CHANGE AS A POLITICAL RHETORIC “This is your time, and it feels normal to you, but really, there is no normal. . .” MERYL STREEP, Renowned American Actress (born 1949). In human societies, change has always been both inevitable and relentless over the ages. Indeed, mankind owes its survival and civilisation process to a built-in mechanism of continuous evolution. The tricky bit has always been our ability and our willingness to recognise this change, both defined by our viewpoint. This viewpoint is enhanced or constrained among other things by information available to us, our level of sincerity and open-mindedness, and our objectives. In spite of the unprecedented level of information available to most people across multiple channels today, it is incredible how much change and development around us still goes unnoticed by most of us. In my own country for instance, I learn everyday of new developments of the last few years, and it’s amazing that I haven’t noticed them earlier. I’ve always heard of the innovative idea of Almajiri Schools; I just didn’t notice that government has constructed over 150 of them already in just 3 years! This is a major intervention in a most unfortunate gap which has existed for too long, with far reaching social, economic and security implications. I’ve also known about one or two new federal universities; what I didn’t realise was that beginning with 27 of them developed in 63 years between 1948 and 2011, the current administration has added almost half that number, 13 to be precise, in less than 4 years from 2011! I don’t wish to mention other examples, as this piece is neither about the achievements of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, nor about those who have failed to notice them for an innocent lack of information. Indeed I need to clarify that I’m by no means an advocate of Jonathan. My concern is rather about the dubious and dangerous dummy being sold to the unsuspecting masses of my country by elements who lack both sincerity and the altruistic objectives they peddle, by invoking the questionable promise of change. I am disturbed that a cheap but potent strategy that has been deployed by political opposition around the world and throughout history is being unleashed on my countrymen, in a most unfortunate season. By far the most basic and effective strategy of the opposition has always been to try to undermine the incumbent by controverting every positive development in the society, while amplifying the negative. Opposition must of necessity seek out all that is wrong in any situation or even portray positive developments in bad light, while promising near-magical cures to all ailments of society. The promise of change can be at once suspicious, yet attractive and effective in mobilising political sentiments against the incumbent in every clime. Change was the message that catapulted a relatively unknown Barack Obama into the White House in 2009. Change was equally the promise of Robert Mugabe in 1980; Saddam Hussein in 1979; and Adolf Hitler in 1933. Zimbabwe went on to break the world record in inflation in recent history under Mugabe’s watch, to the point of abandoning its national currency. Hussein led Iraq into a series of wars that have left most of the country in ruins and in arms to date; while the roles of Hitler in the Second World War and the Holocaust are too well known and inhuman to be repeated here. The promise of change was initially an appealing message in every case, though we now have the privilege to judge with the benefit of hindsight. I listened in amusement as President Goodluck read out extracts of the coup speech that brought General Ibrahim Babangida to power in 1985. Hear him on the ousted government of General Muhammadu Buhari: “With the nation at the mercy of political misdirection and on the brink of economic collapse, a new sense of hope was created in the minds of every Nigerian. . .” He continues: “Since January 1984, however, we have witnessed a systematic denigration of that hope. . . Events today indicate that most of the reasons which justified the military takeover of government from the civilians still persist.” A relatively unknown Brigadier Sani Abacha had, less than two years earlier in December 1983, announced the replacement of the civilian government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari with Buhari’s military junta. Ten years later, the same goggled soldier eased out the contraption anchored by a hapless Ernest Shonekan in the name of Interim National Government with another coup speech. In every case, the arrival of each new regime was heralded by tales of woe of the preceding administration, and rosy assurances of positive change. Posterity has given us a sufficient dose of the unpleasant truth. Or has it? The tragedy of incumbency is that it gives you the opportunity to perform, yet with that comes ample opportunity to make mistakes, or to fail to solve all the problems of society immediately, completely, and to the satisfaction of diverse interest groups. Most people fail to realise that the governance process is an endless work in progress. History has no record of any leader who succeeded in solving all the problems of his or her society, especially where such problems have transcended the immediate domain of the leader. I’ve heard of a presidential candidate promising during the ongoing campaign rallies to end the religious insurgency in Nigeria in a few months if voted into office. I immediately wondered whether some people are deaf or blind to the global reality of fundamentalist Islamic insurgency which has spared no region, including that of the very custodians of the religion itself. It also beats me how an army general, who could not protect his military regime from a bloodless coup by fellow soldiers, now hopes to defend a civilian democracy against well-armed terrorists and their multinational collaborators. I’ve even heard a more humorous promise by the same candidate to stabilise oil prices if elected president! Pray, how much more comical can this get? It is for this reason that I’ve described this as an unfortunate season for the incumbent administration in Nigeria. Truth be told, these are not the best of times for our country. Period. The message of change as it relates to insecurity and economic downturn are very powerful ones at the moment, admit it or not. There is a climate of disappointment and discontent that Goodluck and his compatriots would only disregard at their own peril. Now is not the time to play ostrich concerning the challenges that confront the ordinary Nigerian. The situation is made worse by the fact that not many are wont to situate some of these unfavourable developments in their proper global context – social, economic and political – especially where we cannot boast of a largely enlightened electorate. At a time like this, only few people pause to consider that this crusade of change which daily hounds us really offers no guarantee of the nature and timing of that change. Rather, it is all too tempting for these few but critical gaps to blind us to the positive developments we’ve witnessed over the past few years – the unprecedented stability in the retail supply of fuel; the efficient distribution of fertiliser to target farmers; the capacity being built in the power sector; or the dismantling of the fraudulent oil subsidy racket that had survived several previous administrations. We may not have noticed the independence enjoyed by the national electoral commission to date, or politics without a meddlesome and confrontational president. But that is understandable – it’s called human nature. My fear is for us to forfeit the gains from many ongoing physical and socioeconomic projects, each of which gestation period transcends the current term of this government, by taking a blind risk on the birthing of a change we are only seeing on campaign tee-shirts and the social media. Our history of dismantling or reversing the gains or initiatives of previous governments, and always tending to start afresh, provides no encouragement either. I cringe at the thought of losing the potential benefits of implementing the report of the recently concluded national conference for instance. That, to my mind, is the first sincere effort at sitting together to try to address some of the fundamental flaws of our structure and processes as a sovereignty, especially coming at a time of an unprecedented level of distraction to government. This, like some other recent developments, constitutes not just mere change, but a very bold challenge to deeply entrenched inequities and inefficiencies that have hindered growth in every region without exception.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 14:40:47 +0000
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