(Remarks by Prof. Adebayo Williams at the maiden edition of Soapbox NG organised by the Initiative for Dialogue and Development in Abuja on September 28)
Preamble and protocols
Chairman, illustrious members of the High Table, distinguished Nigerians in the hall please permit me to quickly establish the order of protocol. First, I want to thank the organisers of this Maiden Edition of Soapbox for a wonderful idea of bringing together compatriots from diverse political cultures and different fields together to rub minds about the problems confronting the country and to proffer solutions for the way forward.
In the dire circumstances in which we have found ourselves, a soapbox is not a box for soapy sentimentalities. I shall therefore dispense with sentiments in the analysis and solutions offered. It is curious that for a nation of normally voluble and verbally talented people, we seldom hold genuine dialogue among ourselves. Threats, recriminations, diatribes, infantile tirades, hate-suffused ethnic propaganda and summary state clampdown have become the currency of personal and group exchanges as well as the denominator of national dialogue.
We can surely not continue like this. We must find within ourselves the inner strength and resolve to discover the lost soul of Nigeria for the sake of posterity and for the salvation of the Black race. It is in the nature of nations to experience periodic crises as new challenges of development surface. No nation or human society is exempt from conflicts. Many of these crises arise from old errors of political engineering, fresh lapses of statesmanship and totally unforeseen circumstances. What is important is to find the will and the wisdom to overcome the hurdles.
For example, when we glibly mouth a return to the regional arrangement of the First Republic ——-which many believe remains Nigeria’s golden age— we tend to forget that regionalism or Regional Federalism was a product of arduous but fruitful dialogue, negotiation and compromise among our First Republic political leaders under the watchful supervision of the colonial masters. They were compelled by historical circumstances to appreciate differences arising from different political orientation and cultures to forge a nation united in and by competitive diversities.
In the event, an Obafemi Awolowo, from a background of federating Yoruba fiefdoms, was nudged into dropping his classical and Utopian notion of federalism to adopt a more pragmatic version. Zik, the quintessential Black intellectual who saw the whole Black race as his oyster, was weaned away from his romantic unitarist worldview to accommodate federalism tailored to local needs while Ahmadu Bello, the arch-royalist with a conservative proto-theocratic notion of the nation, was persuaded to drop the confederalist vision with which he sought to develop his more politically cohesive but educationally underdeveloped region in protective isolation from the rampaging south.
Succeeding and subsequent generations of Nigerians hardly appreciate this feat of political engineering and sacrifice by the three titans of the First Republic. It saved Nigeria from looming dismemberment or summary Pakistanization. In a tribute to political skills and collective brilliance, they managed to insert federalism into the Nigerian union without firing a single shot. We must discard the romantic notion that Nigeria started out as a federal state. The forcible amalgamation of diverse nationalities was a colonial unitarist fiat imposed on conquered people and not an association of freely federating people.
Having established the conceptual framework for this intervention, it is not my intention to bore the audience with a tedious regurgitation of the subsequent crises that have hobbled Nigeria’s march to authentic nationhood. What I now intend to do are threefold. First, I intend to direct attention to some curious and intriguing dimensions of the current crisis. Second and flowing from this, I intend to confront some unhelpful myths arising from the current crisis. Finally, I intend to offer a few strategic suggestions.
New dimensions of an old crisis
Sixty years after the advent of regional government, at no other time in their history have Nigerians been this bitterly divided and polarized along ethnic, class, regional and religious lines. Even the ruling party, a product of a pan-Nigerian clamour for good governance and accountability, the gains of national awareness and the exceptionality of the Nigerian nation have been dissipated.
In retrospect it must be said that the Fourth Republic took off in inauspicious circumstances with the enabling constitution introduced after military departure, like an accessory after the fact. To compound this awkward learning process, a substantial segment of the north declared Sharia as the operative grundnorm in open revolt against the imperative of a secular modern state.
Few now remember that this was a failed attempt at a forcible restructuring of the nation by those who believed that they had been visited with a political and economic misfortune. It is a miracle that this did not eventuate in a nasty constitutional conundrum. But this harbinger of unresolved national contradictions pales into insignificance when compared with the pan-Nigerian valency the renewed clamour for restructuring has assumed a decade and half later.
Everybody and every nationality seem to have their grievances. Fear of other nationalities is masquerading as the fact of the nation. Hell is no longer the other but the other Nigerian. We now have the Yoruba Question, the Igbo Question, the Hausa/Fulani Question and the Minorities Question all embedded in the intractable National Question.
