Waiting for democracy dividend
by
THE late and much-missed Dr. K.O. Mbadiwe said that "the first democracy is the democracy of the stomach". Where else therefore than here, after an excellent meal, to discuss the future of our budding democracy!
Mr. Chairman, let me begin by stating that I am not comfortable with the start we have made towards the reestablishment of democracy. In fact, exactly 14 months ago, yesterday, I flew out from Lagos, angry, frustrated and wondering whether I would ever again visit to return to Nigeria. Indeed, such was my mood that upon arrival in London, I began an essay titled "And So Farewell, the Fatherland". I had watched with dismay the run-up to the elections that re-installed civilian rule. One was asked to believe that with the elections democracy had been restored in Nigeria. I had followed events from the vantage position of Sole Administrator of the Daily Times. I had the privilege of information and informed private opinions of our reporters and editors on the emerging political process. Let me hasten to say that after 40 years in journalism here at home in Nigeria and in Europe I have long ceased to harbour any romantic expectations of the rough and tumble that accompany democratic progression. Yet like millions of Nigerians, I had hoped that with all that our country had endured in three decades of political turmoil, the players this time around would be cleansed of some of the more outrageous shenanigans. Instead, what we saw unfold before us was a series of officially sanctioned trickeries designed to produce a pre-arranged result.
Mr. Chairman, I am not a politician, I have never belonged to a political party. But confronted with injustice, hypocrisy and unfairness, I am prepared to run the risk of being misunderstood as partisan. My disillusion began with the calculated manipulations of the administration of General Abdulsalam Abubakar. I thought it did not augur well for an even-handed restart of democracy that the goal posts were moved in order to accommodate the registration of the AD.
While conceding the right of the tribesmen who fathered the Egbe Afenifere to organise themselves into a cultural gang, I was baffled that General Abubakar knowingly permitted the emergence of its fundamentally tribal political offshoot. Every one knows that tribalism has been the bane of our national political life. It was obvious that official sanction of the Egbe’s tribal political party would institutionalise the return of unashamed ethnic nationalism in our national polity.
At first it appeared that General Abubakar was guilty of nothing more serious than the naïvety of a weak man surrendering his sword to those who shouted the loudest. But as events unfolded it became obvious that there was a deep and sinister plot, firstly, to frustrate the consolidation of the APP emerging as the national political party with the widest geographical spread, and secondly to inhibit the credibility of its presidential candidate when the time came. We know now that all along the posturing of our Great and genial Mediocrity concealed an active design to hand over power to Oga. I must reiterate that as a journalist who has endeavoured throughout his career to be objective, I bore no partisan political objections to the candidacy of retired General Olusegun Obasanjo. But there were issues of principle that his candidacy aroused. These had nothing to do with party politics but rather, to my mind, concerned the national interest.
One of his overt promoters, a retired general and a close associate from the wretched days of military rule told us that the PDP candidate was, as he put it "not a businessman". Retired General Theophilus Danjuma revealed that he had personally laid out a war chest for Obasanjo’s campaign because his former nominal boss "has no money."
I wondered whether Danjuma was a friend or foe of his own protegee. Did he understand the implications of what he was saying about the personal qualities of his own candidate? More importantly, did he realise that he was insulting the intelligence of the Nigerian people? For the sum total of Danjuma’s misplaced attempt to praise Obasanjo’s virtues was that the Nigerian people should entrust the care of the nation’s complex economic problems to a man who could not run a farm and who apparently was skint to boot! I felt quite strongly that given our past history, these very reasons were grounds for doubting Obasanjo’s fitness to fill the office of the nation’s elected executive president. I was therefore quite disappointed that his opponents did not make sufficient issue of this as it would have shown a reassuring maturity and a welcome newness in the quality of our electioneering campaigns.
Equally disturbing was Obasanjo’s own admission that his campaign was being funded by those he described vaguely and collectively as "my friends". Personal financial support for candidates seeking elected public office is a reality in established democracies with an astringent culture of probity. Also it would be unfair to single out Obasanjo’s campaign finances for special scrutiny when it was obvious that his opponents also spent generously. However, Obasanjo’s antecedents attached a special significance to his statement. His extensive international contacts were never in doubt. Which is why we should have demanded to be reassured whether or not among his donors were foreigners and if so what obligations if any, he owed to them in return?
I would say that the plot began to thicken when former US President Jimmy Carter, that sorcerer of dodgy democratic elections world-wide, a man regarded by many as Obasanjo’s friend paid us a visit just as Obasanjo’s presidential ambition was being seriously touted. It may well have been a coincidence because we were informed that Carter came to see how the campaign to wipe out the scourge of guinea worm was shaping up. No man has worked more tirelessly for the Noble Peace Prize. I wish the Nobel Prize People would give the man something... anything! Was it me only who didn’t buy the timing of his visit as a mere coincidence? My own view was, tell me another!
