The Abuja School
Introduction
There is an extreme urgency to get Nigeria out of intensive care unit and into a general hospital ward were recovery, revival and regeneration can commence. The country is terminally sick. The only difference between Nigeria and a person in intensive care is that Nigeria is presently not receiving any care. As gather together to discuss on the political fortunes of our country, the President is away to Paris where his official spokesperson said he would be ‘working’ for an indefinite period. As we talk, the Nigerian police seek to arrest the President of Nigerian Labour Congress on charges of treason and terrorism financing. Hundreds of protesters are facing criminal trial while terrorists and bandits that killed hundreds are posting viral videos on tik tok. Hunger and sickness ravage the land, and the President buys a new presidential jet reportedly for N150billion. There is deep division in the political class as the President rules with the tiniest minority of any president yet doubling down on exclusionary politics. Nigeria could actually be in a morgue if we continue on this path for three more years. The terrifying thing is that we can continue on this trajectory for another 8 years because of an electoral system that gets worse in every electoral circle.
Anyone who is not part of the restricted governing class in Nigeria today, or who is not morbidly partisan, would agree that the we are caught in a hard place. During the last national protest, we saw clear evidence of the foments threatening to destroy Nigeria. we saw raw rage and hopelessness embodied in those northern youths that marched down in Kano and Kaduna and other states without fear of their lives. It tells us the recklessness that could become Nigeria’s revolution is the current hunger and hopelessness continue.
What then is the solution? The solution lies on two paths we must take. The first is real and radical electoral reform. The second is real and radical party restructuring. I have spoken about the first at the policy dialogue organized by the Inter Party Advisory Council (IPAC). Today, I will speak about the second: real and radical restructuring of political party in Nigeria. I focus on the Labour Party because it is the party today that has the real chance to reform itself and rescue Nigeria from the current deadly incubus. It is also the only party formed and owned by the Nigerian Labour Congress and its sister union, the Trade Union Congress (TUC).
Why is the Labour Party Important to Sustainable Economic and Social Development:
It is difficult to conceive of a working democracy without a working political party system. It is remarkable that although the first republic ended in a civil war and the second republic ended with military coups, the quality of democracy in those periods are far better than today. This is because the political parties we had then resembled what is contained in the textbook about the ideological and organizational nature of political parties. They were parties who tried to aggregate opinions and perspectives about the natural question and tried to mobilize intellectual and human resources to present a vision of national development. Over time, we have witnessed a transformation, howbeit, a negative one. Today, our parties do not aggregate any coherent ideological vision of Nigeria’s developmental future, nor do they evince any organization strength. We don’t have the luxury of well-managed parties anymore. We have Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) for getting to political offices. Politicians proudly talk about parties as mere SPVs, vehicles to get to power and either discard or mismanage. We can pardon politicians for this deep ignorance. But the truth is that political parties are the heart of politics as the art of using political power to advance public interest. Politics will descend to the level of unconcealed and unmediated fight for private interests if we do not have political parties as arbiters and moderators of incommensurability and incompatibility of plural societies. If we do not have functional political parties, we would not have the opportunity to peacefully oppose on perspective to another in a manner that ensures that politics remains the art of the possible. If we do not have functional political parties, how do we present coherent policy options to citizens with the assurance that those policies will be implemented when we get to power? This is the reason why both presidential candidates abandon campaign promises once they get to office. There is no governing party.
So, we can summarize that political parties are useful instruments to achieve the virtues of democracy. The merit of democracy lies in the verities of political parties as an instrument of preference aggregation and political participation. Democracy malfunctions when these roles are not effectively performed because political parties are dysfunctional.
The Labour Party of Nigeria is important for the revival of democracy in Nigeria because it offers the clearest possibility of bringing back high-energy politics that is rooted in a popular movement for social change. In spite of present crisis of the party and its trajectory of repeated failure to become what it is in its name; Labour Party has the most appealing symbolism that can be used to lead a mass movement for national redemption and development. Make no mistake is lost. It needs to be recovered and redeemed. This redemption is best done by the working people of Nigeria who have suffered most at the hands of the betrayers of Nigeria. It was a mass movement of a coalition of nationalists, workers and students that liberated Nigeria from the bondage of colonialism. Today, Nigeria is in another bondage of continuous rape and rudderless steering by the established political class who are also the comprador class. Nigeria is not on any defined development path. In fact, Nigeria has no development agenda. Nigeria is under-developing. At this point, Nigeria needs a second emancipation. An emancipation driving by patriotic and developmentalist politicians working with the leadership of the working people and the masses of Nigeria.