Let us face reality. The economic dimension to this crisis is what has turned it into a political duel on to death among the fractious political class and also between them and an increasingly restive pan-Nigerian, multi-national underclass groaning under the yoke of corruption and criminal mismanagement of national resources. The fierce struggle for dwindling national resources compounded by elite mismanagement, the consequences of a mono-cultural economy, inability to compete in the knowledge economy and the destabilising ravages of globalization, have all turned contemporary Nigeria into a virtual war zone.
Consequently, electoral defeat has not been accepted with the grace and equanimity which nourish democracy and facilitate the democratic process. On the other hand, electoral triumph has not been managed with the generosity of spirit and statesmanlike rectitude which conduce to national cohesiveness and elite reconciliation.
The fear of economic annihilation arising from political defeat has spawned a morbid hatred for an all-powerful and aggravating centre and a resurgence of ethnic animosities on a scale that has never been witnessed in the history of the nation. The suspicion of the victors that this is a wicked ploy to destabilise the country and deny them the fruits of their electoral triumph has in turn induced a siege mentality in government circles which has led to a breakdown of elite consensus and conciliation.
The cost of this face-off has been prohibitive for the nation. What we are witnessing is a classic instance of supposedly democratic elections exacerbating the National Question rather than ameliorating it. Consequently, it has drowned the legitimate clamour for a restructuring of the governance architecture and foundational category of the nation which preceded the Fourth Republic in an ocean of confusion and allegations of bad faith. If the alternative version of the narrative is to be believed, the call for restructuring is steeped in deliberate mischief and malice whose ultimate aim is to make the country ungovernable.
Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, the master of Orwellian double-speak, would have been chuckling in his grave. So politicised is the language of restructuring in contemporary Nigeria that it can mean perfectly different things to different people at different places and at different times. Rather than see restructuring as a normal and natural phenomenon in the life of a nation, a historical imperative and precondition for renewal and revitalization and a sine qua non for reenergizing and liberating the diverse energies and genius of the people, those who believe they hold the unitarist ace of permanent political domination see the clamour as an attempt to whittle down or dismantle their electoral dominion.
On the other hand, there are those who view the unitarist and lopsided arrangement as conferring a structural and systemic electoral advantage on a section of the nation which reduces others to a condition of economic and political slavery which is a virtual negation of their right to ethnic self-actualization. The most extreme reaction to this is the renewed clamour for secession from the east and strident calls for a referendum which will determine the basis and further relevance of the nation should restructuring not be on the cards.
Few voices of reason are rising above this din of national confusion and chaos. Yet unless we are ready to go to full scale war, it is obvious that both sides of the divide will have to change tack and yield positions in a strategic national dialogue in which all fears and grievances are brought on the table and ironed out. Hysterical and hate-filled calls for restructuring will not be enough in a bitterly polarized polity. But neither will futile resistance and unhelpful demonization of the nation-wide calls for restructuring stem the tide of an idea whose time has come.
There are opponents of restructuring who believe that no amount of structural tinkering will drive corruption away as long as the dominant political culture remains. Government at the subnational level is a mirror-image of government at the national level. According to this school of thought, except in a few instances, the restructuring of the nation to “federating” states has brought neither accelerated development nor sustained impactful governance to the people.
If the quarrel had been over what manner of restructuring, it would have been easier to deal with. But there are those who claim not to understand what the whole business or basis of restructuring is all about. Proponents and adherents of restructuring must show why it is in the overall national interest and not a punitive expedition against a section of the nation while adherents of the status quo must educate us about how to navigate the statist gridlock and perpetual underdevelopment that the nation has found itself in a more competitive and economically challenging world.
Myths and Counter-myths
As it should be expected in a divided and bitterly polarized polity, the battle for restructuring in Nigeria has produced its own enabling myths and counter-myths. Political contestations for the soul of a nation are often fought under ideological occlusions in such a way that value-laden and heavily partisan terms come cloaked with the garb of objectivity and political neutrality. In order to facilitate strategic national dialogue certain myths and counter-myths have to be properly decoded.
The first of such myths is the widespread notion particularly in official circles that the unity of Nigeria is non-negotiable. This is the equivalent of a noble lie; an overstatement of insecurity which occurs when what is at hand does not approximate to what is on ground. There is no unity that is not negotiable. As a matter of fact, in order to become more united and more organic, all unity based on diversities must be constantly reinforced and renegotiated. This is the way to what the Americans call “ a more perfect union”.