On the whole, I was disappointed that opportunities to raise the level of debate and focus on issues were passed up. No serious and sustained discourse about our collapsed education system. No proposals on how to bring strategically located, federal government funded, primary health care centres through dispensaries to every local government in the land for instance. No debate about how to halt the manpower desertification of our rural communities and the foolishly continued over-concentration of development priorities in urban centres. The list of omissions was long and we have continued to stick to a failed style of politicking quarrels about which area a man comes from because inherently we expect him to take unfair advantage of his position and favour his kith and kin. Unspecified allegations of corruption about which Nigerians have become weary and cynical are no great vote winners. Please let me emphasise that I am equally disgusted about the bane of corruption in our society, but I am not convinced that generalities about corruption enhance the electoral prospects of a party seriously challenging for power. The fact is what many Nigerians really quarrel about, is what they see as the menace of the monopoly of the opportunity to be corrupt.
What really made me sad and frustrated was that in the absence of any inspiring policy presentation on the serious issues confronting our country would-be voters were left to fill the gap between pathetic self-abuse at the hands of vote-buyers and wishful thinking.
Intelligent people from whom one expected sophisticated and national political thinking clung to passing straws of water thin political assumptions in the absence of policy choices upon which to chew. Otherwise enlightened people surrendered eaisly to the fraudulent claim that the solution to Nigeria’s problems lay in geography. The catchy slogans "zoning" and "rotation" were substitutes for political ideology. One argued with friends that "zoning" should be left to the free will and wisdom of the political parties. And as for "rotation" two of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s requirements for state creation came to mind "geographical propinquity" and "cultural affinity". The idea that the Bini of Edo State for example would leapfrog Iboland to identify geographically and culturally with the far outpost of Bakassi in a so-called South South affinity is ludicrous. I sincerely believe that "rotation"is a recipe for heartbreak as the Igbos have since found when they fell for myth that the "rotation" of presidential power to the South would necessarily end their feeling of marginalisation.
I am not sure who it was who said that in a society only five per cent think for themselves, ten per cent think they think for themselves and the remaining 84 per cent have to be thougth for. Whoever it was, was acquainted with the Nigerian armchair economist. Even friends with no political axe to grind willed themselves to believe the propaganda that if Obasanjo became president the US and other Western countries would immediately write off Nigeria’s foreign debts and the naira would radically appreciate as a result. I called them doctors of Mama Chinyere’s school of economics. Let me enlighten you. Mama Chinyere is a highly successful Onitsha market mammie, famous in her hometown of Nnewi for shrewd bargains. Her favourite nephew returned from the US with a doctorate degree. Mama Chinyere’s joy knew no bounds. "Ehen", she said, "at last we too have ‘doctor’. Every day Onitsha people will not let you rest in the market. It is always my doctor this, my pikin doctor that!" At last someone was brave enough to tell Mama Chinyere that her nephew was not a medical doctor. "Na which kin doctor he be." she asked. There was no better way of explaining it to her. "Him own na the kin doctor wey de help people look after their money." Mama Chinyere weighted it for a while, then she turned her gaze in the direction of her brother.
"Oh nwa nnem," she lamented. "He spent all that money to send his pikin to America. Onitsha market is full of Obosi people who know how to look after money." I hope educated Nigerians do not persist in the belief that economic discussions are above the heads of the electorate. To begin with that indeterminate number of middle level, small businessmen who import so-called "luxuries" the "container load" merchants know more about foreign exchange and the value of the naira than they are credited with. They and their customers not to mention their dependents, landlords, and school-fee payers know the effect of the rise and fall of the value of the naira. Transporters and market mammies suffer the effect. It is a vast constituency.
You cannot blame Obasanjo for everything. He is convinced to this day that he is an outstanding world statesman. He believes himself to be a hero of the liberation struggles in Southern Africa where the military administration he led in the seventies freely dispensed Nigeria’s overflowing oil revenue. He glories in the self-image of an assertive intellectual who makes quick-fire decisions that are perfectly in tune with his natural quick-fire temper and fiercely authoritarian professional background. He loves to travel and occasionally visits Nigeria! These are character traits. You can criticise him for these, but I do not think most Nigerians really care. When the President seizes a whip and beats up a policeman, they shake their heads, click their tongues and sigh. Then they forget. But tell them how you intend to tackle armed robbery and you will hold their attention.
I know that a lot of people no longer dare to admit that they served on the "vision 2010" committee. I did. I did not ask to be asked. In then and I was proud to have participated in the work. The final document is bold and imaginative. It is worth taking another look at it.
Globalisation is consolidating closer interdependence among the nations and regions of the world, but it is not closing the gap between the rich and the poor and therein lies a curse. Furthermore, the poorer countries are being slowly and imperceptibly dispossessed. Nigerians should debate how we are being prepared for our place in the "village." The argument for privatisation is strong but someone should take on the championship of ensuring that privatisation should culminate in our loss of the family silver to foreign investors.
