PRESS STATEMENT: THE AFRICAN ACTION CONGRESS, OGUN STATE DISTANCES ITSELF FROM THE IPAC ENDORSEMENT SEEKING TO RE-ELECT GOVERNOR DAPO ABIODUN

PRESS STATEMENT: THE AFRICAN ACTION CONGRESS, OGUN STATE DISTANCES ITSELF FROM THE IPAC ENDORSEMENT SEEKING TO RE-ELECT GOVERNOR DAPO ABIODUN

Our attention has been drawn to a post believed to be a press release emanating from the intra-party advisory council (IPAC) in Ogun state, wherein some elements endorsed the Governor for re-election.

We want to state unequivocally that the African Action Congress (AAC) is not part of such charade, as a separate party or as a member of IPAC. Our party is distinct in ideology and principles and would not endorse a Governor that does not represent any pro-people agenda.

 

Dapo Abiodun is one Governor who should be apologizing to Ogun state citizens and not campaigning. This is why we find it ridiculous that an advisory council who should actually act as a constellation of major opposing voices, would have anything to do with meeting the Governor, let alone endorsing him for re-election.

 

From dishing out crumbs as governance and littering the states with half-completed projects yet launched , the “contract percentage” Governor has failed woefully to deliver good governance to the people and should not be rewarded with another term.

 

The AAC seizes this medium to restate its commitment to stay the course and to assure the good people of Ogun State that help is on the way. Our candidate remains the indefatigable Mr HARRISON ADEYEMI and we urge every electorate who is tired of the misgovernance of Mr Dapo’s 4 ruinous years to vote the AAC.

Liberty is on the ballot.

 

Signed:

Ogundimu Aishat

 

State Publicity Secretary,

African Action Congress

 

Adesina Afolabi

State Chairman,

African Action Congress.

 

2/3/2023

Why Sowore? Adeola Soetan writes

Why Sowore? Adeola Soetan writes

Why Sowore? She asked.

 

She asked me for my prefered presidential candidate

 

My reply: I voted for Obafemi Awolowo, I voted Gani Fawehinmi, so you should know my prefered candidate.

 

She said “so you are voting for Sowore, why? But he can’t win he doesn’t have money and he should just remain an activist.

 

My response: Well, I’m not a bandwagon voter, I don’t vote for who and who people think will win. That’s the height of idiocy. I don’t like to use my finger to do myself and start regretting it later like how many Nigerians are regretting now for voting Buhari and APC. They promised them better governance from the odd past but they make today worse than yesterday. Facts speak for themselves.

 

I’m voting Sowore mainly because he’s the only one who didn’t say he would remove a non existent petrol subsidy. You can’t talk of subsidy when all your refineries are consciously destroyed and a huge amount of your crude oil stolen on daily basis running into billions of Naira. Even candidate Buhari himself in 2015 said correctly that there’s no oil subsidy, he described it as fraud. He was right, as a former petroleum minister and former head of state, he’s well experienced to know that there was no oil subsidy in the real sense of it but subsidizing corruption and inefficiency in government and passing the yoke to poor Nigerians who are now paying over N300 per litre of petrol from the N87/litre .Buhari is like a sheep that flocks with dogs, feces will be its best meal.

 

The first major protest I participated as a student activist in Great Ife was against the so-called “oil subsidy” removal in 1988 during Babangida regime. Myself & Yinka Odumakin took the protest posters to UI and Ibadan Poly for mobilisation. The risk of entering back to the heavily militarized campus through the bushy sewage area was much to bear in the night. And since then every succesive looting government has been talking of oil subsidy removal to punish the people as stealing and inefficiency continues in government.

 

Sowore is the only candidate that publicly declared his assets. Others didn’t. You can’t fight corruption by hiding your own wealth, the source, your assets and liability should be known and verified. I think that’s a simple public morality aspiring public officers should observe if we are serious about fighting corruption.

 

She interjected: Sho you don’t know politics. Activism is different from politics..

 

I asked, please what is politics? Brigandage, looting, killing and maiming. Vote buying and selling, election rigging, unprincipled acts of political survival. So you don’t know that great politicians like Awolowo, Olufunmilayo Ransome Kuti, Margaret Ekpo, Mallam Aminu Kano, Nelson Mandela, Nnamdi Azikwe were activists and politicians. Madam, pls go and read your political history very well. Stop joining arrogant political illiterates who always spew rubbish that activism is different from politics just because they have been made to see politics in the wrong image of their rogue leaders. Pro-human politics is an extension of public good driven activism.

