By Salihu Moh. Lukman
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Gov. Olusegun Mimiko
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Following the meeting of the
National Executive Committee of Labour Party of April 11, both the National
Chairman of the Party, Chief Dan Nwanyawu and Governor Olusegun Mimiko were
quoted to have dismissed the current merger negotiations involving ACN, ANPP,
CPC and Okorocha-led APGA. Their position was informed by the claim that it is
a merger of personalities with the aim of grabbing power. In particular, Dr.
Mimiko further argued that "Labour Party remains the only true progressive
party in Nigeria committed to working for the people of Nigeria."
Ordinarily, these claims
should just be ignored. But given the danger that such attitudes have produced
political situations with devastating consequences for Nigeria, it is important
that some clarifications are made with the objective of contextualising the
place of Labour Party and its leadership. For many, including some of the
leaders of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), it is clear that Labour Party as it
is today is just one of the INEC registered political parties. Its relations to
NLC is limited to the name and its leaders being once leaders of NLC
affiliates.
Labour Party share the same
ACN, ANPP, CPC, etc. accusation of lack of any clear ideological orientation
and perhaps not different from PDP. In some ways, given the conduct of the Dan
Nwanyawu leadership of the party, it is closer to PDP. This can be established
by the fact that Gov. Mimiko himself was a member of PDP and in fact only went
to Labour Party to contest 2007 elections after PDP denied him the ticket. Some
accounts by PDP members alleged that Gov. Mimiko even obtained permission from
Gen. Obasanjo before he joined Labour Party. In other words, Mimiko's move to the
Labour Party was sanctioned by PDP leader, Gen. Obasanjo.
The truth is, it will only be
convenient to describe Labour Party and its leadership as progressive. With
respect to ideology, given that Labour Party endorsed President Jonathan
Goodluck for 2011 elections, its ideology is closer to PDP. This closeness
manifested very clearly even in the communique issued by the party after its
last NEC meeting when both Chief Nwanyawu and Dr. Mimiko commended President
Goodluck Jonathan for the achievements recorded in the elections in Edo and
Ondo States.
The party has every right to
its choice of identity and manoeuvring to use such identity to promote itself and
gain electoral advantage. There is absolutely no problem for anyone to be able
to manoeuvre his/her way to political reckoning using such political identity.
In fact, it is the capacity to so manoeuvre that often defines politics.
Success or otherwise should always be moderated with some minimum capacity to
evaluate and come up with clear road map. In so many respect, this is
where the Labour Party leadership and Gov. Mimiko appear to be completely
inebriated and unable to define a future beyond what they have today.
Largely because of this
factor, they define the term 'progressive' and 'ideology' with reference to
their personality. They celebrate their capacity to grab power in small Ondo
State but despise any other group of persons working to 'grab' power at
whatever level. For anyone conversant with the political history of Nigerian
trade unions and especially how the current Labour Party came about will not be
surprising.
The truth is that Labour Party
as it is today is a product of retrogressive manipulation of a process
involving broad section of Nigerian groups and individuals commonly regarded as
progressives. This has historical origin with NLC leaders driving the process
mainly because of their leadership role in mobilising Nigerians to contest
against repressive and oppressive government policies. Although, NLC as it is
today, can be argued to be created in 1975, both during the colonial and post
colonial history of Nigeria, retrogressive manipulation of processes involving
other Nigerian groups has been a recurring feature. In virtually all cases, the
outcome is the same - the emergence of a political structure that ends up
serving the ruling establishment/party.
In 1989, during the attempted
third republic, based on Babangida's subversive generosity, the NLC under the
leadership of Late Comrade Pascal Bafyau attempted to register Labour Party.
Then radical groups in the country, which include left groups, National
Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), women groups, etc. were involved.
Uncomfortable with the positions of virtually all the radical groups regarding
the need to adopt socialism as the ideological position of the party, the
Pascal Bafyau NLC leadership blocked all the groups and ensured that the party
programme did not adopt anything socialist.
