Democracy: Bonding With The People

By 

Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi

The most poignant definition of democracy was that given by Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg. He defined democracy as GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, AND FOR THE PEOPLE. Joe lgbokwe one of our most articulate and consistent public commentators in one of his recent articles has pointed out that this definition of democracy is not original to Lincoln. In fact, he gives an impressive genealogy of this definition of democracy. But it is to Lincoln that the world owes the veneration of this particular definition, so simple and yet so evocative of sacrifice.

Abraham Lincoln did not give this definition at an election campaign, or at an official or state dinner or at an inauguration marked by pomp and grandeur. He gave this definition at the Gettysburg battlefield, in the midst of the stench, blood and carnage associated with war. Like most of us, Lincoln must have been baffled at what could have impelled men to have made the ultimate sacrifice in thousands. There are times that we seem to forget that soldiers are made up of ordinary human beings whose first natural inclination is survival. Or to put it in Fela’s irrepressible and immortal words, we seem to forget that "uniform na cloth, na tailor de make am." Surrounded by a battlefield littered with the wastage of human life, out of the mystification of his own soul, Lincoln came close to despair to make some sense out of it all. Some will argue that a civil war fought to abolish slavery justifies the sacrifice. But would several thousand white men lay down their lives in order to end slavery? Some will argue that a civil war to keep the United States united needed no further justification. Maybe. But Lincoln felt that neither reason fully explained that field of carnage. Rightly or wrongly, Lincoln felt that what motivated Americans to lay down their lives in such huge numbers was their belief that they were fighting for a government of the people, by the people and for the people. In the words of Lincoln, "we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth

And this may explain why the United States is the most politicised society in quaint ways that mystify non-Americans. Every American house has an American flag flying on a mast. In every building, public and private, there is an American flag. In every school, public and private, and at every function, public or private, there is a recitation of the American pledge—an oath of allegiance. At every public function, even of a private organization such as a football or baseball match, the American national anthem is sung whether a government official is present or not. The military parade down the main street after a successful military outing reminiscent of a victorious Roman army returning to Rome; the parade down the main street of a beauty queen, even if she was only Miss Secondary School surrounded by military guard from the local battalion are quintessential American politics. The cross-country tour by an American President, not to commission projects, but to sell an idea to the American people, conveys the impression of a sitting American President for ever on a campaign tour. For example, President Bush who has been in the White House for about seventy-five days has spent thirty days on the road lobbying America for his tax cut legislation.

I am not unaware that both one-party states, whether of the communist or fascist variety, put on an impressive flag-display of patriotism that fools nobody, not even the state apparathick in charge of organizing the show. Whereas, the American model has been so woven into the psyche of the individual American that as Professor Higgins said in My Fair Lady, "it is like breathing in and breathing out".

So far, there has been no mention of those other attributes of democracy. These are free elections, the executive, the legislature and the free judiciary. Elections belong to the category of process of democracy, while the institutions of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary belong to the structures of democracy. Both the process and the structure of democracy are important. But they will not be the focus of my lecture, even though they will be brought into the text when they are needed to reinforce the central theme of this lecture which is that elections form only a part of the democratic process, and that an essential and critical ingredient of that process is a mechanism that creates a consciousness within the body politic that the individual counts, not only at election times, not only at times of great debates but at every moment in the life of the Republic.

The relationship between the public and the ruling elite in a democracy has never been straight forward. There are systems which have perfected the use of referendum to resolve critical and at times, not so critical issues. A state such as France which because of a heritage of revolutions has often resorted to referendums to perpetuate that tradition of a people’s democracy. Another state, such as Switzerland, which has ethno-national cleavages, makes liberal uses of referendum to create national consensus. Such a stalwart repository of representative system such as the United Kingdom, has resorted in recent years to use of referendum to tackle issues of European unity and devolution; the latter leading to the emergence of regional assemblies for Wales and Scotland. As against the use of referendum to accentuate participatory democracy are the advocates of representative democracy who argue that once elections have taken place, the people should leave their representatives alone to use their common sense to take positions on legislation that come before Parliament or National Assembly or Congress.

