Falana, activists mull new mass labour party

Tunde Opalana, Abuja

Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Femi Falana, labour activists, and other leftist progressives across Nigeria have resolved to form a new mass workers and labouring masses party.

The new group named The Peoples’s Alternative Political Movement will be driven by a socialist ideology tailored to transform the neo-colonial Nigerian economy.

Forces behind the new movement are drawn from trade unions, civil society, students, farmers and peasants from across the 36 states of the federation.

The promoters said the new movement would wrest Nigeria from a rainbow “coalition of dishonest, corrupt and reactionary politicians currently driving the country to a shipwreck through mass corruption and exploitation of the primordial fault lines for personal fortunes.”

A statement jointly signed by Prof Toye Olorode, Jaye Gaskiya and  Femi Falana (SAN) said the new movement “hopes to replace hope with despair by uniting the working people and the masses beyond the narrow prism of ethnicity and religion with the hope of attaining a new Nigerian renaissance.

“The new movement will build a new country based on justice, equity and protection of the dignity of mankind irrespective of ethnicity, faith or creed. We shall make Nigeria great again and put the country back on her status as the giant of Africa’, the promoters said as part of their mission statement.”

Labour icon and co-Chair of the Committee, Prof Olorode and its Secretary, Jaye Gaskiya, a foremost activist, signed the communiqué issued by some 30 groups that convened the meeting.

The movement expressed worry that Nigeria, characterized by extreme poverty, arms proliferation, religious intolerance, the rise of hate and ethnic nationalism is moving towards social upheavals due to exploitation of the people, greed and avarice of a spineless political class that has reached its wits end.

The group held a recent meeting in Abuja which had in attendance present and past labour leaders with a diverse presence of peasants and farmers unions from across the country.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting held at the Women Development Centre in Abuja the groups said the ‘Common Political Platform’ will be established as a tool for political engagement, social intervention and contestation for political power.

At the summit were Alliance on Surviving Covid-19 and Beyond (ASCAB), Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), Joint Action Front (JAF), Coalition for Revolution (CORE), Take Back Nigeria, Amalgamated Union of Public Corporation Civil Service and Recreational Service Employees (AUPCTRE), National Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), Federation of Informal Workers of Nigeria (FIWON), Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN), People’s Redemption Party (PRP).

They also include Socialist Labour (SL), Socialist Workers and Youth League (SWL), Civil Rights Council (CRC), Social Mobilisation Project (SMP), More Action Less Talk (MALT), Protest to Power (P2P), Human Rights Defenders and Protectors (HRD), Social Action (SA), in Social Accountability and Environmental Sustainability Initiative (SAESI), National Youth Democratic Association (NYDA), Nigerian Youth Choice (NYC), Youth Alternative Leadership Movement of Nigeria (YALMON), Tubali Development Association (TDA).

The group put in place an interim framework for organising of the movement and the composition of its interim organs and leadership was also adopted.

The next three months, according to the group will be used by participating organisations in the new movement to carry out consultations that will help to strengthen the movement, popularize the political platform and its program, mobilize other left groups and radical progressive forces to join us in the new initiative, and intervene regularly in the day to day struggles of the popular masses across the country.

“The platform would mobilise the working masses of Nigeria in contestation of political power with the ruling class by any means necessary; including through revolutionary electoral politics on the basis of class struggle” the coalition said.