Category: Ropo Sekoni

By Ropo Sekoni

Most of the world’s federal democracies today have made provisions for referendum in their governance

Long before inauguration of Western Nigeria Security Network (alias Operation Amotekun), many groups of Nigerians had asked for more involvement in determining important aspects of the form and process of governance in the federation. For example, citizens in many parts of the country had asked for Sovereign National Conference before the creation of a constitution for post-military governance. Others have called for restructuring of the federation, even after General Abdulsalaam Abubakar’s unearthing of the 1999 Constitution after the election in 1999 of President Obasanjo as the first post-military head of state. One theme that has been recurrent in these demands is the need for a Union Charter or Constitution that has direct input not only from their elected representatives but also directly from citizens in the manner of referendum, a standard constitutional provision in many countries including the one that created Nigeria.

But within the last ten days of the outing of Operation Amotekun, demands from within and abroad have multiplied on the need for more direct or participatory democracy on matters of important national interests for citizens on national issues and issues peculiar to the states. This call in the social media and largely at the hands of men and women in diaspora, have come in response to the attorney-general’s declaration of any form of subnational efforts to protect lives and property of citizens illegal in the federal republic and his fatwa on immediate punishment for those who associate with Amotekun. This stimulus got worse when the military assured President Buhari and citizens of its capacity and readiness to fight any manner of Operation Amotekun anywhere in the country.

From the geopolitical heat generated in the last few days, there is no doubt that there are many important issues that should not be limited to decisions by elected officials —legislative and executive. When an attempt by some federating units opt to make additional security measures to protect lives and property in a section of the federation ignites fear in people of other sections of the country not covered by such sectional arrangement, there becomes a need to rethink how we want to make it easier than it is at present to assure all sections that none of them is a group of subjects to other groups that claim to be citizens in the same federation. If the people of Yoruba region of the country did not challenge creation of Hisbah in core states of the north, why would Miyetti Allah or other organisations become enraged about measures taken by states other than their own to defend people in a part of the federation?

Given the proclivity of many sections of Nigeria to overlook actions that could have disqualified Nigeria from the list of democracies—advanced or emerging— such as the foisting on the country of a constitution in 1999, it is not surprising that the social media is now overflowing with calls for referendum democracy after the attack on the Southwest for taking required steps to defend its people. It is encouraging to have many sections of the country to be willing to overlook many flaws in the form and process of governance at the legislative and executive levels, but it is also dangerous for the country to allow such enthusiasm to sustain a united multinational federation to blind us to direct and indirect attempts to undermine the federal system by any section of the country, be they part of the central or subnational units.

The issue of a federal constitution that forbids subnational constitutions is one anomaly that needs to be removed in the interest of nurturing a united federation that is protected from avoidable irritations, such as the country has witnessed in the last two weeks.  Modern federal constitutions created or re-created since the end of the Second World War in Germany, United Arab Republic, Belgium, South Africa, etc., have taken advantage of advances in democratic culture, particularly constitutional provisions that empower citizens to supplement representative democracy via the mechanism of referendum and plebiscite. Most of the world’s federal democracies today have made provisions for referendum in their governance. Even the United Kingdom, once a poster-child for unitary governance had included referendum as a means of involving citizens directly in making of important decisions. Two examples are the referendum that led to devolution of power to Scotland and Wales and more recently the decision of UK to leave the world’s largest federation—the European Union.

In addition, given the experience of the tepid and perfunctory response to the constitution by the legislative branch since 1999, the matter of a constitution conducive to peace, harmony, stability, and development in a multinational federation requires urgent attention from sections of the polity directly. Citizens were not given any chance to have a say on the type of constitution they wanted to carry them beyond military dictatorship, and since 1999, citizens were not given opportunity to determine the provisions of association of federating units, apart from what representatives elected on the authority of a flawed constitution are able to decide.

Given the many questions raised about the constitution on the social media since the birth of Amotekun, it is not an exaggeration to say that many citizens are still worried about a constitution that they never agreed to at any time in the country’s history, as it should have been done in a democracy. For example, the 1960 and 1963 constitutions are starkly different from the 1999 document. The former had input from citizens through their representatives while the latter did not. Given the attorney-general’s reading of the 1999 Constitution in respect of Amotekun and the comments of many citizens and groups about the interpretation, it is not surprising  that citizens would prefer a re-invention of the country’s democracy away from the 1999 Constitution and in the direction of referendum democracy—a form of direct democracy in which the entire electorate of a country or a section of it in a federal state votes to accept or reject a policy proposal, especially important ones that affect the constitution, human rights, individual liberties, civic rights etc.

As Ines Pousadela has argued in Enigmas of Political Representation, “direct-democracy institutions need to become mechanisms of democracy in more than name—they need to be a part of the citizen’s toolbox rather than a tool at the disposal of political leaders.” The failings of the representative democracy practiced since 1999, not just the sparking of a constitutional crisis capable of setting federating units against each other that arose from Operation Amotekun, but also the compulsive centralisation of government processes sustained by the current constitution and the overlooking by elected leaders of the contradictions in the constitution which such officers had sworn to protect, it seems that Nigeria has been jinxed by its constitution to engage sporadically in a Sisyphean task of rolling boulders uphill just to see them roll down. The current crisis around Amotekun, like other crises since 1999, may evaporate sooner than governors and citizens in the Southwest can foresee, given the knack of members of the ruling class to make deals and compromises to keep the system going, rather than to reform the system so that national energies can be devoted to solving the myriad problems facing the federation. But such compromise may not be enough to solve similar problems in future.

