Challenging deregulation: Nigerian labour needs alternative political platform

For what could be termed as the most brazen of its daredevilry, the present anti-poor and pro-rich Yar’Adua regime has discovered a ‘magic formula’ of deregulation and privatisation of oil refineries for the backwardness and underdevelopment of the nation. To end its enormous spending on fuel subsidies – amounting to over 3.1 trillion naira – such a policy becomes necessary to furnish it with the adequate resources to face the deep social crises of a decayed infrastructure and other public amenities.

However, the experience of the 'full deregulation' of diesel and black oil has shown the prices of these essential products skyrocketing and thus leading to the collapse of factories and industries, which according to statistics number up to 820. While ordinary Nigerians are demanding lower fuel prices, the lickspittles in government alongside the leeches in the oil industry remain resolute around an anti-poor plan of deregulating oil importation, which means higher fuel prices for the poor and more profit for the rich oil marketers.

While openly acknowledging that trillions spent on fuel subsidies sink into the pockets of looters, the government has now come up with the disingenuous solution of selling off the entire oil sector to the same looters and their capitalist collaborators in the name of privatisation and deregulation. Despite giving out 18 licenses to private companies to build local refineries, none exist today. If built at all, with the absence of stable electricity and sustaining infrastructure, the prices of these products will remain exorbitantly high.

To add insult to injury, the government has been shifting the goalpost on its agenda to deepen the stagnation and mass misery by first calling 1 November for the take-off and later denying it. What is clear is that whether next year or anytime, the government remains hell-bent on its bizarre policy.

Labour, in the most strident manner, has condemned this fraudulent posturing of the anti-poor Yar’adua regime and has taken out more than six rallies against this diabolical plan. With the 1 November hysteria from government agents, labour has declared war on any attempt of government to deregulate. Already it has fixed 29 October for its delayed Abuja rally, with the intention of launching strikes and further mass action.

Clearly the government – in realisation of the huge mass struggles that may erupt as a result of fixing a definite date for deregulation's take-off – has decided to buy time and to proceed to initiate ‘dialogue’ with labour. What is significant is that the government also seems to be calculating on exploiting the position of partial acceptance of deregulation by the leadership of labour.

It is noteworthy that labour's leadership needs to understand that the underlying principle of the present profit-geared capitalist system – which the Yar’Adua regime oversees through deregulation, privatisation and trade liberalisation – is just another name for the remorseless exploitation of the poor masses. It is not only merely an agenda of the current regime but the fountain from which all the features of deregulation (fuel price hikes included) that labour has fought in the past.

The leadership of labour – the TUC (Trades Union Congress), the NLC (Nigeria Labour Congress) and the LASCO (Labour–Civil Society Coalition) – must recognise the need to first of all build an alternative political platform that will put in place a working-class government which will place the commanding heights of the economy, including oil, under the democratic control of workers, and that deregulation can be no more. With the government still brazenly going ahead to announce a date for deregulation's take-off, labour's leadership should have cast off any illusions they could have had from the present Yar’Adua regime.

It is also germane to note that labour must be prepared to wage a decisive struggle against deregulation. It is becoming the accustomed behaviour of labour leaders to bring the masses out to the streets, either through general strikes or mass rallies, without engaging in any open class battle. This is evidenced by the over six general strikes led by the Oshiomole-led NLC against the infamous Obasanjo regime without challenging the capitalist system he represents and defends. This can only be achieved by building a political movement of the working class that will wrest power from the present rotten ruling class and place the resources of the working masses in their hands.

It is only from this perspective that labour will be able to reject any compromise that the government wants around striking over deregulation. Labour must be able to demonstrate more than the mere token shows that have always been the case, as reflected in the last 2007 general strike. Labour's leadership must be prepared to step up its actions in the current anti-deregulation struggle. The October 29 mass rally must hold, in spite of the government’s subversion and its shifting of the goal-post. A 48-hour general strike should also be launched to give the government a warning over the deregulation policy.

Despite massive calls for a general strike long before the nick of time on the deregulation issue, the leadership of labour have ignored them and there seems to be no resoluteness around the issue. This reluctance brings to mind the treacherous role the leadership of the labour movement played in the simmering struggles of the striking education workers' union in the university system. While the strike drew massive support from the mass of working people, labour failed to call a one-day general strike in solidarity with the striking workers in their struggle for the upgrading of the university system. This gave a sterile Yar’Adua government the opportunity to pursue divide-and-rule tactics at the latter part of the strike. While the government maintains its anti-education stance, labour also took a backseat in the struggle, and the rot continues in the education sector with the struggle for a teachers' salary structure (TSS) in shambles and unity schools still on strike.

What is clearly responsible for the complacent, petit-bourgeois character of labour's leadership cannot be detached from the bureaucracy of the labour movement. The rank-and-file of workers are detached from the day-to-day decisions of labour. This has engendered a situation in which labour leaders, under the cover of a bureaucracy partnered with big-business, inflict anti-worker policies such as the extortive pension system, instead of taking out mass actions against them. The decision-making organs of labour must therefore be democratised; workers’ representatives from the lowest ranks should be elected, subject to the right of recall.

Yet with the imminent deregulation crisis, it imperative for labour to call for mobilisation around the two-day general strike. Strike committees of action should be put in place made up of workers, students and youths to galvanise action. Equally, labour must sharpen its ideological and political arsenal against pro-big business assaults, as reflected in the last 2007 general strike.

General strikes always raise the germane question of who controls power. Streets get dry and government business halts at the instance of general strike; even the ruling class is unable to loot. Power rests in the hands of the working class, but they are unconscious of it. Labour must step up the struggle by building a labour party as a mass-based, anti-rich and pro-poor fighting masses’ party, as an alternative to the ruling party and its shadows in the fake, capitalist opposition (AC (Action Congress), the ANPP (All Nigeria People's Party), the PPA (Progressive People's Alliance) and the APGA (All Progressives Grand Alliance)).

However, the party is presently under the grip of pro-bourgeois pseudo-labour elements, who utilise it as bargaining tool with rejects from capitalist parties like Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo State, whose ‘mis-governance’ is not different from other bourgeoisie governors. Workers, students and youth must campaign for the party to be open, with access to forms and membership. Next year the 2011 general elections will put this issue on the agenda and labour must gear up the party for mass participation through conventions and congresses to field candidates for the general elections. It is such a party with a clearcut alternative programme that will wrest power from the ruling and ruining class and put in place a working-class government that will place the commanding heights of the economy under the democratic control of workers.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Ayodele Ademiluyi is with the Legal Education Rights Agenda, Nigeria.
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.