Entropy in the Polity
Lets have some silence, please. Its question time. What is the colour of democracy? Green, Purple, blue, yellow, black or red?
Perhaps, all of the above? Well, yes, yes... the answer is any of these colours depending on the country and the people under consideration.
In America and elsewhere, democracy is of the green hue donating a lush verdant of political peace and abundance in the virtues of popular government. So, what is the colour of democracy in Africa? Red? Just that. But in Nigeria, it is crimson red, signifying a polity in atrophy. Mind you, this is not the assessment of a high noon alarmist. Never. Or how else could you sum up the precipitate entropy in our polity. Like an overheated catacomb, the nations political matrix is in an eternal state of entropy, utter disorder and chaos.
In analytical chemistry, entropy is a state of disorderliness in a system. The same can be said of the Nigerian political system in the past 17 months or thereabout. The subsisting bedlam and confusion are daily gnawing at the foundation, making the entire political structure anaemic, almost.
With the birth of democracy, we had taught, we have seen the last of urban violence. Ethno-religious uprisings, brazen banditry and inequity in the distribution of resources. But each passing day, the reverse appears the case. Violence is still our second nature. Ethnic and religious upheaval have become the only enduring sign posts on our highways and byways. Banditry has staged a come back with fresh fervour and equity has taken flight to far-off places.
In our home grown democracy, justice has transformed to a highly prized jewel only fit for the affluent. Take a teaser. In Zamfara State where the Islamic legal code, Sharia, is an opium, a certain citizen Buba Jangede had his arm chopped off for allegedly stealing a cow. In the best of times, a cow can't cost more than N30,000. Poor Jangede would not have got a better deal seeing he does not have a healthy purse to buy justice. Yet, out of the same Zamfara are spewing forth a subterfuge of reports on inflated bills running into millions of naira by government officials while the Sharia enforcers look the other way.
No. 1 disagree. It is not true that democracy is a fodder for violence. But, it is true that it guarantees freedom worship, association and speech, this is, of course in consonance with the provisions of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But neither democracy nor the constitution stipulates that such association or worship should be used as a weapon to unleash violence on the people. Here again, is the weakness of our democracy, grossly circumscribed by the ambiguity of the constitution. For while the constitution endorses freedom of worship and association, it was silent on what we make out of such freedom.
This explains why a gang of gung-ho men would mass into the streets to maim and to kill. When a morbid band of bad boys under the aegis of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) held Lagosians hostage recently, they drew strength and protection from the constitution. In fact, their progenitors readily raced to section 40 of the 1999 constitution which proclaims freedom of association to seek refuge.
The Lagos violence is a mere replay of similar bloody dust-ups in different parts of the country. Early, this year in Kaduna, a whiff of furry wafted through the air in yet another ethno-religious uprising during which the once serene Kaduna ambience was tuned to a macabre dunghill of death. Lives, human lives were wasted at the snap of the fingers. Property were destroyed in the most tragi-comic manner such that you wouldn't know whether to cry or laugh.
Expectedly, the Kaduna carnage threw up a backlash of reprisals in the South East where the news of the their kinsmen being killed in the former capital of
the Northern region sent hot adrenaline sloshing through the veins of Ndigbo. The result was more death and pain in the polity.
Since the journey to democracy started, the nation has gone through a peristalsis of self-induced convulsion. If it is not ethnic feud, it is religious
umbrage. And when it is not violent precipitated by increase in fuel prices, it is political acrimony pitting the executive against the legislature.
Why, for heavens sake are we over-heating the system and making democracy assume the temper and temperament of boiling water in a kettle set on a gas burner-
volatile and effervescent?
The truth is, it will be no gain to anyone here if democracy fails. Not even the military with an inveterate penchant to seize power in the name of righting
the wrongs of the civil class. Democracy is a pristine political expression which is fast becoming a way of life in developing countries.
It thrives on the strength of the common good of all. And such good must be the product of representative efforts. Stuck in the underbelly of democracy is
disagreement. But such disagreement must be void of any form of rabidness or vindictiveness.
Yet 17 clear months into democracy, both the executive and the legislature are still behaving in a manner that suggests we are still tied to the apron of dictatorship. These two arms of government are not disagreeing, they are indeed fighting. Strangely, there is no let up yet in the fray. And as they fight, we faint. We faint from hunger and despair on the streets, in our homes and in the work places. Our cars fail on the usually rough highways because there is no fuel to power them. Never mind that the country is still ranked the sixth largest producer of crude oil in the world.
We fought so hard to get democracy. Now, we are fighting even harder to make it unworkable. Such a pathetic paradox. For every cool breath we take, we let out
a hail of hot, horrid air into the political system. That is what we have succeeded in doing these past 17 years: creating entropy in the polity. And I fear.
The writer is based in Lagos, Nigeria