Trotsky once wrote, the capitalist regimes toboggan to disaster with their eyes closed. This statement perfectly describes the political situation in Nigeria. As we have stated several times before, the objective conditions require to maintain ongoing bourgeois democracy has completely eroded few years ago; it has become a mere empty shell, a corpse waiting to be buried. It is an apparatus that is incapable of living and yet unwilling to die. So as to artificially extend its lifespan beyond its limit, the present regime has been clinging on anything on its way. The recent casualty of this clinging game is electoral reforms.

This article first appear on the December 2009 Edition of the Workers' Alternative.

No doubt, the Nigerian working class is the largest and most powerful singular force in the land. This undisputable fact is confirmed further by the fact that nothing can work without workers; this reality does not just apply to Nigeria but it is also an international reality. Over 10 million workers are in organized labour in Nigeria, NLC and TUC. Millions of Nigerian workers who are yet to be unionized and millions other poor strata of the society are natural allies of workers and look towards the organized labour for support at most times. The massive support all the general strikes called by labour against fuel price increases and deregulation confirms this fact.

TOTAL OPPOSITION TO DEREGULATION!

Martins Onovo (leader of Strategic Union of Professionals for the Advancement of Nigeria, SUPA) could end up been another hero in the eyes of millions of toiling masses in Nigeria. What did he do? He came out with more facts, figures and arguments that further confirm that fuel prices increases can never work and has never worked in Nigeria since the first increase on Oct 1 1978 by the then Obasanjo military regime. And that the current plan to totally deregulated would not only fail but would lead to more terrible conditions for the economy and masses as a whole.