 

I asked her: Pls tell me your own understanding of politics for my enlightenment.

“Sho, .leave me alone, you are too opinionated, na you Sabi”

 

I asked again: “so you can’t tell me your own understanding of what you people call” politics? ”

 

” Goodnight Sho, pls leave me alone… ”

 

Adeola Soetan

Peace Committee Meeting: Sowore Protests Buhari’s Human Rights Abuses, Refuses To Stand Up For The Outgoing President

Peace Committee Meeting: Sowore Protests Buhari’s Human Rights Abuses, Refuses To Stand Up For The Outgoing President

The presidential candidate of African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore refused to stand up, amidst all the presidential candidates on their feets to honor the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mohammed Buhari while giving his closing remark.

 

The human rights defender said his refusal to stand up when Buhari was making his closing remark was a protest against the failure of the president of NIGERIA and his utter disregard for human rights and him being the worst President of Nigeria.

 

While other presidential candidates rose on their feets to honor the president, Sowore, the presidential candidate of African Action Congress stood his ground, sat down in protest.

Sowore’s Manifesto Is Progressive, and Should Be Supported Says SPN National Chairman, Endorses Sowore

Sowore’s Manifesto Is Progressive, and Should Be Supported Says SPN National Chairman, Endorses Sowore

The chairman of the Socialist party of Nigerian, Abiodun Bamigboye also known as Abbey Trotsky has said, Sowore’s manifesto is progressive and it should be supported.

Speaking at an event of the Democratic Socialist Movement on Saturday, 18th February, 2023, the SPN leader said, “Out of hopelessness, there would be a ray of hope. Omoyele Sowore to us in Democratic Socialist Movement is a ray of hope from the mass of the Nigerian working people in the coming election”.

 

Speaking further he said looking at Sowore’s program in 2019 compared to now, there has been a change that suits the taste of the Socialist Movement. 

 

“AAC manifestos is the political party among the 18 political parties that is going to be on the ballot for election that has declared and described itself as an anti imperialist party. I am not sure if any other party has come close to that.

 

“Every candidate must insist that the right to be educated cogitatively should be at the democratic right of nigerians.”

 

He said Sowore’s manifesto is progressive and it should be supported.

“Sowore’s programs are progressive programs that every right thinking socialist and marxists must support. 

The crisis in the electricity sector today, all of the candidates have maintained a criminal silence over it. 

 

“Sowore is the only candidate that has come out to say if he becomes the president of nigeria, he is going to reverse the anomalies we have as regards the electricity crisis. He said he is going to reverse the privatization of the power sector. 

 

Comrade Abbey Trotsky maintained that the problem of the power sector is never overcentralization but the lack of democracy in terms of management and its control. That explains the collapse of NITEL and OLD NEPA. 

Most of the individuals that constitute the boards were political appointees of the then governments and they were not answerable to the masses so as not to divide the authority of those who appointed them. 

 

“The fact that sowore has come to say that he is reversing that privatization and he is going to probe the process that leads to that privatization itself is a progressive decision that we feel we at dsm should identify with. 

 

He said he has met some people who said for that period Nigeria is going to be sanctioned, even now that Nigeria is not sanctioned, they are worse than sanctioned countries. These are some of the programmes we have identified with

His position on national questions is fantastic. 

 

He quoted the AAC presidential candidate saying, “Sowore said ethnic groups who feel they don’t want to be part of Nigeria should be accorded the right to go. the right to self determination would be respected on to the point of secession. He also recognised the fact that most people who are clamoring for separation felt cheated and their interest has been undermined.”

 

 If Nigeria today provides jobs for all youth, makes education free and affordable for all Nigerians, all of those agitating for secession will die a natural death.

 

He said It is on the basis of all of this that the SPN/DSM decided after a long debate, to be part of Sowore. 

 

“We hereby call on people to vote for Sowore because we know that a vote for Sowore will open up an avenue to begin conversation as to what socialism is and how to bring about a socialist government in Nigeria.  

 

We know that a vote for Sowore will open up a room for working relationships so as to begin to build a platform to resist all the problems that are facing us as a nation. To be able to do that, collective efforts are needed.”

Notice Of Suspension; AAC member, Ogun state..

Notice Of Suspension; AAC member, Ogun state..

Mr. Tanimowo Oyemade,

Address

 

Notice Of Suspension

 

Greetings from the Ogun State Working Committee of the African Action Congress, AAC. We hope this letter meets you well.

