Defeat ISWAP, Boko Haram and the so called Bandits! For a popular uprising to bring down the Buhari regime and the Northern Hegemony!

 

Emergency Statement of the Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard (RSV) Nigerian Section of the RCIT, 31.03.2022, https://revolutionarysocialistvanguard.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

 

The raid of a local community in Zaria just last night is the latest in a string of virulent attacks in less than a week by terrorists. 48 hours after attacking Kaduna airport, 3 freshly reported terrorists attacks were confirmed in Kaduna within 24 hours. The first was the bombing of a passenger train with about 1000 passengers en route to Abuja from Kaduna killing at least 8 passengers with others kidnapped and at least 25 injured.

 

The second and third have occurred almost simultaneously on another rail line and the Kaduna-Abuja express road. It is important to say first and foremost that the residents of Kaduna must begin to form armed self defense militia in neighborhoods, workplaces, major roads and schools to fend off the marauding gangs of Fulani headed Wahhabi-Salafist raiders.

 

It goes without saying that the so-called security forces and government at all levels are complicit and therefore impotent in preventing this pillaging gangs from the non-stop blood-letting in the Northern and Middle-Belt regions of Nigeria. This has in turn deepened the struggle of various ethnic nationalities to free themselves from the hydra headed Fulani hegemony. In the South East this combination of factors has led to the emergence of the Eastern Security Network the self defense arm of the IPOB.

 

 

 

A Brief Background to all this …

 

 

 

For proper context, the core of the Nigerian ruling class is situated in the North as a group of Wahhabi-Salafist Muslims who are in one way or another linked to the patriarch Uthman Dan Fodio and whose mission is the spread of this version of ‘pure’ Islam through conquest. The British colonisers passed on the reins of power to this group as proxies for the self-same purpose of perpetuating the eternal servitude of the peoples found in the artificial boundary they created to their exploitation.

 

All Heads of State, government officials and powerful politicians are either from this extract or affiliated to them. At worst, the powerful southern politicians are aligned with and submit to them in one way or the other. Amongst this core Fulani power brokers are the northern oligarchs and big business men.

 

The base for this Fulani headed extreme Islamist class which now dominates the government are the terror groups such as ISWAP, Boko Haram and other fingerlings and splinters known as “bandits”. This base it would seem is getting impatient with the delay of their elite in the government offices to implement the full and total conquest of Nigeria as an Islamic caliphate. So the Federal government has largely lost control over them. This would explain why the jumbo parties can use them to take power by promising them greater reach in their expansionist agenda.

 

If this were not the case, why then has no arrest been made despite revelations of sponsors and routes through which funds reach these groups. Why is Isa Pantami a confessed extremist still in position as Minister for Communication. Why are extremist killers after been arrested sent abroad for further studies and rehabilitation. Why has no perceptible action being taken after the ground breaking reveal by award winning journalist David Hundeyin about the clear links of a deep state Wahhabi-Salafist movement starting with Ahmadu Bello (First Premier of Northern Nigeria) and using NASCO Foods as a conduit for moving terrorist funds within and outside Nigeria.

 

 

 

2023: A power grab, a coup or a terrorist takeover

 

 

 

No matter how liberal and left-wing activists try there is no wishing away of the national question which has simply seeped into electioneering for 2023. In a surprising and shameful feat of betrayal large swaths of activists, intelligentsia and social media influencers who played a more or less active role in the EndSARS protests drift off to PDP, the second but thoroughly bourgeois and equally reactionary jumbo party in Nigeria. This they do in opposition to the APC while calling for a Southern or South Eastern presidency. Like the idealist who cannot perceive that it is the material world that forces him to see the world the way he does, this “One-Nigeria” co-travellers actually interprete their call for a Southern most especially South Eastern presidency as national unity, oneness etc.

 

The accentuation of terrorist attacks however makes it highly unlikely that this would happen in 2023 or any time for that matter. You see the ruling class is in a conundrum. Their core is divided into more hostile camps. The president at the head of the northern officialdom and Federal government, on the one hand, versus their base terror groups and followers of extreme islamsists, on the other. With the latter having the upper hand the only option for the former moving forward is to at least pacify their base with another president from their breed or a totally domesticated southern lapdog.

 

With this the ambition of Bola Ahmed Tinubu to become president in 2023 is next to impossible not just because he is a Southerner but also because he is the most powerful politician of the South Western section of the ruling class. The same goes for all Southern prospective candidates depending on the role they play amidst the southern ruling class.

