The Nation Newspaper

Tag: democracy

  • Poll shift, a setback to democracy

    SIR: There is no doubt that the recent postponement of the forthcoming elections by the Independent Nation Electoral Commission (INEC), through the manipulation of the Presidency and the PDP, constitute a serious setback to democracy. It is an embarrassment of an immense proportion that an election packaged many years ago could be shifted through the manipulation of President Goodluck

    Jonathan and the PDP. It is a greater embarrassment that the security agencies that did not oppose the conduct of elections all along were suddenly alleged to have renounced their constitutional and statutory duties to provide security for the nation, its inhabitants and their activities including the pending elections.

    The postponement of the election is an affront on Nigerians and a threat to democracy, infact it is a coup against democracy and the constitution of Nigeria. The postponement is not only provocative but extremely disappointing. Fearing that the PDP and its Presidential Candidate, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan may not survive the Feb 14 polls, INEC was cleverly manipulated to shift the polls through the alleged memorandum from security chiefs that they could not guarantee the  protection of the election process. The elections have therefore been moved six weeks forward from February 14 and 28 to March 28 and April 11.

    Majority of Nigerians clamouring for change with the hope of replacing the under-performing PDP government with that manned by the APC under the Buhari Presidency are disappointed. If President Jonathan was hopeful of winning the elections, he would not have done sabotaged it. Let it be known that the PDP has only postponed the evil day, as nothing can change the peoples perspective about the lack-lustre performance of President Jonathan for the past six years and that of the PDP for the past 16 years. Six weeks will not therefore rub-off all the evidences of bad governance ravaging the land such as insecurity, corruption, acute poverty and decay of all essential infrastructures.

    Never has a properly scheduled election been postponed in its journey of over 100 years. Nigeria has worked hard to rescue Liberia, Congo and Sierra Leone from the quagmire of destruction in the past, but the same country is now being rescued by a landlocked Chad. What a greater irony that the same security agents that could not muster forces to quell the insurgents in the North-east is now battle ready in six weeks to restore Nigerians hopes and aspirations.

    We must also appeal to INEC to take all necessary measures such as the total distribution of the

    permanent voter’s cards to enable all eligible citizens including those displaced to exercise their civil right to vote in the elections.

     

    •Sen. Olorunnimbe Farukanmi,

     Iju, Ondo State

  • A Greek tragedy revisited: The slaying of sovereignty and democracy

    A Greek tragedy revisited: The slaying of sovereignty and democracy

    Truth is as a rare wine. More talk about than taste it on their lips.

    Western democracy was born in ancient Greece. There is where it also first died. It seems many among the rich and powerful of that time did not cotton to the democratic notion although that form of society had enabled them to become wealthy. They concluded that their accumulation of money gave them a greater stake in society than that of the common man. They came to use their money and influence to subvert democracy, steadily turning it into a plutocracy, a dictatorship of money where possession of currency would matter more than possession of merit. This was a tragedy indeed. But it was more than a Greek one. It is universal and not banished to olden times. This tendency respects no time barriers. It lives with us today. It is interwoven in human history because it represents the darker strand in the fabric of human nature.

    Within the seeds of freedom democracy plants lay the spores of weeds that seek to choke that very freedom. Those who prosper greatly come to see democracy as a shackle chaining them to lesser humans through false equality. They think their greater riches bequeath to them greater wisdom in all things.  They use the money gained through democracy to buy democracy then eagerly bury what they bought. This is how democracy lost its first life in Greece. Due to similar forces, modern Grecian democracy is in danger of being brought underfoot once again.

    This time the ravaging comes not from within but from external forces. Greece now suffers a brutal yet subtle invasion. It is an invasion of money into a nation made supine by economic depression and looming bankruptcy. The invaders are European Union bankers and technocrats directed by the government in Berlin. German Chancellor Merkel is set to do what Hitler dared but did not accomplish. She may well succeed in bring an entire nation to heel.  By imposing her will on this smaller, weaker nation she will also intimidate other weaker, smaller Eurozone nations to hew her path.  What Hitler could not do with rifle, jackboot and swastika, Merkel may do with pants suit, loafers and an accountant’s ledger.

    Money is the ultimate weapon for it can purchase almost any mortal or material thing, even the soul of man or of a nation. But what can purchase money except more of it?

    This past week, the newly elected Syriza government has engaged in futile negotiations with the EU to restructure the “debt bailout” program for Greece. The talks have been deadlocked. The Greeks want some form of debt reduction added to the program. The program as now structured is not a bailout for Greece. It is a bailout for select German and French banks holding Greek public and private-sector debt. It alleviates the risk to these favored banks of getting wet due to their improvident lending by literally having them stand atop Greece. While the banks remain dry, Greece is swallowed and drowned by the tide of unbearable debt. For the privilege of keeping the foreign banks sound and dry, the Grecian economy will be condemned to economic recession if not depression for as far as the eye can see.

    Despite the dire economy conditions of the Grecian populace, the EU presently will not budge. The stern austerity deal agreed to by the former conservative government in Athens must be honored, says Brussels. Brussels holds to the merciless stance because Berlin instructs it to do so. The bottom line is brutal. All the talk of pan-European integration and harmony that transcends national boundaries has been claptrap.  When asked to select between maximizing the profits of a few large German banks or diminishing the misery of an entire nation and millions of innocent, hard-working Greeks who had no hand in the errant financial dealings, Chancellor Merkel swiftly made her choice: She told mercy and pan-European brotherhood to take a long hike into Hell’s shadows. She picked her banks over the Greek people.