Staunch advocates of representative democracy probably reflect a time when issues were more settled, when society was more settled, and when events were more or less predictable. A cursory look at the world which we live in today will however not provide a simple picture. Globalization and the state of information technology have on one hand led to a situation where officials charged with performing state functions on a twenty-four hour basis even lack the time to think before they have to take decisions not to talk about consulting the public or even the elected representatives of the people. This tends to militate against the concept of participatory democracy. Fortunately, the area where this is most operative is in the national security sphere where governments have usually had more latitude to operate. You may regard it as ironic that where it concerns building a local road, the government could be tied up for years in consultations and what have you, whereas when it comes to an issue involving armed conflict with a foreign country, that may eventually lead to thousands of death, there are fewer constraints on governments. On the other hand, there are issues which before were wholly within the competence of domestic governments on which elections could be fought and won, but are now under the competence of international or supranational institutions such as unification of currencies, control of industrial carbon emissions, membership of supra-national parliaments which are so fundamental that few governments wish to alienate voters by taking decisive steps without direct consultation with the voters. Hence, this trend strengthens recourse to participatory democracy.

Let us be frank. Am I insinuating that there is now a surrender or that there should be a surrender to passion rather than the reasoned ambiance of representative politics? For all that is said and written about democratic politics, politics has always been an elitist preoccupation in two ways. Robert Michels, a French political philosopher, published a book titled, "Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchial Tendencies of Modern Democracies", where he compared and contrasted the roles of the elite and the masses in any modern political system:

There is no exaggeration in the assertion that among the citizens who enjoy political rights, the number of those who have a lively interest in public affairs is insignificant. In the life of modern democratic parties we may observe signs of similar indifference. it is only a minority which participates in party decisions and sometimes that is mainly ludicrously small... The consequence is that, in the political groupings of democracy , the participation in party has an echeloned aspect.

Secondly, Michels points out that even where the masses get seized of an issue, they still need the elite to define the issue and to define the parameters of the solution. The elite vis-à-vis the masses perform a canalization function where they channel the views of the masses along parameters that can be acted upon. Masses without leadership is a mob. The situation can be further illustrated thus: the views of the masses at its raw stage can be likened to a flood. Left to its own devices, the flood can be, destructive, leveling everything in its path. But build a dam, construct canals, and the same destructive waters will provide, electricity and will provide irrigation. The elite is the dam to the wishes of the masses.

But irrespective of the role of the elite, God help the nation that takes the people for granted, that makes the people feel that the priorities of government and the political parties are not their own, and God help the nation that tells its people to eat cake if they cannot afford bread.

Nations that emphasize elections and the structures of democracy are putting their emphasis on the representative aspects of democracy, while those who emphasize continuous dialogue and consultation with the.. people are putting their emphasis on participatory democracy. Earlier on, I have listed three categories of states which resort to participatory forms of democracy. For emphasis, I will restate the categories here: firstly are states which have internal cleavages; secondly, are states with a heritage of revolutions; and thirdly, are states faced with issues of a fundamental nature.

Is a resort to a system of referendum the only avenue to accentuate participatory democracy? Obviously not. I have started this lecture with copious references to the political practices in the United States which as far as I am aware has never resorted to a national referendum. Yet, the interaction between American politicians and the individual voter, probably conditioned by that individuality of the American frontiersman, comes closest to the individual referendum syndrome. In addition is the practice of states and counties holding referendums on single issues at election times. If Abraham Lincoln, the 16th United States President, gave us the simplest and the best definition of democracy, I submit that the United States model of participatory democracy comes closet to the best implementation of that concept.

