2015: Why Ordinary People Matter More Than Individual Politicians By Jaye Gaskia

We begin by again paraphrasing Karl
Marx; “Philosophers have always
interpreted the world, the point
however is to change it”.
I am in a somewhat combative and
polemical mood, so pardon what I
suspect might be the more or less
aggressive tone of this write up.
Nevertheless this intervention is
necessary, urgent and time bound.
This is a general, as well as particular
response to the arguments being made
by very respectable activists, active
citizens, and patriotic platforms, with
respect to the unavoidability of an
APC choice to PDP, and within the
APC itself, the unavoidability of a
Buhari [GMB] choice as its
presidential flag bearer. The
arguments have been pushed in such a
manner as to be categorical that in
2015 we are faced only with the
proverbial choice between the devil
[PDP] and the deep blue sea [APC]. It
is presented in a manner that
forecloses any other options, and any
other choices.
My friends, Salihu Lukman and Chido
Onumah being the most active writers
and explicit public advocactes of this
trend of thought and action, have
written extensively and profusely to
advance this cause.
The latest is the article by Chido and
another colleague titled “2015: why
Buhari matters”. I am going to quote
directly from this latest piece while
articulating an alternative cause of
action.
Now hear them, they begin thus: “We
must state unequivocally that we have
no illusion about the present order. We
do not think that the present system
can solve the fundamental crisis in
the nation or bring succor to our
people.
The impoverishment of millions of our
country men and women, the wanton
abuse of rights, colonization and
exacerbation of the fault lines of the
country, are not issues that the
current political order can tackle.
As a first step towards addressing
these issues, we recommend a national
dialogue of genuine representatives of
the people on the future of Nigeria.
How to force this all important
national dialogue – whether through a
bloody revolution or otherwise – will
have to be determined by millions of
toiling Nigerians who bear the brunt
of the present anachronistic social
order”.
I have quoted this opening declarative
statement in full and copiously
because I am not only in full
agreement with the diagnosis of the
problem, I am also in agreement with
the recommended solution. However,
the very next paragraph opens with a
statement that is not only
contradictory to the opening
statement, but that completely
negates its thrust.
Once again hear them: “Having made
this clarification, it is important to
note that we have to ‘play politics’
within the parameters of the current
bourgeois democratic order”. The then
go on to explain that that is what the
piece would do exactly and that it is
inspired by and directed as a response
to what they termed the ‘ostrich
politics’ of Joe Igbokwe of the APC.
It is important to state that I
understand that the piece was written
in the context of internal party
polemic and debate within the APC;
but since both Igbokwe’s original
piece, as well as Chido’s response were
put in the public domain, we are
justified in joining the debate.
However even more importantly is the
fact that the debates and struggles
that go on within political parties are
of utmost importance to citizens,
because through we can gauge the not
only the quality of life within the
party, but also the likely directions
and thrusts of its activities as a
governing party, or as an opposition
party which might likely become a
governing party.
So in this respect what they do within
their parties, and what they say
within their parties, how they say it,
etc matters a lot to us as citizens.
Just before we go on to address the
issues raised in these debates and the
contradictions which tend to make
independent political action impossible,
let us take two other quotes which
express the authors’ choice of a
“Buhari – Fashola” APC 2015
presidential ticket as the most viable.
The first quote: “There is little chance
that the APC can make any impact in
the north if it picks its presidential
candidate outside the three zones in
the North”. And after ruling out some
‘viable’ Northern candidates, they go
on thus “ However, Buhari stands out
simply because he has a cult following
in the North [at least the core North]
which, if properly harnessed, will
stymie any assault by the PDP
[particularly, a much weakened and
divided PDP] in the zone”.
“The last man standing is Babatunde
Fashola, the popular, young and
dynamic governor of Lagos state. So
what do we say about a Buhari/
Fashola pairing for 2015? This looks
like an ideal choice for APC moving
forward.”