    The deadline for decision is February 28. While Merkel may soften a bit around the edges, she clearly plans to impose the brunt of the extant plan on the new government in Athens. It is Merkel versus the Greek people. Because she controls the money, she will likely win this confrontation.

    During the 2008-2009 financial crisis, Greece waded into double-barreled trouble. Because yields on Greek government bonds were higher than in most of the Eurozone daring investors and abject speculators invested in these bonds. The Greek government at the time borrowed too much. It was the time of cheap and abundant money globally. A similar excessive leveraging occurred in the private sector. When the global financial collapse came, the Greek economy was overly indebted and in no shape to withstand what would come next. Banks and investors called their loans. Greece had not the money to pay.

    If the nation had maintained its own currency, it could have printed more money to repay. This would have had its costs. It would have caused inflation and made imports dearer. However, it would have also made Greek industry more price competitive while insulating domestic employment levels from the freefall they would experience.

    This monetary sovereignty would also have allowed Greece better leverage in negotiating with its creditors. It would have negotiated directly with the private banks themselves and not having to go through the EU or other, more powerful governments with interests adverse to Greece’s. The Greeks made a fateful mistake by joining the Eurozone. It relinquished its monetary sovereignty to Brussels which takes its marching orders from Berlin. The membership also opened its borders without being able to impose capital or import controls to the flood of German manufactured goods and financial instruments. Now Greeks were being asked to pay for the debt accrued if not in blood then by mortgaging the soul and future of the nation.

    With Greece prostrated by heavy debt, the EU and IMF invaded to perform their neo-classical economic handiwork. The tragedy begins in earnest, developing a cascading momentum the discerning observer soon recognizes will lead to one place: utter calamity. The EU forces the debt-ridden Greek government to assume Greek private-sector debt. This was done to obligate the government to make German and French banks whole for the risky loan the banks had made to individuals. When it comes to their financial institutions, the German and French governments decided the vagaries of the free market were inapplicable. They imposed a transfer of limited Greek public funds to satisfy these purely private-sector obligations. This foreign imposition of corporate socialism and favoritism for non-Greek creditors would add another layer of debt to a government suffocating under the weight of the public debt it had contracted.

    The EU and IMF then devised a plan to loan Greek money to pay these banks. The loan would be conditioned on Greece implementing a severe austerity program. These conservative economists claimed that cutting the government budget would generate more economic activity and growth. They never explained the mechanics of how this would work.  They merrily said the market would take care of everything as if by magic.  They called their happy elixir “fiscal consolidation.” They imposed austerity and then waited for the Greek economy to expand as their textbooks said it would whenever government deficit spending is reduced. The opposite happened.

    Austerity turned a serious financial problem into wholesale economic disaster. The past six years plunged Greece into a downturn comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s in terms of severity and duration. Making a mockery of conservative economics, GDP has been clipped by 25 percent. Unemployment multiplied to roughly 30 percent. By cutting government revenues, austerity was intended to lower the debt/GDP ratio that hovered over 120 percent at austerity’s inception. Today, that ratio is over 173 percent.

    Austerity has aggravated not fixed the debt crisis. By lessening government expenditure, austerity contracted the overall economy because it removed the buttress government spending provided the private sector. A shrinking private sector pays less tax; diminished revenues inhibit government’s ability to service the debt. This is worse than a vicious economic cycle. It is terrible enchainment, a prison from which the only release is to pardon a significant portion of the debt owed. In other words, Greece needs debt relief or it will suffer depression the rest of the decade and perhaps longer. (Its GDP growth rate the last quarter of 2014 was -0.2 percent.)

    Joining the Eurozone was a terrible bungle for Greece. The nation forfeited its monetary sovereignty to a regional institution and the powerful nations controlling that institution. Because of this forfeiture, Greece must beg the EU for money to pay its debts. He who holds the money is known as the master. He who needs money held by other is known as the slave. The Eurozone was intended to spread freedom and economic prosperity among its members. Sadly, it was not constructed in a way so that it would realize this benign intent. It has gone the opposite way. The Eurozone has opened the door to a financial imperialism in Europe that historically has been reserved for Western manhandling of former colonies.

    What Greece has suffered is a compound lesson to all developing nations.  First, never, ever relinquish your currency sovereignty, especially to a financial arrangement vulnerable to manipulation by a stronger economy.  The short-term gains will be quickly erased when crisis comes; in the long term, crisis always comes. When it does, the stronger economy will squeeze the weaker.  Resolution of the crisis will be conducted in a way that increases the influence and power of the rich over the poor. Second, if anyone tries to sell you a bottle of austerity elixir, return it to the mountebank vendor and demand your refund. By all accounts, austerity is as sure a path to poverty as poverty itself. Those who mistake these lessons as false alarms will discover that this economic genre of the Greek tragedy is not limited to Greece alone.

  • It’s a plot to derail democracy, say APC senators

    It’s a plot to derail democracy, say APC senators

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) senators yesterday condemned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for postponing the February 14 and 28 elections.

    Spokesman for the group, Senator Babafemi Ojudu (Ekiti Central), in a statement in Abuja, described the postponement as a “tele-guided plot” by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to derail democracy.

