Festus Iyayi, Kingibe, John Odah and Nigeria
By Adagbo Onoja
No other recent single occasion or a lecture packed so much punch as the 50th birthday anniversary of Comrade John Odah, the General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC) and Dr. Festus Iyayi's masterful lecture there on August 24th, 2010 at Hilton Hotel, Abuja. It was neither one of these woolly or pointless polemics from a rabble-rouser nor the do-gooder's doomsday messages of the imminence of the collapse of Nigeria that are issued regularly by our patrons in Washington. Rather, it was a grounded treatise on the problematic called Nigeria. There is a sense in which all shareholders in Nigeria and both genuine and fake friends of the country need to read Iyayi, not because it has any comfortable messages for their ego but because it is an early warning input. The Nigerian ruling class owes Ambassador Babagana Kingibe a lot of gratitude for being at the occasion and speaking very effectively for the establishment in the face of the most stinging reprimand of his own class in contemporary times. Unlike NPN mandarins who decided against attending any seminars at ABU, Zaria because of the 'fear' of Bala Usman's mouth, Kingibe sat through the entire proceedings, took the heat and offered a consensual counter to the radical alternative to the ruling class.
The signs that the day and the birthday lecture weren't going to be one of the empty celebrations around Nigeria of today came from Labaran Maku, the Minister of State for Information and Communication who, as the Chairman of the occasion, spoke of John Odah as part of the squad that led Nigerian students' onslaught on military dictatorship throughout the eighties as well as the defence of the dignity of the African and the idea of standing up for democracy. John, according to Maku, is not someone who puts himself in the front but a key operator behind the massive action you see in the front. He was an activist whose sense of commitment could cut through any mountain, a real product of communal upbringing in the rural society and its high sense of value, propriety and culture.
NLC President, Comrade Abdulwaheed Umar, re-enforced the image of his General Secretary as a radical combatant who "From the labyrinthine trenches of struggle against military despotism to the gruesome marches in defiance of the antagonists of the working class, Comrade … has remained a consistent comrade, patriot, progressive and defender of human rights and dignity. The NLC President followed this with verbal missiles at Nigerian politicians whose body language towards 2011 he described as worrisome. Comrade Peters Adeyemi, Deputy President of the NLC and Chairman of the Committee of Friends that put together the birthday bash justified the bash in terms of Comrade John having made the kinds of contributions that needed to be acknowledged, saying the occasion provided an opportunity to continue to reflect on the state of the nation.
Into this discursive temperature was Dr. Festus Iyayi invited by MC of the occasion, Cyril Stober, to deliver his lecture provocatively titled, "Assassins of Nation Building, 2011 Elections and Electoral Reforms in Nigeria: Chronicle of a Death Foretold". Iyayi's leading argument is that Nigeria is not yet a nation because the Nigerian ruling class whose responsibility it is to build a nation neither understands nor accepts the responsibility for building the disparate groups in Nigeria into a nation. They are, instead, assassins of nationhood and nation building in the sense that every ruling class that succeeds at nation building offers some specific and spectacular achievement that feeds upon and promotes a sense of national pride and hence identity. The British bourgeoisie not only built roads and industries, it also built an empire. So also the Americans. But unlike the British, American, Japanese or China, Singaporean or Brazillian, Cuban or Indian ruling class, the Nigerian ruling class has none of the tangible and intangible elements towards a unifying image of the national communion. So, the ethnic paradigm reigns supreme. And poverty too.
But painful as these evidences may be, they pale into insignificance when it is noted that Nigeria is about the only country which celebrates its slavery of the British and American empires. It is such that with very few exceptions, the word resistance is not in the vocabulary of the members of the Nigerian ruling class at all.
