by IKE OKONTA
General Olusegun Obasanjo’s assault on academics in the late 1970s was the first open attack on Nigeria’s progressives and the idea of university autonomy in the postcolonial era. Popular student protests, built around the battle cry of ‘Ali Must Go’, was the robust response. Obasanjo’s government proved a transitional one and military rule ended two years later as President Shehu Shagari and the National Party of Nigeria took office.
However, the emergence of General Ibrahim Babangida in 1985, coinciding with the rise of a new market-fundamentalist economic and political project in the United States and the United Kingdom called neo-liberalism presented this group of Nigerians, whose political and economic outlook is generally left of the centre, with a complex existentialist challenge. That they responded to this challenge poorly and tactically instead of adopting the long view and shaping their strategies accordingly is clearly demonstrated in the farcical game still playing out in Nigeria as the so-called ‘progressive’ political parties refuse to come together in a coalition to give the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party, a meaningful fight in the April general elections.
The defining element of coalition politics is the willingness of key actors to put personal ambition in service of a larger goal they consider vital to national progress and prosperity. Realising that their individual parties alone cannot make the required impact to dislodge a well-entrenched ruling party, they agree to a minimum programme reflecting the broad policy thrust of all parties in the coalition, pool resources and then take to the field, jointly mobilising the electorate to support candidates presented by that coalition. Of course that means that only one of them will get to be president if they take a majority of the votes, but that, in the view of the classical progressive tradition, is a small personal price to pay compared to the enormous benefits that would accrue to citizens nationwide.
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