The 1999 Constitution (as amended) carries too many contradictions and wrong decisions for a young federation like Nigeria. For example, contradictions in our federal system can be illustrated by existence of Hisbah in some Sharia states and Amotekun in Yoruba. Non-criticism of creation of Hisbah may have arisen from respect for cultural diversity and special needs of each of the federating cultures.

What is best for our federation is to have a constitutional arrangement that provides a level field for all sections as equals, i.e. federation of citizens and not subjects. The relationship between national and subnational governments are supposed to be friendly and not hostile, and the best way to achieve this is for the constitution to recognize both parts as coordinates, rather than the subnational being subordinate to the central government in the constitutional task of creating a successful federation of cultures that can make all parts happy. The type of constitution that can drive such coordination is yet to emerge in the country.

Ropo Sekoni

WHO can be genuinely afraid of Operation Amotekun in a country that developed the refrain after the outbreak of Boko Haram terrorism that security is an all-hands-on-the-deck affair? Up to the launching of Western Nigeria Security Network (coded-named Operation Amotekun) in Ibadan on January 9, the response to insecurity and terrorism in the Northeast has been that national security requires as much input from all citizens as is humanly possible.

But since the launch of Amotekun, responses from various parts of the country have been as diverse as the country’s culture. First, many speakers from the Southeast, Southsouth, and Northcentral, have congratulated the Southwest for an enviable initiative they believe can improve the country’s security in fulfilling its duty to protect the life and property of citizens. Second, representatives of Association of Northern Youths and of Miyetti Allah, the most vocal organization of cattle producers in the country, have expressed hostility about the new outfit. Third is the attorney-general’s declaration of Amotekun as an illegal outfit.

As expected, the comment of the attorney-general has turned what to the masses of the Southwest was hailed as a welcome intervention in the ineffective protection of life and limb in the region in the past one year into an illegal activity. But the light thrown on the matter by the chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum and a major actor in the planning of the security outfit: “And in the process of bringing this ( i.e. Operation Amotekun) about, the conventional security outfits were not only in the know, they actively collaborated with the South West Governors in this process  in the material in italics overleaf raises more questions about the position of the attorney-general on this matter” should have convinced the attorney-general that the outfit falls within the orbit of conventional security goals.

The focus today is about the politics of law enforcement in the country which had been a recurrent theme on this page since 2006 when this newspaper came into being. Given the preoccupation with absolute power and authority of the central government on matters of security, it is easy to understand that the attorney-general’s stance may not be about Southwest governors’ failure to consult with the central government as much as it is about the fear of any part of the federation suggesting that there are other ways to protect the life and property of citizens than what the federal government has been able to afford through its unified police force.

If the federal government is eager to shut down an organisation designed to strengthen intelligence on crime, what does it want the people of the Southwest to do? Should the region’s governors leave innocent citizens of the region at the mercy of kidnappers and bandits? What is the country or any section of it likely to gain from throwing the Southwest back into the State of Nature, which motivated the origin of state according to time-honored philosophers as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau? Is the federal government ready to ignore social contract as the thread that has held Nigeria together since the civil war?

Granted that Nigeria was for obvious reasons created for us by the British, the design of the country was made to a large extent to follow peripherally since 1946 the principle of social contract.  The transition from unitary governance to a pro-federal one was the basis of the Nigeria that demanded political independence from Britain. Is the federal government calling on citizens of the Southwest to resort to self-help in the matter of protecting the lives and property of the 50 million people resident in the region out of a total of 200 million Nigerians? Would the federal government prefer that Operation Amotekun has been designed as a secret organization or militant group that can create anxiety for citizens as Boko Haram has done for the past few years?

It is significant for the country’s political officers to remember that when in the history of civil government especially federations one level of government feels at ease in preventing subnational governments from fulfilling their social contract obligations with the citizenry, such nation-state is acting in a foolhardy manner that wise leaders ought to avoid. And if the central government in a federation does not feel worried that a section of the country loses many value-added human beings to criminals and consequently suffers a decapitated economy arising from criminal activities, how does such central government want to compete in a global market? And what measure does the current central government have to prevent subnational governments and citizens from the alienation that failure of a federation with a central police force that is already being subsidised by subnational governments can foster? It is important to note that any attempt to make citizens at the subnational level feel that their governors have no power to protect them is dangerous for national and subnational governments as well as neighboring countries.

Leaders of many of the six regions have complained since 1993 that the federation is wobbling and deserves re-structuring. When President Buhari included in his manifesto the pledge to restore the spirit of federalism, he caught the attention and trust of voters of the region in 2015 and to a large extent in 2019. Even though he no longer needs the votes of any region, he still needs to give attention to his legacy. From his own exhortations about the importance of unity and peace, it seems that he as a president is seeing things that should make any patriotic leader worry about the future of his country in the years beyond his presidency. He needs to return to promises made by his government about restoring federalism including establishment of a police system at subnational units to build trust between levels of governments in a federation.

