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Will Democracy Spawn a Civilian Dictator in Nigeria?
By
He was hardly the most commanding personality that one ever encountered. Squat, ill-spoken and rather unbecharming, he inspired neither fear nor deep affection as a person. For much of his time in office he was out of sight, ensconced imperviously at the innermost recesses of Aso Rock, seat of the Nigerian government in Abuja. Yet, with seeming ease, General Sani Abacha almost completely dominated a nation of 110 million people during his reign.
Accounts of his rise to power abound, and one speaks of how he grafted himself onto the Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan, instituted in August 1993 after the annulment of the June 12 presidential elections and the exit of General Ibrahim Babangida. Mr. Abacha had apparently ‘refused’ to retire with some other military officers in the Babangida government, preferring to stay, ostensibly to lend the mishappen administration some stability.
However, made Defence Secretary and Vice-Chairman
of the Shonekan ‘government’, it was only a matter of time before Abacha took over the reins of government himself. He was to rule Nigeria for nearly four
years, during which time he totally personalised the government, looted the treasury, and unleashed a most obnoxious and authoritarian rule on the country.
Although he died ignominiously in office, many still cringe today merely recalling the brutality of the Abacha junta.
My question is this: how was it that one fairly
unprepossessing fellow, with a handful of collaborators, came to dominate so vast and varied a country like Nigeria?
In posing this question, my interest really is
not to discuss the Abacha government, but to examine how it is that a dictatorship can be foisted upon a nation like Nigeria. We are inclined, perhaps in our
less reflective mood, to explain the phenomenon of dictatorship in our society principally in terms of the depravity of the perpetrators. We demonize them,
justifiably no doubt, and often make believe that it is the crude desire for absolute power – to pursue whatever personal or group agenda they may have – that propels
some of our leaders to the extremes of authoritarianism.
I do agree, there’s something to be said for the demon theory of authoritarianism. But is that all there is to it? Authoritarian rule is often based on an intricate arrangement of power. It would take some architecting for a man like Abacha, who was otherwise not an overpowering presence, to emerge so politically pre-eminent in a complex society like Nigeria. As we know, Nigerian dictators (let it be said, Mr. Abacha was not the only one) have often used the threat of sanctions, coercion, co-optation, and a nimble exploitation of our social differences, to consolidate their power. But that is not all there is to it. There is also a systemic dimension, in the sense that authoritarianism is a predicate of certain social, economic, and yes, political phenomena. Society has to configure in a certain way for authoritarian rule to emerge and be successful.
This is what brings me to my present concern. Today, many of us are relishing the departure of the military from governance and the restoration of civilian rule. Some even believe, or at least hope, that democracy is here to stay and that Nigeria is matching irreversibly towards democratic consolidation. But is it really?
OK, so the military are no longer in office, and they are so spent and discredited as a political force that they may not be usurping power any time soon – at least not as discrete institution. But is the mere absence of the military a guarantee that the norms of democracy are taking root? We have now in place a participatory process and new governmental institutions into which we have elected new civilian political representatives. These institutions are animated by a new doctrine of government, one based on a functional and territorial dispersion of power, designed to provide the checks and balances required by a truly democratic and federal polity. In addition to these, there is a new dynamism within civil society, with all manner of associational groupings – once knuckled by mindless authoritarianism – now jostling more or less freely within the political arena.
But look again at the grim detail of Nigeria’s social phenomena. There is conflict and tension all over the land. Religious and ethnic conflicts are on the rise, resulting in wanton destruction of lives and property everywhere. Armed robbers have become more menacing, in the face of an ineffectual and uninspired police apparatus. Our infrastructures, social and physical, are degenerating. The citizens are overwhelmed with a feeling of insecurity, made much worse by the continuing paucity of social provisions. Economic conditions are not getting better. Economic unrest is rampant, with various groups – including the Police force – going on strike to press for better conditions. There is rising poverty, unemployment, inflation and scarcity, all of these feeding the spectre of criminality, moral corruption and social decay.