 

The state leadership of the party has been briefed about a very disturbing report of your anti-party activities as well as ploy to auction the party ticket for the highest of bidders. We were informed specifically of further plans to host a public event within the week where you will make such transactions in the name of our party. In the light of this, the state working committee in it’s emergency meeting resolved to place your membership of the party on suspension pending investigation by a fact finding panel which shall be constituted upon your receipt of this letter.

 

Forthwith, you are hereby suspended as a member of the African Action Congress, AAC. This suspension takes immediate effect, and hereby advised to refrain from further transactions on behalf of the party.

 

The general public is by this letter put on notice as the AAC will not be held liable for any dealings with Mr. Tanimowo Oyemade.

 

 

SIGNED:

 

*ADESINA AFOLABI*

AAC OGUN STATE PARTY CHAIRMAN

 

Secretary:

Rich history of the AAC. Building a revolutionary party. Perspectives by Baba Aye

Rich history of the AAC. Building a revolutionary party. Perspectives by Baba Aye

African Action Congress (AAC) was registered as a political party by Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission two years ago. From its radical roots it set itself apart as a platform for the struggle of the popular masses within and beyond the electoral sphere of politics. It has flourished unapologetically into a party for revolution. The AAC’s immediate fount and its scaffold to date is the Take It Back (TIB) movement, founded in the beginning of 2018. It has inspired tens of thousands of young working-class and professional/middle-class people across the length and breadth of the country and indeed globally among the Nigerian diaspora. This movement’s alliance with revolutionary socialist groups gave birth to the Coalition for Revolution (CORE) and the launch of its #RevolutionNow campaign.

The birth of the party

The Take It Back movement emerged at the beginning of 2018 in the contradictory context of radical politics in Nigeria. The world, as I pointed out while looking at the soil from which TIB/AAC germinated in an earlier article, had changed since the Great Recession of 2007-2009. The status quo’s hegemony or apparent legitimacy was fractured. Beyond Nigeria, mass movements spread across the world were bursting out as revolts, and in the Middle East and North Africa region, revolutions threw hitherto invincible dictators into the trashcan of history.

The “Occupy Nigeria” uprising in January 2012 was part of that moment of global rising. But the tragedy of the radical movement is that unlike the situation in many other countries this did not translate into organization to take the fire forward for deepening popular struggle in an anti-systemic manner. Four years after “Occupy Nigeria”, you could still put all self-avowed revolutionaries in the country into a molue (long bus) and still have to pe ‘ro s’oko (call in passengers to fill empty seats).

This partly accounted for an equally bankrupt party of the one percenters emerging as the apostle of “change” to steal power from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which had held the reins of government for 16 years and that felt it would for 44 more years. The All People’s Congress victory in 2015 spoke more to the failure of a credible revolutionary party’s emergence from the flames of Occupy Nigeria than to the resilience of a fortified bourgeois opposition at the time.

The seething mass anger, which burst out in 2012, continued to bubble below the surface like a dormant volcano, and the reality of the “change” party being nothing but one of “all promises cancelled” dawned on people within a few years of the APC coming into power. These combined to kindle the interest of a broader swathe of forces and persons in the 2019 elections than in any before this century. These included not a few (self-avowed revolutionaries and middle-class careerists alike) that take mobilization to win power only as seriously as they take watching Tom and Jerry on television. There were also quite a few who really did seriously think that they were taking power seriously.

Between March 2018 and the elections in February 2019, the TIB movement and the AAC organized no less than 500 political events across virtually every state in the federation, as well as 15 countries spread over all the regions of the world. Most of these had packed halls, with many people having to stand up or peer in from the window due to limited space. Unlike the rented crowds that the big—and of course bourgeois—parties, which alone could also amass followings of any significance, these were Nigerians who rather paid their way to the activities and were happy to support what they saw as a serious alternative project. The core message of the movement was clear: we need much more fundamental change than any of the parties involved in serious politics thus far could offer. And we are not going to get that on our knees. We will fight and win our liberation on the streets as much, if not more than, through the ballot.

Mass mobilization, including with the use of new information and communication technologies, went hand in hand with the establishment of movement or party structures. Inspired Nigerians of all walks of life at home and in the diaspora saw and became part of a movement that offered much more than they had dared hope for, even as much as they yearned for it. They chipped in their bits to sustain the hurricane.

The party raised 157,884,938 Naira (about US$408,000) as donations—most of these very small donations from tens of thousands of people. Never since the period of parties like the Action Group (AG) and Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) had any political party raised such kind of money from “inconsequential” Nigerians. This is noteworthy, particularly for the mischievous, such as Adams Oshiomhole (a former trade unionist, governor of Edo State and national chairperson of AOPC), who try to reduce #RevolutionNow to a post-election afterthought.