We in Nigeria are no strangers to the theory and practice of democracy. This is not the place and time to go into pre-colonial African and Nigerian political systems to identify the democratic practices around which the check and balances operated within a monarchical system. Since the colonial times, democracy in Africa and in Nigeria had followed the participatory model. The struggle for independence was facilitated by freedom rallies that were followed by political rallies once parties were allowed. Political rallies are not the same as campaign rallies. Campaign rallies which were organized by the political parties were of dual purposes. Firstly, they served the purpose of familiarizing the people with the aims, aspirations and manifestoes of the various political parties and movements. Secondly, they served canvassing purposes: to seek electoral support for the programmes of the canvassing party. But there was a third type of rally which I would call mobilization rallies. ..These were the rallies held, not for the purpose of opening bridges, nor of commissioning projects, even though these may be attached as part of the programme, but the primacy purpose was to renew the bond between the people and the politician, and to re-energise the bond between the people and the system; to remind the people that this was your government, put in place by you and for you.

The pre-independence political rallies proved to be an effective tool against the colonial authority in undermining the legitimacy not only against the authority but also against colonialism and imperialism as ideologies. How far have we been prepared to use this as a tool against the concept of militarism? But I am afraid, I am getting ahead of myself.

During military rule, between 1966 and 1979, and between 1983 and 1993, there were no mobilization rallies. We later resorted to mobilization rallies after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 Presidential elections and this lasted until the end of the Abacha regime in 1998. Since the return of civilian rule in May 1999, mobilization rallies seemed to have gone the way of God and soldiers in peacetime—consigned to memory lane.

It should not come as a surprise that there were no mobilization rallies during the Gowon period. Even if there were any misgivings about the desirability of military rule, and there were none, there was no national consensus around which to mobilize. The same thing could be said for the Murtala—Obasanjo period. The initial euphoria that welcomed the Buhari-Idiagbon regime was soon replaced by fear and terror, and its tenure of twenty months was too short for any mobilization activities to have materialized. The Babangida regime that followed for the next eight years so totally conquered and dominated its environment that no mobilization activity was contemplated or undertaken. The political rallies that attended the electoral transition programme of the Babangida regime were not nurtured to sustain the anti-annulment movement who had to re-create mobilization forces of their own. I was told by one of the principal actors of the June 12 annulment that he was expecting the whole country to be paralysed by rallies and demonstrations in protest at the annulment. He was surprised when these did not take place.

Perhaps, it is pertinent here to raise the issue as to why mobilisation was not an issue under military regimes until General Abacha came on the scene. Obviously, there will be special reasons for each of the regimes. For the Gowon regime, three special reasons can he adduced. Firstly, such was the fear of the military by civilians that the idea of an anti-military mobilization rally did not cross anyone’s mind. This factor of fear was reinforced by the peculiarly bloody nature of the January coup and the July counter-coup. Secondly, a military coup was such a unique experience in Nigeria that it needed time for the political class to internalize it. Thirdly, the civil war that came on the heels of the counter-coup was not conducive to civilian political activities. Fourthly, if the truth be told, the January coup that triggered off everything was very popular as the public felt that the political class has discredited itself. By 1975, when Gowon was overthrown, the environment was ripe for the civilians to mobilize against his regime as students and the labour movement-Obasanjo regime was extremely popular. In fact, the first and only mobilization exercise ever carried out to protest a coup d’etat was during this regime when University of Lagos students poured out in spontaneous demonstration on hearing the radio statement of Colonel Dimka announcing the attempted overthrow of the regime. It must be emphasized that those demonstrations took place before the military had crushed the attempted coup d’etat. That the Buhari-Idiagbon regime did not witness any anti-military mobilization exercise was due to three factors. Firstly, that coup was initially popular because it was directed against a government that claimed electoral victory under controversial circumstances. Secondly, that regime struck fear and terror into the hearts of Nigerians. Thirdly, the period of its stay in office was too short before it was overthrown through a palace coup. The Babangida regime lasted for eight years, 1985-1993, and witnessed no civilian mobilization exercise. I don’t have enough time and there is not enough space to attempt to explain how and why Babangida managed to dominate his environment so totally that the civilian class could not mobilize against him. Part of the reason was his ability to identify potential civilian institutional opposition, split that opposition and render it impotent. Part of the reason was also that he was the master of a charm strategy that was effective.