Now to the nitty-gritty of the real
issues; How can the present political
order be presented as incapable of
addressing the real challenges of our
nation, and yet we are asked to play
politics with the parameters of the
current system?
Is an accommodation with the very
essence of the system and order that
has and continues to bring hardship,
mass impoverishment and alienation,
the only way we can realistically
engage with this system in order to
compel the desired change?
Why should we confine and devote all
our energies to maneuvering within
the main political pillars of the
system; a system that we have said
can not bring succor to millions of our
people?
Why should the best pairing for an
opposition political party, that aims to
become the ruling party, and that has
any interest in making significant
differences in the lives of Nigerians,
be one led by a candidate whose only
qualification is that he has ‘a cult
following in the North’, and perhaps
that he is said and perceived to be
‘upright’?
By this definition of the main
qualifying criteria for this candidate
alone, it can be seen that he is no
better than the most likely candidate
of the ruling PDP, the incumbent
president, whose only qualification is
also apparently that he is a minority
from the South –South, a historically
excluded and disadvantaged area, and
that his people, in particular the
Ijaws, will back him to the hilt, back
him to death!
What that argument, and it is a very
sincere argument, portrays, is that
the best candidate for the opposition
APC is decidedly a sectional
[Northern] leader, with ‘cult
following’ in the North, and who
happens to be perceived to be
‘upright’.
Yet by the very nature of the
monumental problem confronting this
nation, brilliantly articulated in their
opening paragraphs, what we require
is a visionary and Pan Nigerian
Leader, in a Visionary and
Revolutionary political platform, with a
radical program built around
redistributing wealth, and ensuring
social justice and equity.
The authors even admit that there is
no internal democracy in the APC or in
any of its constitutive parties; nor is
there internal democracy within the
ruling behemoth, the PDP.
We have seen the dangers and threats
to our national life and socio-economic
well being posed by this lack and
absence of internal democracy within
the parties; just as we have been
living witnesses to the way this
absence of internal democracy within
parties have impacted so
detrimentally on governance, and have
served to repeatedly undermine the
constitution and the constitutional
structures of governance and the
state at all levels.
How can more of this mix be the
solution to our problems? Or even lead
us in the direction of a solution?
What is even more dangerous is a
Leader, at the head of an autocratic
party, with cult following, from only
one section of the country! How do
you express dissent with such a leader
and challenge the anti people and
unpopular policies of such a leader
without unnerving and unleashing his
cult following base? And without thus
jeopardizing the stability of the
country, in more dangerous ways than
the ethnic solidarity with an
incompetent GEJ presidency has been
jeopardizing national stability and
undermining national economic
development and human progress in
our country?
But my biggest worry is that while we
seem to be in agreement that the
existing social order needs to be
radically and urgently transformed;
that the current system is incapable
of making this happen or bringing
succor to the mass of impoverished
citizens; and that the major gladiator
parties of the system lack internal
democracy; my biggest worry is that
after agreeing on all of these we are
then told our only option is to ‘play
politics within the parameters of the
current bourgeois order’ and to
therefore ‘enter’ or join one of the
gladiator parties, the APC, as a way
of playing this politics.
How can we hope to influence a party
that we have admitted lacks internal
democracy? I mean influence it in a
qualitatively different direction? The
PDP we all seem to be in agreement is
a no go area and is not a platform we
should engage with; yet is it possible
that we might be able to make an
APC government, under a Buhari/
Fashola presidency to begin to take
steps to institute that genuine
national dialogue process that we
agree is so sorely needed?
I think that the basic reason for the
existence of this contradiction, for
the self limitation of our choices
within this seemingly undesirable
confine is the exclusion of the mass of
our long suffering peoples, in their
tens of millions from the equation;
their exclusion as a factor, not to
speak of being the decisive factor, in
this political contestation.