President Taylor of Liberia told an interviewer recently that the choice before Africa is which should come first: peace or democracy? He thought that Africans rated peace higher than democracy. I thought we Africans had long given up such spurious arguments. It was the kind of obfuscation with which, in the past, petty dictators and little caesars imposed one-party rule in Africa.
The fact is that democracy is peace and peace is democracy. The people are not fools. They know when their freedom is taken away from them. They can tell when they are being sold short on promises. The issue now before us in Nigeria is how to fashion our democracy to suit our conditions. We have chosen democracy as our goal but we are yet to finally evolve the kind of democracy we want. Those who wish to drag us back to resume the debate all over again of a brand new constitution should come out openly and state what it is they are really after. How many more constitutional conferences, sovereign or non-sovereign, absolute or non-absolute are we going to have before we settle down to really try to make one work. How many stops and starts? There is never going to be a perfect constitution. In God’s name let us finally accept that. We can argue about refining what we already have, but a sovereign national conference that starts from scratch is something else.
The media is a vital asset in a democracy. I have suggested in the past that special areas of the country should be designated "media development regions and special tax concessions or soft loans to acquire equipment should be introduced to encourage private investment in newspapers in those specifically designated areas. The imbalance in which the Lagos press determines whose reputation can be destroyed and whose misbehaviours should be protected at all cost has created bitterness in our country. It is time that the monopoly is challenged head on. I tell you truthfully that government-owned newspapers are a waste of money. At best they preach to the converted but a great deal of their circulation is free supplies to civil servants who know they are a captive audience. The menace of media terrorism that dominates our print media can and should be fought. I have been campaigning that newspapers should be compelled to take out annual insurance against libel the same way that a car owner must have at least a third party insurance. A free press is mandatory in a democracy, but a reckless press endangers peace and impugns on the fundamental rights of the individual who accorded the courtesy of the right of reply.
I know that our electorate is viewed, even by our politicians, as unsophisticated; that votes are indeed bought with cash; that ethnicity is a strong, overriding factor in our politics. I know also that sections of our media are utterly, disgustingly, shamefully, corrupt. Real politik demand that we live with these truths. Yet, I believe also that a subtle underlay of discernment has entered our political systems and that this has not been given its proper evaluation.
I believe that Chief M.K.O. Abiola discovered that underlay and that his opponents ignored it to their cost. Chief Abiola identified the yearnings of the majority of Nigerians, vocalised those yearnings and worked assiduously to build a coalition around himself for the purpose of further articulating and widening the spread of his message. To my mind people made too much of the money he spent. Of course he dispensed a large fortune and perhaps nobody outside the military regime could have matched him. He not only gave generously he gave recklessly. But Abiola successfully captured the imagination among widespread and far-flung places. Millions of people who voted for him did not personally receive a kobo from him. So, why did they do it?
Partly perhaps because the voters wanted to thumb their nose at the military; but Abiola’s was not the only anti-military rhetoric on the rostrums at the time. To be sure he played to the gallery and that gave his campaign an extra momentum. But he managed to put a national coalition together under his leadership and sold it to the Nigerian people aided by a friendly media.
It is a long while since opposition parties operated above ground in Nigerian politics, in the proper sense. So, it is not only the politicians that are in a learning process, the people too are in a process of understanding the role of a party waiting to take office. They have to be guided into understanding that the role of a party in opposition vis-a-vis the party in government is not an abstract exercise of fundamental human rights or a platform for embittered political losers. Instead, that the minority parties offer an alternative to the policies of the party in government. In the final analysis what people want to know is what’s in it for them!
The APP for instance could re-invent itself, vigorously and visibly, as a "national coalition party". It must combat the propaganda that it is in essence a party of the so-called far North, supported by a scattering of ineffectual southerners. In order to achieve that goal it would be a mistake to fight the party in office on their own terms. Criticising the government is not an end in itself and a party waiting to take power must be careful not to operate as though criticising the government is its sole relevance. It must be seen to offer alternative policies and it should propagate those policies with conviction. This is what I mean when I advocate a new kind of politics in Nigeria.
I cannot close this address without thanking you for the excellent meal. Customs vary as to how one shows appreciation on such occasions. In Afghanistan, they have a quaint way of saying "thank you" after a hearty meal. It is the custom to perform a certain bodily function that voids wind. Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dictator having assured Queen Elizabeth at a state banquet that he was well filled up (or as he chose to put it, "I am quite fed up") went on to tell her majesty that when it came his turn to entertain her in Kampala "we shall take our revenge". Mr. Chairman, I make no such threat to you, but I do look forward to your next visit to London. Perhaps, once again, you will excite me into returning to Nigeria as you did this time.
In my heart, I know that I can never again find a place I can really call home. I blame the Nigerian leaderships whose miscreant insouciance made me an outcast in the country of my birth and a wanderer in Europe 34 years ago. Yet when an opportunity presented itself for me to obtain a foreign passport in the eighties I could not bring myself to do it. Our minister of information in the early sixties, asked Nigerians to be tolerant with the government because we were making progress through "trial by error". He was right!