The truth is that even during the electoral campaign the AAC did not reduce its politics to one of simply canvassing for votes. The party was on the streets organizing demonstrations for press freedom, extension of voter registration, and against demolitions of informal settlements. The ruling class was conscious of the problem that AAC constituted to them and they took action to suppress the party. As early as December 2018, five of its activists were arrested while pasting campaign posters in Lagos. They were charged with defacing other parties’ posters, even though this was demonstrably false. The state was sending out a clear message that it would not tolerate revolutionaries.

By the end of 2018, the TIB formed a coalition with the Alliance for the Masses Political Alternative (AMPA), which was coming together of Socialist Workers & Youth League (SWL) and Socialist Vanguard Tendency (SVT). The two groups had worked within the National Conscience Party (NCP) for a few years as the NCP Socialist Forum (NSF). The TIB had favored the NCP among myriad parties it held discussions with on which to float its electoral bid. The treacherous collapse of the NCP bureaucracy into an alliance with the PDP made real this possibility. Taking a principled stand, the two groups constituting the NSF pulled out of that party to form AMPA, which later brought on several other groups. The TIB-AMPA Coalition would later become known as the Coalition for Revolution—CORE.

After the elections, TIB/AAC-AMPA played a critical role in building resistance to wildly inflated power bills and epileptic power supply in working-class communities. Its activists, as part of CORE were also at the barricades in solidarity with rank and file workers during struggles, such as those of non-academic staff at Lagos State Polytechnic.

As radicalization of the party deepened in the immediate post-election period, the right-wing of the party played its hand as Esau for the Jacob of the state. The illegitimate splinter group that emerged under Leonard Ezenwa, the AAC national secretary before his suspension, was proclaimed to be representative of the party in a questionable court ruling in July. But even as the legal battle rages, the facts on the ground have made it tedious, if not outrightly impossible, for the state to stick to the fairy tale of an Ezenwa-led AAC.

The actuality of #RevolutionNow

The  CORE’s launch of the #RevolutionNow campaign on August 5, 2019 was a milestone in the development of AAC and the history of Nigeria. It went beyond the 1948 Zikist Movement’s “A Call for Revolution,” to demanding “Revolution Now!” on the streets. On the launch day, a record five million people in the country searched the word “revolution” online. The movement thus placed revolution as a popular question in the minds of many more Nigerians than the left groupuscules preaching to the choir had done in decades.

Alas, the state repression was swift and brutal. Party chair, Omoyele Sowore, was arrested on the eve of the nationwide protest and all venues scheduled for rallies in every state of the federation were taken over by combined teams of the army, anti-riot police, and state security service (secret police), among others. In several states they took to flexing their muscles with patrols through the major roads and possible sites of mass gatherings. Notwithstanding, this brazen show of strength demonstrations was held in 14 of Nigeria’s 23 states. #RevolutionNow activists also took action in Berlin, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, New York and Toronto.

The largest of the demonstrations was in Lagos. About 150 activists had a faceoff with the police in front of the national stadium in Surulere, where the flag-off rally for the revolutionary campaign was meant to take place. At the end of the day 57 activists were arrested in six different cities across five states, and many of them were badly beaten up.

This hour marked not just the deepening of AAC’s radical politics. It was equally a watershed in its transformation into the driving force of a mass-based revolutionary movement. As with all such moments, there was confusion, even within the ranks of the left, as to what was happening. More than a few condemned such (in their view) rash declarations of revolution—as if revolutions were singular events and not processes that include affirmation around mobilization.

To some, it would have made sense for the August nationwide action to have been described as a “protest,” to avoid prematurely falling foul of the state. Obviously, such ideas, incidentally from comrades on the left, were backwards compared to those of Maureen Onyetenu a Federal High Court judge. On May 4, 2020, she ruled that the nationwide #RevolutionNow action was well within the realm of even bourgeois democratic rights, irrespective of what it was called. She further declared the state’s disruption of the protest as “illegal, oppressive, undemocratic and unconstitutional.”

The detention of Sowore for almost five months, and the absurd theatrics of the state security service in flouting rulings and respect for the courts, including the invasion of the federal high court premises at Abuja to re-arrest Sowore, also showed state suppression for what it is. The bail condition of restricting him to Abuja is partly face-saving by the ruling class, as well as a desperate attempt to try to take the winds from the sails of the emergent revolutionary movement.

