In this week’s Pambazuka News, Kola Ibrahim reflects on the life of the recently deceased Gani Fawehinmi, one of Nigeria’s leading human rights lawyers and activists. Gani, as he was affectionately known, had not only been an advocate for human rights in Nigeria but addressed other issues such as the capitalist system in general that led to human rights abuses indirectly, writes Ibrahim. Gani Fawehinmi must not be forgotten and seen as a role model for the Nigerian youth in its struggle against the injustices of neocolonialism, Ibrahim concludes.

If anything is to be deduced from the current face-off between the Yar’Adua government and striking staff unions of tertiary institutions: Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Senior Staff Union (SSANU) and Non-Academic Staff Union (NASU), it is that the ruling class in Nigeria is incurably politically treacherous and intellectually backward.

As the attack on Gaza get to its third week, over 800 Palestinians in Gaza have been murdered, including a foreign journalist while more than 3, 000 have been injured, some with live-threatening wounds. More than one third of those either killed or injured are children and women according to media reports. Moreover, tens of buildings and public facilities including a UN agency’s school, where over 40 children and women were killed, have been destroyed by the Israeli (but US produced) munitions...

Denouncing the implications of the Mugabe-Tsvangirai alliance, Kola Ibrahim assesses the consequences of a pro-capitalist union for the Zimbabwean working masses. Emphasising the MDC’s and ZANU-PF’s moral bankruptcy, the author concludes that unless the country’s labour movement is resurrected to take a lead in forthcoming struggles, its future will be doomed.

What happens when dreams are deferred and social movements all offer a neo-liberal vision? For Kola Ibrahim, South Africa is the answer.

For more than a week, a series of xenophobic attacks were launched against the foreigners by a desperate layer of the poor population of South Africa. According to reports, more than 50 persons were killed while hundreds were forced to flee their homes. Foreigners attacked included Nigerians, Zimbabweans, among others. But, the major rallying point of these desperate poor youth of Africa is that they need jobs, and the little jobs they have are being taken by the foreigners. These racist attacks in South Africa resemble the racist and far-right attacks on immigrants and other peoples in Europe and America. In as much as one cannot give any iota of support to this backward and reactionary act of a few, it is necessary to place the blame directly where it belongs.

In the first instance, it should be stated that the basis of the xenophobic attacks is to be found in the extreme poverty the South African poor population has been subjected to since the fall of apartheid. The clamour for jobs is just a reflection of growing poverty and privation. Xenophobia is the echo of a massive anger growing within the South African society. Despite the claim of increased investment and economic growth, more and more South Africans are being deprived of their daily needs while the white minority rule has been replaced by capital rule of the working majority. Following the end of apartheid, millions of poor South Africans expected a better living under their own, but the almost eight years of Mbeki rule has dashed these hopes. In the name of improvement foreign direct investment, neo-liberal economic policies were introduced vis-à-vis cut in social spending which has seen the budget for education and health care (in a country with one of the highest AIDS/HIV record), commercialization of social services (public houses, water, etc) privatization of public utilities like electricity, retrenchment among other things.

These policies tagged under Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) programme (the sister programme of Nigeria's NEEDS) have collectively meant joblessness, evictions and increased poverty. According to a 2002 report by Municipal Service Project, an estimated 10 million have had their electricity and water cut off for non-payment, two million have been evicted on this and other sundry reasons while 1.5 million have had their property seized for the same reason. In fact, fifty percent of those in arrears said they could not afford to pay no matter how much they try. Furthermore, only half of the 40 million population has access to flushing toilets while 10 percent have no access to any form of toilet at all. In 2002, through the privatization and commercialization policies of the ANC government, 200 lives were lost to cholera (the highest in the country’s history). And the introduction of water charges in Kwa Zulu Natal district has forced two thirds of the population to resort to rivers and dams for water, with the consequent health implications. Since the ANC government came to power more than a million jobs have been lost while job creation has simply dwindled.

The overall result of this is a growing poverty with over 30 percent of the population living on less than $0.9 a month while more than 70 percent live on less than $35 a month. Yet more public utilities have been handed over to private firms at rock bottom prices, a situation which has further increased the inequality level in the country. Already, more than 40 percent of the population is jobless. The situation has in fact worsened since these facts were collated.

In this kind of situation, one could only expect a growing frustration and anger. The question however is why were foreigners targeted by the angry and frustrated youth. The emergence of majority rule led to much expectation by the South African population. Unfortunately, more than ten years after, aside a few billionaires and an insignificant middle class, most of the South Africans have seen their living standards declining. Though, some foreigners usually make it in South Africa (as a result of the fact that some of them are qualified prefessionals), many foreigners are also poor especially those who left their countries due to political and social strife. As a result of this growing misery, many South Africans have been looking for a way out.

