“A little to the right and a little to the left” – Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, 1990
Who was it who said that in their ideologies and economic programs, the APC is center-right and the PDP right-wing? I was the one who said so last week in this very column. It was not the first time of my saying so in the column. And in all certainly, it probably will not be the last time either. But why am I making this an issue in today’s column? The answer to this question says a lot about how retrograde political journalism in general has become in Nigeria in the last three to four decades.
I take no satisfaction from the fact, but today, I am one of the very few columnists that use such terms as “center-right”, “hard right” and “centrist” in my newspaper writings. This is remarkably different from what the situation was in the 1970s, 80s and 90s when writing about politics in newspapers and other news media in our country was saturated by constant and even invariant mention or discussion of political tendencies, policies and politicians as being either leftist, centrist or rightist. Indeed, one could rightly say that the deployment of the terms became so common, so over-used that the terms came close to being emptied of their meanings and connotations in other countries of our continent and the world.
One famous or, perhaps infamous instance of this sort of widespread but empty use of “right” and “left” in Nigerian politics about three decades ago is the one indicated in the epigraph for this essay: “a little to the right and a little to the left”. As those old enough and well-informed about the period know, Babangida made the statement when he formed the two parties that eventually contested the fateful June 1993 elections, the National Republican Convention(NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Babangida formed the two parties as the cornerstone of his ultimately deceptive and bankrupt “Democracy Project” that was intended to usher in a civilian democratic government that would take over from the military.
With advice and guidance from respected and influential political scientists from our universities and foreign, mostly Western advisers, Babangida and his regime wanted the two parties to be completely detribalized and centrist, with one party being a “little to the right” and the other “a little to the left”. Everyone knew that by these terms, Babangida intended that one party, the NRC, would be pro-capitalist and pro-business while the other party, the SDP, would be pro-socialist, pro-workers and devoted to the interests of the poor of the urban and rural communities. But as we all now know, even though the SDP survives till today, nothing but the national betrayal and great calamity of the annulment of the June 1993 electoral victory of the SDP and M.K.O. Abiola came from Babangida’s formation of these two parties of the “right” and the “left”. But this is not the focus of this piece today. What then is our focus?
I will give a short and precise answer to that question: in 1990 when Babangida made that “a little to the right and a little to the left” remark, ideology, economic programs and policy initiatives completely dominated all political discussions in Nigeria; today, the more you look for ideology, for economic and political visions guiding and distinguishing our political parties from one another, the less you see. In plain terms and not to mince words at all, between the early to mid-70s to the mid-90s in Nigeria, capitalist ideology and its vision of development were under severe scrutiny and contestation. In the universities especially but also in the arts, literature and popular culture, national conversation about the past, the present and the future in our country and continent was almost totally dominated by a radical, some would say – and actually did say – “extremist” critique of capitalism. As a consequence of this, virtually all the defenders of capitalism were welfarist – for the simple reason that an outright defense of hard, conservative right-wing capitalism seemed futile and self-defeating at the time. From this we can derive a very important principle of all modern political discourse: anywhere in the world where you hear or read of terms like “right”, “left”, “center”, “center-right” and center-left”, it means that in that context or space, the dominance, the hegemony of capitalism is seriously under scrutiny and challenge; conversely, anywhere in the world where these terms are noticeably absent, it means that the dominance of capitalism is taken for granted and other ideologies – ethnic-irredentist, religious-fundamentalist or regional-revanchist – take over and hide, if not completely eclipse the dominance of capitalism. Such a nation-space or historical context is what we have in the current PDP-APC era in Nigeria.
Will this era last? I do not think so. Definitely, I hope not! Very well: when will it end, when will its lurching from one crisis to another endlessly come to an end, one way or another? I do not know the answer to this question either. What I do know, with considerable confidence in my projection into the future on this particular issue, is that the uncontested dominance of capitalism of the present PDP-APC era will come to an end and this sooner rather than later. Why do I think so; what is the basis of my certitude, my seeming over-confidence on this observation, this claim? Good question! The answer, quite simply, is that throughout the whole world, the dominance, the hegemony of capitalism is being challenged by both left-of-center social democracy and solid leftist anti-capitalist movements of the poor and their supporters. Thus, Nigeria is not and cannot be isolated forever from these currents of contemporary global politics.
