 |
| Jaye Gaskia |
Background And Context:
Our party derives from a call issued to
challenge activists to step out, take up the epochal challenge of establishing
a radical, left alternative political platform to challenge the treacherous,
treasury looting and kleptomaniac ruling class for political power.
From Protest To Power, Street To Service:
A CLARION CALL TO ACTIVISTS
AND COMPATRIOTS FOR URGENT POLITICAL ACTION TO SALVAGE OUR COUNTRY NIGERIA!
Background And Context
For a generation the world has been passing through
tumultuous and chaotic times, defined and characterised by the most severe and
all embracing systemic crises of the global capitalist system. The crisis is at
once a food, financial, economic, environmental/ecological, social and
political one. And rather than abate it has continued to deepen since its
dramatic emergence with the food price crisis of 2007 and the epochal collapse
of Leyman Brothers, signaling the collapse of the financial system in 2008.
Since its inception, the crisis of the global market
system has led to not only the dramatic collapse followed by bailouts of large
corporations, but also of whole national economies – Iceland, Ireland, Greece,
and the struggling and near collapsed Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian
economies. The Eurozone crisis has become the most enduring emblem of this
global crisis.
In Nigeria, this deep rooted crisis of neo-liberalism is
compounded by the epochal ineptitude, political and economic incompetence, as
well as the selfish pecuniary interests of a parochial, provincial, pedestrian,
and thieving treasury looting ruling class and political elite.
This disastrous infliction on the nation includes loss of
one million industrial jobs with closure of over 1,000 industrial enterprises
over a 10 year period; industrial capacity utilisation wavering around 35%;
fratricidal hostilities bordering civil war; continuing ethno/religious strife
orchestrated by the counter mobilisations of ethnic and religious
fractions/factions of the ruling class; and increasing impoverisation of
overwhelming majority of the toiling citizens. According to the most recent
data from the government’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), 62.5% of Nigerians
live in absolute/abject poverty, while 70% live in relative poverty (that is
101/112 million out of a population of 166 million); rising unemployment (over
25% national average, and over 33% for youths); rising inflation and its
attendant rising cost of living and decreasing condition of living of citizens;
and even more significantly the organised unconscionable looting of the
treasury that has now reached alarming unsustainable scale. Over 2.5 trillion
Naira was lost to fraud in revelations between January 2011 and May 2012 alone.
This figure is more than 50% of the annual federal budget, an alarming
equivalent of the annual national budgets of virtually all the ECOWAS countries
combined!
HOW THE EXPLOITED, OVER
BURDENED AND IMPOVERISHED RESPONDED
Across the world the response of the ruling classes have
been to increase the hardship of the exploited and oppressed working peoples,
by shifting the burden of the stabilization and recovery of the global economy
to the subordinate classes. The response of the impoverished, unemployed,
overexploited and politically unrepresented majority of the citizens has been a
massive global wave of resistance, which has produced the Arab Spring in the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA region); the general strike and anti-austerity
resistance movement in Europe that has led to the collapse of sitting
governments: Greece, Ireland, Ice Land, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, UK,
Netherlands, etc.
While the fall from power of Benedine Ali, Mubarak, and
Gadaffi has been quite dramatic; the governmental collapse in Greece and Italy,
as well as the most recent electoral outcomes in France and Greece (where anti
austerity parties were voted into power or received the largest share of the
votes), have been no less dramatic.
In Nigeria, the response of the Ruinous Ruling Class,
compounded by the need to raise revenue to cover up the previous unprecedented
scale of looting of the treasury and refill the treasury in order to ensure a
sustainable basis for treasury looting engendered and produced THE HISTORIC
JANUARY UPRISING – The most wide spread and national (across more than 55
cities]; longest lasting (one week of general strike and 12 days of mass street
protests); as well as most successful general strike and Mass Action in the
history of Nigeria.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE? A CALL
TO DUTY AND ACTION!