The ruling ANC has stifled dissenting views within the party. This coupled with the alliance of the major opposition groups - the central trade union, COSATU and the Communist Party (which has in the real sense turned to the right) has denied most South Africans a vehicle to demand for change. The central trade union has been diverting the mass anger to safe mode which has made many to lose hope in the possibility of the labour movement driving cahnge. Furthermore, more and more sectors of the economy are being handed over to the private sector all in a bid to weaken the mass movement. It is the summation of all this that led to the current crisis. As the legendary Polish revolutionary, Rosa Luxembourg once said that 'it is either socialism or capitalist barbarism".

It is also important to mention the contribution of he Mbeki/ANC government's foreign policy. It is a known fact that Mbeki government is giving silent support to the tyrannical Mugabe government in Zimbabwe, which has led to tens of thousands of political refugees fleeing to South African shanties. This has added further pressure on the dilapidating public service and utilities. Immigration, rather than generating brotherly support and affection ,will only generate xenophobia and the growth of racism.

It is noteworthy that the xenophobic attacks occur in the shanties areas of the country where stark poverty prevails. It is in this areas that most of the foreigners are residing as they attempt to escape from the neo-liberal misery they face in their countries. For instance in Nigeria, millions are still living in poverty while just one percent of the population is controls over 80 percent of the oil wealth. Education, health and other social infrastructure is in shambles. Nothing is working. In this situation, immigration becomes a solution. Even professionals (doctors, nurses, engineers, etc) are leaving the country to better their lots.

According to IFAD, "three fourths of poor people in Western and Middle Africa — an estimated 90 million people — live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. One in five lives in a country is affected by warfare." The common denominator in all these African countries is the implementation of neo-liberal economic policies such as privatization which lead to growing economic misery for the vast majority of the citizenry.

Growing economic misery in the absence of political alternatives for the masses can only fuel reactionary, backward ideas like racism. It is a reality that the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Stalinism - a grotesque caricature of genuine ideas of Marxism - has led to many worker organizations succumbing to the ideas of capitalist neo-liberalism, thus denying the poor masses an alternative to the capitalist policies. Most labour movement leaderships - from South Africa to Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana, etc - serve as a stabilizing force for capitalism.

But the masses are ready to struggle for change. The recent protests against food prices have confirmed this. However, the absence of a viable political structure that will translate the anger of the masses into a radical political change is frustrating the masses. Unless radical, democratic mass political parties with genuine socialist ideas are founded in every African country and coupled with a genuine working people's solidarity, xenophobia and ethnic violence will never stop. The current capitalist governments in Africa have shown that they cannot move Africa forward. They will not even use Africa’s enormous resources (human, material, monetary and natural) to fund social services. This is South Africa’s long-term lesson.

*Kola Ibrahim is a Member of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

*Please send comments to or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/

Kola Ibrahim looks at the legacy of Fidel Castro, the internationalization of struggle and calls for “working class activists from Kenya to Venezuela to Georgia to Pakistan and the rest of the world – to build a genuine working people’s political platform.” This year, an ailing but still going Fidel Castro will turn 82.

Kola Ibrahim analysis the recent ASUU strike in Nigeria and argues that it is symptomatic of an education system that puts profit before learning; one that works aggressively against the working class.

The recent directive of the Yar’Adua government to heads of universities that no-work-no-pay rule should be applied to all lecturers who participated in the last warning strike is condemnable and provocative. It again knock a big hole in the pretentious posture of the current administration as a pro-masses organization. For a government that claims to be pro-people to use this archaic and backward policy of union breaking against striking lecturers fighting for improved and cheap educational system and justice for their colleagues further shows the anti-worker, neo-liberal character of this government.

The lecturers under ASUU had embarked on a one-week warning strike to compel government to return to the round-table on the issue of retrenched UNILORIN lecturers who were sacked since 2002 – most of whom have been living in penury since. It is instructive to state that the sacked lecturers met their unsolicited sabbatical when they participated in a national strike called by their parent body to compel the insensitive Obasanjo government to honour its agreement with ASUU on proper funding of education by at least 26 percent (as prescribed by UNESCO), improved salaries for lecturers and democratization of decision making in our ivory towers. It is noteworthy to state that practically none of these demands have been met, yet the lecturers that participated in the struggle are still made scape goat for demanding better educational system. It is morally debasing for government to think of punishing lecturers for reminding it (the government) that some of their colleagues are still outside the system despite the fact that their traditional demands were not met or even attempt are being made to meet them.

