions. This in itself, led to schisms within the industrial unions, as pro-leftwing and pro-rightwing elements within the industrial unions divide the unions, without ranks of the workers playing any fundamental role. For instance, the issue of affiliation to international labour centres[62] would have been resolved by the working people themselves. Indeed, the ideological and political struggles hardly reflected in the consciousness of the workers then, as there are no mass education and information dissemination to the workers, safe for summaries and hearsays. Therefore, from the beginning, the labour movement, especially at its leadership level has been bureaucratized, and this has had negative effects on the labour movement, or better still had reinforced the trade unionist nature of the labour movement.[63]

2. 8 the Roles and Limitations of Stalinism in Labour Movement

That the “socialist”/left-wing trend within the contending labour movement leadership did not consciously mobilize the rank and file of workers for its programmes is not accidental; neither is the failure to build an independent mass based working people’s party a product of treachery; but rather a result of the limitation of the Stalinist “socialist” ideology they adhered to. Stalinism is a trend that originated from the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin in Russia in 1924, which is based on the idea that socialism should only be built in one country i.e. Soviet Union. Working class in other countries, especially the third world are expected to align with the so-called “progressive section of the capitalist class” to form a National Democratic Revolution, that will be the first step towards socialism that will be achieved in unforeseen future. This revisionist theory[64] also maintained that working class movements should be controlled from above by leaders, and not from democratic control by the working people. While Stalinism believes in revolution, it did not want a genuine revolution in any country that will put the working people in direct saddle, where socialism will mean democratic ownership of the economy under the democratic control and management of the working and oppressed people from the grassroots to the national levels. This kind of revolution will serve as a rouser for the Soviet workers and poor, who though carried out a socialist revolution in 1917 under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, have been led undemocratically by the repressive Stalinist clique. While the economy was nationalized, which liberated enough resources to develop the Russian society on a far higher scale than most of the capitalist societies, the lack of democratic control of the levers of the economy and politics by the working people, suffocated the society and the nationalized economy, leading to waste and misallocation of resources.

It is the fear of this revolutionary situation that can inspire the Soviet working people to organize a political revolution that will put the nationalized economy under their control, which was at the root of the “Socialism in One Country” and the revisionist “Two Stage” theories of Stalinism in addition to its bureaucratic method of running of mass organizations. This explains the soviet regime’s supports for many brutal regimes in third world countries that claim to stand for people’s liberation. Indeed, many of the so-called Marxist governments comprised of, at best, petty bourgeoisie, who only rely on Soviet bloc to have cheap access to power and wealth. Because of the popularity of the Soviet system (occasioned by the massive industrialization and significant improvement in the human development), many left-leaning activists and labour unionists genuinely tilted towards the “socialist” system (but really Stalinism) – which essentially is a monstrous distortion of genuine socialist principles. It is these Stalinist theories and methods of organizations that are carried into the labour movement in Nigeria, nay several countries. Thus, while Stalinism supports anti-capitalist labour movement, it is however opposed to a revolutionary labour movement that fights for democratic socialism with workers directly in the saddle. It is thus not accidental that most of the labour leaders, even on the left wing were opposed to those advocating a mass mobilization, rank-and-file method of organization.

The streamlining of trade union movement by the military regime in 1978, while officially ending schism, only reinforced internal wrangling as represented by the “Marxist” - “Democrat” rift in the 1980s. While the Marxists were those leftists maintaining some level of opposition to the government, the democrats were the pro-establishment, pro-capitalist layer within the labour movement. But, the choice of the word ‘democrat’ was no accident; it tended to exploit the sentiment against the lack of democratic method of running labour movement by the ‘Marxists’ to hijack the leadership of the labour movement. This tag of “Democrat” of course was not meant to provide the so-called ‘democracy’ but actually to hand over the labour movement completely to the state – a feat it was able to achieve completely with the emergence of the Pascal Bafyau-led NLC leadership. Of course, the decreeing of a single labour centre was not meant to help unify labour movement, but to disarm it of its fighting and revolutionary teeth[65]. With the so-called unity, the labour centre was denied political right (that is to form political party or have political orientation) and ideologically neutralized – with the provision that the labour movement shall not adhere officially to any political ideology. This certainly favours the pro-capitalist wing of the labour movement, as it helps this layer to hide under political and ideological neutrality to deny workers the opportunity to challenge the capitalist class, and on the other hand, easily allows the pro-state labour leaders to sell workers out, on the excuse that there is no alternative. Added to this transformation of the labour movement is the rule that makes labour movement more of the trade organization of registered workers, and not a collective platform of all working people. All this systematized the “trade unionist” and bureaucratic policies in the labour movement.

2.9 Political and Ideological Degeneration of Workers’ Movement Today

Despite the serious limitations of these tendencies in the labour movement in the past, there were still major opportunities to build a genuine working class movement. For instance, there were education officers in the unions (not only the labour centres but also the affiliate unions), which discusses political economic issues. Left forces were still in control of many unions with political discussions, newspapers and journals (especially from socialist and left-wings trends), etc, all of which help to sustain and regenerate layer of ‘socialist’ unionists and activists (even if with a distorted idea of Stalinism). Coupled with this is the collaboration between labour movement and other oppressed people and popular platforms such as students’ movements, peasant movements, professional organizations (like the Bar Association). Consequently, there was a minimal level of internal and external pressure on labour leadership to move more to the left. This is reflected in the fact that despite the right-wing character of the Pascal Bafyau leadership, it was forced by mass pressure from within and without to organize towards the formation of a workers’ party. Of course, the Bafyau leadership, in collusion with the Babangida regime thwarted the attempt at forming the party (with Bafyau hiding under the excuse that the party will not be registered because it was decreed that workers should be apolitical, to give support to one of the military decreed political parties – SDP!)

However, today, the labour movement has lost all the direct connections with its past heritage, no matter how distorted it was. The same mass pressure forced the labour leaders under the Adams Oshiomhole-led NLC to form a Labour Party (first called Party for Social democracy, PSD) in 2003. However, this party was abandoned by the labour leaders, with Oshiomhole himself contesting a governorship seat under a bourgeois party, ACN. Today, there is nothing like political economic education among workers; no direct link between the labour movement and the oppressed strata in general. This is product of the ideological degeneration and bureaucratic methods of organization of the labour movement, as analyzed above. Added to this is the collapse of the Stalinist Soviet Union and eastern European, state run economies. As said earlier, a sizable proportion of the labour leaders, up to the 1980’s were under the influence of Stalinism (or what they term ‘socialism’), which gave the labour movement some fighting teeth. However, with the collapse of the Stalinist system, the left-wing layer within the labour movement become ideologically orphaned; and thus had to accommodate themselves within the capitalist bourgeois system – at best defending reformism.

Reformism is based on the idea that working people can gain permanent improvement in their lives within the capitalist system by gradualist process. Reformists are not completely opposed to struggle, but they believe that it should be within the framework of existing capitalist realities. Fundamentally, classical reformists are opposed to privatization, commercialization and other neo-liberal policies, but because of lack of any long-term alternative to capitalism, today’s reformists in trade union movement at the end of the day end up supporting some variants of neo-liberalism. Indeed, in the era of globalized neo-liberalism, most of the reformist political parties globally have become fully neo-liberal, if not more than the traditional establishment parties (New Labour in Britain, Socialist Party in France, etc.) In Nigeria, it is worse. Aside the labour movement abandoning the little reformist character that remained, there is no pan-national political party, even on a minimal level, that stand for reformism of even the post-second world war era. Since the collapse of the Stalinist system, the labour movement in Nigeria indeed Africa, nay in the world has lost its ideological compass, worse than it was a generation ago. This is coming at a time when globalised capitalism, in its neo-liberal age, has become more rabidly exploitative than ever.

SECTION III:

LOOKING FORWARD: ARGUING FOR A REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE

Notwithstanding the gory pictures of the labour movement, the situation is not hopeless for the working and oppressed people, viewed from the standpoint of rising global consciousness of the working and oppressed people, and based on gigantic struggles of the working people in Nigeria. What we need need are revolutionary programmes in the labour movement; and for a working people’s party in the country. This should be a subset of revolutionary programmes to overthrow capitalism in the world, and establish a socialist society where minimum wage will not be a subject of struggle but a living part of the working people’s lives. The minimum wage struggle has underlined this more than ever. Left to many of the labour leaders, workers would have gotten no concession from the capitalist ruling class on this minimum wage, safe for the doggedness of the workers who put continuous pressure on the leaders to ensure victory. At every opportunity, the workers have to exact their power over the struggle. Whenever they are let down by their leaders, workers always look for alternative leadership as exemplified in the Oyo State situation where workers openly rejected their leaders and elected a struggle committee from a congress called by the leaders themselves. This shows the direction of things to come in the future. It shows a growing level of consciousness among workers that they cannot rely on official leadership to defend ultimately, their interests. However, no matter the heroism of workers in bypassing the officialdom of ‘trade unionism’, they still need an organization to galvanize their anger and channel it in an organized manner towards fundamental change in not only the living conditions of the working people, but more importantly in the socio-economic reorganization of the society on behalf of the majority (99%).

More than this, it needs to be stressed that workers (and the working people) have always shown their readiness to struggle against all the ills of the capitalist system; they have shown their willingness to challenge the capital system that exploits them. Despite the emergence of the so-called democratic dispensation in Nigeria that was expected “to usher in an era of peaceful coexistence”, working people have had cause to challenge the ruling elite severally. This has led to seven general strikes that almost toppled the Obasanjo regime, save for the treachery of the labour leadership and its failure to build a pan-Nigerian political party of the working and oppressed people; leading to derailment of the enthusiasm of the working and oppressed people. Indeed, every general strike has been met by total paralysis, despite attempt of the labour leadership to limit the strike to sit-at-home. The real gainers of this mass quest for change have been the capitalist opposition parties that offer no way out of the capitalist quagmire.

The struggle of the working people in Nigeria also confirms the growing mass movement globally against capitalism. It is glaring that despite the so-called capitalist triumphalism in the 1990s, capitalism cannot take humanity out of penury and want. This is clearly expressed from the anti-capitalist struggles in the late 1990’s (the Seattle movements), to the anti-war movements of the early 2000’s (that saw tens of millions of working and oppressed people globally challenging the war-mongering aim of the western hawkish imperialist forces and the military-industrial-complex capitalist forces behind them). Today the world is again being convulsed with mass movements and revolts of the working people and youths who, instigated by the current global capitalist economic meltdown, have decided to challenge the ruling 1 percent of the population.

3.1 The Historic Limitations of Capitalism and the Case for Democratic Socialism

Despite huge material, monetary, human, scientific and technological resources unleashed by capitalism, which has made humanity to conquer nature, more than one fifth of the world’s population still go hungry daily while millions of children die yearly of treatable diseases. Yet, just one percent of the world population control more than what three quarter of the countries of the world has. This is expected as the capitalist system is premised on profit maximization for the few as against the welfare interests of the majority. This will mean that while the capitalist class spends money to acquire new technology and expand the frontiers of science, it will be doing so with the aim of not making them available for the whole society to explore and exploit freely for their betterment, but to use them to extract more wealth from the society. This is why scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations that can make the toiling majority live better have to be patented in order to generate more wealth for the rich. This also mean that billions of dollars that could be used to provide basic needs of the people will not be made available because the capitalist wants to make more profits.

In Nigeria, this is even worse because of the primitive accumulative and neo-colonial character of the Nigeria capitalist class, who wants to acquire wealth without actually engaging direct capitalist production process. Thus, they rely on patronage from the political class and subservience to foreign big business and their intergovernmental multilateral instruments (IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc). This explains why the country’s resources are mainly primary products in the international markets while the country is heavily dependent on foreign finished and semi-finished goods (including foodstuff). The little production going on are only efforts of multinational/foreign capitalists, with Nigerian counterparts playing the facilitative/supportive roles. Nothing underlines this than the fact that the richest Nigerian, nay Africa, Aliko Dangote (estimated to worth $10.1 billion (about N1.52 trillion) in 2011) has most of his business developed from acquiring state owned properties and enterprises – cement, iron and steel, sugar, etc. Despite his huge wealth, it has not reflected in fundamental development or massive industrialization of the country, as the businesses are most technically controlled by foreign and big multinational corporations and banks, which care little about the nation’s development. Yet, millions of Nigerians are living in absolute penury while over 40 percent of the graduates are estimated unemployed (an obviously conservative figure).

In this kind of scenario, it is glaring that the working people cannot put their fate in the ability of the capitalist class, either in Nigeria or in any other part of the world, to get out of poverty. Thus, that the capitalist ruling class in Nigeria could not guarantee basic minimum wage for workers is not accidental, but a products of the irreconcilability of the interests of the capitalist class and that of the working people – the working people get, the lesser for the capitalist to acquire. Thus, the struggle of workers for minimum wage, and any other demand for that matter must take this as a first point of take off. The struggle of the working people must always be linked to the ultimate aim of supplanting capitalism with a revolutionary, democratic socialism, where the enormous resources of the society can be used to solve the basic need of the people. This will achieved through common ownership of the commanding height of the economy under the democratic control and management of the working and oppressed people organized from the grassroots to the national level. This will mean billions in the bank accounts of big business and political class will be used to massively expand public infrastructures and services that will provide secure and safe jobs for every able bodied person. It will mean that technological advances shall not be used to downsize workforce but to relieve workers of strenuous jobs, reduce working hours and put more people at work. It will also mean that the resources of the society, aside being commonly owned will be controlled and democratically organized by the people in the communities themselves. This is contrary to the Stalinist method (as witnessed in Soviet Union and other formerly nationalized eastern European economies – and some other economies in Asia and Africa – that were unfortunately, misnamed socialist economies) where some form of bureaucrats dictates policy for the society albeit under a nationalized economy. This will only lead to waste as the working people will not be able to determine what they actually want. More than this, it will lead to monotony, as working people will not be able to organize based on choice and needs. This misnomer (of undemocratic control of the economy, and indeed the political power) led to the collapse of these misnamed ‘socialist’ economies.

It needs to be underscored that a socialist Nigeria cannot exist in isolation, especially in the sea of vampire capitalist regimes throughout the world. It will be suffocated economically and politically, if it fails to build an international solidarity movement of the working and oppressed people across the world. This will mean that such a socialist government will reach out to working people in other countries of the world to defend a working people’s government against the belligerence of their various capitalist governments. This will imply that working people in other countries will stringently oppose any to help their government attack a working people’s government. For instance, dockworkers and defence workers will refuse to ship weapons and allow themselves to be used to wage imperialist war against a workers’ government. An element of this was witnessed in 2010, when South African dockworkers refused to on-load weapons sent from China to Zimbabwe to support the autocratic Mugabe regime. More than this, a workers’ government will give all possible solidarity supports to all working people across the world, while working strenuously and energetically with them to overthrow their capitalist classes and establish revolutionary working people’s governments. This is the internationalist programme and policy needed by the working class movement.

