Category: Segun Gbadegesin

By Segun Gbadegesin

 

In the wisdom of the elders, “ejo la a ko, a kii ko ija” (It is better to learn how to state your case well than to learn how to fight an opponent). For, if you are able to state your case well to prospective adjudicators, thus helping them to understand the justice of your cause, fighting may be unnecessary.

Thus, it was in the days that King Saul was bombarded by the Philistines, and he felt overwhelmed despite his fame as a superior warrior, that David, a young herdsman from the house of Jesse offered to help. It was an unusual offer. He wasn’t visibly prepared for war. He was in his shepherd’s robe. He was sent to the camp with supplies to his older brothers who did not take kindly to his poking his nose into an affair that was none of his business. David’s response was direct and on point: Is there not a cause?

Israel was under siege. The army of the “uncircumcised” was defying the army of the God of Israel. For David, that was the cause. And it called for an effect, namely, those who could must show up with help. And as Malcolm Gladwell brilliantly explains in his book, David and Goliath, though we are used to the popular fiction of David just having a sling and a few stones, the depth of his expertise in the field of battle, including his specialization in the use of sling was beyond reproach. And as the story ended, Goliath underestimated it to his peril. Lesson: Do not underestimate the strength that your adversaries with a life and death choice facing them bring to the battle that you initiate.

Twelve years ago, Mallam Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was the President. During his short presidency, the country did not experience the long stretch of insecurity that has become its lot since 2013. Boko Haram was just beginning to emerge but not in its current demonic and deadly form. The Southwest was relatively peaceful, and PDP was in control of five states excluding Lagos. Though a majority of the zone’s politically active residents clamored for true federalism and state police, no action was taken beyond usual releases and rallies. Beyond the strength of the belief that true federalism is the most effective system to advance the development of the country and its people, there was no life and death choice in the matter at that time. There was not a cause.

Fast forward to mid-2019, and the visually blind could sense the trouble the Southwest was in, if nothing was done. Kidnappers were on the loose. Armed robbery was on the rise. Cultists were kings of the night and day. There was hardly a day that news of gory killings on the highways did not send chilling alerts to residents with worries about who may be next? Many abandoned traveling on the highways. It was in the midst of these that Afenifere Leader, Pa Fosoranti’s daughter, Mrs. Funke Olakunrin, was brutally killed in broad daylight along Benin-Ore road. Naturally, Yorubaland was in a rude shock. And justifiably, the demand for government action to protect the people grew louder. After all, security is the foremost responsibility of government. And since the closest authority to the people are the state governors of the zone, they were the focus of their demand. Is there not a cause?

On this page on June 28, 2019, I observed that security must be a coordinated effort on the part of the governors and the people, that the various cases of violent crime had shown us that criminals do not respect state borders and that crime is easily transportable. Therefore, we expected our state governors to act in concert. They did! Is there not a cause? So what’s the fuss?

The 1999 Constitution, imposed by an unelected military regime, vested security of the entire country in the federal government’s police and the military forces. Yet, the same Constitution designates the state governors as Chief Security Officers (CSO) of their states and allocates security funds for this purpose. In their judgement as CSO, each came to the conclusion that the unacceptable wave of violent crime in the Southwest can only be effectively tackled by a coordinated effort on the part of all the governors. Thus, Operation Amotekun (Western Nigeria Security Network) was born to complement the efforts of the federal security infrastructure by providing needed intelligence, which can only be effectively sourced by locals. Is there not a cause?

But an officious Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) can only see illegality in the efforts of a people to secure themselves and their land. Something must be terribly wrong here. Five of the governors that facilitated the birth of Amotekun are APC stalwarts and presumably presidential loyalists. Can they possibly reconcile themselves to their government’s criminalization of their efforts? The discussions prior to the launching of the security outfit included the Office of the Inspector General. The governors were insistent from the beginning that they were only complementing the federal security operations in the zone. Pray, what is illegal here?

Predictably, Amotekun is already having some consequences, some of them likely unintended. The Southwest has always been a political cesspool of colliding ambitions standing in the way of much needed unity. Suddenly, Amotekun has appeared as a unifier. First, there is an unusual bipartisan effort on the part of governors; and second, there is a buy-in by stakeholders including traditional rulers and religious leaders, many of whom have not always seen eye to eye. This unity of purpose is a testament to the heightened sense of insecurity generated mid-year 2019, and a readiness to embrace any promising agenda to stop it.

“But an officious Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) can only see illegality in the efforts of a people to secure themselves and their land. Something must be terribly wrong here”

It is also true, however, that the intervention of the AGF has led to another unintended consequence, certainly on his part. For many years or decades, the Southwest has championed the cause of re-federalization in reaction to continued unitarization. This effort has been met by strong resistance on the part of unitarists. Amotekun was not in any way another effort in that direction. It was simply a desperately needed measure to secure a people traumatized on their highways and inside their domains by kidnappers, armed robbers and cultists as central government security forces proved ineffective.

To their surprise, however, an overbearing Leviathan at the center, through its Chief Law Officer decided to throw a spanner in the wheel of progressive security vehicle launched by the zone. Predictably, there was a unified defiant reaction to AGF’s sophomoric legal challenge. Why was this predictable even as political unity had been unpredictable for ages? Simply, it strikes at the core of the people’s humanity. Insecurity is a nonpartisan evil. To feel unsafe in one’s house has no party logo. Chiefs and commoners were kidnapped or killed in the height of the tension. The people saw the AGF’s intervention as an insensitive insult because it didn’t take their wellbeing into consideration, or worse, it could care less about it.

It is usual for the type of response from the federal government through the AGF to lead to an unintended consequence with a more far reaching outcome for the collective. Thus, there are now calls for an all-out struggle for the re-federalization of the nation. The rationale is simple. Citizens feel that they have been suffering and smiling for quite a long time even prior to 2015 when the present administration was inaugurated. The counterproductive goal of uniformity has been substituted for the noble task of unity. In the process, the diversity that was initially acknowledged to be our strength has been jettisoned on the altar of homogeneity. If a reasonable effort to secure the people in a zone which has been most accommodative of all comers would be declared illegal contrary to the spirit of the constitution which recognizes governors as the Chief Security Officers of their states, then, we might as well go the whole stretch for true federalism. This is where the defiance of an inconsiderate and unguarded pronouncement by the AGF is leading the country.

Surely, there is a cause.

 

 

 

 

Segun Gbadegesin

 

I BEGIN this piece with a proposition that I intend to defend and canvass: Public service is for the promotion, furtherance, and achievement of the public good, and this is the only justification for any person going into public service. Therefore, promotion of private gain must not be the focus of the thought or conduct of a public servant. In this era of justified cynicism and skepticism about public servants and private gain, this view of public service may be considered too unrealistic to be true. I know, and it is sad.

To underscore my understanding of that cynical mindset, I confess that this piece is triggered by media reports on some lawmakers’ complaint about the “insulting” N2 million Christmas allowance they received when they were expecting multiples of tens of millions. That is just one instance, and the latest, of many examples of the excesses of our lawmakers. How can a focus on private gains by a category of public servants in the nation be reconciled with the view that public service is for public good and that the only justification for going into it is to promote the good of the public?

Before I answer this important question, a word on my view of public service and public servants. For both terms, there is a narrow definition and a broad definition. For the narrow definition, public service is synonymous with Civil Service, the bureaucratic wing of governments which provides various services for local, state, and national governments. Such services include fire service, postal service, health care, public works, education, criminal justice, etc. These are public because they serve the public. By the same token, public servants are civil servants appointed or elected to carry out these various tasks.

For the broad definition, I follow the insight of Leon Duguit who, almost a century ago, understood public service as “every activity of general interest which is of such an importance to the entire collectivity that those in authority are under a duty to insure its accomplishment in an absolutely continuous manner, even by the use of force.” (The Concept of Public Service, Yale Law Journal, 1923).

The foregoing broad definition offered by Duguit captures the essence of public service by identifying it with the justification of the state itself. We come together as individuals to create the state upon which we confer a sovereign status. But the justification for the sovereignty is not an inherent right of the collective. Rather it is the duty of the collective entity to carry out certain tasks which are central to the continuity of the entity. These include health, education, defence against external attack, internal security, justice, social services, including welfare of the vulnerable, etc. But for all these to operate, there must be enabling laws and regulations. Hence the need for a special class of public servants, namely law makers, law executors, and law adjudicators.

For this reason, Duguit substitutes the concept of the state as “a sovereign power which commands” for that of the state as “a cooperation of public service, constituted, regulated, directed, and controlled by those in authority, who in doing so, fulfill the obligation imposed upon them by the rule of law based upon the social solidarity.” The importance of this emphasis on public service as the defining character of the state cannot be overemphasized despite the temptation of realpolitik. Sure, the state exercises power, including the monopoly of force. But the justification for that power is the service of public good. Otherwise it is not different from the brute power exercised by an armed robber.

And what is even more significant for the concept of public service understood as the underlying justification for the state is that obedience is conditioned upon the relevance of the command to a public service. From which it also follows that “in all well-organized countries there should exist a right of recourse against all acts whatever of those in authority which exceed the aim of public service, be it through an act of legislation, or through an individual act.” More than 10 years ago, (September 2009) on this page, I made a similar argument in support of the right of citizens against a dysfunctional government in a democratic republic. If subjects of a king have that right (cf. 1789 France), citizens of a democracy have a greater claim to it.

The answer to the question posed above is obvious in the light of the foregoing clarification of concepts. A focus on or pursuit of private gain by an individual or a group of elected or appointed public servants is a clear abrogation of the duty of public service because it confounds the interest of the individual or group with that of the public. Hence, the coinage “conflict of interests” which describes the corrupt mindset of such officials and indicts them morally and legally.

Yet, to the cynic’s point, that mindset has become the norm rather than the exception in public life, from the lowliest cadre to the highest of our civil service. It is prevalent in the corridors of learning from primary to college levels. Our healthcare institutions are not isolated zones of integrity, and our officers of the law from the police to judges aren’t above board.

Yes, there are islands of probity with laser beam focus on public good even at the expense of private interest. But these are almost always flooded out in an ocean of greed and avarice that typifies public service in our clime.  What is more, the guardians of public good, that is, elected public officials at all levels have almost always elevated their individual and group interests above public interest. If this is the prevailing mindset, the cynic argues, what is the point of defining public service by a norm of public good that does not motivate public servants in reality?

There is a simple answer to this last question. Generally, society comes up with norms of behavior which it enforces not because those norms mirror reality. Rather norms are enunciated and embraced because society cannot endure the excesses of reality, including the reality of human selfishness and greed.

Societies which function effectively have successfully grappled with this reality by creating strong institutions that prove capable of dealing with it, with enforceable norms of behavior and sanctions against misbehavior. Dysfunctional societies, on the other hand, hopelessly struggle to create strong institutions because they have inexplicably elevated strong men and women above the laws that protect public good, which the latter take to be at their service.

This is unfortunately where we are as a society. Lawmakers would rather have N37 billion for the renovation of the National Assembly complex in a country where citizens are dying unnecessarily because basic healthcare is in shambles. Our lawmakers would rather have N50 million as Christmas allowance while state and local government workers are owed multiple monthly salaries and therefore cannot hope for a merry Christmas. To justify their demands, they argue that they have dependent constituents who need their constant help. And to a large extent, they are right. Some weeks ago, in “Citizen Corruption”, I argued that much of official corruption by public servants can be traced to demands by ordinary citizens.

But citizen moral infraction pales in significance considering the moral insensitivity of public servants because they ought to know better. And they are well-placed to educate citizens about the purpose of public service and their duty to promote the public good.  As citizens who voluntarily opt for public service, they have the moral and legal duty to ensure that the activities and services under their watch are discharged effectively without promoting their private interests at the expense of the public interest.

Occupying this position of authority does not grant them the right to corner the resources of the public for private use since doing so shortchanges the public. And, for the sake of the public, in case anyone is so tempted, there must be institutional sanctions against such conduct. Public service is, morally and legally, service for the public good. It must not be exploited for private good.

 

 

By Segun Gbadegesin

Barely a year into the second term of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the matter of succession has already come to the fore, courtesy of prospective candidates, the most recent of whom is popular cleric, Pastor Tunde Bakare, founder of Latter Rain Assembly. Of particular note is that Pastor Bakare has been the only one to have openly declared his interest in succeeding President Buhari come 2023. And his distinctive approach to the matter has raised anew the perennial question of the logic of democratic succession.

Simply put, in a democracy, the people are the stakeholders. It is their government. They hold the ace. They choose their leaders. Their leaders work for them. If and when they are not satisfied with their government and leaders, they replace them at will. The logic of democracy is that, ideally, leaders are at the mercy of the people. It is what distinguishes it from dictatorship in which the people are at the mercy of their leaders.

In a party-based democracy, political parties are the recruiting ground for membership as well as for candidates for political offices. This is the system that we purportedly practice. Normally, potential candidates present themselves to the party members for nomination, seek the endorsement of key stakeholders with credibility within and outside the party hierarchy, but ultimately canvass the support of the rank and file membership of the party. This first step is internal to specific political party nomination procedure. The second step is for the candidates of various parties to slug it out in a general election.

We have seen both steps play out in the politics of succession with varying degrees of success in the various election cycles since 1999. While state governors have often taken it upon themselves to not only justifiably have a say in their successors but to more impulsively dictate who must succeed them, the presidency has been less predisposed to incumbency arrogance.

