LENIN spoke like a prophet when he said that one of the major prerequisites for a revolution to happen is a crack in the ruling class. What we witnessed last week in the ongoing electioneering for the 2023 elections is a revolutionary upsurge as a result of the crack. The crack is so sharp that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who has been one of the backbones of the Buhari regime, called him out for “hiding fuel and money” to sabotage his chances at the polls.
Tinubu went further to proclaim at that campaign rally in Ogun State that the 2023 election would be a revolution. Buhari ordered the IGP to replace the commissioners of police in both Lagos and Ogun afterward, and a few days ago hundreds of people were arrested in Lagos. Rough revolutionary and counterrevolutionary situations are already playing out. What do I mean?
“That said, we must remind ourselves why a tainted and bala-blu-ed revolution might seem repulsive to us. It is because we are repulsed by Tinubu himself. We are repulsed about the idea of embarking on a revolutionary journey that Tinubu might profit from. Tinubu is not only an anti-worker and anti-people capitalist, but he is also that capitalist who lives in the illusion that the people are already subdued and there’s nothing they can do.”
No fuel, No light, No food, No money. Buhari’s helicopter was stoned in Kano in response to the naira swap policy, and in accordance with a 2016 charge by APC to Nigerians to stone them if they do not perform in office. Drivers in Enugu protested against fuel scarcity. Lagosians protested against the naira scarcity. Ibadan was literally on fire yesterday (Friday). University of Benin (UNIBEN) students resisted the Army. Tinubu was driven away from Ilesha. A truly revolutionary lizard is crawling up the cracks in the walls of Nigeria’s ruling class.
The Buhari vs Tinubu civil war has started in APC and one must refuse to take sides. The danger of taking sides is in the danger of categorising protesters in Kano as thugs sponsored by Ganduje and Tinubu against Buhari. The danger of categorising anti-money swap protesters in Marina, Lagos as protesters sponsored by Tinubu, or the protesters in Ilesa as protesters sponsored by Buhari’s cronies, like Aregbesola.
Truly, protests can be sponsored. In fact, revolutions can be sponsored by one side of the ruling class against the other. Revolutions can be sponsored by imperial powers against the local capitalist class and vice versa. What must be done is to not categorise those protests as tainted, stained, or bala-blu-ed protests. It is to regard them as an opportunity to get up from under the boots of repression of the ruling class. It is to take those protests beyond their sponsorship, especially when the resources they claim to sponsor those protests with belong to all of us in the first instance before they accumulated them.
That said, we must remind ourselves why a tainted and bala-blu-ed revolution might seem repulsive to us. It is because we are repulsed by Tinubu himself. We are repulsed about the idea of embarking on a revolutionary journey that Tinubu might profit from. Tinubu is not only an anti-worker and anti-people capitalist, but he is also that capitalist who lives in the illusion that the people are already subdued and there’s nothing they can do.
“It is clear that Buhari is not concerned about electoral fraud but about securing a good retirement for himself. The manner of execution also shows that the policy would not stop vote buying because even the bandits in the bush already have their own stash of the new cash. Nigerians are starved because the interests that can guarantee Authoritarian Buhari a good retirement do not want crooked and despotic Tinubu to be president. They are giving Tinubu a campaign gain with this opposition because then the old man will start looking like he is one strongman that the cabal is afraid of. The scary part is that these electoral politics is taking a regional shape and that always ends very badly.”
He is that capitalist who had a hand in Lekki Massacre because he was making a daily income of over 20 million from the Lekki Toll Gate. He is that capitalist that openly asserted that he will win this election after promising to remove subsidies and increase fuel prices no matter the number of protests by Nigerians. He is disgusting, in personality and in politics.
At the same time, the naira redesign is repulsive in its manner of execution and comical in intent. Or is it not hideously comical that the same Buhari who condoned electoral fraud in his own favour in 2019 is making a policy to stop electoral fraud and intends to force the policy down the throat of Nigerians? Even Buhari should be surprised that he won in 2019 despite how much he was hated already. This is the same Buhari who oversaw the deregistration of radical parties like the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) from the ballot. The results of that election were incredible. But now, Buhari wants a credible election.
It is clear that Buhari is not concerned about electoral fraud but about securing a good retirement for himself. The manner of execution also shows that the policy would not stop vote buying because even the bandits in the bush already have their own stash of the new cash. Nigerians are starved because the interests that can guarantee Authoritarian Buhari a good retirement do not want crooked and despotic Tinubu to be president. They are giving Tinubu a campaign gain with this opposition because then the old man will start looking like he is one strongman that the cabal is afraid of. The scary part is that these electoral politics is taking a regional shape and that always ends very badly.
These policies should be tackled and this situation must be treated as a revolution. Not a bala-blu-ed revolution but a pure white revolution because it is driven by the holy anger of Nigerians at the policies that treat them like the grass that two elephants can freely fight on. This revolution must be used to rearrange Nigeria to the point that corrupt politicians like Tinubu, Atiku, and Obi will not even find a place on the ballot, because they’d be in prison or rehab.
Comrades, this is not the time to wait for APC’s labour leaders in the NLC and the TUC. This is the time to hit the streets and direct the holy anger burning in Ibadan or in Kano at the Nigerian capitalist ruling class and their corrupt interests keeping our country down.
Comrade Ibukun writes from Abuja, Nigeria, and can be contacted on 09060277591