    Ojudu said: “What we are seeing is a desperate and jittery response to the imminent defeat of the PDP. The postponement has shown the helplessness of INEC in the face of a malicious cabal bent on destroying the fabric of democracy.”

    The APC senators said the decision has raised a big credibility question on INEC and the forthcoming elections.

    He added: “This decision is borne out of fear of defeat and malice against the people of Nigeria in the face of the overwhelming support the APC command across the country.”

    He insisted that the PDP leadership in collaboration with INEC have put Nigeria in extremely bad light among the international community.

    The postponement, according to him, “is a diversionary tactic, which undermines the aspirations of Nigerians and dims the hope for change in a country that in the past has seen bitter upheavals due to similar partisan posture of the electoral umpire.”

    He alleged that the INEC has placed itself above the interest of the people, adding that the action of the electoral body runs contrary to the decision of the Council of State.

  • Lagos APC: move is an ambush against democracy

    Lagos APC: move is an ambush against democracy

    The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the postponement of general elections as an affront on Nigerians and a threat to democracy.

    In statement by its spokesman Joe Igbokwe, the party said it was laughable that a four-yearly general election was being postponed eight days to its due date because the military has chosen the date to clampdown on insurgents.

    “It is a cheap insult; an annoying blackmail on the sensibilities of Nigerians by a party and government that is desperate to remain in power when it is obvious that Nigerians don’t want it any longer,” the party said.

    According to the APC spokesman, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan government had shown that it was desperate to manipulate every institution to remain in power.

    He said: “Nigerians must be more resolute in ensuring the party (PDP) is banished from our politics, if only to preserve our hallowed institutions from such abuse as the PDP is presently visiting on them.

    “We encourage Nigerians to remain strong and steadfast in ensuring that the country is saved from the illegalities and outright impunity the PDP has made part of the country’s governance.

    “We remember that what is turning out as a dangerous, cold blooded attack on democracy started as a hatchet call by President Jonathan’s National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), in far away London for the postponement of an election fixed more than a year ago and which time-table had been religiously followed by all parties.

    “We remember that Dasuki hinged his call on the position that most Nigerians had not gotten their permanent voters card. We recall that the country rose in one demeaning crescendo to condemn the demand and we remember that both the PDP and the Jonathan government, tongue-in-cheek, denied being behind the plot, as most Nigerians alleged.

    “We recall that INEC not only showed its preparedness to conduct the election, but went extra miles to demonstrate that contrary to Dasuki’s allegation on PVCs, it had not only distributed the voter cards, but made provisions for all registered Nigerian voters to collect their voter cards before election day.

    “We recall that INEC had been studiously going about its duties while the PDP, the Jonathan government and the headship of the country’s security services had been in an intricate plot to scuttle an election, where every indications point to a crushing defeat of the Jonathan/PDP government.

    “We note that the decision of the hastily convoked National Security Council that the election must go on, having been satisfied with preparedness on INEC, was not enough to deter the desperate plot by these joint forces to sabotage democracy and force INEC to postpone an election that was to hold barely in a week.”

    Igbokwe said the postponement was the beginning of a grand design to scuttle Nigeria’s hard-earned democracy.

    The statement added: “Lagos APC agrees with a majority of Nigerians that the postponement of the election was an illegal ambush on democracy and follows an extensive plot by Jonathan and PDP to cling to power by all means when they have lost favour with Nigerians.

    “We warn that this is just the beginning of a thick anti-democratic plot to ensure that democracy is shackled and that Jonathan and PDP continue their corrupt wreckage of the country by every foul means.

    “We warn that these evil plots are being financed with the trillions of naira and billions of dollars that have been stolen from the treasury and involves an extensive recruitment of menservants and hirelings masquerading as ethnic, religious, regional and tribal warriors, who are being serviced to further lay ambush on democracy and tarnish the electoral process as conditions necessary for the continuation of the Jonathan/PDP government.

    “We alert Nigerians on these looming enemies of democracy who are richly patronised by the present regime to procure more years for this government and ensure the democratic process is scuttled.”

  • Council chief inaugurates creche, promises more democracy dividends

    Council chief inaugurates creche, promises more democracy dividends

    The Chairman, Yewa South Local Government Area in  Ogun State,Alhaji Safiu  Abiodun Odebiyi, has inaugurated a creche  built by the council.The facility  was personally equipped and furnished by Engineer Batunde Odunlami , the council’s head of administration.

    Speaking at the event,Alhaji Odebiyi  expressed  appreciation for the kind gesture  of  Odunlami, saying the well-being of the children of workers had been paramount  to his administration  since he came on board.He observed that  the crèche would allow proper monitoring  of workers’ children and also enable nursing mothers to pay attention to their mother while at work.

    He admonished workers to emulate the good spirit of Odunlami whose  exemplary  leadership style he has been enjoying since he assumed office.The council chief  used the occasion to encourage voters to vote for the All Progressives Congress(APC) in the coming  election ,assuring them  of more dividends of democracy.

    Speaking  earlier ,Odunlami  said  it was a rare privilege  for him to work  with the chairman  and members of his executive  council .He said his simplicity  and focused life style had attracted large scale development to Yewa South Local Government Area.

