By Raimi Akegbejo, International Liaison Personnel of the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard (RSV), Nigerian Section of the RCIT. 5th March, 2023. https://communism4africa.wordpress.com/
Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has been declared winner of the just concluded 2023 presidential elections in Nigeria. This odd victory came on the very back of blatant electoral malpractices; schemes of direct and indirect disenfranchisement and with the Nigerian rigging machine put on overt display. Results recorded at the polling units (PU’s) were deliberately changed at the collation centers with correction pens. Some figures were simply turned the way a preschool pupil would correct his notes by superposing new figures on the original while others were abandoned completely for made up figures that were written on fresh sheets.
When an observer was asked during an interview on CNN how the selection body, INEC explained these grave malpractices she said: “…INEC has chosen not to communicate and address the issues, we have pictures that show that you have a piece of paper where results were recorded and then after the results were recorded someone took a pen and cancelled those results out and put in a new result, can INEC explain that?”.¹
The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing portal (IReV portal) in which opposition parties and the youth placed their confidence failed to eliminate discrepancies between results recorded at the PU’s and the ones announced at collation centers. For it had been envisaged that with BVAS the election results would be uploaded electronically onto the IReV portal that is accessible to the populace.² Alas, the results that managed to reached the online servers like the presidential results in Ekiti state were uploaded days before the elections and were announced by INEC.
INEC officials just didn’t bother going to some PU’s so that voters last resort was to demonstrate at the nearest INEC office till they were dispersed with tear gas.³ As expected even before the elections were concluded pockets of protests emerged spontaneously in different parts of the country. Out of over 90 million registered voters only 25 million were accredited according to the final results with an even lower number of valid votes.⁴
LABOUR PARTY IN THE ELECTIONS
To be sure the 3 major parties were involved in one form of malpractice or the other, but the Labour Party was the most affected by the wide scale voter fraud and the biggest loser in the rip-off elections since about 43 million of the 90 million registered voters are youths, a good number of whom are followers of the Labour Party.⁵ This is explicitly shown in their sweeping victories in House of Senate and Representatives polls which took place on the same Feb. 25th especially in strongholds of ruling party stalwarts like Lagos, Tinubu’s base for many years. Also Labour Party won the presidential elections in Lagos state.⁶
While we support all acts of popular resistance against the election results including calling for the cancellation of the election. We reject any endorsements or political support for any of the opposition parties or candidates.
In our “Perspectives On The General Elections in Nigeria” we stated “that the embattled head of the south western ruling class had very little chances of emerging and that the northern ruling class would hold on to power by a coup; a terrorist take over or otherwise, but the situation changed in the same year and he became the front runner. However the scales have changed again and may favour the most popular candidate Peter Obi with the acquiescence of the northern ruling class.”⁷ We also stated: “It remains to be seen how effective these plots and counterplots will reflect in the general elections since the northern faction too is not totally free from or cannot come out blatantly against the Tinubu led faction.”⁸
So despite the concealed support of Peter Obi’s candidacy by the northern hegemon and Western Powers the chronic rot in Nigeria’s electoral process can hardly be scrubbed in a matter of months. Thus, Tinubu emerged as the most well positioned rigger.
Albeit, the substantial victory of the Labour Party in the House of Representatives and House of Senate elections and Tinubu’s loss in Lagos state at the presidential polls reflects still the sustenance of a revolutionary period and popular youth movement without a revolutionary leadership.
THE AFTERMATH OF TINUBU’S EMERGENCE
Tinubu is the first Yorubaman and leader of the South Western faction of the Nigerian ruling class to become president of the country, an event never before seen in the history of Nigeria since independence. Olusegun Obasanjo that is often mistaken as the first, never was supported by the South western political class. His first major appearance in the Nigerian political scene as military Head of State in the 1970’s was the incidental result of the failed coup attempt that claimed Murtala Muhammed’s life. Obasanjo’s return in 1999 was a necessary appeasement to the Yoruba people by the northern hegemon after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 general elections by the Babangida junta as the winner was the then richest man in Africa, M.K.O. Abiola.
But this victory is a fragile one for Tinubu. He remains isolated from the northern hegemon who never wanted him in the first place. President Muhammadu Buhari in his congratulatory message urged aggrieved parties to approach the courts. Former president Olusegun Obasanjo after a long letter condemning the rigging exercise has on record instructed popular artists to “occupy Nigeria”. Obi in his address after the elections has promised to challenge the results in court.⁹
Moreso, his political opponents are now more determined than ever to finish whatever is left of his base in the SW and since Nigeria is an edifice built out of hierarchies of proxy colonialisms, the barrel of internal colonialism has just been turned towards the SW.
Had Obi emerged the situation would have been similar to that in the First Republic (between 1960 and 1966) where the Zikist NCNC sought the role of junior partners in the settler colonialist enterprise second to the Northern hegemon’s NPC. Albeit, things are a bit different with Tinubu since there was never a unanimous accession amidst the northern ruling class to share a government with him due to the weakness of the northern hegemon.
Again, this can be attributed to the decay in the capitalist system with it’s revolutionary upheaval part of which is the popular youth movement that has become a pivotal factor going forward. If Tinubu’s victory is not annulled at the Supreme Court; if he persists as president a situation may emerge where there’s no national power bloc strong enough to call the shots including the northern hegemon.
