Nigeria will be disqualified if a rigorous definition of democracy were applied, that is extending the definition beyond mere holding of regular elections. Our democracy has a military skin with civilian mask. The current ‘winner-takes-all’ politics in ethnically divided country like Nigeria leads to at least one major group being excluded from any access to the benefits of office and weakening of opposition. Any no government moves forwards without opposition.
When our leaders seek mandate, they speak directly to simple Nigerian citizens, make democracy their rallying call and demand its establishment. But after election, the same leaders spurn democracy as ‘alien’ and a ‘luxury’ that can’t meet the opposition reality of their constituencies. Under the guise of reform, the leaders empanel a fawning coterie of sycophants to push their personal agenda, appoint cronies to the positions and hold back elections to return themselves to power. Others who pretend to respect law groom their sons, wives, – and even cats, dogs and goats- to succeed them. As a result of this vexation chicanery, willful deception and strong-arm tactics, Nigeria’s democratization process has well and truly stalled.
But an inscription on ‘Keke Tricycle’ in Abakaliki capital territory has a lesson: ‘No Condition is Permanent’. First, there can be no march to a new spirit rising among Nigerians. The spirit is compelling and critical of steps that have kept this country under-developed. Nigerians are voicing loudly their dismay with our systemic dysfunction, rampant imposition and party dictatorship. It is clear to all that Nigeria’s future cannot be sustained by the status quo-democracy that is too slow to slap at poverty. The public outcry is to yank off the chips of old blocks from Nigeria leadership. National awareness is first step in solving national neurosis.
Again, this enthusiasm has been sustained by the alliance of political bigwigs to finance opposition activities. Never in Nigeria history have oppositions closed ranks to form mega-party to confront the ruling party as it has happened in our days. While it is difficult to say whether opposition is cashing in on popular spirit to hatch self agenda, the emergence of All Progressives Congress (APC) deserves credit before analysis.
While the above taken together appear to be good development their success is not going to be a quick fix. It is, therefore, time to pay less attention to what is happening on the surface and more to what light solid evidence and mature analysis can shed on these matter of current concern.
First, there are legitimate concerns that the formation of opposition party in Nigeria, nay, Africa has always been fundamentally flaw taking an exception from pre-Zuma South Africa. Nigeria opposition politics is sustained by grievances and not ideology. What we call opposition is an alliance of those who have problem with ruling government and their unity is held by the presence of the ruling party. They have reasons why the ruling party should be rejected but no clear ideology of how they will fare better if elected. We note that alliance does not add up. While winning election is a good start for every opposition, it is a reminder of enormous work ahead.
It is therefore not the prospects of achieving milestones in Nigeria’s democratic history that should getting ordinary Nigerians talking and agitated about going to the polls next year with strong opposition, but the same old perennial uncertainties in opposition politics in the country. Nigerians will be asking themselves again after four elections since the return of multiparty democracy in 1999, whether the campaigns are based on issues rather than personalities or ethnicity; or whether indeed Nigeria can avoid the disasters of Kenya and Zimbabwe because of ethnic alliance. The basis of these agitations is well grounded in current intra and inter-party relations in the country. There are palpable fears that opposition will after election return to the same mistakes of the ruling party.
Our next concern is caution not to lose sight that criticism is a disappointed ambition. Career critics are often men who have failed. Not always, but sometimes, criticism is the outcome of an incapacity to produce, or a defence against one’s own inferiority. A literary critic is one who tried his hand at literature, but never quite succeeded in producing it. What follows is that a political critic is, but not always, one who lusted for power but never quite succeeded in grabbing it under a platform. An opposition ideology is not failure-driven but ideology-driven. In advanced democracies, politicians do not switch parties because they are held by ideology. They are people who are convinced of particular way of doing things. That is why oppositions risk their lives to restore government to its people through fidelity to the party manifestoes. The oppositions are not people whose consciences are flexible to self-benefiting administration but those aggressively opposed to structures blocking people’s access to benefits of government. The concern is that an eleventh hour switching of political party, as seen in Nigeria, is ego-driven.
Thirdly, our opposition mood in Nigeria today is more destructive than critical. While criticism may be a disappointed ambition, it does not follow that criticism has no function. If it succeeds in provoking constructive passionate anger for change, it is more than rewarding. No country matches forward without criticisms.
The style of our democracy does not bode well for the nation in the long term. Citizens have lost hope in politics; they see salvation in God, magic and occult compensation. The economy has grown one-sided with a few elite and their connivers feasting on the top of economic pinnacle while the majority are languishing and starving and warring at the fringe of the economic reeds. Talented technocrats and promising young brains willing to do public services are not given space in politics as power pirates full of empty sloganeering, take the centre stage. Across the country, seniority, hierarchy and power club have held sway and the hapless citizens with no political connection are left disillusioned, disgustingly standing and loitering in vain outside the political corridor. Nigerians therefore demand bread, dignity and freedom.
There is need for issue-based opposition politics against personality-based that dominates. Issue-based campaign harbours multiple prospects for opposition politics. The ruling party is facing some challenges largely due to what government has left undone for years. This is what healthy opposition ought to harvest. The best way to blackmail ruling party is for the opposition governors, legislators and top shots to utilize the federal allocations to their different constituencies to change the physical landscape of their constituencies and restructure the psychological profile of the constituents. They ought to silently focus on bread-and-butter issues on the economy, education, health, unemployment; and with quest for agro-based economy work to know how best to position it to avoid resource curse.
Really, if the opposition wants to be taken seriously, they must convince electorates that there are no corrupt elements within the party. Not many in opposition are saints as not all in the ruling party are the devil’s incarnate. The opposition elected officials ought to live like the people they serve. If today, it is difficult to different the lifestyle of governors elected on ‘Party A’ platform from their ‘Party B’ counterpart, the change has not begun.
Again, opposition politics is not about arrogance. It is good to note that opposition is not about saying no to whatever government proposes or does. Opposition is a ‘yes’ and a ‘no’ politicking. Opposition is a yes to life, love and generosity. Opposition is also a ‘no’- no to scorn of man, no to degradation of man, no to exploitation of man; no to the butchery of what is most human in man. Opposition brings freedom when it opposes government’s errors, whims and caprices by working hard to sell its programme to the electorates. That means it must be constructive.
The current practice of politicking with national disaster is most unfortunate of both ruling and opposition parties in Nigeria. All Nigerians are very much to blame for the current sadness prevailing in the nation. Nigeria’s problem did not all start with PDP; but the party has not done much to confront it. However, for every force there is a counter force. A force dominates if a counter force is weak or non-existent. Leaders are not trusted to behave responsibly when they are not challenged. PDP could only show leadership arrogance and political selection only where the opposition is weak, fragmented, hungry, prone to endless squabble over leadership and susceptible to co-option. An efficient opposition indirectly helps their opponents to achieve greater efficiency for the good of all. The external pressure on PDP to reform has always evaporated due unorganized opposition. Why? The opposition is not free from party dictatorship.
But we are not without hope. For the future, we note that beneath the details of the electoral reforms needed for healthy politicking in Nigeria, Nigeria needs a political settlement providing some firm guarantees of non-exclusion from power to all major players. Without this, leading politicians will never have the necessary confidence to stake to their careers on promoting the long term transformation this country needs. There is firm evidence behind this basic, but perhaps not entirely obvious point, but it is not widely appreciated. One reason is that the current wave of enthusiasm for democracy, like the wave of optimism about Nigeria’s economies, is tending to sweep all before it.
A healthy opposition must be championed by reform-minded persons who value accountability, rule of law, and democratic ethos. Broad-minded, university educated, agile and tech savvy, they will push aside the sclerotic party hippopotamuses that have cobwebs already dangling from their ears. They will drain the ponds of the ‘hippos’ and take back Nigeria, one ward at a time. Our duty as Nigerians in the face of 2015 elections is one: that of not renouncing our freedom through our choice. National liberation, the restoration of nationhood to the people: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, must not be ego-motivated. I am afraid we have not started.
Published in The Visioner, a Publication of Ebonyi State Directorate of Attitudinal Change Philosophy Vol. 1 No. 6. PP. 4-6
