The Fourth Republic, or what we have somewhere else proposed as the Obasanjo Settlement, was tailor-made for a military strongman in civilian garb. It ought to be remembered that the military was never really conquered or subjugated by the NADECO rebellion. But it was clear that that the military had also exhausted their political and historical possibilities. Staying on would have been too costly and prohibitive and might have resulted in the eventual disintegration of the country.
In order to withdraw from the scene with some dignity and with a semblance of honour and integrity, the military needed one of their own who would not allow the profession to be disgraced and hounded out of power, just like that. Better still if such a person had the political and moral authority of personal suffering and was a pan-Nigerian nationalist who was not sold on the political whimsies of his ethnic constituency.
Obasanjo, the old Owu-born General who had been freshly sprung from Abacha’s humiliating dungeon, fitted the bill perfectly. He was one of their own who was not one of their own. As for the military ploy of looking for a compliant Yoruba who could pass, it exploded in their face as the Yoruba people saw through the gambit and roundly rejected their own.
But to the extent that they also gave peace a chance and did not immediately commence another round of customary aluta or resort to their legendary war of legal nerves and attrition, the military gambit could be said to have succeeded in a circuitous manner. Whatever its worth, this was some elite pacting and consensus at work.
However that may be, there was still a major problem. What made an Obasanjo, with his autocratic temperament and authoritarian outlook, a brilliant and sure bet for the project of demilitarization also made him particularly unsuitable for deepening the democratization process, more so in a nation emerging from the trauma of military despotism. Whether he likes to acknowledge it or not, Obasanjo’s self-succession and succession plots were a classic study in vengeance as statecraft. It has landed Nigeria in hot water.
The Fourth Republic has become a nightmare of lost opportunities. Obasanjo’s policy of vengeful exclusion and the narrow social base of leadership recruitment in the country have led to the denial of public space to vibrant and visionary people who could have made sterling contribution to the rapid development and transformation of Nigeria. The result is the dramatic decline in the quality of leadership and poor governance that we are witnessing at the federal level and in most states of the federation.
In order to sustain the illusion of order, ruling classes need an order of illusions. The disillusioned Nigerian populace appears to have seen through the grand chicanery, the illusionist fantasia, the buffooning pantomime, the mystifying fog of incompetence and brutish insensitivity. As a result of this, the government has come under severe pressure from the margins, from below and from the aggrieved factions of the factionalized and fractured elite. Government has lost its magic.
Elites mediate between the state and direct mob control. In the traditional bastions of liberal democracy, elections are elite-driven mechanisms for effecting changes in leadership if and at when due. The elites retain the initiative to supervise the election and to superintend the outcome, based on elite consensus and cohesion. But where the angry multitude take direct charge of their destiny based on their perception of the moral and political collapse of the ruling class, the elite lose the power and capacity to superintend the outcome of elections.
Hence, the foul and nasty atmosphere of rancor and disaffection currently subsisting in the country as elections approach. Hence, the imminent unraveling of the Fourth Republic. Hence, the looming apocalyptic meltdown of a nation that has consistently flirted with suicide ever since its emergence as a test tube baby of the colonial laboratory. The veil has been torn off and the aura of authority, power and prestige badly eroded. The Nigerian masses have sniffed blood.
The calls for a shift or postponement of the elections such as credited to Sambo Dasuki in faraway Chatham House in London will not do. It is nothing but an imaginary resolution of a concrete political conundrum. Even if the elections are postponed for a year, the current foul atmosphere will still prevail as long as there is no demobilization of an already embedded and actively engaged mob. To do this, you need a degree of elite consensus and cohesion—- a circuitous no-brainer in the current circumstances.
When you are faced with an impossible political conundrum, you reach for a paradox as a way out. As conceived by its military progenitors, the Fourth Republic has reached the end of its tethers. Only a massive transfusion of fresh blood and an injection of a new vision of the nation such as can come from counter-hegemonic forces and bearers of an antagonistic logic fundamentally at variance with the current status quo can rescue the tottering republic.
Whether the ascendant faction of the Nigerian ruling class will allow constitutional change through peaceful election remains to be seen. The stiff and ever stiffening local body language and the stalling and stonewalling from Chatham House do not indicate a willingness to submit to the supreme will of the electorate.
Yet when all is said, it is clear that a drastic change in governance paradigm in this much abused country cannot be postponed for much longer. It will be a typically Nigerian irony if the man who will clear the cobwebs and lay the foundation of genuine democracy, who will retrieve our lost girls and territory while institutionalizing accountable governance through devolution of power from the centre turns out to be another retired military strongman waiting in the wings for electoral clearance.
No sane man has been known to argue with an earthquake. With the benefit of hindsight and in the absence of a strong, united, unified and countervailing nationalist political class which is the evil legacy colonial rule, the Fourth Republic is a military transition in progress from full military rule through some neo-military hybrid to a possible culmination in true civil rule, after the epoch of hybridization. This is the bane of all authoritarian societies in a state of traumatic transition to some form of modernity.
The nearest examples of this kind of transition that come to mind are the far eastern countries, particularly South Korea which for a period was also under the spell and scourge of retired generals. But then, South Korea is a racially, culturally and religiously homogeneous country. Its ancient ruling caste stoutly withstood the ravages of Japanese colonization.
Pity then the poor young man from Otuoke who was plucked as a callow apprentice by a deluded past master of political intrigues and thrown into a seething cauldron of ethnic, religious and regional animosities without a compass or a road map. So far, Jonathan has shown neither the granite strength of character, the psychological stamina and the gaming cosmopolitanism to rein in the fierce centrifugal forces nor the stirring helmsmanship to navigate a turbulent ocean brimming with sharks and piranhas.
The events in his own imploding party show how far President Goodluck Jonathan has lost the plot. What remains is for him to negotiate a safe passage out of power with some honour but certainly not through the postponement of election or some other constitutional and extra-constitutional mischief which may well backfire. The omens are dire indeed.
