How can we forget Comrade Chima Ubani?
IT IS IMPOSSICANT!
God forbid bad thing!
I always insist that the Struggle to liberate our peoples and our country is an intergenerational struggle! And our illustrious Comrade Chima Ubani’s life and work among us epitomized that intergenerational character of that struggle. He was squarely in THE CENTRAL LEADERSHIP of our struggle in the 1980s and 1990s with people much older than him, and people much younger than him!
Comrade Chima joined the other heroes at the other side of eternity ON DUTY traveling back from the North East on the fateful day.
Comrade Chima was larger than life. He was RELIABLE, modest, hard working, untiring, committed and unassuming; he was a bridge builder, consummate organizer, and ORGANIZATION PERSON!
We shall forever cherish the sacrifice and example of Comrade Chima Ubani!
We also continue to appreciate the courage of the spouse, Ochua, and the children and the entire family that our Comrade left behind; we continue to appreciate their monumental sacrifices.
I met Comrade Chima for the very first time when I went visiting our incarcerated Comrades of the Students’ Movement at the Nsukka Prison where perhaps more than twenty of them were being held (I think?) for treasonable felony by IBB’s military dictatorship in collaboration with the University of Nigeria Nsukka authorities.
The prison authorities were so kind to allow me to see them along with one of our colleagues who transferred his services to UNN in the mid-1980s. One of the detainees, along with the students is now a Comrade Professor of Biochemistry!
Chima and the other student Comrades were held under humiliating and very squalid conditions.
But Comrade Chima Ubani and the other Comrades did not give up! Their exemplariness is legendary! They held up their heads PROUDLY: as the entire Nigerian Youth, Nigeria’s working people and their allies in the academies were holding their heads HIGH!
The same forces that imposed neoliberal looting in the 1980s and 1990s are carrying on via other means!
But our resistance will gather strength.
And our time will come!
Continue to rest, Comrade Chima!
And in Power!
Omotoye Olorode,
Member, TPAP-M Secretariat Collective.
Excellently, very historical and thanks veteran Comrade. Around this time September 2015, I was one of the comrades that traveled from Abuja to Kano for an event in BUK, some traveled from Lagos and Ibadan to remember late Comrade Chima Ubani. He lives on!
©Macauly Dimeji TPAPM RSM
Thanks so much Comrade Olorode for this timely reminder on our beloved Comde Chima Ubani a one time Secretary Genel of our Socialist Congress of Nigeria. I fondly remember meeting him in Kano during the June12 campaign. I was so impressed by his intellectual prowess, humiility and complete devotion to the struggle for socialist transformation of Nigeria that on completion of my thesis in England I dedicated it to him as a token appreciation of his person.
He was such a noble, completely detribalised and gentle person that inspired confidence in our struggle that on meeting him you cannot but be endeared to him .
While saluting the NLC and other comrades for supporting the young family his untimely death had cause, I hope comrades in and outside the NLC will explore other ways of supporting the family against the harsh realities of life in Nigeria .
Cde Chima Ubani, you will forever be in our hearts! ©Danbala Danju.
Manifesto of The Peoples Alternative Party (TPAP)
What Our Party Stands For.
The main goal of our party is to end exploitation, oppression and poverty in Nigeria. Both exploitation and poverty are sustained and maintained by economic policies and processes which allow most of the resources of our country to end up in the hands of a few Nigerians and their partners and sponsors from abroad.
Ruling class domination of economic power also enables the class to dominate political power which they in turn use to strengthen their economic power by making laws like the one that auction most important public property to themselves and their friends.
Our party will end exploitation, oppression and poverty by engaging in a process of systematic socialist transformation of Nigeria. The peoples Alternative Political party will mobilize and allocate all critical resources of Nigeria to cater for all basic needs of the masses of our people. This will be done through planning and organization of production that will guarantee democratic, sustained and sustainable management of human and material resources of Nigeria. This democratic, sustainable and sustained process based on working people’s common ownership, control and democratic self-management of the economy [means of production, distribution and consumption] will develop through popular authorship and ownership of development programs, that also constantly produce and reproduce selfless dedicated and creative leadership from among the masses of the people across Nigeria.
The National And International Character of the Task Facing Our Party.
Recognizing the global character of this exploitative and oppressive systems of capitalism, and the consequent system of imperialism and imperialist domination, our party understands that the system that will replace capitalism, must also be a global system, and as such our party also understands the the quest for sustainable socialist transformation can, and shall only be realised within the context of global socialist transformation. Our party is therefore committed to building active solidarity of struggles against capitalism and its exploitative and oppressive system globally. Our party is committed to working towards the socialist transformation of Nigeria as well as, and within the context of a global socialist transformation.