The centralised system that developed in the last 40 years is not suitable for the new century. The country’s law enforcement is still largely like the colonial policing that felt strengthened that the model of enforcing laws through police officers that have no cultural stake in the communities of their posting is the best for the natives. It is important to remember that Britain with a unitary government at that time did not practice the form of policing it foisted on Nigeria, which our military rulers had adopted with gusto since 1966.

It is not a sign of strength for any government in modern times to resist calls for political and economic reforms. Doing so engenders mistrust and suspicion among diverse cultural communities in a federation. It makes communities to feel there are desires by some section(s) to dominate or colonise them. Such situation also creates anger and frustration that can spark instability.  For example, it is illogical and unjust to shut down a subnational effort that seeks to add value in a transparent way to the work of the current national police that is visibly unable to protect life and property in many parts of the country. It is also unfair for the same government to act as if it is right for special police units, such as Hisbah is normal in a federation that shuts down a subnational initiative to complement the central police. Nothing unsettles a federation faster than appearance of lack of fairness.

Those with eyes for history among the country’s political leaders ought to remember that nobody or government can freeze the inexorable movement of history from stagnation to change and from control to freedom. This is the character of the human race and the soul of democracy.

Ropo Sekoni

If anything, the tone of NERC raises a question about whether government agencies consider citizens as stakeholders.

Power has been a problem for a generation. We know we need to pick up the pace of progress… In the past few months, we have engaged extensively with stakeholders to develop a series of comprehensive solutions to improve the reliability and availability of electricity across the country. These solutions include ensuring fiscal sustainability for the sector, increasing both government and private sector investments in the power transmission and distribution segments, improving payment transparency through the deployment of smart meters and ensuring regulatory actions maximise service delivery. We have in place a new deal with Siemens, supported by the German government…to invest in new capacity for generation, transmission, and distribution—President Mohammadu Buhari 2020 New Year Message.

Many innocent Nigerians, particularly those at the lower end of the socio-economic ladder would have been uplifted on 1st of January when their President released this message of hope about one of the hitherto hope-diminishing aspects of government-citizen relations in the country. Such persons would have jumped up in excitement beside their generators and kegs of diesel with the word PROGRESS written large on their faces. Such excitement was not supposed to last. Four days later, the Nigerian Electricity Regulator Commission (NERC) released its own decree about the tariff on electricity going up in April by close to 50 percent.

In the evening of January 6, I visited the Zenith Yuletide decorations in Victoria Island and moved around in the company of citizens who must have come there to appreciate the beauty of electricity that they hardly see in their sections of the country. As I walked in the midst of many parents holding the hands of their children and grandchildren, the discussions I heard went back and forth to the matter of the new electricity tariff. One recurrent theme in the discussions that hit my ears was the fear of conspiracy—cosmic and man-induced against Nigeria. Following are a few examples of the worries on the minds of people who may not have any expertise in how governments work, even though they are confident about the power of electricity to improve the quality of the lives of their families.

Some of the conspiracy theories are almost as old as Nigeria. The oldest one dated back to 1966 after the first coup d’etat against the Independence federal and regional governments. A man apparently in his 70s said that the threat to regular electricity supply started with the military governments in the 1960s. Military rulers were believed to have no interest in investing in reliable electricity, he stated, because they did not want too many citizens to be independent economically to the point of challenging military rule and that all they were interested in were changes in nomenclature from ECN to NEPA and later to PHCN, but hardly in fundamental changes capable of putting Nigeria in the club of energy-sufficient countries poised for domestic industrial revolution.

Another conspiracy theory refers to absence of serious commitment to revolution in the energy sector by the civilian government between military regimes, such as the government of Alhaji Shehu Shagari and later two of the three post-military governments of Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Yar’Adua who chose to dance more about the need for regular supply of power in the country without ensuring that whatever they invested in the power sector yield any outcome. One other conspiracy theory is that powerful politicians and businessmen friendly to suppliers of generators and diesel did not sincerely believe in providing adequate investment in the energy sector, for fear of embarrassing their associates and customers.

No on the part of this writer to believe any of these conspiracy theories, but it is logical to see them as projections of the fears or frustrations of the average citizen who see the significance of their lives as diminished by lack of electricity. Surprisingly, none of the purveyors of decades-old facile theories about why Nigeria had been incapable to solve its energy crisis in 54 of its 60 years of life expressed doubts that the end of conspiracy had been signalled by President Buhari’s statement in his end of year message to Nigerians cited overleaf.

The only man who made references to the president’s speech stated that he was sure that the president would not put his integrity on the line on his promise to deliver electricity to the country in 2020. One woman followed by a village of grandchildren said that welcoming Siemens suggests a recognition of gaps in the privatisation of the power sector carried out by President Jonathan, reminding her husband about President Buhari’s assurance regarding Siemens’ intervention in building new capacity for generation, transmission, and distribution: “These projects will be done under close scrutiny and transparency—there will be no more extravagant claims that end only in waste, theft, and mismanagement.”