Despite the COVID-19 lockdown, TIB/AAC continued with revolutionary agitation on important political issues with skillful use of social media. As soon as the confinement restrictions were lifted in June, TIB/AAC and its allies constituting the CORE continued organizing on the ground. This included a series of demonstrations in June in five cities against police brutality and the rising incidence of rape and femicide. The protesters also declared their solidarity with the global #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd movement.

Branches of the AAC in localities where police violence against poor citizens is rife—for example, in Oworonshoki where 16-year old Tina Ezekwe was killed by police in May—promptly organized community-based protests. Political education for party cadres was also introduced in this period, in the Lagos state chapter, where the first of a series of “education for revolution” programs are now running. The party is also back on the electoral trail with its radical agenda for the polls. It conducted well organized primaries to produce candidates for the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in Edo and Ondo states. Also, in May, The Socialist Workers and Youth League initiated a seven-week process for democratizing and consolidating the structures of CORE. The TIB and all but one affiliated organization supported these genuine aims. For the first time in its history, an inclusive and democratically elected leadership of the coalition emerged.

The new CORE leadership had barely one month to prepare for the commemoration of the launch of the #RevolutionNow campaign with the #August5thProtest. Despite myriad challenges, these were a success. In fifteen states, including Niger and Yobe where there was no action the previous year, activists took to the streets. Though most demonstrations were not large, the movement’s showing in Abuja and Lagos, the two main cities, outmatched the previous year’s demonstrations. More than 60 people demonstrated at the Unity Fountain Abuja. A busload of activists from a satellite of the capital was turned back at a checkpoint while trying to enter the city center. In Lagos, between 400 and 600 protesters took over the Ikeja roundabout compared to barely 150 persons in front of the national stadium a year earlier. Twice the police dispersed them and twice they regrouped, with popular support from traders, commuters, and residents where they rallied.

The state machinery of coercion was no less active in attempts to suppress these activities. More than 100 people were arrested in different parts of the country for participating in the demonstrations. These included 42 in Abuja, 22 in Lagos, seven in Osun, five in Abeokuta and the AAC Kano Chair in Kano city, who was released only recently. Working assiduously with the Revolutionary Lawyers Forum (RLF) and the Radical Mandate Agenda for the Nigeria Bar Association (RAMIMBA), the party and the CORE leadership ensured the release of all the arrested comrades.

Building the party—what is to be done?

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven home sharply the failures of the profit-before-people-basis of capitalism. The worst is yet to come. As the capitalist world lurches into what could very well be its worst social-economic crisis in history, the bosses will attempt to make the mass of poor people bear the brunt of an exploitative system. Working-class people and youth will have no choice but to fight back. Sparks of discontent will set off moments of spontaneous mass movements on the streets, in workplaces, and across communities. But these massquakes will dissipate like hot steam and the bosses will still have their way, if there is no mass-based revolutionary organization that like a steam engine, can turn the steam of mass anger into motion of lasting struggle for system change. But there is still so much to do in building the party, movement, and coalition for revolution.

Probably the top priority is a systematic and intensive approach to cadre education. As we learn from Che Guevara, “the first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated.” The education he means of course, is not that which you acquire in the four walls of school, but rather questioning why society is how it is, what alternatives could be constructed from concrete reality to change how society is, and how we go about struggle to bring to birth the better society we desire. This education is one which we get from the largest university in the world—the school of life.

However, the dominant ideas through which the direct lessons from life are perceived are shaped by the interests of the dominant classes of oppressors in any society. What immediately appears to us as “common sense,” even the most radical of such, tends to be inadequate for the thinking we need to overthrow the oppressive system we find ourselves in. To forge the “good sense,” which alone can help us grasp the tasks and strategy for what is to be done as revolutionaries requires education to deepen our theoretical understanding. That is precisely why Vladimir Lenin said, “without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.” The time is ripe to consider establishing a living party school and research center, which harnesses and enriches decentralized education for revolution programs in all branches.

The party must build its capacity for producing, distributing, and facilitating the study of revolutionary literature. Pamphlets, leaflets, and books must be part of the mental staple food of party cadres. The fantastic use of social media, and other audio-visual means have to be taken to a new level to ensure deeper cadre and mass political education. We must also learn from the strengths (and weaknesses) of historical and contemporary revolutionary party-building projects. Drawing from some of these and contextualizing them concretely, the party has to develop intervention programs that have meaning to working-class people and youth in their daily lives.