    Giving reasons for  his action, he said he observed that children could be  a source of  distraction to nursing mothers,hence the need to provide a conducive atmosphere for them while their mothers were at work.He added that  other benefit to be enjoyed by the children include their  interaction with one another, which  according to him,will  promote cordial relationship  among parents.

    Among facilities at the crèche include: story books,different  sets   of standard toys,well furnished beddings and  painted walls ,alphabets  and hanging almanacs showing animals.

  • That democracy may survive

    That democracy may survive

    How Nigeria can sustain democracy through free and fair elections was the topic of a debate organised by the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) chapter of the Union of Campus Journalists (UCJ). AFIS ODEYEMI (300-Level Education History) reports.

    Survival of democracy topped disscussion at an event organised by the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) chapter of the Union of Campus Journalists (UCJ). Participants, who spoke on the topic: Party politics and democratic sustenance: 2015 general election in focus, brought their oratory skills to bear in the discussion, which is held yearly for freshers.

    The basement of the main auditorium, where the contest was held, was literally charged as the students expressed their views before guests, including the Director of Centre for Peace and Strategic Studies in UNILORIN, Dr Mahfuz Adedimeji, who declared the contest open.

    According to the organisers, the contest was also to develop the oratorical and writing prowess of the participants, who were selected from the institution’s nine faculties.

    Adedimeji, who is also UCJ’s Staff Adviser, said examination could not be a true test of knowledge, adding that the winner should not see himself as the best. He said: “Life is a competition ground where individuals face challenges on a daily basis and achievement is recorded based on individual effort.”

    At the preliminary stage, students from all faculties participated in the debate but five participants qualified to move to the final stage.

    Dr Lukman Saka of the Department of Political Science, who delivered a lecture on the theme, gave a professional insight into the topic. He suggested ways the nation could conduct of a free and credible election.

    Saka said: “For a free fair and credible election to be held this year, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must be fair to all political parties and demonstrate by its intention that it would be non-partisan umpire. This will also reduce the number of legal battle that may trail the process. The February election is crucial to the peace and growth of this nation.”

    The political scientist advised politicians not to betray the trust people reposed in them, urging them not to truncate the democratic process because of their selfish interest. He said the security of the country should be a collective effort and common objective of all politicians.

    During the grand finale, each of the remaining five contestants was given five minutes to defend his position on the theme.

    After a tough session, the judges graded the participants based on their appearance, composure, fluency, saliency of points and conciseness. Victory Emmanuel of the Faculty of Engineering  emerged the winner of the contest. Damilola Olawuyi of the Faculty of Education came second, while Temidayo Ajibade from the Faculty of Sciences came third.

    Prizes, including mobile phones, t-shirts, stationery, were presented to the winners and participants, who dropped out in the preliminary stage.

    Assistant General Secretary, Kwars State chapel of Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mallam Abubakare Mustapha, who represented the NUJ boss, Mr Abdulkareem Abiodun, advised students to get involved more in educational programmes, saying this would boost their academic pursuits.

    The UCJ President, Taofeek Tiamiyu, a 500-Level Agricultural Science student, said every member of a given society had roles to play in sustaining democracy in the society.

    “As youths with good strength of number and voting power, we must ensure we constructively constitute to nation-building by conducting ourselves peacefully during the coming general elections. We must not be divided by politics, religion and ethnicity. We share common humanity and country, which we must protect,” he said.

    Other guests at the event included former presidents of the union, Alao Idris and Wale Bakare, who initiated the Freshers’ Oratory Contest.

    Highpoints of the occasion were observations by students, and poem presentation dedicated to the life of late Zakariyyah Abiodun Olowo, one of the university’s scholars and immediate past president of the union, and Hammed Adekanmi, who died last year. The participants observed one-minute silence in their memory.

  • Our brand of democracy

    Events since the conduct of primaries by political parties have once again, brought to the fore the vexatious issue of the manner of democracy we practice in this country. More than anything, they have shown in very clear terms the scant regard of our politicians for the rules of the game.

    Not only are politicians not prepared to comply with extant regulations, they have shown unbridled inclination to go at length to sabotage this vital process for self-serving ends. This ruinous predilection has largely accounted for the rancor that trailed the primaries of the parties leading to defections and bad blood among key leaders.

    At the heart of the disputation is the control of what is now dubbed party structures- euphemism for sidelining and appropriating the peoples’ mandate during party primaries.

    Once appropriated, it enables the beneficiary politician to subvert the collective will of the people by depriving them a role in the choice of those to stand for the election proper. In practice, its execution varies from one party to another. In some parties, though a date was fixed for their primaries and party members were made to come out to elect their delegates, no election took place as some powerful leaders hijacked the process only to turn in purported lists of those elected.

    Ironically, despite these glaring cases of sabotage and brigandage, the party leadership did practically nothing to redress the grievances of short-changed members. In some other parties, sundry governors and leaders had high latitude to determine who they wanted for the various elective offices. Yet, this is one civic duty party members ought to exercise freely if the will of their constituencies is to be reflected at elections.

    Representative democracy derives its strength from its capacity to approximate the collective will of the people. Because of the large size of modern states, it is no longer possible for the people to gather in a single location to directly take decisions on matters affecting them. Thus, the concept of representation that allows the people to take decisions through their elected leaders.

