Open Letter To Nigerain Left Eskor Toyo
Open Letter To Nigerain Left Eskor Toyo
Open Letter To Nigerain Left Eskor Toyo
This
letter
is
written
to
honour
the
political
wisdom
of
Comrade
Bala
Mohammad,
a
genuine
revolutionary
combatant
and
a
Marxist,
who
joined
the
Peoples
Redemption
Party
in
order
to
be
practical,
identied
himself
with
the
correct
faction
of
that
party
at
a
time
when
an
innerparty
struggle
became
inevitable,
carried
the
banner
in
the
front
line
against
imperialism
and
local
reaction,
and
went
down
fighting
in
the
class
struggle
among
the
people.
While
all
that
happened,
some
of
his
Marxist
friends
were
writing
some
jaundiced
stand-ofsh
phrases
against
his
revolutionary
wisdom.
Why
Join
the
PRP?
The
Marxists
who
sit
in
their
armchairs
to
attack
the
PRP
are
not
right.
Of
all
the
different
lines
for
Marxists
in
Nigeria,
the
most
correct
for
the
present
phase
is
joining
and
working
in
the
PRP.
There
are
a
number
of
reasons
for
this.
First,
the
Marxists
are
not
doing
politics
at
all
who
are
not
in
the
PRP.
They
are
merely
criticising
the
bourgeoisie,
not
mobilising
the
people
against
the
bourgeois
establishment.
The
time
for
merely
criticising
the
bourgeoisie
in
Nigeria
is
past.
One
has
to
nd
a
platform
for
going
into
action.
Bala
Mohammed
through
signicant
action
became
more
a
threat
to
the
bourgeois
establishment
than
all
the
criticising
Marxists
put
together.
This
is
why
reaction
killed
him
in
political
action.
For
Nigerians
it
is
better
to
think
of
the
death
of
Bala
Mohammed
and
its
whole
signicance
than
to
celebrate
the
death
of
Marx
or
Lenin.
Second,
the
programme
of
the
PRP
is
definitely
not
merely
a
democratic
one
but
a
revolutionary
one.
The
PRP
by
its
programme
seeks
the
total
abolition
of
imperialism,
feudalism
and
capitalism.
It
seeks
the
substitution
for
the
present
day
neo-colonial
state
of
a
new
social
order.
This
order
is
dened
as
one
in
which
production
relations
are
redefined
to
abolish
all
exploitation
of
man
by
man.
This
new
order
is
to
he
brought
about
by
a
people's
state.
a
people's
democratic
dictatorship.
Quite
frankly,
I
do
not
know
what
else
the
Marxists
say
they
want
in
the
name
of
a
revolutionary
programme.
I
have
the
impression
that
they
want
the
name
Marxism
or
Leninism
and
some
phrases
such
as
class
struggle
and
proletariat
instead
of
a
programme
that
the
masses
can
understand.
They
want
the
verbal
forms,
not
the
essence
of
a
revolutionary
programme.
The
non-PRP
Marxists
are
infantile
and
subjective.
Third,
the
Marxists
who
disdain
the
PRP
may
mouth
the
phrase
imperialism,
but
they
are
not
concerned
with
imperialism
at
all.
In
Nigeria,
imperialism
exploits
not
only
the
working
class
but
the
peasantry.
As
Chinese,
Algerian,
Vietnamese.
Cuban,
Guinea-Bissau,
Angolan
etc.
examples
have
shown,
the
peasant
force
is
a
tremendous
force.
If
there
is
a
radical
peasant
backed
movement
in
the
country
opposed
to
the
imperialist-feudal
comprador
capitalist
status
quo,
it
has
a
tremendous
anti-imperialist
signicance.
The
armchair
Marxists
who
cannot
see
this
may
be
anything
they
like
to
call
themselves,
but
they
are
not
Leninists
at
all.
As
Lenin
insisted,
there
is
no
special
form
for
a
worker-peasant
alliance.
