Transition, Politics and Nigeria’s search for sustainable Democracy

By 

Chimaroke Nnamani

Without any fear of contradiction, I can say that there is no one in this hall who has not expressed concern about what shape and manner of behaviour that best suits Nigeria to commence her journey of nationhood. It is no longer attractive to take the resting chair and criticise the system since we have realised that the proper track to national direction will not be carved from outside of the state and that better chance abound for the state in Nigerians decide to think creatively as The Post Express has set out to do right now.

You may be surprised to know today as was the previous time that we had run a nation on the culture of non-conceptualisation of our system and the institutions for operation. Many may not quickly accept it but we have unfortunately operated in the dark days of military dictatorship without a dream, without a thought, and without a vision. Sine Visio, Sine (cogitasione) cogitatione, sine Visio, the Romans would say. back there in the East my people will say, a loghi no nlo; e cheghi eche; e bughi n’amuma. This had be extension given us a state which had no thought for principle and so had run without values. Unfortunately this had produced for us the hobesina state where the culture of common interests run without conscience. In doing this we had dangerously ignored the universal directive that the state finds better meaning and direction "if each of cu puts in common his person and his whole power under the supreme direction of the general will, and in return we receive, every member, as an indivisible part of the whole, the gains of communal security, amenities and direction.

Now, doesn’t this agree with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Consider Chapter 11, 14, 2(b): the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government… and (c) the participation by the people in their government shall be ensured in a accordance with the provisions of this constitution.

We may raise a question on why we have to accord recognition to a person or a group in leadership. Taken for grated, every citizen can become a governor in his house. But we have all elected to put our powers in the hands of some of us. That is that we have decided to let one man act for us and in good faith. That is why we give way when a governor or senator or president drives into the road. Such power is one to act for us and in extension, decided for us. That explicit trust must be reciprocated by working to satisfy the people who put us there. This is one single reason we must not take votes for granted.

At a time when every party of the globe had woken to the real meaning of sovereignty and had explored the whole possibilities of brining out the entire potentials of the group we had, in our lack of learning, followed the dark path of maximum rule. That way, we had left no meaning of the state for the common people who actually are in the known pact (social contract) with their sovereign. But in a situation where the sovereign – whatever it represents – fails in self recognition and definition, it is obvious that it will fail in appreciating its parts and seeking an expression worthy of its name for its units.

Such sovereign may be quite luck to have another chance in learning, in expressing and building principle which shall form its culture. It is now left for the custodians of the values or the sovereign to fulfill that role or waste it. It is just as straight as Fanon’s "generation from relative obscurity" and the chances to fulfill or waste it.

This actually is the context in which I view this lecture on Transition politics and Nigeria’s search for sustainable Democracy. Sincerely, I quite agree with The Post Express on the need to take to public the question of transiting Nigeria from her blown and stagnated chances to the path of growth and development. I consider that they have this tremendous foresight in detecting that Nigeria had arrived at the crossroads and so must cross over or wait or get the chances wasted again.

In then taking up the topic as posed, I have come to configure that That Post Express has joined the many who have been terrified by the absence of a concise plan for a form of transition from the moment to the future. But largely and unfortunately too, I suspect that we had prepared to hear about a governor’s proposition on how to conduct the 2003 election without rancour. This, I may not go into at all, for my own attitude to such matters.

With the common position that Nigerians regard transition as conducting elections to cross from one political era to another, we tend to get fixated on the belief that wells have been erected to separate one era and its nation state from the other and so prepare our minds for miracles in the subsequent periods. Frankly, having experienced democracy in its fullest form, I believe we have not quite broad in that respect.

Most probably, that was the main reason Nigerians view the transfer of control of state from the military to the civilians as the be-all and end-all if of time. Along that trend of thought, a high, even though unreaslistic expectation had been induced on the citizenry in ways which created their own problems to leadership and followership alike.

Actually, it is my view that a nation long subdued in military dictatorship as Nigeria was, but barely finding the breath to raise questions about its destiny have to design some segments And platforms of transition. Along this line, I strongly agree with The Post Express, as implied, that democracy is the vehicle for repackaging Nigeria for any meaningful drive to self realisation and programming so as to commence the transition to lofty enterprises.