The Mass Movement Origins of the Peoples Alternative [Political] Party.
The Peoples Alternative Party had its immediate origins in the Peoples Alternative Political Summit (of March 26-27, 2021)—a summit of the organizations that emanated from the struggles of our people for socialism, and against the new programs that seek to re-colonize Nigeria, especially since the late 1970s, and reverse the gains of Independence of 1960 through the adoption of the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Program (SAP).
The summit gave rise to our movement – The Peoples Alternative Political Movement [TPAP-M], the direct organiser of our party
The World Bank inspired recolonization of Nigeria through SAP and its renovations led by the military and the “civilian” wings of the ruling class had retained economic and political power in their hands since 1984 and it had almost completely reversed most of the gains of the 1960 Independence which Nigeria’s labor movement fought for.
The almost complete reversal of the gains of independence fought for by Nigeria’s working people is the cause of today’s economic and social crisis which is manifested in increased inequality [with one of the widest gap between the rich and the poor in the world today], rapidly rising unemployment, increased poverty and intensifying mass misery, insecurity at pandemic levels, and increased crime rate, violence and banditry, among others!
Our movement (comprising organized labor, women, the youth and the peasants) along with their allies among the professionals (lawyers, doctors, etc.) struggled, especially since the late 1970s, against low wages, increased school fees, sacking of workers, high cost of living, military dictatorship, police brutality and general abuse of human rights and public office and corruption generally.
Class Struggle, Class Politics and Electoral Politics
Since the mid-1940s especially, our movement has combined electoral and non-electoral options in the struggles of the oppressed across Nigeria. These options included direct political party interventions with clear socialist programs and indirect interventions in political alliances with reformist political parties and programs. The options and methods of our movements have always been dictated by the immediate and long-term needs of class struggle towards goals that will finally win political power for the working class.
Consequently, election or no election, during and between elections, class struggle by the poor masses against exploitation and poverty goes on on a daily basis. And it is our duty as a movement and as a movement party to organise this class struggle, as it is waged daily, linking the immediate aims of resistance to economic hardships and rejection of insecurity, to the ultimate goal of winning political power to lead the process of socialist transformation.
We emphasis that our Politics is Class Politics; not Regional, Ethnic or Religious Politics! Class Politics in the defense of the masses of Nigeria’s working people, in the pursuit of their solidarity and against the politics and policies of class and gender oppression, ethnicity and religious prejudices.
Fundamental Principles for TPAP’s Socialist Transformation of Nigeria.
1. Democratic and collectivist Power of the Masses of Nigeria’s Working People based on selfless contribution to collective public purpose according to the utmost ability of each person and guarantee of economic, social and cultural support according to the needs of groups and members of society.
2. Commitment of Society to empowerment of groups and individuals to the limit of individual and groups endowments will generate a shared culture of commitment to the overall welfare and vision of society as a whole.
3. Exemplary commitment and service to society, commitment to learning and teaching in the creation and reproduction of leadership and sustainable leadership tradition among members of the party, the working class, and within society at large.
4. Public morality based on, and evolving out of the socialist transformation process focused on eradication of inequality, general social injustice, and poverty rather than on mythical and superstitious justifications of these social conditions that also entrench them. Public and collective morality based on confidence in collective human agency in all projects of building better societies.
The Immediate Tasks of The Peoples Alternative Political Party.
By January 1984, imperialism (via IMF and the World Bank) and various wings of the Nigerian ruling class reached a consensus that the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) was the most suitable program to sustain the system of capitalist exploitation and oppression in Nigeria, and also agreed that this could be imposed only through military dictatorship or “democratic dispensation” that maintains SAP.
The current and deepening crisis of under development, inequality, poverty and insecurity arises directly from decades of the SAP—the scourge of capitalism in the age of neoliberalism!
The Peoples Alternative Party will lay the foundations of a socialist transformation of Nigeria by immediately embarking on the following Seven Tasks [Tasks that are derived from the Political Action Program and the Economic Action Plan of the movement]:
Seven Immediate Tasks Towards Economic Democracy and Social Justice.
An Outline of what TPAP seeks to Achieve; And How?
Economic Program
Planning at all levels based on the long-term and short-term needs of the masses of the people and at all levels- – communities, local governments, State and Federal. The conception will be both horizontal, vertical and integrated making maximum use, and entailing creative, democratic scientific management of all human and natural resources of the environment in a way that addresses the needs of today without endangering the needs of the future.