The
alliance
takes
place
or
can
be
made
to
take
place
daily
by
concrete
acts.
If
the
Nigerian
Labour
Congress
is
holding
its
convention
and
the
peasant
PRP
even
so
much
as
sends
solidarity
greetings
to
it,
that
is
the
initiation
of
a
worker-peasant
struggle
against
the
bourgeois
establishment.
Instead
of
placing
themselves
in
a
position
to
utilise
such
developments,
the
Marxists
snap
their
ngers
and
wait
for
class
struggle
and
revolution.
No
one
can
wage
a
mass-based
revolutionary
struggle
in
Nigeria
against
the
feudal-
imperialist-comprador
establishment
without
detaching
the
peasantry
from
the
ongoing
bourgeois
campaigns
for
the
consolidation
of
the
status
quo.
This
struggle
to
make
the
mass
of
ordinary
people
in
town
and
country
turn
from
the
status
quo
is
what
the
PRP
was
founded
for
and
what
it
has
attempted
to
do
so
far.
Fourth,
the
non-PRP
Marxists
have
a
special
form
in
their
minds
for
the
growth
of
a
socialist
movement.
In
their
undialectical
minds
there
must
rst
be
a
Marxist
party
to
lead
the
revolution.
If
such
a
party
does
not
exist,
one
must
not
fight
even
where
the
daily
experiences
of
the
masses
prepare
them
for
political
struggle
against
feudal
rule
and
the
nouveaux
riches.
To
our
stereotyped
Marxists,
let
it
be
pointed
out
that
there
was
no
Marxist
party
for
Augustino
Neto,
Samora
Michel,
Amilcar
Calbral,
Mengistu
and
the
Sandinista
militants
to
join.
In
Cuba
there
was
a
Communist
party
for
Fidel
Castro
and
his
associates
to
join,
but
happily
they
did
not.
That
party
was
as
dogmatic.
sectarian
and
blind
to
the
revolutionary
potentialities
of
a
broad
anti-establishment
people's
movement
as
Nigerias
Marxist
parrots
are
Fifth,
in
Nigeria
now
it
is
impossible
to
mobilise
the
broad
masses
without
parliamentary
politics.
One
ought
to
do
the
politics
of
one's
own
country.
Not
to
do
so
is
to
suffer
isolation.
The
aims
of
parliamentary
politics
and
even
its
styles
are
many.
The
people's
party
can
choose
its
own
aims
and
forms.
The
anti-PEP
Marxists
are
very
comfortable
to
watch
the
bourgeoisie,
the
imperialists
and
the
feudal
chieftains
dominate
the
countrys
politics
year
in.
year
out.
Short
of
a
military
coup
detat,
how
they
are
going
to
get
into
their
revolution
without
practical
and
meaningful
ideological
and
political
contests
with
the
National
Party
of
Nigeria,
the
Nigerian
Peoples
Party
and
the
Unity
Party
of
Nigeria
beats
ones
imagination
completely,
If
the
Marxists
were
practical
and
well-oriented
revolutionaries,
they
would
know
that
they
also
need
a
parliamentary
platform,
that
is,
a
national
forum
for
reaching
the
people
and
pitching
their
own
solutions
in
real
political
combat
against
the
solutions
(or
non-solutions)
of
the
NFN-NPPUPN
bourgeois
fraternity.
They
would
know
that
one
cannot
ght
the
NPN
in
a
Nigerian
village
with
quotations
from
Marx
that
have
not
been
brought
into
relation
with
Nigerias
type
of
parliamentary
politics.
They
would
know
that
without
involving
themselves
in
the
ongoing
parliamentary
struggles,
they
cannot
bring
the
masses
from
parliamentary
to
extra-parliamentary
forms
of
struggle
from
the
known
to
the
unknown.
Sixth.
the
Peoples
Redemption
Party
is
a
daily
school
for
the
masses
and
for
the
Marxists.