Permit me to break this assertion down to easily demonstrated and understood propositions: in the name of saving our planet from extinction, in the name of ending the widening and deepening gaps between the rich and the poor of all the nations and regions of the world, in the name of creating more and more jobs for exploding population growths in most parts of the planet, and in the name of unborn generations that will come after us, social-democratic and anti-capitalist movements throughout the world are challenging the dominance of unregulated and unregulatable capitalism. How can any thinking person believe that we in this country will not ultimately be swept into the vortex of these global and regional currents and movements of politics and history, compatriots? As a matter of fact, is it not the case that we have already been swept into the vortex, as witnessed by the number of our youths that are part of the waves of migrants streaming endlessly into the global North and perishing tragically in the attempts? Or the growing communities of the Nigerian diaspora on the African continent itself, especially in South Africa upon whom, periodically, are visited great violence as the scapegoats of the failing policies of that country’s post-apartheid state?
Against the background of these immediately preceding questions and observations, it matters a lot that we should say of our two dominant political parties, the APC and the PDP, that they are, respectively, center-right and hard right. To state this observation in its most easily understood formulation, think, compatriots, of the following incontrovertible declaration: if Atiku Abubakar and the PDP had won the recent presidential elections, it would have taken a few months, perhaps a few weeks and most definitely not years, for them to sell off the NNPC, the nation’s cash cow, to complete private ownership. In contrast to this, Buhari, we know both from his recent presidential campaign and several statements he had made in the past, is staunchly resistant to the idea of selling the NNPC to private moguls in his party and the other ruling class parties that are only waiting, waiting for the right moment to sell that national ATM machine to themselves once and forever, amen! In this context, Atiku and the PDP can be said to be for complete private ownership and control of the means of production – the classical definition of capitalism – while Buhari and the APC would seem to be for state control of important areas of the production process, side by side with private ownership of parts of the total machinery of production and distribution.
What of aspects of economic production in our country that are very important for the well-being or indeed the survival of working and non-working Nigerians, aspects like oil subsidy and deregulation of the provision of amenities and services like electricity, water, education, health, collection of taxes and revenues? In all of these, the PDP is for complete deregulation so that private investors and operators can be free of so-called state interference. In contrast, Buhari remains committed to oil subsidies though he is clearly wavering and may give in to the tremendous pressure building up, not only among all the other ruling class parties but within his own party, the APC. The stand of the PDP in all these aspects of economic production in Nigeria is that of the hard right, pro-capitalist parties of the world, especially of the Western countries. And this is why just before the last presidential elections, Atiku suddenly became “attractive” to the Americans to whom, previously and for a long time, he had been an undeclared persona non grata. As for Buhari and the Americans, it is an open secret that our President’s obsequious longing for their love, their approval has been persistently and coldly rebuffed.
Bringing these reflections to a close, it is important for me to stress that as long as Nigerians recognize that the PDP aspires to be a solid alternative to the APC with regard to the crucial ideological and economic terms we have discussed in this piece, so long will it be important to be aware, be very aware, that one party, the APC, is center-right while the other party, the PDP, is hard right. This is not a vote, not a plea for the APC, compatriots. Far from that, my stand really is – a pox on both of their houses! For the truth is that ultimately, between the center-right and the right, the difference is like the difference between getting a dangerous viral fever and cold and getting pneumonia: both can kill. If you wish to have the analogy in a somewhat more neutral or even benign form, the difference between the APC and the PDP, that is to say the difference between center-right and hard right, is the difference between a capitalism with the guilty conscience of rich folks whose bellies are full while the bellies of most of the population are empty and the capitalism of rich folks who say, without any sentiment at all, that it is not their fault that some are rich and most are poor.
No, compatriots, ultimately, it does not matter in the least that APC is center-right and PDP is hard right. This is because while in theory and in sloganeering they may express different views about such things as public control of the crucial means of production, provision of subsidies for utilities and services, or regulation of both public and private enterprises, in practice and in reality, the APC and the PDP are doing the same things: looting the nation and its resources dry and busy transferring our collective assets and resources to themselves. For both parties, the debates going on in most of the other nations and regions of the world between capitalism and social-democratic and anti-capitalist movements and forces don’t apply here at all. What we want, what we should talk about in Nigeria is long, list of moralistic and sentimental objectives: provide good leadership; respect our diversity; unite us in spite of our differences; substantially curb or altogether eliminate corruption; stem the unending decay or malfunctioning of our institutions; correct the decay, the devaluation of our educational systems; restructure and redistribute the resources and responsibilities that the central government in Abuja controls jealously. Do all of this while you take for granted, while you take as natural and incontestable the capitalism of both the hard right and the center-right!
A futile wish! Why so? Because capitalism is not an emanation of nature. It is always and forever facing challenges, revaluations, revolutionary transformations, regressions, etc., etc. Who says, who thinks that our capitalism is unique and will be different from all the other capitalisms in our world?
bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu