Comrade Baba Aye, a seasoned trade unionist and activist, is Co-Convener, Coalition for Revolution (CORE) and a Council Member, Progressive International (PI). Baba Aye, former Deputy National Secretary, Labour Party (LP) and former National Convener, United Action for Democracy (UAD) during the June 12 struggle, was Public Relations Officer (PRO), National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) and member, National Implementation Committee of the Campaign for Democracy (CD). Baba Aye, Editorial Board Member, Global Labour Column (GLC), and Contributing Editor, Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE), spoke to EJIKEME OMENAZU on current political issues in Nigeria: Excerpt:

Following the increase in kidnapping and other crimes, will you agree with the Afenifere leaders that a multi-level policing would be a solution to the problems, considering the existing Police structure?

Kidnapping has become a major industry of what you can describe as the insecurity sector of the national economy. You may want to recall that in the first half of 2021 alone, over N10 billion, which amounted to $19.96 million at the time, was recorded as ransoms paid to free over 2,000 kidnapped people. This did not stop the death of about 10 percent of these victims. We thought things were bad at that time. But, compared to now, that was a child’s play. This nefarious industry now has different scales, large-scale, medium scale, small scale and even micro. You tend to hear of those big women and men or increasing middle-class people that are kidnapped. But, even welders, cobblers, barbers and other poor artisans are kidnapped with their family members made to find ways of coughing out hundreds of thousands, or even tens of thousands of naira, but which means much more to them than the millions the ‘oga at the top’ people pay. In this context, and with the ethnicised narrative of who the kidnappers are, as if the industry experts do not include criminals of all ethnic groups, you are likely to find resonance in the South West for Afenifere’s proposal. However, I will strongly advise that poor working people should not be carried away by this. The police are not your friend. In fact, there have been cases where they are culpable of providing support for kidnappers. And more systematically, the role of the police in society goes deeper than the picture of crime fighting that we are presented with. It is to repress the people. With the hunger in the land, we are likely to see more mass protests like the ones we recently witnessed in Niger, Kano and Osun states. These same police that Afenifere is calling for, will be used to repress the popular struggles of the people. We need to pay attention and not be fooled.

Recently, the former APC National Chairman, Bisi Akande; former Military President, Ibrahim Babangida and Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, made fresh calls for restructuring. How do you see their calls?

Restructuring means different things to different people. To the different sections of the ruling class, it is all about negotiating for greater influence, power and access to the national resources. Because of the ethnicisation of politics, which is a major strategy of these rich people to keep us divided, many poor working class people also have an illusion that the problem is basically one of the other nationalities that are wrongly described as tribes. How I hate it when I hear people talk about tribes in 21^st century Nigeria! There are no tribes in Nigeria. What we have are nationalities or ethnic groups. But anyway, that is by the way. Back to your question. Restructuring that will benefit the poor masses cannot simply be that envisaged by the likes of Babangida, Akande and Iwuanyanwu, all of whom, like other members of their class, have contributed to the sorry state that is the lot of the working class and other poor strata of the Nigerian population. We cannot ignore the fact that a contentious national question exists in Nigeria. And there is a WaZoBia domination of the minorities. But, at the heart of this is the domination and exploitation of working class people across the ethnic divides. Thus, restructuring for us has to primarily be economic. The restructuring that would benefit the poor and which is what we must stand for is one of social redistribution of wealth to enable every single Nigerian to enjoy the good things of life. To have nutritious food, adequate shelter, quality health and education, and access to leisure as right. So, I agree with the need for restructuring, but definitely not the type proposed by these billionaires. I stand for revolutionary socio-economic restructuring.

Going by the revelations concerning the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs in the last and current administration, it is feared that the ministry and its top officials are being used as conduits for the looting of the nation’s wealth?

