Striking for democracy
International Viewpoint #259 September 1994
ON 23 June, Moshood Abiola, who is widely recognised as the legitimate victor of the presidential elections held on 12 June 1993, was arrested and imprisoned by General Sani Abacha's military dictatorship on charges of treason. The arrest followed a rally held to mark the first anniversary of the aborted presidential election, at which Abiola proclaimed himself President and commander-in-chief of the armed forces - in a bid to regain the political initiative from the military regime. With Abiola in prison it is the 150 thousand strong oil workers' union, Nupeng, who have taken the initiative, with an all-out strike which began on 4 July. While working conditions and other grievances have figured in the workers' demands, Nupeng has made it clear that the strike is aimed primarily at forcing the regime to release all political prisoners, including Abiola. British Fourth Internationalist, BALA KUMAR, looks at the different social forces at work.
T HE arrest and imprison-
ment of Moshood Abiola on 23 June coincided with the start of a "constitutional conference" convened by the military regime of General Sani Abacha. Its supposed aim was to discuss Nigeria's ill health and prepare a time-table for transition to civilian rule (see the interview with Glory Kilanko below). However, the programme is not at all dissimilar from that developed by the previous military ruler, General Ibrahim Babangida, ' who, despite spending millions of naira, last year scuppered the plans as a parting act.
Most Nigerians saw the conference for what it was: a way for Abacha to 6
### NIGERIA stay in power for some years; to amass wealth like all his predecessors and meanwhile deflect criticism from home and abroad. The turn-out in the pseudo elections for delegates to the constitutional conference was so low as to be derisory, and indicative of public cynicism. The Provisional Ruling Council formed by Abacha and which governs the country has been deeply embarrassed and thrown on the defensive by the actions of the oil workers and the pro-democracy movement.
The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (Nupeng) has been joined in the strike by the whitecollar Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (Pengassan). Ninety percent of the country's income is derived from the sale of oil and natural gas, and Nigeria is Africa's largest and the world's fifth largest producer of oil. While many of the protests have been concentrated in the (oil-rich) southern regions this has been out-weighed by the national economic importance of the industry. During the strike, Nupeng in particular has established itself before the rest of the mass movement as the class struggle wing of organised labour.
### Tradition
The anti-military pro-democracy movement has traditionally been dominated by human rights and civil liberties organisations, the student movement and progressive intellectuals drawn from the middle class and professional groups. The best known of these are the Campaign for Democracy led by Dr Beko Ramsome-Kuti. While the oil workers unions are now setting the pace in the struggle, and forging a new relationship with other sectors, in the past trade unions have often been marginal within the movement.
Partly this has been on account of the politically opportunist leadership of the Nigerian labour movement. In 1978, under a military decree, all trade union federations ceased to exist and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) was created as a unitary body. Today it has 41 affiliates and 3.5 million members. For much of the past decade the NLC, and particularly its current President, Pascal
Bafyau, has been close to the military. Bafyau even served on an advisory council formed by Babaginda, the Political Bureau, and is thought to have favoured his patron staying on — remaining silent during the elections last year. When Nupeng went on strike in July, he issued a statement against their action, had having returned to Lagos from Abuja where he was a delegate at the sham constitutional conference!
The decision taken by the NLC that a general strike would commence on 2 August and then a second decision to call it off barely two days after it had begun must be seen in this context. Instead of carrying on the strike while negotiating for Abiola's release - the reason for the strike — the NLC declared that the strike was "suspended" so as to ease negotiations (it is not unknown, as Glory Kilanko observes, for the NLC to use the strike weapon and the threat of strikes purely to assume a better bargaining position with the authorities and to restore its credibility among workers). Bafyau also called on Nupeng and Pengassan to stop their strike when he announced that the NLC and the regime had arrived at a deal over Abiola's future. Wariebl Agamene, President of Nupeng, condemned the NLC for suspending the strike and accused them of conniving with the government in "deceiving Nigerians and engaging in a mockery of justice."
Now that details of the deal with the military have been revealed it seems that Agamene was not far off the mark. The regime agreed to release Abiola only if he undertook not to address any political rallies and refrained from participating in politics for the rest of his life. Abiola refused and is holding out for an unconditional release and military hand-over of power.
Abacha is increasingly uncomfortable with the criticism he has been receiving from Western governments and local capitalists for imprisoning Abiola and being unable to curb the political instability which is endangering their investments and profits. Foreign companies are unhappy over the scale of corruption and tiers of bureaucracy
1. Edwin Madunagu, 'Controlled transition on the ropes, International Viewpoint, no. 239, 23 November 1992.
I WAS FORCED ! THEY DEAR COMRADES! GO
THREATENED TO GO ON BACK TO WORK...
STRIKE IF YOU DO NOT EVERYTHING ONE HAS
International Viewpoint #259 September 1994
BUT IF I COULDN'T BE cate that he had no need to rob
YOU MUST BELIEVE
ME SIR. IT IS NOT MY
IDEA. I WAS SENT... BEEN SETTLED!
INSTALL YOUR PRISONES
INFACT..