By vertical conception of economic planning, we mean planning that links local with state and overall national vision. Horizontal conception has to do with a vision that links contiguous local units and that links contiguous states. Economic planning is integrated when its vision links units and elements of planning (industries, agricultural, rural and urban in time and space.
Industry and Industrial development
A democratically controlled public sector will not only lead industrialization and industrial development via public corporations strategy, it will aid cooperatives of SME industrial enterprises and appropriate private industrial establishments.
Industrial productions and development will be based on a coherent program of production of structural materials and production of machine tools. All these will be deployed towards the general realization of value addition to resources that are available in the Nigerian environment and with consistent focus on the sorts of linkages among all the productive sectors that will require the products of industry.
Agriculture and Rural Development
Agricultural production will integrate crop production, livestock production and environmental protection. It will priorities food production (crop and livestock), efficient distribution, innovative and environment friendly preservation and protection techniques. It will also prioritise the link of agriculture to industry, to the manufacturing of goods whose raw materials are to be found in agriculture.
Massive public provisioned and innovative production cooperatives will be given priority and support in rural locations to create decision making mechanisms on land allocation, use and management, seed and livestock breed multiplication and varietal maintenance management of water resources, afforestation and reforestation programs.
Rural development will benefit from support by Student and Youth Volunteer corp which will work directly with rural production cooperatives and rural communities in crop harvests, rural agroindustries, development of power supply, rural water supply, roads, reforestation, rural housing development, literacy campaigns, and health education, immunization campaigns etc.
Education for Liberation of the Masses
TPAP Education program aims at a life-long program for a new society; an education program that is under popular democratic control for transmitting a new culture of knowledge and skills for public service and self-realization.
Our party will struggle to pursue goals of dynamism and excellence in curricula formulation and delivery in specialized skills, professions, and vocations. Liberal education will be vigorously pursued from secondary level. Economics, Languages (especially Nigerian languages), history (Nigerian, African, World) and Indigenous Nigerian Philosophy, science and Technology, shall constitute the foundation of the learning curriculum.
Education will be funded fully, and at all levels, by TPAP Government and educational opportunities will be equalized. TPAP Government will empower educational institutions to tap the tremendous enthusiasm and energy of students, from senior secondary upward, to design and build quality infrastructures and production capacities (in agriculture, road, power and water-supply infrastructure, environmental protection, rehabilitation and enhancement) around “land-grant” school models.
The Labor Movement, Employment, Wages and Social Services
Labor, under a TPAP government will be a critical social and political partner. Freedom of association and democratic organization will be guaranteed for workers of both formal and informal sectors.
TPAP’s generalized public sector focus and public-purpose economic and social policies will enable massive employment opportunities of citizens in the public sector establishments. Government support for artisan and rural production and service cooperatives will also generate significant and sustained employment opportunities.
TPAP Governments will mandate dynamic living wages in all sectors of the economy. TPAP focus on enlarged and efficient social services in education, housing, health-care delivery, clean water provision, affordable power, clean—environment, affordable and reliable public transport system and adequate security for all citizens, will all enable wages to satisfy the needs of working people.
The laws on minimum wage will be enforced vigorously. There shall be adequate social security for the unemployed, aged, the physically challenged and the senior citizens. TPAP will struggle to completely eradicate unemployment and casualization of labor.
Inclusion of Women, Youth and Marginalised Groups.
TPAP shall embark on a deliberate process of promoting social justice and equity, through enabling the direct and practical inclusion of Women, Young persons. Persons living with disability, and other marginalised groups in the governance of society, and in the leadership and management of the polity and the economy.
Towards this end TPAP government shall enact legislation and policies that will ensure that in the elective and appointed political positions, as well as in the leadership and top management of the economy and the public and civil services, that no gender shall constitute less than 40% or more than 60% of such elected bodies, political appointments, and leadership and management of the economy and economic enterprises and of the civil and public services.
Similarly, young persons shall be supported to exercise leadership, and deliberate policies shall be put in place to ensure that no less than 30% of elected, appointed and economic leadership positions are constituted by young persons, with the gender rule applying as well.
TPAP government shall enact and enforce policies and legislation that ensure that no one shall be discriminated against, nor excluded in the affairs of society on the basis of their gender, age, ethnicity, religion, location, and or ability or disability.
Conclusion: Enforcement of Chapter Two Of The Current Constitution:
In Conclusion, as an immediate task, TPAP will commence the enforcement of provisions of Chapter Two of the current constitution, being gains of our collective struggle won from the ruling class. TPAP shall immediately begin the processes of implementation of the provisions, including through a radical and thoroughgoing overhaul of government policies , processes, laws and the constitution.