He gave other examples of ruling class decadence, citing the Nigerian ruling class as the only ruling class which does not produce toothpick, yet, its members insist on eating caviar for breakfast and ride around in hummer jeeps and private jets, the class which does not know how to forego today's pleasures in order to achieve longer term rewards tomorrow, a class so corrupt it has to rely on foreign collaborators to consolidate corruption as the national culture, to the extent that there are, for example, no meters installed at the terminals where crude oil is taken by global oil companies. Instead, it is the buyers who tells the seller how much has been sold. Why, he asked, does our excess crude account remain around N3b even when oil is being sold above the projected $57 per barrel? Why has oil production remained between 1.6-1.7 even with the amnesty programme whose success, he said, had been celebrated the way of miracles? Where else in the world will members of a ruling class be buying jets when there is a major downturn in the economy and unemployment has attained crisis proportion? He queried sharing of billions of Naira to captains of industry in the name of bail outs, even though there are no industries and even though these were the same people who argued and crafted the gospel of liberalization, deregulation and the free market. Above all, this class will be spending money celebrating Nigeria's 50th year of independence without caring that if the country has to survive in the modern world, she cannot exercise the choice of not building a real nation out of the current cynicism, chaos and despair, this being what, for him, makes the 2011 elections and preparations towards them so important. "The elections may turn out to be the last that may be held in Nigeria as one country with the potential of becoming a nation".
The poser was why this ruling class cannot redeem itself even though, as Iyayi framed it, "the rulers of Nigeria have been told in dreams, market places, pulpits, conferences, newspapers, beer parlours, barber shops … that unless there is a change in their practices and attitude towards politics, elections and corruption, the nation will not survive. Even a date, 2015 has been prophesized as one when the country may well implode. However, in spite of repeated warnings from sages and prophets, the ruling class in Nigeria continues to drive itself to perdition". Why? Why? Why? A very important question since, according to the lecturer, the Nigerian ruling class is not only driving itself to perdition but its collapse will also bring down the rest of the country with it. This, he said, is the history of all failed states as the example of Somalia shows. So, something has to be done to take the country out of the hands of the ruling class. That task he gave to the working class as a counterweight to ethno-regional parochialism.
He was done. The audience gave him a revolutionary song and the discussants took over.
Comrade Ali Chiroma who had by now taken over as Chairman went full throttle.
He yielded the floor to Comrade Sylvester Ejiofor, who said Iyayi had reminded all of us that any system that is dysfunctional has a terminal date and that our ruling class does not know its mission. The problem, for him, is that unlike when behind the AG was an alliance of intellectuals and the party or when Okpara's party would oppose Awo's Democratic Socialism with Pragmatic Socialism or the NEPU would pose Democratic Humanism, today, the field is barren today in terms of ideologically based political parties. He put the blame squarely on prolonged military rule, clarifying though he was not intrinsically opposed to military rule because there have been cases of liberatory military but not the military that imposed SAP on Nigeria. He endorsed the celebration of John Odah because it is the celebration of a position he took at a critical time by going underground with the caucus at the height of the military's assault on Nigeria, linking up externally and keeping faith generally.
Other speakers such as Dr. Yima Sen, Abiodun Aremu, Ngukwase Chia Surma, Ene Edeh and Frank Kokori basically agreed with Iyayi, with Kokori saying, among others, that "There are no nationalist parties in Nigeria in the way that there is SWAPO in Namibia or ANC in South Africa or FRELIMO in Angola".
Then enter Kingibe, aka 'sai Baba'. He had sat through until his assumption of the Chairmanship of the segment. Using the Chairmanship position to make a few comments, Kingibe said he had known John Odah for the only three years, beginning from the 2007 oil price hike negotiations between the FG and the NLC. For Kingibe, John represents an effective trade unionist, "one who didn't shout, who eschews cliches and didn't use ideologically tainted words "that mean nothing". "John as a negotiator presents you little windows so that you can escape, an approach which creates opportunity for dialogue. With John, there is no confrontation, no bravura. I hope you would evolve common grounds which will recognize that something which is wrong is wrong, which is false is false".
He said that everything Iyayi has said could be said differently in a less alienating language. If you say we don't have a nation, then we cannot have a ruling class, I heard Kingibe say in response to Iyayi's thesis. It was an issue he didn't pursue beyond his argument that part of the problem is that slogans have a way of acquiring the authority of truth when used repeatedly. His own strategic response to the challenge of nation building is the option of what he called 'informed debate', insisting that there should be a movement from mutual disdain to mutual respect such that a statement like "people who think it is their birthright to rule" would not be made.
It was a whole huge debate, very much in tune with the spirit of man in John Odah whose capacity for making trouble earned him the name, John Trouble from the legendary Mr Athanasius Angereke, the principal of St. Michaels, Aliade in those days. It is only a John and a trouble maker who will bring together faces of the varied interests and forces that came to debate nation building at his 50th birthday. Comrade John must be fulfilled even if only for providing a rallying point for the left in Nigeria to find its confidence and voice again. Since the collapse of the USSR, that confidence has not been there and the left has, at best, been murmuring.
Mr. Onoja is Media Adviser to Gov Lamido of Jigawa State, (adagboonoja@gmail.com)
Assassins of Nation Building, 2011 Elections and Electoral Reforms in Nigeria: Chronicle of a Death Foretold*
By Festus Iyayi, Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences,
University of Benin, on the occasion of the 50th Birthday Celebration of Comrade John Odah
at Congress Hall, Nicon Noga, Abuja on 24th August, 2010
*Draft: Work in progress - Not to be cited
Introduction
In many parts of the world, individuals feel specially honoured if their day of birth falls within the halo of some significant national or historical event: the day of the revolution, the day of the declaration of independence, the day of man's landing on the moon, the day of freedom for Nelson Mandela. Following this, all those who are about to mark or are actually marking their 50th birthday in Nigeria ought to have their noses in the air. In 39 days, our country will be marking its 50th year of independence and the achievements of the nation ought to be part and parcel of the development of those who are about to be or have just attained 50 years in age. Ordinarily therefore, this occasion of marking the 50th birthday of our comrade and friend ought to be a very happy one that is filled with back slaps and clinking of glasses as we measure the achievements of the nation against our own achievements in our individual lives. Thus this address ought to be devoted to themes like, 'Responding to nuclear threats: The Role of Nigeria's new Missile AF50', 'Retaining Nigeria's leadership in car manufacturing: Keeping the Japanese behind', 'Sharing Nigeria's Cure for Malaria with the World', or 'Teaching the World How to Dance: Lessons from Nigeria's Democratic Success'. Unfortunately, the story of Nigeria at 50 is such that not only can we not devote ourselves to such themes; we find that our individual lives have been diminished by the dismal failure of the country to realise its great potential. It is for this reason that we have decided on a somber theme for this occasion: Assassins of Nation Building, 2011 Elections and Electoral Reforms in Nigeria: Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
Many observers are agreed that at 50, Nigeria is not yet a nation. A nation presupposes "a group of people who share a culture, ethnic origins and language, often possessing or seeking its own independent government… Nationality deals with the sense of belonging to a culture" (Wikipedia). Also, a nation has been seen as an organic community that speaks a certain language and that is characterised by a set of similar cultural and historic traditions, by similar perceptions of its past, similar aspirations for its present and similar visions of its future'. The idea of belonging to a shared culture is
so strong a defining quality of the nation that Benedict Anderson has argued that nations are "imagined communities" because "the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion". Of course, it is also the case that a nation is different from a country and a state, 'in that whereas a country is the land (or territory with people on it) that belongs to a nation, a state is the government (or authority) of the nation and country.
Apart from the element of a shared culture, citizenship is another defining quality of the nation. Indeed, the Parliamentary Assembly of European governments noted in a 2005 study, that in some countries, 'the concept of nation is used to indicate citizenship, which is a legal link (relation) between a state and an individual, irrespective of the latter's ethno-cultural origin'. Nationhood is realised in the fullest extent when the nation is sovereign. Sovereignty indicates that the people of the territory, through the authority of the state, have control over the management of the affairs of the territory and that this authority is recognised by other nations.
