On Ten Real Shifts - Again!
INTRODUCTION
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On May 29, 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo became president of Nigeria. Prior to
that date, there had been INCESSANT talk of "power shift, power shift", a
mantra by both Northern and Southern political opportunists, and the
mantra of not a few non-political naifs of the South.
Have we had a power-shift to the South since May 29? Certainly not! It
looks to me more like a Southern political-power outage and ethnic rumbles
in the jungles - OPC, Egbesu, Meinbutu, MASSOB! Ehen, then Northern
reaction - APF, APC, NYAM, etcheram, ad nauseum, all adding their own
excitement to the pot!
But something funny is now happening: we are hearing no longer of power
shift in terms of regions, but generational shift - what with the U-40 PAM
(Progressive Action Movement), the U-50 NIG (National Integration Group)
against the All-Comers Political Parties, the O-60 YCE (Yoruba Council of
Elders), Afenifere, Ohaneze and Arewa Consultative Forum, and the O-70
Patriots! :-) Funny - the language of politics in Nigeria has turned to
the language of soccer.
Power shift ko, power shift ni! Fake shifts all, because power means
nothing if you can't apply it on someone, preferably against his
will. You can't concede what is not your birthright.
How did we really get here? From 1960 to 1966, we had a civilian
government operating a reasonably true federalism which was still under
test, but which was cut short by the January 1966 military coup. Except
for four better-forgotten years under Shagari/Ekwueme of 1979-83, and now
18 months under Obasanjo, that military has ruled our country, certainly
with the collaboration of civilians. Consequently, the military (and the
oligarchy of which it is the armed wing) must share the greatest blame for
the mess that we are in today. If we are to begin to clean up the mess, we
must determine what the real mess was which the military introduced by
their usurpation of power, and which the civilian governments were either
incapable or unwilling to clean up. It is only true shifts from mess to
un-mess that we should consider.
Thus, this is the aim of this essay, to remind us once again of ten such
real shifts, with updates where necessary from back in October 1998 when
it was first written, even before Obasanjo became a candidate. My basic
premise is that in a post-military, un-restructured Nigeria, sporting
parties without ideologies or discipline, without a mandate that can be
adhered to, a shifted rule IS misrule guaranteed.
As a teacher, repetition is no vice.
THE TEN REAL POWER SHIFTS
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1. Power Shift from Un-Constitutionalism to Constitutionalism.
The first act of military usurpation of government is to suspend parts of
the existing Constitution that impede the usurpers' ability to run the
government at will, and to replace them with decrees that include ouster
clauses, backdates, criminalization of current uncriminal acts to snare
opponents, and the like. They proceed to ignore even those portions of
the Constitution that have not been suspended. When they finally decide
reluctantly to leave (usually via a long good-bye), they invoke
Constitution-framing arrangements that are the anti-thesis of a people's
constitution.
Their method is invariable: picking and choosing constitution framers and
putting an unconstitutional seal of approval on a finally doctored
document which quickly becomes a bone of contention. That is how, for
example, we had the 1979 Obasanjo Constitution (in Obasanjo's first
incarnation as a military dictator) and the current 1999 Abacha
constitution which in the past few days, President Obasanjo says provides
us "true federalism."
That undemocratic arrangement of crafting our constitution must be done
away with. THE PROCESS MUST INCLUDE THE MASSES, and that process is even
more important than the PRODUCT. That is why we have called for a
Sovereign National Conference (SNC), whether the government agrees to it
or not. The constitution must flow from discussions of the people (even if
it must build on earlier constitutions) and must be approved by the people
through a referendum, following which it must bind them all until amended
or dumped by the people or their freely-chosen representatives.
After all, the PEOPLE are sovereign, not the Legislature, the Executive or
the Judiciary.
2. Power Shift from Unitary Government to True Federalism.
The very character of military rule requires (or is axiomatically
considered to require) unitary command. This is the anti-thesis of
democratic rule in a diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-religious country such
as Nigeria. We still have the challenge to build a nation from our
country. However, first we must return approximately to the pre-1966
regional arrangement, augmented to six, eight or even ten regions as
federating units, each with its own constitution, each allowed to
determine its smaller unit of governance, whether state, province and/or
local government, each according due recognition to its nationalities
within its borders.
