Bishop Hassan Kukah.
By SaharaReporters, New York
Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Sokoto,
has challenged Nigerian lawyers to compel the Judiciary to breathe life
into Chapter 2 of the country’s constitution on the Fundamental
Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy, as a way of
eliminating poverty in the country.
Its provisions, he told the Annual General Conference of the Nigerian
Bar Association (NBA) at the weekend, should be a basis “for stirring
up a sense of moral revulsion as to how and why a country so richly
endowed could allow so much poverty to continue to exist.”
Delivering his keynote address in a paper he called “Nigeria as an
Emerging Democracy: THE DILEMMA AND THE PROMISE,” he said his approach
was to attempt to raise some fundamental questions.
“First, I will try to ask why after 50 years, we are still talking
about an emerging democracy in Nigeria,” he said. “I will ask why,
after over 50 years, we still have no Constitution. I will ask why,
after 50 years, almost 80% of the population is still poor. I will ask
why, after over 50 years, we are still far from the goal post of free,
fair and credible elections in Nigeria.”
In his conclusions, Bishop Kukah said that beyond the focus on
leadership, it is time for Nigeria to address the issues of how justice
can become a cardinal point of reference in governance.
“Here, I still insist that judicial activism is one way of
interpreting the mind of the Constitution but also of extending the
frontiers of justice,” he told the lawyers.
Below is the full text of the Bishop’s address.
Nigeria as an Emerging Democracy: THE DILEMMA AND THE PROMISE- Matthew Hassan KUKAH
Nigeria is an economic miracle waiting to happen…..the missing link is
the right framework and the commitment to succeed….Charles Soludo
The theme of your Conference is, Nigeria as an Emerging Market:
Redefining our Laws for Politics and Growth. On the surface, this could
pass for the theme of a conference organized by the Ministry for
Commerce and Industry to attract direct foreign investment to Nigeria.
The interest of the lawyers in this subject is welcome in view of the
terminal condition of the Nigerian state. What is more, the
interdisciplinary nature of the law profession makes central and
indispensable its place in the polity. Amidst the encircling gloom and
violence, with Nigerians themselves behaving as if they were under
foreign occupation, we require a new jurisprudence to engender hope in
our country. We require a new jurisprudence to ensure that Nigerians can
laugh again, that Nigerians can embrace the future and its promises.
I am neither a lawyer nor an economist but clearly, with the nation
tottering dangerously on the precipice, with the increasing central role
being played by non-state actors and institutions, with the political
class treating our politics as a national bazaar, it is clear that the
matters of the survival of our nation are too serious to be left to the
political class which behaves as if there is neither a teacher nor a
class. But before we progress, we must seek clarification by posing more
questions.
Evidence suggests that countries in transition remain quite prone to
backsliding and failure. This is why we must never take it for granted
that our democracy is secure. We may pride ourselves with having
survived four back-to-back elections and create the illusion that our
democracy has been strengthened. This is misleading because first, the
elections are still massively fraudulent and our level of success is not
measured by international best practices as such. Secondly, with very
little evidence of changes in the lives of our people, our democracy
remains risky, volatile and vulnerable to internal and external shocks.
For example, empirical data on transitions to democracy show that
democracy can be expected to last for 8.5 years if a country has a per
capita of under $1000, 16 years if it is up to $2000, and 33 years if it
is up to $4000…above $6000, democracy becomes the rock of Gibraltar.
The study concludes that democracy has not fallen in any country with a
per capita income of over $6000! This data is generous because up till
date, we have not come anywhere close to the per almost $3000 capital
income that was bandied during the Shagari era.
Is there really and truly an emerging market in Nigeria? If so, where
is the market emerging from and what is its destination? Furthermore,
what are we marketing and who is our target? Which set of our laws do we
believe require redefinition? Is it the Constitution or the laws in our
statute books? Will redefinition compel obedience to these laws? Does
taking your clothes to the best dry cleaner necessarily improve your
looks if you do not have a good body to hang the clothes on? Do we have
consensus over our political life and future? Is it a different kind of
politics or the one that the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, has
promised that it will hold on to power for another 60 years? Does
redefining our laws necessarily guarantee an end to politics of the
belly? Will the new politics in Nigeria end the regime of thugs,
godfathers and mothers, cronyism and clientelism? Will the new politics
end our demo-feudalism, that is, a government in which the political
class merely uses their offices to share power and resources with
prebendal institutions?
Finally, when we speak of growth, what do we mean? Elsewhere, growth is
measurable and there are existing tools for measuring governance and
its effectiveness. These tools are tied to a range of weighting matrixes
which Nigeria does not possess and has not even begun to contemplate
how to design or apply it.
For example, how many are we in Nigeria? Beyond the guesswork, few
political actors know their constituencies beyond the major Local
Government Headquarters or the exotic country homes of their political
cronies. Our projected growth has often been measured by what I call,
Power Point civilization. This was a favourite toy of the Obasanjo
economic team. Discovered by the United States military, we are daily
inundated with dazzling, mesmerizing and psychedelic slides that project
growth in Road and Railway mileages, megawatts and kilowatts of
electricity which never leave the screens. Billions of dollars later,
the Consultants pick up their briefcases and return to Washington or
London leaving us with more death traps and darkness.
Pardon me if I am starting on a cynical and philosophical note. In
presenting this Keynote address, I believe my role is to apply some
brush strokes around some key issues which should hopefully occupy your
attention. In doing this, I will divide this paper into four sections
covering many more questions. First, I will try to ask why after 50
years, we are still talking about an emerging democracy in Nigeria. I
will ask why, after over 50 years, we still have no Constitution. I will
ask why, after 50 years, almost 80% of the population is still poor. I
will ask why, after over 50 years, we are still far from the goal post
of free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria.
My intention in this paper is to raise a few issues around some sub
themes and hopefully provoke some thoughts. I do not have answers as
such, but I am hopeful that we can continue to debate these issues.
Finally, I will finally summarise my questions and attempt to point a
way forward for all stake holders in the political future of Nigeria.
1: Nigeria: Flying without a black box:
There has been a nagging concern as to how and why our country has
found itself in this state of immobility and decay. This is not the
place to reel out the statistics concerning our rut. Everyone, young
and old, in the city or in the remotest part of the country knows and
feels the pain of what is wrong with our country. How do we explain the
fact that after over 50 years, we are unable to generate and distribute
electricity, supply water to our people, reverse the ugly and avoidably
high infant mortality, set up and run an effective educational system,
agree on rules of engagement for getting into power, reverse the circle
of violence that attends our elections, contain corruption, instill
national discipline and create a more humane and caring society?
Although this is not the place to advance the reasons for our tragic
condition, it is important that we treat our malady as a symptom and not
a disease. What is most disheartening is the fact that these ugly
indicators are actually the fruits of an investment in a theory which a
scholar has referred to as the instrumentalisation of failure. The idea
behind this reasoning is that even though things are not working, in
reality, their failure is an investment. The popular argument is the
correlation between our failure to generate and distribute power,
process and refine our crude oil and the rentier political economy that
we have adopted which feeds only a few. Nearer home, the failure of our
electoral system has thrown up a lucrative culture of electoral
tribunals which have now become the latest cash cows in our democracy.
Many lawyers and judges are now making fortunes from our electoral
failure in the same way that the coffin maker benefits from death.
The fact of the matter is that we have never really exited from the
stranglehold of the military state that displaced our post independence
experiment with democracy. The period of military rule must be held
responsible for a significant phase of the tragedy that is Nigeria
today. For, although in the early 60s and 70s, Nigeria was at a higher
rung in the ladder of development than the Asian tigers, over thirty
years later, those nations have since found a seat in the comity of
respectable and developed nations. They were all under dictatorships of
sorts, but their dictatorships produced results and while freedom may
have been in suspension, their leaders laid a foundation for growth and
development. Here, we lost both freedom and development.
We are a nation that seems to despise our history and
heroes/heroines. I am not aware of any country that despises its leaders
the way Nigeria does. In a way, we are reaping what we have sown over
the years. This is because, today, we do not have a coherent history of
our country that can serve as a take off point.
Globalisation has caught us off guard and it is hard to tell what our
cultural identify and future will look like, fifty years or so from now.
We now have over 17m Nigerians in Diaspora not to talk of the children
of our elites from Nigeria, who do not speak their native languages and
also do not think about Nigeria in the way an Asian in the diaspora
might think or feel about their home country.
The lack of both cultural roots and a sense of nationhood or
patriotism are now testing our resilience. For example, a friend shared
his frustration with me recently. He is a Nigerian-American. He said
when he introduced his first son, Obinna to his guests back in New York,
they gladly greeted him in Igbo, but the young man said to them: That
is my father’s language. They said, aren’t you from Nigeria? He said,
No, that is my father’s country. I am an American!
We have the greatest turnover of leadership anywhere in the world.
For example, most African and Asian countries who gained independence at
about the same time as Nigeria have an average of 3 or 4 Presidents.
For example, Singapore, Botswana, Malaysia for example each has produced
just 4 Presidents since independence. Nigeria has produced a staggering
14 Presidents, harvested over ten military coups, and not counting
those who were aborted by failed coups. Propelled by greed, these laid a
foundation for a nation that I refer to as flying without a black box.
Thus, today, we have nothing to draw from, no inspiration about the past
to engender sacrifice and patriotism
2: The military legacy and its consequences:
The nature of the military legacy and its cumulative impact on our
polity has never really been studied. Some military apologists find this
interrogation to be akin to hatred of the military and they also argue
that so much time has passed and therefore the military should not be
held responsible. Perhaps if the military had left us with working
institutions and infrastructure, as the apartheid regime did in South
Africa, these institutions would provide some mitigating circumstances.
More than anything, it is the negative cumulative impact of their legacy
and the persistence of the rut that makes it imperative for us to
address this issue. This is important for two main reasons; first, it
will help us to identify the weaknesses or strengths of the legacy and
secondly it will provide us a means of redemption, correction or
consolidation.
The Nigerian military did not vacate the scene voluntarily. In a way,
General Abdusalam’s spectacular show of patriotism, an appreciation of
the frustration and a sense of fairness and moral rectitude enabled him
to guide the military out of the Augean stable into which they had
turned the nation. This is what turned General Babangida’s stepping
aside into a shunting aside. Our transition was not the product of
negotiation, bargaining, trade offs and elite consensus. We set out on a
road with no clear maps, with a controversial Constitution given to a
motley crowd of greedy businessmen and political contractors and a
coterie of individuals who had honed their skills in manipulating the
levers of power and could survive either under the military or civilian
administration. To this extent, what we had was a transition from the
military but not necessarily a transition to democracy.
The military left behind a country severely fractured by a bitterness
engendered by coups, a rash of human rights violations, a wounded,
compromised and weakened Judiciary, and a prostrate intellectual and
academic community. Significant portions of the Constitution were
suspended. Tribunals and Decrees replaced the rule of law. Other
security agencies were subordinated to military culture with the Police
force losing most of its respect. Some of the consequences of military
rule and its impact have been discussed in my new book, Witness to
Justice.
Without a Constitution, the threads of nationhood, the institutional
mechanisms of restraint begin to give way to individual caprice as rule
of man replaces rule of law. Today, post military Nigeria is paying a
high price for overcentralisation of the threads of power in the hands
of the military dictator. Today, most of the frustration of the
political class with this baggage finds expression in the debate about
various shades of federalism.
Corruption was rife not because the military was made up of a band of
thieves. No, there were quite a lot of good men and women in the
services and there are still many. The growth of corruption under the
military was the direct result of the destruction of such institutions
of restraint as the national assembly, the muzzling of civil society and
the media among others. The Sovereign governed with abandon and was
accountable only to a tiny circle of like minded cohorts.
For Nigeria to turn the corner, win public trust and consolidate its
gains in our fledging or emerging democracy, there is need to unbundle
not only power supply but take the hands of too many bandits who have
held the economy captive, those who are growing while the country is
diminishing. Strict laws relating to the attainment of a people oriented
budgetary system, removal of the veil of secrecy on such areas as
public procurement, contract awards and so on will help us deal with
corruption and open us up for international business and investment, a
key guarantee for growth. We should work hard to open up the political
space and free our political processes from the throttle of
carpetbaggers who continue to compromise the system by using slush funds
to dilute the political process.
3: Institutionalising a Democratic Culture:
We need to appreciate the fact that Nigeria did not have a transition
to democracy. Our transition route was simply connected by nocturnal
trips between the Villa, Yola prisons and Ota farm. When the deal was
struck, General Obasanjo was released from prison with the sole purpose
of being the President of Nigeria.
Everything else that was done in the name of a transition, from
forming political parties, funding the elections and so on was all
tailored to fit that outcome. Even the birth of the largest political
party in Africa was choreographed to meet this end. The result is that
today, even the PDP knows that it is a unity of takers but not a party
founded on any conceivable or perceived ideological commitment.
At the best of times, transitions are always a contested concept.
From Afghanistan to Exodus, the possibility of backsliding is the
greatest threat to democracy. It is clear from what I have stated that
Nigeria was not really ready for a transition. Thus, our inability to
create the necessary environment for the emergence of a democratic ethos
accounts for why we are still unable to emerge from dictatorship to
democracy.
Many of us will recall the tragic situation between 1999 to 2003 when
right across the entire country, we witnessed so much convulsions which
climaxed with series of impeachments. The President was threatened with
impeachment, the National Assembly leadership suffered severe
leadership hemorrhage.
The result is that rather than growing, our democracy was sliding
into a glorified dictatorship. Things have piped down now but not
because the politicians have imbibed the principle of democracy. Rather,
we are enjoying some respite now because the politicians have gradually
learnt the philosophy that in Abuja; You do not talk when you are
eating and secondly, that there is an agreement that it is our turn to
chop and if you are patient, your turn will also come.
Finally, a measure of the fact that the military did not surrender is
to be seen in the fact that up till date, the military is still
contesting every available political space in the land. Our Senate
President is a retired General, the National Secretary of the Party is a
retired military officer, and, a general is still contesting the office
of President. On paper, I have nothing against any of these persons and
indeed, at the level of the Senate for example, Senator David Mark has
been doing a great job of holding that house together and he has also
conferred some measure of discipline. But I am making the point to
illustrate the fact that the levers of power and democracy are still in
military hands, evidence of the fact that we are indeed still in an
emerging democracy!
Political Parties are the foundation pillars on which the
architecture of democracy is built. However, the story of political
parties in Nigeria is a manifestation of the corruption in our system.
Political parties are run by and funded as private fiefdoms. In the
course of our work with the Electoral Reform Committee, we discovered
that most of the 60 political Parties which had been registered ahead of
the 2007 elections literally vanished after the elections. Individuals
and groups had registered these parties simply to gain access to state
resources. Those parties in power are also largely funded by state
funds. A leaked letter from the office of the Secretary to the
Government of the Federation, SGF, some two or so years ago, instructed
all Ministers to make payments into the coffers of the party! Is there
any wonder that elections still generate so much anxiety in Nigeria?
4: The Kalashnikov vs. the Ballot Box:
How did it happen that the return of democracy in Nigeria has been
marked with so much violence? There are many reasons but I imagine that
they must be connected to the legacy of our past. In Nigeria, military
rule glorified violence and lawlessness. The philosophy behind a coup
is not different from armed robbery. For, by the power of a gun, a man
has the ability to make what is yours his without negotiation.
Gradually, the military therefore sanctified violence and since they did
not do much to deliver on goods and services, ordinary citizens were
compelled to take to the gun either to defend themselves or to enforce
their will. In Cyprian Ekwensi’s novella, Survive the Peace, he tells
the story of the dramatic exchange of roles between the Biafran soldiers
at the end of the war. As they threw away their guns and struggled into
their civilian clothing’s, the youth in the village appeared, took the
guns and took to the streets. Thus armed, they took to the streets and
recycled as armed robbers!
Vigilante groups emerged with sophistication to settle community
squabbles and gradually, these same young men and women realised what
they could do with a loaded gun. From the Abacha years, small arms
became a big business in Nigeria. Sadly, the government did not do much
to set up a programme for the retrieval of these small arms. Local
blacksmiths began to enjoy massive patronage and with time, every
community began to raise its army to defend itself and its territory
from foreign incursions. These vigilante youths would later become the
enforcers for the political class, recycling as thugs and ballot box
snatchers.
Thus armed, when news of the return to power began to filter in, the
South West responded by calling for Power shift. The prospects of the
return to civilian rule was greeted with an upsurge of militant groups
who, armed with small weapons embarked on a reign of terror. The Odua
Peoples’ Congress, OPC, emerged in Lagos. On the South eastern and South
South flank were the Bakassi Boys, the Egbesu Boys and The Movement for
the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB completed the
pack. Years of military violence on the polity were now bearing fruit.
Would we have democracy through the ballot box of the Kalashnikov, this
was the question. After almost ten years of intermittent violence, the
Niger Delta would later boil over. The rest is history, but there is now
the temptation, can the Kalashnikov or the ballot box fast track access
to power?
Now, with Boko Haram on our doorsteps, we have now come full circle.
Sadly, although they are also a reaction to the inefficiency and
violence of the Nigerian state, more than any other situation, this
group has posed the worst threat to national unity. This is not the
place to take on the issues of Boko Haram, but in whatever way and
manner we see the case, what we have on our doorsteps are the fruits of
years and years of degradation by the Nigerian state, years and years of
unconscious sanctification of the gun.
From the point of view of the theme of this Conference and it
objectives, Boko Haram poses the worst threat to everything we stand for
as a country and as a people. The challenge could not have come at a
worse time. However, the rather sad thing has been the seeming lack of
clarity as regards roles. There has been a lot of buck passing by the
political class and security agencies. What was clearly a political
problem and evidence of the failure to build consensus has come back to
haunt us. When scholars raised this dark specter even before the
elections, they were accused of being enemies of Nigeria.
Clearly, Boko Haram is the failure of governance and it s a symptom
of what happens when the architecture of state are weighed down and
destroyed by corruption and inefficiency. A weak state leaves itself
open to these dangers. The essence of politics is the building of elite
consensus which provides the framework for peace and stability. The
political class believed that Boko Haram was a religious problem and
when the violence broke out, the federal government resorted to a
military solution. For a country coming out of a legacy of military rule
and violence, this was not the right option. Gradually, the military
has dug its heel in and there is now little room for political
negotiation and maneuver. Whatever happens, the problems will only be
resolved by political trade offs.
Perhaps we can make a proposition. Now that the big three, the Igbos,
Yorubas and Hausa-Fulani have all contributed to our pool of blood and
violence, and no one can claim any level of innocence, can we now settle
down to discuss the prospect of a non violent future for Nigeria? This
is a great possibility because, first, the minorities of the South-South
have been adequately compensated especially as we daily hear stories of
erstwhile militants turning into billionaires now. The Minorities of
the Middle Belt unfortunately or fortunately do not have the culturally
homogenous and cohesive capacity to inflict injury on anyone. They did
their part for one united Nigeria. So, truly, we are set for a new dawn.
The challenge is how to bring that about.
5: Unity by Division: Balkanisation of the State.
Whatever may have been the circumstances of our union, our history is
not different that of other nations which were forcefully created or
manufactured. The real challenge is how and why we have not been able to
imbibe for example, the E pluribus, Unum, philosophy that has gathered a
complex web of humanity like the United States is, into one nation.
Under this principle, the Americans admitted their differences but
argued that although we are many and diverse, we can aspire to be one.
The challenge is to find the institutions to support this unity. Today,
the United States with all its difficulties is a fine testimony of how a
nation with differences can find common cause by creating a time tested
Constitution.
With hindsight, it is important for us to look back and appreciate
why our difficulties have persisted. So far, it is not due to lack of
good men and women, good will, good intentions, enthusiasm, even
patriotism that Nigeria’s growth remains stunted. We have had our own
fair share of good men behaving badly, but the problem is that we have
relied on the dubious quest for good men and women rather than relying
on creating institutions to support and make it possible for these
humans to act rightly or to stop them from acting wrongly.
Faced with the challenges of nation building, Nigeria did not choose
the path of statesmanship, courage and resilience. Rather than follow
through the roundtable discussions in Aburi, Ghana in 1966, clarify the
issues and seek accommodation, we resorted to states creation as a
solution to the problem of national unity. After slicing the nation into
states, we then began came up with the mantra that; to keep Nigeria one
is a task that must be done! Even when we fought a war with no winners
no vanquished, rather than return to the barracks and use politics to
create consensus and rebuild our nation, the military stayed on,
corrupted politics and destroyed the foundations of the unity it had
preached and fought a war to protect. Thus the mantra, to keep Nigeria
one was replaced with, To your tents o Israel!
Under the military, States and Local Government creation became such a
selfish exercise that military officers simply parceled out the country
to themselves and their friends as tribal fiefdoms. This diminished a
sense of national unity as more and more communities invented new
identities amidst cries of freedom from domination. Thus, at the
creation of each new state or Local Government area, yesterday’s
brothers and sisters who speak the same language and share the same
culture became enemies. Location of state capitals and Local Government
headquarters, the citing of projects intensified these animosities and
yesterday’s majority which became a new minority, now demanded its own
space. While the country did not grow, these policies only further
created new elites with a bloated and unproductive bureaucratic and
political elites feeding off the system at the expense of the people.
Even right till today, the debate about a new Constitution is merely a
fig leaf for seeking further balkanization of the nation as States
creation seems to be the most important item on the table with every
Senator seeking to deliver a new state to his or her people! For how
long can we survive with this joke?
6: The politics of Land and Taxation:
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, the issues of land reforms remain a
major source of conflict and instability. From the colonial period, the
appetite for choice lands dictated the options for settler or transitory
colonialism. In places like Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Zimbabwe
for example, land has been the main source of conflict. The stories of
the Mau of Kenya right up to the Zimbabwean veterans are within the same
context. Little wonder the founding fathers of Sierra Leone decided to
award the Order of the Mosquito as a sign of appreciation to the
anopheles mosquito whose malaria bite kept the white man away from
taking over their land.
The issue of land remains a sore point in Nigeria. The conflict
around indigene and settlers, land ownership laws and so on are still to
be resolved. Closely tied to this is the question of taxation. The
infamous Land Use Act of 1978 has thrown up problems that remain
unresolved and since the political class have found this very
beneficial, it is not surprising that the poor remain the victims of
these unjust laws. Land Laws are fundamental to individual and community
growth and development. It is even more so for government and
investors. We should learn from the mistake of the Niger Delta and
ensure appropriate legal measures that protect the investor, citizen and
our country. It is one major way of engendering stability, harmony and
growth. Every nation seeking development, growth and national cohesion
must address the issues of land and taxation.
One of the surest signs that our country has not been serious about
democracy and economic development has been the issue of taxation. As
the old saying goes, no taxation without representation. If we believe
this, then, the lack of effective tax laws is a measure of how
disconnected the government is from the lives of the people and their
economic endeavours. Sadly, perhaps, aware of how little its impact is
in the lives of citizens, the government has seemingly been
lackadaisical about enforcing the tax laws. Without services, a
government has no moral basis to tax its citizens. Clearly, the example
of what is happening in Lagos is a lesson and a metaphor for our
country. Sadly, fighting a thoroughly corrupt, incompetent and
inefficient bureaucracy should pose the biggest challenge.
The State as a Distribution agency:
Professor Richard Joseph’s old characterization of the Nigerian state
as the arena of prebendalism still holds good, then as now. One of the
most egregious areas of this assault is the privatization of state power
where state resources and their allocation are privatized within a tiny
circle. Today, the culture of the state as a domain of patronage
persists. The saddest part of this problem is that the military
Constitution has actually built this anomaly into the Constitution.
Section 162 of the Constitution specifically states that: The
Federation shall maintain a special account to be called the Federation
Account into which shall be paid all revenues collected by the
Government of the Federation. The official Head chef, known as the
Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, presides over the
slicing of this beef of state. It is further recommended that the
distribution of this largesse shall take into consideration….
population, equality of States, internal revenue generation, landmass,
terrain as well as population density.
Subsections 3-8 continue with this iniquity which focuses on mere
distribution of handouts with no clear mechanism for monitoring whether
the allocations are properly used for the welfare of the people. We can
understand why any census will always be contested and why communal
crises over boundaries and new identities will persist in Nigeria. But
what is even more invidious is the decision to tie Local Governments to
apron strings of the State Governors. It is now possible to appreciate
why Local Government elections will remain at most a charade with the
State Governors ensuring that Chairmen are firmly under their control.
As can be seen, there are hardly any states with more than a token
presence of one or two Local Government Chairmen or Women from the
Opposition Parties.
For a long time, the so-called Joint-Account was the area where
Governors proved to be even more reckless. The State Assemblies are
almost all the same in terms of membership of the party in power. What
these present us with is a seriously compromised political atmosphere
where accountability and transparency are the first victims. The
Governors literally anoint the Speakers of the Houses of Assembly. So,
with both Local Government Chairmen and Speakers each struggling to be
Governor’s favourite sons, there is no one left to speak out on
transparency and accountability. There are no mechanisms for holding
government responsible. The occasional hiccups and theatrical attempts
at impeachment are merely a symptom of the rumbling of a hungry stomach.
This is why our democracy remains so weak at the lowest levels.
Leadership Recruitment and Capacity in Nigeria:
Elsewhere, in a paper I wrote for the Nigerian Leadership Initiative,
I spoke on what I called, Power without Authority. My interest was to
show that the leadership crisis in Nigeria persists because we do not as
yet have criteria for ascent to leadership. From my analysis, it is
clear that right from the first republic till date, every Nigerian
President has literally come to power by good luck. More often than not,
those who have prepared for office either by way of the quantum of
resources accumulated, have never managed to make it. The result is that
the country has not been able to develop a sound political culture.
The real test that a country’s democracy is deepening lies in some
level of unpredictability about electoral outcomes and fortunes. Thus,
the issue of who or which Party will win the elections and who might win
or lose a Gubernatorial or Senate seat should not be based on
predictable outcomes such as patronage, god-fatherism, capacity to
manipulate electoral body, its agents and results, the size of the
political war chest, the recruitment and control of well heeled legal
gymnasts or anointing of any sort. The notion that a state should look
up to whom the President or Governor will anoint as a successor,
institutionalizes corruption, indolence and cronyism. It kills ideas and
principles and makes political contest a violent enterprise. By now,
politicians would have come to appreciate the fact that this so called
anointing is a waste of time because even before the oil of anointing
has dried up, the godfather and godson are already at war. This is the
story of our anointed Governors right across the country and as we know,
only a few have mended their fences! But these quarrels are taking
their toll on our people as supporters are constantly forced to move
wherever and whenever their patrons change direction.
Anyone familiar with the political history of Nigeria will appreciate
the fact that somehow, when it comes to the Presidency of Nigeria,
God’s rules of engagement for Nigeria are different. In the whole of our
history, from Alhaji Tafawa Balewa till date, political power has
always been a gift of charity from God. No one has become the President
of Nigeria from the size of his war chest or connections. I am not sure
whether this will remain our fate, but at least, if we are to take any
lesson from all this, it is that we need to be more circumspect.
Those in power therefore should remember that God has not changed His
place on His throne and stop playing God by spending resources, bending
the rules and deciding that they must anoint or appoint their
successors. I am not saying we should leave everything merely to chance,
but that it is important that we appreciate the fact that in nurturing
our democracy, there is need to instill peoples’ confidence in the
process. So far, for us, elections have always been a war or sorts.
Although we are quick to blame the ordinary people and thugs, the truth
is that it is the political class that is responsible for criminalizing
the process. The lack of internal democracy among the parties, refusal
by those at the top to respect the rules of engagement and the Party
guidelines, forcing anointed candidates leads to the manufacturing of
consent.
All these merely stunt our growth and leave the process open to violence and abuse.
We need to create the kind of space that can allow for people with
ideas to persuade and influence public opinion to support their ideas.
Although talent is important in any society, clearly, it is important
that a nation creates institutions that can enable this talent to
flourish. Richard Branson, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg are clearly
extraordinarily gifted and talented men. But they would not have
nurtured their dreams if they did not have an environment that was wide
enough and had the institutions to support and contain their visions
which may have seemed crazy at the early stages.
Mrs. Chioma Ajunwa was a natural talent, but it took the foresight of
someone in the Police Force to rally around her and later, the vision
of a Segun Odegbami to have nurtured that talent. Compare that with the
situation today where we focus more on funding prayer warriors,
sorcerers, magicians and some form of voodoo as the means for winning
medals and other laurels in international competitions.
Godatherism and cronyism have destroyed and are destroying Nigeria.
Today, it is almost impossible to convince any young man or woman that a
first class degree can guarantee you a job anywhere including the areas
in which you have excelled. Hardly a day passes that a young man does
not send me a text to say, I have heard on good authority that they are
recruiting at X and Y establishments, but, I am told it depends on whom
you know. I initially dismissed these young people by telling them to
go, sit for the examination/test and to pass before they come to me.
They laughed at what they considered to be my innocence or ignorance,
until I woke up to the situation.
Right now, we are faced with an uncertain future in which, some ten
or so years ahead, we shall have a generation of young men and women
running the bureaucracy or in public life who owe their future to a
godfather, not a country that offered them a chance to excel. This is
dangerous because what we are doing is investing in an unproductive
system of clientelism which destroys excellence, stunts national
cohesion and compromises our public ethos.
How can we have a country in which the future is being mortgaged on
the altars of prebendalism and feudalism? How can the President preside
over a country in which his children rely on others for their wellbeing
and welfare? We are going to end up say, twenty years ahead when we
shall have Ambassadors, Permanent Secretaries, Directors, Ministers,
Governors and Presidents who came to prominence not by dint of hard work
or the transparency of their environment but men and women who will be
running a country that is not the primary basis of their allegiance. The
reason is because they were pushed to a job with no qualifications
other than that they came from a list presented by a man or woman with
connections. In life, we have all been guided by others, but in our
situation in Nigeria where public officers are openly engaged in the
most non transparent ways of recruiting into public service, we face a
future that is in mortal danger and a country that will be a mere shell
with only such shallow symbols or flags to which command no respect. Are
we therefore surprise that communities and states are creating
distractions by hoisting their own flags? This is just the beginning of
the mess that lies ahead.
Dispute Resolution Mechanisms:
The Nigerian environment is still largely hostile to such indicators
for modernization and business as, rule of law, due process,
transparency, contract enforcement etc. This is a legacy of our
authoritarian background. For Nigeria to redefine its laws to be able to
grow and attract investors, it must rethink the nature of the legal
system it wishes to adopt. We have not paid much attention to the
inherent problems in the legal system that we have adopted in Nigeria.
For example, even as a layman, serving at the Oputa Panel opened my eyes
to the great injury of the legal system that we have for a largely
communal, poverty stricken society like ours. We watched as highly paid
lawyers took the stage and turned the platform for articulating the
grievance of ordinary victims of injustice and abuse into a legal
gymnasium. It is time for us to wake up to what many people in the world
already know; that conflicts and disputes can be resolved as if there
is no tomorrow, they can be resolved in less hostile terms.
Rwanda provides Africa with the best test case. The country has
become a model for reconciliation with a leadership that has focus and
is prepared for sacrifices. Recently, a journalist asked a Rwandan if he
expected Paul Kagame to go in 2017. The man replied: Yes, I hope so,
and if he does, I will cry.
This is not the place to review the legacy of Mr. Kagame, but the man
has become the cynosure of many eyes around the world and has shown
that it is better to have talent and honesty than to have oil and
dishonesty. Now, Nigerians are hovering around him as a model of
leadership. I went to Kigali on a field research in 2004. In the course
of my work, I sat through the Gacaca traditional courts which had been
set up to resolve some of the issues that were pending in a country
where over 200 thousand people were awaiting trial. In less than ten
years, 12,000 Gacaca courts have disposed of 1. 2m cases at very minimal
financial costs. The Gacaca courts have not replaced the conventional
courts in the land, but what we have is evidence of a country that its
leadership is determined to ensure justice through the adoption of some
creative means that guarantees integrative and restorative justice.
Needed, a Constitution:
As usual, with eyes on 2015, the politicians are angling for the best
strategy to position themselves for power. Ordinarily, there is nothing
wrong with this. There are calls for the amendment of the Constitution
while others are calling for a Sovereign National Conference. The
general belief is that this is what we need to redress the injustice
that is in the system.
How do we account for constitutional mortality? The American
Constitution has survived for over two hundred years largely because it
has focused on how to reduce the power of the sovereign. There have been
three key concepts guiding Constitutions; amendment, suspension or
replacement all aimed at guaranteeing Constitutional endurance,
resilience or longevity.
The focus of all Constitutions must be to limit the power of
government by ensuring that those who have power use it well and that
those who do not have power are adequately protected so that they do not
resort to unconstitutional means. This has been at the heart of the
social crises in Nigeria. To the military, the Constitution was a
distraction to their ambition to hold on to power. Thus, without one,
the Nigerian Sovereign appropriated power to himself and the result is
what we see today with the dictatorial and intolerant postures of public
officers to principles of Constitutionalism, order and process.
Individual citizens usually have competing identities and interests that are based a variety of identities.
These include ethnic, communal, religious, regional, class and so on.
The duty of a Constitution is to serve as a vehicle for transferring
the allegiance of these citizens from these narrow interests to the
higher interests of the state. To do this, the state must, through the
lofty ideals of the Constitution hold up a higher goal of protection,
security, welfare and so on to the citizen. It must command his loyalty
and respect.
The next challenge is to create the institutions that will align with the ideals encapsulated in the Constitution.
These require maturation and the political elites must never be
allowed to apply the principles of quick fixes to turn the constitution
into a tool that merely accelerates their political climbing. Thus,
there is need for courage, patience, disciple, maturity and
statesmanship. Although there is a case to be made of the how a
Constitution comes about, popular participation is not necessarily the
litmus test. Some of the most enduring Constitution were crafted in
smoke filled rooms by the elite, the result of disciplined bargaining
and negotiation. There is clearly a causal relationship between
constitutional longevity and political, economic and democratic growth
of a nation.
Constitutions must be self-enforcing, they must possess and inherent
equilibrium from which none can deviate without consequence. They must
possess a quantum of incentives that are sufficiently appealing to all
the constituent units and penalties that serve as disincentives to
infringement. By way of judicial activism, some unforeseen aspects of
the Constitution can be brought to the fore by judicial rulings by
radical judges.
Here, we recall the roles played by people like the late Gani
Fawehinmi or the Bar under the leadership of the combative and assertive
late Aka Bashorun. In the United States of America for example, such
land mark judgments like Brown vs. Board of Education or the Civil
Rights Act, are all evidence of what the Bar and the Bench can do if we
are committed to judicial activism.
Constitutions must also include the whole issue of hidden information
that is not available to all parties at the time of the framing of the
Constitution.
Our Constitution must include the right to rebel and this must be
clearly spelt out. Rebellion and public interest litigations help
ordinary voices to serve as mechanism for restraint against the excesses
of the state. Nigerians have often asked, can we have an Arab spring in
Nigeria? The answer is not yet because so far, we are weighed down by
petty allegiances and hiding behind little mole hills of ethnicity
erected by our village and town crooks who continue to ensure that we do
not see the big picture of our collective agony.
Summary and Conclusion: Where
I believe that we all agree with Professor Soludo in his vision of a
Nigeria that is a dream waiting to happen. This is not the place for us
to enter into a debate as to why this miracle has not happened. I
believe most of us are familiar with the reason why this is so.
What is most disturbing is the fact that we have completely taken the
intellectual contribution to politics out of our process. We are only
concerned with how to capture raw power, how to get into the engine
room, how to share in this life changing booty called oil money which is
gradually looking like blood money in our country. We need to turn the
corner and do so with confidence and assurance. I will make five quick
points.
First, we need to fix the economy and I believe that we cannot do
better than what we have now under the President and Dr. Ngozi Iweala.
We hope that sooner than later, our economy will not only grow, but that
we the people shall also grow. This is no easy task. According to the
Vision 20-2020 report; The pillars of the Nigerian economy are extremely
weak and the continued economic viability of the Nigerian state and the
continued economic viability of the Nigerian state is perpetually at
risk.
Of great concern is the need to create the leadership to support this
vision. Although every government official has taken the transformation
agenda as a mantra, it is important that this message percolates
through the other crevices of our national life. This is why the idea
of a performance bond is important. However, this performance should not
be confused with sycophantic cooking up of figures and power point
slides. There is need to clearly lay out the programmes to be measured.
For a country that is used to monitors being compromised, the President
must ensure that these measuring mechanisms are clearly explained to the
people in a way and manner that they can understand. We will also
require at least an annual review of the scorecard and this should go
right down to the President. This show of good will in my view will go a
long way in ensuring confidence in the system and process.
There has been the nagging issue of a Sovereign National Conference
as a solution to our problems. Nigerians keep saying we need to talk as
if we are not talking. The real challenge is the content of these talks
and whether indeed, that is the way to solve our problems. It is
important to note that we have never been short of talking points. Those
who are calling for a Sovereign National Conference made up of
representatives of the various ethnic groups must say whether this is
different from what the late Anthony Enahoro and Professor Wole Soyinka
worked on and they might also honestly tell us the fate of the final
document.
I hold a slightly different view. First, I believe that we need to
talk but the talking needs to be of a certain quality that is founded on
scholarship and a proper understanding of the issues of statecraft. We
also require a level of maturity and an understanding of these
processes. It is clear that our problems are not documents but the
issues relate to whether we can ever find the political will to focus on
how to build our country and how to develop the required time lines and
so on.
Everyone keeps talking about Leadership, Leadership and Leadership.
We create the impression that somehow, leadership will simply drive an
unwilling band of horses to a river and getting them to drink water by
force. We believe that political leadership is the only form of
leadership. We all ignore the challenges in our own leadership levels
whether it is in the churches, mosques, civil society and professional
groups. The curious thing is that what we all accuse the political
leadership of exists in our own midst. If we borrow the example of the
Fulani man and his herd of cattle, we get an interesting view of
leadership. In that scenario, it is interesting to note that it is the
cattle that actually lead, after all, the leader who leads them to the
grazing field does not eat grass. It is they who eat grass, they know
which grass has poison and so on. The shepherd only guides them and also
ensures their security, but it is they who know what they want. So,
there is need to close in the gap between our perceptions of leadership.
My view is that we must now address the issues of how justice can
become a cardinal point of reference in governance. Here, I still insist
that judicial activism is one way of interpreting the mind of the
Constitution but also of extending the frontiers of justice. I use just
two examples to illustrate the point I am making.
First, we have the famous story of Rosa Parks whose singular decision
on December 1, 1955 not to leave her seat for a white man turned the
course of the struggle of black people for freedom. This is one of the
events that threw the Rev Martin Luther King into prominence. For, by
December 3rd, the bus boycott which would change the tide of history had
started.
Secondly, the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling in 1954 by the
Supreme Court, struck down the policy of state segregated education.
Other events such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 followed, but perhaps
the case of James Meredith was more phenomenal. An ex air force
veteran, he was denied entry into College in Mississippi. He took his
case all the way to the Supreme Court whose ruling marked a turning
point in the struggle against segregation. It took the courage of both
President John Kennedy and his brother, Robert, the Attorney General to
enforce the ruling. In the process, lives were lost, but on the day of
the enforcement, some 2,500 people turned up to protest. The federal
government had to send in some 20,000 troops along with 11,000 National
Guards. He finally graduated amidst all the difficulties but his life
changed the course of history.
Finally, the famous I Have a Dream speech contains some assumptions
that we have often ignored. The speech was anchored on both the
Emancipation Proclamation and the Constitution of the United States of
America. What is significant here is the fact that the speech drew its
inspiration and a sense of righteous indignation from these two historic
documents and the reluctance of the leadership to live by its own laws.
He spoke about a promissory note that these documents had promised
ordinary Americans but which was not available to the black people. He
continued: It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this
promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead
of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a
bad check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we
refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to
believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of
opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check -- a
check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the
security of justice….Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate
valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the
time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God's children. Now is
the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to
the solid rock of brotherhood.
From our own Constitution, the provisions of Chapter 2 on the
Fundamental Directive Principles of State Policy, should be a basis for
stirring up a sense of moral revulsion as to how and why a country so
richly endowed could allow so much poverty to continue to exist. It is
sad that all we have always said about this very important segment of
the Constitution is that it is not justiciable. It is the duty of our
lawyers to compel the Judiciary to breathe life into this very
significant section of the Constitution. This is the challenge and I do
hope and believe that the Bar and the Bench in collaboration can indeed,
bring about the realization of our own promissory note. Thank you very
much for your kind attention.
Datti
Ahmad is known to have been an associate and mentor of the later
Muhammad Yusuf, the founding leader of Boko Haram, who was
extra-judicially killed by the Yaradua government along with over 700 of
the terror cults members in a hard government hand-action in 2009.