Nigeria is in dire need of a mass movement, a mass movement of a different kind, a mass movement that involves patriotic politicians, conscientious religious leaders and genuine cultural leaders who rightly interpret the moment as a moment of re-founding of the Nigerian republic. So, the case for the Labour Party is that it has the most accoutrement of the working people. Its symbol of a family is a good representation of the hunger and poverty which unpatriotic and anti-developmental politics has foisted on the people of Nigeria, and the resilience of the Nigerian people that assures us that through courageous and popular political actions we can defeat the current political class that makes Nigeria a land of bitterness for all of us.
The Labour Party is also unique, in spite of its challenges and crises, because of the leadership of the working people. We trust our unions and its leadership. We learn from the experiences of countries like United Kingdom and Sweden that the labour movement has the interest, the knowledge of public good and the identification with the people to lead a national transformation. We cannot forget that it was the Labour Party of the United Kingdom that created the hugely successful welfare system in the country when progressive intellectuals like Simeon and Beatrice Web and William Beveridge developed the concept of welfare as a political ideology for the Labour Party under the leadership of Clement Atlee. We also remember how another progressive intellectual, Nobel Laureate in economics, Gunnar Myrdal, helped the establish the intellectual basis of social welfare in Sweden. But this could only happen on the platform of a political party with workers and social democrats in charge. We cannot also forget that the social welfare system started with Otto Bismarck in Germany under a political party with workers and progressive intellectuals in charge.
Today, the Labour Party of Nigeria is the political party that best resembles these other parties that led the non-violent, popular revolutions that resulted in positive transformations in the German, UK and Sweden. This is the case for the Labour Party of Nigeria and why we should be unrelenting in pushing for its reform. But what should be done to make the Labour Party of Nigeria a veritable instrument for renewed fight for sustainable development in Nigeria? I have these thoughts to share with fellow comrades and compatriots.
First, we have to develop a coherent set of policy platforms that are true to labour aspirations and effective in guaranteeing to Nigerians a life of happiness and freedom. I would argue that the reason for policy platform is to network institutions and group in a common understanding of how to resolve the critical issues of nationhood and work together to win political power for the pursuit of agreed priorities.
Two main focus of this platform is to define the path to strategic relationship with stakeholder communities or platforms and also articulate key issues which will form the basis of negotiating relationships with these platform as well as policy platforms which will guide the development of a manifesto. LP leaders should anticipate that its electoral success depends largely on whether it can build strategic and principled partnership with several political, professional and communal movements to break away from the reinforcing circle of underdevelopment and authoritarianism. Such a relationship will make the Labour Party a movement for change as desired by its facilitators.
Identified Stakeholder Platform for Change (Partners for Change):
The following groups and institutions are considered as desirable Partners for Change (PCs):
- Elected Officials/PDP/APC, APGA, etc Leaders
- Leading Politicians
- Traditional/Religious Leaders
- Media
- Civil Society
- Labour/Trade Unions
- Women groups
- Private Sector & Business Organisations
- Academics/Policy/Research
- Civil Service
- Informal Sector and the Unorganised
- Youth and Students
- Nigerians in Diaspora
- International Outreach
Each of the PCs are desirable because they hold potential for mobilization and also could become sites for pre-policy research and debate which will boost the policy competence of 3G. conceptually, therefore, we identify each PC based on an understanding of credibility as a representative unit of some considerable social life and an organization or sector housing critical intelligence and knowledge needed to develop our policies and its political expression.
Why Do We Need to Care about these PCs?:
It is possible to sound dismissive of the need to spend quality time engaging these PCs when the urgent work of direct and traditional politicking beckons. Some of these platforms are not presently directly engaged in politicking and therefore the impression might be sustained that these platforms don’t matter. But this will be a mistake.