 

This will not be without blowback, the crescendo of which can be the unification of all forces in the South and Middle Belt against the North to finally split the country. Add to this the possibility of a mass uprising as the living conditions continue to deteriorate with fuel price jumps; dramatic rise in food prices; police brutality; spiking crimes rates and of course, terrorist attacks.

 

The northern ruling class know this so they may explore other more drastic options. Many petty bourgeois political analysts and liberal cum left ideologues like to delude themselves by dismissing the possibility of a coup in Nigeria. This was their reaction to the alarming trend of coup d’etats in neighbouring West African countries. They conclude that since the government officials and heads of parastatals in Nigeria rake in billions from the national budget as security votes for fighting terrorism, a military takeover, is impropable as it will stop the flow of such illicit wealth.

 

This kind of thinking only shows how in love with their cozy nests these people are to the point of being incapable of objectiveness. The coup plotters in other West African countries must surely find acceptable reasons for their actions and it has always been to “curb the menace of armed groups” even if it is merely a power grab. For the northern ruling class any coup would be to smash the Southern section of the ruling class and the masses with one stroke.

 

Furthermore, not all coups are military takeovers. The Tunisian people have had a long drawn and bloody face off with the dictator Kais Saied who took over powers by dissolving the parliament and sacking key ministers that are in the opposition. A similar attempt is to nullify the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2019 elections and input the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate who is also a northerner of Fulani extraction as president. The court proceedings for this case has already been revived.

 

A theocratic state set up in the image of a caliphate should not be written off as fantastical since not only have such happened in recent times but many such states have been sustained under modern capitalist conditions for decades. While we acknowledge fundamental differences between the Taliban of Afghanistan and ISWAP/Boko Haram we maintain that the Federal government may handover to the present set of terrorists.

 

It is historically proven that in times of crisis, the ruling class lets the most reactionary and backward parts take the wheels so that they can use the state as a means to destroy any and all revolutionary momentum. This is how fascists rose to power in Spain and Italy in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. The same can be said of Nazi Germany.

 

As has been said, the further we move away from the EndSARS protests and towards the 2023 elections many so called activists find themselves crystallized into either of the two main reactionary parties — PDP&APC. The more leftwing or socialist milieu retreat to their cocoon of bourgeois electioneering or orientation to the labour bureaucracy. As a whole they try to prevent any mass uprising despite events that can lead to social explosions recurring. In fact, a good number of agitators for liberation of Biafra seem to have been bought over with promises of an Igbo presidency. What they will succeed in doing is alienating themselves from the masses more and more until this social explosion occurs.

 

Unlike this group, the ruling class especially the Northern faction knows that this is an inevitable prospect and are willing to take any measures to retain power even if it means a civil war. To wit, those forces which retain their stance against the continuance of the colonial contraption called Nigeria remain the objectively revolutionary forces. Of course, this forces comprise a motely combination of groups even from bourgeois circles yet what is most important is the historical role which they play.

 

In the immediate, we call for the constitution of armed self defence militias in the villages, schools, neighborhoods and workplaces to destroy ISWAP and the rest of the arch reactionary gangs of raiding Islamists. In Southern Kaduna, in Bornu state and other parts of the north west and north east these people based militias have become a necessity. Such militias cannot have long lasting success unless backed by a popular uprising to bring down the Buhari regime along with all factions of the capitalist ruling class.

 

It is important for such militias to be independent of the military, police and other Federal government forces. Increased agitation should, amongst the military corps, be of strategic importance in the coming periods in order to tear away lower infantry men from their corrupt and compromised superiors and generals who sacrifice them to the terrorists in order to maintain their position in the state apparatus.

 

At the very least, honest discussion should begin around whether it is wise to carry on elections given the fact that the north is the proxy of imperialism to hold the ethnic nationalities at bay for neo-colonial exploitation. This can be reflected in things like the 1999 constitution. For us, attention should be focused more on this rather than any elections. Hence we support groups and bodies calling for the boycott of the elections on this bases such as the IPOB, ESN and IOO.

 

While we reject any and all forms of political support for any section of the Nigerian ruling class including the Southern. We are sure that only by ending dismantling the Northern hegemony can there truly be freedom for the average person living in the geographical area called Nigeria since this is the path to freedom from imperialism!