One
learns
of
the
bourgeoisie
of
one's
own
country,
not
in
textbooks
but
in
combat.
No
one
has
a
static.
consciousness.
Some
workers
are
reactionary.
Some
petty-bourgeois
persons
can
abandon
petty-bourgeois
consciousness.
If
university
lecturers
can
become
Marxists
there
is
no
reason
why
others
cannot.
Some
peasants
are
traitors
and
others
not.
All
romanticism
and
subjective
a-priori
presumptions
are
ended
in
practice.
In
the
PRP
struggle
so
far,
many
experiences
have
been
gained,
many
lessons
have
been
learnt,
the
radical
masses
have
been
led
to
test
many
things
and
draw
many
conclusions.
Every
PRP
man
or
woman
who
has
been
active
comes
out
richer
than
the
Marxist
who
wants
to
take
up
class
struggle
only
of
his
own
making,
on
his
own
terms.
Do
PEP
difficulties
justify
the
Sectarians?
Some
anti-PRP
Marxists
used
the
difficulties
and
splits
in
the
PRP
as
proof
of
the
validity
of
their
contention
that
the
PRP
is
simply
petty-bourgeois
and
not
the
answer.
The
existence
of
difficulties
in
the
PRP
says
nothing
by
itself
against.
the
correctness
of
Marxists
not
merely
joining
it
but
also
actively
organising
it.
The
collapse
of
a
revolutionary
effort
does
not
ipso
facto
prove
its
incorrectness.
Otherwise
making
a
revolution
would
be
as
simple
as
writing
a
Marxist
paper
for
a
group
of
students.
What
should
we
conclude
if
Marxists
form
their
fanciful
non-Marxists
not
wanted
party
and
the
Federal
Electoral
Commission,
the
CIA,
the
police,
bourgeois
agents-provocateur,
imperialist
journalistic
megaphones,
etc.,
all
move
to
smash
it,
split
it,
or
sow
confusion
in
it?
Indeed.
it
is
only
on
paper
that
the
unity
of
the
party
is
a
romantic
birthday
gift.
A
Marxist-Leninist
party
in
Nigeria
may
have
romantic
attractions
for
those
who
have
never
initiated,
led.
organised
or
belonged
to
one.
I
was
a
leading
and
untiring
activist
in
all
the
parties
I
helped
to
pioneer.
Anyone
who
is
dreaming
of
an
immediate
Marxist-Leninist
party
without
rst
honestly,
maturely
and
meticulously
examining
the
reasons
for
the
failure
of
these
efforts
and
others
made
by
people
like
Una
Alkpan,
Amaefule
Ikoro,
Ikenna
Nzimiro,
Gogo
Nzeribe,
Amanke
Okafor
and
Wahab
Goodluck
either
does
not
know
where
he
is
or
is
simply
fooling
around.
At
any
rate,
in
spite
of
the
crying
need
for
a
Left
rally,
that
rally
has
not
taken
place.
Why?
PRP
and
Class
Struggle
Again,
some
of
these
anti-PEP
Marxists
nd
it
very
convenient
and
very
correct
to
remain
in
the
universities.
earn
their
pay
steadily,
and
at
best
interact
only
with
students
in
their
own
universities.
These
universities
are
bourgeois,
are
nanced
by
the
bourgeois
state
and
are
even
dominated
by
imperialism.
Again
some
of
these
Marxists
nd
themselves
very
correct
and
very
revolutionary
when
they
undertake
to
organise
the
elitist
Academic
Staff
Union
of
Universities
(ASUU).
They
claim
that
it
is
more
correct'
and
revolutionary
to
use
up
a
Marxists
time
in
organising
this
body
which
is
devoted
to
the
economic
struggles
of
a
petty-bourgeois-oriented
labour
aristocracy
than
to
plough
ones
time
into
a
revolutionary
political
movement
to
which
is
attached
hundreds
of
thousands
of
radical
poor
people,
a
movement
struggling
to
detach
the
poor
as
a
whole
from
bourgeois.
imperialist
and
feudal
ideologies
and
from
their
political
organisations.
