Olayinka Babs
Political Analyst
This was propounded in one of the works of Karl Max, in which he envisaged that at a point in human social life, social change will be a result of the unanimous decisions of the masses against that of the ruling class.
Max went ahead in his view of political economy as class science, that is concerned with the evolution of classes in the process of production. What does this simply mean? It means that in producing those to represent us at one level of government or the other, there must be interest shown by the classes in the society I.e the class of rulers and the class of the rules.
Relating to the Marxist view of politics, we should realize that a society that can not challenge the status quo through the decision of the masses will find it difficult to prosper, both in the production, distribution, exchange, and consumption of goods and services.
In his work on historical materialism and dialectics in political economy, Marx emphasized class relationships in an analysis of conflict, by assuming a sharp contradiction towards the wealth of the ruling class which is derived from the exploitation of the subordinate class.
Nigeria today has been envisaged long ago, especially with the work of someone like Karl Marx and we have loads of Marxists in our society who have tried to open the eyes of the most oppressed and marginalized Nigerians to precipitate class struggle, which will revolutionalize the country, therefore liberating the class of the oppressed from the tutelage of their oppressors.
Nigeria has been passing through a lot lately through some unprepared or unanticipated policies of the government that have put the masses in a state of jeopardy. In moral philosophy, scholars like Thomas Malthus, and Joseph Von Sonnefels, just to mention but a few tried to illuminate the relationship between politics and economics, which explained why the ruling class in any society may not perform politically well when such rulers are not economically liberated.
Nigeria today is a clear exhibition of a bourgeoisie society, where the decision of the ruling class is being imposed on the masses through the inducement of the middle or working class. As some people are struggling for class recognition or power, others are struggling to retain power.
The February 25th, 2023 election in Nigerian political history has shown that some revelations of Karl Max are coming to reality despite all odds, the dictatorship of the proletariat is finding its way to our political space, especially in some parts of the country where some political gladiators lost their strongholds to the opposition, that is alien to Nigeria political culture since independence, because most of the past elections has been regionally based.
Nigerians are still in a state of celebrating and challenging the concluded part of the election so far, which should not get us to be carried away with the forthcoming gubernatorial and states house of assemblies elections across the country on the 11th of march 2023. The fact that your party did not emerge at the federal level does not mean you can’t change the narratives during the state elections.
As we all know, some governors in this country have radically engaged the federal government in constitutional battles to be able to deliver the dividends of democracy to their state constituents.
Some governors became charismatic today not because of the performance of the federal government but for their performance in their respective states. Nysom Wike of Rivers state, Udom Emmmanuel of Akwa Ibom state, Babagana Zulum of Bornu state to mention but a few, and some former governors like the President-Elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Ayo Fayose, Kayode Fayemi, Baba Bisi Akande to also mention but a few. All these people were propelled to their current status based on how they performed as governors and former governors respectively.
We should not be demoralized by the irregularities recorded in the presidential and the National assembly’s elections, we can do it again and correct the wrongs at the state elections. We should not forget that the state house of assembly members are going to be legislating on our lives and hopes for the next four years, this reminds me of Plato, ” one of the penalties of refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”.
Most people would say they won’t vote because they were not encouraged by the outcome of past elections, it shouldn’t be! According to Rachael Warnock, ” Not voting is not a protest but a surrender”.
Nigeria is a multiparty Nation, that is why we have different parties on the ballot, we should not be perturbed to exercise our franchise by voting for someone of our choice as against inducement and coercion. We should be able to cast our votes legitimately without fear or any form of oppression from the opponent …it is our collective responsibility to move our Nation forward.