When many respected Nigerian nationalists who witnessed first- hand the brutalities and bestialities of the civil war insist that the unity of the nation is non-negotiable, what they actually mean is that the forcible unification of the nation by colonial masters cannot be negotiated. This only betrays an empire and military mind-set.
Unification is not unity. Unification is an act of summary violence whereas unity is a sustained and affective process of emotional binding and bonding among diverse people. Unification can only produce Nigeria. It is unity that will produce authentic and organic Nigerians. As an Italian patriot famously declared: “Now that we have created Italy, it is time to create Italians”.
It is useful to recall examples from other climes. Charles de Gaulle was not only a great soldier, he was also a great visionary statesman and a great writer to boot. When he was recalled to power by his military colleagues after twelve years in political limbo with the express mandate to keep Algeria as part of France at all costs, the great soldier weighed all the prohibitive possibilities and promptly commenced the process of Algerian independence. For his pains, he became a victim of serial assassination attempts.
The second myth is actually a counter-myth aimed at proponents of the first myth. There are those who drive the argument to the extremity that since Nigerians did not buy into or sign on to the military constitution of 1999 which surfaced after the inauguration of the civilian administration, the Fourth Republic subsists in a condition of constitutional nullity which conduces to political chaos and eventual anarchy.
But the objective reality remains. No country can exist in a constitutional vacuum. A constitution curtails and constraints and is often an accurate reflection of the balance of forces at play at a particular historical conjuncture. This is akin to bolting the door of the stable after the horse had fled. To the best of our knowledge, there was no widespread resistance and protests when the constitution was foisted on the nation.
The political class and the people kept mute happy to see the new democratic dawn and having been exhausted by the military politics of attrition. Until Nigerians find the will and the critical mass to renounce some of its grosser political absurdities or its outright repeal in a situation of radical turmoil, the 1999 constitution will continue to constitute an obstacle to peace, political progress and economic prosperity in Nigeria.
The third and final myth insists that what Nigeria needs is not the much ballyhooed notion of political restructuring but a restructuring of the mind. Without this re-engineering of the soul, the proponents insist, everything put on the decaying foundation is dead on arrival. On face value, this is full of native wisdom and elementary common sense. It is said that no straight furniture can be procured from crooked timber.
But on deeper examination, it is a conceptual nonstarter, a red herring thrown in to destabilise the debate and render the outcome nugatory. No restructuring of the mind can take place outside of the objective reality that conditions and in the last instance determines the state of the mind. The state of the mind is a product of the material and political reality at play at any particular time.
For example, the military mind-set which conduces to autocracy and unitary governance is a product of historical and material forces at play at a particular conjuncture. Under grave historical pressures and antagonistic mass-momentum this mind-set gradually gave way to new realities in an involuntary restructuring of the mind.
Former military kingpins became converted democrats with some playing the lead violin. Some of their colleagues who were farsighted enough to see that military rule had become unsustainable paid the supreme sacrifice for the enthronement of civil rule. This has not prevented many others who fought for military despotism from enjoying the dividends of democracy and reaping from where they did not sow.
This is the way of history. In any group, class, social formation or even nation, there can be no uniform consciousness or uniformity of mental clarity. The enthronement of democracy in Nigeria did not exempt or exclude those who fought against democracy. The beneficial advantages of a properly restructured Nigeria will also not preclude those who fight overtly or covertly against restructuring.
Recommendations
1 President Buhari should go immediately for the clusters of consensus and low hanging fruits by initiating a Bill for the structural unbundling of an overburdened centre through the removal of several agreed items from the current Exclusive List and their devolution to the constituting states in a way and manner that does not enfeeble or endanger the manifest destiny of the nation.
2 The Federal Government should initiate the process for the convening of a Strategic National Dialogue of Leaders of Thought that will deliberate on the appropriate structure and governance architecture for a multi-ethnic nation with a timeline for producing a document which will serve as a basis for a major constitutional reconfiguration of the nation.
3 This being a young country with over seventy percentage of the population under thirty years, the future belongs to the youth, the presidency should convene a Stakeholders’ Consultative Forum comprising of Youth Organizations, Student Groups, Civil Society Groups, Civic Bodies and Labour to deliberate on the state of the nation and come up with recommendations on the type of nation they want.
4 As we have mooted in an earlier column but now dependent on the outcome of 1 , 2 and 3 above, the government should establish a Commission for Vertical and Horizontal Integration which will take a holistic look at the class, ethnic, religious and gender divisions of the nations and come up with continuous ameliorative measures. This is the best way to put centrifugal forces in permanent focus should replace the moribund agencies foisted on the nation by military rule.
I thank you all for the opportunity.