I do not intend to enter into a full discussion of the concept of the nation and the nation state; rather the point that I want to make and which has also been recognised by many other observers is that after 50 years of independence, Nigerians have no image of each other as belonging to a 'communion' even when they are in contact with each other.
Neither is Nigeria a sovereign nation in the true sense of the word. We all know that today, most parts of the world live either directly under the American empire or under the threat of the American empire. But conditions under the empire are not the same for all countries. Some countries resist the empire and assert their sovereignty as nation states. This is how and why several nations in Latin America are remaking their history and taking back their sovereignty. Venezuela and Brazil are examples in this regard. Chile and Nicaragua, Ghana, Lumumba's Congo were also examples at certain points in their history until the empire used fifth columnists in these countries to roll back the march towards sovereignty and nationhood. This is also how and why Cuba, China and Iran live under the threat of the American empire, rather than directly under the American empire. In Nigeria on the other hand, the story is entirely different. Our country appears not only content to be under the control of those who live under the empire; it even celebrates it. A recent testimony to this is the fact that the gun salute for the coming 50th Anniversary of the country's independence was first fired in London, the capital of the country's former colonial plunderers.
Now the responsibility for building a nation state belongs to the ruling class; indeed the claim by a class to be the ruling class can only be sustained on the basis of its effective recognition and discharge of this responsibility. The claim cannot be sustained by the fact that it is in control of the state apparatus; or in practice of the cudgels and purse of the nation; as everyone knows, bandits often come into control of the cudgels and purse that belong to a people but they do not then gain legitimacy as the owners of the estate. The claim can only be sustained by the emergence of a nation state from the ashes on the basis of the actions of the ruling class. The history of all ruling classes of all viable nation states proves this. The success of the ruling class in the USA in maintaining the legitimacy of its rule is premised upon its ability to build disparate groups of people into one nation. The same is true of the British as of the German, Japanese, French, Chinese and Cuban ruling classes. Although it may be too early to tell, we see this today happening in neighbouring Ghana. For this reason, nation building is a process. It cannot be taken for granted because of the inherent tensions in the project itself. As Pervez recently pointed out, building a nation and "establishing a national identity is 'a project of self-other bounding practices… National identity projects are… embedded moralities in-process that are always emerging within social interactions rather than as imagined communities that have already been fully formed. To this extent, a national identity project represents an ongoing rhetorical achievement of a social network that is concerned about its accountability to both self and others".
Nation building thus requires achievements, whether rhetorical or concrete for its validation; in effect, it is not enough that a ruling class understands its responsibility and assumes it for its validation 'to both self and others', it must showcase its achievements in the process. Without specific achievements, achievements that compare with those of other ruling classes in other nations, it stands the danger of losing, for want of a better word, the love of the woman without which it would be nothing. Thus the British ruling class not only built railroads and industries, it also built an empire. The American ruling class which came after the British did exactly the same: it exterminated the native Indian populations, it colluded with the British in the triangular trade in slaves but it built industry, it established an empire and took up the challenge of competing with the Soviet Union in space. Whether British or American, Japanese or Chinese, Singaporean or Brazilian, Cuban or Indian, every ruling class that succeeds at nation building offers some spectacular achievement that feeds upon and promotes a sense of national pride and hence identity. Not to be both; or to simply be either of the two (which is however impossible because the one derives from and drives the other) is to serve as an assassin of nationhood and nation building.
In Nigeria, the ruling class is an assassin of nationhood and nation building. It neither understands nor accepts the responsibility for building a nation out of the diverse peoples and ethnic groups that inhabit the Nigerian territory. The major basis for defining citizenship rights and participation in Nigeria today is the ethnic platform. Thus we have the Afenifere for the Yoruba, the Arewa for the Hausa - Fulani and the Ohaneze for the Igbo. The ethnic minorities are also organised in parallel platforms: there are the Middle Belt Forum, the Ijaw National Youths Congress, the South-South Forum, and so on and so forth. Even at the state and local government levels, the individual's identity is defined by the primordial ethnic group to which he or she belongs. In the process, the idea of a Nigerian identity and of a Nigerian nation-state not only feel and become remote, they do not become the basis for individual anticipation, calculation and action. Rather, the basis for this is provided by the ethnic group to which the individual belongs. The same phenomenon repeats itself at different levels of the nation state: at the state and local government levels, individual identity is defined either in terms of ethnicity, clan or town and village community origins. It is for this reason that it would be true to say not only that there is not one but several nations in Nigeria today but also that each of these nations is more vibrant than what Nigeria pretends to as a nation.