We care about these PCs because we recognize that there is little chance of either winning political power from the ruling oligarchs and/or making fundamental change to the way we live without massive mobilization of various potential political actors. We learn from the experience of countries where opposition parties have defeated the ruling oligarchs and facilitated a fundamental shift in governance that until such change agents bring into the political equation these potentially political platforms into the struggle for political power it may not succeed in its mission. The reason why the ruling parties, the PDP which held sway between 1999 and 2015, and the APC which presently holds sway and is brashly contemplating hanging on to power for many years to come in spite of their serial maladministration, is become politics in Nigeria is low energy, elitist and transactional. This means that the scope and parameters of politics is so narrow that a few persons have mastered it and have the necessary network to keep it under wraps. Additionally, the rigged electoral process which has been further militarized has create a perverse condition which British political economist, Paul Collier, once described in his book, War, Guns, and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places, which is that increased criminalization of electoral process results in natural selection where only criminals that thrive in electoral contests. This create a self-fulling prophesy where politics becomes severe restricted and produce negative results. In Nigeria, many social groups for various reasons have abandoned politics to a few audacious and unscrupulous heavy hitters. Dislodging these dinosaurs from power requires that in the minimum we must increase the energy of politics by introducing new stakeholders and groups who has not yet been brought under the thralldom of these ‘criminal’ godfathers.
Two examples, one recent and the other very distant, confirm this insight. In 1945, the Labour Party in Britain won a landslide because it re-engaged the energies and imaginations of Britons who were hitherto unengaged in politics. They did so partly by design a communication and mobilization message that excited the Britons and moved them to political action and also partly by deliberate wooing hitherto apolitical social groups. A more recent example is the election of a black man as president of the US in 2008. Barack Obama won a historic election in a landslide and the Democratic Party also acquired an overwhelming majority in the legislature, something that is unprecedented in recent times. This happened partly because the Democratic Party, and especially Barack Obama campaign, mobilized the young and professional groups who are pissed off by Bush war policies but have not been part of an active political constituencies. Through several Political Action Committees, they were networked into the Democratic Party platforms.
It is also important to get these stakeholder groups onto the Labour Party platform because of the important role they will play in the party caucuses. Today, party caucuses are just mere formalities. But there are supposed to be active sites for quality participation and for aggregation of ideas and opinions for policies that can engender commitment to the party’s objective and mission. When Nigerians decry the lack of ideological orientation in the parties they should focus attention on the weakness of the caucuses as the driver of political orientation and policy deliberation. Some of the proposed PCs will become active part of an effective and value-oriented political Caucus
Strategies for Engaging the PCs: Divergences and Convergences:
The strategies for mobilizing the PCs to the Labour Party platform will be similar in many respects but also diverge in some significant sense in other to answer to their respective concerns and sensibilities. Some of the commonalities include the following:
Inclusive and Egalitarian: Nigerians cannot be mobilized for change through any other strategy than one that is evidently inclusive and egalitarian. The history of the numerous failures in political leadership in Nigeria has radicalized most Nigerians to an enhanced expectation of good governance. Although Nigerians do not necessarily take to the streets to protest bad leadership, although recently that has started to change. Rather, they more often show their disaffection by being deeply skeptical and cynical of politics and political campaign. They will not pay attention to a political mobilization for change that is elitist or exclusory on any basis. They will also not pay respect to a mobilization that does not proceed on the basis that every Nigerian matters equally. The overwhelming national acceptance of Labour Party in 2023 presidential is largely because its presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, seems to embody this egalitarianism and humility. The Labour Party platform must mobilize on the demonstrated belief and commitment that every Nigerian life and wellbeing counts, and that the party regards all Nigerians as equally important. This commitment will shape how the party conducts its affairs.
Radical Change: all the stakeholders we want to mobilize to the Labour Party platforms believe that Nigeria needs radical change in order to serve the interests of the many. Their views about the economic and social relations in Nigeria may vary in their nuances but remain similar in the commitment to make a real and sustainable transformation of social and economic realities and relations.. They believe that Nigeria is not working precisely because its institutional design and cultural (that is, normative) foundations do not allow it to function as a modern democratic economy. They want a democratic-developmental state that focuses on the satisfaction of economic and social welfare of Nigeria, the same message that the Nigerian Labour Congress and its affiliates and sister unions and the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election have propounded. The task before us is to deepen and broaden these policies and make them coherent with our practices.