But the announcement of new tariffs that almost doubled the old one which NERC claimed to be a minor change: “We wish to provide guidance that the minor review implemented by the commission was a retrospective adjustment of the tariff regime released in 2015. Trivialising an increase or review of 40% increase or review as minor shows lack of sensitivity to majority of consumers. Any doubt that human rights groups have gone to court to protect the interest of consumers? Is it impossible in our country that the case may drag in court for another year?

It is such insensitivity by government agencies and companies with special connection to government that generates conspiracy theories, such as we have itemised in preceding paragraphs. Whoever wrote the president’s New Year speech has shown more sensitivity to citizens than those who crafted the announcement of NERC. Juxtaposing President Buhari’s assurance: “The next 12 months will witness the gradual implementation of these actions, after which Nigerians can expect to see significant improvement in electricity service supply reliability and deliver” with NERC’s “We wish to provide guidance that the minor review implemented by the commission was a retrospective adjustment of the tariff regime released in 2015” suggests how distant NERC is from citizens and their frustrations about poor performance of the power sector.

If anything, the tone of NERC raises a question about whether government agencies consider citizens as stakeholders. The kind of communication that should have existed between agencies of government and citizens did not seem to have existed before the NERC released its ‘minor review’ assessment. In other climes, there would have been formal and informal consultations with citizens, apart from discussion between government and representatives of labour unions. The average Nigerian seems exposed enough to believe that there can be no development in the modern age without provision of adequate electricity. Limiting consultations on such important matters to discussion between government agencies and labour leaders may not be enough, especially not after the experience of the country with Oil Subsidy. Nobody has given citizens adequate explanations why DisCos are to be paid subsidy so that they can have funds to operate companies they acquired after de-regulation of the energy sector.

From the mixture of frustration and excitement I observed on faces of the people whose discussions I was privileged to hear in Victoria Island a few days ago, I feel more confident than before that government agencies need to treat citizens as stakeholders whose views are as important as those of owners of DisCos about how to develop the country’s power sector. Before final decisions are made on a sector that cannot succeed without citizens as consumers of energy, there ought to be consultations with citizens directly, in addition to consultations with leaders of trade unions. Majority of consumers of electricity are not members of trade unions in most countries including Nigeria.

It is myopic to define stakeholders in a way that ignores consumers of a public good that cannot be sustained without the support of 200 million consumers. It is the penchant to leave citizens out of discussion of matters of national and common interest that encourages citizens to construct all manners of conspiracy theories about Nigeria’s failure since 1966 to provide adequate electricity supply for an eternally growing population. Having an option for referendum on development of power may be more useful than most of our leaders can imagine, because Nigerians know that lack of regular electricity in the country is a source of mass poverty.

By Ropo Sekoni

Today’s piece is dedicated to Professor Teju Olaniyan (TJ as affectionate diminutive). TJ, with a little over 30 years of service, held two named chairs: Wole Soyinka Chair in African literature and Louise Durham Mean Professor of English and African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where death took him prematurely on November 30. Olaniyan was not just a scholar with expertise in one discipline but a scholar with specialisation in multidisciplinary understanding of cultural production through teaching and research on various cultural spaces—Europe, the Americas, Africa, etc. In the course of his three decades of hard work and good character, TJ was not satisfied with making a name for himself, he was also committed at every stage of his career from Obafemi Awolowo University to Cornell University, University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin to developing a pedagogy and scholarship, along with some of his contemporaries in the United States, to create programs that foster synergy between the Diaspora and the homeland towards development in Africa.

TJ was pivotal to the founding and flourishing of the one-decade old Fagunwa Study Group (FSG) with headquarters in the United States and principal field of operations in Nigeria. In the last six years, TJ devoted lots of energy to organising two conferences on the writings of Fagunwa and Soyinka. At the 2019 conference on Soyinka and Fagunwa in Akure, he led discussions on how to enhance multidisciplinary teaching and research in Nigeria’s universities. Nobody in the audience could have imagined he would not be back in 2020 with other members of the steering committee of FSG to kick-start projects for cross-fertilisation between the homeland and the Diaspora for Africa’s development.

Today’s other focus is about the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to give teeth to a law that has been dormant for a few years. The CBN’s desire to stop spraying of naira notes at social events has been on the federal government’s drawing board for a few years. Recently, CBN confirmed that the federal government was finally ready to prosecute and punish offenders of CBN Act section 21. Elements of the law against abuse of the naira include spraying or pinning the naira on any person; pasting it on the body of any person, stepping or matching on the naira; hawking the naira, etc. Each of these actions is believed to constitute an abuse of the naira. Offenders will be trailed by federal police that would have the power to arrest such people and ensure immediate prosecution and instant justice at the hands of judges of mobile courts. Punishment to those found guilty will be imprisonment for six months or a fine of N50,000 or both.