The 1989 reality led to
situations whereby following the refusal of the Babangida administration to
register any of the political associations that applied for registration,
including the Bafyau initiated labour party and the subsequent creation by
government of Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention
(NRC), labour leaders went to both parties. Thanks to Pascal Bafyau's good
(subversive) relations with the Babangida government, Alh. A. A. Salam,
National Secretary of today's Labour Party was made the National Secretary of
Babangida's NRC with Chief Tom Ikimi as the National Chairman of the NRC.
At
the same time, both Pascal Bafyau and Comrade S. O. Z. Ejiofoh were to play
influential roles in SDP with Comrade Bafyau later aspiring to emerge as the
running mate to Chief M. K. O. Abiola. This unprincipled positions of some NLC
leaders stirred up internal opposition within the organisation with Comrade
Adams Oshiomhole, then Deputy President of NLC leading the opposition to NLC
participation in the Babangida transition programme. Alh. A. A. Salam, as
National Secretary of NRC was to lead open media campaigns against Comrade
Adams between 1990 and 1992.
Like during the attempted 3rd
Republic, between 2000 and 2002, under the leadership of Comrade Adams
Oshiomhole, NLC launched national consultations with groups aimed at
strengthening democracy. All human rights, pro-democracy, students, women,
professional groups such as Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Nigerian Medical
Association (NMA), etc. were consulted. In addition to these groups, attempts
was made to consult some politicians regarded as progressives. It was clear
during the consultations, that there are groups like NBA and NMA that are not
interested in being part of a political party. Among human rights and
pro-democracy groups, there are also groups that are only interested in policy
engagement to strengthen democratic structures in the country. As a result, a
two-track approach was agreed. The first is for the NLC to work with all
interested progressive groups and individuals to form a working class party
with socialist ideology. The second is to work with all groups in the country
to develop initiatives aimed at strengthening democracy.
At the end, both the two
initiatives were muscled out of existence presumably on account of lack of
interest by the Comrade Adams leadership. Lack of interest could be justified
by allegations about idealism against the John Odah led NLC Secretariat staff.
On account of such allegations, around February 2002, at the National Executive
Council (NEC) meeting of NLC at Bauchi, Comrade Adams' leadership decided to
establish a Political Committee with Comrade S. O. Z. Ejiofoh as Chairman and
Alh. A. A. Salam as Secretary to drive the process of Labour engagement with
politics to the exclusion of any Secretariat staff. This was the exact approach
of 1989 under Comrade Bafyau when the NLC just before the Calabar Political
Conference decided that Secretariat staff should not be part of it.
This was the situation when in
August 2002, the NLC NEC decided to register Party for Social Democracy (PSD).
Comrade S. O. Z. Ejiofoh was made the interim Chairman of the party and Alh.
Salam interim Secretary. The two veterans continued as National Chairman and
National Secretary of PSD. Around 2005, the party changed its name to Labour
Party and based on consultations between NLC leadership (mainly Comrade Adams),
Comrade Ejiofoh was to hand over to Comrade Dan Nwanyawu. The main argument was
that Comrade Ejiofoh's leadership style was making the party unattractive to
politicians and Comrade Dan Nwanyawu will assist to bring money into the party.
So what therefore can anyone
cite based on the history of the Labour Party to qualify it as progressive? It
is possible this is the wrong account. Perhaps, Chief Dan Nwanyawu, Alh. A. A.
Salam and the leaders of the Labour Party will narrate their own account, which
can confirm the progressive credentials of the party. If the post 2005 history
of the party is anything to go by, the party leadership is progressive to the
extent that it succeeded in recruiting Dr. Mimiko into the party, which enabled
Chief Dan Nwanyawu to successfully mobilise some resources and assist the party
to rent 'befitting' National Secretariat. To that extent, it can be argued that
Chief Dan Nwanyawu was able to deliver on the expectation of mobilising
resources.