To further show the neo-liberal pro-imperialism character of this government less than 8.5 percent of the budget was earmarked for education in the 2008 budget yet UNESCO prescribe a minimum of 26 percent. Yet, the same government could provide extra billions of naira for jumbo pay for political officers. In fact, a significant part of the meagre education budget will be provided through loans especially from World Bank with its neo-liberal, obnoxious conditions such as usage of a large chunk of the budget for expatriate-oriented consultancy service and a deep cut in social service budget. Already over N110 million was to be used in the education budget for AIDS campaign – that is to support the condom and contraceptive industries’ campaign while over $200 million will be borrowed from World Bank to fund science and technology projects – mostly consultancy services. This simply means that the current government is least committed to education development and in fact human development; it will only continue the ruinous policy of the Obasanjo government – that is being a conduit pipe for imperialism. In a country where less than 20 percent of the youth population is in school; where less than 3 percent of the tertiary aged-youth is in school and where virtually all facilities in schools have collapsed such that most of our post-graduate students seek visas in US and Europe before they can have meaningful research work; the present posture of the Yar’Adua government to ASUU demands is bemoaning.

Already, many of our institutions are increasing fees as a result of government’s policy of under funding education while several school managements have to employ brute force in order to prevent students’ protest against deteriorating living and studying conditions. The case of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) where three students leaders were detained, thirteen others suspended indefinitely and the union purportedly and illegally proscribed over students’ agitation for better welfare, easily comes to mind. The excuse by the government that the case of the UNILORIN lecturers is in court is ridiculous. In the first instance, it was not the government that went to court, it was the lecturers after several years of waiting for evasive justice. If the government that claim to be abiding by rule of law has any dignity, it should immediate commend the effort of the lecturers for waiting so long and immediately reinstate them. Moreover, going to court is a reflection of the failure of government to resolve basic issues; therefore the Yar’Adua government should bury its face in shame for using court case to deny the lecturers justice. Furthermore, the government has lost virtually in all the stages of the case in question, why will government not accept defeat and recall these lecturers and wait for Supreme Court ruling.

While lecturers demanding properly funded, democratically run, cheap and affordable educational system are locked out of job, corrupt politicians who have looted the nation treasury dry are allowed to walk free in Aso Rock. It is pertinent to state that the same government that ask long suffering lecturers to wait ad infinitum for justice wait for no one to compensate the hatchet man who sent the lecturers to labour market – Prof Abdul Raheem Oba, who has been nominated by the Yar’Adua government for chairmanship of Federal Character Commission. This same man was to be given a ministerial post earlier save for the protest from the vigilant public. The same “rule of law” government deem it fit to confer a national honour on erstwhile vice chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Prof. Wale Omole who was fingered in the cult attack on students which led to the death of five students including the secretary of the union then, George Iwilade, on 10th July, 1999 among other atrocities including graft and highhandedness. At least that is a moral boost to the current management. The real reason why government has failed to reabsorb the lecturers is that ASUU is seen as a radical union which needed to be killed if the anti-poor, neo-liberal education commercialization, cut in education funding and fee hike policies of the government is to see the light of the day in the educational sector.

The Yar’Adua government want to provoke ASUU to a prolong strike so that the mood of the general public can be swayed against it and a final onslaught can be launched against it. Furthermore, the commendation given to ruthless university administrators through awards and post is meant to embolden current school administrators to be more ruthless in attacking students’ and workers’ rights and for a ceaseless implementation of the neo-liberal policies in the education sector. The overall aim of this arrangement is to scare the working and toiling people away from challenging the present government I its attempt at implementing neo-liberal, IMF/World Bank-inspired policies of privatization, commercialization, liberalization, retrenchment, fuel price hike, etc.

This is why all working class and progressive organizations must condemn the government’s posture towards ASUU strike. The blame of a prolonged strike should be placed at the door step of the Yar’Adua government. However, the current situation calls for a working class solidarity, especially in the educational sector. The demands of ASUU are encompassing therefore, it must carry along all other unions both within the educational and non-educational institutions (especially the central labour unions) such as NUT, NASU, SSANU, COEASU, ASUP, NLC and TUC, the students’ movement, among others on a collective demands for massive funding of education by at least 26 percents, democratization of decision making organs and processes in the education sector (involving all the workers’ unions), adequate wages and working conditions for education workers, free, qualitative and functional education at all levels, among other demands.

Towards this end, there is need for a EDUCATION STAKEHOLDERS’ SUMMIT involving all the workers’ unions in the education sector and students’ movement. Such summit will carry the views of local branches to the national summit. This summit will analyzed all the problems facing education, chart the way out and draw out a collective plan of resisting government’s neo-liberal onslaught on the educational system and workers’ organizations. Otherwise, each union will be gradually stiffen to death as was witnessed during the Thatcher years in Britain.