    The theory is that having taken part in the election of their representatives, whatever decisions taken by them, will approximate the collective will of the constituents from which they emerged. That is the guiding framework. That is the objective party primaries and elections are meant to serve.

    Sadly, this cardinal principle of democracy has come under serious assault by the manner the various political parties conducted their primaries. It all started with the ward congresses of the parties. At that rudimentary level, party members were expected to elect their delegates who would in turn elect those to fly the flags of the parties at the general election.

    Instead of allowing this rudimentary civic duty a free and fair reign, the exercised was heavily compromised in many areas.

    In the case of the People Democratic Party PDP, those who came out to vote went home disappointed in some states as election materials and officials disappeared into the thin air. Result sheets were later returned with names of people written in hotels or residences of influential politicians who bought or hijacked them for their selfish ends.

    It was not surprising that what came out as duly elected delegates were names of cronies and loyalists of those who hijacked those election materials. In Cross River state for instance, a chieftain of the PDP Chief Donald Etiebet was so disgusted with the outcome of that congress that he dubbed it a mockery of democracy. For him, what took place in his state was anything but a congress.

    And in nearby Imo State, the PDP ward congress was a sham. The All Progressives Congress APC did not fare better in this regard in some states. In many of the states it controls, sitting governors hijacked the party structures shunting out those not considered loyalists from the process. The gale of defections from the APC in Ogun State is a necessary fall-out of this. In Imo State APC, the sitting governor had his way in not only determining who should run but manipulated the process to throw up his son in-law as the governorship candidate of the party. It took the emergence of the party’s presidential candidate a few days later for him to return and reclaim that ticket from his son in-law.

    And we ask, what manner of democracy do we expect from these highly flawed processes? Not unexpectedly, those thrown up by these faulty processes are supposed to have derived their mandate from party members in their constituencies. But that freedom of choice was hugely compromised. In effect, the electorate which represents the ultimate sovereign was denied its role and freedom of choice. Ironically, this role constitutes the irreducible decimal in any democratic calculation.

    This is a country in a hurry to copy governance frameworks ostensibly to quicken its pace of development both economically and politically. Sadly, after adopting these contraptions, we go out of our way to exude dispositions and tendencies that end up sabotaging the very process. And when confronted with the incongruity in the adopted systems’ incapacity to deliver optimal results as obtains in democracies from where they were copied, the ready answer given is that we are in a learning process. We may continue to learn ad infinitum without any positive results. If the truth must be told, we may end up learning nothing if political actors do not change their desperate and do or die attitude to electoral matters.

    At the centre of this malfeasance is the pervasive corruption that has eaten deep into the nation’s fabric. It is the high level of corruption in public places that has become the greatest undoing of our democratic experiment. Politicians do not want the will of the people to determine the outcome of elections for fear they will reject the charlatans and sundry criminals who have now found politics a major source of livelihood. They are afraid that given the choice, they will be totally rejected by their people.

    That accounts for the indecent desperation to secure control of party structures. A lot of money change hands among those delegated to conduct the congresses and key party officials at their headquarters.

    That is not all. The same desperate politicians will now proceed during the primaries to buy same delegates whose names they influenced into the list. Some of them were known to have given each delegate the sum of N500,000 or more after administering an oath on them to secure their votes. The situation is that bad. The scandal saw some peasants who have never seen N50,000 in their lives smiling home to the banks. And we ask, what manner of leaders will such people turn out to be? Having corrupted the system to fraudulently to emerge victorious, will they not sabotage every due process to recoup their ill-gotten money? Your guess is as good as mine.

    Something urgent must be done to reduce the high level of corruption that characterizes electioneering campaigns on these shores. It is for the same reason that the various tendencies in the country are seeking to control the centre. Until we whittle down the huge resources at the disposal of the central authority, we are unlikely to make real progress as a people. Maybe the current fate of oil in the international market will compel us to do the needful.

  • Our mutant form of democracy

    Our mutant form of democracy

    . Anyone who has just come to Nigeria in the last few months cannot but wonder what kind
    of ruling elite the country is saddled with

    “Democracies legitimize the existence of opposition parties as well as of organized interest groups….But it is really the power and autonomy of nongovernmental elites, and their recognized legitimacy that distinguishes the elite structures of democratic nations from those of totalitarian states. Pluralism, then, is the belief that democratic values can be preserved in a system where multiple, competing elites determine public policy through bargaining and compromise, voters exercise meaningful choices in elections, and new elites can gain access to power….In democratic society, unlike a totalitarian one, multiple elites exist. A defining characteristic of Western democratic nations is the relative autonomy of various elites-governmental, economic, media, civic, cultural, and so on. In contrast, a defining characteristic of totalitarian societies is the forced imposition of unity on elites….Elites must govern wisely if democracy is to survive. When masses turn to the politics of rage, the disorder is serious but generally short-lived. When elites fail to govern wisely, the devastation can be more formidable and more prolonged…”-Thomas Dye and Harmon Zeigler in The Irony of Democracy.

    Quoting extensively from The Irony of Democracy in the piece today is deliberate. It is to remind readers about the nuances of democracy that are being ignored daily in our country by the section of the political elite that needs to have a higher sense of enlightened self-interest and self- preservation within the context of democratic governance. Anyone who has just come to Nigeria in the last few months cannot but wonder what kind of ruling elite the country is saddled with and why would the ruling elite knowingly behave in a manner that undermines its own stability. Those who have been here for some time must also wonder how Nigeria has come to this pass and if the situation has always been this abysmal.