However, working people cannot overthrow capitalism and its agents in politics and economy, unless they build a counterforce/platform that will stand on the foundation of scientific socialism. This will mean building a working class movement that will have as its strategy, mobilization of rank and file of the oppressed people through mass struggles to compel capitalist class concede to the demands of the working people. Such a movement, to achieve this will have to be built from grassroots and workplaces with working people playing central role in such movement. This will mean rebuilding the workers’ movements on democratic, mass based foundation with all encompassing revolutionary programmes that will combine daily demands of the working people with the ultimate struggle for power. Thus, the workers’ movement needs to link the struggle for minimum wage with other basic transitional demands that will lift the working people and oppressed people out of poverty. This will mean that the workers’ movement will demand for nationalization of the oil industry under the democratic control of the workers, consumers, community, etc as an alternative to deregulation and the so-called fuel subsidy removal. It will also mean that workers’ movement, rather than acquiescing to the fraudulent bank bailout, which has gulp more than N2.5 trillion of public resources but led to thousands of workers’ layoffs and cut in salaries of those still employed, will demand public takeover of the troubled/bankrupt banks and all the 150 plus defaulting business concerns that run these banks down. Such banks and businesses should be put under democratic and open management and control of the workers. This will mean that trillion being used to bail out the banks (controlled by less than 10 percent of the banking population) will be used for the massive development of the country.[66]

Furthermore, the workers’ movement, while correctly demanding living wage will have to link this with other demands including massive job provision through massive public works (building of new schools and expansion of facilities in existing ones; establishment of new hospitals and expansion of existing ones; massive, environment friendly public housing; massive expansion of integrated transport system – road, rail, water and air; etc) and massive, state planned and controlled industrialization, etc. These demands will not just be raised through mere paper work or propaganda; but they will form the cardinal basis of mass struggles and campaigns of the working people. This in itself will require the workers’ movement reaching out to other oppressed strata and their organizations (students’ and youth movements, peasants’ movements, professional organizations, leftwing and socialist organizations; and progressive civil society). Moreover, it will have to seek to organize the mass of workers together with the aim of uniting them in struggle and deemphasizing what divide them. This will mean campaign for and organizing trade unions for ranks of the armed forces (police, army, etc) with their aim of uniting them with their other workers. This approach to building workers’ movement will transform it from mere trade union to genuine working people’s struggle and liberation platform. This kind of organization and programmes will make workers’ movement to be platform attractable to the ordinary masses on the street.

3.2 The Question of Political Power

However, it will be grand delusion to think that the ruling capitalist class will acquiesce to these demands of workers without bitter struggle. They will fight tooth and nail to defeat workers. Indeed, the capitalist class will utilize all available power within its reach, including violence, to stop this orientation. Even, ordinary intra-class squabble and contentions are being settled using ethno-religious and political violence. You can be rest assured that when the whole basis of capitalist exploitation is at stake, all the various strands of capitalist class will be united in violently resisting this. Therefore, a genuine workers’ movement will know that unless it take over the rein of political power, these programmes can never be implemented by the capitalist class. Based on this, from the beginning, the workers’ movement would have to have as its aim the overthrow of the capitalist class and capitalist system itself. Thus, a genuine workers’ movement will need a mass working people’s party with a clear-cut revolutionary socialist orientation, which will put the aforementioned demands on its front burners, and will aim for a genuine socialist society.

Such a party, which will serve as the political wing of the workers’ movement will unite the working and oppressed people politically from the grassroots to the national level. This kind of party aside leading campaigns and struggles of the working and oppressed people will also have be run democratically with ranks of its members determining its finances, programmes, etc. This kind of party will readily become the abode of the working and oppressed people. Thus, it will be able to organize adequate mass force to overthrow the capitalist class either electorally or through mass revolutionary upheaval (if the capitalist class refuses to relinquish power electorally). These outlined programmes are not formulas to be crammed but a trajectory for working people if they are to truly liberate themselves from the shackles of capitalism; it gives the direction that a genuine labour movement may have to travel if it is to serve as a vehicle of revolutionary transformation of society beyond raising minimum wage as a demand.

But adoption of these programmes within the labour movement as currently organized will require a change of orientation of the labour movement and its leadership. The current form of organization of the labour movement and the pro-capitalist orientation may make someone to conclude that the situation is hopeless or that the aforementioned programmes are mere dreaming. This is not so. While agreeing that the labour movement is currently bureaucratically organized and its leadership pro-capitalist, it is necessary to understand that, as earlier said, the working people are determined to wage struggles for total change, if given a correct political leadership. They are even prepared to bypass the official bureaucracy of the unions whenever they have the power and consciousness that they are being sold out. Secondly, while the pictures painted above about the character of the labour movement are true to the last letter, it does not however mean that there are no genuinely minded labour leaders from the ranks of the workers from the local levels to the national levels. There are definitely many of them.

Unfortunately, as a result of the bureaucratic arrangement of the labour movement coupled with lack of rounded out revolutionary socialist ideological orientation, these individuals (who themselves emerged through this bureaucratic process) hardly find their voices adequately heard. In fact, it is one thing to have genuine mind, it is another thing entirely to have an understanding of the revolutionary and socialist programmes to translate this good mindedness to actions within the labour movement. This is clearly, what is happening. A serious discussion with many of these labour leaders will reveal their acceptance of socialist ideas within the unions. But aside the fact that they are isolated within the whole labour movement leadership, the fear (itself arising from long period of isolation, entrenchment in trade unionism and lack of trust in the rank and file of the working people) of being made scapegoat, has prevented these set of leaders from championing revolutionary programmes within the labour movement. Unless there is serious attempt to mobilize the rank-and-file through mass mobilization, many of these leaders (and several others activists within the labour movement who have had no opportunity to exact their revolutionary and militant enthusiasm on the labour movement) would never be pushed up to take up the historical responsibility.

3.3 Rebuilding the Labour Movement: The role of Left and Socialist forces

How then can this be realized? As said in the short history of the evolution of trade unionist ideology in the labour movement, one of the things that sustained the left leaning leadership of the labour movement was the presence of ideological force of the left and socialist (read in most cases Stalinist) trends. They were able to organize mass campaigns within trade union movements, building networks of radical, left-leaning and militant labour leaders and activists from the grassroots to the national levels. Then, the left forces expanded agitation frontiers of the labour movement through education activities such as ideological classes in factories, workplaces, communities, etc; political programmes; literature publication (including the attempt to translate socialist literature to local dialects) and mass production of newspapers. It is noteworthy that the derailment of these forces was occasioned by their failure to understand that what was practice in the Soviet was nothing but a caricature of genuine; and that the bureaucratic arrangement is a fetter for genuine development of the nationalized centrally planned economy. This fetter actually led to the collapse of Soviet Union, and not any sort of conspiracy theory being propounded by the neo-Stalinists. The collapse of the Soviet (Stalinist) system led to ideological collapse of many a ‘socialists’ and ‘Marxists’. This had untoward effects on the unions, as it strengthened the right wing, pro-capitalist layer. This coupled with the undemocratic and bureaucratic manner in which the unions, especially those under the influence of the Stalinists, gave excuse for the rightwing to entrench themselves in union. Thus, the collapse of the Soviet System also coincided with the complete ideological and political collapse of the labour movement with a total emergence of rightwing pro-capitalist bureaucracy in the unions. While the bureaucracy under the left-wing leadership was at least fighting (still having some douses of militant unionism), the rightwing leadership is totally bureaucratic and irresponsible.

Therefore, to begin the process of restoring the militant and revolutionary content of labour movement, the left forces in the country, have to trace the trajectory of the past, realize the shortcomings and begin the process of rebuilding the labour movement from the base. This will mean that the left and socialist forces, though seriously weak, sparse and unorganized, can start the process of gathering change seeking labour activists and leaders, especially at factory, workplace, shop floor and local levels. This will mean that the current left and socialist forces, despite their varied forms, need to have common minimal programmes within the labour movement. This will include intervention in the struggles of workers from the grassroots to the national level; education among workers which should include political economic and ideological classes; mass propaganda campaign amongst workers and the oppressed strata through newspapers, journals, pamphlets, literatures, etc to counter the capitalist class ideological disorientation of the working and oppressed people. All this should be geared towards reorientation of the labour movement towards revolutionary programmes and socialist ideological orientation with the aim of empowering the rank of file of workers in decision-making process in their unions to annul the power of 'bureaucratism', ‘trade unionist’ theory and pro-capitalist ideological orientation.

More importantly is the need to start the campaign for the formation of revolutionary mass working people’s party that will stand for revolutionary socialist programmes. An important part of such a campaign is the need to lead a serious agitation and wage bitter struggle against the undemocratic Trade Union laws that prevents workers’ movement from forming its own political party or taking political and ideological decisions. Moreover, there must be a campaign for the immediate democratization of party formation in Nigeria, as the current so-called constitution denies the oppressed people the chance to organize independently. For instance, there is no provision for independent candidature in the so-called revised constitution neither is the right to have community, single issue and localized political parties, thus effectively making party formation cumbersome for the working and poor people. While the left and socialist forces must agitate continually and vigorously that the labour movement must lead the campaign and struggle for a democratic constitution making process through convocation of sovereign conference/constituent assembly comprising democratically elected representative of the working people and nationalities, the demand for democratization of the political party process and independent candidature must be made part immediate campaign. This is even necessary for the left and socialist forces to be able to organize politically. For instance, right of independent candidature and right to form community and local political parties place the left and socialist forces in good stead to form parties in collaboration with militant sections within labour movement, which has been won to militant and revolutionary ideas and programmes. For example, teachers’ union in collaboration with pro-labour civil societies can sponsor candidates in local and national elections on issues bothering their welfare and the state of education at local, state and national levels; even, if the purpose is to put such issues in national discourse.

While of course, in a period of revolutionary upheaval, where the question of direct capture of political power is the issue, such minimal campaigns may not be pushed to the background, the reality is that a socialist/revolutionary society will have to democratize electoral and political process, even more than the minimalist programme highlighted here. Moreover, the trajectory of struggle and history themselves are never in straight lines, but a combination of straight lines, zigzags, curves, etc. This implies that the campaign and the struggle for rebuilding and reforming the labour movement in a revolutionary manner, does not mean that there is a one-fix-all solution, or that the whole labour movement can be reformed immediately. On the contrary, it will involve combination of central campaign with different approaches to reaching out to mass of workers from grass roots up to the national level. There will be combination of strategies, and of course, mistakes will be made; but the aim, principle, organization and commitment will sustain the cause.

This put paid to the cynical belief of some leftists and ‘socialists’ (many of whom are found in some imperialist- and state-funded non-governmental organizations) who conclude that because of the depth and width of the problems in the labour movement, the labour movement is not redeemable. Thus a short of eclectic and escapist ideas are enunciated, such as focusing on other segment of the oppressed class like students, unemployed, artisans, peasants, etc; as if these classes can independently stand on their own, without a central role of the organized working class, no matter its numerical strength. This does not mean that these other segments of the oppressed class cannot be organized and mobilized for struggle, or that they cannot even spark the torch of revolution. We have seen many revolts and revolutions such as the French 1968 revolutionary movement, and even now the revolutionary movements in Middle East and North Africa, where the youth and middle class started the revolutionary actions. However, without a working class revolutionary leadership, either such movement will end in defeat or at best, the society created after it will be short of a genuine alternative that the one needed.

Although, some of these steps are currently being taken by some left and socialist organizations, but this need to be systematized and organized. The independent task of each organization is central to the realization of these programmes, but a minimal collaboration/network of these organizations that does not infringe on the rights of each organization to work independently is needed. This does not infringe on the rights and indeed duty of these organizations to undertake polemics within the coalition up to the level of commenting on other organizations’ programmes, policies and ideological stands; and even to review the programmes and orientation of such formed network/platform, not with the aim of destroying it but of firming it up. This brings to focus such platform as the Joint Action Front (the civil society arm of Labour and Civil Society Coalition, LASCO), which though started as a broad platform of pro-labour civil society groups and NGOs but has grown to be under the influence of left and socialist trends.

This platform that was organized as the civil society plank of labour to fight fuel price hikes of the various civilian regimes, need to grow beyond merely being a partner of labour movement during some struggles, but must combine this with independently organizing in the labour movement, especially by going to the ranks of the members of unions. For instance, there is need to form a left or more aptly a socialist trade union network that will aim towards mobilizing change seeking, militant and fighting elements amongst labour activists and leaders, especially from the grassroots, workplaces, local and state levels, for revolutionary programmes of the left and socialist forces. Such programmes include return of mass education in the labour movement, democratization of decision making in the labour movement [67], campaign for holistic revolutionary programmes and for a mass working people’s party. This will mean that the JAF or any other platform formed by serious-minded socialist and left forces needs to be transformed to a minimal left/socialist platform, which should be built at the local and state levels. This will mean co-opting student and youth activists, radical left workers, activists, community campaigners, etc into campaigns and programmes planned and organized by this platform. Thus, the platform must serve as fighting platform from grassroots to the national levels while also playing a front of the left to enter the trade union through mass campaign among workers for opening of the labour movement for democratic revolutionary programmes.

However, these analyses seem to brush aside the limitations of many of these left/socialist organizations and activists. Many are sectarian while many others are merely insincere; which is aside the ideological limitation of many of these left forces. For instance, most of the left organizations are small but they want to pretend big thus making them to propose exaggerated programmes that are many times unachievable by the collective left platform – programmes that they will play little roles in. In addition, there is a level of pouching and unwarranted opportunism as some organizations will prefer to shipwreck the collective platform if they do not have the best gain (in terms of influence, etc).

Some of these organizations also play some treacherous role, especially in the labour movement. Aside believing in utilizing the bureaucratic apparatus of the union to get some leadership posts in the labour movement, which may be justifiable at some times (but does not substitute for genuine democracy in the unions), they substitute this for revolutionary and democratic union organization. They see their positions as an end in itself. Instead of using their status to raise revolutionary campaigns within the labour movement, they prefer to play the good boys in the union bureaucracy with the aim of maintaining their positions. This they premise on a false argument that when they get to the uppermost layer in the labour leadership, they can make adequate changes. This is only a simpleton argument, as they would have to compromise their ideologies, programmes and identity to get up the ladder of labour movement’s bureaucracy. In the real sense, what they look for is favour and perks of office so as to be comfortable while also claiming allegiance to the socialist/left movement. This petty bourgeois idea only deny the left forces of opportunity to make necessary and possible changes in the labour movement while also disorienting the labour movement.

