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WSWS : News & Analysis : Africa

A reply to an Nigerian correspondent

The following is a letter sent in reply to a Nigerian correspondent who asked for our positions on the political situation in that country. The correspondent specifically asked about our attitude toward the demand for the formation of a government based on the results of the June 12, 1993 election. That election was abrogated by the Nigerian military and its winner, Chief Mashood Abiola, jailed and charged with treason. Nigeria is today ruled by a military dictatorship headed by Gen. Sani Abacha.

19 May 1997

Dear Comrade:

We were pleased to receive your letter proposing a discussion of basic political perspectives. The International Committee of the Fourth International and its sections view the political developments in Nigeria with the greatest seriousness and recognize that the building of a revolutionary party in the Nigerian working class is of decisive importance for the social revolution throughout the African continent.

You asked for our position on a number of important issues relating to the political situation in Nigeria. Of course we would very much like to hear your own views on these matters and receive a report from you on the present situation, which we are able to follow only from a distance.

Nonetheless, your questions are of a fundamental character and go to the heart of the perspectives and program of the Trotskyist movement.

Let me state from the outset, our party believes that Marxists must oppose the call for a government based on the June 12, 1993 election. Hatred of the Abacha regime and its crimes-including the abrogation of the results of that vote-cannot justify political support for a government headed by Chief Moshood Abiola.

To divert the struggles of the workers and rural poor behind the demand for a "legitimate" government of the bourgeoisie would serve only to politically disarm the oppressed masses in the face of the attacks which such a government would inevitably prepare against them. A party which supported the installation of Abiola as president would thereby assume political responsibility for the policies of his government.

Rather than joining the bourgeois politicians in attempting to resuscitate the aborted regime of Abiola, the first task of Marxists in preparing a revolutionary struggle against the present dictatorship is to fight for the political independence of the Nigerian working class.

It is of, course, necessary to put forward demands for basic democratic rights: an end to military rule, the right of independent unions and freedom for all political prisoners, including Abiola and Obasanjo. But the struggle to end dictatorship and all forms of reaction can be carried out only through the overthrow of both imperialism and the national bourgeoisie.

Allow me to explain the theoretical and historical foundations of our attitude toward this question.

The ongoing crisis of Nigeria, and indeed all of Africa, in our view is among the sharpest manifestations of the failure of capitalism as a world system. At the same time, it points to the inability of the nationalist movements that emerged on the continent in the 1950s and 1960s to realize the most basic democratic and social demands of the workers and rural poor.

Nearly 37 years after formal independence from the British Crown, Nigeria, like the other nations of Africa, remains an oppressed semicolony. For the masses of people, the promises of national development and liberation raised during the period of decolonization have proven a cruel hoax.

The newly independent states formed through decolonization accepted the nation-state framework established by the colonial carve-up of Africa. The aim of the nascent bourgeoisie, drawn largely from a narrow middle class layer which was itself a product of colonialism, was not the overthrow of the existing social order. Rather, this aspiring ruling class sought to achieve what it saw as its rightful inheritance, i.e.; taking the place of the old colonial rulers and using the state to consolidate its own wealth and power.

The regimes founded by the various nationalist movements proved incapable of achieving any real independence from imperialism. In the early years the more radical among them advocated Pan Africanism or even "African socialism." Others adopted a more personalist approach, promoting "Nkrumaism" in Ghana or the "Ujamaa" program of Nyerere in Tanzania.

None of these programs, however, proved capable of overcoming the crushing legacy of European colonialism. In consolidating their power, all of these regimes accepted the nation-state borders which had been drawn by the rival European powers.

The result was the founding of approximately 50 separate African states whose borders corresponded neither to natural geography, economic necessity nor ethnic and linguistic identity. These were declared sacrosanct and guaranteed by the misnamed Organization for African Unity precisely because each separate state guaranteed the ability of the local élites to take over the offices vacated by the colonialists. Behind them stood the imperialist powers, which saw these territorial divisions as a means of exerting neocolonial domination and influence over the supposedly independent states.

The attempts by Africa's new rulers to cloak themselves in socialist garb was itself an expression of the extreme weakness of the aspiring bourgeoisie. This weakness bound it all the more closely to imperialism. Even as leaders like Nkrumah, Kenyatta, Nyerere and Sekou Toure spoke of "self-reliance" and "socialism," their states became ever more dependent on foreign banks and multinationals.

During the 1960s national development strategies were able to raise growth rates and register significant achievements in areas such as education, health and social services. But by the 1970s, with the end of the post-World War II economic expansion and the breakdown of world monetary relations, world capitalism bore down with crushing force upon the African continent. "Structural adjustment" programs imposed in country after country turned Africa into a net exporter of capital to the advanced capitalist world.

The regimes themselves, particularly in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, turned sharply to the right. They have all sworn their allegiance to the capitalist market and the International Monetary Fund.