I must put in a word of explanation here: I am not implying that there were no protests or demonstrations by one pressure group or the other for some reason or the other. But, there was no anti-military coalition focused on mobilizing the civil populace on an anti-military crusade.

However for all the multifarious reasons given above, there is one overriding one: the civil political class was unable to build an anti-military consensus around which the civil population could be mobilized. The fact of the matter is the 'dog in the manger syndrome' that pervades Nigerian politics. At any point in time, half of the political class was glad to see the military keeping the other half from power. At any point in time calculations as to who will be the beneficiary will determine who will join or will not join such a consensus. Until the political class can reach a collective consensus that its collective interests are not served by military intervention, building such a consensus will always be an impossible task. But also equally important is the other side of the coin which is bonding with the people in such a way that the civil populace will perceive its interests as being part of that consensus.

The closest this country has got to pursuing an anti-military rule crusade was the crusade for the actualization of the June 12 mandate.

It was not the best of times neither was it the worst of times. It was a national mandate because M. K. 0. Abiola won among voters all over the country. Some have accused the South-West of hijacking the struggle for the actualization of Abiola’s mandate. If Abiola has made it to Aso Rock, I bet you that no section of this country would have allowed itself to be denied access to the Presidency. The critical question is how did others who could justifiably claim to be the ones responsible for the June 12 mandate somehow become invisible when it came to fighting for that mandate? Nobody was specially recruited for that cause. We were all volunteers. And yet when it came to fighting for that mandate, there was no more national consensus around which to coalesce. This is a lesson worth learning before more castles are built in the air. Obviously, it was possible for Abiola to build a national mandate, but such was the fragility of its base that it could not withstand the onslaught of negative forces.

Now we are almost two years into a democratic experiment and what is the verdict?

Firstly, those who assumed the reins of power after the military rule were not those who fought for the cause. This is not a case of being a sore loser or a hankering for the spoils of office. The point is more fundamental than that. Those who fought for a cause, who suffered for it and who made sacrifices for it, are most likely to have developed a clarity about the alternative they are pursuing and the awful consequences of failure if they failed to keep the faith. NADECO spent years in strategy meetings that often lasted until dawn fashioning out alternative strategies to military rule and fashioning a blue-print for an alternative to a militarized Nigeria. In missing out in the struggle for power, NADECO lost the opportunity to implement a vision and Nigeria lost an opportunity to have men of vision in charge.

Secondly, the over-all national debate has continued to revolve around the nationality issue which has now metamorphosed into the struggle for a Sovereign National Conference, Resource Control and the Restructuring of Nigeria. I have structured this sentence this way to highlight the fact that even though each of those terms is often used as an all embracing term, each one has a different meaning. Whatever we want to achieve, the Sovereign National Conference is not an end in itself, it is a means for achieving the other goals. This lecture is not going to be about the Sovereign National Conference, Resource Control or Restructuring of Nigeria. These are very important issues, critical issues that need to be addressed, that must be addressed and that will be addressed irrespective of what obstacles and impediments must be overcome.

But I would have thought that at the end of prolonged military rule, the political class would have got together to address this fundamental issue of building a bonding consensus in the nation. We tend to think that we have gone through only 29 years of military rule. However, I have been privileged to write a forward to an interesting forthcoming book on the Nigerian Constitution by Chief Olawale Kuye. In that book, Chief Kuye comes up with an interesting argument which is that Nigeria has not been free of military rule since January 1966 because even during those periods when we were being ruled by the civil political class, it was under constitutions that were deliberately crafted by the military as to constitute unworkable time bombs. If you believe this to be too farfetched to be true, then let me invite your attention to the following facts about the 1999 constitution. Firstly, for the first time in Nigerian history, we had a whole transition without a constitution. During the transition that led to the termination of colonial rule, Nigeria had a constitution. During the transition that led to the birth of the second republic, we had he Obasanjo Constitution. During the transition that led to the Presidential election of June 12, 1993, we had the Babangida Constitution. But all the elections, including the Presidential elections of 1999 were conducted without knowing the terms of the constitution under which the elected officials would govern.