Social media commenters are justified to get worried about the relevance of punishing citizens for gifting naira in whatever form to friends and family members in a country where politicians drop bundles of naira notes into the palms of potential voters with impunity.  The law against abuse of the naira seems to be more of distraction from more serious issues facing the country. Many cultures in and outside Nigeria pin, paste, or ‘spray’ paper money at special ceremonies on celebrators and their family members. Examples abound in Hungary, Mexico, Cuba, Ukraine, and parts of Poland where people have what they call money dance at weddings. In many parts of Nigeria, coins (where they are available) and paper money are pasted on the body of celebrators or other participants at social ceremonies: naming, funerals, chieftaincy installations, etc.

The concept of abuse of the naira or the imperative to fetishise the naira seems novel and strange. The British did not worry that the currency with their king or queen on it were sprayed to disrespect their monarchy.  Most citizens were groomed since 1960 to believe that the national flag is a symbol of Nigeria’s sovereignty. For decades until the value of the naira plummeted, Nigeria’s currency notes were found in all countries where they were exchanged in open markets for currencies of other nations. They were even pasted on walls in the shops of vendors, not to talk of buying or selling the naira in open markets in Cotonu, Lome, Accra, Niger, etc.

What does the law mean by hawking of the naira?  Are the hundreds of vendors selling naira to travellers at the ports and on highways naira hawkers as well? Does this law refer to the men selling the naira in bureau de change and women selling the naira at the entrance to event centres as hawkers? Can persons who want to sell money in front of churches and mosques obtain license as operators of Bureau de Change or Bureau de Cadeau?  Will naira notes dropped or thrown into dirty bags and baskets in churches and mosques count as abuse of the naira? Will dropping of naira on the highways for beggars or throwing of naira at mendicants by motorists constitute abuse of the naira? Would spraying envelopes that contain naira amount to naira abuse? Citizens may require more Naira Health Education than the bank had given.

Furthermore, is it legal for citizens to spray dollars bought with naira in the country? Will citizens still have the right to consult their lawyers before they are whisked to jail by mobile court judges? If citizens who stole millions or billions from the treasury have the right to hire lawyers to defend them, would those who give their own hard-earned naira notes to their loved ones at parties be eligible to be defended by lawyers?  In addition, would citizens lose their right to privacy at social events they organise? For example, can event coordinators refuse entry to uninvited police and mobile court judges into the halls party organisers rent solely for their own use? Does a citizen’s right to own property and dispose of such property as he/she wishes automatically stands annulled by this law?

The point of all these questions is that the law to proscribe spraying sounds like killing a fly with a boulder. One logical reason offered so far to justify the law is that Nigeria pays so much to print paper money and that spraying or pinning of the naira accelerates its degeneration and leads to the need for frequent replacement. By setting out to send police and mobile court judges to millions of event centres across the country on each of the four days of naira gifting: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, is it not likely that such process would gulp more funds than replacing stressed naira notes would?

An unnecessary law had been created, but the law could have been just left unnoticed as we had done for years. There seem to be too many more serious problems facing the country and too many overtly criminal matters that can benefit from the enthusiasm of those who want to be seen to be doing something. There is virtually nothing to gain from a law that sets out to fetishise the naira and disrupt centuries of a culture that does not hurt the interest of anyone.  Wise nations create laws that they can enforce without losing authority. Now that spraying or gifting naira is a national culture, would it not be more cost-effective for the government to impose special surcharge for replacement of naira notes than hiring police and judges to protect whatever aspect of Nigeria’s sovereignty resides in the naira? This is the kind of law that should call for judicial review should legislators feel unable to revisit it.

Roposek@msn.com

The many optimists that have kept Nigeria going for almost sixty years are as eager as ever to assure the rest of us of Nigeria’s uncanny ability to move too close to the abyss and move back without getting unbearably hurt. The various conflicts of the past three weeks are on the surface too mundane to be considered analogous to the scheming of the gods in ancient Greece. But since the gods then acted so much like human beings, it is not out of place to make some connections between politics in the ancient world and modern Nigeria. The intention of the writer is to see governance in Nigeria from 1962 till now through the prism of a curse-like performance of repeated activities by Sisyphus that lead to no goal or progress.

The Myth of Sisyphus has been popularised in the modern world by Albert Camus. He was a Nobel Laureate who, among other works, did a philosophical essay in which he saw Sisyphus and his futile and endless struggles with carrying a stone to the top of a hill as a symbol of the absurdity of life—purposelessness and meaninglessness of the human condition. But the focus today is on the original myth itself, i.e. the why and how of Sisyphus’s unusual actions. The interpretation of Sisyphus’ ordeals that I prefer for today’s page is not the one by Camus. My choice is that of the Epicurean philosopher, Lucretius, who saw the myth as symbolising the futility of the actions of power-besotted politicians in the process of obtaining power or sustaining it. Even as far back as 300 BCE, Lucretius was able to see politicians struggling for power irrationally as largely self-serving by people limited in imagination to the extent of not appreciating the emptiness of their tricks.

For readers not already familiar with this Greek myth, let us briefly summarise the story. Sisyphus was King in the town that later became Corinth. He was a man who relished power and used it to bring unhappiness to many people. He was also a man who enjoyed deceiving others including the gods, to demonstrate how much cleverer than others he believed he was.  Sisyphus was later cursed by Zeus for his life of trickery and deception. The curse by Zeus put Sisyphus on a futile and endless ordeal of rolling a boulder up the hill only for the rock to roll back downhill.

