Chinua Achebe told us that the problem with Nigeria is leadership. Leadership, both political and economic, is needed to grow a country. We have stubbornly accepted that the failings we experience on the path to now have been our failings. But the surprising thing is that we have survived and this survival has been a result of our transformation of compromise into an art form. If there is any contribution to democracy, it is the culture of compromise we have given birth to in Nigeria and nurtured. But democracy does have a culture and any deviation from it under any guise will only serve to undermine it. It is not enough for democracy to be just a paper thing, like the Constitution of the United States of America; or the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, both written; or like the unwritten constitution of the British. Theirs, the British, is the best example, the closest to us, of why democracy works there. For in spite of the fact that there is no document you point to, there is history you point to, the past that is your witness, their witness. That past is anchored in structures you see and behold and respect – schools, thorough documentation of the heritage of every family, every village, every city, the whole country; libraries museums, monuments, national parks and sites, halls of fame and light and sound shows; political parties, wars and living lessons from wars. From birth to death, the established values of the people are infused into the blood streams of every citizen, high or low, male or female, young or old, so that no other way of life derails them. In everything they do, they do with the eyes tutored through the upbringing they had. They grew into a society of entrenched duties and rights, where everyone performs their share of duty, and so earns the right to exercise the rights the polity grants. So their democracy is not democracy because of the Labour Party or the Conservation Party or the Queen of England or the House of Commons or the Pound Sterling. Their democracy is democracy because of the way, over time, the British people, in whatever capacity, representative or represented, have practised and practicalised and popularized how to ensure the welfare and security of their citizens. This concern is the concern of everyone, wherever they may be. The welfare and security is not just economic. It is more than that. It is also social, political, educational, cultural, environmental. But the anchor is cultural, yes, cultural. Culture is that part of what you imbibed or what was infused into you in the environment in which you live or were brought up in. Yes, culture is taught, learned; and people who are not organized enough to reflect how they live their lives in a way definable and identifiable by others will have problems with harmoniously manifesting life in the environment in which they find themselves. Although culture is taught, learned and shared, those who look beyond here in tracking life in the universe will tell you confidently that what you learn, what you are taught should move in the direction of downloading for that environment in which you find yourself, the manifestation that creation intends for where you are. Democracy has its culture because it is a way of life chosen by a people to regulate their affairs in the environment in which they live. If you depart from that culture, it is no democracy. In our country we have given the democracy dog a bad name and we have hanged it. Our democracy is now no more than a word we impose on our choice of the way our people are governed. That way is not hidden because the past is the witness. You cannot run away from it. The journey has recorded a lot of accidents with casualties too numerous to remember. But one thing we have learnt on our way to now is compromise, to the detriment of growing a democratic culture. We have promoted the culture of settlement, of compromising principles on the altar of convenience, to an art form. We know what the rules say. We go into the field to conduct elections. We know that our manipulations will distort the results. We continue with the manipulations – at the time of registration of voters; when voting takes place, at counting and collations centres and when the results are announced. The only exceptions I can recall in the evolution of our culture of compromise are the refusal of Chief Obafemi Awolowo to join a national government after the pre- independence federal elections of 1959 and Gen Muhammadu Buhari’s refusal to be part of a government of national unity. The 1964 federal election which the NCNC and the Action group boycotted because their fears about its fairness and credibility were ignored, saw settlement stepping in with the NPC and NCNC coming together to form a government after a mini-federal election in the East where the boycott was total. The 1979 elections were the first since 1965, but the exchange of letters about possible working agreements between Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe were not any different as add-tos in the evolution of the culture of settlement in our political life. The most embarrassing compromise was the ditching of Moshood Abiola after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 election when his closet associates accepted ministerial appointments from Abacha’s government that had thrown out Chief Ernest Shonekan’s interim tenure, which itself had been a child of compromise. Compromise did not end even when the PDP won the elections in 1999. President Olusegun Obasanjo took in the leaders of APP and AD more to emasculate the parties than to add value to the evolution of a democratic culture. Today, after we have witnessed the most embarrassing elections in the history of this country, compromise organizers are back at work. With election tribunals being part of the electoral process, would it not have been preferable that the elections are officially declared over only after the tribunals have pronounced on them? Our culture of compromise is not restricted to elections and politics. We are even letting those who robbed the treasuries off the hook only if they agree to return what they tell us they have stolen. Have we not reduced the EFCC to a conciliator between the government and those who were accused of massive looting of the treasuries? I saw Nuhu Ribadu waving confidently in front of the Senate of the National Assembly a list he said was of serving governors that he would prosecute for official corruption after the 2007 elections when they would have lost their immunity from arrest and prosecution. How many of them are awaiting trial today? How many? Democracy works in other places because, over the years, the people of those places have learnt, been taught, and have imbibed the democratic culture. That culture recognizes the people as boss, as owners of sovereignty which can never be delegated. In our country, we have a written constitution which shows clearly that what is written is no more and no less than delegated powers, from the people to those who exercise legislative, executive and judicial powers. The choice of road taken is democracy as it is meant to be, and the people, apart from granting mandate to those who represent them, are to be active participants in governance. But government’s brief is that the people’s security and welfare be ensured. Now, in spite of the volume of funds that has flowed into our national kitty since 1999, the people have never, in their history, aside of the unfortunate life in the war zones (1967-70) been this poor, and insecure. And while the workers are on strike because of grievances that government should resolve and in the process earn some legitimacy, the people in leadership positions are asking for increases in their allowances which already lap up almost half of the budget. And instead of us to sit down and begin to think of a return to the drawing board, we are looking at our reserve and have never felt guilt drawing from it to meet recurrent commitments, commitments that ruthlessly deny the people access to welfare and security. I shudder at what will happen when the oil wells in the Niger Delta dry up. A point which Gen. Muhammadu Buhari raised when a group of people discussed with him the need to restructure this country still gives me goose pimples. He asked, “Have we thought of Nigeria without oil for four years?” I doubt that we are ready to do so. But we must begin sooner than later to think about Nigeria without oil. We must get back to the drawing board, an area we will round off this presentation with. How serious have we been with the economy? What is there to grow this country to be among the top 20 countries in the world by the year 2020? Let me tell you a story. Some years ago, I saw a cartoon in a newspaper. There were three cave men in rags, each carrying a club with thorns. The year was 1960. In 1980 two of them had grown their environments enough to know how to wear suits. One had started to manufacture limos, the other ships. The third was still in his cave dress and was holding a rat in one hand. By the year 2000, the other two were airborne and were holding computers. The man in cave dress who had a rat to show in the year 1980 was still there in the cave dress, more tattered and the club worn. But he had lost the rat. The first two were Asian countries, and the third with the club and tattered dress was Nigeria! I have never been so graphically introduced to where we are and have been since independence. With development plans that were not properly executed and a good deal of the time abandoned, we have continued to exhibit a remarkable lack of vision in growing this country by boldly tackling the problems through proper exploitation of the resources we are so abundantly endowed with.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 13:42:13 +0000
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