Commentary@ITRealms:
Nigeria is today at a very difficult
time. The nation is witnessing the most severe crisis of multidimensional
nature. Severe economic crisis is coming at the heels of unrelenting terrorist
attack. The present administration is challenged on two fronts: defeating
terrorists and imprisoning corrupt leaders. Nigerians believe that their
country is much more corrupt than the Transparency International Index may
suggest. Corruption has become the dominant mode of public and social
interaction. Going by the allegations and recent revelations, the words of Time Magazine writer that Nigeria’s
leaders are not distinguishable from its criminals and corruption is not an
aberration but a normal mode of governance are not totally off-the-mark.
Corruption and incompetence in government have worsened poverty and trapped
politics in stasis. This is the context to understand Mr. Chido Onumah’s new
collection of essays: “We are all Biafrans”
The most recent attempts to negate
Nigeria are the militants of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and the Niger
Delta Avengers. You can add to that the Fulani Herdsmen and you will have a
perfect storm. It is arguable that Nigeria is much more divided and challenged
at this time than any other time since independence. Ironically, this is also
the time we have the best chance to reset the engine of development in Nigeria
after an election that pitched status quo against change and change won. But it
looks like the victory of change is ephemeral. We are still trapped in stasis.
Nigeria is trapped in yesterday. A
yesterday that is defined by undue focus on ethnicity and religious identity. A
yesterday defined by ceremonial rather than functional leadership. Leadership
in Nigeria has always been plagued by the commitment of Nigerian leaders to
expropriate the common wealth for their personal interest. Leadership in
Nigeria has always been largely about contest for opportunity to appropriate
the resources of the state. This characteristic is underwritten by both the
values that defined the conception and establishment of the Nigerian state and
its institutional adaptation.
The crisis of leadership in Nigeria is
worsened by the scourge of religious fundamentalism that is fostered by the lack
of culture and practice of rule of law and the absence of commitment to protect
the rights of citizenship. The effect of these social and political pathologies
is that the Nigerian state faces severe crisis of collapse. This is precisely
the message that Mr. Onumah wants to pass onto his compatriots. He feels we are
at the precipice and need to watch out closely. He wants us to rethink the
structure of the Nigerian state and reinvest the republic with those values
that secure a democratic society.
We need to watch out closely because the
political auguries about Nigeria look dismal. The political parties are yet to
rise up to the challenge of clear and decisive departure from the politics of
the past. The political parties look more like platforms for aggregating
resources to attack the Nigerian state and loot its resources rather than
ideological movements to save Nigeria from destructive crises. The political
parties are not thinking outside the box to create a Nigeria that will not be
amenable to raping and plundering. They are always reluctant to move away from
unprofitable focus on Nigeria as a loose amalgamation of ethnic and religious
groups rather than as a modern democratic state defined by inviolable
commitment to cater for the social, economic and political wellbeing of every
citizen.
The present leadership has the
responsibility to buck the sliding trend and set Nigeria up for forward march.
To deliver on PMB’s laudable commitments we need clarity on the fundamental
problem with the Nigeria, the underlying cause of these pathologies. My basic
conclusion is that the problem with Nigeria is that the basic logic and
structure of its governance is neo-feudal and aristocratic and its salvation
requires a radical reinvention and institutionalization as a modern democratic
state based on an enriched and lived concept of citizenship that leads
to accountability. Citizenship and accountability are two sides of a single
cure.
Nigeria was ill-defined during the
transition from colonial rule to independence. The country’s institutions
created in that period were of such character as does not make it a democratic
modern state. The political development in Nigeria, whether conceived as
development of state institutions or the practices of public leadership, has
reinforced those pathologies that arise from this ill-definition and
malformation. The wrong concept at the heart of the failure of leadership in
Nigeria is neo-feudal in character. It is the insistence on building the
Nigerian nation on the basis privilege and exemptions from the universal
requirements of civic democratic nation-state.