Of course, in taking this position, I am not unaware of the limitations of democracy in a third world country where the whole business in unfortunately reduced to bread and butter. I guess you will not be disappointed to realise that this is one basic item of life yet to be settled by the common African, nay Nigerian. No matter our level of sophistication or the intentions for higher growth, the mundane issues of food, shelter, transport, security or general quality of life have not been defined. Actually, the prospects are bad for a system of undefined or ambiguous nation state which does not place those mundane issues o the dominant part of its front burner. The failure of this as has always been the case has consolidated the belief in the laxity of the state and the nation whole leadership have carried on in the most bizarre and nonchalant ways.

The profile of a state which is not definite in form and which has not made itself credible among the people by failing to pursue a broad national consciousness so as to leave the people with creative challenges, has no be distrusted in form and content. Without being pessimistic, I can say that this ship of state has failed to bear a definite profile.

I am sure that in this form, Nigeria of the dictatorial era, as had been presented by the leadership, had built intense distrust and even derision which robbed it of the chances of making some reasonable strides. To this effect the state had failed to discharge its responsibilities in containing the various tendencies which raised questions on the integrity of the state. Besides, the state had failed to provide for the citizenry and so seemed to justify the attitude of resistance which build up.

Against that backdrop, then, it becomes, imperative to raise these questions of Nigeria: has the state Been identified and the consciousness of its raised in the citizenry?; has the nation state been pursued and the citizens given a stake, a hope, a pride, an understanding, a creative challenge and options to feel at one with neighbours and fellow countrymen?; has the citizenry appreciated the wrong expectation framework which it was unwisely shaped into and for which the current political leadership had taken some dose of fire from fellow countrymen?; has the democratic leadership accepted the tragedy of its under-estimation of the problems after the military rule and readied itself to go into action?; have the leadership and the citizenry accepted the values of democracy as the irreversible and ultimate means of political change, expression of will and raising of the desired national consciousness for the acknowledgement of the emerging nation state? And has the emerging national sensibility derived any bit of the supra globalisation process propelled by private sector initiative?

Certainly, these are not questions taken at the drop of the hat. For sure, they are not ones for the unserious at the local pub. These are questions fitted for this audience or indeed a far superior one. But they may not all be necessarily resolved toady.

So, whereas it is accepted, in the spirit of democracy, to let every one have his say, defining the state, the nation state, the supra-national culture, the relationship between the nation and the state, the state policies as well as the national track to the global arena remains with the elite. But such elite as constitution in this hall must take the entire burden of leadership and so strive to direct the state properly.

In this regard, it is now imperative for us to take a very critical look at democracy – first as a universal value for the upliftment of mankind and subsequently as our medium for reinventing and respositioning of our intended modern state. It could not have been as a result of thoughtlessness that early Western social scientists came up with the world class definition of democracy as ‘the government of the people, by the people and for the people.’ The strong political attitude which had given vent to the sustenance of this dictum did not come of any lack of knowledge of the splendour f old imperial orders and the preference of the monarchist/aristocratic leadership among some westerners. Indeed, the drive to erect popular governance and at the same time whittle down the political clout of some dynastic formations had gone on with a great deal of blood letting, social storms and eventual revolutions. Even after five centuries of near total democracy in some states of the North and West of Europe, the tendency to propagate the value in ways peculiar to some leadership had subsisted. But in all, the major track of democracy as the vehicle for less contentions governance as well as one for the inclusion of virtually every shade of opinion and been established. Yet, as we celebrate the fruits of democracy as they matured in the West, nurtured in Africa, and took their roots in our shores, we must take cognisance of the dominant values which yielded the basic platform for socio-political reformations.

The peril of Europe on the road to democracy is not what we crave for our emerging nation. Actually, the pains of Italy, the threat to the Germanic federation, the ruin of the Balkans, the cruelty in Russia, the docility of England, the revolt of France, and even the rebellion in United States, while the strove to attain their present level of social reformation and profile, only stand our for us to pick from history. Surely, it is not palatable for us to bring back the revolutions which upturned Europe especially at the birth of Fascism in Italy, the third Reich in Germany, the revolution in France, the unending chauvinism of the Balkans, the back and forth swing of Russia, but we must take interest in what happened at our backyard – the Cote D’ivorie.

The case of the usurpist, General Robert Guei is very good for Africa. This was a pretender – reformer who wanted to transmogrify into a civilian president. His light fingers on the poll boxes had to be burnt as he was driven out by people who knew that democracy was their actual vehicle for transformation not a soldier who was yet unsure of a state and its profile.

As we are familiar with the political history of Nigeria and indeed the various segments which predated our modern state it becomes easy for us to appreciate the enormity of the task of nation building alongside the project of making a state of the near-riotous province, principalities , kingdoms, chiefdoms and to some extent, empires which had fought tough wars, annexed territories and gotten vanquished by superior power from within and elsewhere. It was in recognition of this hard task in the early days of the last country that Mr. W.R. Crocker, then a British colonial officer in Nigeria stated; and I quote him in full. ‘It would be a long time before there can be any hope of effective nationalism in Africa (Nigeria) crown colonies, let alone in all Africa, because there is little to build any homogeneity of feeling upon. Africa has never had what Europe or the great Asiatic groups have – had the influence extending over centuries of a common corpus of beliefs and loyalties. If you walk from one end of Europe to another, you will find amidst all the diversities, the common stamp of Graeco-Roman civilisation and Christianity. If you walk along a straight line merely a hundred miles or so in length in Africa, you traverse peoples and cultures which for all their similarities, barely touch on a single point down at bottom. When will the Tiv feel himself at one with the Yoruba, or the Hausa with the Ibo.

Well, my fellow Nigerians, twenty-seven years after the Crocker declaration, Nigeria – for all that had been achieved in the transformation of the provincial man to the urbane patriot – gained political independence. It was then on the basis of what could be attained in cohesion, good neighbourliness, definition of the state and the nation and the transition of awesome state power to persons and groups that we have positioned ourselves in the affairs of today. I am not sure that I want to say that we had all it took to stroll into a nation state on the day of independence and for that matter, the moment we share now.

Frankly, it can be tempting to seek to ignore the past, particularly the failure of our system to institute a process of organic transition of the individual and group from the narrow, provincial inclination to the national personality capable of holding global views. But the reality of the disaster of the past leadership which brought about the Nigeria-Biafra war, the wasted resources of the oil boom era, the blighted record of deformed political and economic policies and even more recently, the thread of military dictatorship and the attendant primitive looting of the state treasury all go to show that our transition in the entire dimensions of it just have to get under way. It never really started.

It might have been too daunting for old leadership particularly one drawing from the pessimism of Crocker to attempt a proper transition of Nigeria from principalities to a nation, but will it be too difficult for the modern citizenry who is drawing from sound globalism and a welter of values strewn in our path of life to seek to build a nation from the vigorous cultures, peoples and territories? Not all all. A more creative leadership with a bit of efforts would have advanced further than this. We too acknowledge that in our old national anthem, that "though tribes and tongues may differ in brotherhood we stand.

Fortunately or unfortunately, our emerging nation and the attendant state could not have taken the path of European civilisation. it certainly did not take the track of Romanisation of Europe and the Mediteranean. Those had come of perilous military expeditions which swamped territories and bludgeoned a countless number of people to death. Yet it was the kind of political storm which gave birth to the ‘common corpus’ of values which had fascinated Crocker. Even as the storm of military campaigns levelled Europe and Mediteranean, and implanted values which had sustained on the wing of a grim determination to abolish the ways of life of the others, the meek, simple values of Christianity had risen and begun its advancement on the world. Subsequently, Islamisation had its roots in Arab culture had followed and advanced in the Middle East, Europe and North Africa. Largely, these forces of social, political and economic reformation – did not entirely envelope the world and so had left a great part of Africa in their pristine and primitive formations.