In a true federation, the exclusive powers of the Federal government MUST
be reduced and the concurrent powers with the regions or states
legislatures be enlarged. The federal government's incidental or
supplementary powers must be reduced in favor of government units closer
to the people. Other issues that must be decided in favor of the smaller
governing units include: revenue allocation; access to foreign capital by
the regions; land ownership and use; justiciable bill of individual
citizen's rights including of property ownership and freedom of movement;
formation of, registration of and election contests by political parties;
etc. These must be decided to enable a shift from unitary government to
truly federal government.
Fundamental to true federalism is fiscal (or economic) federalism. The
current system where the federal government uses 80% of all generated fund
for itself (self-generating only about 5% of it) and doles out 15% to the
36 state governments and 5% to the local governemnts is palpably unfair.
3. Power shift from an oligarchy to a people's rule.
Nigeria at independence was handed over by the British to an oligarchy
first reluctant, and then educationally unprepared to rule a complex
country. Legislative ascendancy was given to the reluctant-to-join
Northern Region which had a land-mass of 79% of the territory and a
fraudulently nominal 55% of the population. That Northern oligarchy was
and continues to be welded together by Islam and the Hausa language -
coupled with personal greed and paranoia of eternal domination due to
educational disadvantage. The naive educated but small elite of the South
constituted itself into its own formless and often-times conflicted
oligarchy, too eager for independence and naively confident of its ability
to ultimately win back its grand legislative compromise. However, soon it
settled instead for selfish and ethnic war-lordism rather than
statesmanship, showing its willingness at every turn for deals and
compromises and temporary alliances with other oligarchies, and
out-manouvered by its more wily counterpart north of the Niger.
This interplay of unprincipled opportunism of a select elite has largely
determined the trajectory of the politics of Nigeria. There must be a
power shift BACK to the people: "The People Must Govern!" - as the cry
goes. At all levels of government, the Nigerian people must be given their
credible voice back.
4. Power shift from cronyism to meritocracy.
I once related the story of a NITEL (Nigerian Telephone company) high
official, a Yoruba visitor to my US home, who spent a whole hour defending
NITEL's inefficiency, blaming it all on the indiscipline and thievery of
telephone lines of the ordinary Nigerian user. The moment the discussion
changed to cronyism and tribalism in the Nigerian civil and parastatal
services, the level of bitterness and anger that came from his own
personal experience at NITEL was indescribable - he bitterly told of how
this young "Northerner" was brought in from nowhere to be his boss despite
his umpteen years in service, how he had to play along because he was
retiring soon, etc, ad nauseum. He could not hide the fact that he did
not see his job as worth doing because of the injustice he felt. Case
closed. I smiled secretly.
Only this week, it was reported in a newspaper in Nigeria that Mallam
Adamu Ciroma, once governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) surprised
everyone and confessed at the first monetary policy forum of the CBN in
Abuja that he was not qualified to be governor at the time he was
appointed into the "exalted position." [Post Express, 11/25/2000]. One
wonders the effects of that lack of qualification. One wonders how many
others were there. One wonders......
Until we elevate merit as the sole criterion for promotion to high office
without discounting affirmative action, and distinguish between
opportunity from favoritism, dissatisfaction and resentment will seize the
day in Nigeria.
5. Powershift from dictat to electoralism.
With military governance come dictat, fiat and decrees, and selection to
office rather than election. The people must choose their representatives
in free-and-fair periodic elections, and must through those
representatives, legislative and judicial, set and enforce their social,
economic and political laws. When the outcome of elections become
INEVITABLE even before a single vote is cast - as the May 29 presidential
election in Nigeria and its immediate aftermath were - it serves to
discourage the electorate of the integrity of the process.
6. Power shift from oil monoculture to a diversified economy.
With 100 million people and $30 million per day from oil which constitutes
virtually 80% of our GNP, Nigeria is an oil-rich country, but not a rich
country, certainly not at 30 cents per person per day, even assuming 100%
use of the oil income. Consequently, the options we have are both to
INVEST some of the 30 cents per day wisely until it gets to 50 cents, 100
cents, etc., and also to increase the pie away from oil to include
agricultural and industrial products.