Nigeria developed as an amalgamation
of ethnic and religious groups with asymmetrical powers and privileges and not
as a modern democratic state based on the protection and promotion of the
rights of citizenship. The founders of the Nigerian state failed in this
singular but all important point: they did not insist on a country that offers
every citizen equal protection of the law. They did not insist on the transformation
of the ethnic and religious ideologies and interests wielded together by
colonial interests. They crafted a legal regime that panders to these
differences and even exaggerated them.
Let me illustrate the problem of wrong
definition in the formation of Nigeria with the case of legal system. It is
clear that the basis of a modern democratic state is a rule of law institution
characterized by formal legal regimes that apply equally to everyone.
Multicultural or multireligious societies are challenged to find legal regime
that guarantees stability and happiness for every composite of the society.
There are many options. During the discussion leading to independence, Nigerian
leaders confronted the challenge of how to engraft the various customary laws
within the context of liberal law. Nigeria chose the option of compromise which
resulted in two separate legal frameworks that lie uneasy.
The colonial authorities had done a
better job of subjecting all forms of customary and religious norms to the
values and ideals of liberal legality. This meant that no such religious or
customary law would be enforced if it violated the English man’s view of
justice and morality. We may rightly deplore their overbearing snobbery of
thinking low of customary norms and laws. But they wisely recognized that their
version of the state must erect a sentry to screen different values and laws
before admittance to formal legality. What the postcolonial founders should
have done is to erect a similar high wall to ensure that no idea or principle
is admitted into the corpus of political and constitutional thought that would
have the effect of reintroducing feudalism or its concomitant aristocracy.
Today, the Nigerian constitution
continues to contradict itself by eroding all the protections around the
central idea of democratic citizenship. For instance, having described who is a
Nigerian citizen and how a person could obtain Nigerian citizenship the
constitution should make no reference to indigenes and non-indigenes. For the purposes
of administration of the public space the constitution should be totally
agnostic of a Nigerian ethnic or religious identity. No benefit, legitimized by
the state, should flow from ethnic or religious identity. State laws should
define citizenship of states based on rational coordinates like reasonable
length of continuous stay, payment of taxes and other forms of social good
behavior.
Citizenship based definition of the
state is radical and have far-reaching implications for governance. First, it
has legal implication in the form of equal standing and protection of the law.
This is the basis of a well secured rule of law state. Nigeria has continued to
struggle with being a rule of law state because citizenship is not at the heart
of its self-definition. The ubiquity of impunity in Nigeria is understandable
considering that the idea of public leadership has incorporated the dangerous
notion of cultural and religious exceptionalism. This means that the instrument
of rule of law does not act swiftly and consistently. Similar cases are not
treated similarly, as they must undergo further reviews based on religious or
cultural sensibility.
The implication of the lack of strict
and consistent application of the rule of law is the culture of impunity that makes
Nigerian one of the most lawless and corrupt countries. Our diagnosis of
corruption is incomplete and unhelpful if it does include an understanding of
how our much cherished privilege-based and neo-feudal state encourages the
exemption of individuals from the full rigor of law. Our laws are religious,
cultural and social class sensitive. We have built a country for the
privileged. That privilege may come in the form of religion or ethnicity or
wealth.
The economic implication of the
weakness of the controlling idea of citizenship in the administration of
Nigeria is seen in the widespread poverty and high inequality. The management
of the national economic has not been guided by the idea of citizenship. A
modern democratic state is fundamentally focused on promoting the wealth and
happiness of the citizens. Fiscal policies should reflect commitment to deal
with the material conditions that affect the people. Therefore, money follows
the people. Money goes to solve real problems that affect the welfare of the
people. For instances, consider the northeast of Nigeria which is described as
one of the poorest part of the world. Economic management derived from this
concept of public leadership will put money to improve the material welfare of
the people. Money will not be poured to northeast because it cultural or
religious leaders needs to be placated or bought over. The same with the Niger
Delta. The huge financial allocation to that region will be warranted and
focused on redressing the huge environment and human crises in the region and
not to settle noisy militants and ethnic warlords.