Well, sort of! We have not had many intra-party presidential succession battles since 2007 when President Obasanjo relied on the judgment of a screening committee of PDP to recommend the party’s presidential candidates. From the list of the committee’s potential candidates, President Yar’Adua got the nod. Vice President Jonathan succeeded the deceased Yar’Adua and went on to win the party’s nomination and the general election in 2011. In 2015, Jonathan lost to President Buhari who was just reelected in 2019.

Can we then confidently suggest that we have followed the logic of democratic succession thus far, at least, as far as the presidency is concerned? On the surface, yes. We have held party presidential primaries, whether direct or indirect. We have had nominations by consensus. We have not had a case of a departing president single-handedly anointing a candidate from his party prior to the conclusion of internal party procedures.

Going deeper, however, many cynics will undoubtedly identify the undemocratic nature of our system of nomination and election. First, indirect primary is anything but fully democratic, because it relies on the judgment of party officials. Second, the influence of money ensures that not all animals are created equal and, therefore, no matter what skills and talents a potential candidate may have, he or she has no hope for a governorship, not to talk of a presidential ticket. Still, every patriot nurses the hope that, as our democracy endures, it will overcome these teething problems on the road to a level field for every prospective presidential candidate.

Enter Pastor Bakare’s eureka moment concerning democratic succession: “Therefore, as we build institutions of democratic governance, a key responsibility that history has bestowed on President Muhammadu Buhari at this turning point in our journey to nationhood is to institutionalize systems of accurate succession that will build and sustain the Nigeria we desire. This is a task that must be done.” This was the media report of the Pastor’s live broadcast from his church.

The transition word, “Therefore….” above suggests that some thoughts have preceded the conclusion that the word introduced. What preceded was a historical support for the Pastor’s position. He referenced “strong leaders like the late Deng Xiaoping of China, the late Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Goh Chok Tong of Singapore.” In his reckoning, they all prioritized political succession which turned out to underscore the success story of their various nations.

Note that Bakare’s suggestion is not as radical as the media headlines convey it. He has not urged “Buhari to pick successor before 2023.” Of course, he wants to succeed President Buhari; but he has also not asked the president to name him as his successor. Back in 2018, he only declared that God wanted him to run for the president. What the cleric has advised Buhari is to “institutionalize systems of accurate succession…” as Xiaoping, Tong, and Mandela did.

The problem with this suggestion is that it fails to acknowledge the difference between the structures of the various democracies. Nigeria does not run the same kind of “democratic” institutions as China, Singapore or South Africa. In these democracies, due to the peculiarity of their systems, it is quite feasible for there to be an institutionalized leadership succession. Take South Africa as an example. Since 1994, it has run a parliamentary democratic system which is led by the ANC, a liberation movement turned ruling party. The president, who is the head of government and leader of the ruling party, is elected by the parliament which can also replace him as was the case with Jacob Zuma.

Singapore is also a parliamentary system but with more of a dictatorial character where dynastic rule appears to be the institution. Lee Kuan Yew ruled as Prime Minister with his People’s Action Party (PAP) for three decades. For a strong leader, that was sufficient time to transform the city state economically and politically. While the former happened, the latter did not. Individual freedom and political development were the price offered for economic development. Lee passed the baton to Chok Tong in 1990 and in 2004 Lee’s son took over. Meanwhile, Lee did not leave the scene, serving as “Senior Minister” during Chok Tong’s premiership and as “Mentor Minister” during his son’s rule. PAP has been the dominant party with a core of party leadership from which parliamentary leadership is selected. In the words of Pastor Bakare, “accurate succession” is guaranteed. But is this what Nigeria needs or wants? Indeed how practicable is it in this country?

China is perhaps the most regimented of the systems and it is not clear why it should be presented as an exemplar for Nigeria. China does not hide its communist background and orientation. It does not camouflage itself as a representative democracy. Surely, it is a model of communist democracy with “accurate succession” with an economic objective of optimal development. The Communist Party is in charge. It selects political leaders. There is no multiparty competition. So, certainly, there is institutionalization of succession. But that kind of succession is not feasible in our democratic system.

The bottom line seems to me to be this. Pastor Bakare is not out of line for wishing that Nigeria should have an institutionalized succession for stability and development. However, this wish cannot be realized in the presidential system that we now run based on the 1999 Constitution. At best, we could hope for such a system of stable succession, without the kind of abuse that is detectable in the Singaporean democracy, in a parliamentary system of representative democracy. Even then, there is no guarantee since, without the abuse, a genuine multiparty democracy throws up any number of possibilities in leadership succession.

The question which is better between a multiparty democracy that enlarges the scope of leadership choices by expanding individual and party competition without an institutionalized succession system, and a regimented system of accurate succession that guarantees the stability and development of the nation is not one that can be posed within democracy itself. It is a question that is logical prior to the choice of a system. For us, we seem to have answered that question with our choice of representative democracy of the presidential type.

 

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By Segun Gbadegesin

 

We just bid goodbye to a decade that was, at inception, full of hope. The decade before the last had witnessed a mix of positive and negative developments. We were six months into our newly minted democracy when that first decade of a new millennium made its debut. Naturally, we were full of expectation, first for the new millennium, and then, as an afterthought, for the decade. It was normal.

We had experienced numerous decades in our lifetime; but a new millennium is an entirely new thing. What with the panic! As Lily Rothman of Time magazine reported five years ago, “TIME was prepared for the worst.” The January 18, 1999 cover of the magazine which Rothman reproduced was captioned “The End of the World!?! Y2K Insanity! Apocalypse Now!” etc. There were worries that computers may melt down and that the world itself would come to an end.

The fear of Y2K turned out to be much ado about nothing. As Rothman reminded us, the only significant event on that day 20 years ago was the resignation of Boris Yeltsin as the president of Russia. Well, in view of the fact that Putin was the Yeltsin-anointed replacement, and the developments in geopolitics since then, the West knows now that that event was quite significant. But as significant as it was, Y2K had nothing to do with it.

Back in our beloved land, we took it in stride. Our democracy was midwifed by dictators, who were its original saboteurs, as they imposed one of their rank. Good luck with that, friends wished us. Those friends were right. Even as they were shamed out of political power, the military ensured that they left an indelible mark in a new constitution which centralised power and made a mockery of our foundational federal system. This singular move ensured that a president with an authoritarian mindset can grab as much power as s/he wants to the detriment of states and other branches of government.

What does it matter? Many of our compatriots ask this question innocently. What does it matter if we had a benevolent dictator, who focuses on and achieves good governance that benefits the greatest number of citizens? If folk can put food on the table, educate their children, and enjoy the good of life, why bother about constitutional niceties? Indeed, why should we worry that the Federal Government and not the states feed children in primary schools throughout the 774 constitutionally recognised local governments as long as the children are fed? What if the Federal Government provides fire service in cities and towns across the country? What matters is that these services are provided efficiently and effectively. So the argument goes.

What matters is the fact that we have a federal constitution for a good reason. We have a diversity of “tribe and tongue”, the respect for which ensures an enduring national unity, which is our ultimate goal. Incidentally, however, respect for diversity is also in the interest of citizens both materially and psychologically. Our cultural and linguistic identities are inalienable aspects of our being. Therefore, providing the amenities of life for a population from a far centre without their input is akin to a colonial power’s contempt for “native” cultures and customs. That it is internal does not negate its description as a “benevolent” dictatorship.

The foregoing is simply an attempt to capture how we lied to ourselves at the beginning of that decade and millennium. Recall that the constitution that the new democratic republic was founded upon was not released until the eve of the new dispensation. And despite the fact that we have all since become aware of many of its defects, our lawmakers have, in various amendment efforts, only attended to the ones that cater to their interests, scornfully ignoring the fundamental issue of the structure of the nation. The reality of our experience in the last decade is a salient reminder of the problem with that approach.

First, there is no denying the fact of the recklessness of the abuse of federal power since 1999. This observation does not deny that states and local governments also behaved recklessly for the most part. But because much more power was vested in the federal than state governments, the impact of that abuse was much more damaging to the system. We saw this in the prevalence of electoral malpractice. We witnessed it in the depth of corruption and fiscal irresponsibility, with ministers and special advisers accumulating humongous wealth at the expense of the public. We saw it in the diversion of security funds to party members to buy votes and bend the will of the people while criminally abandoning soldiers fighting insurgency to their fate.

In short, the argument that the Federal Government is best placed to use resources for the good of the people and the nation fell flat in the face of high-scale corruption. In the circumstance, investment in education, health, and critical infrastructure suffered terribly. Worse, people see the careless display of such ill-gotten wealth in high places. And this has a debilitating effect on the populace who are naturally angry with a system that treats them as expendables.

There are at least two consequences of this high-level corruption. One is various degrees of social crisis from cultism to money ritual and armed robbery. It is a no-brainer. We have a higher rate of reproduction than many other nations, developed or less-developed. Those nations with lower rate of reproduction take seriously the plan for the education and development of the children they produce. We don’t. We just bring them into the world and release them like animals in the wild do. What do we expect?

The other consequence of high-level corruption is the internal conflict that it generates among various social-cultural groups. We tend to forget these days about the various inter-ethnic crises that the nation went through from 1999 to 2007 with the various ethnic militants vying for attention and supremacy to corner what they considered their own slice of the national cake, especially when they were convinced that the system was rigged against them. All these are the fallout of a corruption-ridden system.

Second, assume that the central government, with an anti-corruption mandate, declares an open and full commitment to the war against corruption, as the Buhari administration did in 2015. The administration has escalated the fight and has been successful to some extent with announcements of fund recovery from some culprits and conviction of others. You would expect that such a commitment would garner support from the masses and you’d be right. After all, as observed above, the masses bear the brunt of the abuse of governmental power that corruption entails. Yet, we have seen that since 2015, rather than abate, there has been an intensification of sectional and sectarian conflicts, from insurgency in the Northeast to herdsmen-farmer conflicts in the Northcentral, Southwest, and Southeast.

There are several reasons for this rise in conflicts, three of which are worth our attention for what they demonstrate. One is that based on their past experiences, many citizens do not trust the government as an honest broker in the fight against corruption. Consider the numerous sceptical and cynical comments published in social media. Furthermore, as the government would have us believe, corruption has a way of fighting back and, because of its strength and strategic superiority, is capable of entering into collaboration with likeminds.

The third reason for the rise in conflicts has little to do with corruption and more to do with our underlying crisis of mistrust. Many who see something commendable in the efforts of the present administration in tackling corruption, investing in infrastructure, agriculture, and diversifying the economy, are nevertheless bothered about alleged lopsidedness of political and bureaucratic appointments and heavy-handedness of the government against critics, both of which are tied directly or indirectly to the structure of governance. For them, a pass on anti-corruption doesn’t justify sectionalism.

For President Buhari, this is Nigeria’s decade. To make it so, we must build a united nation on a truly federal system of governance.

Happy New Decade!

By Segun Gbadegeshin

Despite the uncertainty of our world, certain outcomes are predictable. The first born of the Queen of England will succeed her as king while his son is next in line. North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un succeeded his father, just as Bashir Assad did in Syria. And children of wealthy parents are more likely to have a head start in life, though how they turn out is not predictable.

How about the prospects of a baby born to parents who cannot afford the luxuries of life; a baby whose cradle is a manger; whose father almost rejected him as illegitimate? What is the chance of such a baby becoming a crown-wearing king?

That was the implausible story of Jesus Christ! With the manger as his cradle at birth, depending on others for sustenance, and even resting finally in another man’s tomb, our Lord rose to become the king of the universe. How did this happen? Surely, he had David, the anointed king of Israel, as ancestor. But he was at least 28 generations removed from David. The thought of Joseph, his earthly father, becoming a successor of Herod was a remote one. How did it happen? We could try a few approaches to answering this question.

God’s original plan for humankind in the Garden of Eden was for them to become the controller of the universe. Our model was Christ’s stilling of the storm on the sea. But while God made us like Himself, we deviated from His original plan and lost the lordship of the earth. We became subject to the forces of nature, which we were created to control.  Humans lost the garden and became subject to supernatural forces.

But God is merciful and he would not let his anger linger forever. Therefore, he looked to His creation through Abraham, His faithful servant, whom He promised to bless, a promise fulfilled with the birth of Isaac when Abraham was 100 years old. Then, God tested Abraham’s faith by calling on him to sacrifice his only son through whom he had been promised many blessings. And when Abraham obeyed, we had the inkling of the blessings to humankind in his confident assertion that “God will provide.”

God provided a lamb in place of Isaac. But it was also a declaration of God’s intention to provide a sacrificial lamb in person of Jesus Christ. This declaration was further confirmed to David, descendant of Abraham through Judah in 1 Chronicle 17: 11-14: “I will raise up after you your descendant, who is one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He will build a house for me and I will establish his throne forever. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me…I will appoint him over my house and my kingdom forever, and his throne will be established forever.” While Solomon was the immediate subject of this promise, we also know that the reign of Jesus was the ultimate promise. And just as Isaac did not struggle with Abraham, Christ did not struggle with God. Abraham’s blessing was through Isaac. Jesus’s blessing is everlasting.

Again, even after he volunteered to run this end for his father, Jesus could have developed cold feet and reneged on his promise. He didn’t, marking the beginning of a journey from heavenly glory to earthly humiliation. He was tempted in the wilderness when Satan “took Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in what must have been a difficult situation. The devil said to Him: “I will give you their splendor and all this authority, because it has been given over to me, I can give it to anyone I want; if you, then, will worship me, all will be yours” (Luke 4: 5-7).

How tempting! How attractive! Many of us will fall into that kind of temptation. What does it take? Attraction to the satisfaction of our material desires! But what did Jesus say to Satan? ‘It is written: “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Luke 4: 8). If Jesus had succumbed to the temptation to deny his father and accept Satan’s offer of worldly glory, that would have been the end of his mission and ministry, and the end of his glorious reign. What about the humiliation he suffered in the hands of those he had come to save, and the persecution, including hanging on a tree, as a cursed man?

It is the combination of all these that earned Jesus the crown and the kingdom. It is the meaning of Christ’s journey from cradle to crown. The all-merciful God, desiring our good, took on the form of a human being, was born as baby Jesus by a virgin of humble background, and grew up materially unimpressive but contented. As a model of divine excellence, he went about doing good yet suffered persecution in the hands of those whom he desired to redeem, and was crucified like a common criminal. But he died and resurrected and was taken into glory in his eternal kingdom. With his victory, he earned the crown of glory and a mandate to judge the world. This is the message of Christmas. It is to this Christ’s kingdom that we have the grace of being called.

Yet, there is no doubt that, anyway we look at it, our contemporary world appears more like the kingdom of Satan than the kingdom of Christ. Look around and see the triumph of the devil in many areas of our society: cultism, gangsterism, kidnapping, money rituals, terrorism, parental rape, corruption, etc. Even the Church has an inglorious share in the reign of Satan as we hear stories of pastors engaging in rituals and sexual perversion. We must not fall into the temptation of the kingdom of the world. We must claim our membership of the kingdom of Christ.

What is this kingdom like? What can we expect as members, subjects, and participants?

Left to our wits, we are not qualified to enter the kingdom of God because it is not by works; it is only by God’s grace. And when chosen by grace, we are not to expect fun-fare on the way. Like Christ himself, we must expect to encounter many hardships. Jesus achieved kingship because he was victorious over Satan’s antics. He was master over worldly desires, as he subjected himself to the instructions of His Father.

On the narrow path that leads to the kingdom, we must expect a bumpy ride. Therefore, we need His companionship, which He assures us if we faithfully brace ourselves with His words at all times, as David habitually did. (Psalm 119:11) Nonetheless, kingdom members need the mutual support of one another.

How do we as members of Christ’s kingdom relate to one another? With love or with malice in our hearts? But He commanded us in John 15: 12 to “love one another as I have loved you.” And in John 17: 21-22, He prayed to his Father that He may keep His followers as one: “May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be one in us…I have given them the glory that you gave me. May they be one as we are one.”

How do we present ourselves to those who are outside the grace of membership of the Kingdom so that they see Christ in us and through us and decide that they want to be part of the Kingdom? Do we have time for those who need our succour and help? Or do we simply see ourselves as spiritual beings who don’t need to be bogged down by things of the world, including those who need our help?

I pray that God may help His redeemed ones, who are destined by His grace to ascend from the cradle of sin to the throne of grace, to do His will as members of the Kingdom of the God of Justice.

• Text of an address to Alafia Baptist Church, Mt. Rainier, Maryland, USA, on December 22, 2019. Merry Christmas!

Segun Gbadegesin

State Security Service (SSS), aka Department of State Services (DSS), is a dreadful national nightmare. It earns this ignoble distinction alongside other security agencies. Two pertinent questions follow: What have we done to deserve this? What can we do about it?

You could probably make sense of the strong-willed obsession of SSS with high handedness in a military regime. After all, the agency received its domestic intelligence-gathering mandate in the dark days of the military and could count on its absolute support against the interest of “bloody civilians”. But how does it fit in a democracy in which civilians are supposedly the indispensable stakeholders with the power of the ballot?

It turns out that civilians have always had an overrated assessment of their power. At least, since 1999, DSS has not changed a bit as it has consistently proved itself a lover of AGIP, aka Any Government in Power. For at least two reasons, this should normally be a concern to political power holders.

First is the obvious fact that what goes around comes around.  It always has. As I will remind us shortly, the present deriders, mockers and chief complainants against DSS excesses were once the chief supporters of the agency. By the same token, those who would now see no evil or hear no evil were once the most vocal objectors against the high-handedness of DSS. At best, then, many members of the political class have simply resigned themselves to the operational consistency of DSS in favoring any government in power, or at worst, they are simply hypocrites.

Second, however, we are facing a crisis which is far greater than what individual political actors decide to think or belief. Equally, it is far more serious than what strength of character politicians decide to exhibit. It goes to the root of what we are as a constitutional republic founded on the rule of law which must determine our national security priorities and legitimize policy choices for their actualization.

As we may recall, National Security Organization (NSO), the predecessor of SSS, was dissolved by the Babangida regime in 1986 when it had become a liability on government credibility, especially on the crucial issue of human rights. As one of the three emerging agencies, SSS was mandated to protect and defend the Federal Republic of Nigeria against domestic threats to security and to enforce the criminal laws. SSS is also responsible for protecting the President, his Vice, the leadership of the National Assembly, and governors, etc.

Now, from the preceding paragraph, we may infer two closely related mandates: protecting and defending the Federal Republic of Nigeria and protecting the President and other elected officials. Presumably, some might choose to see the two functions as not just closely related but as identical. The president is the constitutionally recognized leader of government and, therefore, the face of the republic in and outside the country. Therefore, an agency with the mandate of the DSS might consider the President as identical with the republic.

But he is not; because the president is not a king, but an elected leader who can be rejected at the polls. Since 1999, DSS, like other security agencies, including the Police, has unfortunately identified any incumbent with the State, and has done whatever it could to demonstrate its fealty to him, as if to the republic itself, and to see every opposing candidate as a pest to be extricated or a threat to be stopped.

If we focus our sight to just the emergence of a strong two-party system since 2014, we have witnessed the frightening partisanship of the main internal security agency. In 2014, DSS in Osogbo arrested APC spokesman and two others in “Gestapo Style”. In 2014, after his suspension as CBN Governor, Mallam (now Emir) Lamido Sanusi was arrested by the SSS and his international passport seized because he was alleged to be aiding terrorists. He filed a suit against the agency and the court dismissed the charges and his passport was returned.

Accusing the party of planning to clone INEC voting cards, more than 40 armed DSS officers raided APC Data Center in Lagos in November 2014 and arrested some staff of the center. It repeated the raid on December 2. Through its then spokesman, APC cried foul, complaining that “the lack of respect for a court order by an institution of state like the DSS has plumbed the depth of anomie, and shows that our democracy is in clear and present danger from anarchists.”  It further accused the DSS of acting “like an enforcement arm of the ruling party by constantly harassing the opposition.” That was five years ago this month. Instructively, the detained APC staff won victory at the court which ordered their release on the ground that no citizen can be detained for more than 48 hours without being charged to court.

Now, has DSS changed since APC became the ruling party? Of course not. One of the first acts of impunity by the agency was the raid on the homes and arrest of some judicial officers in 2016. This was on the allegation that these judges, some of whom the National Judicial Council (NJC) had suspended from office and recommended to the President for dismissal, were guilty of corrupt practices.