Real and Not Sham Democratization:
These stakeholder groups we want to mobilize desire real not sham democratization. Their commitment will be secured on the basis that democratic accountability will form the core essence of any transformative initiative whether of growing the economy or ensuring social security. It is also mean that they will not easily accept a platform that will not internalize democratic accountability. This is now time to teach our leaders the fundamentals of social democracy so that their statements, actions and institutionalized practices will align with the fundamental tenets and institutions of social democracy.
Nationalism and National Integration:
With the wave of ethnic or regional sentiments and conflicts in Nigeria, Labour Party will succeed in mobilizing credible platforms only if it embodies a national outlook and employs strategies that are rooted in nationalism. In the midst of growing regionalism in the world, alternative political economy perspectives
Empowerment:
Often people discuss democracy as if it is not related to the empowerment of the people. As human rights discourse and rhetoric spread across the world people feel that any project or program that does not empower them is not worthy their support. To enlist their full participation our platforms must be empowering.
Development-Oriented:
The constituencies we want to mobilize unto the 3G platform care much about development. We may not get their attention and support if we do not articulate policies that foster rapid economic and social development. It cannot be business as usual.
Various Stakeholders and Their Unique Policy Preferences:
Elected Politicians (APC, PDP, APGA, etc):
For Labour Party to make quick impact electorally it must reach out and win the support and participation of leading politicians. Some of these politicians are already elected under different political parties. How do we attract them to our platform? How do we prepare to effectively negotiate with them? First, we must recognize that these elected officials are more concerned with whether they are going to be elected into office on our platforms. It will make more sense to them that this platform is big and strong enough to guarantee electoral success and also that they stand a chance of hoisting the group’s flag as candidates. It is important to bear in mind that what will be pressing most in the mind of the elected politician is not policy but his or her electability on the new platform
Leading Politicians:
The selling point for the Labour Party will be the number of leading politicians that endorse its platform. This category of stakeholders is different from elected politicians because they are not necessarily driven by the need to retain their elective office. They are more amenable to strategic considerations on policy and program.
In negotiating with leading politicians, the focus will be on the common assured destruction if we all continue in the APC, PDP or the other smaller opposition party. We might be tempted to ignore the idealism and public spiritedness of politicians. Oftentimes, we exaggerate the selfishness of politicians. The key point is that these politicians also recognize that the country faces very serious problems that the present leadership cannot solve. They recognize that the lack of truly democratic institution and culture undermined their political career; it provides no guarantee that they will be able to achieve their political ambition. So, a platform that offers internal democracy and a fair guarantee of rule of law and stability in internal politics will be a better bargain than what they have at present.
The core policy that may appeal to an average leading politician in Nigeria is one that guarantee stability in the outcome of political competition. We must offer to them a policy platform that guarantee free and fair competition for elective and appointive offices in the party and in wider polity. Such policy must include a commitment to conduct primaries that are democratic and transparent and to avoid any form of imposition. The major evil the politician is running away from in Nigeria today is authoritarian politics which the PDP made a sublime art between 1999 and 2015 and which the APC is mastering at the moment. Apart from varying opportunistic considerations, a guarantee of democratic practices and culture in the new group is what may likely attract leading politicians to its platforms.
The Civil Society and Media:
I am grouping civil society and media together because they seem to share similar concerns. In fact, the media is a subset of civil society. There are many issues that appeal to the civil society and should be frontloaded in strategic negotiation with the group. A few of them are listed here:
Freedom of Information: The running saga of the guarantee of freedom of information according to the provisions of FOI law in Nigeria has exposed two important fact. First, that an increasing number of civil society groups understand the importance of a freedom of information regime to the consolidation of democracy and good governance. Second, that politicians are playing lip-service to FOI. It will serve Labour Party well to come out powerfully on the side of FOI and to declare its commitment to ensure effective implementation through powerful Executive Orders addressed to public officials to grant access to the public. The Labour Party may also follow through with a commitment to a special agency to monitor implementation of FOI and other sunshine laws to ensure transparent and accountable governance.