These are even better when compared with clearly treacherous character of some organizations which prefer to work within workers’ movement but at the same time seek the easiest way out of crisis of capitalism by building alliances with bourgeois politicians they falsely give the tag of progressives. This neo-Stalinist method only disorientate the left forces and indeed the labour movement; aside making it possible for the ruling class to infiltrate the left forces but also inhibit the left movement from moving forward and disorientating the younger layer in the left and socialist movement. This method killed the students’ movement today. The adherence to Stalinism by some leftists is also a cause of concern, as this has the tendency of developing bureaucratism in left movement itself.

Despite all this shortcomings, the left forces can still find minimal point of convergence, while appreciating the limitations of each other, not to cause schism in the movement but to seek to clarify ideas and programmes especially amongst the younger layers of these movement. This will mean that the left forces need to build a federalist approach to building a popular front.

For the mass of working people, youths and oppressed people in general, in Nigeria, Africa and indeed the world, that global capitalism cannot move humanity forward is an historical fact. The challenge now is to build a genuine working class and oppressed people platform that can serve as a rallying point for revolutionary socialist change. This is what this essay is pointing us to, by using the current struggle engagement of the workers especially the minimum wage struggle as a starting point. While the writer believes in the ideas put forward in the text, he is however open to serious criticism and discussion, as himself a budding student in the revolutionary school is in the process of learning and practicing.

APPENDIX

Anti-Fuel Price Hike Uprising and the Task of Building a Revolutionary Labour Movement[68]

As one is writing this piece, the leadership of the labour movement in Nigeria is being bathe with unprecedented venom and angst by the working and poor people who had risked their lives to combat the iniquitous fuel price hike from N65 to as high as N150 by the Goodluck Jonathan regime. The Nigerian government, on first of January 2012, suddenly announced hike in pump price of petrol, a staple fuel for majority of Nigerians. Although the government had made its intention of removing a so-called ‘subsidy’ on petrol since mid-2011 known, but the public was made to believe that the policy would start taking effect in April, when the 2012 fiscal year should start. Therefore, a sudden increase of petrol price on a festive January 1 indeed demonstrated the irresponsibility of the capitalist government, which cares less about the welfare of its citizens. This sudden New Year gift drew the ire of many Nigerians, some of whom previously had some illusions in the government. Nigerian government predicated the obnoxious fuel price hike on its so-called deregulation policy – in reality, an attempt to hand over the fate of tens of millions of poor Nigerians, and indeed the Nigerian economy to the profit-oriented caprices of handful big businesses, multinational corporations and international capitalism.

The Emergent Revolutionary Potentials

Nigerians from all works of life rose in unison to reject the policy. The labour movement leadership (in NLC and TUC), which despite its questionable support for neo-liberal policies of privatization, commercialization and deregulation, itself was piqued by the increase. Consequently, as a result of its historical opposition to fuel price hike, the labour movement under NLC and TUC had to declare a national strike which, even against its own expectation was simply turned to an uprising by the mass of workers, youths and the oppressed in general. Indeed, Nigeria underwent what can be termed a pre-revolutionary situation within the one-week strike and mass protests, as millions of working class, youths, professionals, even ranks of the armed forces; indeed the oppressed people (save for some handful confused few) took to the streets to challenge the legitimacy of the capitalist Goodluck Jonathan government. Of course, there had been protests before the strike was declared, the declaration of the strike only opened up a flurry of bottled up fury within the working and oppressed people.

Mass of workers, youths and the oppressed people in Nigeria rejected not only attempt at eroding their living standards through the fraudulent fuel price hike, but also demanded the end of regime of corruption and perfidy. Unconsciously, and to some extent consciously, they were raising the banner of revolution and a working people’s government. In fact, they were challenging the foundation of capitalism. To many it is opportunity to enact Nigeria’s version of Arab Spring and to others, it is Occupy Nigeria. From the central Lagos to the metropolis of Kano, millions of youths, workers, artisans, peasants, petty traders, pensioners, old people, teens, etc trooped to the streets to demand for better living conditions. Barricades were set up; protests organized even in the remotest communities of the country while there were independent organizations by the working people to defend the movement.[69] Unfortunately, the labour movement leadership, in a compromising manner for which it is known, called off the mass protests and strikes at the peak of mass consciousness and radicalization across the country after a week of mass uprising.

Central to the effective organization of these protests and strike is the Joint-Action Front (JAF), a coalition of pro-labour socialist and left groups, working with labour movement in Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO). This point is vital, as there have been attempts to portray the mass uprising as the efforts of some bourgeois opponents of Jonathan government organized in such platforms as Save Nigeria Group (SNG); Enough is Enough Group, etc. These groups are not fundamentally different from the regime being combated in terms of ideology, programmes and policies. More than this, the Joint-Action Front (JAF) had been putting consistent pressure on the labour movement to take action against fuel price hike and other neo-liberal policies. The group (JAF) has been very active in its opposition to all the anti-poor policies of the government, and actually organized series of protests since December against the planned fuel price hike. Interestingly, it was after labour movement declared national general strike and protests that the bourgeois ‘oppositionists’ woke up from their slumber to revolutionaries.

Just as revolutionaries have opined, revolutions are many times, ignited not by masses deliberately fighting for socialism but by seemingly simple issues that impact directly on their living conditions. For many, they could not believe it was the same Jonathan that told them he had no shoes as a child; the meek Goodluck. While it can be argued that the mass uprising against the hike in fuel (petrol) pump price did not provide a rounded-out revolutionary situation, it has however provided a platform upon which can be built the foundation of the imminent revolution. Indeed, had the labour leadership stayed the course a little while, the contradictions, especially within the ruling class would have been sharper, with possible crack occurring even within the armed forces[70]. At this point, it would have been difficult to reverse the revolutionary course, or botch it the way it was stabbed in the back by the labour leaders. At such moment, the questions would have been what kind of programmes and demands are needed to accomplish the revolution; what platform is leading the revolution, and in what direction. However, no step taken in a revolutionary course is lost; at the least, it provides a basis from which the masses will further the revolutionary course in subsequent period, as the contradictions and crises of capitalism can only get worse.

For the record, such a revolution that must liberate Nigeria must as a necessity lead to overthrow of neo-colonial capitalism, and enthrone a democratic socialist society, if the society must move forward on a long-term basis. This should start with the call for the immediate takeover of the oil and gas sector away from the hands of the few capitalist profiteers and their international finance capitalist patrons, and put it under the democratic public ownership of the society. This will free up resources needed to provide better living conditions for the mass of people, and offer opportunity to liberate and develop other resources and sectors of the economy including the vital ones like agriculture, iron and steel, transportation, social services, etc.

The mass revolt against fuel price hike, while underscoring the revolutionary potential in Nigeria, has again shown that only a fighting working class leadership, linking the fundamental demands of its class with that of other oppressed strata and challenging the foundation of capitalism in Nigeria, can liberate the society. Surely, this struggle, even if suspended has removed the veil that Nigerians cannot revolt; it has shown to the masses that they can rally to defeat government. Despite Jonathan’s obstinacy at the start, it was forced by mass movement to reverse itself and reduce the hike from N145 to N97 (49 percent increase). Had the masses been held back by the carrot of never-ending negotiation being thrown by the government, this gain no matter how little (or short-lived it may be) would not have been won. More than this, it is glaring that the Jonathan capitalist government has indeed unleashed the dragon of mass movement, which will consume both the capitalist governments and the iniquitous neo-colonial capitalist system they superintend. The militarization of epicentres of the uprising, especially Lagos and Kano – which shows the weakness of the regime than its strength – has again revealed that liberal capitalist governments are only democratic when the interests of their class are protected. However, they will be fiercely terroristic and fascistic[71], even more than military rules, when the interests of their class is threatened by the organized struggle of mass of working and oppressed.

Fuel Price Hike: Subsidy to the Rich through More Brutal Means

While the fuel price hike affects virtually every stratum of the poor and even the middle class, it clearly is not in the end, a fundamental attack on the foundation of neo-colonial capitalism. The removal of the so-called subsidy on fuel price does not really mean that the looters and the capitalist class will lose their sources of wealth neither will it end exploitation of the working and oppressed people. It only provides crueler opportunity for different sections of the capitalist class to gain more wealth in the bazaar; while also giving the oil importers, their bank underwriters, political backers, multinational oil refiners, transporters (shipping companies and fuel transporting companies like the Dangote Transport), etc the chance to further impoverish the poor through direct exploitation.

Government claimed in its propaganda that over N1.6 trillion was used to subsidize fuel price in 2011 alone (an amount that has been exposed to be sheers fraud as shown below), the removal of this amount will not translate to improved spending on the local economy or public infrastructures. A ready example is the billions of naira spent on so-called one thousand, six hundred (1600) units of public buses purchased to hoodwink the masses into accepting the obnoxious fuel price hike. The project only provided opportunity for big businesses in importation, banking and insurance, shipping; and multinational car manufacturers, etc, who will be behind the procurement of these vehicles, to make swift profits. The fact is that the project is worse than a token, as the best a local government can get is just two buses. In addition, the cost of maintenance of the vehicle in an import economy is enough to kill off the business of poor transporters who will access these vehicles e.g. the buses are diesel engine, which will cost money in terms of fueling than even a petrol engine vehicle. This will mean high (if not higher) cost of transport for poor people. In the final analysis, the so-called money to be saved will find their ways to the private accounts of big businesses and the corrupt politicians. The so-called subsidy removal will not translate to building of new refineries to process local fuel demands; neither will it mean free, quality education at all levels or quality and free healthcare for the majority poor who do not have access to these services.

Furthermore, if the government is forced to return the fuel price to its pre-January 1, 2012 level; while it will bring some relief for the suffering and poor masses, it only implies that the nation’s wealth will be used to subsidize the profit of the oil importers, bankers, transporters, multinational oil corporations, etc, albeit through dubious means. On the other hand, the remaining sections of the capitalist class will either find themselves in other means of wealth looting from the national treasury (or sweat of the working people) or create a role for themselves in the fuel subsidy racket.

The fuel price hike only reveals the crudely backward and self-centred nature of the Nigerian capitalist class (in both politics and big business). The capitalists only care about the immediate profits and wealth to be acquired than any long-term investment. It is a clear fact that Nigeria’s economy is a road economy as virtually all economic activities are facilitated through road transportation. Since the nation’s flag independence, Nigerian governments have only paved less than 1400 km of rail tracks( which aside being less than just 10 percent of the required rail track is indeed archaic) while inland water transport system has been abandoned. In fact, the road transport itself aside being grossly inadequate is dangerously archaic and underdeveloped. Thus, virtually every means of transportation is centred on the road. Worse still, there is no organized mass transit system by the Nigerian governments as a way of minimizing the crisis in the transport system in general.[72] Therefore, increment in fuel price, which will lead to hike in cost of transport will also mean increasing cost of living for the majority poor, who constitute more than 80 percent of the population[73].

This in itself will worsen the low purchasing power of the majority of the population, which for productive capitalists will mean lower markets and fall in business activities. For a serious minded political class, it will implies reversal of any developmental effort of government as many people will lose jobs or unable to maintain an average living conditions. For a country already bedeviled with high rate of unemployment and insecurity, the hike in fuel price will just mean a collapse of the country’s social fabrics, as more people will vent their frustration and anger against the society through various violent means – ethno-religious and communal strife, violent crimes, etc. This is clear reality when viewed against the background that already, the income of the majority poor has shrunk due to collapse of the basic social facilities – electricity, transport, etc, coupled with chronic underfunding and commercialization/privatization of social services like education, healthcare, water supply, etc. Even the minimum wage fought for by workers has not been implemented in either the private or public sector. Where marginal increases have been added to workers’ wages due to bitter struggles of workers, the capitalist class in both public and private sectors have clawed these gains back through various means, especially taxes. Therefore, even to the blind, the hike in fuel price is a sure road to disaster for the country.

Role of State Governments and Opposition Parties

Indeed, the fuel price hike is itself one of the major efforts of the capitalist class to claw back the very token concession it was forced to give to workers’ wage. This explains why the state governments were not opposed to the fuel price hike. Indeed, all of them, including those from the so-called opposition political parties supported the fuel price hike because it will provide them with quick, unmerited wealth – not to be expended in improving social infrastructure, but in servicing their own local capitalist class’ interests. Interestingly, the major opposition political party, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), even played a treacherous politics on the issue. While the party claimed that it is opposed to the ‘timing’ (not the policy) of fuel price increase, many of its state governors supported the policy. Indeed, its governors, Babatunde Fashola and Adams Oshiomhole of Lagos and Edo State respectively were major promoters of the obnoxious fuel price hike. Other ACN governors like Rauf Aregbesola and Kayode Fayemi of Osun and Ekiti States respectively only made an about face when they saw the unprecedented fury of mass of people. In fact, it was Fayemi that first propagated the idea of removal of subsidy (i.e. hike in fuel price) as a condition for the implementation of N18, 000 minimum wage. Worse still, none of the ACN states implemented fully the minimum wages.

Moreover, the party, ACN believes in all neo-liberal policies being implemented by the PDP-led Jonathan government. Where they have opportunity, they used state machinery to implement these policies. For instance, the Lagos State government recently introduced criminal and fraudulent toll collection on a public road in Lekki-Epe under the guise of road concessioning to a crony private company. When the people protested, the Fashola government only employed the armed security forces and fascist elements to attack the protesters. Furthermore, the state government criminally hiked fees in the only state owned university, LASU by almost 750 percents to an average of N200, 000. When the students and their parents protested, the government went ahead to close down the institution, militarize it, and undemocratically banned the student union of the institution. Had this kind of party being in control of national government, it would have introduced these neo-liberal policies, if not in much more ruthless manner. Therefore, Fashola/ACN government opposition to military occupation of Lagos is mere grandstanding.

Other state governments (in other political parties) not only supported the policy, but also in many instances, like in the southeast and south-south regions, actively aided the Jonathan government in attacking and repressing the mass uprising against the policy. This however, does not mean at a time of sharper class conflict, when the capitalist governments are threatened (e.g. if Jonathan government took to brazen repression), the rank of the capitalist politicians may not break, as some, in defence of their privileges or in order to profit from the crisis, may oppose the central government. This is what happened when Nigeria's national assembly, fearful of possible mass revolt that will follow the fuel price increase tried so save the regime. Thus, the emergency plenary session of the House of Representative called for Sunday, 8 January 2012 (a day before the commencement of the national strike and mass protests), rejecting the hike in fuel price; and the subsequent Senate sitting same week calling for reversal of the policy were not accidental. They reflect the growing schism within the ruling class. Interestingly, it was the same national assembly leadership, which negotiated the new fuel price increase with the labour movement on behalf of the Jonathan government; so much for capitalist democracy.