However the Obi-dient movement where Peter Obi is the figurehead is on the rise as a new Zikist* movement. This Zikist bloc is substantially stronger than that of the 1st Republic since it runs parallel to a weakened northern hegemon as it has the support of millions of unsuspecting youths due to its populism. The strategy of the Zikist Obi-dient movement is to take power in as many states as possible in the March 11th governorship elections.
Many Yoruba nationalists and self determination activists are right to be alarmed at the advance of the neo-Zikist movement especially as it has set its sights on Lagos and is in alliance with parts of the northern ruling class (Atiku’s PDP). But in resisting the proxy colonialist project in utero, no political support must be given to the APC or any member of the South Western ruling class like Lagos state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu. This renewed threat of a Zikist take over of Lagos and the South West is the cost of sacrificing at the alter of Tinubu’s voracious thirst for power. And the adultrous priests in this sacrifice are APC along with the south western ruling class as a whole.
Despite #RevolutionNow, the slogan of Sowore’s Take-It-Back movement topping the Twitter trend table, that morning after election results were announced, with over 10K tweets from both Labour Party and PDP supporters alike. Hashtags on social media have failed to materialise into any formidable protests. Hence we reiterate our stance on boycott of the elections since they have no revolutionary potential. Instead of taking to the streets to demand a cancellation and rerun of the sham elections, the Obi-dients want to take revenge by voting in their own people at the state levels. Even the left reformist forces of Sowore and the PRP appear to have hinged any form resistance they have to the reaction of the Obi-dients.
* Neither Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour nor Sanwo-Olu in Lagos! No Support For APC, LP and PDP In the Coming Gubernatorial Elections! Cancel the Results of the Sham Elections! Boycott the Gubernatorial Elections!
* No Attacks on Igbo People In Lagos! Form Armed Self Defence Guards in the Middle Belt and South Against the Salafist Raiders! Defend Christians and Non-Muslims from the Salafist “Bandits” in the North and Middle Belt!
* Free Nnamdi Kanu! Protect Simon Ekpa From Nigerian and Finnish Governments! Free Sunday Igboho! Freedom And Self Determination To The Oppressed Ethnic Nationalities in the Middle Belt And South!
* For A Workers’ and Poor Peasant Government in the Prospective Sovereign Nations To Fight Capitalism At Home and Imperialism Abroad!
* Zikist is a term derived in Nigerian political discourse and historiography from Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik) and it encapsulates his political ideas as practiced before Nigerian independence and in the 1st Republic. Dr Azikiwe is regarded in popular Nigerian political and historical discourse as one of the champions of independence from one of the so called 3 major tribes. Being of Igbo descent he was greatly influenced by the machinations of the British colonialists to make the Igbo nation and other larger nations like the Yoruba junior proxies to the Fulani caliphate in the internal colonialist structure. The Zikists were more influenced by this due to the British policy which spread the Igbos throughout the northern region to handle finance and commerce while they left the northern ruling class to maintain their feudal traditions. This defined the politics of Nnamdi Azikiwe and his followers as they strove to be junior partners to the settler colonialist Northern hegemon with the hopes that they may become the chief proxy of Western imperialism. This was responsible for the Zik’s NCNC alliance with the northern hegemon’s NPC in the 1st Republic. The struggle between these two partly contributed to the coup in 1966 and the civil war that followed.
[1] https://youtu.be/zm62U0Kc024
[2] https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/565777-2023-no-going-back-on-bvas-irev-inec.html https://dailypost.ng/2023/02/08/2023-inec-demonstrates-how-results-will-be-uploaded-using-bvas-machine-video/?amp=1 https://guardian.ng/opinion/lets-talk-about-bvas/ https://m.facebook.com/eienigeria/videos/bimodal-voter-accreditation-system-bvas/926075004673782/
[3] https://www.arise.tv/lagos-voters-protest-absence-of-inec-officials/ https://www.ripplesnigeria.com/angry-voters-protest-at-inec-office-in-bayelsa-over-non-availability-of-voting-materials/?amp https://punchng.com/nigeriaelections2023-voters-besiege-inec-yenagoa-office-over-unavailability-of-sensitive-materials/?amp
[4] https://www.vanguardngr.com/2022/10/inec-announces-93-5m-voters-for-2023-polls/amp/ https://punchng.com/inec-final-list-north-west-swest-top-93-million-voter-register/?amp
[5] https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/575140-2023-polls-youth-population-tops-age-distribution-chart-as-inec-presents-list-of-93-4-registered-voters.html https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/01/48-million-out-of-93-5-million-eligible-voters-are-youths-inec/amp/
[6] https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/584905-just-in-peter-obi-defeats-tinubu-wins-presidential-election-in-lagos.html https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/02/jubilation-as-labour-party-supporters-celebrate-peter-obis-win-in-lagos/amp/ https://punchng.com/breakdown-how-labour-party-outscored-apc-in-lagos/?amp
[7] See on this: Perspectives On The General Elections In Nigeria
By Raimi Akegbejo, International Liaison Personnel of the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard (RSV), Nigerian Section of the RCIT. 17th February, 2023. https://communism4africa.wordpress.com/2023/02/17/perspectives-on-the-general-elections-in-nigeria/
[8] see [7] above
[9] https://saharareporters.com/2023/03/02/saharareporters-obtains-audio-file-confirming-nigerian-singer-charly-boy-had-phone https://youtu.be/-DylmX22tBA
Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard (RCIT Section in Nigeria) 
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