“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny” – Anonymous
Eyes have seen and ears have heard the revolutionary wave and beats of resistance on the streets sounding from Kenya.
Largely led by Gen Z youths, the young Africans have shown to the world yet again that the power of the people is greater than the people in power.
For weeks from June to July and with their stated commitment to still take things forward we saw Kenyans demonstrate against attempts by the William Ruto-led government to increase taxes that were already considered a great burden.
, Not less than 39 protesters were killed in cold blood. But the youths refused to let the repression cower them. They persisted, and won the first round of what could become a long drawn revolutionary struggle. The tax bill has been scrapped, Ruto has dissolved nearly all members of his cabinet and the Inspector General of Police has resigned.
The popular struggle of Kenyan youths must be commended, and Nigerian working people as well as all other exploited Africans, must back the #RutoMustGo campaign, and demand justice for slain protesters in Kenya as well as the youths killed during Nigeria’s #EndSARS.
It must be stated that the increased of taxing of poor working-class people over and over again, whilst protecting and enabling the growth of the wealth of the rich few are policies introduced by the capitalist governments across Africa at the “advise” of international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which all represent the interests of Western imperialism.
These imperialist financial bodies are out to force policies on African nations targeted at reinforcing the subordinate place of African economies in the world economy, which enable the industrialised countries to deepen their exploitation of African labour and natural resources.
In Nigeria, the President Bola Tinubu-led government like every of his predecessors – Muhammadu Buhari, Goodluck Jonathan, Olusegun Obasanjo, etc, is out to impose more hardship on the poor, in line with the dictates of the IMF and World Bank, which also benefits the few super-rich local capitalists that benefit from the neoliberal order.
This has played out in the constant removal of questionable fuel subsidies and the free fall of the naira’s value against the dollar like a mass object under the force of gravity. This is also evident in his introduction of the student loan trap which has even woefully failed in the United States where it was copied from.
We must demand that fee hikes be reversed, grants provided to students, fuel “subsidy” removal reversed and local production must be funded.
Historically, Nigerian youths, like Kenyans, have always demonstrated against tyranny and oppression over the decades. The most recent of these was the #EndSARS Rebellion in 2020. Before this, Nigerian youths led the 1989 Anti-SAP Revolt against the Structural Adjustment Programmes and the 1978 Ali Must Go protests against the commodification of tertiary education, among several others.
The situation in Nigeria, however, is getting harder if not worse than the condition in Kenya by virtue of the hunger and poverty in the land, a pointer to the fact that Nigerians must not only stand in solidarity with Kenyans but must also draw lessons for greater struggle for liberation here in Nigeria..
It is significant to say that crises ongoing in Africa today, including the devastating violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the masses are at the losing end of conflicts between government forces and rebels, cannot be disconnected from broader imperialist interests for the exploitation of the mineral resources in Africa. Working-class people and class conscious youths in Africa must be more outspoken and decisive in expunging some of these agencies and their military apparatus at this point.
As we see, the US troops are withdrawing from Niger just like the French forces were also asked to leave, and the military regime in the country is being hailed as revolutionary by many people. It is therefore important that Africans must defend their rights to economic independence across the continent and stand in solidarity with all other exploited and oppressed people across the globe. But this must not be equated with support for the military junta.
We must not declare support for the anti-people ruling regimes of capitalists whether the organised as a military junta or the “democratically elected” class of exploiters.
The solution to African problems is not to submit the democratic rights and will of the people to the military dictatorship. The experience under the military regime in Nigeria for decades after “flag independence” has not in any way bettered the lots of working people. We cannot contract out the task of our liberation to the military, which is an instrument for suppression and violent control of social life under jackboots of armed authority.
We cannot afford to be fooled by the argument that the regime in Niger is revolutionary even though it is military. It is only playing to the gallery. We should not forget that its top brass were part and parcel of the civilian regime it overthrew and the coup it executed last year was because the civilian government was going to purge General Abdourahamane Tchiani, head of the junta.
This takes us again, to the collaboration of the foreign imperialists especially the United States with the national ruling class in Nigeria, which enabled Abacha to keep his loot and invest it in their own economy. The US, until it was done using those resources (perhaps not even done) stolen by Abacha, has been returning the “crumbs left with them”, which we never even knew how much was actually with them.
At this point, it is not out of place to ask the US, the UK, Switzerland and other foreign countries to declare or account for how much of stolen funds, precisely, the Abacha regime stored in their countries.
Therefore, again, working-class people and youths in military-run Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea and other African countries must unite against dictatorship and install a revolutionary working people’s government to uphold the democratic will of the exploited people. We must be clear that the future of Africa lies int he self-emancipation of the working masses and youth, not in any self-acclaimed band of liberators.
by Gbenga VON