I shall be speaking specifically later about the principle of zoning and its place in our national politics but let me anticipate what shall be said later in terms of how the failure to realise a nation plays out in our politics. In the current shouting matches that are going on about 2011, the calculations are about whether a Northerner or put starkly an Arewa candidate, or an Ohaneze candidate or a Yoruba candidate will assume the presidency. On the other side, the ethnic minorities are either lining up behind this kind of agenda or screaming that it must be a South-South candidate; in practice an Ijaw National Youths Congress candidate, or a Middle Belt candidate. As can be seen, there is no calculation about a Nigerian candidate because the ethnic group, rather than Nigeria is the nation that resonates with those involved. These are the same calculations that dominated the humanitarian tragedy that befell the late President Yar'Adua. Instead of providing an important moment for rallying us towards the nation that is possible and making us share in the human pain that all, whether President, Field Marshall, General of the Republic or motor mechanic feel, the ruling class squandered the opportunity on ethnic calculations of North-South power balance and imbalance. To be sure, there were in this case as indeed, in all other cases, other considerations of an opportunistic character but the driving force remained the ethnic albatross.
This attention to the ethnic group as the nation also lies at the base of what Mamdani recently identified as the indigene-non-indigene problem; it is a problem that is written into the Nigerian constitution and which produced the Shugaba episode of the early 1980s. It is a provision that disenfranchises the 'non-indegne' no matter, how long in pursuit of nationhood, whether consciously or not, he or she and generations before or after them have occupied a particular space. It is a problem that is behind the intractable 'Jos crisis' and variations of it are to be found in different parts of the country. Indeed, recently, the Rivers State Government attained a 1st in the application of the provision when it placed job advertisements in national dailies and expressly declared that 'only indigenes of Rivers State should apply'. I know that the Rivers State government borrowed from the example of some of the states in the North where a Nigerian may be defined as an 'expatriate but the practice and the beliefs that shape it are indicative of the absence of nationhood.
In the area of achievements, ours is the only country on earth where a ruling class which does not contribute any value added in terms of originating products or services consumes the best that is produced from other parts of the world. What the ruling classes in other countries produce, it imports for its pleasure at home. Our ruling class cannot produce toothpicks, yet its' members eat caviar for breakfast and ride around in hummer jeeps and private jets. They stay in 5-star hotels around the world or buy up the choicest properties in different parts of the world. Our ruling class does not know how to exercise restraint; it is noisy; it lacks self control and self discipline: it cannot forego today's pleasures in order to achieve longer term rewards tomorrow. It lives in the instant; in the moment. As a result of this, our country is daily bleeding to death.
As an example, count the number of vehicles on Nigerian roads and multiply the number by an average of N1.0 million. Add the number of motorcycles and bicycles. Add the number of bags of rice, bags of cement, cans of vegetable oil and television sets. Multiply the number by an average amount. Add the cost of the aircraft, the cost of equipment in the various factories producing soap, petrol, plastic bottles and sachets for 'pure water'. Add the cost of the cell phones and the phone calls. Add the cost of the various items in the 'bend down boutiques' and second hand electronic villages around the country. The list is endless but they give an indication of the cost to a country when its ruling class is irresponsible; irresponsible not in the other senses that we shall soon explore but irresponsible in terms of assuming the historical duties that come along with the privileges, rights, pleasures and powers that it exercises in relation to other members of society.