They
find
themselves
more
at
home
with
the
elitist
ASUU
where
people
speak
the
same
language.
live
in
the
same
glass-windowed
houses.
eat
the
same
kind
of
breakfast,
y
in
airplanes,
enjoy
the
same
elite
jokes,
and
have
the
same
characteristics
as
their
bourgeois
or
pettybourgeois
selves
than
to
join
a
political
party
that
is
frankly
a
talakala
party
and
frankly
a
revolutionary
party
by
its
program
and
by
the
commitment
of
most
of
its
leading
cadres
.
.
.
Beautifying
the
Armchair
The
Marxists
should
know
that
it
is
men
who
transform
situations.
The
first
impression
a
young
intellectual
gains
from
historical
materialism
is
that
situations
transform
themselves
when
the
objective
conditions
exist.
Of
course.
they
learn
that
history
changes
through
class
struggle,
but
the
class
to
them
is
an
abstract
force.
Very
often
the
young
intellectual
is
not
able
to
read
the
class
struggle
going
on
before
his
eyes.
because
his
Marxism
lives
in
the
air,
is
not
yet
historical.
not
yet
concrete,
not
yet
practical.
his
situation
merely
creates
itself.
It
is
men
who
create
or
transform
situations.
men
of
action.
utilising
opportunities
for
action
opened
up
by
history.
The
problem
with
anti-PRP
Marxists
is
that
they
see
the
issue
as
that
of
merely
joining
the
PRP
which,
to
them.
means
merely
tailing,
arms
folded
and
mouths
shut,
behind
Ikoku,
Aminu
Kano,
or
someone
else.
The
element
of
active
involvement
active
organisation,
bringing
ones
own
inuence
to
bear
on
situations
through
action,
educating
and
mobilising
the
masses
by
ones
own
initiative,
and
using
the
excellent
political
platform
afforded
by
the
PRP
this
activity
element
is
absent
altogether
from
the
way
they
see
things.
The
PEP
is
not
a
question
of
who
should
read
the
holy
texts:
Aminu
Kano
or
the
Marxists.
The
question
is
that
of
involvement
in
mass
mobilisation
in
a
direction
antagonistic
to
the
bourgeois
dispensation.
.
.
Conclusion
As
we
wrote
this
letter
which
was
intended
as
a
tribute
to
Bala
Mohammed
we
heard
of
the
death
of
Amino
Kano.
Pointing
ngers
at
the
PRP
will
not
help
at
all.
No
one
prevented
anybody
from
oating
any
party
of
his
own
wish
and
making
it
a
mass
party
before
the
PRP
emerged.
The
Marxists
rather
consumed
themselves
year
after
year.
as
they
still
do.
in
infantile
struggles
against
one
another.
Let
them
continue
with
their
impotent
criticisms.
Those
in
the
PRP
know
whom
to
attack:
the
capitalists,
the
imperialists,
the
feudalists
and
their
fellow
travellers.
They
know
also
what
to
do:
organise
the
masses
against
the
NPN,
the
NPP
and
the
UPN
which
are
the
practical
political
instruments
of
the
exploiting
classes.
In
my
own
opinion
those
who
joined
and
worked
for
the
PRP
and
are
now
in
other
parties
for
no
fault
of
their
own
ought
to
return
to
the
PRP
and
let
us
work.
It
is
better
to
work
in
an
organised
mass
movement
whose
program
is
clearly
opposed
to
imperialist,
capitalist
and
traditionalist
exploitation
and
clearly
poses
the
alternative
of
an
exploitation-free
social
order.
And
no
one
can
deny
that
the
PRP
is
a
mass
movement
and
that
its
programme
is
of
this
character.
Eskor
Toyo