Nigeria: The Gathering Of Ominous Cloud — Bisi Adegbuyi   

Writing about Nigeria somewhat comes with its challenges; you wonder where to start from in order to put the issues in proper perspective. If you overcome that challenge, you also have to contend with the issue of order of presentation. Which comes first? Is it the issue concerning good governance? Is it corruption that has completely taken over our national life? Or security of life and property? The army of unemployed and unemployable youths, the total collapse of values and infrastructures, the moribund health and educational sectors? What about the unity –– a word that scares the establishment –– of Nigeria which we are reminded is sacrosanct at every given opportunity notwithstanding the fact that we do little to sustain the unity let alone nurture it. Free, fair and credible elections which Nigeria and Nigerians badly need is in itself a seminar topic which cannot be adequately addressed in a discourse of this nature. It is however imperative to examine the fundamentals of free and fair elections and other related issues. Bearing in mind the caveat already entered regarding order of presentation, I shall now proceed to examine some of the problems, challenges, issues that, in my humble opinion, are buffeting the Nigerian State.

Imperatives Of Free, Fair And Credible Elections
The conduct of free, fair and credible elections, manifestly transparent, remains a major challenge for the Nigerian state; it has become Nigeria’s Achilles’ heel. Elections in our dear country have become warfare as opposed to a simple mechanism of freely electing our representatives. The foundation of electoral fraud was laid by the British colonial overlords before the flag independence of Nigeria. One must however admit  the said colonialists would never have envisaged the monstrous dimension the conduct of elections has assumed in the country, with each election getting progressively worse than the one before it. Permit this writer to say it is  a sheer waste of time to discuss the 2007 fraudulent selection process called election; it will suffice to say that both national and international consensus adjudged it to be the worst in the history of the conduct of election in this land.
The importance of conducting a free and fair election cannot be overemphasised. More than ever before, it is clear that Nigeria can only survive as an entity if credible people that are true representatives of various ethnic nationalities are elected. The said representatives will negotiate the terms and conditions of continued co-existence of the diverse people that make up Nigeria.
The first important exercise to carry out if elections must be free and fair is voters’ registration. It is the foundation of the conduct of credible polls; it is a sine qua non. For it to achieve the desired purpose, it must be biometric-based; we must take advantage of technology as they do in other jurisdictions. The coalition of democrats for electoral reforms has done a marvellous job in this regard and the initiative must be commended by all right-thinking members of the society. The people who undermine our collective value, who are predisposed to fraud, are not going to give up except with a fight. They are  desperate politicians who will stop at nothing in their bid to get to power and retain it. The voting method that was adopted during the presidential election held on June 12 1993, that produced Bashorun M K O Abiola as the winner, is strongly recommended for adoption in conducting the 2011 elections if we want to get it right and mitigate the shame that has been associated with our previous elections.
It may well be the last throw of the dice for Nigeria. Recall also that the game-changing recommendations of the retired Justice Muhammadu Uwais  Electoral Reform Panel (ERC) were rejected by the government, an action that was clearly mala-fide. In the circumstance, therefore, we must constructively engage INEC by means of various interventions. The appointment of Professor Attahiru Jega as the chairman of INEC has enjoyed wide acceptability, owing to the gentleman’s  pedigree, yet we know that without institutional reform of INEC, the said pedigree may end up being rubbished. The election management team consists of the chair, 12 National commissioners, 37 Residents Electoral Commissioners (RECs), 774 Electoral officers (EOS), 120,000 presiding officers, several thousand polling clerks, policemen, thugs, cultists etc. What can an individual achieve in the circumstance? The solution lies in empowering the mass of our people in becoming stakeholders and playing active role in the conduct of the election. This can be achieved by simultaneously accrediting voters within a specified period of time all over Nigeria. The corollary of this is also to vote simultaneously within a specified period of time all over the country: in other words, parallel accreditation and parallel voting. Any other voting method would culminate in another electoral disaster.

Balance Of Power Conundrum
Balance of power is the degree to which power is centralised in the Federal government or devolved to the federating states in a country that runs or operates a federal constitution. It presupposes that no zone or federating unit shall have preponderance of power as to endanger the independence and autonomy of another. It is the equilibrium of power between competing  geo-political zones in an heterogenous and plural society where there are differences in culture, language, sociological orientation, way of life and historical origins. Any country with the aforementioned attributes must devise a constitutional arrangement that ensures that an equitable, fair and enduring balance of power is maintained failing which the country exposes itself to the damaging and ruinous effects of the vicious contest for power. The admonition of former United States of America President, Richard Nixon, in this regard is apposite: “The only alternative to a balance of power is an imbalance of power; and history shows us that nothing so drastically escalates the danger of war as such an imbalance.”
A country as fractious as Nigeria cannot afford the dangers associated with vicious contest for power between the component groups that make up the country; they are sharply divided along ethnic and tribal lines, with its attendant destructive repercussions if not carefully handled.

The Zoning Quagmire
When the consequence of imbalance of power rear its ugly head, various attempts are made to either suppress it or nip it in the bud. This of course has achieved varying degrees of success depending on the sincerity of purpose of the political class and their political will. The raging controversy on the issue of zoning bears eloquent testimony to the fact that Nigeria is still grappling with the balance of power conundrum. We were all witnesses to the criminal and senseless annulment of the results of the June 12 1993 presidential election won by the late Bahorun MKO Abiola. In the course of the struggle to reclaim the mandate freely given to him by Nigerians; which cut across ethnic, tribal and religious lines, the acclaimed winner, his wife and several pro-democracy activists lost their lives and the ensuing crisis almost brought Nigeria to its knees.
In order to address and mitigate the injustice associated with the criminal annulment of the election and pacify the people of the South-West geo-political zone, who justifiably felt robbed of their ascendancy to power by a cabal from other geo-political zones––albeit in collaboration with their co-travellers in the winner’s zone––it was decided that political power be zoned to the South-West and thus the seed of zoning was sowed.
Zoning has however become Nigeria’s Achilles’ heels owing to the death in office of former President of Nigeria, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua before the completion of his term of office. It would be recalled that after the two terms in office of the beneficiary of the zoning arrangement, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, power was rotated to the North in keeping faith with the gentleman’s agreement freely entered into by the apparatchiks of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The emergence of former vice-president of Nigeria, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, first as Acting President and later as substantive President after the invocation of the so-called Doctrine of Necessity by the National Assembly, has thrown up fresh challenges to the power equation and further compounded the balance of power challenge earlier referred to. The South-South geo-political zone has never occupied the driving seat of the power equation before the emergence of President Jonathan, an Ijaw man and one of their own, and thus sees his emergence as a divine zoning and ipso facto want him to continue in office beyond 2011, to the chagrin of political personalities in the core North that see the attempt as denying them of the power that ought to revert to the North.

Zoning: To Be Or Not To Be?
There is no constitutional impediment precluding President Goodluck Jonathan from contesting the 2011 presidential election just as any Nigerian that satisfies the statutory requirements has the constitutional right to contest. But then, the issues involved are as constitutional as they are moral. Pacta Sunt Servanda is the rule: agreements freely entered into are meant to be kept even if heavens will fall. It is immoral, dishonourable as well as indecent for agreements to be whimsically broken; worse still, to deny the existence of such an agreement just for the simple reason that it was not a written one. It is dangerous and capable of plunging Nigeria into an avoidable crisis of monumental proportion, which Nigeria can ill afford at this crucial stage of nation building which Nigeria desperately needs. To be sure, the people of Niger Delta have every justification to agitate for power shift having not occupied the all important, enormously powerful seat in close to 50 years of post-colonial Nigeria.
My view is that the agitation for power shift in Nigeria has always been misplaced and self serving on the part of the elites in all the geo-political zones because the masses of our people have never benefited from it. The question to be asked is whether  the Yoruba people of the South-West benefitted from the power shift agreement of 1998 that produced Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as the President of Nigeria in the aftermath of the criminal annulment of the fairest and freest election ever conducted in the history of Nigeria. Zoning, power shift, federal character, quota system etc can never and will never solve the problem of balance of power; they are all temporary, ad hoc, fire brigade attempts at finding solution to a fundamental problem that requires fresh ideas and thinking out of the box which other serious countries that share similar problems with us have achieved. It is simple and easy, and it has worked in India, Canada, Belgium, Australia, Switzerland etc. It is no other thing than decentralisation or devolution of power! It will permanently bury and rest the ghost of power shift and zoning that rears its ugly head at all times in Nigeria, particularly during election period. Based on the foregoing, for Jonathan to worm his way into the heart of Nigerians, and etch his name in gold, he should resist the alluring temptation of contesting the 2011 presidential election. He should strive to conduct a free, fair and credible election and in addition embark on far-reaching political reforms needed to reposition Nigeria from this road to nowhere which we are currently passing through. I must admit it is a very difficult decision to make. That perhaps explains why statesmen think about the future of their country while politicians think about personal fortune and that of their political party. The choice is President Goodluck Jonathan’s. If he chooses to be another Nelson Mandela, his place in history is undoubtedly assured.

Is This Democracy Or Psuedo Democracy?
Democracy, to a large extent, has a universally accepted definition: government of the people, by the people and for the people. This definition has some basic underlying assumptions. The government that has its root in the people-legitimacy must necessarily work for the people failing which it ceases to be democratic. It must also be brought to life by the people––through the instrumentality of free, fair and credible elections. Above all, the government must also have the people as its centrepiece.
From the foregoing, it is clear that democracy owes its existence to the people; they give life to it, nurture it and terminate its life when they believe the government has disconnected itself from the people. In other words, the people reserve the right to hire and fire a government where true democracy thrives. In any situation where the people are denied the aforementioned right to hire and fire, the government is anything but democratic.
If the truth must be told, and parameters above stated are stringently applied, it is my humble submission that Nigeria is still labouring to have a truly democratic government for the simple reason that there is a major disconnect between the government and the governed. At best, what we presently camouflage as a democracy is a mere civil rule, with attributes of a pseudo democracy. Substantive democracy must strive to guarantee more than basic rights of the people, in other words, it must ensure the protection of the people’s economic as well political rights. Democracy must be used as a special purpose vehicle for the purpose of fulfilling the people’s hopes and aspirations, promoting their economic well being––what they call the pursuit of people’s happiness in the United States of America––just as the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo posited that the primary purpose of any government is the well being of the people, the provision of the greatest good to the greatest number at the least cost possible.
Democracy without the conduct of free, fair and credible elections is a farce; it is a sine qua non and given in other decent jurisdictions. People’s franchise must be respected. They must vote and choose and their choice must be respected. A government that whimsically violates the people’s right to vote and choose must not call itself a democratic government; in fact, such a government is a functional equivalent of a military dictatorship and to all intents and purposes worse. Art Spander puts it more succinctly when he defines democracy as “a form of government universally adjudged the best; it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.” The government has a responsibility to respect the stupid judgment of every voter expressed at the polls!
All hope is not lost for Nigeria, in spite of enormous challenges confronting the Nigerian state; things can still be turned around. First, Nigerian leaders (dealers?) must stop playing the ostrich, pretending that all is well and hoping that someday, or somehow, the problems buffeting Nigeria will disappear. This is nothing but mere wishful thinking. Great countries of the world did not stumble on greatness; it is always a product of great visionary thinking coupled with unusual visionary leadership and well motivated and galvanised followership.

The Way Forward
Nigeria’s multifarious problems must be subjected to thorough and accurate diagnosis lest we continue to  chase shadows. It may amount to abandoning leprosy to cure guineaworm, which appears to me to be what we are doing presently.
Nigeria’s geo-political structure as it is presently constituted cannot work; over centralisation of powers at Abuja is a major hindrance to development and inimical to growth. The trouble with us is that we do not think and we are very lazy! Where the thinking has been done and what is required is just to lift workable template, we end up doing a lousy job of it, sometimes invoking the arrogant posture of “a sovereign, indivisible, indissoluble” state that must not be dictated to or whose internal affairs must not be interfered with, even when it is crystal clear that we conduct our affairs as if we are incapable of governing ourselves.
The major challenge in virtually all the countries that operate federal constitutions is how to make the central government effective. Nigeria, ipso facto, cannot therefore be an exception. Evidence of this ineffectiveness is so overwhelming and is there for everybody to see: just check out all the 68 items on the exclusive list of the constitution upon which the central government in Abuja has exclusive jurisdiction and responsibility and come to a conclusion whether it has done well or not. The verdict is a damning one.
We cannot reverse the past, but we can learn from it. We must revert to the geo-political structure at independence, with necessary modifications to halt the slide into crisis of unimaginable proportion. The indicators of a failed state are evidently here with us notwithstanding the usual ostrich-playing of the ruling elite. Indeed, The Fund for Peace, a Washington-based body that tracks failed states in the world, has listed Nigeria since 2007 among the failed states in the world; that we are not yet in a state of war does not obliterate this incontrovertible fact.
Nigeria’s democracy ranks as one of the most expensive in the world if not the most expensive; what with about 65 per cent of our annual budget––a yearly ritual without visible evidence of growth and development––expended on recurrent items with an inconsequential fraction for capital projects. In other serious environments, politics drives development and only serious-minded people with stellar quality are saddled with the responsibility of governance. The reverse is the case in this clime; charlatans and never do wells are entrusted with the all-important art of governance, with the resultant  mediocre performance. Of course it is garbage in, garbage out. Charles de Gaulle was spot on when he warned that politics is by far too important to be left in the hands of politicians––especially the run-of-the mill variant, otherwise known as  parvenu politicians––lest we are confronted with politics as defined by Ambrose Bierce: “A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles, the conduct of public affairs for a private advantage.”  For Nigeria, fixing the roof while the sun is shining is a major challenge, rather than endless pursuit of power without progress as Professor Pat Utomi rightly observed. May God save Nigeria, (Amen!). Ending a piece like this with a prayer is of course in our character because we have become a country of prayer warriors as if God exists only for Nigeria!

–  Adegbuyi is the Coordinator, Coalition of Democrats Against Rigging (CODAR), member, Save Nigeria Group and senatorial candidate of Action Congress of Nigeria in Ogun East.

Tags:  Balance Of Power Conundrum, Bisi Adegbuyi, Fair And Credible Elections, Imperatives Of Free, Is This Democracy Or Psuedo Democracy?, The Gathering Of Ominous Cloud, The Way Forward, The Zoning Quagmire, Zoning: To Be Or Not To Be?