My original point is that following such a long military interregnum, the civil political class would have regarded it as one of its top priority programmes the construction of a consensual bonding of interests between democracy and the people as an anti-military antidote. Yet, a President who won an election under such controversial circumstances such that the international observer team refused to certify the election results and a recently released United States Department of State report on the election was ready to discount Obasanjo’s votes by 15% had made it part of his mandate to be the stumbling block to a dialogue among the Nigerian nationalities. Even after it looked like advocates of the Sovereign National Conference were prepared to drop the term "sovereign", the President has now shifted the goal post by insisting that he would not tolerate even a National Conference. The President’s preferred method of a recourse to the judicial system for a resolution of what is basically a political issue — resource control — has had the potentially disastrous effect of bringing the Supreme Court into hot waters as some groups have now started to question the credibility and legitimacy of the Court on regional and ethnic grounds.

As important as these constitutional issues are, the more immediate problem with enormous bonding capability is the problem of unemployment. Yes, employment could be perceived in terms of jobs and salaries. But it is more than this. I perceive unemployment in terms of its psychological impact on the individual. It attacks the basic root of the worth of the individual as it denies the individual the basic ability to feed oneself, clothe oneself, and constitute the basic family unit. The individual loses faith in himself, and loses faith in his country. The consequences

*are disastrous for the individual and the nation. The individual may resort to suicide, crime, violence, armed robbery or revolution in desperation. The damage to the nation is incalculable. We have become a nation of area boys and area girls, 4l9ers, and a nation whose womanhood has a reputation in Europe if I may be allowed to put it that delicately. Let me put it as emphatically as I can. To an unemployed youth, controversy about Sovereign National Conference, Resource Control, Restructuring etc is as related to his needs as Nigeria landing on the moon.

Santayana in his famous saying warned that nations who refuse to learn from history are for ever condemned to repeating its mistakes. In the recent history of the world, recent in terms of seventy years, we have two examples of how to cope and how not to cope with massive unemployment, during the same period. Germany faced with massive unemployment to which she could not design bold and imaginative answers ended up with Hitler and fascism and unleashed the second world war and the holocaust on the world. The United States faced with the same problem was fortunate to have elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt who propounded what came to be called the New Deal. He got the United States back to work, convinced Americans that democracy and not fascism could adequately address their concerns, and most of all that America cared.

Nigeria has the two options before it. I most respectfully suggest that Nigeria should take the road traveled by Franklin Roosevelt in this regard. The Federal, State and Local Governments should among themselves agree to a massive employment scheme designed to be labour intensive. This issue is not addressed by projects that heavy machinery-oriented. The argument that small scale construction companies take too long on the job or perform shoddy jobs have to do with inadequate government manpower to supervise those jobs. If governments would contract out technical supervisory functions to the private professional sector, the small scale construction companies would perform adequately.

I would therefore propose a National Employment Scheme along the following lines:

The Federal Government should authorize the private sector to increase employment opportunities by employing about 15% of its present workforce at government expense even such employment would be regarded as attachment training.

The Federal Government should extend the National Youth Service Corps from one year to two-year duration, and include all post-secondary school graduates in its coverage.

The Federal Government should authorize each local government to recruit about 1000 extra hands, even if this would be at the artisan level. There is so much decay and neglect, especially in rural areas, that these artisans could be gainfully employed in beautification, qualification and rehabilitation programmes.

The Federal Government should embark on a beautification programme of all its expressways where the median is overgrown with weeds. These contracts should be awarded to small-scale contractors: each contractor being awarded only about five miles of road

There are agencies of government such as NITEL and NEPA which are service and revenue agencies with the capacity to generate employment. Unfortunately, this capacity is not being utilized. Instead of employing more hands to distribute bills, to effect reconciliation and to effect repairs, NITEL shifts the entire burden on to consumers. It has only one penalty: disconnection of lines. I am not sure NITEL realizes that every non-functioning line means a loss of revenue to it. Surely NITEL could employ one accounts officer for each 200 lines to distribute monthly bills, ensure that payments are reconciled, and ensure that faults are promptly attended to. More technical assistants could be employed to ensure that lines are constantly maintained and faults promptly rectified.