Fuel Price Hike: A Reflection of Nigeria’s Backward Neo-Colonial Capitalist Class

Since 1999, Nigeria has earned nothing less than $300 billion from oil royalty, but less than ten percent of this amount is enough to develop the oil and gas sector to the extent of not only self-sufficiency but also exportation of refined products (more than 40) and applied products. With modern mass train system, waterways and integrated road network, it will be possible to make the oil and gas industry serves the people. It will surely spur other sectors of economy and even the private businesses, even if this will mean exploitation of the working people – a situation that will produce its own contradictions later of course.

However, it will be illusory to expect the current capitalist class in Nigeria to undertake a developmental approach to economic affair. Indeed, with the above painted picture, the capitalist class, even on a capitalist basis should have utilized state resources to undertaken mass programme of developing infrastructures and social services with the aim of spurring mass purchasing power and private businesses. This is even easier in Nigeria as a very cheap source of wealth represented by the huge availability of oil and gas, may minimize the taxing of the rich to undertake these projects, as against what was witnessed in Western Europe during the welfare state era (the golden era of capitalism), as capitalist big businesses were taxed to reboot capitalism. The Nigerian capitalist class is clearly unproductive and backward. It is mere transmitter of global imperial capitalism, and not an averagely independent political economic class. Since the flag independence, the capitalist class in Nigeria, (both political and big business sections) has been mere vassal of global imperialist capitalism. Investment in mass infrastructures like road, rail, waterways, etc and developing the vital sector of the nation’s economy like oil and gas, minerals, iron and steel, power generation, etc will mean that the capitalist class will have to forgo immediate huge wealth accumulation for long term investment.

This is exactly what Nigerian capitalist class is not prepared to do. Aside this, the Nigeria’s political and economic capitalists are not prepared to challenge their imperialist masters in Western Europe. For instance, how will investment in oil exploration and refining favour multinational oil corporations operating in Nigeria – Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, etc, who control the oil and gas industry in Nigeria? Indeed, the global capitalist forces, will wage bitter struggles against the Nigeria's capitalist class, and of course isolate it. This will mean that the Nigeria’s capitalist class will play the role of a rebel in global capitalist system; which in itself will require Nigeria’s capitalist class relying on the mass of working and oppressed people. This is indeed a tall dream for Nigeria’s capitalist class, which it never dreamt of undertaking, as this even threatens their own privileges. Therefore, it prefers to tie itself to the apron string of global imperialist capitalism. Moreover, for global capitalism, this is not an era of ‘progressive capitalism’ but that of a clear-cut neo-liberal phase of unhindered exploitation of the working people and accumulation of super-profits – a project spearheaded by the global finance capital with its unprecedented profit speculation.[74] This is underlined by the huge support the imperialist governments gave to the decision to hike fuel price by the Nigerian government[75]. This understanding is fundamental in knowing how to fight against the obnoxious policy of fuel price deregulation.

Fuel Subsidy: A deliberate swindle of the poor

Nothing underlines the backward and unproductive nature of Nigeria’s capitalist class than this issue of subsidy and fuel price hike. The Nigerian capitalist government predicated the hike in fuel price on the need to stop the financial hemorrhaging of the country through the subsidy paid on petrol price. According to government sources, over N3.6 trillion has been spent on fuel subsidy since 2006. However, according to various analyses and information, this subsidy has been nothing but pure fraud. In the first instance, Nigeria’s state owned oil corporation, NNPC has an installed capacity to refine 450, 000 barrels of crude oil per day; this is about 50 percent of national consumption of petrol (aside other fuel products like kerosene, diesel, etc). However, this has reduced drastically to mere 170, 000 refining capacity as a result of the deliberate collapse of the refineries, as hundreds of billions budgeted for the maintenance of the refineries have not yielded any basic result while none of those responsible for this racket have been brought to book; even if for mere window dressing. This in itself is a reflection of the deep-level connection of virtually every facet of Nigeria’s economic and political class to the rackets and looting in the oil industry.[76] Worse still, the remnant of the NNPC’s allocated crude oil is also a mean to shortchange the country. The remaining 280, 000 barrels are just allocated to foreign refineries, even in West Africa to refine and bring refine petrol. No account of the price of refining or other products refined from the crude; it is only byzantine barter system! This implies that the Nigerian capitalist class (and its so-called ‘technocrats’) have no clue on how to run the economy even on a capitalist basis, and they care less for that – inasmuch as their pecuniary interests are satisfied, Nigerian economy can simply collapse.

If the refineries have been collapsed, is it also too much for NNPC to directly import the fuel need of the country instead of handing it over to middlemen under the guise of importers. At least, if NNPC is importing the fuel need of the country, the question of handing over public resources to a few fuel importers will not arise in the first instance. Already the Obasanjo government had cancelled custom tax on imported fuel by the middlemen since 2002, thus subsidizing their unhindered wealth accumulation. However, expecting government to undertake this task is assuming that the capitalist government is not acting on behalf of this cabal of importers, their bank underwriters, shippers, local transporters, military supremacists, corrupt government officials, etc, who actually supported/propped up this government. What underscore this than the fact that in 2011 alone, the number of importers increased from around twenty in 2010 to more than hundred (including construction and portfolio companies)? This is not unexpected; in 2009 and 2010, only around N260 billion was used to subsidize fuel, but by 2011, the subsidy cost had grown to over N1.6 trillion!

This fraud was justified by the Finance Minister, Okonjo-Iweala (an expatriate from World Bank) on the increased demand for petrol (put around 35 million liters a day), ‘subsidy’ on kerosene (when the price of the same kerosene had been deregulated since 2010) and the high cost of crude oil price in the international market. These excuses clearly highlight the fact that despite the so-called ‘technocratic’ credentials of these agents of imperialism, they are clearly as fraudulent and corrupt as their local/home-based colleagues-in-fraud is. In fact, they are their intellectual backbone. On the first excuse, the average fuel consumption has been exaggeratedly put around 35 million liters/day since 2010. Where then is the fundamental consumption increase that would have justified the sudden over 600 percents hike in subsidy cost within a space of one year[77]. What fundamental economic development has the country witnessed that would have warranted such increase in consumption up to five folds? Ironically, the last one year has seen further deindustrialization being witnessed since the emergence of the civilian rule with over 800, 000 thousand jobs officially lost in the economy, especially in private sector in 2011 alone according to the statistics bureau.

In 2007 when the crude oil prices in the global speculation market rose to as high as $147 per barrel, government did not spend up N260 billion on subsidies (including subsidy on kerosene). Why has this now turned around such that at around $110 per barrel, Nigeria is paying in multiples, amount for subsidy in 2011; more so that the deliberately devalued exchange rate is has not witnessed up to 20 percent rise within the same periods under review? This is coming on the heel of the revelations at the House of Reps hearing that there is over-shooting of the nation’s fuel consumption by over 24 million liters/day by government officials and agencies. Going by this revelation alone, it means that the so-called subsidy is officially inflated by over 68 percent. This is aside the fact that the subsidy itself is a deliberate fraud meant to satiate the profit quest of Nigeria’s unproductive capitalist class. As said earlier, none of those involved in gargantuan rackets has been brought to book; on the contrary, you have the Nigerian government officials, including Okonjo-Iweala justifying the racket and shielding the fraudsters. To show how deeply connected these people are, these big business in the oil rackets are given national awards. In fact, government officials warn us to stop accusing these people, because if they get angry, we will be worse off for it (through economic sabotage)![78] Indeed, despite the huge revelations on the subsidy racket, Nigerian president, when challenged in an interview with AFP journalists on 25th January, 2012, claimed that since nobody has been indicted, he could not have punished anybody. The journalists would have forgotten to ask him who is expected to indict whom[79]. Surely, the last has not been heard from this gargantuan swindle.

Government and its Fraudulent Deregulation Mantra

A major argument of the government to justify obnoxious attack on people’s living condition is that private investors are not ‘motivated’ to investment in oil refining because the price of fuel is not competitive, as the investors will run at loss if they are not allowed to suck the poor dry. This is the same argument used to hike electricity tariff and plan the sale of the national electricity utility company, PHCN to the so-called private investor, even when over $20 billion has been reported looted through this sector alone by combination of politicians in power and big business.

This is firstly a clear case of irresponsibility as the government has refused to answer the question of why government failed to refurbish the state owned refineries and build new ones, with the unprecedented wealth in the nation’s coffer even since 2009 alone. Assuming without conceding that the so-called investors are even prepared to undertake long-term investment; why can’t government, at worst subsidize the price of their refined products for Nigerians, the same way it is subsidizing fuel importation? The reality is that Nigeria’s capitalist economic class is not cut for long-term investment; it prefers to feed parasitically on state resources and infrastructures. This is why it is easy for capitalists to buy government’s enterprises, corporations and infrastructures at token, where they can easily make short-term profits without contributing anything fundamental to their improvement.

This explains why capitalist investors under the Bluestar Consortium preferred to buy NNPC at rock bottom prices[80] than investing directly in oil refining. Interestingly, many of the portfolio “investors” in this failed privatization racket are now involved in oil importing fraud (and other fraudulent economic hemorrhaging). For those corporations that have been sold out, it has been tales of woes for the country and its working people. For instance, according to Nigeria’s vice president, Namadi Sambo (who also superintend over the privatization racket), over 80 percent of privatized firms have failed. Where it is impossible to buy or compete with state firms, they simply run aground such firms with the sole purpose of feasting on their carcasses and turning Nigerians to their slaves. This is the story of the NNPC (which cannot fully importing the nation’s fuel need, not to mention refining) and several other state owned enterprises like NITEL, Steel rolling and iron smelting companies, national carrier, among several others.

In the real sense, what Nigerian capitalist government wants to do is to hand over the fate of Nigerians to the profit decision of few capitalist big business and multinational corporations and not to encourage the so-called investors. Assuming without conceding that these private refineries are built, they will merely be conduit pipes for direct looting of the nation’s wealth. This is even truer when view against the background that fossil fuel is central to Nigeria’s economy. They set of vampire capitalists will simply hold the people by the jugular, the same way the oil importers have become monsters for Nigeria. For instance, if private refineries are built, and government subsidizes fuel prices (i.e. government subsidizes their profits from the nation’s wealth), this will only provide huge opportunity to loot the country dry. On the other hand, if government ‘liberalizes’ the price regime for private investors, it will be like a house security operative securing an open gate of a house to armed robbers to freely carry out their heinous acts on the household.

Deregulation: The Case of Telecommunication Sector

The fraudulent argument that deregulation will allow competition has witnessed in some other sectors such as telecommunication is to say the least one sided. While it is true that many people now have access to telecommunication service than when the state owned Telecom Corporation, NITEL was in monopoly of telecommunication; the reality is that it was a global phenomenon. Global capitalism, in search of cheap means of production, had to develop science constantly with a view to gain as much profit as possible, with of course its own contradiction. The mobile telecommunication business is far cheaper to set up, and it involves lesser risk and capital, with higher and faster rate of profits unlike fixed wire telecommunication that requires higher capital outlay and longer incubation period for profit (though more reliable). Therefore, capitalist big business will explore any part of the world with such technology in order to gain huge wealth. Nigeria, just like several other African countries could not have been an exception. Even if the telecommunication is not liberalized, mobile telecommunication will still enter Nigeria. Of course, this may be at slower rate than currently witnessed, but the exploitation of the working people with this technology will still be the same. In the real sense, the so-called state owned Telecoms Company, NITEL had long been privatized, as its undemocratically appointed management and officials (comprising private-oriented politicians and capitalist technocrats) have turned it into their private cash cow, hiding under state ownership.

More than this, the private telecom companies only thrived on the carcass of the state owned telecom company, NITEL that was destroyed by bureaucratically appointed government officials (and technocrats). Interestingly, those who mismanaged this enterprise and their collaborators are the ones behind the private telecom companies (sitting on their boards, or serving as their advisors, technical partners and investors). While it is agreed that communication service under the state enterprise was made elitists and ineffective, it is clear that this is a product of the capitalistic and undemocratic manner of running it[81], and not a product of non-viability of state enterprises. Indeed, to underline the fact that this corporation was killed for private businesses, the private telecom companies are reported to owe NITEL over N80 billion unpaid fees for use of its facilities. In addition, a Nigerian Senate Committee on Communication hearing on NITEL crisis in 2009 revealed how the corporation was serious run down and shortchanged by both private telecom companies and investors brought to buy and manage it.

Furthermore, despite the five-year tax holiday given to these private telecoms companies, the cost of making call in Nigeria is one of the highest in the world. Yet, the excuse of high cost of doing business as the basis for high cost of their services has not stopped these private telecoms companies from making unprecedented profits running to hundreds of billions of dollars, while they employ less than less than one percent of the nation’s workforce. Worst still, most of these private businesses hardly keep their profits in the country, but simply export them, while most of the technologies are also imported, thus contributing to the negative economic balance of trade of the country. Even, some of the telecom companies prefer to import its workers from other countries! The same story applies to many other sectors. It is worth stating that, if this can happen in a less capital-intensive sector like mobile telecommunication, you can just imagine what will happen in a capital-intensive sector like oil refining.

In the real sense, deregulation is not meant to move Nigeria forward or provide choices for Nigerians but actually to hand over Nigerians to the hands of capitalist sharks. The working class alternative to the rot in the telecommunication would be that the state owned corporation be developed and run on a democratic basis with workers (of the corporation and associated agencies), consumers and communities make input how this corporation is run. With the account books made open for all to see, its management officials paid as skilled workers, and put under public scrutiny, the state owned entity could be made to work efficiently. More than this, the corporation’s aim should be to provide standard telecommunication to the people at cheapest rate, with the aim of serving as tool to develop the country; and not to make profit for few individuals and private concerns under fraudulent public private arrangement. It is on this basis that all facets of telecommunication including fixed and mobile telecommunications, and information communication and technology, can be developed all together, as against the current arrangement in which fixed wire telecommunication is killed for mobile telecommunication, because the latter is more lucrative for the big business.

Going Beyond the Petty Bourgeois Arguments; For Public Ownership of the Oil Industry

We go to this extent to underline the fact that Nigeria can never break even in this kind of neo-colonial arrangement. When Nigerians are fighting against fuel price hike, they should know that what they are actually fighting is a behemoth monster of neo-colonial capitalist robbers. This is necessary because many Nigerians have been made to believe that deregulation or subsidy removal is good, only that government must fight corruption or that it was the timing was wrong or that we only need timetable for the subsidy removal, and all those sorts of funny arguments. The best of the argument is that government should fix our refineries, roads and other infrastructures and fight corruption before deregulating and removing the subsidy (this is the argument of the labour leaders)[82]. These demands are clearly unrealistic as they sound like asking hardened armed robbers to prosecute themselves or hand over looted wealth to their victims. Moreover, there is no way you can support deregulation in the oil industry and oppose it in other sectors of the economy. If you say government should develop education, it will tell you in the spirit of deregulation and public private partnership; it will give the private sector the necessary backing to do this. Therefore, deregulation is one of the neo-liberal policies meant to super-exploit the working people and extract mega-profits from them, without any hindrance.