National Anti-Discrimination and Gender Commission: a growing number of civil society groups work on gender and anti-discrimination. Labour Party should come out strong on non-discrimination which is amply provided in the constitution. A commitment to establishing an effective non-discrimination commission as a way of strengthening citizenship will appeal to civil society
National Action Plan on Human Rights: the bulk of the more articulate and potentially political civil society groups are focused on promoting human rights. Some of these groups have in the past tried to force government to develop, legislate and implement a National Action Plan on Human Rights without success. Adopting the implementation of a National Action Plan on Human Rights as a cardinal policy platform of the 3G will boost an already good relationship with civil society. The merit of such plan is that will provide coordination on enforcement of human rights treaties that Nigeria has signed but have not implemented and provide advocacy platform for civil society group. South Africa has such an action-plan and it facilitated better relationship between government and civil society.
National Endowment for Humanities: one of the challenges faced by civil society groups promoting public good in different forms is that lack of support from government in terms of funds. Without foreign support these NGOs cannot function, even in such critical areas like literacy and community health. Government should show ownership of the process of development by being involved in public philanthropy. An endowment for the humanities will help the growth of the Third Sector in Nigeria and make the NGO more responsive national priorities in development rather the priorities set by Washington and London.
Economic Reform and Poverty Reduction Strategy:
Since 1999, growing global poverty has increased the number of NGOs working on poverty issues. Poverty has also been mainstreamed into many human rights and development issues. A clear commitment on how to make economic reform responsive to poverty and social exclusion will encourage active support of civil society groups in 2027 elections on the side of Labour Party. This is more so as the APC government has increased poverty in the country with its Washington-oriented neoliberal economic reform program, which it could not even coherently implement. We must articulate a new economic reform program which core will be growing the economy in a manner that lifts millions of Nigerians out of poverty in a dramatic fashion. An ambitious anti-poverty program is important for networking this group.
Labour Unions:
In some category we may include labour as part of civil society. But this will not do justice to our political mapping. Labour has always played key roles in politics. The most dramatic in recent time was during the June 12, 1993 election when labour worked together with the SDP. We can also see a growing profile of labour in politics with the modest success of labour party in Nigeria and the election of Dr Olusegun Mimiko as Governor of Ondo State. Labour should be the backbone of the Labour Party. But, meaningful relationship will not happen except the leadership of the labour movement state clearly that they are fully in support of the Labour Party and not by being supporters of PDP and APC in the night and labour leaders in the morning. We need great clarity that the leaders of the working people are fully in support of the Labour Party.
Halting or Rethinking Liberation and Deregulation Policies:
Smarting from experience under Obasanjo-Yar’Adua administration, Nigerian masses will be seriously concerned about the policy mix of any government in Nigeria. Nigerian workers and struggling unemployed will be very keen to support a party that clearly adopt policies that will de-accelerate privatization and deregulation of the economy especially in light of the responses of development countries to the financial meltdown. The Labour Party must call for a review of deregulation and privatization policies in the light of growing reregulation in the world to deal with the downsides of liberalization. There will be some tension with such a policy if we also intend to network some components of organized private sector, but we can negotiate it by crafting such policies carefully.
Comprehensive Society Security Legislation:
One key issue for labor is a comprehensive Social Security regime that protects the working people and the unemployed from the harsh outcomes of economic reform. Government has recognized the anomaly that Nigeria does not have such a scheme but has not done anything serious about it. Labour Party should make Nigeria’s transition into a modern economy depend on the reestablishment of a middle class through comprehensive social security scheme, the type that both FDR and LBJ used to create a strong middle class in US.
Unionization and Private Sector:
Labour Party needs to make supportive statement on the right of workers to organize even in the private sector. Part of the Obasanjo reform was to weaken the power of organized labor in economic relations. It is also part of new Washington Consensus on economic reform. Lbaour Party should be prepared to express support to Labour’s view that workers in all sectors should be encouraged to unionize as a way of strengthening their bargaining power.
The Organized Private Sector:
The role of organized private sector in politics is evident for everyone to see. The organized private sector realizes that its profitability depends on political economy. Therefore, it has openly supported regimes that it thinks best promote its interests. The sad tale is that organized private sector have often failed to realize that it true interest lies in a transparent and truly democratic governance. Its huge investment in the PDP and the APC is wrong-headed. Lbaour Party must now show the organized private sector that 3G is its rightful partners. How?