Conclusively, the working and toiling people must realise that the current Yar’Adua government, despite all its grandstanding cannot resolve any problem facing the masses. It is an offshoot and continuation of the old ruinous anti-poor, pro-rich government of Obasanjo. Save for its saint-like look, it will continue to serve the interest of the rich few in business and power while masses will be given doses of retrenchment, commercialization, fuel and electricity price hikes, suffering and misery. Unless the working poor build a pan-Nigerian, radical working class political platform that will wrestle power from the corrupt political class and enthrone a government that will be committed to massive funding of free, qualitative and functional education system, free and efficient Medicare, massive expansion of public utilities – electricity, road network, housing, drainage system, tourism etc, adequate and secure job for all able bodied citizens with adequate and living wages and pensions, massive investment in cheap, efficient and environmental-friendly transport and communication system. None of the political class can undertake these if their profit-making system is to survive. This is task before serious-minded and genuine labour and working class leaders.

*Kola Ibrahim is a member of the Democratic Socialist Movement, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria.

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Kola Ibrahim argues that unless the Nigerian students and workers take on the government and make it rescind its commercialization of education, it will be become exclusive to rich.

For those who still nurse the illusion that the present Yar'Adua's government will be different from the past should be having a rethink as the current capitalist government is bent on continuing the neo-liberal economic policies of the past especially as it concerns the education sector. Just few weeks ago, the minister of education, Igwe Ajah Nwachukwu was quoted in two forums reiterating the government's decision to hike fees in all Nigerian universities. The new policy will see already impoverished students coughing out tens of thousands in a country where over sixty percent are officially recognized as living in penury; and where government find it a onerous task to pay N11, 000 minimum wage for workers.

This new policy is to say the least anti-poor and incoherent. It is anti-poor because it will definitely deny thousands of youth access to university education while placing the burden of funding education on parents and students many of whom are from poor working class, peasant and wounded middle class background. It is incoherent because it failed to justify the logic of government’s so-called increased budgetary allocation. If the federal government claimed to have increased budgetary allocation - which in the real sense is a ruse - why then is the need to further place burden of education funding on poor parents and students since the increased (?) budgetary allocation is meant to, at least, lessen the burden of parents and students, and to improve standard. The new regime of fees to be introduced could hardly resolve a single of the problems confronting the education sector. The hypocrisy of the government is further shown by the fact that no public probe has been made into billions being squeezed out of the pockets of parents and students, and the huge billions being budgeted for education yearly but looted through crooked means making most of the facilities in our schools at all levels continue to rot despite increased charges.

The real reason why the government cannot undertake a serious and holistic probe of the education fund is because the budget itself, drawn up in the boardrooms of IMF/World Bank officials are built on the sandy foundation of neo-liberalism which means acute cut in social spending vis-à-vis education, health, etc and concentration on policies that will enhance the profit of the business community and the international moneybags in Nigeria, that is through budgetary allocation for bailing out big private businesses – who have been engaging in rapacious exploitation of the resources of the country especially the human labour – after they might have run into competition crisis. The rest of the budget is used to invite the foreign experts through consultancy projects that have little on no impacts on the lives of ordinary Nigerian. This is why a huge chunk of the education budget is allocated to seminars and lectures on issues such as AIDS/HIV when in actual facts many young ladies are taking to prostitution as a result of the failed education sector.

As against the so-called much lauded thirteen percent of the budget being allocated to education, the real education budget is less than 8.8 percent. The thirteen percent that has received unprecedented applause from our "respected" public analysts and the media is only for the recurrent/over head cost which does not cover the developmental projects such as expansion of facilities. To further show the hypocrisy of this government, the 13 percent does not include increase salaries especially for teachers (majority of whom are living in abject poverty), reduction in fees paid by poor students, etc. already the university lecturers are already bemoaning the stagnation in university special grants. In the real sense, the increase in recurrent budget is meant for consultancy service. Even, the highly anti-poor Obasanjo government budgeted about 11 percent for education at its inception. The capital budget that could have expanded the facilities in schools received little or no increase.

Therefore, the budget is a continuation of the old ruinous policy of cut in education budget in a bid to maintain fiscal balance for non-existent investors. Coupled with this is the continuous commercialization of education especially in order to lay the basis for its total privatization which has been achieved in the primary education sub-sector. Is it not instructive that all governments, especially state and federal government have laid the basis for private takeover of secondary schools as this sub-sector has witness unprecedented rot with mushrooms of private secondary schools – mostly owned by public officials and their acolytes –growing of the rot. In the University sub-sector, the same process is going on with public universities being under funded while private ones charging hundreds of thousands continue to increase. The new agenda is to commercialize public education to a point where public education will be totally unattractive to the people and thus lay the basis for their eventual privatization. This is what is being planned for the Law Schools and the Unity Schools. While the law school fees was hiked 100 percent to N230,000, which has denied hundreds of law students access to this year's law school programme, new generations of students are not allowed into the unity schools so as to justify their rottenness and thus eventual privatization. Already less than ten percent of university-aged youth are currently in schools or have graduated. Nigerian resources if judiciously used could fund free and qualitative education but the neo-liberal, pro-rich, anti-poor market-oriented policies which subsequent Nigerian governments have committed themselves to will not allow this.