Even if fuel prices are reversed to its pre-January 1, 2012 price regime, while it will give some respites to the impoverished working people, it will not stop the capitalist class from looting the nation’s wealth or attacking the working people’s living conditions. Unless the oil and gas industry is put under the democratic public ownership of the working and oppressed people, where there will be planning on how to use the mineral to provide all the basic needs of the people and also develop the economy, the poor people will continually be duped. Democratic public ownership means that the management of the oil wealth will be determined by the working people, consumers, host communities, relevant professional groups, and Nigerians organized across the country. This will mean huge wealth locked up in the private accounts of multinational corporations, fuel importers, etc will be used to provide free and high quality education and health; mass public works to provide millions of decent and secure jobs for all able bodied Nigerians; among others. Without doing this, we will only be moving in a vicious cycle.

Arguing for a Working and Poor People’s Political Voice

However, this task cannot be undertaken by the current set of capitalist politicians, who actually are a gang of capitalists seconded by the capitalist class to insure the interests of their colleagues in big business. This will require taking over of political power by the working and oppressed people and redirecting the economy in the interests of the oppressed people. This will mean putting the mainstay of the economy under the democratic and public ownership of the society, which will provide opportunity to plan democratically for the society. This emphasizes the need for a working people’s political party with a clearly democratic and revolutionary socialist orientation, which will serve as a political fighting banner of the working and oppressed people from grassroots to the national level. Such a party will not only be an electoral platform, but one that will advance the interests of the people from the grassroots to the national level, leading mass campaigns against anti-poor policies at all levels.

This party, if formed on socialist programmes, will consistently, tenaciously campaign, and fight against all anti-poor capitalist policies of privatization, commercialization, deregulation, devaluation, huge salaries for politicians, etc. On the contrary, it will stand for public ownership of the mainstay of the economy, and the resources of the country (mineral, natural, human and monetary), which will be run and utilized on the basis of democratic planning by working people and oppressed people from grassroots to the national level. It will demand a sovereign national conference of democratically elected representatives of the working people, peasants, artisans, professional groups, youth and students, ethnic nationalities, etc to discuss on the nationality question and the socio-economic and political orientations of the country. This is the only way to put ultimately end to mass suffering in the midst of super-abundance. Unless this is done, the labour movement will find itself boxed into a corner and continue to disappoint people either on the short run or on long run.

More than this, such a party will have to take an internationalist orientation of fraternal relations with working and oppressed people in not only Africa, but also indeed the whole world, with a view to championing revolutionary movements in these countries. This is necessary, as a socialist Nigeria cannot exist in isolation, in an ocean of brutal capitalist regimes across the world. Surely, other capitalist governments, especially in the centres of global, imperialist capitalism, will not sit back and watch working people in Nigeria, provide example to the working people of their countries. They will wage bitter struggles, using subtle, covert and overt means to subvert the revolution. This will therefore require Nigerian working people and its revolutionary government to make link with working people in other countries, with a view to not only encourage them to stop their capitalist governments from attacking Nigeria’s revolutionary government, but also to support their efforts to overthrow their own capitalist regimes and enthrone a genuine socialist governments. It need to be stressed that the impact of global resistance against the capitalist class from the Arab world to the epicentres of global capitalism played a role in arousing the revolutionary mode witnessed in the one-week mass uprising. Surely, Nigeria’s movement will also inspire other movements across Africa and indeed the third world.[83]

The Pro-capitalist and Anti-revolutionary Character of the Labour Movement Leadership

The failure of rounded out revolutionary approach, coupled with the ruinous bureaucracy in the labour movement is the underlining cause of the treacherous compromise of the labour leadership in the fuel price struggle. In the first instance, the labour leaderships (both TUC and NLC) are not opposed to privatization and deregulation as policies. Of course, a cursory look at various press statements of NLC on the issue of fuel subsidy reveal some form of opposition to the fuel price hike; but on the basis of support for deregulation, the labour movement has already shot itself in the leg. Moreover, arising from this is the fact that the labour leadership that support neo-liberalism and capitalism will not be prepared to challenge the status quo to a point in which it will be threaten with a revolution. This is underlined by the deliberate attempt of the labour leadership to avoid disrupting the source of wealth for imperialism – stoppage of flow stations. The oil workers’ union (PENGASSAN) had belatedly threatened to shut down the flow station if the strike persisted until second week; but this was refuted by the NLC president, Abdul-Waheed Omar, after a weekend parley with government.

Had the flow stations had been shut, it would have led to rise in crude oil price in the international speculation market and reduction in crude export, which would not only forced Jonathan government to immediately concede in order not to incur the wrath of its imperialist backers. Had the Jonathan government went ahead with mass repression (possibly through emergency rule); this would have raised the specter of real revolution as this will push more people to the streets. The volte-face of the labour leadership is not accidental or mistake but a clear understanding of what is at stake if the shut down should take place. It is not accidental that the labour leaders, while suspending the protests, maintained that it did not advocate a ‘regime change’. This is meant to assure the Jonathan government that it is not threatened. This statement was issued at a time when government had already killed score of people.

The capitalist class is not foolish; based on compromising pro-capitalist ideological orientation of the labour leadership, the capitalist class only needs to corrupt the labour leadership, and make it to operate within the precinct of trade unionism. This will mean involving the labour leadership is committees to implement these anti-poor policies. For instance, the labour leadership has been incorporated into such committees as National Council on Privatization (NCP), Nigerian Pension Commission (Pencom), Petroleum Product Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Infrastructure Concessioning Regulatory Commission, among several others. Indeed, immediately after the labour suspended the strike, the TUC president, Peter Esele was made a member of a so-called Special Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) Task force, to fast track the passage of PIB into law. This is a bill that aim to hand over the nation’s oil wealth to few in big business and multinational corporations, with a minimal advantage for the local capitalist class to also gain some more crumbs from the largesse.

Indeed, in the press statement issued by the labour leadership in suspending the strike, it was stated that the strike had achieved its aims (?) because the government had promised to fight corruption, make oil wealth available for the people, and all the sorts. In the real sense, the labour leadership while using this to justify its rotten compromise is also giving credibility to a government that is fundamentally corrupt, anti-poor and pro-big business. How can a government that budget a billion for presidential meal fight corruption. The reality is that, the labour leadership has been structured into the capitalist politics; therefore, it is bound to be blackmailed by the capitalist class of wanting to upturn the table, whenever it is forced to take up the government. Thus, the labour leadership has a dual character: it is elected (even if bureaucratically) to represent the workers, but in the real sense, it is serving as a prison warder of capitalist class to hold working people in bondage.

This is aided by bureaucracy in the labour movement, which make rank-and-file or workers have little or no influence on how their unions are run. Added to this is the trade unionist nature of the labour movement. This means that trade unions serve as platform which operations and activities are structured into the capitalist system and is expected to serve as a platform to resolve conflicts between workers and the capitalist (ostensibly in the interests of workers); and not a platform to represent the real class interests of the working and oppressed people. Inasmuch as the labour leaders are made capitalist themselves, nothing more to fear by the capitalist class. This explains the ease with which the labour leaders called off the national strikes and protests, even without iota of respect for its own structures – National Executive Council; which further underline the deep-rootedness of bureaucracy and lack of democracy in the labour movement.

This character of the labour leadership is not limited to the central labour leaders alone but the whole structure of labour movement leadership. Safe for some handful state labour leadership like Kano, most of the state labour leaders were only vassals of their state governments. For most of them, it was an opportunity to sell themselves at higher prices to their respective state governments. For instance in the southeast states, labour leaders had had a meeting with leadership of the PDP in the zone “to discuss on the fuel price issue”, about a month before the strike; aside other meetings the labour leaders held with their various state governments. Thus, when the national protests broke out, most of the state leaders actually sabotaged the protests and strike. In Abia State, the labour leader, who actually met the state governor the night prior to the commencement of the strike, claimed that, since the state had been flooded with security agents, the protests could not go ahead. In fact, the strike was easily broken up by the state government in Ebonyi State with a threat of enforcing a “no work, no pay” rule while the state labour leaders did not bother to raise a finger. In Enugu State, the state government of Sullivan Chime went to a ridiculous level of arresting and jailing some local labour leaders perceived not to be playing the ball in beheading the national movement in the state. Interestingly, the state labour leaders under NLC and TUC did not openly resist this repressive action of the government, the same manner the national labour leaders did not stringently opposed deployment of military troops to some states, where the uprising has been strongest. In other states in the zone, the labour leaders covertly worked with the security agencies and the governments to find excuse for not organizing any serious activities.

In several other states, despite the fact that it was the labour leaders that called the strike and mass protests, most of the state labour leaders find it very difficult to mobilize their members out, because they have lost touch with and respect of the workers. In many cases, it was the civil society groups and activists from academic and professional communities that actually mobilized the workers and the oppressed people out. This is not accidental: the trade unionist character and bureaucratic manner of running the unions had made the leaders not to even have the confidence to mobilize their members. This is in addition to the pro-capitalist, pro-establishment character of many labour leaders, some of whom are elites themselves. While they are forced by mass anger to lead protests, they look for the flimsiest excuse to run away from mass movement e.g. violence. In fact, they lack basic rule of coordinating and organizing the movement, because it is strange to many of them. The labour leaders at the industrial levels are not different. Most of the leaders have lost the respect of their members with their treacherous roles in previous struggles, the recent of which is the minimum wage struggle. Yet, these leaders constitute the decision making structure of the central labour unions – NLC and TUC. Therefore, the working people have been sold out from the beginning. This is not the first and it may not be the last, unless the labour movement is rebuilt on a democratic and revolutionary basis.

Organized Mass Movement as a counterweight to terrorism

While it is true that violent skirmishes were witnessed in some areas during the protests and strike, this in itself was a product of lack of adequate preparation and revolutionary planning by the labour leaders, who were in the leadership of the uprising. No attempt was made to set up democratic action committees in communities and neighbourhoods to coordinate the movement, including organizing supply of necessary services and goods including food, etc. and serving to defend the protests and strikes in communities. Such committees should then have been linked up to national level. With this, it would have been possible to sustain the sacrifice of the masses (comprising mostly of daily income earners) at minimal cost and prevent attempt by a very handful minority to resolve their survival on individualistic means through violence and petty looting. But this is assuming that the labour leadership is not calling the strikes and protests half-heartedly, knowing that a stalemate will somehow occur along the line, which will raise the question of political power – a dreaded question for the labour leadership.

While it is true the country is facing the challenge of terrorism, the fact is that only working and oppressed people’s organized struggle that can defeat terrorism. This will that working class movement, aside raising collective demands that will improve the living conditions of the poor people including provision of decent and secure jobs for all able bodied people, will also organize mass actions including community watch to combat the menace of terrorism. This is necessary as the menace of terrorism is itself a reflection of the bankruptcy of neo-colonial capitalist state, which has failed address the basic needs of the people and resolve the nationality question coupled with the unprecedented corruption, inequality and injustice this has engendered. Indeed, a section of the capitalist class is surely using terrorism and divisive ethnic card to hold stakes in the capitalist distribution system, while even the ruling class may employ the tool of terrorism and ethnic division to undertake a brutal repression of the revolutionary movement.

However, a pan-Nigerian working people’s movement will not only unite the working people across religious, ethnic and racial tendencies with clear cut programmes that affect all, but will also make clarion call on the rank and file of the armed forces to join the movement. This kind of approach is the surest means that can defeat terrorism and the capitalist class that engenders and nurture it. Element of what can happen when working and poor unite to fight capitalist regime is reflected in the Kano and Bayelsa examples. In Kano, despite the specter of religious fanaticism, Christians were seen protecting the Muslims on a praying ground during mass protests. In fact, the Boko Haram terror sect was extremely unpopular during this period. Also in Bayelsa State (the state of origin of the president), despite the threat of the state sponsored ethnic hoodlums to attack any protest, the strike was very successful with all work places shut down by the strike. Therefore, attempt of the labour leaders to over-blow the issue of violence and anarchy as excuse to cut short the uprising is either a reflection of ignorance or outright perfidy. Such argument can be a willing tool in the hand of the state to repress future revolutionary movement. It is indeed vital state that this argument of the labour leaders gave confidence to the government to militarize the centres of the protests.

Are working people expendable in revolutions?

The failure of labour leadership had made many people including youths and activists to maintain that they do not need workers to organize a revolution. While it is not sacrosanct that trade unions should lead revolution; it is a truism that unless workers, organized under a collective banner put their feet into a mass movement and/or uprising, such will never yield expected result either in the short or long run. This is because, organized workers, no matter their smallness hold the main stake of capitalist economy; they represent the class that the capitalist need in order to extract surplus value i.e. profits. When workers go on general strike, the central question that arises is who run society – Workers or Capitalists; as the whole society is paralyzed. Therefore, it is not true that workers’ role in revolution is infinitesimal. Of course, other strata of the society can play decisive roles; the leading role of workers is the only mean to force down the hands of the capitalist class. In the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, while there were mass revolts across the country, general strikes declared by workers actually sounded the death knell for the brutal regimes of Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. Going back into history; despite the victory of the May 31st Movement guerilla campaign led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara against the Batista regime in Cuba, it was the mass strike of the workers in Havana that sent the Batista regime packing. We can go on to cite various historical examples.

This is even clearly expressed in the fuel price struggle. While there are protests across the country prior to the labour declaring strike, the proclamation of labour leadership actually gave direction to the next stage of the struggle. It is not also accidental that the government felt relieved and confident to attack protesters immediately the labour leaders signaled their intention to hang the struggle. Of course, workers (alone) did not (and cannot alone) play heroic and yeoman roles in the revolts; their organized actions either gave or removed energy from the uprising. It should also be understood that while labour leadership as presently structured is not revolutionary (while the structures of labour movement itself is basically deficient), the labour movement and the unions still represent the central platform for organization. Truly, in period of serious revolutionary ferment, for instance, if the government had undertaken brutal repression, labour leadership calling off strike might be useless as workers will simply ignore such and bypass the officialdom/bureaucracy of the labour leadership, and directly exert their class power on the revolutionary course. Even in such situation, there will still be need for working people to have an organized political platform of intervention. This emphasizes the need to prepare and build a revolutionary platform that will start to prepare working and oppressed people for such a task. Without this and in the absence of experience and understanding of their roles, a revolutionary initiative of the working and oppressed people can be hijacked by a section of the bourgeois or petty bourgeois class, in the interests of capitalism.