Let us migrate from the world of Sisyphus in myth to the world of politics in Nigeria. Since 1962, the country has been acting like Sisyphus, carrying out the same onerous task seemingly without achieving its goal and without the task coming to an end. When the first 1966 coup came, it was justified on the basis that the military needed to come and rid the country of political and bureaucratic corruption. Each subsequent coup (about five) always put corruption at the top of its list of objectives. Each coup also included bringing democracy back to the country after defeating corruption. Just like the military, each civil rule promised to fight corruption and, in the process, grow democracy and development.

Many of the politicians voted into power to fight corruption and grow democracy have been moving from one party to the other in a way to illustrate another type of corruption that no government has promised to fight—preventing or frustrating citizens to think and choose right candidates and parties they prefer to rule them. Just as it happened between beneficiaries of military coups in the past, elected politicians also prefer to seize power from each other, ahead of the time which the constitution sets apart for campaign and voting.

The migration of politicians from one party to the other in 2015 was in one direction—PDP to APC. In 2018, migration is in both directions, a development that seems to be making mass migration from one party to the other a normal part of the country’s political culture. Both parties even establish festivals to celebrate new migrants. The point of all this is that our politics has become the rolling of rocks uphill and the undoing of such rolling, not by the gods as in the case of Sisyphus, but by men voted to represent interest of citizens in allocation of resources and distribution of the country’s wealth.

A problem that the average Nigerian seems to have recognised is the difficulty of politicians to roll the boulder of effective democratic governance up the hill to build a modern multi-ethnic nation that can address the problems of citizens in the modern era that is increasingly characterised by respect for human rights and commitment to fostering human progress. From what we have seen so far, efforts by the military to build a nation has miscarried. The miscarriage has been caused by lack of readiness on the part of military rulers to take citizens into consideration in their design of the country’s governance architecture, especially construction of a unitary system with concentration of power at the centre and the subordination of federating units.

The argument for this development from military political theorists was (and still is) that the country should seek unity first if it desires democracy and development. Military rulers had performed their self-imposed task of rolling the boulder of nation building toward the hill, without reaching the top of the hill until the military lost its relevance to the task of nation building. But the military succeeded in leaving a constitution that has served as obstacle to efforts at nation building since its exit.

Similarly, the transition to representative government in the last eighteen years has been marred by a constitution that concentrates power at the centre and makes the centre so seductive that politicians would die to get executive or legislative power at the centre. It does not matter to such people that they need to work for improvement of their constituencies. The only thing that matters is seizing the opportunity to participate ostensibly as builders of national unity while concentrating on making personal profits for themselves. Consequently, the search for personal gains makes participating in elected government a matter of life and death, as it was with military men who were quick to carry out coup d’etat against civilian and military rulers.  Lies, deceits, tricks became the weapons for obtaining or retaining power. Without any deity cursing politicians, the civilians that succeeded military dictators rolling the boulder of state up are also increasingly getting stuck, like their military counterparts.

Eternal boulder rolling by Sisyphus did not have any consequence on the lives of citizens.  All it did was to show who was in control of the cosmos: powerful human beings or the gods. But in the case of what seems like eternal rolling up of the boulder by politicians seems like an empty task. In the case of Nigeria, rolling the boulder just to bring benefits to those who choose to roll it up and leave it to roll down, as politics has become in the country since 1999, brings pain and suffering to millions of innocent human beings. The challenge before the nation is not just to address effects without looking at causes. It is becoming more imperative for thinkers and patriots to find out how to re-organise the country and its politics in a way that those seeking power—executive or legislative—have proper constitutional constraints and belief to make it impossible for them to do as they like at the local, state, and federal levels of governance. There is no reason why citizens of Botswana, Ghana, and Rwanda should be doing better than Nigerians.

The replay of the political warfare in Bayelsa and Kogi States recently and its gory details have pushed the author to republish today’s piece. Violence, murderous forms of thuggery, charges of buying and selling of voters cards, and the killing of a woman political leader, Acheju Abuh set ablaze in her house two days after the Kogi election certainly looks like something that Nigerians had seen several times since the 1960s. Similarly, a one-man crusade for unconstitutional third term for a president who has rejected the likelihood of nurturing desire to stay in power beyond 2023 requires full investigation. Still in respect of the Kogi/Bayelsa elections, the police announcement that politicians sewed uniforms of the Nigerian Police for thugs ahead of the elections needs to be investigated.

ONE of Nigeria’s current dismal statistics is that between 40 and 90 million people rely on open defecation. Nigeria follows India which is on record as having the most persons easing themselves in the open. As awkward as open defecation may sound, most societies started with open defecation, but many societies outgrew this culture as they became more knowledgeable about effect of such conduct on the health of citizens and as they developed the technology to manufacture modern toilet systems. What is shameful about this activity in the 21st century is that Nigeria has been unable to liberate almost half of its population from reliance on easing themselves openly, even decades after coming across the tools of modern sanitation.

