Never have Nigerians experienced hardship, suffering and pain as they did under President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) and are now doing under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT)
General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) lay a solid foundation of the current crises. He imposed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in July 1986, contrary to popular opposition.
President Shehu Shagari of the Second Republic and General Muhammadu Buhari’s military administration had stubbornly resisted the implementation of SAP, especially the devaluation of the naira, despite intense pressures by President Ronald Reagan of the United States. Both were developing alternative economic adjustment programs, when their administrations were terminated in military coup d’état.
After more than thirty-eight years of implementing IMF/WB neoliberalism, the conditions in which the majority of Nigerians live and work have increasingly worsened. The past is far better than the present.
Most Nigerians are finding it extremely difficult to feed themselves and their families due to skyrocketing inflation. Foodstuff inflation rose from 25.25 per cent in June 2023 to 40.87 per cent in June 2024. This has led to high suicide rates, abandonment of kids and children, marriage break-ups, mass migration of Nigerian professionals and youths out of the country.
Worst still, factories, small and medium scale establishments keep closing down with unemployment rising. This has been the worst experience of Nigerians since independence in 1960.
Fuelling and driving the crises is PBAT’s slavish acceptance and religious implementation of IMF and WB neoliberal policies. In particular, his ill-thought removal of petrol subsidies, and illogical devaluation of the Naira, amongst others. But, why is PBAT able to get away with his anti-people and anti-Nigeria policies without much ado?
First, the current dispensation, is simply a military rule-like civilian rule. Just as the military Head of State, the President is not only the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, but also the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief-Economic Officer, Chief-Commercial Officer and Chief-Diplomat of Nigeria, so is PBAT.
Thus, PBAT’s powers are virtually absolute. As such, he does whatever he wishes, with impunity. This is especially as he is stubborn, rich and grounded. This would not have been the case if Nigeria were practicing parliamentary system of government as it did in the First Republic.
Second, federalism is practiced only in name. In reality, Nigeria is a unitary system which concentrates power in the centre; subordinates the federating states to the centre; and favours majority nationalities at the expense of minority nationalities. The exception here is the populous Hausa nationality which for historical, political and economic reasons, is subordinated to the minority Fulani, the tiny group which controls power in the north.
If Nigeria were running a parliamentary system, the electorate would have held their representatives responsible, accountable, and answerable for PBAT’s witchcraft economism.
Thirdly, unlike in the First Republic where liberal democracy existed, flourished and flowered, the reverse is the case in the current dispensation. The right of people to form political parties, on whatever basis including class, ethnicity or religion, was one of the most rudimentary, but fundamental, tenets of democracy. This right currently is monetized, tacitly ethnicised and, therefore, virtually denied.
Only the rich can afford the resources, finances and technical know-how to form political parties. Only rich individuals like PBAT, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have the resources, finance and people to form parties and contest in a serious manner, the presidential elections.
The point here is that, since 1999, it has been practically, elections without choice. Election without alternatives. It was even worst in 2023, where PBAT, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi all vouched, arrogantly and boastfully, to religiously implement IMF/WB neoliberalism, and be obedient servants of Western powers. So they would not have been fundamentally different from PBAT.
Also, unlike in the First Republic, the current electorate is politically disempowered. In the First Republic, the flowering of political parties would have made the emergence of dictators like Obasanjo, Buhari and Tinubu extremely difficult, if not impossible. Surely, political parties defended the interests of dominant classes within and outside the parties, but with due consideration to the ‘interests of their electorates’.
Besides, the political parties of ethnic minority nationalities seriously defended the interests of their peoples. In the words of the nationalist, Mokwugo Okoye: such parties: “not only spread political consciousness in their areas but also help preserve democracy by hammering constantly on local discontent and checking the tyrannical abuses of power by the majority political parties.” Also, socialist, labour and peasant-based parties asserted and defended the class interests of the working peoples.
The Northern Elements Progressive Unions (NEPU), for instance, did its best to defend the interests of the Hausa peasants to the extent that the Emir of Zaria bitterly, almost tearfully, complained that one of the greatest sins Mallam Aminu Kano (NEPU) committed was to let the Talakawa (working masses) know they can say “no”!
Today, the reverse is the case. There are no real political parties; just platforms for contesting elections and embarking on primitive accumulation of capital.
Fourthly, the military regimes that preceded the current dispensation laid the solid foundation for PBAT. They disorganised, demobilised and strangulated the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), seized it, and imposed their agents as leaders. Today, NLC is totally a contrast of what it was in the 1970s to the mid-1980s. It is unable to authoritatively assert itself and defend workers’ interests as it did in the past.
The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) was also violently seized by the military despots. They did so by financing, arming and defending degenerate, cultists, money-minded and lumpen students to take-over the association. Today, NANS is nothing but a wing of the Presidency and extension of the office of Governors. Its leadership, in fact, imitates and apes the degeneracy of the most retrograde elements of Nigerian politicians.
The point here is that with a labour and student-centered movement, PBAT would have been unable to successfully and proudly inflict pain on Nigerians.
Finally, is the emergence of the protest industrial complex (PIC) in Nigeria from the late 1980s, composed mainly by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and civil society organisations (CSOs) Mostly funded by Western powers, governments and politicians, they professionalise, commodify, and monetize activism (popular protests).
Not only has the PIC swallowed a lot of the activists that led the popular struggles against SAP in the 1980s, it has successfully disoriented, disorganised and undermined popular struggles. It has distracted attention from systemic and structural causes of the crisis by paying attention mainly to their effects; and reduced the victims to helpless – instead of active – beings, capable of asserting their authority, achieving their goals, and making politicians responsible and accountable.
So just as the military physically brutalised the labour and student movements of the 1980s, so has the protest industrial complex psychologically brutalised and, is still brutalizing the psychosomatic of Nigerian masses. These are why Nigerians are suffering today.
[Premium Times]
