In Search
of a correct method for left activists in the Student Movement
Since the
last time we wrote about the Convention of the National Association of Nigerian
Students (NANS) held in December 2012, more facts have emerged confirming our
general political characterisation of NANS. More than this, these new
revelations have again fueled the on-going debate within the left on the right
method and approach to rebuild the student movement.
The
Coalition of Left and Progressive Students (CLAPS) - a platform that played a
direct role in the convention and presented a "left" candidate for
the NANS presidency - has released a statement which as an eyewitness account
of the convention provides copious revelations which confirms almost to the
last detail our previous description of the rottenness of the NANS and how the
left cannot hope to reclaim it simply by contesting alone. Every student
activist has to read the statement of CLAPS over and over for in it you realise
just how much work is needed to be done to reclaim the student movement.
Stating
quite frankly the home truth, CLAPS correctly summed-up the convention as an
unmitigated disaster. "The subsequent ‘elections’ were highly monetised.
Many money-bag politicians sent their emissaries to support one candidate or
the other with millions of naira deployed...In short, there was no difference
between the Convention and that of PDP, ACN or other anti-poor party in the
elite’s politics of Nigeria. The outcome of the Convention was quite
predictable, an un-mitigated charade".
An Outcome Foreseen
This was
not an over statement. A brief look at the convention says it all. "The
Convention lasted six days (from 13th to 18th, December) and except for the
last two days which were for the ‘elections’ (imposition per-se), the other
days were wasted on the carrot and stick of lobbying genuine delegates on
ground, and using violence to cow those amongst them that remained principled.
Many radical and pro-student aspirants at the Convention were intimidated,
attacked, and prevented from freely canvassing and contesting. Despite the
insistence and protests of delegates that they preferred holding the convention
on the campus, the Convention Planning Committee (CPC) in conjunction with the
UNIUYO management, the Local Organising Committee (LOC) and the men of the
SSS/Police Force frustrated the moves. At the Uyo Stadium, where the convention was held, the place was
militarised and many genuine delegates and students were prevented from
entering the venue of their own Convention!"
Against
this background, CLAPS
concluded that the convention "confirms the crass degeneracy in the
students’ movement and the depth of control which reactionary pro-government
forces wield over the students’ movement". This is something we in the DSM
had pointed out severally to demonstrate the naivety of assuming that all that
is needed to reclaim NANS is for the left to simply contest and go over to the
convention ground to slug it out with the righgwings. Rather what is needed is
for the left to organise to build a movement from below that can begin to fight
around issues of education attacks and link this with the need to transform the
leadership of students in the local unions as well as in NANS at all levels.
Unfortunately
some left and radical students activists including those organised within CLAPS
failed to understand this initially. They underestimated the level of the rot
in NANS and the complete detachment of the leadership from the rank and file.
They did not fully understand that NANS leadership has become a bureaucracy
standing far above the mass of Nigerian students it claims to represent. It was
not for nothing that there were no political discussion, evaluation of the
state of the nation, education sector, reports etc which are parts of the constitutionally-provided
agenda for every NANS meetings especially a convention. This is because there
were no activities to report or discuss. The immediate-past leadership did not
lift a single finger against any neo-liberal capitalist attacks on education
and neither is the newly-elected leadership expected to do anything.
The
complete destruction of the democratic structures of NANS which in the past
permitted the mass of students some control and influence over the leadership
is one of the biggest challenges to any efforts to reclaim NANS. It means that
the leadership is now more than ever detached from the mass of students,
uncontrollable by them and can do as it deem fit. This coupled with the fact
that the leadership does not depend anymore on capitation dues of local unions
but on State fund means that they are completely independent and do not have to
worry about censure from the rank and file.
The
situation in the labour movement is completely different and far ahead of the
student movement. As bureaucratised as the leadership of most, if not all,
trade unions in Nigerians are, the fact that they still largely depend on
membership check-off dues for their salaries and privileges means they still
have to look over their shoulders sometimes so that they do not completely
alienate their members. It is therefore in their interest to occasionally feign
radicalism and speak against one anti-poor policy or the other. As a result, it
is quite possible to pile pressure on the trade union leaders to call strike
actions and demonstrations even though they could betray it later. Last year in
Oyo and Enugu States, workers stoned and even removed their leaders, albeit temporarily,
when they failed to fight for implementation
of the N18 000 minimum wage.
But the
same cannot be said of NANS. Students do not even know who their NANS leaders
are, not to talk of stoning them. Many leaders of NANS relocate to Abuja for
the whole period of their tenure. They can only be found in the corridors of the
National Assembly lobbying lawmakers and politicians for a share of their
loots. Of course removing them is a daydream. They rarely call meetings and
when they do so, this takes place in choice hotels completely out of reach of
students.
The
point has to be stressed that the degeneracy which is present in all unions in
Nigeria today is far worse in the student movement. NANS is the only union in Nigeria that is not run on members dues! Indeed
instead of funding NANS which is actually a confederation of local unions,
rightwing leaders of local students unions now depend on "returns"
from the leaders of NANS. This is why the question of who becomes NANS present
is a "do or die" affair for the leaders of local unions who stands as
delegates at NANS conventions. Therefore an expectation that a "left"
candidate can win this kind of condition is nothing but a daydream. Not surprising
"At the end of the fraudulent, unconstitutional, illegal and highly
militarised/monetized charade called NANS Convention, non-students emerged as
its critical leaders, with both the Convention Chairman and
President-imposed!"