Between 1999 and now, Nigeria has accrued nothing less than over N10 trillion naira with practically nothing to show for it than opulence for the few. This money is enough to lay the basis for massive development of the country economically and politically but the neo-liberal ideology teaches Nigerian leaders to subject provision of social service such as functional education, affordable healthcare, massive transportation development (road, rail, water), job creation, food and energy supply, etc to market forces, that is the law of the survival of the fittest which gives the service to the highest bidder. These policies have meant that it is the rich that will be buying up the country’s resources at token while majority will not be able to afford the huge cost needed to access social service. This is in addition to the mindless looting of the nation’s wealth by the unproductive Nigerian ruling class and their private collaborators, both local and foreign which itself is facilitated by the market idea that deify the ruthless private sector. All societies that have developed does so based on government massive intervention in the provision of basic facilities for the industrialization of the country including social services. Even the much glorified Asian Tigers were massively supported by the US as a counterweight against the fast developing ‘communist’ China. Also in Nigeria, the little development, universities, research institutes, health institutions, road and rail constructions, etc that we have had was products of the massive investment in developmental projects by past governments of the 1970’s and ‘80’s. in fact, introduction of top up fees contributed to the early and inglorious exit of Tony Blair in Britain.

Unless the NIGERIAN students and workers are ready to take on this government and make it rescind its anti-students education commercialization, education will be made the exclusive preserve of the rich. It is unfortunate that no students' union or NANS structure in the country has taken any step to stop this policy not even on the law school fee hike, yet students' unions are being destroyed in preparation by university administrators for the introduction of this policy while various state governments have already begun the process, for instance Lautech (N6,000 to N40,000), UniOSun (Between N160,000 to N300,000), Tai Solarin University (N50,000), etc. Crisis are already brewing in many campuses where education are being or are going to be commercialized – UniAbuja, ABU, OAU. Those institutions which have destroyed students’ unionism such as UI and UNILAG have turned the campuses to ghost of themselves with students being in serious insecurity and living under unfavourable living and studying conditions with no students' body to agitate for them.

It is funny that a government that wants to create an industrialized economy by 2020 is not ready to dedicate not even 20 percent of its budget to education when UNESCO prescribed 26percent for a developing economy. It is unfortunate that many students' unions have turned themselves to the extension of their various managements. Notwithstanding this, students across the country must pressure their local students’ union leaderships and NANS leaders to declare “days of actions” to include press campaign, rallies, lecture boycott, protest marches to demand for proper funding of education by at least 26 percent of the budget as prescribed by UNESCO for developing economies coupled with DEMOCRATIC running of the education sector to include education workers’ unions and students' movements. If the NANS leadership fails, genuine radical students’ unions and organizations must build a radical pan-Nigerian students’ platform to lead this campaign. They must reach out to workers’ movements and link their demands with that of other oppressed strata in Nigeria as a basis of building supports.

The current ruling class is ready to defend its class interest through neo-liberalism, unless the workers, students, peasants and the oppressed through their organizations such as NLC and TUC, students’ unions, ASUU, market men and women organizations, community movements, etc must resist this by fighting for their own class interests through the struggle for an egalitarian society which can only be achieved through nationalization of the commanding height of the Nigerian economy under the democratic control of the working and toiling people themselves. This raises the need for a radical, socialist-oriented, working people’s political party that will fight for powering order to enthrone the working people’s government which will develop the vast resources of the country.

*Kola Ibrahim Activist from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Member, Education Rights Campaign (ERC).

**Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Kola Ibrahim argues that the new economic partnership agreements that are being proposed by the EU are driven by the old unequal economic relationships.

The new plan of the European Union to have economic agreements with her former colonies has not received much attention in terms of critical analysis especially by the civil society groups and trade union movements. However, those who have spoken on it have given some explanations on why it must be rejected. The issue is what alternative is available if the agreement is rejected. It should also be stated that as the negotiation of the agreement is going on, the WTO is also renegotiating with African countries in order to force the pill of economic enslavement that was earlier rejected at the Cancun Round in 2005. According to the letters of the agreement, African countries are to be given "preferential treatment" to European market for some of their agricultural products without restriction while the third world countries will also have to "gradually" open up their market for European business. Definitely, this market includes education, health and public utilities. Many African leaders have vaguely complained about the agreements but there is a consensus that the agreement will represent an advantage for the third world countries.