Our problem of social disorder is aggravated by
growing uncertainties at the political realm. These are becoming more urgent as we nudge closer to the 2003 elections. There is institutional rivalry,
especially between the legislature and the executive. There is tension in many of the States as incumbent governments engage oppositional militias in battles
for local supremacy. These confrontations are often replicated at the level of local government. The three registered political parties are one and all
engulfed in deep crises, with factional rivalry rising to dangerous proportions. Such is it that political assassinations have become rife, a recent example
being the wasting of the country’s Justice Minister, Mr. Bola Ige. Amidst all this corruption in public office continues unabated, spreading ever more
ferociously to all levels of government. Official ostentation remains unchecked, even as economic conditions degenerate. Partly as a result of this,
public cynicism is on the rise. The citizenry has little motivation to strive to protect the processes and institutions of the state. The Nigerian
political system has, in order words, precious little social sanctity. And this has made the business of governance even more difficult.
Nigeria has always been a difficult country to
govern. This is not entirely surprising, given its manifold problems and the complexity of its social composition. This in part explains why we have
always defaulted to a strong government. Way back in 1950 the historian, Margery Perham, wrote that Nigeria, like much of Africa with its “multi-cellular tissue
of tribalism”, required the “steel grid” of colonial rule to hold its diverse peoples together. Miss Perham never found favour with our nationalist historians,
but the truth is that even after colonialism it has often taken the “steel grid” of military rule (in other
words strong government) to hold the still malintegrated peoples of Nigeria together. But
one of the cardinal failures of the military is that they
could not construct a viable political infrastructure, institutional or cultural, which could foster a lasting elite settlement and promote
democratic stability. The result is that inspite of their gallant efforts at institution-building, the civilian governments they nurtured have often lacked the
capacity to deal with the multifarious fissures and pressures of democratic rule.
It is this spectre of weak political
institutions, struggling to cope with the pressures from a highly mobilised civil and political society, that could pave way for the emergence of a new dictatorship
in Nigeria.
Don’t get me wrong: this dictatorship may not
necessarily wear a military garb. As many observers have argued the military have squandered whatever political goodwill they enjoyed, and given their own
internal rupture it may be some time before they can re-group as an assertive political force. If the civilian political elite can organise themselves into a
more cohesive and purposive bloc, then they could become hegemonic and the military may never return. The prospect of a sustained civilian ascendancy will
become even more robust as civil society matures in Nigeria, and also as our international partners stand more firmly in their advocacy for democratic rule.
But what about the possibility of a civilian
dictator? What would happen if social conditions continue to deteriorate and Nigeria makes a final descent into anarchy? We’ve now got to a point where
the Police are going on strike and the military’s bombs are exploding upon the citizenry. What else will happen? Society is utterly militarized, and
lawlessness is growing more endemic. Can our wobbly legal order and our fragile political institutions cope with all these? Or will someone think they
need to be stiffened with the sinews of authoritarian control?
There was much talk in the past about the
institution of diarchy in Nigeria, a form of government which would combine the optimal elements of militarism and representative democracy. The claim was that,
with the fissures and fractiousness of Nigerian politics, only such an arrangement could guarantee the stability of our democracy. We haven’t quite made that
choice. But with not a few ex-military officers now elected into government, and with many more reputed to be controlling our democratic proceedings from the
sidelines, how far are we from erecting some form of formal politico-military alliance to serve as the final guarantor of our democracy? How far indeed, if the
social, economic and political conditions in the country continue to degenerate?
If such a politico-military alliance emerges it could presage a dictatorship of sorts, albeit one possibly more benevolent than the primitive dictatorships of our past. It might seek to curtail civil liberties and restrict the untrammelled expression of political interest. An alliance of the Bonapartist hue, it might also claim to be purposive, an enlightened dictatorship striving to establish a workable elite settlement required for the advancement of democracy in Nigeria.
Democracy thrives mainly within the milieu of social peace, and this requires a sound economic base and a widely accepted legal order. In a patrimonial setting like ours, the latter subsists only if the contending elite groups have achieved political settlement and agreed a theory of politics by which to organize the state. Such a settlement still eludes the Nigerian political elite, who remain fractured and factionalised. Nigeria, to me, is now in some kind of political purgatory, with neither the conditions to sustain military rule nor those in which democracy could flourish. Such a condition could induce the Bonapartist solution, which, however benevolent, would arrive with a tinge of authoritarianism. It is our choice whether or not to cultivate such a commandist outcome.
February 2002
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