For example, AAC cadres across the country could set aside a day every few months for “environmental sanitation” exercises. Free tutorial/coaching for children of poor working-class people could be organized. This could include e-learning through webinars, with children from poor working-class homes who might not be able to afford data being provided airtime to join. Physical contact sessions must however be prioritized as much as possible.

Free breakfast programs could be developed, as the Black Panthers in the US did. These, and similar programs, are not to be conducted in the supposedly non-political manner that NGOs render services. Our politics must run as the thread that ties these expressions of alternative power as much as service delivery together, and link the party’s social provision intervention with its more partisan political mobilization for revolution work. The party program and our class orientation are two vital issues that must be clearly addressed at this point.

The AAC manifesto as adopted at the 2018 party convention reflected a shotgun marriage arrangement with the party’s right-wing at the time. As we pointed out in the January-February 2019 edition of Socialist Worker:

The movement of #TIB is moving more and more to the left. There are internal struggles with a party right-wing in AAC ready to uphold the status quo of capitalism, merely with some “decency”, so to speak. But what the movement as a whole seeks is the revolutionary upturn of the exploitative system and as it gets more engaged in mass work, this orientation deepens.

Events thus far have confirmed this analysis. An overhaul of the AAC manifesto to reflect its politics of struggle for social system change is now imperative. This must be a program that addresses the social, economic, political, and ecological problems of the day with a view to bring about fundamental transformative change. This change must break from the logic of growth and development that has pauperized the majority of the population and put the earth in the perilous state of climate crisis. We need to formulate a revolutionary program for a party of revolution.

The orientation of AAC to working-class people has never been in doubt. The party membership includes young professionals; middle-class change-seeking Nigerians, who are fed up with the disaster life has become for all but the 1% of super-rich people in the country. It also includes students as well as working-class people, who constitute a significant proportion in the ranks of the party. Revolutionary political parties can lead revolutions, but revolutions are never waged and won by any one party. Revolutions are massive anti-systemic uprisings of the mass of working-class people. AAC has to strengthen its ties with all strata of workers, artisans, poor farmers etc. We must be the tribune of all exploited and oppressed sections of the population.

AAC activists in several states have joined workers on strike at the barricades, supported and fought alongside the people in poor working-class communities for electricity rights and against police brutality, and organized political education programs for workers in both the formal and informal sector. Such activities must become generalized, a normal part of revolutionary politics across all states of the federation.  Organization for revolution requires unification-in-action of many social forces, parties, and other groups committed to struggle, with the aim of bringing down the oppressive system of exploitation that determines the status quo. This entails building united fronts. CORE is the united front for revolution now. Building CORE with other affiliates of the coalition must be a key priority for AAC’s revolutionary activists. This will involve constituting CORE in all states where we have TIB structures along with other affiliates’ chapters, and expanding the coalition’s affiliation base to include all organizations who stand for revolutionary transformation today.

The unfolding revolutionary movement that TIB/AAC/CORE sharply manifests in Nigeria is an integral wave in the global tsunami of popular risings against exploiters and their oppressive system. Internationalism must thus be woven into the fabric of our struggle. The primary devil we confront is at home, but our battle is against all the powers and principalities of the hellish exploitation of the masses. An injury to one is an injury to all. We must continue to call on our sisters, brothers, comrades, and revolutionary organisations across the world to stand with us as we fight our battles for #RevolutionNow.

The mission of our generation, rising from the obscurity of neoliberalism, is global revolution—to build a better and more just world. We must not betray it. Working-class people united and determined cannot be defeated!

This is an edited version of a paper presented for the second anniversary webinar of the African Action Congress. An abridged version was published in the Socialist Worker of August-September 2020.

OSUN 2022; OLUFEMI JOHNSON OF THE AAC IS OKAY

OSUN 2022; OLUFEMI JOHNSON OF THE AAC IS OKAY

OSUN DESERVES A NEW DAWN

We use this opportunity to inform that our candidates for the Governorship and Deputy Governorship offices in the Osun 2022 Elections are:

Olufemi  Eniola JOHNSON (Governorship)

Olugbenga Justus Odunewu (Deputy-Governorship)

Both are the properly elected candidates of the party in the forthcoming elections. The Sogbadero Team will bring a new spring of radical change to the whole of Osun, and save our people from the current fear of voting between the devil and the deep blue sea!

We condole with all Nigerians that are under the scourges of massive insecurities. We call on the Buhari government to stop trading with the lives of Nigerians through its inept, impune, and incompetent rulership of the country.

We believe that Nigerians should obtain their voters cards, engage massively in civil actions and take their destinies into their hands by voting the People’s Candidates and standing against all oppressions!