The agreement represents another way of rapaciously and legally exploiting the resources of the third world countries especially Africa where most of the population are living in absolute poverty. In the first place, the goods to be exported to European countries are mostly agricultural produce with little local content and market value while European countries will bring in finished goods which are high valued. This definitely means the continuous underdevelopment of the third world countries. Therefore, there will continuously be wide technology gap, increased trade imbalance and capital flight from the countries.

Secondly, most poor African farmers lack the infrastructure facilities to produce agricultural goods at cheaper cost as the transport system are archaic, modern storage system unavailable, farm equipments inaccessible while credit facilities are rare for tens of millions of poor farmers. This will mean that African countries will receive little pie of the market while local farms in Europe will massively and cheaply produce as a result of favourable technological and economic situations thus lowering prices in the market which will only benefit the big farmers who produce at cheap prices. Thirdly, as against what is being portrayed, the European countries will continue to subsidize their local farmers, especially the big business farms, which will mean economic disaster for the African countries most of whom depend on agricultural export for revenue.

Furthermore, the agreement gives right of access to European business in African countries. This means that there will not special treatments or consideration for government owned firms while social services should be open to competition without any special spending. It implies that state-owned firms will be under funded thus leading to their being bought over at the stock market or through wholesale privatization (that is to the European multinationals) while education, health, water, electricity, transportation will be totally commercialized and privatized for the market to have access. All this is meant to make labour cheap and flexible for exploitation. This process will result in retrenchment, high cost of accessing social services, rotting away of social services as a result of under funding and fall in living standards. It is a return to full scale neo-liberalism. All this is meant to give European firms a preferential access to African market at token as against the threat from other economic centres especially China, South East Asia and US. This is the real kernel of the agreement.

However, it is the rich big business of Europe that will enjoy this plan to rapaciously exploit the working poor of Africa. For instance, it is the rich farms (mostly owned by big multinationals in beverage industries) that are enjoying the subsidies being given by the European governments from the state resources that should have been used to provide better living for the poor in their countries. According to a 2005 report from Seattle to Brussels Network, titled "the European Corporate Trade Agenda", 15 percent of French farms (that is big business farms) received 60 percent of the European Commission's subsidies to France while 70 percent of small farmers received just 17 percent of the subsidies. It goes further to show that 70 percents of the EU subsidies goes to just 20 percent largest farms in Europe. These subsidies are in the final analysis going to the pockets of the big multinational firms such as beer and beverage companies that have big farms. These companies are also extensions of the world capitalist business with links to bigger firms through stock trading, bank loans and credits, etc. In fact, Oxfam reported that "farm income in UK has declined by more than 40 percent while France has lost half of its (small) farmers over the past 20 years".

Therefore, the so-called subsidies and economic agreements being negotiated by the European countries are basically on behalf of big business and not in the interest of the whole European working class. In fact, the movement of European big farms and industrial production to some third world countries is being used to drive down wages in developed countries as European working class are threatened with retrenchment employment movement and industrial relocation. Therefore, the imbalance trade agreement that favours privatization, commercialization and trade liberalization will neither favour the European working class as much as the poor people of Africa. Two third of the world trade is concentrated in just 500 big multinationals while the top 200 companies that account for one quarter of the world economic activities employ just 1 percent of the global workforce meaning that the rest are employed mostly by governments. Therefore, further attempt at handing over the economy to the big business through trade liberalization will lead to retrenchment and further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few.

On the other hands, the African leaders are not much enthusiastic to confront this imperialist agenda because they depend on them for survival. For instance, most African leaders are sustained in power by big business in their various countries through political support and provision of liquidity from which most of these leaders get their “rents" through direct looting of the treasury or promotion of policies that will favour their personal economic interests. In fact, most African leaders have been integrated into big business with most of them coming from the private sector while most of their advisers and legislators are either businessmen or IMF/World Bank trained intellectuals who are seconded to the African leaders to give prescriptions of neo-liberal policies that will favour the multinational vampires that are the backbones of these multilateral financial institutions. Through shares, stock trading, merger, "strategic partnership", etc, local businessmen and politicians are linked to the world business; therefore, the local leaders cannot challenge it.

Also, career advancement for these IMF/WB advisers depends on how much they are able to ensure the implementation of these policies. For instance, the multilateral institutions have promoted the former ministers of finance and education in Nigeria, Okonjo Iweala and Oby Ezekwesili, after they have ensured the implementation of the neo-liberal economic pills of privatization, deregulation, commercialization and debt buyback fraud. Moreover, these leaders have practically nothing to lose in the agreement. For instance, most of the government subsidies to farmers through bank loans and fertilizers only go to the big farms that are owned for instance in Nigeria by ex-generals and politicians in power. With a smooth connection to the local and international markets they definitely have a lot to gain as they will have increased access to the European market at the expense of millions of local farmers and working people who will bear the brunt of economic enslavement and neo-liberal exchange for big business profits.