It is, therefore, not surprising that President Buhari has ordered that the federal government, states (including local governments), private organisations, and private households provide modern sanitation facilities, to end the practice of using open space as toilets and to advance towards meeting the target of achieving universal sanitation before 2030. The President’s intervention on this matter, though in order, must not stop at that.

There is a need for comprehensive study of the problem so that the country can achieve a holistic solution to this national handicap. Just as the World Bank had observed and the president had reaffirmed, the loss of N455 billion annually from a habit that also puts the country in shame must not be continued. It is even possible for the country of 200 million people to create sustainable jobs, gain new technology, and even become an importer of sanitary equipment, if the governments choose to bring the spirit of revolution being given to agriculture to sanitation.

Just as it was done with agriculture, there is need for widespread consultation and town/village meetings on how to turn investment of public and private funds into sanitation a profitable move nationwide. Unlike in India, where some communities have expressed spiritual opposition to modern toilet, there is no indication that there are groups in Nigeria that are culturally averse to the convenience of modern sanitation, given the length of lines of persons struggling to use public toilets where they exist.

It can be argued that the reason Nigeria is number two on the list of countries that fail to provide standard sanitation for their citizens is principally attributable to sharp inequality. And the country’s inequality manifests in many ways that include poor infrastructure, poor knowledge on the part of the deprived, and lack of interest on the part of government and the private sector to invest in sanitation as an economically viable project. Bringing modern sanitation to the country requires heavy investment in infrastructure that will support modern toilet system, while the private sector can be incentivized through loans to provide factories to create all the goods and services for sustaining modern toilet system that can replace the traditional system that still defines the toilet culture of most citizens.

It is a no brainer to say that there can be no effective sanitation without water. Even in the urban areas, middle-class citizens take loans to drill boreholes in their yards while lower-middle class individuals buy water from borehole entrepreneurs, which they ration for toilet use and cleaning. If the bulk of our middle-class have no access to public water or public-private water, it should not be difficult to imagine why people at the economic bottom of the ladder go through, not only in the rural areas but also in urban communities. For example, travelling on the bridge to Apapa exposes travellers to modern version of open defecation under trucks parked on the bridge. It is, therefore, important for the government to invest more actively in provision of water in both urban and rural areas.

Recently, I went with a family friend, a respected retired professor of economics at Ife and later a top researcher at the African Development Bank in his active years and almost collapsed when I saw water around the Ero Dam. With proper assistance, water from Ero Dam can meet the needs of people in rural and urban areas of the state and parts of Ondo or Osun states. From the little I know about hydrology, Ekiti is one small state with a big dam that can be turned into a model for the rest of the country on the importance of water to sanitation. And similar dams can happen in many parts of the country to remove one major constraint in providing or sustaining flush sanitation. We may also choose to store rain-water for toilet use to supplement in communities without rivers that can be dammed.

In addition, whether it is from boreholes or dams, electricity is crucial to pumping water to where individuals need to use modern toilets. Advising poor people about the importance of modern toilets and the danger of open defecation may not go far enough in a country like ours. Proper investment needs to go into provision of electricity and water, if the enthusiasm of ridding our country of the stigma of open defecation is to yield results. What is the percentage of Nigerians that can turn on a generator to activate a bore hole and increase water pressure to pump water, in order to use the toilet whether such people live in urban or rural areas? Illustrations of the damage that lack of electricity and water does to efforts to provide modern public toilets can be experienced in many of the few government-owned public toilets available. Toilets in many universities are unusable when such universities are unable to provide regular supply of water.

Further, the behaviour modification needed to sustain a new toilet culture can be provided most effectively by state and local governments. With or without assistance from the federal government, subnational governments ought to fund the social advocacy needed to make our people yearn for new and higher sanitary standards and turn the average citizen in cities and villages into stakeholders in this new social revolution and business.  Before outlawing open defecation, it makes sense to engage in a nation-wide health education programme targeted at children, adolescents, adults, and senior citizens. This is one social campaign that we must not get wrong. It should be in the languages of the people, standard English, pidgin and with high doses of support from traditional and social media.

To our hardnosed capitalists, there is huge money to make from the ‘sanitation chain.’ Six factories in the six regions for production of toilet bowls, bath or shower systems, and other gadgets like toilet papers can complement government efforts to provide water and electricity. Bank of industry should be primed to consider the sanitation industry a major one that calls for assistance. The more food security we have in the country, the greater the danger for its citizens, if the current open defecation culture continues. So, feeding the citizens well must be accompanied with providing better chances for them to ease themselves in dignity. This industry can also create jobs for plumbers and other allied workers.

Those in building constructions can also get more contracts once the government chooses to drive this harmless social revolution. Locally produced sanitation supplies should be more affordable than imported ones from China or Taiwan. To move from existing homes without modern toilets will require special incentives from state and local governments. No state should be given the opportunity to call modern sanitation a federal project, so that it would not suffer the fate of many federal roads. Subsidising the cost of toilet bowls to enable so-called landlords across the country should be a part of the thinking on moving the current primitive and self-demeaning toilet culture. Indiscriminate use of public space as toilet is dangerous to all and requires on everybody’s past, but more responsibility lies with the governments.