Imperialism continues to plunder the former African colonies, enriching a small layer of the African bourgeoisie, while condemning millions to poverty and even starvation. According to recent figures from the World Bank, the number of people living below the poverty line in sub-Saharan Africa rose by 20 percent between 1988 and 1993.

The military dictatorship in Nigeria, while one of the more brutal on the African continent, is by no means unique. Moreover, as you well know, it follows a succession of military rulers who have held power for all but 10 of the 37 years since independence.

This type of regime, like that of Mobutu in Zaire, is a political expression of the underlying economic and social relations which prevail throughout Africa. It suppresses the masses in order to defend the combined interests of imperialism and the national bourgeoisie.

Social and economic conditions for the masses of people are not fundamentally different in the "democratic" regimes and those headed by former "national liberation" leaders. All of them are engaged in the implementation of International Monetary Fund programs that are destroying the livelihoods and even the most minimal social services for the workers and poor. And all of them, from Mugabe to Mandela, deal with Abacha as a respected equal, accepting the mass repression, jailings and hangings as the price of doing business with Nigeria.

The crisis in Nigeria and throughout Africa is a powerful vindication of Trotsky's perspective of permanent revolution.

Basing himself on a world historic conception, Trotsky established that in Russia the bourgeoisie was no longer in a position to carry out its own bourgeois revolution. It saw the revolutionary working class as a far greater threat than the czarist autocracy or foreign imperialism, upon which it was ultimately dependent.

Thus, it fell to the working class to carry through the tasks of the democratic revolution, taking the leadership of the peasantry and overturning the old system of feudal relations in the countryside. In carrying out these tasks, however, it could not stop at establishing a democratic republic and ending feudalism. Rather the working class was compelled to take power into its own hands and carry out measures of a socialist character, directly challenging the private control of the social means of production.

This perspective, worked out by Trotsky in the aftermath of the 1905 revolution, found its full vindication in October 1917.

The revolution was permanent in another sense. While the socialist revolution could begin in Russia, it could only be completed on the international arena. The coming to power of the Russian working class, Trotsky correctly predicted, would send revolutionary shock waves around the world. The survival of the revolution, not to mention socialist construction in backward Russia, was dependent upon the coming to power of the working class in Western Europe and elsewhere.

This understanding of the Russian Revolution as a part of the world revolution was the essential component of Trotsky's theory. He explained that the revolution was not merely the product of a crisis in Russia, but rather the historical crisis of a world system of which Russia was a part.

The inability of the bourgeoisie to resolve the fundamental problems of Russian society was not merely a Russian phenomenon. In Africa, as we have seen, and throughout the colonial and semicolonial world, the national bourgeoisie was similarly tied to both feudalism and imperialism on the one hand, and fearful of the working class on the other.

In the imperialist epoch, a solution to the fundamental problems of the working class and the oppressed can be found only through the development of world economy and international revolutionary struggle. That struggle can be led only by the sole truly international class, the working class.

The endless series of military coups, the nepotism and the fomenting of ethnic and regional conflict which have characterized the rule of the Nigerian bourgeoisie underscore the central content of the permanent revolution throughout Africa.

In a declaration published in 1940 entitled "Imperialist War and the Proletarian World Revolution," the Fourth International correctly projected the fate of the coming decolonization. While voicing its support for the anti-imperialist struggles in the oppressed countries, the statement declared: "The Fourth International knows in advance and openly warns the backward nations that their belated national states can no longer count upon an independent democratic development. Surrounded by decaying capitalism and enmeshed in the imperialist contradictions, the independence of a backward state inevitably will be semi-fictitious, and the political regime, under the influence of internal class contradictions and external pressure, will unavoidably fall into dictatorship of the people." Thus, it concluded, "The struggle for the national independence of the colonies is, from the standpoint of the revolutionary proletariat, only a transitional stage on the road toward drawing the backward countries into the international socialist revolution."

Stalinism opposed this perspective. Both the Moscow bureaucracy and its followers on the African continent promoted illusions in the capacity of the bourgeois nationalist regimes to wage a struggle against imperialism. This ideology, rooted in Moscow's desire to cement alliances in its Cold War with the United States, justified the propping up of militarist dictatorships like the one in Ethiopia and helped produce a series of catastrophes for the oppressed masses.

The conception that the national bourgeoisie, under Abiola or anyone else, is going to inaugurate an era of democracy and development is refuted by the entire history of post-colonial Africa.

The Nigerian bourgeoisie, connected closely to the semifeudal elements in the north as well as to the multinational banks and oil monopolies, is not about to carry out fundamental democratic measures, such as distribution of land to the peasantry, the forging of genuine independence from imperialism or the breaking down of ethnic and regional divisions.

It cannot embark on any such goals. To do so would unleash an explosive movement of the dispossessed rural poor and the exploited workers which would threaten the bourgeoisie's own rule.

It is on the basis of this perspective that we approach the demand for the installation of Abiola as president on the grounds that he is the rightful winner of the 1993 election.