Our ruling class is also irresponsible because it is indolent, hedonistic and above all corrupt. Its greed has no remorse and knows no limits. Only recently, Professor Itse Sagay showed that Nigerian legislators are the highest paid in the world. They are the highest paid not because they offer the best service of any legislature in the world or because Nigerians are the richest in the world but because they are at liberty to decide what to take from the national treasury and when. It is for this reason that running government in Nigeria is the most expensive in the world.
Because it is corrupt and needs foreign allies to consolidate corruption as the national culture, it cannot establish or maintain systems for national accounts, accountability and transparency. We thus have, for example, a scandalous situation where there are no meters installed at the terminals where our crude oil is taken by the global oil companies for export. We rely on those taking our crude to tell us how much they have loaded into their ships. Even when the country paid off an unprecedented USD12.3 billion to the European and American ruling classes to buy back the debts, no one knew how much the country actually borrowed, how much it had paid back and how much was still owed. Today also we witness the spectacle of disputes between the NNPC, the Central Bank, the Federal Government and the global oil companies about how much of the national purse derived from oil is where and for what.
In 2009, oil prices plummeted from an all – time high of USD 147 to an all – time low of USD 47. We then began budgeting with an even lower figure. This year, the figure of USD60 per barrel was initially used in the preparation of the budget. Later the figure was revised downwards to USD 57 per barrel. However, our excess crude account has remained around USD 3 billion; in effect, even as more money is earned from increasing oil prices that is not part of the budget, the excess crude account remains the same. Similarly, in spite of an Amnesty Programme whose success has been celebrated the way miracles are, we are told that the nation's production of crude does not exceed the 1.6 – 1.7 million barrels of crude per day it dropped to as a result of 'the activities of militants in the Niger Delta'. Yet Nigeria's production quota is 2.2 million barrels of crude per day. And in just 5 months, we are told that the cost of subsidy to the nation is USD2.0 billion. What is being subsidized is PMS alone; moreover, there is no information on which companies are receiving the subsidies, who owns the companies and how much each is paid.
Only this month, most Nigerians were shocked to hear that the Federal Executive Council had approved on August 11, the sum of USD154 million or N23.0 billion to purchase three new jets for the Presidential fleet. Where else in the world will members of a ruling class be buying jets when there is a major downturn in the economy and unemployment has attained crisis proportions? And what explanation was provided by the President through his aides? That the squandering of the country's purse was to ensure that the President and his entourage could travel quickly and efficiently round the world.
Today billions of naira from the public purse are being shared out to industry chiefs, the so called captains of industry, to bail them out of the hole into which they drove their organisations. The banks received some USD4.0 billion or N600.0 billion in bailout money; the captains in the textile industry shared another N30.0 billion while the captains in the automotive industry (forgive my ignorance; I did not know that an automotive industry existed in Nigeria) are to share some N23.0 billion. The majority of these captains of industry are among the most affluent not just in our society but in the world. Among them are the captains of 'Corporate Nigeria'; these are the captains of industry that took part in crafting the economic policies and direction of government. They argued for liberalisation, deregulation, privatisation, the free market; they argued for a private – sector led development strategy in which in practice, the private sector used the resources of the state in leading the country to its private bank accounts. Today, many of the direct beneficiaries of the failed economic strategy are those that crafted the strategy in the first place.
While it is true that corruption like the cockroach that it is requires ambiguity and dark places to thrive, this form of behaviour lies at the observation that much as Walter Rodney was correct to lay the blame for the underdevelopment of Africa on the doorsteps of the European ruling class, he was silent or perhaps too lenient with the ruling class in Africa which collaborated actively in the process of underdeveloping the continent and its peoples. African rulers of the period participated actively in hunting down their own and selling them off as slaves. Today's ruling classes in Africa in general and in Nigeria in particular have not departed from the shameful path of selling down their countries into the various forms that the old slavery has taken in the modern period. If anything, the ruling class in Nigeria has deepened, quite consciously, these modern forms of slavery.