...A MAN WHD REFUSED TO MAKE ME HIS RUNNING MATE! which eat away at their returns (one has only to be a senior army officer in Nigeria to become an overnight millionaire). An Abiola government is acceptable to them because it would not overturn the stranglehold of transnational capital on the economy and would, they hope, "clean it up" by curbing bribery and commissions. Abacha badly needs to extract himself from his present difficul-
Unfortunately, one of his options is to declare war with neighbouring Cameroon — or at least threaten his readiness to do so. The Bakassi peninsula is at the centre of a territorial dispute between the two countries. The peninsula's 1,000 square kilometres is rich in oil and gas reserves and the offshore waters are abundant in fisheries. Abacha has sent troops to occupy the area and Cameroon's President, Paul Biya, has promised to respond in kind. Both have domestic agendas. Abacha hopes that patriotism will quieten down protests, and that military manoeuvres will keep his rivals in the army occupied. Biya faces a secessionist movement among the anglophone minority in his country - one of whom stood for president in 1992 and lost in a highly suspect contest.
The complication is the role of France. The Mitterand Presidency has close links with the francophone Biya government and a defence pact between France and Cameroon guarantees French military assistance in the event of an external threat. However, the French Prime Minister, Eduard Balladur, is trying to mend fences with Nigeria because the French trans-national oil company, Elf Aquitaine, hopes to increase its holdings and involvement in an oil industry which is presently dominated by the Anglo-Dutch company, Shell.
HIS RUNNING MATE, I SURE CAN RUIN KIM AS A RUINING MATE! EH... EH... EH...
Meanwhile Abiola too is aware that his popularity increases with every day in prison. When Babangida installed the Interim National Government of Ernest Shonekan (deposed shortly after by Abacha), Abiola, a multi-millionaire and publishing magnate, jumped on his private jet and fled to London instead of confronting the military as the democracy movement expected him to do. He was also ambivalent towards Abacha at first, perhaps believing that the latter had launched the coup to restore the June 1993 mandate.
### Inflammatory
The Concord newspaper group owned by Abiola was at this time publishing some inflammatory articles sug gesting that the reason he was not permitted to assume the presidency is because the northern Hausa-Fulsani ethnic groups and their kin-folk in the military leadership do not want to lose their political dominance to southerners who pre-dominate in economic life and the state bureaucracy. Abiola is a southerner belonging to the Yoruba people. There is some truth to this, but the effect was to stir up ethnic tensions. All these issues compromised Abiola's reputation and it has taken his arrest and reports of the harshness of prison conditions to evoke public sympathy and support.
Almost without exception the democratic movement, including its radical wing, has stated its objective as being the release of all political prisoners, including Abiola, and for the honouring of the 12 June 1993 electoral result. Abiola was seen as the dream ticket: a Yoruba from the south but a Moslem, and therefore acceptable to the largely Moslem north, with a vice-presidential partner who is a northern Moslem, with his vast wealth which would surely indithe treasury. The voting seemed to bear out this perception when not only did he have a large lead over his rival in the south but also won one-third of the votes counted in Many rationalise supporting the 12 June result by explaining that only after civilian rule by bourgeois democrats like Abiola has been consolidated and the military ousted from political life for good can socialists advance their own alternatives.2 This overlooks the experience of Nigeria's post-colonial history let alone that of the rest of the continent. The briet interludes of civilian government by capitalist elites have left behind bitter legacies of extravagance, embezzlement and ethnic division - not constitutional stability, democratic freedoms and a productive economic base.
The military coups which have succeeded these governments have invariably been greeted by (short-lived) relief as the new regimes promise to root out corruption, punish the wrong-doers, abolish poverty and so forth. Yet they have succeeded in wasting away the vast oil wealth, plunging the country into a debt trap (US$30 billion foreign debt), and implementing austerity measures, despite soaring rates of inflation (116%) and widespread malnourishment and near starvation in rural areas. Absurd as it may seem, there have often been acute fuel and energy shortages, and queuing at petrol kiosks was common well befo-
The election of 1993 was hardly an exercise in democracy. Only two parties were allowed to contest, the "little to the right" National Republican Convention (NRC), and the "little to the left" Social Democratic Party (SP). The names of these parties, their constitutions and manifestos, were drawn up by Babangida's government and two exactly similar headquarters built for them in Abuja. Both SDP candidate Abiola and NRC candidate Bashir Tofa are multi-millionaires with close links to the military. Both were also senior members of the former party of the capitalist class, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
2. The tragedy of the Nigerian socialist movement and some of its debates are reviewed in E. Madunagu, • •Problems Of Socialism: The Nigerian Challenge', Zed Books. (London), 1982.
----- photo credits and running heads -----
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International Viewpoint #259 September 1994
Journalist David Pallister notes: "In the early 1980s one senior politician, going to the heart of the matter remarked: "There are only two political parties in Nigeria - the NPN and the army.? Put another way, it has been argued that the army is the military wing of the NPN, and that the Nigerian elite for all its political and ethnic differences, is in fact a tiny homogeneous group passing the parcel of power and wealth that flows from it."3 While Pallister underestimates the intra-capitalist rivalry which takes the form of ethnic and regional loyalties, it remains the case that the June 1993 elections did not
Many who recognise that the labour movement and socialist forces are too weak to take on the ruling class see a Sovereign National Conference as the mechanism whereby representatives of the exploited and oppressed masses, the Talakawa, could administer the country until genuine multi-party elections can be held. They recognise that in the interim they would have to share power with capitalist politicians such as Abiola and that the relationship of forces is still not in their favour. How then can they best prepare themselves before, during and after such a conference?
A number of activists have already drawn the lesson that if the democratic struggle in Nigeria is to be successful it must not only encompass, but transcend the demands for human rights and greater freedoms. They realise that there is no substitute for building a political movement dedicated to stimulating and supporting the self-activity and self-organisation of working people, in order, as Glory Kilanko says, to capture power ourselves". *
3. The Guardian (London), 5 June 1993.
democracy
Striking
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