PRESS RELEASE

Working-Class Organise Now for Power is the only Path Forward to end Banditry and Terrorism.

The Christmas Day US airstrike in Sokoto, ordered by Trump targeting terrorists in the northwestern part of Nigeria, has met with different kinds of reactions… The very first is from the Tinubu regime, claiming it was a collaborative joint strike, even when Trump’s tweet categorically states that he ordered the hit on “ISIS terrorist scum(s)”.

How should the working masses regard the US airstrike, definitely there is nothing to celebrate or applaud the Tinubu regime, if anything, it exposed the utter bankruptcy of the Tinubu regime and the entire crop of the ruling class as failures through and through, for its inability, over a period of decade plus to muster the necessary strength to deal with issues in its territorial borders as part of its oath of office to maintain the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country.

The Tinubu regime with all of the wealth and resources of the country at its disposal, with the increased triple revenue savings from “subsidy is gone” May 29, 2023 inauguration speech, huge earnings from crude oil, gas, loans, taxes etc cannot fully subdue a rag tag armed group of individuals…can only point to the working masses that this regime cannot be trusted to end the terror threat that Boko Haram and other Islamic insurgent groups constitute.

The eight years of the Buhari regime witnessed little to no action in combating insecurity in the country, despite substantial budgetary allocations for security. Places like Southern Kaduna, Plateau, Benue, and Kogi were epicentres of insecurity, resulting in the loss of many lives of working people.

According to the Nigerian Security Tracker (NST), an independent database that tracks killings from violence and terrorism across the country, approximately 63,111 Nigerians were killed between 2015 and May 2023. Beacon Consulting, a security and research firm, reported that under the Tinubu government (May 2023 to 2024), approximately 13,346 people were killed, and approximately 9,207 were abducted.

What this means is that the Nigerian ruling elites, including former presidents Jonathan and Obasanjo, have failed to prioritise the security and safety of the people, a condition that is clearly stated in the constitution as the primary responsibility of those in government.

And yet the same Tinubu sends the military with fighters jets and land force to Benin Republic to upstage an ongoing coup detat and claimed victory over the failed military coup, presenting himself as a “defender of civil rule”, when in reality it is propping itself up as an readily available hand maiden of French Imperialism against the growing wave of anti-French protest over the continued domination of her former colonial territories and as well as a self-preservation mechanism of being all ready against a coup attempt back at home, given a recent coup scare and arrest of some officers.

The point that needs to be made here is that the Nigerian state does not lack the capacity to decimate terror groups within Nigeria. But it will not. It cannot. The Tinubu regime is yet to respond to the query of the Kebbi state governor over the circumstances of the kidnapping of 25 school girls from Government Girls Schools in Kebbi, wherein the Vice Principal Hassan Yakubu Makuku was shot dead. Although the girls have now been released, following the usual carrot approach of Government negotiations, and then securing their release, the government is now organising a press fair of activities, of course, with a watering mouthful of cash paid by the government to the bandits.

The question posed by Governor Nasir Idris still hangs in the air with regard to who ordered the withdrawal of the Troops stationed in the school, following which, less than an hour later, the Kidnapping could then successfully be executed by the bandits. You can only logically finger the involvement of men high up. The top echelon of the military and, indeed, members of the ruling elites do not want the war on terror to end; it is an easy source of siphoning resources in the guise of security spending. One will not be far off the mark to state that they even partake in the sharing of the ransom paid. And if otherwise, they are profiting indirectly from the insecurity in the region and exploiting it as a means to maintain power at the expense of the ordinary working masses.

In 2021, the Buhari regime paid the sum of $50, 000 dollars cash (currently valued at N75 million) to bandits to retrieve a truck-mounted 12.7 calibre anti-aircraft gun that was capable of blowing the presidential plane off the air, since the president was then planning a visit to his home state in Katsina. A soft approach to patting terrorists and bandits on the back, an approach to hold them in check, an easy way of settling the boys.

The refusal to end the continued and rabid capitalist domination of the key sectors of the economy by the corruption-inclined ruling elites means that they are left with no other choice than to act the way they are acting to prevent these armed groups from directly becoming a direct political force that will then turn their guns directly at them. They prefer this current situation of Sharia-focused drive by the groups, and pledge their indirect support, with the spurious implementation of Sharia in states in the north, even though this violates the country’s constitutional provision as a secular state.

Moreso, is that capitalism condemns Nigeria to the lower rung to be a consumer and a producer of raw materials for industrial West, the US, China & Russia. This is what is largely responsible for the continued underdevelopment of the means of production, creating in turn a huge mass army of unemployed youths. The same policies of deregulation of the economy results into huge social cuts, underfunding of education, health and other essentials, resulting into mass deprivations and inability of the working masses all of to access basic needs, while public officials grow fat with huge largesse and free looting of the public treasury, benefiting directly from the chaos created allowing them to consolidate power and appropiate the very wealth of the country needed to develop it as their private possessions.

Since the return to so-called “democratic” rule in 1999, this entrenched system of corruption has allowed insecurity, mismanagement, and elite irresponsibility to persist. As a result, despite the country’s natural wealth and potential, poverty and underdevelopment continue to afflict the majority of the population, highlighting the stark contradictions of abundance under a predatory capitalist system.

While opposed to this huge contradiction of the supposed Giant of Africa unable to muster the military might to deal with these armed groups, we also fully recognised that it is not a military question. And that no amount of greater force can end the insurgency, if the root cause is not tackled. Terrorism is not merely resolved by a greater military might. Without confronting the fundamental root cause of social deprivation suffered by the working masses, so long will banditry, kidnapping, and terrorism persists

This explains why the working masses should not in any sense applaud Trump ot the US whatsoever for the airstrike. Instead, it must remain focused to fully come to the naked fact that the Tinubu regime, and indeed the entire crop of the ruling class, does not have its interest at heart. Nigeria is as good as coming closer to become a client state of the US, and this is clearly a bad omen for the independence of action of the country and indeed for the whole of Africa. For Trump and US imperialism, Nigeria and Africa are purely an arena for power struggle over natural resources. The bombing is aimed to project military strength, internationally as well as for his supporters.

The working masses must therefore look up to themselves and get organised. The Nigerian Labour Congress recently organised a date of protest against insecurity; it must now proceed further to provide the necessary enlightenment to the working class to prepare itself for the leadership role for organising the working masses politically and pose the question of political power.

To call on the Tinubu regime to resign, for an immediate convocation of a Sovereign National Conference/Constituent Assembly of the Working masses to decide the way forward, will not be heeded by the Tinubu regime or any wing of the ruling class. This is why the working masses must act directly by putting in place a political party of the Working People, build a party of the millions and not a party for the millionaires and power jobbers as the current Labour Party has become and independently in the name of the working masses wrestle to win political power, and immediately bring about a planned system of economy that places the commanding heights of the economy under the democratic control and management of working people, and so doing free up the resources with which to develop the means of production, fund infrastructural development, health, education, living wage and pension, unemployment allowance, democratic control of the police & military, with all public officials elected on the wages of an average skill worker and subject to immediate recall. This is what will end the continued descent of the country into the abyss. Trump’s airstrike doesn’t in any way threaten the corruption-infested ruling elites and the capitalist system, which perpetuates poverty and underdevelopment.

Signed
Aj. Dagga Tolar

General Secretary, MSA.