Therefore, the Economic Partnership Agreement is nothing but another attempt to colonize the African countries and indeed the third world countries in close collaboration with the local leaders and businessmen. A genuine agreement to help Africa and her poor people will mean massive development of infrastructures, technology and industrial capacities of the African countries by Europe with no strings attached. This will help Africa to develop its massive human, natural and materials potentials while the trade between various countries will be dictated by mutual interest to provide basic needs for the working poor. Capitalist businessmen, multinational vampires and their local collaborators cannot carry out this task who are ready to milk the poor dry in search of maximum profit; it lies in the hands of the working people of Africa, third world and indeed Europe by building a radical working people's party that will struggle for power and create a socialist economic planning where the massive resources of the society will be nationalized under the democratic control of the working and poor people themselves which will provide the resources for the massive development of the third world countries while laying the basis for a genuine trade and aid among nations. Leaving the fate of the working and poor people in the hands of the rich moneybag politicians is the tragedy of all time.

Many free trade agreements have been signed and enacted into law by capitalist governments at the back of the working people. This is because the working people in Africa and other third world countries do not have political platform of their own. This is why a radical, working class party is needed to champion the interests of the poor working people. The first task in this direction is to build a left alliance among labour activists, radical organizations, civil societies against this ruinous capitalist onslaught and demand for abrogation of all imperialist free trade agreements. This will mean building struggle movements at the grass root, local national and international levels against this agreement as a basis for the formation of a working class political platform. It is unfortunate that many official trade unions bureaucrats in many third world countries have accepted neo-liberal ideology. They only raise fingers when pressures from the rank-and-file workers threaten their positions. This places heavy duties on genuine working class activists to build a genuine alternative - through day to day interventions in the struggle of the working people for better deal - firstly within the trade union movements as a basis for building working class political platforms.

* Kola Ibrahim is a student activist from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, email: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/Nigeria_41150.jpgKola Ibrahim argues that the solution to Nigeria’s hydra-headed socio-political problems lies not with the ballot box but rather with grassroots-led social and political movments from the urban and rural masses.

The contemporary histories of Venezuela, Bolivia, Mexico, Greece and Ukraine have shown that it is independent political actions of the masses that can change the society.

The outcome of the Nigerian elections held in April 2007 have shown that the solution to Nigeria's hydra-headed socio-political problems can only be achieved if the mass of the working people of Nigeria take destiny into their hands and exercise political movement as a counterweight to bourgeois corrupt politics. Politicians cannot be relied upon to resolve the sufferings of the Nigerian working people.

To begin with, the clash within the rank of the ruling elite, especially that between president Obasanjo and his vice Atiku Abubakar, was never based on how to better the lot of the masses, who have been made to swallow the poisonous pills of neo-liberal capitalist economic policies over the past eight years.

In fact, instead, the cause of the rancour between the two is the question of succession. While Atiku claimed to have conceded power to Obasanjo in 2003 so as to regain it in 2007, the Obasanjo camp sees no reason why Atiku, who has served two terms in the presidency, should be 'criminalising’ Obasanjo for going for a third term in office.

The masses were presented with two sides of the same corrupt political arrangement and no genuine alternative. Both the president and his vice have acted together to implement the anti-poor, pro-rich policies of neo-liberalism. Atiku was the chairman of National Council on Privatization (NCP), which oversaw the privatisation of several government corporations and parastatals. Social service provisions were either commercialised or partly privatised. Meantime the masses were made the scapegoats of age-long corruption and mismanagement by the ruling elite via retrenchment, unemployment, unpaid entitlements, including pensions, and inflation.

The president demonstrated that if the nation he rules over could not manage its tertiary education, he could do better. The children of the poor masses who want a good education were told to either a pay Naira500,000 at Bells University's bursary or go to hell. At the same time, hundreds of acres of state farmlands were bought over by the president - or the Obasanjo Library. Followers boast of juicy packages which they try to protect as much as possible.

And whereas the so-called opposition wanted to present itself as an alternative, the past let them down. Nigerians forget the spree of retrenchment of the former AD southwest governments of the likes of Bola Tinubu in Lagos and Bisi Akande in Osun. All opposition groups bow before the almighty neo-liberal economic pills as advocated multilateral agencies of imperialist capitalism – IMF, World Bank and WTO.

Political action could not take into cognisance the plight of the poor people. In an absence of genuine alternatives, the best it could do was to use people's plight to justify their quest for power. This explains why none of them could give reasons for supporting or participating in policies that have deprived the majority. Even Obasanjo has conceded that all those who antagonise his ‘reforms’ could not provide alternatives because they all stand for the same policies.