The NJC is the constitutional authority for the appointment and disciplining of judicial officers. DSS is expected to go through the Council with any concerns it receives from the public or from its own findings. and NJC is to investigate. In this case, however, DSS decided to act on its own, raiding and arresting the judicial officers.

In a release, NJC viewed the action as a threat to the independence of the judiciary, while it explained the actions it took on reports that it received prior to the invasions, including suspension and recommendations of affected judges for dismissal. It insisted that NJC had never shielded any judicial officer who committed a misconduct and protested the action of DSS as “a denigration of the entire Judiciary, as an institution.”

Perhaps the most blatant display of brutal force by the agency was its August 2018 invasion of the National Assembly when it barricaded the entrance gates and shut out members of NASS. The action was against the backdrop of power struggle between APC and PDP lawmakers and the fear of impeachment of the leadership who had just decamped to PDP. Though APC denied any prior knowledge of the incident, PDP wasn’t convinced.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo sacked the Director of SSS, Mallam Daura, and promised to deal with other security personnel involved with the “unauthorized takeover of the NASS” which he described as “a gross violation of constitutional order, rule of law and all accepted notions of law and order.” As I observed in a column at the time, it was a different time. By acting to distance the Presidency from the excesses of the DSS, Prof Osinbajo sought to renew the confidence of citizens in the institutional order of democratic governance.

But subsequent developments have given us pause, and the constitution-driven gesture has not lasted long enough as the Sowore case has apparently demonstrated. The facts of the case are not obscure. A former presidential candidate ran his mouth, calling for revolution now. And there is pictorial evidence that he met with IPOB leader Kanu. And yes, he bragged that he wasn’t going to be silenced even after he was released on bail. Do all these justify indefinite detention? Can’t our judicial system be trusted to handle this? Why lionize a harmless gnat? And is APC, the progressive party of our dream now in cahoots with DSS? It is a sickening thought! Somebody please let my friends in the trenches fighting Abacha DSS understand my distress!

Reflecting on DSS invasion of APC’s Data Center in 2015, a former governor and party leader had an idea. He reportedly recommended restructuring security agencies, including DSS. Upon victory, APC would place the agencies on First Line charge, and make their directorship positions term-bound so that only an agreement between the President and Senate can remove them from office. It’s about time!

TWO years ago, on this page, I addressed the question of “how the liberal state ought to deal with speech it considers inimical to its interest, including its unity and progress.” The impetus for that discussion was the first attempt by the government to enact a hate speech law. Apparently, that attempt was suspended. It has now been revived by a member of the leadership of the National Assembly.

In the column titled, “Hate speech and the liberal state”, my focus was on the foundation of liberalism in the ideal of individual freedom which it prizes above anything else. It is the liberal creed defended by its foremost apostle, John Stuart Mill.

For Mill, individuality is to be appreciated, valued, and respected because human beings are endowed with great potentials for outstanding moral choices. When society enables those potentials to be freely realized, the consequence is a community of great human beings who care for one another and for the community. On the other hand, when those potentials are wrecked by an overbearing social control, whether in the form of public opinion or legal imposition, the consequence for society is social dysfunction, including alienation and anomie.

Thus, beside his view that individual freedom is an end-in-itself, Mill offered its promotion as instrumental to the end of social cohesion and social progress. This was why he decried the “likings and dislikings of society” as the determinants of the rules that individuals are supposed to follow. For, such likings and dislikings could be idiosyncratic at best, or at worst, inimical to social progress. Case in point: social dress codes. Mill offers a “very simple principle”:

“The sole principle for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection…the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

Mill specifically ruled out the personal good of individuals as a legitimate reason for subjecting them to social control.

We may rightly respond that this is not the point of the regulation of speech, which may well conform with Mill’s principle because unregulated speech can harm other individuals as well as an entire society. Therefore, regulation of speech is not anti-liberal. A clear example is the case of declaring a false fire alarm in a crowded movie theater. Certainly, that kind of speech is subject to control because of its potential for disaster.

This reality of varieties of speech-acts and the shades of gray between them is the conundrum that different societies have had to grapple with in their attempts to regulate speech. To be sure, only the extremists and anarchists would countenance not regulating a speech that would declare a false fire in a crowded theater. Even Mill acknowledges this as a disaster in the making. But, then, how far is too far? How narrow is too narrow?  How broad is too broad? Societies differ in this matter from the most liberal to the least.

The liberal contention, as stipulated by Mill, is that the example we just cited is an isolated one, and not all opinions that have been subjected to social control belong to that category. What is decried is the coercion of opinion based on “the likings and dislikings” of society. Silencing the opinion expressed by individuals, no matter how noxious it is, is an illiberal device:

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

Based on the belief that the clash of opinions in the marketplace of ideas promotes the truth, liberals oppose regulation of speech which could negate the benefits of such exchange. Still, doesn’t it depend on the content of the opinions? If you insist that the world is round and I insist that it is flat, we have a clash of opinions. With an open public debate, backed up with evidence on both sides, the truth will come out. No harm is done to society by the free exchange.

To many, however, this insistence on the predominance of freedom is easily defended, in the abstract, as a philosophical position, provided one is not in a position of political responsibility. To these critics, there can be no absolute freedom and we must find a balance between considerations of social harmony and individual freedom. Hence the political responsibility of drawing the line, which falls on representatives of the people.

But what about hate speech, which is defined as “threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice against a particular group, especially on the basis of race, religion, or sexual orientation.” Due to our demographics and political history, our society has been an open theater of hatred and bigotry since the beginning of the Nigerian experiment. Just as there are many nationalities in Nigeria, there are many more across Africa. The truth, however, is that while we would fraternize with the Twi and Akan of Ghana, Sudanese Nubians, and Malawian Chewas, our immediate neighbors within the Nigerian boundaries are mere objects of hate. We have picked up the trash that Rwanda dropped off on her way to political development.

George Lakoff, a retired Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California-Berkeley has argued that language can change brains for the better and the worse: “Hate speech changes the brains of those hated for the worse, creating toxic stress, fear and distrust—all physical.” He also observed that this internal harm can even be more “severe than an attack with a fist.” In other words, speech acts that spew pure hate are fighting words, which directly harm their targets.

Hate speech is divisive. Hate speech is harmful to its targets. Hate speech could lead to violence and national disaster. But should it be regulated? Opinions differ and countries have adopted different attitudes to this question.

The United States is the most liberal of modern states in the matter of protecting free speech, including hate speech. Writing for four Justices in the Matal versus Tam case in June 2017, Justice Alito of the U. S. Supreme Court observed that ‘the idea that the government may restrict speech expressing ideas that offend…strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful, but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express “the thought that we hate.”’