Evident from the global experience of the Arab spring,
the political convulsions in Europe, and our experience in the January Uprising
are:
·
A
definite and clear-cut alternative to deprivation, autocracy and the political
and economic brigandage of the global ruling class must be built.
·
hThis
clear-cut alternative must be politically organised and must seek political
expression; this alternative must eventually take on the ruling class and
contest for power.
·
This
clear-cut alternative cannot be provided by, nor organised and led by the
current political elites; neither their conservative nor progressive/social
democratic wings. This particular point is even more poignant in Nigeria where
both wings of the ruling class have collectively looted the treasury and
governed with impunity as brigands in power.
·
This
clear-cut political alternative which will reorganize society and implement an
alternative economic policy framework that will prioritise people over profits,
and wellbeing over growth; can only be organised by the elemental forces
central to the organization, mobilization and coordination of the global
resistance in each country. Here, the experience of Greece is very instructive in
the rise and emergent electoral superiority of the radical left; an experience
already presaged and buttressed in the victories on the organised radical and
popular left movements in Latin America, in country after country since the
last decade.
·
The
most significant lesson of this moment in world history is that only by
building a mass political protest and resistance movement can the
decades/centuries old grip of the discredited ruling class/ruling political
elite on power be broken. In this regard, we commit to deepening the mass
resistance on the streets and in the workplaces, consolidating on the gains of
the January Uprising in building such a party.
Without this mode of party building, as has been shown by recent experience in the Arab Spring (with victories for conservative Islamist Parties) and most recently in France (with victory for the Social Democratic Socialist Party); only the historically established parties of factions and fractions of the ruling class, forced by circumstance to be critical of the ongoing austerity based onslaught of the ruling elites, will become the political and electoral beneficiary of the mass resistance occasioned by the popular anger! It is thus incumbent on us to build a party that will deepen the protest movement and as well be capable of transforming street anger into political power.
Without this mode of party building, as has been shown by recent experience in the Arab Spring (with victories for conservative Islamist Parties) and most recently in France (with victory for the Social Democratic Socialist Party); only the historically established parties of factions and fractions of the ruling class, forced by circumstance to be critical of the ongoing austerity based onslaught of the ruling elites, will become the political and electoral beneficiary of the mass resistance occasioned by the popular anger! It is thus incumbent on us to build a party that will deepen the protest movement and as well be capable of transforming street anger into political power.
It is in the light of the
foregoing, and seizing the moment, by taking advantage of the global balance of
class forces, that we issue this clarion call to all activists and compatriots
agitated by the condition of our country; radicalized by the January Uprising,
and desirous of salvaging our country, to begin a nationwide discussion and
effort to build an alternative toiling people focused, popular mass based
political platform to challenge the ruling political elite for power.
The clear lesson taught by
the recent global experience of opposition to bad governance, economic
incompetence and political brigandage, is the urgent need to make the
transition FROM PROTEST TO POWER; FROM STREET TO SERVICE!
On our part, we are fully committed to the emergence of
such a party, and in collaboration with as many activists and compatriots that
believe in the necessity of this course of action, to soon produce and
circulate a MANIFESTO for such a party.
We call on every Nigerian active and radicalized by the
January Uprising to heed this call to action and join us in the journey to
RECLAIM OUR HUMANITY, REMAKE OUR COUNTRY AND TAKE IT BACK FROM THE ALLIANCE OF
TREASURY LOOTERS AND ROGUES!
Together we can and shall build this party and transform
our country!
Issued By: Take Back Nigeria Initiative.
Odoh Diego Okenyodo
Oluwole Elegbede
Gbenro Olajuyigbe
Tunde Aremu
Jaye Gaskia
Contact:
takebacknaija@gmail.com, 08091443322, 08033105107, 08023180493,
08055081933, 08033311478
http://takebacknigeria.blogspot.com/http://www.facebook.com/pages/Take-Back-Nigeria-Protest-to-Power/405109956193921
https://twitter.com/ProtestToPower