While the
same task of rebuilding and putting in place a fighting and class-conscious
leadership is the same for both the labour movement as well as the student
movement today, the reality is that the difference in the level of degeneracy
means that the methods will not quite be the same. At the same time too, a
method that simply relies on contesting against the rightwing for the
leadership of the labour movement without building alongside this a strong
movement of rank and file workers from below will most definitely fail just as
it failed at the NANS convention.
Marxists
have always recognised that the ultimate test of theory is practise. We in the ERC
are therefore glad that having gone to the convention, it appears the activists
in CLAPS are beginning to find their way back to the correct approach. We will
be prepared to continue to debate with the left and activists in CLAPS over
questions of methods and tactics to reclaim the student movement. These debates
are necessary to clarify the right way forward and we believe both our
tendencies will gain enormously from it.
Danger of Ultra-Leftism
In drawing
conclusions about how to move forward, the left has to be careful of not
swinging from one incorrect position to another completely dangerous one. For
instance in summing up its statement, CLAPS declared: "We...reject the
outcome of the NANS 2012 CONVENTION in its entirety! And we call on all
change-seeking students to also reject the Convention. It is high time that we
join hands in building a clear, vibrant alternative to the monstrous,
anti-students bureaucracy, euphemistically referred to as the “Stakeholders”
that have hijacked the organisation".
The call
to "reject the outcome" of the convention sounds radical enough. But
it is an unproductive approach. If students were actually in a position to
reject the outcome of the convention then it is not likely the NANS rightwings
would have been able to successfully organise a convention with all those
absurdities in the first place. More so these elements do not need students' endorsement
(or funding!) to function anyway so how would rejection affect or stop them? Besides,
if it is sufficient to just call for the rejection of the newly-elected NANS
leadership, then what happens to their acomplices - the leadership of the local
unions who voted them at the convention in exchange for wads of Naira notes?
Are they not as guilty?
Activists
in CLAPS have to understand the rot in NANS goes beyond just the leadership at
the top; it percolates directly down the entire edifice of the movement. Only a
complete transformation of the leadership of the student movement at all levels
(in the local unions as wells as in NANS) can open the way for the building of
a genuine, democratic and fighting platform of students. Just as simply
contesting is no way out so also simply rejecting them resolves nothing. The
most fundamental and decisive reason the NANS rightwing bureaucracy and/or stakeholders
have become so entrenched in the student movement and have been able to get
away with all kinds of betrayals now as much as in the past is because of the
throwback in the consciousness of students.
This
throwback in consciousness is sharply reflected in the low strength of the left
and radical groups on campuses today. Expecting no mass challenge from
anywhere, the NANS bureaucracy is able to strike any bargain and deals with the
ruling elite as it likes. If they were challenged anywhere at all, it is from
disgruntled local union leaders or stakeholders complaining about not having
gotten a fair share of the loot. For the mass of students, it is as if NANS
does not exist.
Therefore
instead of simply calling for rejection of the newly-elected NANS leadership,
the best productive approach is for the left to begin to organise more
agressively among students on campuses around issues of education attacks and
of course linking this with the need to reclaim the student movement from the
rightwing elements in control of NANS as well as the local student unions.
The
Wayforward
This is
why we fully agree with the task of "building a clear, vibrant alternative
to the monstrous, anti-students bureaucracy euphemistically referred to as the
"Stakeholders" that have hijacked the organisation". We will be
prepared to "join hands" with any group that subscribes to this
agenda. This to us mean building a movement from below around issues of
education attacks like fee hike, underfunding, poor welfare conditions, attacks
on independent unionism and victimisation and linking this with the need to
reclaim NANS or form a new platform.
These
issues are prevalent on campuses today. All around the country, fees have been
hiked beyond what students from working class background can afford. The
conditions of hostel and teaching facilities are appalling. According to the
CNANU report, more than half of the Universities in Nigeria suffer from
shortage of academic staff and quality teaching facilities. Meanwhile the
meagre allocation to education in the 2013 appropriation bill means things will
get worse while attacks on education will increase in the next period.
Therefore
a serious campaign that begins to challenge these attacks will not only be
warmly received by the mass of students, it will also begin to pile pressure on
the leadership of the local unions and the NANS leadership to fight. Fighting
would mean clashing with the capitalist ruling elite that feeds them, on the
other hand not fighting would most certainly mean risking a revolt of the mass
of students against their leadership and completely losing their authority.
Despite their complete detachment from students, the NANS leadership likes to
think it commands over "40 million Nigerian students" when in reality
its commands none. A mass revolt will bring this illusion quickly to an end.
Of course
there is no guarantee that faced with this options they would fight at all. But
as we have pointed out elsewhere, even if they fight under pressure, it would
be to betray the struggle at some point once they feel safe enough to do so.
But at that point, it would be clear, not just to the left and activists as it
is now, but most importantly to the mass of students that it is high time the
pro-state, rightwing elements were flushed out and a new democratic and
fighting platform erected on the genuine ideas of solidarity and struggle.
H.T Soweto
National
Coordinator, ERC.
1 comment:
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