Engagement with the Nigerian Left

About three years ago, a young comrade of mine who was then a student of History and International Relations at the Federal University Lafia, Nassarawa State of Nigeria, asked me a loaded personal question. He told me he prepared the question after consultation with one of his lecturers who had been following my public writings. The part of his question that is of immediate relevance here can be reframed like this: Why is it that my published writings are mainly, if not exclusively, on “socialism”, “Marxism” and “revolution”? And why is my method “historical” and my style “pedagogical”?
In response, I thanked the young man and –through him – his teacher for their correct observation. I then gave a provisional summary answer. That answer was that my published writings constitute an integral part of my revolutionary struggle and have never been an independent engagement – as far as I could remember, or more strictly, since I became a socialist and a revolutionary Marxist. I told them that I did not set out or aspire to be a “writer” but a revolutionary Marxist in a historical setting where popular education, revolutionary pedagogy and militant defence of socialism were part of the continuous duty of a revolutionary. What had been observed in my writings must be a product of my history as a revolutionary, I told my interrogators.

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