Rebuilding the Labour Movement as a Revolutionary Platform

Consequently, for genuine labour leaders and activists, it only mean that any struggle undertaken by the working people must not be limited to the single issue being addressed; it must involve all the fundamental demands of the working and oppressed people. For instance, while the fuel price struggle is raging, universities were under locks consequent upon lecturers’ strike over underfunding of education. Furthermore, the electricity utility company, PHCN, was to be sold out with serious consequence for the electricity workers; while millions of youths are unemployed. These, among several issues should have been included as part of the demands of the movement. On the contrary, the labour leadership avoided raising these issues, because it is not prepared to challenge the system in the first place; as including these issues will mean arousing the working and oppressed people with greater anger to challenge the regime and the system it represents. As against the excuse of the labour leadership that it wanted to be focused on fuel price hike alone, its decision to call off the strike was premised on promises made by the anti-poor government on other issues that are not initially included in fuel price hike; promises that will never be fulfilled.

We need a revolutionary, democratic labour leadership. We cannot continue to lament in its absence; we need to rebuild the labour movement on a fighting, democratic, revolutionary and democratic basis. This underlines the need for such platform as Joint-Action Front (JAF, which played a central role of organization and mobilization during the uprising); socialist and left-leaning organizations and activists to begin the process of building a Labour Activists’ Network. This is with a view to galvanizing all change seeking elements within and without the labour movement including labour leaders, activists and rank-and-file workers, intellectual community, youth movements, etc from the local level to the national level, with basic minimum programme of rebuilding the labour movement and building a revolutionary political platform. This will mean organizing workers’ education across unions with a view to raising the consciousness of workers towards rebuilding their unions on a democratic basis. It will also mean raising campaigns on how to rebuild the labour movement and refocus it away from mere trade unionist task; rather on a class and revolutionary task of leading other oppressed people for a social revolution.

Such platform will also lead campaigns and struggles against all anti-poor, capitalist policies from local to national level, and counter-posing them with revolutionary socialist policies and programmes of mass investment in social infrastructures, services and amenities; and public ownership of the nation’s economic mainstay. Ultimately, such a platform will serve as a major organ for the formation of a revolutionary, democratic working people’s political party, that while standing on clear-cut democratic socialist principle, will lead the mass of people to revolution. This task will not be easy or child play, it will require serious commitment from genuinely minded socialist, labour activists, etc. Of course, there will be setbacks, but if there is a focus, there can be headway. We need to bring back the best part of labour activism history i.e. workers’ education, collective organizing, etc and build on them. Today, because of the absence of this collective platform, labour and popular activism has been replaced with civil society activism.

These are the basic long-term lessons we must learn from the botched anti-deregulation uprising. Surely, the mass of people have seen the potentials in their collective power to reorganize society. The uprising is only a dress rehearsal of imminent revolution, for which Nigeria is long overdue. The mass of people will in time to come, conclude that only internationalized revolutionary, democratic socialist programmes can salvage the future of Nigeria, nay Africa and the world at large.

Kola Ibrahim

January 2012

SOURCES

Newspapers and Magazines

1. Nation, Thursday, 15/12/2011 pg 60, Federal Budget, 2012

2. Nation, Thursday, 15/12/2011, pg 16

3. Nation Saturday, 3/2/2011, pg 5, Senate names fuel subsidy beneficiary

4. Nation, Friday, 2/12/2011, pg 12, Only 10% of Nigerians graduates are employed annually – NDE

5. Guardian Wednesday, 25/01/2012, Reps uncover eight billion liters fuel subsidy scam

6. Punch, Friday, 9/12/2011, pg 3, Failed Promises: Schools still dilapidated in Lagos State

7. Punch, 14/12/2011, Editorial, Warning of Imminent Revolution

8. Punch, 14/12/2011, pg 59, Nigeria, others account for 60% Malaria Deaths

9. Punch Editorial, Thursday, 15/12/2011, Auditing NNPC fuel import

10. Punch, Thursday, 15/12/2011, pg 19, Power generation drops by 1080 as Egbin shuts down

11. Punch, Monday, 19/12/2011, pg 8, Labour Lacks Direction in subsidy fight: Breakaway faction

12. Punch, Monday, 19/12/2011, pg 20, We will take over any ailing bank

13. Punch, Monday, 19/12/2011, pg 21, Nigeria’s total debt stock hits N6.2 trillion – DMO

14. Punch, Tuesday, 13/12/2011, pg 19, NNPC refines 65, 000 bpd crude oil in Cote d’Ivoire

15. Punch, Tuesday, 13/12/2011, pg 21, High Dollar demand weakens naira to N162

16. Punch, Tuesday, 13/12/2011, pg 40, PENGASSAN NEC Advertorial

17. Punch, Tuesday, 13/12/2011, pg 45, Indices show crawling economy in 2011

18. Punch, Friday, 16/12/2011, pg 11, 50, 000 candidates jostle for 500 places in federal varsity….

19. Punch, Friday, 16/12/2011, pg 14, Return of Schools: NUT threatens showdown with Anambra

20. Punch, Sunday, 11/12/2011, pg 13, Time to reform the railway

21. Punch, Sunday, 11/12/2011, pg 24, FG approves massive deployment of solar panels

22. Punch, Sunday, 11/12/2011, pg 54, ‘It’s impossible to bring down cement prices now’

23. Punch, Sunday, 27/11/2011, pg 21, FIRS generated N3.2 trillion in 10 months

24. Punch Editorial, Sunday, 5/6/2011, pg 13, Reps’ dubious car sale

25. Punch, Sunday, 2/8/2011, pg 24, Appraising Okonjo Iweala’s economic agenda

26. Punch Editorial, Sunday, 23/10/2011, FG’s faulty job creation initiative

27. Tell Magazine, March 28, 2011, More Troubles for Rescued Banks

28. Tell Magazine, March 28, 2011, Fresh hurdles before power reform

29. Socialist Democracy, Paper of the Democratic Socialist Movement, DSM, Nigeria, February, 2010-September, 2011 editions.

Books

1. Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, Communist Manifesto

2. Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick, Capital Vol. 1

3. Engels Frederick, Wage Labour and Capital

4. Waterman, P Division and Unity among Nigerian Workers: Lagos Port Unionism, 1940s-60s, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, 1982

5. Fashina O., Labour and Politics: the challenges of Social transformation, Kolagbodi Memorial Foundation, Lagos, December, 2009

6. Omotosho, Kole, Just Before Dawn, Spectrum Books Limited, Ibadan, 1988.

7. Glyn, Andrew, Capitalism Unleashed, Oxford University Pressm, Oxford, 2006

8. Sell, Hannah, Socialism in the Twenty-first Century, Socialist Publications, 2006

9. Adewunmi, Funmi, Prospect and Challenges of Trade Union Unity in Nigeria, Publication of Kolagbodi Memorial Foundation, Lagos, June, 2010

Websites

1. www.nbsnigeria.org, Nigeria Bureau of Statistics

2. www.wikipedia.org, Wikipedia, online encyclopedia

3. www.encarta.com, Encarta online encyclopedia

4. www.socialistnigeria.org, website of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM)

5. www.socialistworld.net, website of the Committee for A Workers’ International (CWI)

6. www.forbes.com

7. www.saharareporters.com

8. www.allafrica.com

9. www.monthlyreview.org

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[1] Trade union is defined officially as an organization of wage earners that is set up to serve and advance its members' interests in terms of wages, benefits, and working hours and condition

[2] It can be argued that other section of the working population including peasants, artisans, middlemen (traders), etc will also consume from the market. It should be realized that a greater percentage of this sections also create values for themselves (peasants and artisans), or generate wealth from already produced values (marketers, traders, etc), therefore, they also need people to consume their own values. Workers will have to share part of their wages on both industrial products and on products of the artisans, peasants, etc. therefore, when those section also spend their income on industrial produce, it always balances out.

[3] By this, we mean that aspect of the capitalist class, which provide financial resources for the productive capitalists. Part of the profits produced by capitalist are used by a section of the capitalist class to speculate for more wealth, not by directly investing in production but by borrowing out their wealth to the productive capitalists through edge funds, stock exchanges, loans, etc. This section is the most exploitative layer of the capitalist class as it seeks for increased turnover, which compels the productive capitalists to exploit the labour for more profit to satisfy the financial capitalist investors.

[4] And technically controlled by multinational corporations and their local agents

[5] As the capitalist class take more wealth from the collective pool, there are lesser resources for the majority; and with a weak industrial economy, it means more people face unemployment and underemployment (engaging in petty businesses and trades, that adds little or nothing to their lives than just living) in such economies. Even in industrial economies, there are unemployment, not to mention an economy where there are no serious productive layer.

[6] Indeed most of the state governments paid a former unimplemented wage agreement termed ‘Relativity Wage’, which placed workers’ minimum wage effectively around N14, 000, safe for some few rich states or states with very few workers in replacement of the minimum wage

[7] In October alone, all the tiers of government shared over N500billion as excess crude oil funds, which the states have not reflected as improvement in their revenues.

[8] Many of the private sector employers organized under the Nigerian Employers Consultative Association (NECA), Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and Organized Private Sectors, were unanimously opposed to the approved N18, 000 minimum wage, which they see as ‘anti-investment’. They openly condemned and opposed any action taken, including the planned but botched national strike action, to ensure the implementation of the wage increment. These people will attack workers rights under the guise of enforcing law but are openly opposed to a nationally legislated wage scheme.

[9] While the Lagos State government employs tens of thousands of casual workers for waste management (cleaning), Osun State government employed twenty thousand under the youth empowerment scheme. In the two states, the employed are paid a meagre N10, 000 or less, with no basic conditions of service. Indeed, in Osun state, the previous government (PDP), employed thousands of youths where it paid between N7, 000 and N10, 000. In fact, a south east state government of Imo in 2010, asked youths seeking jobs to pay about N3, 000 to purchase employment forms, under the guise of providing ten thousand jobs. Several thousands of youths purchased the forms with no serious employment carried out in the final analysis – a case of official advance fee fraud. Even, if some of the youths were employed, it is the monies realized from the extortions that will be used to offset the initial salaries of those employed, if at all their salaries are paid on time and fully. These states, just like many private employers are banking on the horrible and unacceptable high rate of joblessness in the country, put at more than 40 percent of the youths (alone) to exploit and enslave the poor job seekers.

[10] This argument of non-indigene, aside being extremely ridiculous, is a smokescreen meant to justify the anti-poor policy of mass retrenchment. Aside denying working families a mean of livelihood, the remaining workers will undertake the work of the sacked ones. More than this, the idea of non-indigene-ship shows the bankrupt nature of the elements in the capitalist political class, who shout on top of their voices for unity when it suits them, but use divisive policies to reduce the working people’s share of national wealth and drive down cost of living. It is these divisive politics and policies of the political class that have contributed to the growing ethnic strife in the country. If the labour movement does not openly resist this kind of base argument for attacking workers, it shall be opening the wide opportunity for ruling class across all sectors (public and private) to attack and divide the ranks of the working people. For instance, governments of others states, whose indigenes were sacked, can use the same excuse to retrench ‘non-indigenous’ workers in the state (which does not mean re-absorbing those retrenched from other states, but to drive down labour cost).

[11] Already, in the 2012 budget, the Senate has budgeted to purchase 108 (one hundred and eight) official cars for chairmen and vice chairmen of its 54 standing committees. In addition, House of Representatives has awarded contracts for the purchase of 360 exotic cars for its members in the next fiscal year. Meanwhile, in the Senate, there are 109 members; therefore, the new car purchase is booty for all the members (as each member is expected to either be a chairperson or vice chairperson of a committee). In the fifth Senate, similar purchase was made for the senators; and in the twilight of its era, the official cars, which depreciation was put at 20 percent, were sold off to the out-gone senators at far less of their values. These same senators had earlier collected various transport allowances (travelling allowances, Estacode, car maintenance allowances, etc) and car loans (which according to reports, they hardly refund, or were tactically paid off, through the backdoor by the government). See the Nation newspaper, 25/11/2011. Moreover, according to the Punch newspaper, in an editorial of 5th June 2011, titled, Reps Dubious Car Sales, report of official robbery of the nation was exposed, where outgoing members of House of Representatives, sold to themselves official cars at less than 30 percent of their depreciated value. In fact, it went on to reveal other frauds including sale of official residences, etc. These are officially sanctioned corruptions.

[12] Including consolidated workers (i.e. workers whose pays are shared by all the tiers of government) like primary school teachers, etc.

[13] Forget the token public relations auction/sale of kerosene by government, which aside covering only a fraction of the consuming population, only lasted for few days, before the product prices resume their spiral hikes.

[14] Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission

[15] This was first stated by no other governor, than Dr. Kayode Fayemi, the governor of a south-west state of Ekiti; from an opposition party, ACN.

[16] As sizeable proportion of the criminals in the country are those without jobs or those with unstable jobs (that is unstable future) or those whose jobs could hardly solve their immediate problems. A cursory look at various crime reports in newspapers will graphically reveal this. Even the social unrests, aside being expression of frustration and disgust at the capitalist state (and its failure to resolve basic needs of the society), also reflect chronic unemployment situation in the country. For instance, such ethnic groups such as Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Egbesu Boys, Movement for the Survival of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Niger Delta Militants, and now Boko Haram (a violent rightwing religious group) mobilize those section of society who feel cheated by the political class. According to National Bureau of Statistics 2011 unemployment report, it was shown that unemployment is criminally high in the north, especially the northeast states of Borno and Yobe, where there has been a resurgence of ethno-religious violence in the past few years. This situation of diversion of mass anger against economic exclusion and isolation, itself reflect the absence of pan-national, militant labour movement platform, and a mass based revolutionary political party of the working people that will galvanize the demands of oppressed section of the society for a fundamental change, including expansion of social and public infrastructures and services to create millions of secure and decent jobs for teeming unemployed.

[17] Sometimes in February/March, 2011, the former Ogun State governor, Gbenga Daniels alleged that a kilometer of road constructed at less than N20 million in Ogun State cost N200 million in Lagos State. In fact, merely equipping the works department of the state governments will save several billions in contract sums. But these are capitalist politicians of crude extractions.

[18] which cost over N140 (close to a dollar) per liter after the “subsidy removal”

[19] Having been forced to concede to the payment of the new wages, governments (states and federal) came up with a ridiculous policy of paying only those whose wages are below N18, 000, and not making it reflect on the pay of other workers higher on the ladder. They later claimed that only those on grade level one to six (or seven in some states) will enjoy the pay rise.

[20] In fact, the government has used this arrangement as an excuse to shortchange lower grade workers and semi-skilled/less educated layers of workers. These categories of workers are placed on very low-grade levels with extremely sluggish rate of promotion, thus ensuring that they retire as poor workers. While of course, experience and years of training also counts in working environment, this should not mean poverty for the semi-skilled workers, many of whom undertake most of the menial and physically tasking jobs of the society. Of course, in a capitalist society, there are always attempt to divide workers with the aim of maximizing profits, the labour movement must strive to ensure a balance even if we have not reached a workers’ state.