Considered from the admonition of Crocker and that of the others who believe that our fundamental trip to nation-building is flawed, if not already aborted, it could be claimed that Nigeria had largely been excluded from such global values on which a modern nation-state is built. But in reality, has that been the case? It is certainly not. In fact, considered deeply, the pre-colonial areas in today’s Nigeria had the promises of achieving their own type of Romanisation through the three main marshaled forces of their era. Nearly a century now after the forces which Crocker represented subdued the then glamorous Sokoto Empire, the people still relish their heritage which was taking in its fold those areas which represent the modern North of Nigeria. The same British order had halted the tumultuous Oyo Empire just as the Aro slaving Oligarchy was arrested in its poise to envelope and impose its values on the peoples in nearly one half of southern and central Nigeria. As grim and ruthless as this proposition may be, perhaps we would have achieved a ‘common corpus’ of beliefs and loyalties. But what appears stunning however, was probably the failure of the British order to pursue and accomplish the ‘common corpus’ of loyalty–at least–which would have served their larger interest to create the modern Nigeria citizenry whose primordial interest would have been honed to transit to the national and global arena without pains.

Relatedly, Nigeria had missed out, fortunately or unfortunately, in the exercise of Rustication of East and Central Europe and parts of Africa. This was another era of rampaging, sweeping and swamping of cultures for the benefit of the grim communism which ruled those parts of the world. It was an emerging state of world which brought about the cold war and its militarisation. That period in Europe and America which led to heavy troop movement, relocation of families and realignment of global economic forces, created its own brand of emerging world culture including the emergence of cosmopolitan and polyglot families, private sector economic expansion and a semblance of a political uniformity firmed up in a system of world governance through popular participation. It is called democracy and Nigeria was virtually excluded and the citizenry driven further back into the provinces of views which had limited the possibilities of the modern man.

Of course, the failure of the primordial empires, the lack of British colonial will to erect an enduring nation-state and the choice – fortunately or unfortunately – not to join in the cold war had war had their consequences on the way Nigeria had trudged on in the struggle to find a name, an identity, a consciousness and a commitment to the teeming citizenry. The consequence of aborting the making of Nigeria and promoting ethnic cleavages as they suited the British; the consequence of letting out the old animosities of the old kingdom and chieftaincies, the consequence of failing to pick from the new information age which had provided the tonic for the on-going globalism. Yet, these did not terminate the entire possibilities of building a modern nation state capable of meandering the rough terrain of modern social engineering.

Indeed, the absence of a concise path to national form ought to have been a strong challenge and motivation for the people who, today, have to worry about holding elections or moving from one political era to the other. The questions now are: was the lesson of the history taken and was the challenge picked? No, they were not and now we have to worry about holding another election possibly after a first four-year tenure. We are worried because we have always had a state of disharmony in elections and the military had always thundered in to seize the stage. We are worried that in our history, we have not had a successful transition from civilian democracy to another civilian democracy. We are worried that the year 2003 is separated in time by twenty years even though it looks like the abysmal 1983 of ill-fated memory. You are worried that there was a domineering party – the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) – which controlled the presidency just as the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) controls the presidency now and that the PDP could be tempted to venture into the kind of landslide electioneering victory which caused serious tumult in the land in year 1983. You are worried that after 16 years of military pillaging and the people were denied access to any good thing of life, there has hardly been a revolution which brings the glory of Nigeria back to at least the 1964 stage.

Perhaps you are even more worried that the extent of damage which was wrought on the system by the military will probably take as much as a decade to rectify and that the greater mass of Nigerians have not understood the mess their society was made of in the 16 years before May 1999. I am almost certain that you are worried that the simple Nigeria folk had had his expectation framework wrongly shaped by the national media, including our host, The Post Express, thereby creating a sweeping wrong impression that every political leaders, particularly the elected one is the same, with no difference in approach to issues. The media have followed suit to cause the masses to expect the political leaders to turn a man into woman and so from the unnerving rot of 16 years, produce an Eldorado. No doubt, you are rattled by the threat of thunder from those who consider themselves as people of the opposition and who, for their absence on the corridor of power tend to pursue the dysfunctional and centripetal against collective desire for respite and resumption of the journey to nationhood.

It is quite possible that you are as disturbed as Africa Today’s Adebayo Williams who screamed in the June 2001 edition of the magazine: while there is every possibility that as usual, Nigeria will fumble and wobble through and the ship of democracy will ride the storm and return safely to harbour, there is an even greater possibility that the ungainly hulk will succumb to a perfect storm.’