The Rule of Law as the Driver of Development: we must let the OPS understand that a rule of law state is the best guarantor of its profitability. This must be delinked from the current government’s deceptive rule of law mantra. The real rule of law is when there is no rent seeking, where policies are made based on rules; whether business is not forced to pay public officials in other to obtain licenses; where the cost of doing business does not include fat bribes to party chieftains.
Political Stability as the Source of Competitiveness:
We must let them understand that Nigeria faces the threat of state failure because of instability arising from bad governance. They must know that business competitiveness is a function of good governance. They should know that the PDP and the other opposition parties cannot guarantee the stability and good governance that guarantee competitiveness. Only a platform that is inherently democratic and accountable will improve Nigeria’s business environment.
Commitment to Economic Growth and a Development State:
One grave challenge of doing business in Nigeria is its collapsed infrastructure and the lack of social welfare. This has made it difficult for businesses to survive. A government that is proactive in providing infrastructure and investing in education and social welfare will improve human capital that assists private sector in wealth creation. The Labour Party must commit to social and infrastructural development and to provide Nigeria with a developmental state that does not abandon its responsibility to the private sector.
Youth and Special Interests:
The challenge here is to design a strong youth platform that is based on the African Youth Charter and other international frameworks that recognize the centrality of engaging youths in development. Our platform should make a clear commitment to youth development and focus action on education and social development. In the minimum we must commit to drastic uplift in social and recreational facilities to engage the youths and development. Note that the main concern of youths is not just the program but real involvement in identifying the problems and the solutions.
Mobilizing youths will require effective and modern ICT platforms and adoption of new technologies. We will need to address concerns about emerging technologies and show familiarities with new technologies, especially such social network tools like facebook, twitter, and You-Tube. A strong social development and recreational program will be part of our policy platforms. Also, focus on entrepreneurship and capacity building for leadership for youth organization will make the Labour Party attractive.
Labour Party will also be competitive for youth votes and support if we provide platform for networking. It is important to note the rapid growth of youth groups and network and the increase in social networking in Nigeria. But the challenge is how to mainstream leadership values onto these platforms to make them politically engaged and useful for social and political transformation..
Professional Associations and Business Groups (BGs):
This is an important stakeholder community that has and can still play important political roles. The most notable one will be the Nigerian Bar Association; the Nigeria Medical Association; ICAN; etc. One notable fact is these groups are concerned about the welfare of their members. But what adduces to the welfare of their members are not disconnected to the political stability of the country and the economic welfare of ordinary people. Recently, issues about transparency and accountability have become important to these groups, rule of law and anticorruption are some other important issues. It is expected that they will be more active on political scenes as the cost of lack of true democracy become more evident and impactful on professional life.
Historically, the professions have often been a closed systems with some degree of elitism. It is therefore important that the Labour Party engages some of its members who are part of these professional outfits in negotiating support and endorsement. The NBA is a natural ally because of its long-standing advocacy for democratic change and the fact that some of its leading lights are part of our platforms. But we must approach negotiation with NBA institutionally with clear policy commitment to rule of law and independence of the judiciary. We also bear in mind that the NBA has relationships with other emergent political groups like the Mega Summit, Accord, etc. so we must offer something more transformative and substantial to become the natural choice of its leadership.
The NMA is more focused on the failure of the heathcare system. The collapse of the health sector exemplified by the growth of heath tourism amongst wealthy Nigerians is a concern to the NMA. Labour Party can win the support of this group if it promises transformative action on the health sector. It must commit to achieving the MDG on health, stop foreign health travels by public officials except on essential issues and with the recommendations of experts in Nigerian health institutions. This is to generate enough political will to fix the health crisis. It must also commit to free primary healthcare services for all Nigerians.
ASUU is an important stakeholder on the education sector. Our policy on education should be based on real free and compulsory education to the 9th grade; massive investment in tertiary education and total autonomy of university administration. Labour Party will also commit to deregulating university education such that those who manage their institutions creditably reap the rewards in terms of more public and private investment. Labour Party will declare public education a national emergency and meet the UNESCO requirement of public funding of education.
Informal Sector (Market Women, Unemployed, etc):
It is difficult for politicians to mobilize this group because of the problem of communication and credibility. Our best bet is to mobilize and engage this group indirectly through youth organization and civil society groups engaged in informal sector activities. This group is important because it provides the popular cover for more strategic electoral politics. It is also a strong component of an effective mandate protection activities. What has happened in the past is that politicians who cannot retain their voluntary support had to buy their help to rig election and foment violence to cover their tract. The hope is that if we develop policies that respond to their economic and social situations and march it with appropriate communication we may win their support.
The Diaspora:
The Nigerian Diaspora is one of the most professional in the world. In the US, Nigerian Diaspora is reputed as the single largest collection of professionals in that country. The Diaspora is also rich and organized under the Nigerians in Diaspora (NIDO). One distinguishing aspect of this group is it utter disappointment with the Nigerian state. Another is its pervasive presence in the web where many of them are bloggers and run online publications. Members of the Diaspora are getting increasing engaged with Nigerian politics. In the last presidential election, Mr. Peter Obi led in Diaspora engagement. In spite of its bad reputation, the ruling has continued to retain some propagandists in the Diaspora. We should not allow it to dominate diaspora politics.
The battle for the Diaspora support and vote will depend on who maintains the best online presence and who articulate the best and persistent message of change. The Labour Party has advantage because some of the persons associated with the group are already mobilizing that community. Again, the leader of the group is held in high honors by the Diaspora. But, we must ensure that our policies are radical enough to constitute a significant departure of old concept of Nigeria. The Diaspora is concerned with enriched citizenship in the sense that every Nigerian can reside in any part of Nigeria without discrimination. Being immigrants who are absorbed in the country of residence they resent the fact that a Nigerian is discriminated in his country.
Diaspora is also angry that they make huge contributions to economic development through remittances and yet there is not proper recognition of their importance. Labour Party needs to articulate a clear Diaspora program. That program will see the Diaspora as an important source of brainpower for economic competitiveness. Diaspora as the source of brain-gain means that we will develop clear linkages between Diaspora activities and project implementation in Nigeria.
Diplomatic and International Community:
Democracy in Africa is important to the international community, especially those countries who give development assistance to Nigeria. The US is worried at the prospect of competitive politics in Nigeria. They are more concerned with democracy now than before because they realize that without real democratic foundations, even ordinary commercial relationship with Nigeria will be unsustainable. Their demand for transparent election in many of the elections that have taken place across the Third World and the new competitive battle between the West- the US, France, and EU and the East-Russia and China means that we will witness greater Afghanistan and Iran suggests that democracy will be the watchword of Obama foreign policy engagement. Unlike Bush, Obama does not care who wins elections but that elections are competitive. The British are less committed and robust in denouncing undemocratic election. But they too recognize that the answer to instability in Nigeria lies through the path of competitive election and democratic governance. So, we have a good environment to mouth change movement.
The international community is worried about the continuance of PDP in power. It would be much relieved to see a group able to battle PDP. The general assumption is that while the PDP government is irresponsible and corrupt the opposition is infantile and unorganized. The message that 3G brings will find receptive ears amongst members of the diplomatic community and development agencies. The real issues is whether they will find seriousness and commitment on the part of the leaders of the movement. They will watch out for what is different in our policy platforms and model of organizing. They will be thrilled to discover that unlike the PDP and other opposition parties, we are organizing from below and engaging the informal sector and the civil society. This much comes out from Mrs. Hillary Clinton’s statement at the Town-hall meeting in Abuja.
Religious Leaders and Traditional Rulers:
We have to be careful with traditional rulers and religious leaders. Religious leaders stand on better standing than traditional rulers on democratic change. There is a growing concern of religious communities in Nigeria- Islam and Christianity- about the state of the nation. The leaders of these communities have also spoken forcefully about change. They will readily support a clear and unequivocal policy of religious tolerance, anticorruption and rule of law. There is little change with traditional rulers, except a few like the Sultan and the Obi of Onitsha, since they have become interred in the privileged class. We don’t lose much with them because they lack genuine public appeal and will always support the winner.
Text of Keynote Presentation by Dr Sam Amadi, Director, Abuja School of Social and Political Thought at the 2024 NLC Political Commission Capacity Building Workshop on Sustainable Development Through Popular Political Participation on Tuesday, August 20, 2024 in Abuja