For many, the opinion is too liberal. However, a state that gives no credence to freedom of expression but chooses the weapon of the law to regulate all speech is by no means an exemplar of liberalism. That is the road to totalitarianism, which is now generally discredited as a legitimate political practice even by those who exemplify it. On the extreme right of the United States, there is Singapore, which appears to be the model of our most recent efforts. Indeed, many have observed that the Hate Speech Bill before NASS is a replica of the Singaporean law.

Across the Atlantic from the United States, on the other hand, our colonial masters appear to toe a middle line between an absolute liberal and a frightening totalitarian approach to hate speech. In the United Kingdom, there are hate speech laws which criminalize expressions of racial hatred against persons on account of their race, ethnicity or nationality. However, the laws insist that such expressions must be intended to stir up racial hatred or to likely result in stirring up racial hatred. These are presumably high bars for a prosecutor to clear.

Let us agree then that because of their tendency to incite ethnic and religious violence, public regulation of hate speech is morally justifiable. However, we must be careful to limit the powers we place in the hands of the administrative state in the determination of what counts or doesn’t as hate speech.

 

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B’eru ba mo nu ro, a dupe

B’eru ba mo nu ro, a dupe

Baba o se e,

B’eru ba mo nu ro, a dupe

 

A thoughtful slave is a thankful one

A thoughtful slave is a thankful one

Thank you, Father

A thoughtful slave is a thankful one

That was Opalaba, in his signature baritone, thundering into my eardrum with an early morning call to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving. It was a pleasant surprise, after a long spell of suspense. And I was pleased.

The song, popularized by talented gospel singer, Yinka Ayefele, is a timeless reminder of the importance of thankfulness even when we feel despised, forgotten or downright unworthy. We are reminded that even a thoughtful servant or slave, has good reasons to be thankful. And so, on a day that the United States set aside for giving thanks, my good friend remembered me. How nice!

But, of course, it would be out of character if we didn’t give room for a bit of silliness on both ends. We must bicker over frivolities if only to remind ourselves of the good old days of adolescent tantrums. I confess that, on this day, I was the aggressor.

“Well, thank you, my friend. But you didn’t have to be so loud! You almost punctured my eardrum!”

My friend didn’t disappoint. “Why am I not surprised!” he exploded. “You are just confirming that you are a new man with a new culture. Your new friends shout “thank you” at every opportunity even when they are killing you softy. They mouth gratitude even when they repay kindness and loyalty with evil. The Kurds bear me witness. Just see how you combined “thank you” with a despicable complaint in the same sentence! How dare you?”

I thought my friend overreacted. I was just being silly, and I told him so. Since he felt hurt, I apologized, so we can move to a more fundamental issue that I had with Opalaba’s underlying message.

I have always been ambivalent and skeptical about the message conveyed by my friend’s favorite thanksgiving song. I thought that, probably inadvertently, it legitimizes a social structure that condemns some human beings to conditions of servitude by offering them reasons to be thankful for their condition, however pathetic and unfair it might be. After all, for all we know, it could be worse. My car dealership once had a service agent, a funny guy with a good spirit. To the common greeting “How are you?” his unfailing response was “It could be worse.” It’s the same message conveyed to the slave by the message of the song, “it could be worse; therefore, you must be thankful.”

To be sure, politics and religion have a meeting of minds on the usefulness and meaningfulness of this message, with the latter providing a spiritual buffer for the former, even though each has a different motivation.

From a religious perspective, the author of our being is all-knowing and all-benevolent; therefore, incapable of evil or mischief. Therefore, whatever our situation, it is designed for our good. We are not as knowledgeable as God, and we may not fully understand God’s design for our lives. But behind every apparent disappointment, there are blessings. When we appreciate these, and count those blessings, we will see the need for thankfulness. Therefore, we must always be thankful to God. The Psalmist is an exemplar of willing obedience to this injunction.

But the Most Valuable Apostle (MVA) award for the transition from the religious foundation to the political use of the message must go to Apostle Paul in his various writings, especially his letters to Timothy and Titus. Presumably, being thankful for one’s condition does not preclude struggling for an improvement toward a better condition. But when Paul enjoined all “who are under the yoke as slaves” to “regard their own masters to be worthy of all respect, so that God’s name and His teaching will not be blasphemed”, it suggests that slaves must accept their condition as ordained by God. Slaves “should serve (their believing masters) better.” And to Titus, the instruction was for “slaves to be submissive to their masters in everything and to be well-pleasing….”

Not surprisingly, enslavers and their political agents, authoritarians and dictators of all shades, hide behind those kinds of passages to impose their wills on innocent people with religious sensibilities and the motivation for obedience to their God. The outcome is political stability for as long as the motivation persists and is widespread.

An unusually attentive Opalaba was also strangely gracious in his response. But if the method of response was unusual, I should be quick to point out that the substance was typical Opalaba, whose progressive credentials are unassailable. Therefore, I was thrilled that we were in accord.

“Of course, you know that I have no objection to your analysis” my friend responded. “My only concern is that you have conflated the words of the meaningful song with the message of Apostle Paul to Timothy and Titus. I reject a literal translation of “eru” as you appeared to offer. But if you will insist on that translation as slave, then I would suggest that it should be compared to Paul’s reference to himself as “slave of God” in his opening paragraph to Titus. A slave of God must be thankful to God for his or her condition, trusting that as the author of our being, unlike a human master, God can make our condition better over time. At least, that is my understanding and belief.”

I agreed, and my friend continued: “While I do not for a moment deny that we owe gratitude to those who benefit us, I am more concerned about being thankful to God for all His benefits over us as the Psalmist enjoins. But as you also know, there are different categories of thankfulness: obligatory thankfulness because it is required. This is what our people refer to as ope tulasi, and as you know, they also pray for its avoidance; cheerful thankfulness for blessings received; and anticipatory thankfulness in hope of future blessings.” And not unexpectedly, my friend went directly to what I believe motivated his call. He pivoted the discourse to Nigeria, suggesting that for the country and her people, thankfulness is appropriate in all categories.

“Let us start with obligatory thankfulness or ope tulasi. It is true that our people’s desire and prayer is to avoid being in a situation in which they must thank God for adversities which they would rather not have to face. But that is exactly what we are supposed to do when we count our blessings and name them one by one. In the case of dear country, there is complaint everywhere by almost everyone. Even the super wealthy complain because the sources of free money have been sealed and their greed effectively contained. But they should be thankful that the poor have docilely accepted the injunction of Paul and the authorities have succeeded in stopping the Revolution Now movement. Who knows what would have befallen the greedy rich!

“Nigeria also has reason to offer cheerful thankfulness for the blessings received. Despite every prediction of superpowers concerning its breakup for more than ten years, she is still standing. That is not because of generalized satisfaction, nor because ethnic warlords have ceased beating war drums. But while every ethnic nationality has various degrees of complaints, a consensus on a breakup has not been formed among the political, business, and military elite who appear to have collectively ignored the drumbeats. Sans consensus, the alternative is war, which no one wants. We must be thankful.

