He who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers and for his action it is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant.—Max Weber
One sentence that has been popular in the country’s political space of discourse in the last few days is ‘politicisation of security’ i.e. subjecting community or nation to threats of its survival and its values by individuals or groups whose motive is to obtain or retain political power. The most recent of such attempts by President Buhari and other owners of discourse of security is the claim that people who “politicise security” through questioning the process of release of Dapchi girls expose themselves to being ‘dealt with.”
On the other side of the political divide are those who present themselves as political liberals or liberal democrats. These people cry foul, warning that attempts to prevent them from asking questions that can give citizens, the donors of power to presidents, governors, and legislators full information about their country are tantamount to depriving them of a basic universal value in democratic governance—the right to know which forms an important part of the right to tell or state—freedom of speech. An older example of threat to democratic rights is the announcement that hate speech would be made punishable by death. And another is the claim that the governor of Benue is playing politics unduly with the killing of tens of farmers in his state.
But there is an obverse side to the charge of politicising of security. And that side is what looks like the securitising of politics. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not using securitisation in relation to financial management; pooling various types of debt—commercial, residential, and credit card obligations to sell related cash flows to third party investors as securities or guarantee. By securitising of politics, I mean in the sense of the Copenhagen School or Theory in security studies, means “creation of a discursive process through which an understanding is constructed within a political community to treat something as an existential threat and to enable a call for urgent and exceptional measures to deal with the threat.”
Put in a plainer language, members of a ruling or dominant group get so sensitive to words about the security of all that they resort to characterising citizens who complain or ask questions about official or state response to security challenges as persons politicising security. Those who in return are worrying about the tendency of those in power for securitising politics are bothered by witting or unwitting denial of citizens in a democracy of the democratic rituals that sustain democracy directly or indirectly. Such rituals range from periodic elections to allow the people a say in who becomes their ruler to the freedom to praise or blame rulers for whatever choice or attitude they take on issues important to citizens.
Although maintaining security is within the jurisdiction of the executive, even in a democratic system, the need for secrecy about the process of ensuring survival of a community or state does not (and should not) give political leaders—executive or legislative—any excuse to abridge the freedom of expression and choice that sustains democracy by giving citizens convincing appearance of inclusiveness that makes citizens not in power believe in the fairness of democratic governance. In this respect, the temptation that rulers everywhere and under every system needs to be interrogated in a democracy, if such state desires to grow and thrive as a democracy.
The notion that governance is not challenged or challengeable in a democratic system in respect of government’s method of securing the state and citizens is dangerous for both ruler and the ruled. Over sensitisation of rulers to complaints by official opposition parties or ordinary citizens is often a cause for demands on the part of governments and their partisans for tougher rules to discourage citizens in disagreement with rulers or their style of ruling. More importantly, there is a thin line between politics and other aspects of life in an organised state. Isn’t this why every modern nation starts with a constitution—negotiated in the case of democracy and imposed in the case of other systems? Without doubt, living in Nigeria is a political choice. Nigeria itself, like other modern nation-states, is a political construct, regardless of puerile statements about Nigeria being created by God. If human beings in the Nigerian State choose not to be a part of the construct, such decision would not be started by or passed to God. It is, therefore, honest for both leaders and the led to agree that politics is an integral part of the country’s existence. Even to declare a statement political is tantamount to the owner of the statement trying to be political.
Our multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multicultural Nigeria is one huge country tied together by politics and better sutured by democratic politics and governance. Any attempt to curtail the space of politics, especially the space of freedom of speech in order to create an easier space for governance is fraught with dangers. Demonisation of persons complaining about governing styles that they consider inefficient or ineffective is not the best way to reduce the field of conflicts in a democratic diverse state like Nigeria. Debates – formal or informal – are indispensable to democratic governance. And all partisans of any national issue have a right to participate in the endless debates that define democratic rule.
Rulers of the moment may make unforced errors by attempting to muffle or muzzle the voices of dissent wherever they may come from, even at a time of crisis. Such statements as the “Governor Ortom of Benue State is playing politics with the killing of Benue farmers by Fulani herdsmen” (be they from Mali, Niger, Chad, or Cameroon) is curing rash and leaving leprosy unattended. That General Danjuma is (or may be) playing politics with security for saying that the military is not acting impartially as it should or calling on citizens who feel unprotected to defend themselves smacks of attempting a conclusion while ignoring the major premise in a syllogism. The most important concern about such comments is finding out if such charges are true, and if so, what should be done to address such dangerous behaviour by police and the military in a multi-ethnic state. It is not the interest of democracy for any government to act or talk in a way that suggests talking politics is a bad thing that can degrade governance.
The dangers in turning any complaint about governance into politicisation of perceived non-political parts of Nigeria’s life may be considered by citizens as a deliberate attempt to securitise politics, i.e. turn political remarks into a threat that needs to be forcefully removed. If the saying that became popular with Boko Haram terrorism: ‘security is the business of all of us’ is to have meaning, pro and con stances on important security issues should be encouraged. Doing otherwise is driving important complaints underground and making them more dangerous than they would have been, were they made in the open, as is expected to be in a democracy.
Roposek@msn.com I will be on vacation for the rest of April.