However, is this what being
progressive is all about? Perhaps, Chief Dan Nwanyawu is a leading radical
committed to the welfare of ordinary citizens. The best way to estimate that
would be with reference to the personal history of Chief Dan Nwanyawu. He was
an employee of Union Bank of Nigeria and emerged as the President of National
Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employee (NUBIFIE) in
1989. Some of his record in the union indicated that his first action as
President was to sack the Financial Controller of the union, Mr. Remi Owolabi
and replaced him with his Brother Mr. Dave Nwanyawu. He was alleged to defraud
the account of the union through NUBIFIE Travel and Tours and the purchase of
Shepilo Estate. Chief Dan Nwanyawu lost his position as President of NUBIFIE on
accounts of these allegations in 1992.
These are some of the high
points in Chief Nwanyawu's 'progressive' credentials. Perhaps, Dr. Mimiko and
Alh. Salam would have far more progressive credentials. To be fair to Dr.
Mimiko, there are accounts that described him as a social democrat. His
political journey started from his young student days and was to join Alliance
for Democracy (AD) and became the Ondo State Commissioner for Health between
1999 an October 2002. He joined PDP in 2002 and became the Secretary to Ondo
State Government between May 2003 and July 2005 when he was appointed Minister
of Housing and Urban Development by President Olusegun Obasanjo, a post he held
till December 2006 when he resigned to contest for the Ondo State 2007
gubernatorial elections, first under the PDP but later under the Labour Party.
In the case of Alh. A. A. Salam, he makes no pretence about being progressive.
He was part of the group in NLC with affiliations to right wing ideological
claims referred to as democrats. It was partly on account of his right-wing
ideological disposition that Comrade Pascal Bafyau as President of NLC
recommended him to the Babangida administration to serve as National Secretary
of NRC.
There is hardly any discerning
ideological or progressive imprint in any of the accounts of these leaders of
Labour Party. It will be false to associate Chief Dan Nwanyawu and Alh. A. A.
Salam with the term progressive, if at all it is a reference to people who
commits themselves to the improvement of citizens' welfare. One of the known
attribute of people who commits themselves to citizens` welfare is
selflessness. Records of both Chief Nwanyawu and Alh. A. A. Salam as trade
union leaders disqualify them from this category.
A second attribute of a
progressive is that they are very consistent fighters and often opposed to
establishment. With government symbolising establishment, especially given
authoritarian and undemocratic governments, progressives are almost always
antagonistic to government. As a result, progressives are related to some
non-governmental organisations. There is nothing in the profile of Dr. Mimiko
to suggest any relations with non-governmental organisation. Virtually,
everything about him is linked to one government or the other. In so many ways,
it can be argued that Dr. Mimiko is a creation of government. It is therefore a
fallacy to consider him as progressive.
The sad issue is not the claim
of Chief Dan Nwanyawu and Dr. Mimiko to being progressive or persons with any
ideology. It is the traumatising display of scandalously fraudulent arrogance
aimed simply at self glorification with no political aspiration, except if the
aspiration is limited to controlling Ondo State. Could the aspiration be to
merge with PDP? In which case, the challenge before Labour Party and its
leadership will be to link its claim of being progressive and its ideology to
its plans and not distract itself with attempts to justify why it is not
joining the ACN, ANPP, CPC and Okorocha-led merger negotiations.
A question that must be raised
in relations to Labour Party and its leadership is where does Comrade Adams
stand in all these? Is he still a member of the Labour Party? It will be
recalled that Comrade Adams contested 2007 elections based on some alliance
between AC and Labour Party. What happened to that alliance? Is there still an
alliance? If there is, what is going to happen to the alliance after the
emergence of APC? Will it be terminated? If the alliance is no longer there
now, what led to its termination? In summary, what is the post merger political
outlook of Comrade Adams? How will this outlook be in relation to PDP/Labour
Party alliance/relationship? These are questions both Comrade Adams and Labour
Party need to answer and the answers will help Nigerians appreciate better
their ideological positions.
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