Transitioning to modern toilet system is not going to come cheap for anybody, from government to the average citizen, but having a big dream, such as President Buhari expressed in his statement through Vice President Osinbajo recently in respect of private households installing modern toilets, will require more investment from government and public minded entrepreneurs. Defecating in the public is what is on the urgent agenda of WHO agenda, soon urinating in public may join. It is possible to kill the two birds of the problem with one stone.

It is institutions that help us to preserve decency. They need our help as well. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves. They fall one after the other unless each is defended from the beginning. So choose an institution you care about—a court, a newspaper, a law, a labor union—and take its side  —Timothy Snyder

FOR too long in the short history of our country, elections have been conflated with democracy. Although election is an important aspect of democracy, democracy as a culture goes beyond elections. Democratic culture shapes elections and the way people are governed before, after, or between elections.

Nigeria has been changing its political reality through periodic elections since 1960. In 1979, General Olusegun Obasanjo organised an election to end the unelected government that came into existence in 1966. In 1993, General Ibrahim Babangida attempted to change the second round of unelected government of that returned in 1984. And in 1999, General Abubakar Abdulsalaam brought the country into another elected government that has turned out to be last election under military rule. Since 1999, six elections had taken place under civilian governments. Each election has always brought excitement to citizens as a national event capable of making fundamental and profound changes in the lives of ordinary people.

And the experience of the last twenty years of civilian government has, among other things, created a consciousness in the average citizen that elections illustrate commitment to democracy, even to the extent that Nigerians in diaspora got excited about clamouring for opportunities to vote from abroad. Such has been the glamour of elections since 1999 to Nigerians at home and abroad.

Relatedly, political pundits have argued that it is the failure of most elections in the country to bring required change to the quality of life of the people that has made citizens to look forward after each election to the ‘next election.’ Apparently, politicians have different reasons for looking forward to another election—primarily to provide them with opportunity to be in power. But in general, the country has been engrossed in preparing for elections, without having enough time to nurture the institutions that support and strengthen democracy as a system of government and a way of life. That function has been left principally to the media. But between elections, more emphasis is given, even by the media, to discussions of the next election than to what ideologies or visions drive the governance at hand.

Ordinarily, the infant democracy of 1999 ought to have grown phenomenally in 2019, to the point that emphasis would be on values and institutions of democratic governance, rather than on the 2023 elections. And there should have been no better time to do this than during the second and final term of the current president, one of the two former military rulers that had been given the opportunity to run elected governments.

Ironically, policies and actions not promised in the manifesto for the second term of President Buhari seem to be gaining attention after the last elections. For example, accepted many years ago its subordination to elected government, only to return in 2019 to an attempt to share policymaking with elected officials. How else is one to interpret the attempt of the military to stop citizens on the road for verification of their identity? Many pundits are already celebrating the advice by the judiciary that the military suspend its plan to implement its stop and search decree. Legal experts ought to tell the public what suspension of such military fiat by the court entails in a democratic government. Isn’t this case one that requires clear-cut decision of legality or illegality of the desire of soldiers  to check identities of citizens in a non-war situation?

Is the move by the military leadership a deliberate attempt to offend the sensibilities of Nigerians who had taken the several elections in the last twenty years as evidence that the country is truly in a post-military context? In what capacity was the military making this kind of policy under a duly elected government? Why was the legislature, a branch of government devoted to making laws and monitoring the executive branch silent over the announcement of  the military to do stop and search of civilians in communities not at war or sections of the country put under emergency regulations jointly by the executive and legislative branches of government?

In addition, recent announcement by the chairman of the ruling party about the freedom of the president to rule from anywhere illustrates the failure of a major institution for democratic governance to forget its own role. How sensible is APC chairman’s decree that the president is free to govern from any part of the world in the face of what the constitution stipulates as seat of government? Although party chairmen are supposed to support the government of their party, but they are not expected to do so at the expense of constitutional logic. Advances in communication technology have not done away in the countries that created such technologies with the importance of having specific locations for governments to operate. Before we know it, relying on the precedent of the president governing from anywhere, governors may relocate governance to their villages or even ask that new offices be built in their villages to serve as mobile seats of government.

Currently, the Senate is currently in the process of making a law to regulate the use of social media while the Information Minister is also working on regulation of the same technology. The minister is promising a regulation that is similar to that of the United Kingdom while the Senate bill is about protecting citizens from internet falsehood and manipulation. It is premature to know the goals of each branch of government. However, it is important for human rights promoters and defenders to pay adequate attention, to make sure that citizens’ freedom of expression or speech is not fettered by attempts to regulate the social media.

To return to the quotations overleaf, Kolakowski’s “In politics, being deceived is no excuse” and Snyder’s “Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you make them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions do not protect themselves” put the challenge to save or strengthen democracy on the laps of all professional groups, and not on politicians who themselves may find more satisfaction in pushing right-wing rhetoric and policies that may have the capacity to weaken democracy. Both thinkers remind us of a popular African proverb that says flood water may not be uninterested in demolishing houses on its way, it is the landlords of the houses on the way of the flood that should resist such force. Sovereignty, like growing or consolidating democracy, is not in the hands of politicians as much as it is in the hands of citizens, who should know what they are bound to miss if democracy sags at any time in the country.