The strikes and protests of the 1993-94 period undoubtedly expressed the combativity and self-sacrifice of the largest and most developed working class on the African continent. The inability of this powerful movement to topple Nigeria's military rulers, it would seem to us, cannot be attributed solely to the brutal repression unleashed by the Abacha regime.

Rather, the source must be traced to the role of the labor bureaucracy and its subordination of the struggles of the working class to the state and the national bourgeoisie. Lacking any independent revolutionary party to represent it, the political demands put forward by this movement were limited to respect for the June 12 election.

It is our opinion that continuing the subordination of the working class to this demand would only pave the way for the defeat of the Nigerian workers.

Of course, a Nigerian socialist party must fight for an end to the present military dictatorship and reject with contempt the claims that it is preparing-yet again-a "transition to democracy." But this in no way implies that Marxists are compelled to demand the installation of Abiola as president.

Above all a revolutionary party must fight for the political independence of the working class. It must explain to the workers that a struggle for genuinely democratic demands means opposing any government controlled by the Nigerian bourgeoisie, whether in a "democratic" or military form. The only road forward lies in the fight for a workers government and socialism in coordination with the struggles of workers throughout Africa and internationally.

I recently read Wole Soyinka's book The Open Sore of a Continent in which he denounces the corruption and repression of the present regime and that of its predecessors, both civilian (Shagari) and military (Buhari, Babaginda).

He is a spokesman for the democratic opposition to Abacha and he upholds the 1993 election, claiming that its realization would represent the "enthronement of genuine democracy" in Nigeria. It must be said, though, that even Soyinka's description of Abiola makes it very clear that he is a creature of the same corrupt and repressive political setup to which he has fallen victim.

While the author lacks neither a linguistic gift nor passion, more than this is required to make sense of the present situation. What he never even approaches is a class analysis of the present situation in Nigeria or its historical origins. The source of dictatorship and corruption in the class interests of the bourgeoisie remains hidden. In the end his appeal is for a more moral government and a nation based on "human values."

In advancing their demand for a government based on the June 12 vote, Soyinka and those like him are directing their appeal not so much to the masses of Nigerian workers and oppressed as to the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the major imperialist powers and the banks and multinationals. That was certainly his audience when he attended this year's World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland.

Shell and the other oil monopolies reaping massive profits from Nigeria are, of course, opposed to sanctions or any other measure which would interfere with their operations. Nonetheless, the appeal of the "democrats" for a government based on law does have a definite appeal within the leading circles of multinational capital. The economic and social anarchy, the disintegration of infrastructure and the vast corruption which characterize the present regime all serve as impediments to the efficient exploitation of Nigeria's material and human resources.

Soyinka has also argued that the Nigerian junta represents a "threat to regional security." This is an argument for foreign intervention.

What would be the outcome for the Nigerian masses should the lobbying efforts of the democratic opposition be realized? It is worth examining the case of Haiti. Despite the obvious differences in size and history of the two countries there are some important parallels.

Aristide, also elected president after a protracted history of dictatorship, was overthrown by the military in September 1991. He escaped to exile carrying out a three-year campaign for sanctions and intervention against the ruling junta. In 1994 Washington, for its own reasons, obliged, occupying the Caribbean nation and reinstalling Aristide in the presidential palace.

Aristide and his successor Preval have both served as instruments of the International Monetary Fund and the multinationals, implementing austerity programs and privatizations that have wiped out thousands of jobs. The military, formally disbanded after the invasion, has been reconstituted, with much the same personnel, and is once again repressing workers, attacking demonstrations and breaking strikes.

Is there any room for doubt that a "restoration of democracy" in Nigeria would produce similar results? If anything the "democratic" credentials of Aristide were far more impressive than those of Abiola. The former was a vocal opponent of dictatorship. The latter rose to prominence as an officer of IT&T, a millionaire businessmen and a confidant of the military.

If masses of workers have illusions in the democratic capacities of Abiola and the Nigerian bourgeoisie, they will pay a price for it. The task of Marxists is to tell the truth to the workers, to shake them and free them of such illusions.

From what we can see from here, the economic and social tensions are rapidly building up once again in Nigeria. The fuel crisis gripping one of the world's leading petroleum exporters is an unmistakable indication of the bankruptcy of the national bourgeoisie. The most important question for the Nigerian working class is that of revolutionary leadership.

In Nigeria, and throughout Africa, new parties must be built to prepare the socialist revolution. These parties must reject the present nation-state setup, fighting to unite the struggles of workers across the continent. At the same time they must be imbued with a firm internationalist orientation, seeing the struggles in Africa as inextricably bound up with those of the working class in the advanced capitalist countries and worldwide against capitalism.

We are very much interested to learn of your own political views and experiences and your assessment of the important political questions which you have posed to us. We hope to hear from you soon.

Fraternally yours,

Bill Vann