Nigeria runs a ‘one chance’ kind of degenerate neo-colonial capitalism. As with ‘one chance’, you need a vehicle to carry the unsuspecting people to be robbed. I guess you must understand what I am talking about. These could be a bus or cab. You get inside and then get robbed. I entered one in 1999, but they dropped me off without robbing me when I convinced them I was an activist fighting for the common good of poor people. But just as the ‘one chance’ industry of the general crime sector in Nigeria, has morphed the vehicles for Nigeria’s ruling class’s primitive accumulation in perpetuity, or to call it in its simplest name, looting, has taken more brazen shapes. That is what you see with this ‘yeye’ anti-humanist ministry that goes by the name of humanitarian ministry. For me, a major pointer for activists is to ‘shine their eyes’ and not be carried away by supposed welfarist designs of any section of the ruling class. I remember in those days when Buhari started with his so-called social intervention schemes, there were some of our comrades in the Socialist Workers League at the time, who were arguing that at least some social democratic measures were being taken which would ameliorate the lives of poor people. As it turned out, the truth was that they lacked the stomach for lasting revolutionary struggle and left to become socialist labour aligned in reformist politics with the Labour Party. So, yes, it is quite clear that this ministry is turning out to be basically a conduit pipe for corruption. And activists must never judge a ministry or intervention by its name. No section of the ruling class can be trusted to put the people’s interests before their self-serving, thieving motives. They merely come as wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Would you say the suspension of Minister Betta Edu is evidence of the seriousness of the Tinubu administration in the fight against corruption?

The suspension of Betta Edu is what they call ‘sakamanje’ on the streets. It is an abracadabra of an anti-corruption fight. She was simply made to take a bullet for the team of thieves. And that was simply because the voices of Nigerians calling for something to be done were loud ‘gan’. Simple. To the VIPs or ‘Vagabonds In Power’ in Nigeria, if I may borrow from Fela, Nigeria is just a cruise. And they are the ones cruising with our country’s wealth. It is not Nigeria that is fantastically corrupt, Nigeria is a country. It is those who rule us. And they will not of their own volition change. There is no business they can do that will ever give them the sort of return on investment they get from politics by dipping their gummy fingers into the public treasury at will.

There have been increased terrorists activities around the FCT as well as parts of the North and South. How would the Military and other security agencies control this upsurge?

There is an assumption here that the military and other security agencies are the key to addressing terrorist activities. I wouldn’t wholly agree with that. The problem, its roots and viable solutions have to be looked at in a systemic manner of the totality of the phenomenon we are addressing. First, there is a nexus between the emergence and growth of the physical insecurity sector comprising insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and so on and so forth, which have become increasingly intertwined, and economic insecurity, social inequality and multidimensional deprivation. Any serious effort at seeking a solution must take this basic fact into perspective. Unfortunately, a ruling class of brigands concerned simply with how much they can loot is not likely to give anything more than lip service to grasping and addressing these underlying roots of the problem. Now, on the issue of the military and other security agencies, it is clear enough that they cannot contain the upsurge. In fact, they have increasingly become part of the problem. It is the people in arms and not a band of armed men that can safeguard the lives of the people. We have consistently made this argument over the years. At the time, even some of our co-travellers made it seem like an Alice in Wonderland point of view. But, in recent times, even some leading members of the ruling class have echoed this point. These include General T.Y. Danjuma and Mohammed Matawalle when he was governor of Zamfara State. However, the way and manner these capitalists put it entails a privatisation of self-defence instead of socialising it. If the process is simply for individuals to apply for and purchase their own arms, only the rich will be able to arm themselves and even possibly establish their own personal armies. The people must insist on the government training them and arming them as a right. There are existing structures that could be utilised towards generalising such socialisation of the people in arms. In several communities already there are self-organised, but ill-equipped vigilantism often under the coordination of some sort of community development association or the other. We also have the NYSC where graduates are made to go through training that will make even Boy Scouts laugh scornfully. The scheme could be elongated to two years. I’m sure with the unemployment situation, ‘corpers sef go happy well well’ with that. But beyond that, and relating things back to the question of security, the first year should be for military training. Youth corps members and ex-corpers could then play more decisive roles in their communities for the emergence and consolidation of the people in arms. (Sunday Independent: Text, Excluding Headline)

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