Prior to the discovery of oil, cocoa in the West, coal and palm oil to the
East, rubber in the midwest and groundnuts in the North meant that there
was mutual dependence and respect for our toiling compatriots. Now, our
overdependence on oil - which employs only 0.1-0.5% of our labour force -
reduces interdependence among our people and excerbates the oppression of
the people under whose soil we produce the oil. We must re-diversify our
economy to add value to products from our lands, our seas and our air
through our sweat, our blood and our brains.
7. Power shift from foreign domination to international cooperation.
As stated before, the British left Nigeria's rulership with an oligarchy,
both feudal and elitist, which act has ensured the neo-colonialism which
exists today, aided and abetted by our monoculture of oil.
Deep down, the Western powers care little for how well developing
countries are governed, provided there is ready access to the wealth of
those nations. This is why it is worrisome that the recently announced
Presidential Advisory Council on Business Investment in Nigeria is
populated by foreigners and even chaired by one! It is unbelievable.
Nevertheless, the constitutions of these western powers contain idealistic
statements which can be used to tug at the conscience of their leaders to
put brakes on their excesses. Who can for example quarrel with the USA's
respect for the "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? This was the
main strategy of the Nigerian pro-democracy movement abroad during
Abacha's reign of terror - putting brakes on the excesses of the Western
powers, even if they would not do our bidding wholesale and jeopardize
their investments.
Nigeria's role in the international community must be in concentric
circles of important communities - the West African community, the
Sub-Saharan sub-region, the African Continent, the Black Diaspora and then
the much larger international community. Just as wars flow across
borders, we must make the peace in Nigeria flow across borders. We must
never allow again the ridiculous situation where Nigeria exported (e.g to
Sierra Leone) the democracy that it did not have and imported from the
world the oil that it had. With a progressive government, diversified
economy and respect for human rights, Nigeria will take its rightful place
in the comity of nations.
8. Power shift from military to civilian rule.
This is the most important SHIFT - a PERMANENT shift from military to
civilian rule - otherwise all the other shifts make no sense. WE must
have a lean, professional, respectable and respected military. Only
credible structures to limit politicians' excesses, to ensure professional
restraint by the military and and to promote the establishment of an
enlightened (and activist) citizenry to make both political and military
classes accountable, all with respect for the rule of law, can prevent the
return of the military.
9. Power shift from dishonesty & crass materialism to truthful and
tolerant God-fearingness.
Sir Thomas More's friend, Busleiden, in his introductory letter to More's
'Utopia' re-adumbrated Plato's Four Cardinal Virtues for establishing the
ideal commonwealth when he wrote that there must be "Wisdom in the ruler,
Fortitude in the Soldiers, Temperance in private individuals, and Justice
in all". Added to these heathen virtues are St. Paul's Three Christian
Virtues of Faith, Hope and Love (Charity) as outlined in his 1st Epistle
to the Corinthians. Other tenets of your favorite religion - including of
course traditional African - that are NOT INCOMPATIBLE with the Three
Christian Virtues and the four heathen virtues (which can be considered a
model for conduct in secular matters) above can be added here.
10. Power shift from a country to a nation.
To quote Awo, Nigeria is a mere geographical expression, a country created
by the British. So true, so very true! It is our task - if we don't
faint doing it - in fact, our duty, to intentionally forge a nation of
shared values from our countries of nationalities. Those who claim
loudest that they are more "nationalistic" than other Nigerians merely
deceive themselves. Only the above shifts - and maybe a few others - will
make our country truly into a nation, and make it the promised strongest
(Black) nation on Earth.
EPILOGUE
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In closing, I strongly believe that it is all the above shifts what we
should be talking about, not dithering on the banal "power shift to the
South", or generational shift from the O-70 to U-40. That is a trick to
divert our attention from the real thing. What we need are not merely
PAMS and NIGS and YCEs etc. but NILs - Nigerian Integrity Lists, with
sizes greater than nil - that cut across all ages and all regions and all
political ideologies and recognize the above true shifts.
The country belongs to us all.
The writer is a well known commentator on national and international affairs
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