This situation is underlined in a letter Atiku Abubakar wrote to Obasanjo in early 2006. He stated his intention to run for the presidency and praised Obasanjo for his economic reforms: retrenchment, denied entitlements, decrepit social services, looting via privatization. He promised to continue the same policies.

Neither Atiku nor the so-called opposition have suggested any alternative to neo-liberalism and market economies, rejected by the working people. Ruling class politics of survival of the fittest substitutes for radical political actions of the masses; and the masses taking the political road is feared.

Of course any concession to allow the masses to take independent political action through formation of a working people's party would lead to the diversion of the resources of the country to pro-poor policies: free education, health care, adequate salaries and pension, secure job opportunities and better infrastructures. As these could only be achieved by the stopping corruption and privatisation of national wealth, they would spell doom for corrupt ambitions.

Therefore, the ruling politicians and their estranged counterparts in the so-called opposition - which some elements of the media has wrongly tagged progressives - continue their ruinous politics. These same estranged politicians participated actively in the electoral fraud of 1999 and 2003. Many of them played major roles during the dark days of military absolutism. For instance, Obasanjo was the first head of state to plunge Nigeria to the abyss of debt and economic dislocation. Atiku was head of customs and excise, which was fraught with corruption. The masses, meanwhile, are cajoled with such hollow terms as the rule of law and respect of electoral wishes. But to expect these individuals to genuinely involve working peoples in the political process is an illusion.

The election outcome clearly indicates the futility of relying on any section of the ruling class for a political breakthrough for the people of Nigeria. While the estranged ruling class tried to use mass pressure to force the main ruling PDP party to concede to some of their demands, the ruling class maximised the constitutional flaws and illegitimate rights to authority through for example control of the INEC, the armed forces and part of the judiciary to ensure they did not lose power. Although the majority of voters were disenfranchised by the political machine of the ruling PDP through rigging and violence, the estranged opposition could not mobilise the masses to come and vote.

It is foolhardy for anyone claiming to be from a left-wing background to believe that any political gain can come by the people attaching themselves to the estranged section of the ruling class without undertaking independent, democratic, mass-based and radical political activities.

Many so-called civil society organisations - many of which derive their grants from the imperialist agencies in the West on the basis of maintaining the status quo - continue to be lethargic; instead of seeking to build a political platform of the working people of Nigeria that will seek to dismantle the stranglehold of the capitalist ruling class on our economic and political lives.

It is important to draw out lessons from last week’s farcical general election for the working masses.

First, given the present constitutional and political arrangements, the corrupt capitalist ruling class will continue to recycle itself in power, irrespective of mass opposition.

Secondly, confining the masses within a neoliberal economic framework will continue to deprive the masses of the political will to undertake independent political action.

Thirdly, in order to breakthrough this quagmire, the masses must build a fighting political alternative that is economically and politically different from corrupt opposition politics, and democratically organised from the grassroots to the national level.

Fourthly, it is erroneous for the leaders of working class organisations to believe that by confining themselves to so-called civil or legal means, that they can assume political control. Only by taking to the streets, along with other mass political actions, can they force the ruling class to abdicate power. And political alternatives must be linked to the daily struggles of the masses for democratic rights, including the right to free and fair elections.

For these reasons, mass organisations and their leaders must reject last week’s nonsensical general elections. They must immediately call for the reconstitution of the electoral body, a re-run of all elections, and convocation of a Sovereign National Conference. This should draw its membership democratically from mass organisations: trade unions, market men and women associations, student movements, civil societies and ethnic nationalities, which shall reconstitute the political and economic agenda of the country.

And this must not mean supporting other corrupt politicians. Rather it is a step towards building a mass struggle that will culminate in the reconstitution of the country in favour of the working masses.

Civil society organisations and social movements must come together and call the people to the street to take their destiny in their own hands. They must convoke a general summit of all pro-working peoples organisations, to be spear-headed by the trade unions, with the aim of forming a working people's party that will serve the interest of the masses.

I propose a week of political protests around the country to include mass processions, leafleting, rallies and mass meetings as soon as possible. The masses must fight for a democratic socialist Nigeria, where the resources of the country are used not in the interests of the already rich few, but in the welfare interests of the masses.

* Kola Ibrahim is a student activist from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, email: [email][email protected]

* Please send comments to [email protected]

Not that what I have to say matters - since when has anyone cared to read what readers have to express. Pambazuka News: show me you are different. Ok, I want to find out from him why China can produce cheaply and not the Funtua Textiles he made mention of. (http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/panafrican/36045). I guess this is China's time in the serial rape of an ever-willing continent. The elites speak to themselves and the rest of the people are pre-occupied with finding what to survive on. I once asked a question no one bothered to answer: Why do you have China Towns all over the world and not one Naija Town is possible? I rest my case!