This is the first of a two-part episode examining what the Nigerian Left learned from the Obidients. To tackle this, we review a series of articles about the Labour Party and Peter Obi that were written by Nigerian Left essayists and organization both before and after the elections.

Check out our Patreon page to listen to the extended conversation.

The "before" pieces:

https://socialistlabour.com.ng/2022/06/24/tpap-m-2023-labour-and-actually-existing-labour-party/

https://www.marxist.com/the-labour-party-the-left-and-the-search-for-mass-party-of-the-working-class.htm

https://africasacountry.com/2022/09/nigeria-turn-a-case-for-a-labor-party-entryism

The "after" pieces:

https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/591165-there-was-a-movement-a-preliminary-counterintuitive-marxist-analysis-of-peter-obi-and-the-obidients-by-biodun-jeyifo.html

https://www.premiumtimesng.com/opinion/591562-obi-not-about-a-productive-economy-but-perception-of-an-incorruptible-president-by-ogaga-ifowodo.html

https://socialistworkersleague.org/2023/03/03/swl-statement-on-the-presidential-election-in-nigeria/

In this episode, we put @SaeeduH on the hot-seat to discuss his recent article for @Africaisacountry on the ideological and economic legacies of the Buhari administration (we also challenge @SLASHER_OAG on whether Buharism and the Lagos Model suggest that the ruling classes have adopted a more complex mode of legitimation than the classic you chop, I chop model).

Is there a perspective from which Buhari's economic policies actually succeeded? Has Tinubu come to abolish Buhari-ism or to fulfill it? Why did some commentators think that a self-described 'radical-conservative' member of the 'Kaduna mafia' was a socialist? And why do Nigerians know so little about the various intellectual traditions that have influenced their political class?

Enjoy.

Meanwhile, we also preview some of our exciting new announcements, including our upcoming reading group on Nigerian political economy...

References:

Buharism is dead, long live Buharism https://africasacountry.com/2023/04/buharism-is-dead-long-live-buharism

The Lagos Model and the politics of competing conceptions of good governance in Oyo State, Nigeria 2011-2015 http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/3600/

Muslim politics and shari’a in Kano State, Northern Nigeria: https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/114/454/28/2195195?login=false

In the second volume of our 'scam hall of fame' mini-series, we explore a classic Nigerian haux that might not have been the most daring or expensive, but was certainly the weirdest: the time Kwara State came up with the ingenious idea of importing white Zimbabwean farmers (along with tons of cows and machinery) ostensibly to set up commercial farms in the state.

Now a decade after the farms were inaugurated -- with the forced displacement of thousands of indigenous Kwaran farmers -- and after millions of dollars of state investment, the majority of farms established by the white Zimbos have now, predictably, collapsed. What inspired this laughable and ultimately ill-fated scheme? Was it an 'honest' mistake or a pre-medidated racket? Were Nigerian elites the victims or beneficiaries of this scam?

(Special thanks to Michael Parenti for the guest appearance).

Further reading:

Zimbabwean farmers in Nigeria: Exceptional farmers or spectacular support?

Why white Zimbabwean farmers plan to stay in Nigeria

We are joined once again by Ayo Ademiluyi (@ComAdemiluyi), the disputed Labour Party House of Reps candidate for Eti-Osa, Lagos, to discuss the LPs victory in his constituency. Having won the LP primaries for the position ahead of party's election victory in Eti-Osa, Ayo is now engaged in a legal battle against the 'substitution candidate' (@_JtAttah) imposed after the primaries. What is the status of Ayo's efforts to reclaim his mandate? What are the chances that Ayo will be sworn in as the National Representative for Eti-Osa come June? What, more generally, is the state of left entryism in the LP? With the election receding in the rearview, how should the Nigerian left 'engage' with the LP?

(apologies for some of the phone vibrations which remain in the recording despite attempts to edit)

In which we attempt to assess last weekend's governorship elections from the point of view of our regular thematic pre-occupations.

In which we discuss the (s)election of a new president - not of the NLC, that's for later  - but of our glorious federal republic. In addition to offering various takes on the titular question, we also attempt to assess the reasons behind the historically low turnout of voters as well as how the Nigerian left should respond to plans by the main opposition parties to challenge the result in court.

Coming back from our harmattan hiatus, we round out the presidential campaign  banter with a discussion about the naira scarcity: whether it really is engineered by 'the cabal' (per El Rufai's claim); how it might affect the election; and how an organized left would have responded to this moment. 

@dvmilola joined us for our second film review, this time about an authorized biopic centered on Nigeria's wannabe Pinochet and so called "evil genius", Ibrahim Badamisi Babangida. We disagree about whether the emerging sub-genre of historically-based Nollywood films should strive to be objective, but ultimately agree that IBB is one of the greatest scam artists in Nigerian history. We watched it so that you don't have to (spoilers herein contained, obviously). So enjoy. 

And happy new year. 

And and check out our Patreon for past and future exclusives.

In this episode, we revisit the Cement Armada Scandal, which we consider one of the foundational scams of the Nigerian political economy. The scandal saw the newly oil-rich post-civil war Nigerian government bumble into ordering half of the world's concrete supply, by some estimates. The arrival of hundred of cement laden ships effectively shut down the ports in Lagos for over a year,  forcing the Nigerian government to pay huge fines to real and fictitious shipping companies as a result of the delays. Involving corrupt Nigerian officials, wily shipping companies, devious British MPs, a Balkan princess,  a Czech spy, a body in the Thames, and a host of other scalawags from across the globe, the scandal 'cemented' Nigeria's international reputation as an Eldorado of fraud, among its other significant legacies.

In the first of our special series on Nigeria's foundational scams, we go through the major turning points of the scandal, debating its origins and long term impacts. 

Special thanks to @Tay007 who runs the Youtube channel "My fellow Nigerians" from which we cribbed the intro summary of the scandal. Check out his page.  

And, also...

Check out our Patreon for past and future exclusives.

Further Reading:

Legacies of the Cement Armada

Untangling government, market, and investment failure during the Nigerian oil boom: the Cement Armada scandal 1974–1980

(Image courtesy of https://jojonaija.com/cement-armada-affair-how-the-gowon-regime-flooded-lagos-port-with-cements/)

This episode draws out the key debates that came out of James Barnett's (@jh_barnett) reflections in our previous episode, centered on the findings of his in-person interviews with bandits in Zamfara.

The full episode containing our earlier interview with James,  which was free-to-listen for a limited time , is now accessible via our Patreon — which you should check out.

As usual, praise, reviews, feedback and (particularly) criticisms welcomed.

Recent in-depth reporting on Banditry: