Boko Haram and the Theories of Conspiracy Boko Haram seems to be benefiting both bourgeois parties in Nigeria, PDP and APC. The devastating insurgency enables the PDP-led central government to both tag APC as a terrorist party and militarize the society for political ends. APC, on the other hand, benefits from the sheer helplessness and gross incompetence of the PDP-led central government and also tags the latter a genocidal regime. Does this mean either or both of the bourgeois parties are behind the insurgency? If APC is really behind Boko Haram, nothing can stop PDP-led central government from arresting those sponsors because it makes perfect political sense. This in turn will make the insurgents more deadly as they strike with vengeance; ethnoreligious civil war is then highly probable if not inevitable. On the other hand, if PDP-led central government is really behind Boko Haram, nothing will stop the rank and file and junior security forces, who die on a daily basis, from striking back; again this will make ethnoreligious civil war highly probable if not inevitable. That ethnic civil war is not highly probable now means both conspiracy theories are least likely to be true. What we are witnessing is thus a spontaneous and accidental process; the gains of PDP and APC from the insurgency are accidental. However, it is an accident that can lead to a necessity. In other words, the spontaneity can turn into its opposite, the conspiracy. Let me explain. We maintain that despite the fact that Boko Haram had its origins in bourgeois Sharia politics, the insurgency maintains its independence from the intra-class struggle between APC and PDP. The bloody war between the Nigerian state and the insurgents is a fact of this independence. But that both bourgeois parties are benefiting from the insurgency means the said independence has a relative meaning. Now both sections of the ruling elites have been building a base of petty bourgeois and lumpenproletraian bigots around various conspiracy theories. These layers of reactionary bigots, some of them within the security apparatus, can act spontaneously and precipitate an ethnoreligious civil war. Assassination attempt on Buhari, had it been successful, would have unleashed a reactionary terror in parts of the North. Similarly, insurgents or even Junior officers in the army assassinating the President would unleash a similar reactionary terror in parts of the South. In both cases, the war against terror will transform into an ethnoreligious civil war. Accident will become a necessity and spontaneity a conspiracy. The perspective so far was based on the assumption that the working class has not moved in a revolutionary manner and a working class political alternative fails to materialize. And this is truly the choice facing Nigeria; socialism or barbarism. To save Nigeria from the spectre of barbarism, a working class conspiracy must be planned. Already the foundations of this revolutionary conspiracy are being laid by the emergence of self-defense committees especially in Borno (known as Civilian JTF) but also elsewhere in the northern region. A working class revolutionary conspiracy means bringing these spontaneous self-defense committees under the democratic control of the mass organizations of labour, NLC and TUC, in alliance with rank and file of security forces and working class of other countries. It also means building a mass party of workers armed with a socialist program, which includes, among other things: nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy, expropriation of the bourgeoisie, abolition of fat salaries and allowances of political office holders and bureaucrats, provision of infrastructure, development of agriculture and industry, all to allow for provision of full employment, descent housing, free and qualitative education and health and development of advanced culture. It is either this option, which we call socialism, or barbarism.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 07:05:39 +0000