…Says political party names in Nigeria reflect what they stand for

Prince Justice Faloye, president, ASHE Foundation has stated that political parties in Nigeria today bear names that reflect their ideological stance, noting that parties such as APC, ADC and NDC maintain neoliberal ideology, excluding SDP that ultimately stands for social democracy in values.

In a statement to broaden his claims, Faloye argued that adoption of political name, inadvertently aligns with the ideological stance of the party.

He stated: “The best kept secrets are sometimes in the open, but like the nose, the eyes have to settle down to see it. Simple truths are sometimes too obvious that one thinks there must be a lie somewhere. Despite political parties stating their obvious intentions in their names, one wonders why billions have to be spent every election cycle, if not to hide the obvious. Like the US Republican and UK Conservative Party whose ideologies can only appeal to the minority rich and powerful, they resort to ethnic and gender divisions to win elections.

This has been the case in politics of the English speaking world and across the Blackworld especially Nigeria, where the so called Liberal democratic model tied to neoliberalism, a political and economic ideology that has increasingly made Nigerians poor, yet people are distracted from the obvious opposition with tribal, religious and personality trivia. One doesn’t need hundreds of Manifesto pages and campaign jingles to know the right choices to tackle the 66% poverty rate brought about by the neoliberal economic policies. Just Google the names.

In Yoruba, names are regarded as spiritual DNA makeup, with the saying that you look at the surroundings and circumstances of birth to name a child (Ile la n wo ki a to somo loruko) and it is believed that the name resonates throughout life (Oruko ma n ro ni). Names like Afenifere leaves no doubt about its ideology, even though many have mischievously misconstrued it to being a tribal Party because the name is a Yoruba word while conveniently ignoring the meaning of the word. Party names are often a signpost that reflects the thoughts and aspirations that formed the ideology of the founders, and are louder and more genuine than their Manifestos.

Political party names reflect both the ideology and political history, like Conservative Party, Republican Party, Labour Party, Communist Party, Social Democratic Party, Christian Democratic Party, or Islamic Party, reflect the party’s true orientation. The British Conservative Party was created soon after the abolition of Black slavery, in order to CONSERVE the racial sociopolitical and economic status quo of the largest slaving nation. Conserving the wealth and power in the hands of the rich slaveholders that became industrialists left out the poor masses, who created the Labour Party to struggle for more economic and political leverages.

In Continental Europe, where feudalism through the Church was more economically and politically prominent than the African economic plantation slavery system, the Christian Democratic Parties were created to retain power in the hands of Christian feudalists, which later prompted the creation of Social Democratic Parties with similar aspirations to spread economic and political power. In the US,  the Republican Party was about doing away with the British monarchy that created their slave plantation economic system. Like with the Labor and Social Democratic Parties of Europe, the Democratic Party was created, although initially for White farmers and workers, it later evolved its social democratic values to encompass all.

In other Eurasian non-slaving nations without the free Black human and natural resources, the peoples agitation required a more wholesale change that led to violent revolutions of the Socialist Party of Russia and later Communist Party in China. To avoid the spread of socialist revolutions to Western Europe and the Americas, capitalist Western democracies adopted welfarism to appease the poor. The combination of capitalism and welfarism became known and globalized as social democracy from 1930s to late Seventies.

In Nigeria, Herbert Macaulay created the first political parties – the Lagos based Nigerian National Democratic Party in 1923, and his pro-independence movement aptly named in 1944 the National Convention of Nigeria and Cameroon, which was to unite Nigerians against British colonialism. Seeing how social democracy and its attendant economic welfarism had brought the greatest generational wealth transfer in Europe and USA, Chief Obafemi Awolowo created Action Party with a Yoruba motto of Afenifere, the closest Yoruba interpretation of social democracy. In Northern Nigeria, Jamiyaar Mutanen Arewa, a sociocultural organization promoting the Afroasiatic Islamic civilization evolved into the Northern Peoples Congress.

The different ideologies behind each party ultimately led to civil war. While NCNC was eventually successful in its purpose of getting independence, despite the change of leadership from Herbert Macaulay to Azikwe, Awolowo’s Afenifere successfully implemented social democracy to uplift his region, but the Northern Peoples Congress built on civilizational imperialism pushed the nation to war in its attempt to takeover Awolowo’s region through proxies.

The Civil War exacerbated regional, religious and ethnic divisions which made most parties in the 1979 Second Republic political dispensation assert their quest for national unity with names like the northern dominated National Party of Nigeria, Azikwe’s eastern dominated National Peoples Party and Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria that still pushed social democracy. This experiment failed with the rise of neoliberalism that instituted poverty and discontent, and the Western Powers opposition to allow the enthronement of Awolowo’s social democracy.

At the restart of liberal democracy in the Third Republic, Chief MKO Abiola under the banners of Social Democratic Party won the presidential election but was refused his mandate by the Western Powers that had enforced neoliberalism through the army to reenslave the Black Race, and opposed any form of social democracy that could bring economic Liberation. The bloody pro-democracy agitation through the likes of NADECO was to form the basis of party names in the Fourth Republic, with the likes of Peoples Democratic Party, All Peoples Party and Afenifere’s Alliance For Democracy which retained its social democracy ideology.

The Afenifere AD was to be broken apart from the inside by neoliberals close to the army who Afenifere had invited into their ranks to prevent the military from political excluding them. The PDP ruled the new liberal democracy and was headed by ex generals that had instituted neoliberalism since the late Seventies. The PDP pushed neoliberalism by privatizing national assets and delegating social contracts to market forces, which although increased absolute productivity (GDP) astronomically increased poverty and income inequality.

The gatekeepers kept social democracy off the political spectrum and ensured that Lagos, the Yoruba economic powerhouse was kept out of reach off Afenifere social democracy. With the breakup of AD, Afenifere decided to become more definitive by creating the Social Democratic Party. However, the baton was passed to one of the ex generals, Muhammad Buhari who with Afenifere renegades like Tinubu formed the All Progressive Congress, made up of strange bedfellows whose only unity of purpose was to take power from President Goodluck Jonathan that had veered off the script of neoliberal Reenslavement.

Now, with 12 years of virulent neoliberalism that has plunged two thirds into poverty, it is not rocket science that the real opposition and change will be from neoliberalism to social democracy. Just as an Islamic Party can’t push Christianity and traditional beliefs, nor can a Conservative Party or Christian Democratic Party push other civilizational worldviews., a Social Democratic Party is constrained by its founding organization culture to pay subsidies to both uplift consumers and producers to stimulate the economy, unlike Tinubu’s APC or Peter Obi’s NDC that openly support neoliberal economic policies that have failed globally.

So we don’t need billions to sell candidates, just Google their party name to know which is genetically coded to uplift the people and fulfil social democratic virtues in Section Two of the Nigerian Constitution that all other parties choose to ignore, but SDP’s Prince Adebayo is pushing.