We are living through a period of
global crisis, which has spawned at
one and the same time global political,
economic, financial, environmental and
social crises. The response of
subordinate classes and exploited and
impoverished millions who are being
made to bear the brunt of this
untoward hardships have been a global
resistance, that has equally spawned
the mass strike movement across
Europe, the Arab spring, including the
inauguration of its new phase with the
recent turmoil in Egypt, the global
occupy movement, the recent Turkish
and Brazilian Uprisings, and yes, our
own January Uprising, and the many
mini uprisings that we have had since
then.
We are moving towards and preparing
for a general election in 2015 within
this global and national context. This
is what potentially makes 2015
different from 2011, or even June 12
1993. We have an opportunity; with a
younger generation recently
radicalized and politicized by the most
life changing occurrence and process
of this century: the January Uprising
and the Global resistance movement.
This is the setting and context that
makes the people, ordinary citizens
matter most, and matter more than
any single politician or party, and
more than at any other time in recent
history or memory.
We can transform the nature of
electoral contestation towards and in
2015, by ensuring that we make issues
and not individuals, party programs
and not just parties the decisive
discourse. We must shift from
discussing personalities to raising
issues and making our issues the
priority items on the national agenda.
And we can change the voting
dynamics by launching a concerted
effort to ensure that youth and
women, and in particular those
radicalized by and since the January
Uprising to register and get on the
voters register; and subsequently to
come out to vote and defend their
votes in the general elections.
But we must also complement these
with ensuring that they do have a real
choice; we can do this by ensuring
that we build an alternative radical,
and revolutionary mass political party,
from the experience and convergence
of all the ongoing party building
efforts outside of the major gladiator
parties of the system.
We used to say that a major lesson of
the first phase of the Egyptian
revolution in 2011 is the absence of a
strong coordinating political platform
with structures spread across the
country, of the youth and women and
workers groups that essentially made
that revolution. That weakness made
the Brotherhood, the historic
opposition party to become the
default beneficiary of the revolution.
Nevertheless, the youths, women and
workers, chose to continue to wage
their struggle and deepen the process.
They fought the military and forced it
to hand power to the Islamist
President; and they continued to fight
the Islamist President as the
Brotherhood embarked on a program
of creeping ‘islamisation’ of the civic
life and society. By the time of the
November 2012 uprising during which
they resisted the assumption of
autocratic powers by the Morsi
presidency, they had begun to
establish a nationwide structure and
platform to coordinate their revolution
which they proclaimed as a permanent
revolution until all their demands are
met, encapsulated in the slogan ‘Our
Revolution Continues’. By the time of
the recent uprising, they had
established the Tamrod [Rebel]
movement organisational structure;
autonomously of the Brotherhood
[read PDP], the merging opposition
National Salvation Front (NSF) [read
APC]; and also of the Military; a
movement which enabled them to
collect in real time, not online 22
million signatures to Recall the
president/force his resignation; and
as well enabled them to bring tens of
millions unto the street, even more
than during the 2011 uprising, across
the country. This situation has
enabled them to isolate the
Brotherhood, and to ensure that there
is a viable alternative to the NSF of
the political elites of Egypt.
We can achieve similar results here, if
we build, and devote our energies to
building autonomously of the PDP and
the APC. We might not be strong
enough to take power in 2015, but we
can certainly build a platform strong
enough to represent a serious threat
to both the PDP and APC, and thus
act as the sorely needed check to
keep them both in line, and ensure
that our issues remain a priority on
the national political agenda.
My urgent appeal to youths
radicalized by the January Uprising,
and to active citizens tired of the
treasury looting directionless
leadership of the political elites, and
wary of the parties of the ruling
political elites; is to take our destinies
into our own hands, build our own
political platform and challenge these
charlatans, in progressthief and
conservathief gabs for political power,
and therefore the right and mandate
to shape the future of this country by
altering its present course.
By the way it is our present and our
future, as well as our country; let us
take it back!

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