[21] Note: the public can hardly get to know much about these finances and profits companies, especially the foreign ones as they are closely guarded (e.g. to avoid tax payment). Even those that declare profits hide a lot of fact about the company finances. For instance, overhead cost for the expensive lifestyles and bonuses (like share options, financial inducement) for management and board members of the companies are hardly reported as part of the profits.

[22] Nigeria’s economy is a ‘road economy’, meaning the major means of transport is through road. This is unexpected as the other means of transport such as rail and waterways either have been undeveloped or simply been allowed to rot away. Indeed, the road transport system is both undeveloped and ineffectual with less than half of the motor-able areas covered by road while the existing road networks are mostly in dilapidated state.

[23] According to the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), more than 1.9 million jobs have been lost between 2008 and 2011 in the industrial sector due to collapse of factories, which could not cope with the high cost of production.

[24] Nigeria’s 5th National Assembly investigated the power sector in 2008 revealed that US$16 was squandered by the Obasanjo regime since 1999 on power sector with practically nothing to show for it. Several companies including foreign companies, banks, politicians, etc were involved in the racket. Reflecting the level of fraud in the nation’s power sector, some members of the committee including the committee’s chair, Ndudi Elumelu were themselves fingered in another close to N6 billion rural electrification frauds, few months after they submitted their report. The House of Reps later reduced the loots to N10billion (may be after removing some of their friends). The Yar’Adua administration, embarrassed by the report was forced to undertake what can be termed a “damage control” probe where it was revealed that only ‘just’ US$3.5 billion was looted through the power sector. Interestingly, few months after, the same government that refused to bring those behind the racket to book, awarded another US$3.5 billion contract to bring the so-called National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) to streams. Up until now, none of the NIPPs has contributed a megawatt to the power generation and distribution. Nevertheless, the Goodluck Jonathan government that failed to recover the looted funds again hiked the electricity tariff in 2011 by 26 percent with further planned hike up to 100 percent, under the guise of stimulating private investments in the sector.

[25] An example is one General Danjuma, (a two time defence minister under Obasanjo’s military and civilian administrations), who boosted of not knowing how to spend over $500 million he realized from the sale of just an oil block, allocated to him by the late dictator, Sani Abacha. The same Danjuma, who was made the chairman of Jonathan government’s economic reform council, became an advocate of reduction of public service, privatization and commercialization.

[26] Assuming that the military rules were arbitrary and have no fundamental objective, even though most of the politicians of today and people in big business were part of the rot constituted by the military regimes, with many of them not only helping the military rulers amass wealth but indeed made huge wealth through those regimes.

[27] Already NASENI, a national science and engineering research agency, has discovered and developed various sizes of solar panels at low costs that can provide another vista for energy generation aside through fossil means. This is just one of the several accessible technologies that can aid development, but which are deliberately ignored by the political class because of its selfish interests.

[28] It needs to be underlined that Keynesianism itself is not a solution to the cyclical problem of capitalism or resolution of its contradictions, but merely an idea meant to spur a distressed capitalism out of crisis. It involves state direct intervention in stimulating effective demands and reboots capitalist economy. However, Keynesian economic approach itself requires that the capitalist class gave up some of its privileges and sacrifice part of its profits (or even quest for profit). This, the capitalist class was forced to take for close to 30 years in the period after the Second World War (to safe Europe of revolutions and total social collapse – a glimpse of which is the growth of fascism and Nazism in Italy and Hitler’s Germany) but which it cannot accept today. It requires government playing a role of an enforcer of rules between capital and labour (even if the rules are made in the interest of capital). More than this, Keynesianism makes workers to be emboldened to defend their welfare interests as they seek for larger share of the surplus values created in the economy, which further drives down the share of the capitalist class. Consequently, inflation set in – as the capitalists try to recoup profits and maintain same – which the government is bound to subsidize/control by continually improving the purchasing power of the majority i.e. through more salary increase and investments in social services. This of course further erodes the efforts of the capitalist class to maintain profits. In the ensuing course of this contradiction, the capitalist state will have to eventually side with the capitalist class to beat back workers’ share of the surplus value with mass workers’ struggle to regain their welfare conditions. This led to mass movement and revolts including the French revolution of 1968. However, most of the mass movements were derailed by the pro-capitalist labour leaders, social democratic parties and Stalinist ‘Communist Parties’ from leading to the formation of the workers’ government. This was the feature of the welfare state in the post second world war period; a road the capitalist classes globally are not prepared to trek. Indeed, any government that embarks on this road is seen as a pariah. While Keynesianism may give some respites to the working people at a point, only a rounded out socialist plans can ultimately, on the long run give a permanent solutions to the ogres of capitalism. In fact, Keynesianism does not mean lack of exploitation of the working people but indeed an emergency attempt forced on capitalists to restore back their grim exploitation of the working class. Even under Keynesian economic intervention.

[29] In fact, a new semi-developed and industrialized economy will further dislocate the global capitalist arrangement of division of labour (between the developed, epicenter of global capitalism and the periphery of capitalism – the raw material and cheap labour supplier).

[30] In 2006, Shell, the Nigeria’s oil multinational corporation, when challenged while it refused to invest in refining capacity, claimed it will require $2 billion to build a petroleum refinery; an amount it claimed it did not have. Meanwhile the same Shell’s SPDC claimed in 2010 to have paid $6 billion as taxes to Nigerian government in ten years, an amount less than 30 percent of its profits within the same periods while ExxonMobil claimed to have paid N1 trillion as royalty and taxes in 2011 for upstream activities alone. (Note: Nigeria through NNPC has a production sharing agreement with most of the multinational oil corporations, in which Nigeria own in reality less than 50 percent – as most of the activities: exploration, exploitation, production and export are undertaken by the multinational corporations. Therefore, assuming a 50:50 sharing arrangement, ExxonMobil must have had at least N1trillion ($6.6billion). ExxonMobil companies collectively employ less than 4, 000 Nigerians). Even with a brazen quest for profit, a refinery can be established by the oil corporation in the country within two to three years. But these companies are not interested in any fundamental development of the country; neither is the local capitalist political class strong enough to compel and direct powerful multinational corporations to invest in the country. In fact, since 2007 when the deadline to end gas flaring by oil companies expired, no multinational corporation has been punished for this, showing the level of weakness of the Nigeria’s capitalist political class.

[31] This is more than the budgets of all the state and local governments put together in 2011. Within the same period that they saw huge increase in their wealth, more than 1.5 million jobs were lost in the country.

[32] According to Forbes’ 2011 report, 55 percent of the wealth increase of the richest of them, Aliko Dangote in 2011, came from profit realized in cement business. Needed to be said is the fact that his cement business started sometimes in 2005 when the Olusegun Obasanjo handed out the state owned Benue Cement Company and Ashaka Cement Company to him under the privatization fraud. This did not result in production of cement by the companies but massive importation of cement with the cement companies serving as bagging centres. Of course, he finally started cement production (lately) having made huge wealth from importation and bagging of cement, the price of cement has never been friend of the common man as cement price is averagely almost 5 times the international price (around N1500 locally to about N400 in the international market). This is against the believe that prices will go down when Nigeria starts production locally as international capital and local finance capital which invest, along with Dangote in this business will have to make short term and secure profits in an underdeveloped economy. Furthermore, the government, despite widespread complaints has allowed oligarchs to control cement importation, bagging and production, especially with exceptionally favourable terms of trades for them. Other members of the richest groups are either bankers, oil importers, telecommunication investors (who rose on the carcass of the mismanaged national telecommunication company, NITEL, but still owe the company billions in debts despite huge profit they make from poor Nigerians. Nigerian government gave private telecommunication companies over five years of tax holiday; yet Nigeria’s calling rate is one of the costliest in the world), etc.

[33] Oando, which is a major oil importer and marketer in the country (getting close to N300 billion for fuel importation in 2011), emerged from the privatization of national oil company, Unipetrol. Several other companies sprouted from government’s handout to private investors as importation cost. Also, in 2007, the Obasanjo administration sold out the four state owned refineries of NNPC to a consortium of big businesses (comprising banks, construction companies, investment companies including Dangote’s company and Obasanjo’s Transcorp – where looted funds of politicians and ex-rulers are kept at a giveaway price (around $1.3 billion). These refineries have a total refining capacity of 450, 000 bpd. Since they failed in their bid to buy the juicy corporation (because of massive protests by the labour movement and its civil society coalition, which forced the Yar’Adua government to cancel the sale) these so-called investors have not built a single refinery. This shows that the capitalist class in Nigeria only exists on the handout of the state, not an independent economic class. Not only have they not contributed to refining in Nigeria, they have indeed used their influence to lay prostrate these refineries (which is only working on less than 30 percent of its refining capacity), while serving as patrons of fuel importation, ripping off the country trillions of naira – over N3.6 trillion since 2006.

[34] Less than 30 percent of Nigerians engage in banking activities i.e. own bank accounts

[35] This is an attempt to stave off revolutions not only Europe but throughout the third world, especially with the presence of an alternative socio-economic system led by Soviet Union. A Stalinist system, which though nationalized the economy that massively develop the economy – itself a legacy of the socialist revolution in October 1917 – but was run by an undemocratic and brutal bureaucracy, was established by the bureaucratic clique led by Josef Stalin, seven years after the revolution. It was this bureaucracy that later led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, pro-soviet eastern European and other bureaucratically run centralized economies. The rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy itself was conditioned by the absence and/or defeat of international revolutions, especially in Europe in the 1920s through 1930s, which isolated the Russian society thus allowing a clique to lay claim to “ruling by emergency to sustain the revolution”.

[36] The Cold War was used as an excuse to rack up military budgets under the guise of staving off communist threat by the western capitalist governments (and capitalist threat by the Stalinist states). In the west, this created what is known as Military-Industrial-Complex, where military budgets are used to shore up profits of defence industry (and by extension, many industries associated with defence, e.g. steel, etc) while the military might is used to serve as back up to defend the multinational corporations of each country (and defend their economic interests).

[37] Good enough, flowing from the current capitalist economic crisis, more and more workers and youth are taking to the road of struggle challenging the authority of capitalism. With revolutionary ideas, these movements (growing from the desserts of Africa and Middle East to the heartland of capitalism) will not only win substantial reforms but also can lead to the overthrow of iniquitous capitalism and enthronement of democratic socialist society.

[38] In which the national assembly budgeted a whopping N5 million for each senators (and N3.5 million for House of Reps members) as furniture allowances only, immediately they came to power in 1999. The executive even allocated bigger amount for its own members (ministers and advisers). Although, labour movement, under NLC organized series of actions against this open robbery, due to lack of holistic and sustained action, the national assembly, only reduced the allowance, while other bogus allowances were cornered by both the national assembly and the executive. Since then, the political class has gone more brazen constituting a huge draining pipe to the nation’s treasury, with labour movement only fighting with press statements.

[39] Indeed, it was the governor of one of the states controlled by the opposition party, ACN, Kayode Fayemi (of Ekiti State), that first raised the question of removal of the fuel subsidy as a basis for the implementation of the new minimum wage law. in fact, he sacked 5, 000 workers, under flimsy excuse.

[40] See political analyses in subsequent sections.

[41] Not even a mention of the state government and private sector employers, none of whom has implemented the wage law to the letter.

[42] The public hearing was conducted between October and November 2011.

[43] Mr. Aremu is the general secretary of the textile workers’ union, NUTGWN – a union that is battling with high rate of job losses as a result of collapse of the textile industry. If the private sector is functional, it should have reflected in the textile industry, where virtually over 80 percent of the private industries have gone under.

[44] By no other person than Nigeria’s vice president, Namadi Sambo, who statutorily also doubles as the chairman of the National Council on Privatization, the highest council on privatization. It was his revelation that instigated the Senate probe (which was merely playing to the gallery and indeed a means to pilfer away public resources through another superfluous probe). The private sector and bourgeois pundits reacted angrily to the revelation by the vice president, with the excuse that such statement will discourage “local and foreign investors”. The president, who had earlier maintained the same line with Sambo, immediately restrained himself, maintaining confidence in privatization. The Labour’s position is nothing but a support for both the private sector and the government; and of course spite to the workers and poor people who had been and are still victims of privatization, and all its associated outcomes.

[45] My emphasis – K.I

[46] The 2008 power sector probe revealed grand fraud by one of the companies in the contracts, Rockson Engineering Limited, whose chairman was a senator, as at the time of the probe.

[47] According to newspaper report (Punch, Nov. 4, 2011), close to N700 billion (of the over N2.4 billion) pension funds were ‘invested’ in securities and properties between 2009 and 2010. Out of this amount, N462 billion was invested in local money markets and shares. These are purely unproductive, speculative activities. This is in a period when global economy, especially the financial sector, is facing its worst crisis in over 70 years. Clearly, the fate of tens of thousands of workers and potential pensioners are at great risk. You will be sure when these ‘investments’ fail, the same government that finds it difficult to pay pensioners’ pittance, will easily bail out the parasitic capitalists within record time. To underline governments’ hypocrisy, the report revealed that over N161 billion was ‘invested’ in governments’ (federal and state) securities and bonds; yet, it was the issue of uncertainty in governments’ commitments to regular pension payment that led to this exploitative contributory pension scheme in the first instance. When governments that owe hundreds of billions in domestic debts fails to honour these securities and bonds, what happening to pensioners and workers: another vicious cycle. Yet, the labour movement leadership is comfortable with this arrangement!!

[48] This is in conjunction with pro-labour, coalition of left organizations, organized under Joint Action Front, JAF (formerly Joint Action Forum). This has led to series of mass actions and public awareness/campaign to sensitize the public on the evils of privatization of electricity. While this campaign, in conjunction with industrial actions of the electricity workers’ unions, especially NUEE, is pressuring government, the public is generally at best passive to this campaign, as many, including working class elements, see PHCN as a non-functional entity, and thus its disposal to the buccaneers, is seen as good riddance. The workers are seen as part of the problem of the company, when indeed they are working under intensely unfriendly, energy sapping and frustrating environment; improvising on the decays of the company underfunded and milked dry by its capitalist class. This is a product of long period of silence by labour movement, especially the in-house unions, to put the campaign against the deliberate plunder and destruction of the company on the front burners. For instance, if the in-house unions, and the central labour unions, organized mass actions against power failure, lack of adequate equipping of the company and plundering of the company, it would have improved public awareness about the real culprits of the electricity mess in the country. This would have helped the campaign against the privatization. While of course, the steps currently taken by the unions to campaign against electricity privatization is good, it needs to be broadened to cover not only privatization and workers welfare, but also the corruption in the sector and the exploitation of the common people through the obnoxious tariffs. Mass actions and aggressive mass enlightenment need to be organized.