The ward is the constituency closest to our people, and if the political elite wants to exhibit the dividends of democracy with the greatest demonstrative effect, then each level of government should as a matter of deliberate policy locate a project in each ward in the remaining two years, even if it is a bore hole here, a drain pipe there, a rehabilitated primary school somewhere else. This does not have to be something expensive or fanciful. To insulate the exercise from partisan politics, and to effect these bonding stimulus, the choice of which wards would be the beneficiary and at what time should be conducted at each Local Government level by relays of school children picking the wards.

Nigeria is a frightened and frightening state inhabited by frightened and frightening people. We are suspicious of each other, we are suspicious of government and government is suspicious of its own people. A season of anomie is what we have. The reason for this is that we practice the politics of ambush: The people don’t know what the government is up to. The government does not know what the people are up to. Even the government does not know what it is up to. Seriously, though we inherited from the British, a tradition of government springing surprises on the opposition, and the people. The British style of government is basically a secretive one where government ambushes the opposition all the time. Unlike in the United States where the dates of election are fixed and known to all, it is the prerogative of the British Prime Minister to pick the dates of local and national elections. In such a settled nation such as the United Kingdom where most issues are settled and framework fixed, politics by ambush can be tolerated. But in such a state as Nigeria where nothing fundamental has been resolved, we cannot afford to continue the politics of government by ambush. Within a strife and crisis ridden developmental political system such as ours, there is a need for a 25 year political and economic agenda for this nation subscribed to by all the nationalities of this nation. Part of what breeds suspicion and recrimination is the lack of knowledge about the government’s programme, and what is even more important, about government’s intention. It is one thing for one to be aware that government is building three refineries in states ABC in 2001, it is another thing to know that it is being balanced by building three steel mills in states DEF in 2001, while states GHJ will get three airports in 2002. It is important that not only these projects but the prioritization of them should have been agreed to by all parties and nationalities, and that who ever forms the government will faithfully implement them.

There may be a feeling that perhaps things are not as bad as to sound this alarmist. My views are perhaps not as alarmist as they ought to be. Karl Meier in his book on Nigeria, ‘titled "THIS HOUSE HAS FALLEN: MIDNIGHT IN NIGERIA", thinks that the House called Nigeria has already fallen. Nigeria in its short 40 years history has already witnessed a genocide which if it had happened now rather than in 1966 would have led to a United Nations Tribunal on Crimes Against Humanity along the lines of those set up on Yugoslavia and on Rwanda. Nigeria had gone through a civil war where casualties may have run into over a million. We have gone through a peculiarly nasty and brutal military regime, the like of which we had never witnessed before. Through the Oputa panel and several on-going court cases, we have had a glimpse into what went on during that regime. But please believe me when I say that we still have not been told the full details about the crimes against humanity perpetrated by that regime. I have a fear that the Nigerian propensity for impatience might force us to pull the curtain on that regime. In fact, some voices have already being raised in some quarters that the principle of "speak no ill of the dead" should lead to a closure of criticism of and closure of trials about the Abacha regime. Let me state quite clearly here that the principle of" De mortuis nil nisi bonum" is a universal norm that is not limited to any culture or religion. And yet, over fifty years after the end of the second world war, people in Europe are still being tried for crimes committed during that war. Books are still being written about Adolf Hitler and other henchmen of NAZI Germany, sixty years after their death. Japanese historians are also still writing about that period of their history. From the Latin form of the principle, one would be correct to trace the saying to the Roman Empire. In fact, although credited to Chilo, it has been traced to Diogenes Laertius who lived around A. D. 200. If history from Roman times to now has been faithful to that principle, would Shakespeare have written about Cassius, Brutus, Iago and some of the other atrocious historical characters that we know of? Let no one, in the name of religion, in the name of culture or in the name of reconciliation impose a state of national amnesia on Nigeria about what happened during the Abacha period.

When we look back at our history, we will not be far wrong in concluding that the people have paid a terrible price for Nigeria.