    Starting with the last point, the ruling political elite has not always been this insensitive to the role and place of opposition parties in democratic governance. For example, Chief Obafemi Awolowo fervently believed and repeatedly spoke and wrote in favour of the role of opposition in consolidation of democracy. He was the first politician in power in Nigeria to give special privilege to opposition parties. It was during his premiership of Western Region that he created an official accommodation for the leader of opposition even when he himself did not live in government house. Such was his respect for opposition parties.

    Of course, Awolowo came from a tradition of constitutional monarchy that also organised governance around pluralism and separation of power. In pre-colonial Yoruba land into which Awolowo was born and bred, the political system thrived on distribution of power among various elite groups: the monarch, executive cabinet, other chiefs, Ogboni (a very independent judicial arm of traditional government), and a traditional media system that included a few court poets and another independent group charged to perform counter-hegemonic functions as the need arose.  Even other leaders in the first and second republics from political traditions different from that of the Yoruba, such as Azikiwe, Bello, and Shagari found it difficult to act habitually with force in a way to suggest that they would rather kill all forms of political opposition. As desperate as some of them were about turning Nigeria into a one-party system, they had the capacity to know fear and consequently avoid overt and extreme destruction of the institution of political opposition in a democracy.When efforts to dismantle opposition parties in Western Nigeria occurred at the instance of some of these politicians in the federal ruling group, they did not last and left far-reaching consequences for the entire country.

    Since the end of the civil war, the military had degraded the country’s political culture directly and indirectly, to the extent that civilians elected to power at the end of military dictatorship in 1979 and 1999 were not (and still do not appear) to have been able to imbibe the culture of tolerance, negotiation, and compromise that statecraft in a democratic ethos requires. Under military rule, there was no separation of the concept of security of the state from the use of state power to pursue political and personal interests of military presidents and governors. Military dictators saw their rule as that of a one-party state that had no reason to brook any opposition. They thus created decrees to muzzle the press and devised stratagems to suborn, harass, and even liquidate individuals that served as voices of opposition: Soyinka, Awojobi, Solarin, Dele Giwa, Fawehinmi, Beeko, FelaAnikulapo, Falana, for example. Just as some of the political attitudes of the ruling group and its agencies appear in 2014, individuals or groups that had ideas different from those preferred by military dictators were labelled enemies of the country’s security and unity.

    What we have had as a multiparty political system since the exit of military rule in 1999 has not been noticeably different from that of military dictatorship, particularly in terms of the perception by rulers and members of the ruling party of opposition parties.  Under post-military rulers from Obasanjo to Jonathan (since Umaru Yar’Adua hardly had any time to show his style), the tendency on the part of  what other societies would have called ruling elite has been to smash the opposition and turn the political market of ideas into a field of uniformity of ideas for those in charge of the federal government.

    Too many embarrassing things have happened in the last two years in the polity. And each of them has been proclaimed by people in the corridor of power as efforts by the federal ruling group to secure the country and promote its unity. The country’s Governors Forum got broken at the instance of the ruling party into two and made ineffectual, thus denying the country of ideas that could have emanated from a group of governors capable of generating ideas for improved governance, on account of their proximity to the needs of citizens. Police that was to enforce law and maintain order became an instrument for the ruling class to harass opposition parties. The Speaker of the House automatically lost his security aides because he moved to another party. He and other federal lawmakers were prevented from entering the legislature by the police. The data office of APC was brazenly vandalised and workers arrested without a warrant by a combination of police and secret police all in the name of national security and unity. Judges were harassed in Ekiti at the instance of the ruling party without proper response by the national police to break down of law and order that this act represented. Even after a judge had ordered the release of workers arrested without warrant at the APC data office, the law enforcement agencies ignored such judicial order. There are many more examples of arbitrary use of power by handlers of the federal polity.

    These acts bring up queries about the attitude of the federal ruling party to maintenance of public order. In its elementary form, the personal use of police is evident in the number of policemen attached to politicians or their friends. The allocation of police men to people in or around power makes citizens wonder if security means protection of just individuals in power or protection of citizens of the country. As things seem, the ruling group does not draw a line between security of the country and citizens, and that of the partisan interests of the ruling party and its members.

    Leaders in a democracy are expected to have an enlightened self-interest that makes them recognise the need to avoid totalitarian or fascist use of power. The polity and society includes both the ruling party and opposition parties. Efforts at repressing, oppressing, and harassing parties and individuals with ideas different from those of the ruling party regarding how to improve governance are reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Fuhrer” (one people, one state, one leader). Nigeria’s plurality is non-negotiable. That plurality is best illustrated by a multiparty system that includes a ruling party at a given time and alternative parties waiting in the wing to replace them, if citizens so choose. Any effort, overt or subtle, to silence opposition parties is capable of threatening democracy and unity of the country.

  • Soldiers of democracy

    Soldiers of democracy

    ‘The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion’—— Albert Camus

    Nigeria – and it is worrisome – is returning to the better forgotten military era when the common enemy of the country was the head of the military junta. The repressive General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd) really messed Nigeria up and the crisis of democratic values currently faced by the country is still being traced to his duplicitous approach to governance. The late despotic Sani Abacha merely consolidated Babangida’s better forgotten evil methods. Today, it is sad that under a democratic rule, the common enemy of the country is President Goodluck Jonathan that everyone sees as not doing enough to rescue the nation from the verge of perdition. Things are getting so disconcerting that it has got to a level put succinctly by Catherine the Great as ‘Power without a nation’s confidence is nothing.’ Majority of reasonable Nigerians have lost confidence in this presidency. And since nothing strengthens impunity as much as silence, Nigerians are getting more daring because it seems they have come to realise that true freedom lies in being bold.

    Recently, members of the House of Representatives led by their Speaker, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal returned from recess to discourse the presidency’s request for extension of emergency rule covering the north eastern states. On getting to the gate of the National Assembly, it was locked and the place barricaded by armed riot policemen acting on the instruction of Suleiman Abba, the Inspector General of Police, not to allow officially ‘marked’ honourable members into the premises. Yet, the same policemen allowed Senate President David Mark and Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha of the House into the complex. How can this be qualified other than what it is: selective witch-hunting and arrant impunity targeted at members of the opposition in the national assembly.

    The Speaker and his colleagues were compelled by the necessity of the day’s agenda to scale the fence, at the risk of their lives. What option could have been available to them but this, except they were ready to submit themselves to the reign of executive impunity and lawlessness? Before this incident, the Speaker had defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The legality of this move is currently waiting for judicial interpretation. So, Abba’s refusal to acknowledge the occupant of this position during his appearance before a committee of the house yesterday smacks of undue arrogance underscoring his abysmal taking of side in a matter he should be seen as neutral being the supposed number one peace enforcer of the country. Is Abba not aware that he is not court?

    The president’s silence and Abba’s desecration of the national assembly and show of disrespect to the occupant of the Speakership’s position has left the polity in avoidable turmoil. Some people still condemn the honourable members for taking such a risk considered as uncivilised. Yours sincerely does not see their gallant act in that light. Reason: For them to have acquiesced in the face of executive impunity, it would have battered the espoused legislative independence, ensured illegal prolongation of emergency rule, that has for months not achieved any meaningful results, without rigorous legislative discourse and seal and above all, would have set a bad precedent that future executive leadership might adopt in illegally whipping the legislature to line. It will be wrong of the media and all other important stakeholders in the country’s past, present and future to allow that affront on the national assembly to go unchallenged.

    The legislators, considered by yours sincerely as soldiers of democracy reminds of Martin Luther King, Jr. where he rightly observed several decades ago: ‘Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.’ The current centre administration has demanded peace and obedience but is surreptitiously manifesting conducts that are conflict provoking. It is an acknowledged fact that circumstances could be beyond human/institutional control, but this government’s deliberate and oppressive irrational conduct is within its own power. Nigerians will not fold their arm and allow its tyranny to fester beyond what obtains now.

    It is better for the president to know that it is only possible to have power over people so long as he does not take everything away from them. If he tries to rob the people of everything decent as he is currently doing, then it becomes absolutely compelling that things will get out of his power. The people will turn their back to be free again and that is what is happening at the national assembly. Whatever the folly of the assembly members might be, it is important to appreciate that for once, they even if for selfish reasons, have chosen at the detriment of their comfort to stand up and be counted against the president’s repugnant tyrannical tendencies.

    A dangerous trend is creeping into governance at the moment and this emanates from the feeling of disenchantment arising from government’s failure to imbue confidence in Nigerians. The ill-wind has reached an apogee – where the people now believe that happiness does not come from being soft with government but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after a welcome rebellion that demanded our best by whatever means. This should not be interpreted as excesses but measures taken to stay within the norm. The honourable legislators demonstrated this last week when they jumped over the fence to send a signal to a president that has failed to fulfil or wilfully scorned all agreed compromises and concessions.

     

    Still on the libel against me

    I wrote last week on the libel against my person by one Taiwo Sanyaolu, a proxy for a hack writer whose real identity has since been unravelled through a piece titled: ‘Tinubu stooges and almajiri journalism’ that was published in ThisDay newspaper of Monday, October 17, 2014.

    I was compelled by my legal training to write a letter of protest to Mr Nduka Obaigbena, publisher of the paper and president of Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN). The protest letter was out of sheer respect for the publisher’s person and his attainment in journalism in general. Yours sincerely demanded a retraction, which I learnt, he ordered should be published immediately. And it was published on Monday, October 24, 2014 on page 16, the opening page of the paper’s politics pages for that day.

    This is what is called leadership and I respect him the more for this. However, due to oversight or misguided typographical error, my surname was mis-spelt as ‘Sanui’ at the introductory paragraph but spelt right in subsequent lines. The line editor responsible should show more responsibility by not treating such an important legal matter with negligence in future. The fact that I am taking it out of sheer respect for Mr Obaigbena does not mean other aggrieved persons will accept such condemnable oversight. A paper owned by the NPAN president should not be found wanting in the realm of avoidable libels as negligently committed by the paper’s political page handler. This calls for future caution and dispassionate commitment to duty.

  • The face of a pseudo democracy

    The face of a pseudo democracy

    “This is a pseudo democracy pretending to be genuine.”

    So what?

    “It is a counterfeit pretending to be original.”

    Yes? What else?

    “We have been duped with an imitation that we take for real.”

    “Who are you including in the “we”? Speak for yourself, man.”

    “At best, the dummy that has been sold to us is what political scientists euphemistically refer to as “competitive authoritarianism”, which in the words of one of its theorists is “a civilian regime in which democratic institutions exist in form but not in substance”, “a regime that is democratic in appearance but authoritarian in nature.” This is because all the institutions of the “democratic” state—are deliberately or inadvertently arranged to promote the interest of whomever, or whichever political group currently holds power.”

    “Who cares? Call it whatever you want, if it works, it is fine. People like you don’t appreciate what we face in this country. We need a heavy hand to deal with us. We are a bunch of ingrates. Government goes out of its way to help us and what does the President get in return? Abuse! When will it stop? We need a strong security operation to deal with us. That is what the government has finally realised. It is no longer Mr. Gentleman President. Don’t you understand?”

    “Surely, this is not a new thing. It has been with us since the inception of the republic. There was a time when we were treated to raw power when the police—both federal and state—were used to torment the opposition. The practice led to the collapse of that era of gangster democracy when election was a do-or-die matter and incumbency was elevated to the rank of an imperial monarch who must eliminate his rivals or to the realm of the gods who have the monopoly of wisdom.”

    That the president is not a king but only an office holder elected by the people to work in their interest is a political fact that we still need to imbibe as part of our political culture. We must come to terms with the constitutional separation of powers which prevents one arm of government from dabbling into the affairs of another. The constitution does not give the executive arm the authority to supervise the legislative arm or the judiciary. It invests the power of interpretation in the judiciary as the arbiter between the other two branches.

    The Inspector-General of Police is the security officer of the republic. As such he is accountable to all. But time and again, since the beginning of the republic, every holder of this neutral office has seen himself as the errand boy of the ruling party or the president. This is a major defining feature of a pseudo democracy or competitive authoritarian regime. And it has to be identified as such. If that is what the nation wants, so be it. But we cannot continue to pretend that we operate a genuine democracy when the security operation is nothing but authoritarian.

    Within the last 12 months, three episodes are worth recalling. The Divisional Police Officer for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) ordered the police invasion of G7 Governors’ meeting on November 3, 2013 in the Kano State Government Lodge. The DPO himself led the invasion. While the then Inspector- General of Police claimed that he did not order the disruption, he nevertheless defended it on the grounds that “the DPO, as the officer in charge of the area, had the right to know what was going on in his domain.” In other words, the DPO is like the king who must know every movement, private or public, of his subjects. When we have such a preposterous interpretation of our constitution and we keep silent, we deserve whatever we get. This is what has been going on.

    Without a challenge to that kind of mindset, we should not be surprised that it is being replicated all over the country. The police were drafted to disrupt the lawful assembly of the APC in Ekiti shortly before the June governorship election. And following the election of the PDP candidate, the Police has demonstrated its loyalty to the ruling party with gusto, the latest being its provision of protection for seven PDP members to “impeach” the Speaker who enjoys a 19-member majority in the House. It is not the first time that the ruling party has elevated a minority above a majority. It happened with the Nigerian Governors Forum election. The Ekiti Speaker and his 19 APC lawmakers are currently self-exiled from the state living in fear of their lives.

    The height of security impunity was the invasion of the National Assembly to prevent Speaker Aminu Tambuwal from conducting the House session on the President’s request for an extension of the Emergency Rule in the Northeast states. Unlike the private meeting invasion a year earlier, this act was actually defended by the current IGP on two grounds. First, the IGP chose to pre-empt the courts with his own interpretation of the constitution. As far as he is concerned, Tambuwal is no longer a member of the House and therefore cannot be the Speaker because he had defected from the PDP. The inference was that if he was no longer a member of the House, he had no business around the premises of the National Assembly. This was why the Police unilaterally withdrew his security aides. Second, however, a “motley crowd” accompanied the Speaker and Police Intelligence suggested a possible breakdown of law and order.

    That there are reasonable Nigerians who supported this clearly partisan police intervention in a political tussle is telling. If we don’t agree on substantive policy issues because of ideological differences, at least we should have a united approach on procedural issues that impinge on the deepening of our democratic norms. The first of this is that no matter its sensitivity to crime and infringement of the constitution, the Police is not invested with the authority to interpret and adjudicate. It is important to agree on this and respect it because in a competitive political landscape that has emerged since November last year, no one political party can be sure of an absolute control of the centre and the apparatus of the state. What goes around will eventually come around.

    The latest example of police and security politically motivated action is the invasion of the APC office in Lagos. Again, this was defended in terms that make the stomach turn. There was an Intelligence Report that the office was being used to clone PVCs, we were told. And presumably there was no need for a court granted search warrant. It was sufficient that the Police and State security had the means of violence, could harass innocent workers and turn the place upside down with impunity. For all intent and purposes, security agents arrogated to themselves the raw power to act even when, in doing so, they trampled on the rights of citizens.

    I hope that unlike Opalaba, my cynical friend, every lover of democracy, including those who still bear the scar of the fight to have it restored, no matter what political association or party they belong to, no matter how the current corrupted variant of democratic institutions work in their favour, would stop and think about the long term implications of this trend.  I hope that those who must speak out now before it is too late would lend their voice to the chorus of those concerned citizens asking for a stop to imitation democracy or competitive authoritarianism.

    Happy Thanksgiving to all!