[49] Already, there are over 10, 000 casual workers in the PHCN, who are fighting for job regularization. Private buyers will not only maintain casualization but turn many workers to casuals and layoff even several casuals.

[50] A case in point is that of in-house union in an agro-allied firm, Zartech in Ibadan, where a fighting, socialist labour leader of the local union (Agricultural and Allied Workers’ Union, AAWUN), Kunle Wintola, was purportedly “suspended” by other pro-management union leaders for leading the agitation for convocation of union congress to address raging welfare interests of the company’s workers. Aside the fact that the suspension was an illegal and undemocratic action itself, as the individual was elected by the members, and not by fellow executive members, the other labour leaders premised the suspension on funny excuse that the socialist labour leader (a welfare officer) was inciting workers against the management and disturbing the industrial peace. This illegal suspension gave the company management boldness to sack the labour activist, without recourse to the letters of its own conditions of service. The local union leaders and the state leaders easily accepted the victimization. This is not strange as the state chairman of the union, was reported to be a contractor for casual labour for the company!

[51] Trade union is defined officially as an organization of wage earners that is set up to serve and advance its members' interests in terms of wages, benefits, and working hours and condition

[52] Such leadership will have to emerge from mass radicalization amongst working people and the oppressed in Nigeria, which will raise their consciousness about their unions and the need to reclaim them.

[53] This is even good if there is only a union in the industry or sector; for if there is more than one union, unless workers compel that their unions take joint actions, the employers will have enough opportunity to divide the ranks of the workers even when what they are supposed to be defending are the same.

[54] While this may be good, it is also illusory to expect that this can be achieved through appeal to government or mere NGO-like awareness campaigns, without mass struggles. Indeed, that the capitalist governments, including state governments, that own many of these factories have refused to turn them around is not an accident, but a product of the primitive accumulative, unproductive character of the present day capitalist class and capitalism itself: they run after cheap wealth with the least risk. This in itself underscores the fundamental tasks before the working class movement to take their struggles to the level challenging of the capitalist system, which is the basic fetter to their interests.

[55] In 2010, in the wake of the banking restructuring, carried out by the Lamido Sanusi-led Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), (in which managements of ten commercial banks were sacked and arraigned for massive frauds in banks that pushed the whole banking system to a brink), NLC was quick to commend CBN for ‘sanitizing’ banks. Ironically, the same NLC (nay in-house unions in the banking industry – NUBIFIE and ASSBIFIE) could not organize actions against the loss of 30, 000 jobs in the wake of the ‘sanitization’ exercise.

[56] In Ekiti and Ondo States, the labour leaders defended a rotten wage agreement of relativity (which has nothing to do with minimum wage but which they intend to substitute for the minimum wage). The relativity effectively reduced workers’ wage to less than N14, 000). It was so ridiculous that the Ondo State labour leaders preferred to defend the state government against the national labour leaders, who correctly condemned and rejected the agreement. This seriously embarrassed the labour leaders at the national levels, which forced them to half-heartedly, take up the state governments. Despite their grandstanding however, none of the state governments paid the minimum wage to the letter, while a huge proportion of the private employers did not even bother to enforce the wage law.

[57] They will call strike action (of course, without workers involvement) as a way of showing fake radicalism. However, they will deliberately avoid making the strike action to be mass based, by avoiding mass actions such as mass protests, pickets, rallies, press campaigns, etc that will expose the government. At the end of the day, they agree to rotten wage agreement with the government, claiming that is the best they can get (when in fact, they never plan to fight in the first instance)!

[58] The shop floor or workplace representatives are disconnected from the running and happenings in the union while local/state leaders are disconnected from the workers.

[59] A product of the presence of alternative ideological bloc represented by the presence of the Soviet Union’s nationalized economy and Stalinist version of ‘socialism’.

[60] It was actually the 1945 General Strike organized under Trade Union Congress (TUC) – formed in 1943 – that led to the first organized attempt at evicting the colonial rulers from power. Unfortunately, the trade unionists then, as a result of bureaucratic running of the unions, which made them not to have trust in the ability of independent action of the working and oppressed people to challenge the capitalist colonial rule. This resulted in the TUC giving supports to the nationalists organized under NCNC, which though were fighting for independence for the country, but really a capitalist independence that is not meant to change the existing capitalist colonial socio-economic system but rather the one that will make them to replace the colonialists. This means that the nationalists will not take militant, revolutionary and mass based actions to chase away the colonial capitalists. Indeed, in one of the strikes organized by the workers against the colonialists, the nationalists distanced themselves from it (Kole Omotosho, Before the Dawn, 1988). Therefore, despite the heroic and far improved (compared to today’s labour leadership orientation) political/ideological understanding, the working masses have been inoculated from independently taking power into its hands and changing the course of history. In fact, as a result of the divisions within the nationalist movements (the northern elites were opposed to immediate independence while the NCNC, despite its seeming pan-national character could not cover the whole country). This only played into the hands of the colonialists who used this to divide the independence movement. Only a mass based, democratic, revolutionary labour movement would have resolved this by linking the demands of the working and oppressed people from the north to the south. Of course, some workers’ and socialist parties were formed in the pre-colonial and post colonial periods by some radical labour leaders, these were not developed into a mass parties of the working people, but more or less sectarian platforms of the ideologues who expected workers to just swarm round the party, without adequate integration and connections with labour movement.

[61] From TUC and SCNW, to Nigerian National Federation of Labour (NNFL), first Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), All Nigeria Trade Union Federation (ANTUF), Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUCN), Nigerian Trade Union Congress (NTUC), United Labour Congress (ULCN) and Independent United Labour Congress (IULC); and finally to the current Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

[62] The left-wing wanted to affiliate with the Soviet Union controlled WFTU which is more progressive while the right-wing, pro-state labour bureaucrats preferred the pro-imperialist ICFTU (and some sections the Christian IFCTU).

[63] See Paul Waterman’s Trade Unionism in Nigeria: the Port workers’ union from 1945 – 1967?

[64] It is revisionist because it is premised on the faulty foundation of Two Stage Theory of the social democratic (the Mensheviks, or Second International). This theory, bitterly combated by the Bolsheviks of Lenin and Trotsky, revised Karl Marx and Frederick Engels idea of revolutionary movement from capitalism to socialism. Marx and Engels had maintained socialism would be achieved after capitalism had reached its peak of development and can no longer move humanity forward. However, no time lag was given to this, or that workers, having enough strength to end feudalist capitalism should hand over the power to the reactionary capitalists. Indeed, Marx and Engels understood that capitalism is based on division of labour, not only among capitalists but also among countries. World capitalism is thus divided into the centres and peripheries (the advanced and backward), with local capitalist and imperialist classes wedded together in a collective exploitation of the working class and peasants. Therefore, the capitalist class (both emergent and imperialist) are incapable of leading a revolution for the full development of society, especially in third world countries. The contradictions of capitalism are too glaring to be ignored. Thus, the working class, leading other oppressed class, will lead the revolution, to first resolve all capitalist reforms and seamlessly move over to socialist revolution. But to the social democrats, workers should align with reactionary local capitalist class (that is wedded to the imperialist forces) to fight for reform and move towards capitalist democracy before thinking of socialist revolution, possibly in an evolutionist manner. This is what Lenin and Trotsky fiercely fought against but was revised and inputted into the ideas of the Third International by Stalin and co, in order to defend their privileges and right to power.

[65] Neither is the liberalization of trade union centres under the trade union act of 2006 meant to provide democracy and choice to workers, but to break the fighting spirit of the organized workers’ movement, which was obstinately opposed to the incessant hike in fuel prices by the Obasanjo regime. In the Trade Union Act, workers are still denied democratic right of forming their own political party through their unions or using union funds for revolutionary activities. The real aim of the Act was to divide the labour movement, so as to have a pliable layer that can serve as pro-state structure. This has not been fully achieved. However, in a reflection of what is possible in the future, some union bureaucrat (e.g. in Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), ostensibly pro-state, who lost out in the leadership of the NLC, using the bureaucracy in the unions have decided to disaffiliate from the NLC. Surely, if the unions were democratically run, a greater majority of their members would oppose such actions. Of course, at critical period, a radical labour leadership may be pushed to withdraw its membership of reactionary labour centre. Nevertheless, this will occur when all avenues of redress within the labour centre had been exhausted. Such decision will also be democratically decided by the rank-and-file members and not by some labour bureaucrats, who felt shut out from the scheme of things. Indeed, the aim of such disaffiliation will be centred on winning a wider layer of working people to a revolutionary programme; not to disarm the working people in general. This is not the case with the aforementioned unions. Of course, the central labour centre, also played terrible roles in some of these cases; for instance bureaucratically supporting one union against the other in the same industry, thus dividing the ranks of the working people.

[66] The Sanusi Lamido’s bank sanitation itself is turning to another grand ruse even on a capitalist basis. According to the Tell Magazine, March, 2011 edition, the Sanusi appointed bank executives (in the ‘rescued’ banks) collect more pays than even the ousted bank executives. Interestingly, three of the rescued banks almost collapsed, necessitating state takeover of these banks – so much for Sanusi’s sanitization. Also, to underline the bankruptcy of the Sanusi’s sanitization, two major debt defaulters in the bank rackets, Aigboje Aig-imokhuede and Herbert Wigwe (the immediate past and current heads of Access Bank) operating under an investment company, United Alliance, borrowed N16 billion from Intercontinental Bank, one of the ‘rescued’ banks, to buy majority share in their bank, Access Bank. While this loan (a bad loan) contributed to the collapse of Intercontinental Bank, these bank executives, aside escaping any punishment, have now gone ahead to purchase majority share in Intercontinental Bank, valued at N50 billion. This is the true face of Sanusi’s sanitization exercise, which the labour movement so much applauded.

[67] For instance, a campaign or “Reclaim the Union” campaign can gain echo among many workers who feel alienated from their unions.

[68] This write up is an attempt at reviewing the just botched protests against hike in fuel price by the Jonathan government; with a view at drawing the necessary lessons that may be useful in subsequent mass actions. The write up may not represent everything about the mass protests, but it certain contain valuable polemical positions that will require discussions, debates, etc. especially among working class people and youths. That exactly is what this write up represents.

[69] Yours sincerely actually witnessed various groups of youths and workers, organizing barricades, while others went to the extent of organizing feasts.

[70] For instance, if the movement had grown until the second week, with proper organization and leadership, the Jonathan government would have been compelled to undertake massive crackdown and repression, which would have caused a sharper schism within the capitalist class, especially the political section. This will surely reverberate in the armed forces, with many of the rank and file policemen, soldiers, etc changing side for the revolution.

[71] This is glaring with the use of not only the armed forces to terrorize the people, but attempt to use ethnic/divisive and fascistic forces of the Niger Delta militants and separatists to challenge the labour movement.

[72] This in itself reflects the underdeveloped nature of Nigeria’s capitalist political class. It is no more strange to see many state and local governments (and even federal government) using state resources to procure commercial buses, and hand them over to individual commercial transporters, mostly poor people at exorbitant rates. This will imply that aside the high cost of transport this will engender, it will also resort to desperation on the part of the poor commercial transporters, many of whom end up broke and bankrupt. A sensible approach would have been to have state run transport system.

[73] Who live on around $2.5 a day, according to the World Bank

[74] This is done by forcing capitalist bosses to drive down wages through cut in wages, retrenchment, overworking of workers, etc. with a view to meeting profit target and speculation of finance capital (banks, edge funds, portfolio investors, etc.)

[75] The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, was quoted in the sideline of her trip to some African states recently that the US government supports the policies of deregulation and fuel price hike; with a proviso that it is left for Nigerian government to know how to implement them. This is also coming on the heel of a visit of the IMF chief, Christine Lagarde to Nigeria, to boost Nigerian government’s morale in implementing these policies. Undoubtedly, the policies provide new opportunities for multinational corporations and finance capitalists to explore and exploit Nigerian market cheaply and easily. Of course, if the mass resistance had led to blown out revolt, the western imperialist governments, in their characteristic hypocritical manner would have possibly feigned support for the revolt, with a view to influencing it in the interests of their capitalist classes.

[76] Aside over N100 billion wasted during Obasanjo’s era to refurbish the refineries, the Yar’Adua government also budgeted billions for turnaround maintenance of the refineries. At a time, it was revealed by the corporation’s management that the NNPC is now working more than 60 percent of its capacity, only for it to reveal again that the corporation could only refine less than 170, 000 b/d of its allocated crude oil.

[77] Indeed, Nigerian government officials, including Iweala herself, do not even know the exact amount of fuel consumed in Nigeria daily; neither do they know how much fuel is imported into the country daily. At a House of Representatives’ ad hoc committee hearing on the subsidy to a senior Customs official representing the agency, maintained that Nigeria's imported fuel is done in secrecy and flagrant flouting of customs and importing rules (which are deliberately waivered by no other persons than the ministers in charge). It was further revealed that the mother ship bringing imported fuel to Nigeria is not berthed on Nigeria’s ports but outside the country’s shores or in neighbouring West African countries’ shores and ports. What an ingenious means of avoiding preying eyes of Nigerian public! This is aside several other revelations exposing the perfidy in oil importation into the country.

[78] See Petroleum Minister, Allison Madueke’s speech at the House of Representatives’ hearing on the fuel subsidy fraud in national dailies of Wednesday, 18 January 2012. Also, at a Town-hall meeting organized by newspaper proprietors’ group in December, 2011, government officials (Okonjo-Iweala, Madueke, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (central bank governor) and Adams Oshiomhole (Edo State governor) were eager to protect the image of the racketeers, some of whom were seated right on the front role of the Town hall meeting.

[79] The same excuse used by Obasanjo government to silence those demanding prosecution of past military rulers who looted the country blind.

[80] Safe for massive opposition by labour and pro-labour civil society groups organized under the Joint Action Forum (JAF) and Labour and Civil Society Coalition (LASCO), the nation’s oil corporation, NNPC built and developed with tens of billions of dollars would have been sold for $1.3 billion!

[81] Thus, you have situation where workers working in the corporation, consumers and communities have no control or say on how the corporation is run. This, in a period of widespread poverty, superintended by the jackboot military regime, turn some of the workers to willing tools of the top management to suck the corporation dry, and make it inefficient.

[82] These various arguments itself underlines the heterogeneous nature of the fuel price hike struggle, as many even elements within the capitalist political structures (and big business), whose interests are also affected by the policy are opposed to the policy. This underlines the need for a clear-cut working class approach to such general issue by conscious labour leadership; and not be the representation of such diffuse and confused orientation, which only tend to confuse working people.

[83] This is currently being witnessed in Ghana where the working people are resisting the hike in fuel prices in the country. This shows that global capitalism rampage is everywhere. This further necessitates the need for the working class movement to link up internationally on revolutionary basis.