When members of the ruling class steal in billions, the people are left to survive on the pennies that will not fit into the Ghana – Must – Go Bags of the thieves. On Friday, 20th August 2010, the Vanguard reported, quoting World Bank sources, what we have always known: that Nigeria has an unemployment crisis; that only 10% of Nigerians are in paid employment and that at least 40% of the youth are unemployed. Thus every house in Nigeria, except those of members of the ruling class, has a number of the unemployed.
The fact that Nigeria has the third largest population of the poor in the world is no longer news. It is also no longer news that Nigeria has one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world. It is no longer news that in spite of billions of dollars sunk into the power sector, the people continue to live in darkness. What is news, however, is that members of the ruling class are adjusting the poverty and death rates as well as energy availability rates by presidential pronouncements in order to paint a rosier figure of the consequences of stealing the nation blind and running the country aground.
Thus a rosy picture of the state of the nation will be painted in 39 nine days' time when as part of the continuing celebration of Nigeria as a success story (in being looted with impunity), the ruling class rolls out the drums. The drums will be beaten to the ovation of crowds recruited, dressed for and presented at Eagle Square. We will listen to stories about how far our nation has come; we will be asked to celebrate the most outstanding achievement of all: that in spite of the contempt in which it holds the Nigerian people, that in spite of every form of pressure it has exerted on the foundations of the country to tear it apart, the country is still leaning on its legs. We will be asked to acknowledge and applaud the fact that although, since independence, the assassins have been at work hacking at the vital organs of the country, there is still some territory on which a Nigerian flag is flying and in which the people can still cry, 'Arise o Compatriots'.
The drums of celebration will quietly pass over the fact that unlike individuals, nations die in installments, rather than in a single moment. They will omit any reference to the fact that nations die a little each time a fraudulent election becomes the basis for forming a government, and when wrong moral choices are made or when the wrong behaviours are exhibited in each ethical moment. They will be silent on the fact that nations die a little each time rulers fling their indiscretions in the faces of the people daring them to respond if they can.
The drums will be silent on the most important fact of all; that Nigeria is not yet a nation and that if the country has to survive in the modern world, we cannot exercise the choice of not building a real nation out of the current cynicism, chaos and despair. I believe that this is what makes the 2011 elections and preparations towards them so important. The elections may well turn out to be the last that may be held in Nigeria as one country with the potential of becoming a nation.
The 2011 Elections
Already, of course, the noise in the air over the 2011 elections is deafening: Feverish permutations are being made; assassinations of political opponents are already taking place; as veritable houses of prostitutes, political platforms are being seized or abandoned, embraced or constructed de novo. For example, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who left the PDP and established the Action Congress after the heroic struggle against Obasanjo's bid for life presidency, has now gone back to the PDP. The stage has also been seized by frenzied debates about zoning, whether Dr. Goodluck Jonathan should run for the office of President and a variety of other related sordid matters. Instead of an issues – driven election, the country is sinking yet again into debates about personalities and their ethnic backgrounds as the primary qualification for political office. The way that the discussions are going, it would appear that Nigeria's ruling class as usual cannot learn from its history of failure and the challenges that this poses for the survival of democracy and the country. It would also appear that in spite of repeated warnings about its consequences for the country the ruling class is determined to continue with business as usual by conducting politics as warfare. It is even more frightening that the mass of our people have been conned into being active participants as foot soldiers in a war being conducted by their class enemies.
Over the last two months, we all have been celebrating the appointment of Professor Attahiru Jega as Chairman of INEC. Our celebration of the appointment is not based upon our endorsement of the method of appointment but upon our knowledge of the kind and quality of person that Prof Jega is. We know that his appointment is one of those accidents of history where a ruling class finds that it has made a concession that it cannot remember how it occurred. As much as Prof Jega is a man of proven honour and integrity and will bring both to bear upon INEC and elections in Nigeria, it is even more important to remember the recent revelations of Donald Duke, former Governor of Cross River State on the relationship between the INEC chairman and the process of rigging elections in Nigeria:
"The truth is, the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has little or no bearing on the success of elections, that's the truth. To me, it's actually immaterial because he is head of the administration. He takes the brunt. "The best he can do is perhaps, draw up a blueprint, but the implementation of that blueprint is outside his control. "So, as long as we keep applying that same method, you will get the same results. It's crazy to think that because you substitute Iwu for Jega all will change. In other words, Iwu is a crook, Jega is a saint. Jega is great, he has an impeccable reputation. Iwu was great, now he seems not so great. Ok, they are both professors, they have reached the peak of whatever discipline that they profess. The point is that it is the system and the personnel and the chairman has little or no control over that".