Another Nigeria is Possible!

Dunamis’ Head Pastor Enenche Illegally Arrests, Hands Over Six Worshippers Wearing ‘#BuhariMustGo’ Shirts To DSS

Dunamis’ Head Pastor Enenche Illegally Arrests, Hands Over Six Worshippers Wearing ‘#BuhariMustGo’ Shirts To DSS

Security guards attached to the Dunamis International Gospel Centre (Glory Dome) located along Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Road, Abuja have arrested six human rights activists for wearing #BuhariMustGo (Anti-President Muhammadu Buhari) T-Shirts to the church.

About ten activists went to the church on Sunday morning to worship at the church but some of them were surprisingly rounded up and arrested by the church security guards who later handed them over to the operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS).

 

Six of the activists were whisked away in a Hilux van and two power bikes.

The activists were manhandled and beaten by the DSS operatives on the church premises, who also seized their mobile phones.

Paul Enenche is the Senior Pastor of the church.

A source said, “Security men at Dunamis Gospel Church have arrested activists who wore #BuhariMustGo T-shirts to their church service: the church security later handed them over to DSS officials who are currently torturing them.

“I thought Pastor Dr Paul Enenche was also preaching about justice! The six activists were driven away in a DSS Hilux van and two power bikes. Shame on the house of God!

“About 10 activists decided to attend Dunamis church in their #BuhariMustGo T-shirts. The church asked all first-timers to come out for prayers. The patriotic citizens obeyed the clarion call from the altar with their fully displayed BuhariMustGo shirts.

“They were immediately apprehended by the church security on their way out of the church and subsequently handed to the DSS. Kudos to the courageous activists for this creativity. I’m certain if the activists had worn a shirt with the inscription ‘Sai Buhari’, they would have ranked as Pastor Enenche’s new best friend.”

Similarly, in April, violent youths descended on two middle-aged protesters– Larry Emmanuel and Anene Victor Udoka–who were pasting Buhari-Must-Go posters in Lokoja, the Kogi to State capital.

SaharaReporters learnt that the irate mob flogged the two youths, filmed them, and brutalised them before they were later handed over to the police.

It was gathered that the police thereafter quizzed the two protesters and detained them when they insisted on seeing their lawyer before making a statement.

In some viral videos, the protesters were seen being molested and questioned by the mob before they were flogged as the youths forced them to clean their painting of “Buhari Must Go”.

The court, last Thursday, resumed trial of the two activists after being granted bail after spending 78 days in detention.

Nnamdi Kanu Was Blindfolded, Handcuffed and Chained, I Fear For His Safety — Sowore

Nnamdi Kanu Was Blindfolded, Handcuffed and Chained, I Fear For His Safety — Sowore

Human rights activist and convener of the #RevolutionNow movement, and former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Mr. Omoyele Sowore has said he was at a Federal High Court in Abuja, the nation’s capital to see that Nnamdi Kanu got justice but had been arraigned and conveyed to the custody of the police.

Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Kanu was arrested in the United Kingdom and extradited to Nigeria to face trial over allegations of treason leveled against him by the Nigerian government.

However, the human rights activist has said he fears for the safety of the leader of the pro-Biafra separatist group as he was blindfolded, handcuffed and his legs were chained.

“I’m here to see that Nnamdi Kanu gets justice, but unfortunately he has been moved to be detained. I fear for his safety. He was hooded. This is despicable. This just shows that we are in the Banana Republic,” he said.

Sowore also stated that Kanu has the right to agitate for self-determination, especially in a system that has kept denying Nigerians their rights, while adding that he has been a victim of inhumane treatment from the Nigerian government as well.

“The way he was treated was despicable. The system has a way of abducting people and bringing them to court. I have been abducted like that before. There is nothing wrong with asking for self-determination. Nnamdi Kanu has rights to ask for self-determination,” Sowore added.

Kanu was swiftly transported to Court 2 where the presiding judge Justice Murtala Nyanko told the prosecution lawyer, Shuaib Labaran to notify the defense counsel of the new date for the continuation of the trial.

Journalists were prevented from filming Kanu as he was shielded and taken through the back door.

The prosecution applied that Kanu jumped bail and wanted him to be remanded at DSS custody.

Justice Murtala Nyanko has adjourned the matter to July 26, 2021.

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), Tuesday, had earlier declared that Kanu was captured by the operatives of Nigeria’s security intelligence.

Kanu was on October 14, 2015, arraigned by the Nigerian Government over allegations of terrorism, money laundering, treason, etc.