Just imagine that this principle
determined economic development in Nigeria since 1960s. We will not be such a
hugely underdeveloped economy. We will not be running a rent-seeking economy as
we do now. Our huge natural resources
would have translated into enormous infrastructural and human development.
Power plants would have been sited where gas and transmission facilities are
available but not where political exceptionalism dictated.
The political implication of the
concept of protection of citizenship as the definition of democratic state is
democratization. Where the state is focused on protecting the enjoyment of the
right of citizenship the institutions of the state will promote openness,
accountability and voice. Free and fair election and responsive and responsible
governance will be guaranteed because these are inherent in treating citizens
as citizens.
One of the key factors for growth and
development is competent public sector management. The civil service has been
the driver of transformation through leadership in value orientation and
competence. Most developed society emphasis merit and productivity in their
public affairs. The Nigerian state has been defined more by privilege and
conservatism such that it has not allowed merit and productivity to determine
access to positions in the public service. This has created a mediocrity that
totally destroys both democratization and development.
We Are All Biafrans calls on
Nigerians to engage more seriously with the crisis of governance in Nigeria. Chido
Onumah believes that the crisis of governance in Nigeria is also a crisis of
constitutionalism. We need a new constitution that decentralizes power. But for
me, Nigeria’s problem is more fundamentally a crisis of conception and
ideation. And with the election of a puritanical and seemingly incorruptible
president whose commitment to a united Nigeria is effulgent, it is now time to
start in earnest the salvation of Nigeria.
The practical challenge for Nigeria is
to piece together a set of fundamental principles that will instruct the search
for institutional adaptations for the future. First, we must acknowledge that
we are living in a world which our sentiments and conservatism cannot change.
This is a dynamic world. We have to understand it and survive in its. Secondly
we must realize that we have built on shallow ground, on troubled ground, on a
soil that nurtures corruption and mediocrity in public leadership. We must
acknowledge that if we create a state that admits that privileges and
exceptions of religion and ethnicity can trump citizenship we are building a
society that cannot enforce the rule of law and therefore encourages
lawlessness. The continued triumph of religious fundamentalism from Maitasine
to Boko Haram and the accommodation of all sort of ethnic militancy and warlordism;
and the thousands of deaths along their ugly paths are a lesson on the folly of
building a nation-state on multiple exemptions from robust citizenship.
Nigeria needs to grow its economy,
employ technological innovation to overcome diseases and hunger and compete in
a world that is bursting with knowledge. That means we have to focus on
creating values. It is technocratic power that makes us win the rat-race to
produce more and better than the rest of the world. You don’t become
technocratically sophisticated if you must negotiate through the labyrinth of
ethnic and religious differences and privileges before you decide to invest in human
development. You can’t compete in today’s world if every opportunity must wear
the right kind of religious and ethnic label before you cash in on it.
The conclusion of the matter is that
the problem with Nigeria is first and foremost a failure of idea. The country
is running on the wrong ideas of neo-feudalism and conservatism. The
institutions of the state have developed with the DNA of protecting traditional
privileges. It started as ethnic and religious and has now snow-balled into
social and economic. The Nigerian state is conservative and traditional and
lacks the capacity to fully protect citizens. Because of its wrong
self-definition and the institutional adaptation of this definition the
Nigerian state is liable to being raped continually.
Chido’s We Are All Biafrans has
opened a fresh debate. In the context of this discourse how do we regard
campaigns for ‘fiscal federalism’, ‘creation of more states’, ‘cabinet system
of government’, ‘decentralization’ etc? The answer is simple: all these are
second order issues. They answer to institutionalization of a reformed concept
of the Nigerian state. They have marginal value. When we have answered the
first order question as to what the Nigerian state is to become we can settle
on the best institutions that will realize the clear idea of the Nigerian
state. It is a mistake to fight over the institution if we don’t first conceive
Nigeria as a modern democratic country pursuing the objective of promoting and
protecting the full rights of citizenship.
·
Dr Amadi is a lawyer and development practitioner
ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!
No comments:
Post a Comment