2019 Election: The Problem With Nigeria And Way Forward, By Agboola Sanni
Eedris Abdul Kareem
Once said (NIGERIA JAGA JAGA) Is this True? Because according to Mr. Agboola Sanni said
In the actual sense, a civilian government can best be described as a synthesis between the thesis and antithesis of a military and democratic government. In this context, a civilian government can be best described as a little of democracy and a little of military. However, in our own context, it is a little of democracy as against a big of military. This can best be explained by the 1999 Constitution, which in the real sense is a replica of an over centralized government, typical of the military version.
One would have expected a true democracy to be a full return to true federalism as it was before the military intervention in 1966. A so called federal constitution that allows a Federal High Court to operate side by side with a State High Court that allows a centralized internal security system via the Nigeria Police is nothing but a direct assault on our supposed democracy. A federal constitution that recognizes local government as a tier of government drawing revenue from centre is nothing but a mockery of democracy.
Fiscal autonomy of federating units is the hallmark of true federalism just as it was in the first republic and even to some extent in the second republic between 1979 and 1983. But under the military which is still applicable now, every sector depends on oil revenue.
How can we expect the Niger-Delta people to be comfortable with the arrangement whereby people from far away Potiskum or Mubi, Owo or Ikare depend on their God-given generosity depend on their resources for their livelihood? It is nothing short of exploitation to them in the local communities. Whereas, the truth of the matter is that there is no zone to which God has not been generous to like the Niger-Delta. The only difference is that the quick nature of oil returns has led to indolence on others to tap and search for their own resources.
Lack of true federalism had led to mutual mistrust and total lack of confidence among the hitherto friendly components constituting the federation. All actions of the government at the centre no matter how well intended is either given religious or ethnic coloration. The reason for this is not far-fetched. Under the present dispensation, the only functional government is the one at the centre, otherwise called the Federal Government.
The Fulani herdsmen menace continues escalating across the country because the local communities i.e. State governments do not have the constitutionally recognized local security outfit I.e. State Police to curb it; and the State Commissioner of Police cannot take orders from the State Governor because he is not under him.
Because the Commissioner of Police could not get quick response from his headquarters, that had to some extent led to the misreading of the body language of the federal government as tacitly endorsing the herdsmen as a design to Islamize the country.
The absurdity of this thinking can be seen in the paradox of using arbitrary killing of the innocent as an agency of spreading a religion. The absurdity can be further buttressed by the fact that some of these so-called Fulani herdsmen do not even observe the mandatory Islamic five daily prayers. In that respect, they are not true Muslims. But how many people will believe that even if only for their selfish political motive?
The truth is that such menaces like Boko Haram, Herdsmen and other militia groups could not have been existing were we to run a true democracy. Suffice to say that another index that separates democracy from civilian regime is that whereas, democracy is governed by respect for rule of law and constitutionalism, that of civilian rule is governed not only by arbitrariness but by whims and caprice.
That is why whereas under a civilian rule, the President is more of emperor or king while in democracy, the President is a leader.
It is because we are under arbitrary rule that is why private residences of serving judges and leadership of the National Assembly can be looted and ransacked without following due process of law.
In a true democracy, the three arms of government coexist with mutual respect within the provisions of the law. But because in a civilian government, the king/emperor does not compliment but subordinates all other agencies.
Way forward
It is an irony of history indeed a paradox and myth of our polity that none of the four rulers who had served as Presidents under the so-called democracy since 1999 has ever been associated in the struggle for true democracy in the country.
In the case of the first, President Olusegun Obasanjo not only that he has never hidden his contempt for any struggle for true democracy he had always tagged all political pressure groups for defence of liberty and justice as a gang of miscreants.
That was how he tagged NADECO during the Abacha regime. He preferred a most draconian government of Abacha to any democratic government that will have any form of progressive colour. But by an inscrutable design, the same man became the first beneficiary of a political struggle to which he totally distanced himself. It was therefore no wonder that he ran an Abacha style of arbitrariness in a civilian garment. Like Obasanjo, the incumbent President is even worse as far as democratic struggle in the country is concerned. Unlike Obasanjo, he did not pretend with his romance with Abacha under whom he served as Chairman of the PTF.
It was the total hatred for anything progressive that led him to the breaking in the private residence of Chief Awolowo in 1984 as military Head of State. A search for an imaginary hidden public funds was conducted on his house. When nothing incriminating was found, they took away his international traveling documents thus denying him access to his doctors in England on schedule. He died three years after. Unless they repent remorsefully before then, those who misled the South West for a Buhari support in 2015 will have a big question to answer.
One other phenomenon in our current polity and which is very alien to western democracy is that under the current political dispensation, it is very difficult to identify a Ruling Party. That is in spite of the fact that the APC really campaigned for the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as President of the country. Painfully however, President Buhari since assuming office has reduced the role of the APC to that of political consultants whose main brief was to see him emerge as President and thereafter hands itself off in the administration. That perhaps explains why the party up till now does not have such bodies like BOT, Caucus or even the national executive committee (NEC). With the absence of all these bodies, how can the party have an input into the administration of the government? In a nutshell, what we have at the moment is a Ruling Group and not a ruling party.
Search for a true democrat to run a true federal democracy in the country. In the context, as far as the search for the enthronement of true federal structured democracy in the country is concerned, no Nigerian living today has paid his dues as much as Turaki Atiku Abubakar.
First, he joined politics in the late 80s when democracy was at the most slippery stage under Babangida’s Maradona antics. Only an enduring mind could withstand IBB’s gimmicks; but he did.
It is equally instructive that he joined through a bridge building platform erected by the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua to unite the northern and southern progressives. Before then, was used to put progressive groups on parallel line between the North and South was that whereas Aminu Kano believed in Marxist Socialism, Awo believed in liberal democratic socialism, it was Yar’Adua who erected the bridge to join the two forces.
That Atiku believes in party discipline and supremacy can be attested to by the ease with which he stepped down for Abiola at the Jos Convention of the SDP in the early 90s. He along with his mentor Yar’Adua mobilized resources both human and financial for the victory of Abiola.
It is on record that no living politician today suffered in the hands of Abacha as much as Atiku did. His offence was his refusal to participate in any arm of government whether at the centre or in his state to boost Abacha’s political ego. Suffice also to state that he refused to identify overtly with any of Abacha’s five pseudo political parties of the time. At the end, his business interest suffered and he was forced into exile.
None of these however compare with the psychological trauma he passed through in the course of aborting Obasanjo’s third term agenda. Here was a man who claimed to be a reluctant President in the first instance but who on getting there wanted to perpetuate himself.
The anti-third term was started as a one-man squad by Atiku to which Obasanjo never forgave him even till now. What had been Obasanjo’s payback time for Atiku is to dress him with the misfit garment of corruption at each election he showed up. But rather than a judicial conviction against Atiku each time, he always preferred media conviction through massive propaganda.
The impression must not be institutionalized in our public life that individual material poverty is the only index for transparency and honesty in national leadership. Indeed, anybody who cannot apply initiatives to create legitimate wealth for himself cannot be expected to create wealth for the country.
Finally, because viable democracy cannot be isolated from strong party structures, it remains a truism that political evolution in Nigeria has not reached the Promised Land. The challenge ahead of people like Atiku therefore is to lead the Vanguard for the search for like minds to form strong political parties that can enthrone a government without surrendering its supremacy.
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Sanni, a veteran journalist, writes from Ibadan, Oyo State.
source:https://samueljackson12.blogspot.com/2019/02/2019-election-problem-with-nigeria-and.html
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