On March 28, 2019, his bail condition was revoked by Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court.

2019 ELECTIONS: WE MUST ALL DEMAND FOR A NEW PROCESS

2019 ELECTIONS: WE MUST ALL DEMAND FOR A NEW PROCESS

The just concluded 2019 elections were fraught with baggage familiar with Nigerian elections. First of the issues was the postponement of the elections over logistics, consequently deflating the interest of anticipating Nigerians.  Another was the President’s order to the military tasking them to shoot at sight any ballot-snatcher without any form of questioning or arraignment, and Nigeria, which once was grinded beneath military jackboot, did not hesitate to associate such plaguing of civilian communities with armed military personnel with terror. Also very troubling were the unimaginable terrors perpetuated by APC and PDP thugs across the nation. All these, amplified by social media among other factors, culminate into voters’ apathy.

The Advancement of Our Democracy and the Electioneering Process

But we associate our democracy with some seemly useful qualifiers. The most popular is its description as fledging. This qualifier forms the basis for some of our thinkers advocating for moderated expectations and mild interpretations of events. But one’s worry should be to answer the pertinent question of how the fledging would become mature and resilient to the vices of dangerous politicians and ploys. Ranges of lofty recommendations for the advancement of our democracy abound.  One is the abolition of one of the legislatives arm as proposed by the AAC presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, arguing that the bicameral legislation is wasteful and slow. But while different recommendations abound, harrowing to attentive minds is the gory of the last Saturday elections – the violence – the electoral process that puts helpless citizens in harmful and precarious situation should be condemned and considered a crime.

But beyond the violence, social media pictures and videos show how different players hacked the current electoral process, perhaps the most telling is the clip of Aisha Buhari showing her husband, the current sitting president, who she voted for. The worst of the setbacks is the Polling Unit officers manually counting the votes and how manually the votes are aggregated, from LGA to FCT, shamefully taking over 48 hours to determine the winners of the elections. Yet, to advance our democracy, the urgency for all of us must be to re-imagine our electoral process for the emergence of a peaceful process that will not only be transparent but disallow all forms of intimidation while encouraging more participation of the Nigerian people and inclusion. But without deliberate and well organised mass based action such desired process will remain a mirage.

The Question of Electronic Voting (EV)

If electronic voting (EV) is adopted some, if not all, of the challenges will be overcome. With electronic voting, there will be no need of physical moving of ‘sensitive’ electoral materials to about 120, 000 polling units. This will therefore mean that elections won’t be postponed over logistics issues. EV will also come with the advantage of comfort and inclusion: since PVC already carries Polling Unit codes which is a derivates of State, Local Government, Ward and Polling Unit, votes can be easily aggregated by Polling Units without the voters having to travel to their polling units. But on the contrary, as at last elections, some people have to travel as far as 17 hours by flight in order to exercise their franchise. The possibility of EV also speaks to another advantage which is reduction of cost; the reduction of cost on the side of INEC and on the side of the voters. There could be online facility accessible by any computer or mobile device, or one may consider a possible reliance on already existing infrastructure i.e. the ATM machines. To further make a case for cost reduction, EV process will have no need of heavy deployment of security and the shutdown of socio-cultural and socio-economic process, therefore, people can still go ahead and have their business meetings while elections are going on and also people can have their marriage ceremonies without hitch while elections are going on. In addition, all the elections can be held in one day and collation of result could be done in less than 24 hours. And most importantly, EV will completely remove all forms of violence and voters intimidation since voters will not be required to converge to a particular location in order to exercise their civic right.

Why Not Electronic Voting

The demand for EV is not a new demand. What it lacks over time is the ability to garner critical mass support. Staring at the campaigners are huddles like constitutional reforms, adoption of voters and accessibility of such platform to uneducated Nigerian. The way to think about this is around useful statistics that may inform the possibility for its adoption. For example, as at January 2018, the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) reported that mobile phone users are about 146 million. This figure when merged with over 92 million internet users reported by Statista (2019) provides rare and interesting opportunities for more voters inclusion. This span of individuals included in the aforementioned data exceeds the number of voters we’ve recorded for elections since 1999. They can be educated on how to use the EV platform and how it works. They are also large number of Nigerians that can be expanded through voters education to be more representative of the Nigerian diversity. One lesson staring at us is that, giving the death toll of about 250 individuals, the maiming and stabbing, the last weekend elections struggle to garner only about 27 million voters, a figure that bares a shameful mark of decline. But for our nation to reach the utopia of election success, all actions must start right now to surmount the challenges and demand adoption of a better process such as EV.