Nigerian Left

Early in the morning of Thursday, 9 August—about 48 hours after armed detachments of Nigeria’s Secret Service operatives took over the National Assembly complex in Abuja—I sent a text message to a number of activist Nigerian Leftists.

In a previous piece on this subject (Notes on political alliances in Nigeria, 4 July 2018), I proposed that the following three broad objectives have propelled Leftist organisations, at home and abroad, to seek political alliances with non-Leftist formations: to fight or to prevent the emergence

We may begin by recalling two key propositions that have so far emerged in the current discussions on the political responsibility of the Nigerian Left in this period.

The following notes are offered as a searchlight in support of this anticipated revised programme of the Nigerian Left. The Left should see the political terrain more clearly.

What I consider my current aggregate position on the restructuring of Nigeria is constituted by several propositions articulated and refined over a fairly long period of time.

In late 1978, or early 1979, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, one of Nigeria’s frontline political leaders and the leader of the newly proclaimed Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), came to Calabar in continuation of his presidential campaign tour.