Finally, Nigeria must be thankful for anticipatory blessings. The current bleakness will give way to a bright future of full employment, fair distribution of the benefit and burden of social life, equitable distribution of resources among groups and individuals, equality before the law, end of corruption, equal educational opportunities, and an end to discrimination based on gender, sectarian or ethnic differences. Most importantly, Nigeria can look forward to democratic maturity where voters truly exercise their rights to choose their representatives freely and fairly.

Happy Thanksgiving!

DOES Nigeria have a population problem? The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) seemed to think so, with a warning that, unless the economic base was expanded to create jobs for the massive products of the nation’s unrelenting procreative capacity, we face a ticking time bomb. That was three years ago, courtesy of the Director of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Department.

In 2016, the nation’s estimated population was 185 million, and according to the United Nations’ projection, Nigeria was going to earn the distinction of being the world’s third largest population in 2017. Of course, we have not had a reliable head count since 1973, and it is possible that the fear of overpopulation has no scientific foundation. But that notwithstanding, it is undeniable that our population growth rate is up north relative to the nation’s economic growth. This was the concern of CBN in 2016. With the economy growing at -2% and population growth was 3.5%, it was not a misplaced concern.

The figures are depressing; but those who couldn’t be bothered can dismiss them as abstract. However, they cannot dismiss the fallout of a sprinting population versus a limping economy. We see it in millions of unemployed and unemployable youths roaming the streets with hopelessness written boldly on their foreheads. It is obvious in the rising tide of anti-social and criminal activities. It is encapsulated in the unprecedented phenomenon of extreme poverty.

In a 2018 report, Brookings Institution estimated Nigeria’s population at 200 million, up from 185 million in 2016. But consistent with the fear expressed in the 2016 CBN report, the Brookings study concluded that Nigeria had overtaken India as the nation with the highest number (87 million) in extreme poverty. The report stated that Nigeria’s extreme poverty number was growing at the rate of six people per minute.

In a March 2019 report, the World Bank saw some light at the end of the poverty tunnel for Africa, noting that more Africans were escaping poverty than were falling into it. But while this was good news for Africa generally, the report saw significant challenges for Nigeria. While nearly 10 million people were expected to be lifted from poverty in Nigeria by 2030, the country’s share of absolute poverty will still rise by 20 million. When population increases too rapidly relative to economic growth, or conversely, when the economy grows too slowly relative to population, this is inevitable.

What then is to be done? The last sentence is to show that we don’t have just one problem of population growth. Rather, we have a joint problem of population and economic growth. As we know, China has the largest population in the world. But China’s growth continues to stun even its closest economic rival. Therefore, high population is only a liability when it is not matched by higher economic growth.

How did China do it? Where did Nigeria fail?

It is no longer a misery how the China miracle happened within only a short period. As Nigerian economist Ogho Okiti observes in an insightful paper, Nigeria and China’s economies were similar if not identical from 1960 to 1990 when Nigeria’s GDP growth rate was 4.2%. But from 1990, only 29 years ago, China embarked on a new approach to economic growth, the success of which catapulted her ahead of Nigeria. By 2016’ China “GDP per capital had grown to about $8,000 while Nigeria’s was a little over $2000—about a quarter of China’s.” Dr. Okiti then asked the obvious question: “How did the gap between two countries that were at par only 26 years ago become so large?” His answer referenced the reforms that China made after the regime of Mao Zedong in the late 1970s.

However, if we looked at some of the highlighted reforms that China embarked upon, which makes it one of the fastest growing economies in the world, they are not different from what Nigeria also attempted, albeit, on paper. Indeed, a few of those reforms were not applicable to Nigeria. For instance, one of the reforms that Dr. Okiti mentioned was “de-collectivizing the agricultural sector, allowing private production by farmers”. Well, Nigeria had always had a de-collectivized agricultural sector. Therefore, if de-collectivization helped China, Nigeria, which has always allowed private production by farmers should be way ahead of China in agricultural production.

A second reform approach by China that Okiti addressed was “establishing Special Economic Zones..where new free market policies could be tested.” Again, Nigeria has always had free market policies at least on paper. But in fact, it also at least lately adopted the creation of Special Free Trade Zones since the beginning of the present republic.  Third, Dr. Okiti mentioned the policy of “allowing foreign investment” by China as one of those reforms. Given its communist past’ this new approach certainly helped China. However, Nigeria had never prevented foreign investment. Indeed, foreign direct investment has always been prioritized, at least since 1960.

Fourth on Dr. Okiti’s list was “privatizing some state-owned companies” by China. While Nigeria lagged behind China in the matter of privatization, we should note that this was a focal point of the Obasanjo administration’s economic agenda beginning in 1999 with the privatization of the communications, aviation, power and energy industries, among others. If China started the process of privatization in 1990, that’s about nine years ahead of Nigeria, perhaps we can give ourselves some time to catch up. Perhaps!

The final list of reforms on China’s economic liberalization policy mentioned by Dr. Okiti was “removing price controls on some products.” This was smart of China because it had the effect of encouraging businesses to focus on profit while making goods available to consumers. If Nigeria’s experience was to be invoked here, we know that price control never worked as rent control policies teach us.

Now, from the above, we could draw two inferences. Some of the economic reforms that China made in the 1990s were not applicable to Nigeria. Second, regarding the applicable ones, Nigeria also embarked on them with different results. Think NEPA!

However, China also undertook a major reform of the education sector. As Dr. Okiti puts it, China “reformed the educational system—increasing the focus on science and technology research and sending pupils to study abroad to develop skills that China did not have.” Needless to add, Nigeria which started well ahead of China and India in the matter of educational advancement failed spectacularly in maintaining its lead.

In the military era, we moved from one policy to another without serious attention to the needs of the nation. Indeed, sadly, we once pursued a policy of stymieing the educational progress of some parts of the country so that some other parts may catch on. Shortly after independence, there was a deliberate policy of sending Nigerian students abroad on federal scholarship. They came back with skill-sets to push the nation forward in applied science and technology. But subsequent national military leadership frustrated them. And we stopped the policy altogether in the years of structural adjustment. About the same time, China and India forged ahead. Their foreign-trained students were put in charge of technological revolution which paid off handsomely. In our case, our universities and research institutions were abandoned to their fate.

Finally, Okiti referred to the “spectacular infrastructural development” which China embarked upon as part of its reforms. This not only put its people to work, but with dramatic increase in railway mileage, road mileage and electricity wattage, it also transformed its economy beyond agriculture to the height of technological achievements. Nigeria, on the other hand, is just now taking seriously the importance of infrastructure in the economy of the 21st century.

China took a decision to make its population a blessing. Nigeria too can. However, should we find this an impossible task, there is an alternative in family planning and birth control policies if we can overcome the cultural and religious objections to such policies. At any rate, it is certain that if we do nothing to bridge the widening gulf caused by a galloping population growth and a dawdling economic growth, we will not escape the ensuing social and political crisis.