There are clear indications that very few Nigerians , based on what they consider to be the recent history, can hardly afford to be optimistic about the country. Their predisposition have deepened and a pervading state of worries overtaking the land. Basically, these worries, some coming from genuine concern for the survival of the state and a hope for true nationalism are rooted in the fear of the unknown about 2003.

Sincerely, I share in your worries, not necessarily because of the superstition pervading the realm of those who see an ominous cosmic link between 1983 and /2003, two different years separated in time by two whole decades. It is neither because I crave any return to 1964 nor that the national leadership of the PDP will begin to look for trouble in a non – PDP state where the incumbent is possibly discharging his electoral promises creditably. I am not aware that there is any imperialist expansionist in the party. What I am aware of is that Nigerians have expectedly but undeservedly worked themselves up for an election which is transient, forgetting to tackle the tragic national fiasco brought about by the absence of a ‘common corpus’ of values upon which we can build a nation where there will be no fear of mere elections.

Actually, democracy as it sprouted in Europe had come long on the heels of quasi-universal values some of these had started out as heresy while the others were taken for the exercise of some fools. Some had driven rough-shod over provincialities, principalities, kingdoms and even empires leaving in their wake the overthrow of cultures, sub-merged values and momentary recriminations of those whose age-old belief system had been brutally extinguished. Relatively, every member of this audience here knows the impact of the rise and spread of the old Roman factor in the medieval world. You also know the bed of values built by the Greco – Christian civilisation in which the root of universal morality is firmly plated. Side by side of these, the value of the conquistador had led to ruin as economic quest led to colonial acquisition which gave birth to some of the political and economic bloc(king) of the cold war.

Here now rises the fundamental questions: how do we erect the requisite set of values to construct our own social structure? How do we put confidence, rather than the fears in our citizenry, as they approach elections? And how do we follow up on this to create a citizenry who can transit from primordial values to national values and from there to meet up at the global arena where again the average African is already at a disadvantage?

Well, I will first of all implore you to come pity the Nigerian of these days. His once flambouyant country has recently been described in the most pessimistic way. ‘This is an example of a country that has fallen down; it has collapsed. This house has fallen.’ These were the words of our own Chinua Achebe, the literary giant who had previously expressed the highest level of optimism about Nigeria. This hard judgement has even been magnified by a foreign writer who entitled his book on Nigeria: ‘This House Has Fallen,’ Mr. Karl Maier strongly believed that this house called Nigeria had fallen and perhaps, for the absence of democracy, it had no hope coming up again. And taking a look at Nigeria of today where it appears there is no moral value, no respect for rights, no decency and no acknowledgement of leadership – all these go to show a society embattled and whose future is entangled in a confusion which baffles its best thinkers. Largely, these great writers/wordsmiths are not mistaken. Actually, they were not the first to raise questions about the integrity of Nigeria. The late sage, Obafemi Awolowo, had thundered that ours is "a mere geographical expression"

Perhaps, Achebe, Maier and the highly pessimistic others were not entirely wrong in declaring Nigeria dead on arrival. They could not have been wrong if we consider that placed side by side with the other nation states, and judged from the perspective of democrats, Nigeria had carried on as ‘an airplane that has just been taken over by hijackers’ if I may use the words of Sully abu, another countryman shocked by the persisting state of non-direction.

Indeed, Nigeria was not better than a plane in the hands of hijackers. Actually, its case before May 29, 1999, was worse than a plane in the hands of hijackers. It was a land bereft of the values which informed the applause for democracy by E.M. Forster when he declared he would give ‘two cheers for democracy: one because it admits variety and two because it permits criticisms.’ The hijackers of our own nation state were largely intolerant of varied views and criticisms and so the promises of the nation had been truncated several times over. It is then at this juncture that we try to find out in this discussion the possibility of transiting from the odd to the good. As I stated earlier, the operative words of this lecture are "transition" and "democracy". While one is being built into the national psyche as the movement from one political era to the other, the other is the medium through which the will of the society can be expressed. But it is quite unfortunate that we have come to have transition as conducting elections as if electing leaders alone will give us a state, a nation and goals.