This indicates that as far as the ruling class is concerned, the 2011 elections will be no different from the previous elections. The recent elections in Bauchi State as the previous re-run elections in some Local Government Areas in Ekiti state confirm that the dispositions and mindsets of members of the ruling class have not changed.
Some have suggested that in order to frustrate the tradition of conducting politics as warfare, the country must not only have a credible voters' register but also that for this to happen, elections will need to be scheduled for April, 2011. Others have also embarked upon campaigns of 'One Person, One Vote' and are brainstorming upon how to prevent electoral violence. Still there are debates about how to educate the electorate to protect their votes. It has also been recognised that there is a need to provide for strategies that ensure that the 2011 elections are issues driven, that force debates on the variety of problems besetting the country: the nature and direction of the economy; the need to abandon the discredited neo-liberal framework supplied by the centres of capital that are now themselves in crisis; the problems of poverty, unemployment, the collapse of education, health, power, and infrastructure; how to destroy the maggot of corruption; the need for a sustainable development strategy for the Niger Delta and the urgent requirement for the redefinition of citizenship in ways that promote nationhood and nation building.
Very importantly too, there is the recognition that there must be comprehensive electoral reforms along the lines recommended by the Uwais Panel. As we are aware, the key recommendations of the Uwais Committee were as follows:
1. INDEPENDENT CANDIDACY
Section 65(2) (b) and 106 of the 1999 Constitution should be amended to make provision for an individual to run as an independent candidate
2. PROCEDURE FOR THE APPOINTMENT OF THE CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF INEC BOARD:
For the above the National Judicial Council should:
A. Advertise the positions, spelling out requisite qualifications
B. Receive applications/nominations from the general public
C. Shortlist three persons for each position
D. Send the nominations to the National Council of State to select one for each position and forward to the Senate for confirmation.
3. REMOVAL FROM OFFICE OF INEC CHAIRMAN AND BOARD MEMBERS;
The Chairman and members of the INEC Board may only be removed by the Senate on the recommendations of the National Judicial Council, (NJC) by two –third of the Senate which shall include at least 10 members of the minority parties in the Senate.
4. FUNDING
The Election Expenditure and the Recurrent Expenditure of the INEC offices (in addition to Salaries and allowances of the Chairman and Board members) shall be charged on the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.
5. DATES OF ELECTIONS:
Section 132(2) and 178(2) of the 1999 of the 1999 Constitution should be amended to appoint a single date for Presidential and Gubernatorial elections which should be held at least six months before the expiration of the term of the current holders of the offices.
Similarly section 64(1) and 105(1) of the 1999 Constitution should also be amended to appoint a single date for national and state assembly elections which should hold two years after the Presidential and Gubernatorial elections
6. ELECTION TRIBUNALS:
A. The number of Tribunals should be increased by reducing the number of Judges that sit on the Tribunal from 5 to 3, so that more Tribunal can be established per State
B. In order to minimise the filing of frivolous petitions, the electoral Act 2006 should be amended to provide that if a Petitioner loses a case, he should be ordered by the Court or Tribunal to bear the full expenses of the Respondent.
7. DETERMINATION OF ELECTION PETITIONS:
The 1999 Constitution should be amended to specify the period for considering petitions as follows: "THE DETERMINATION OF CASES BY TRIBUNALS SHOULD TAKE FOUR MONTHS AND APPEALS SHOULD TAKE A FURTHER TWO MONTHAS, A TOTAL OF SIX MONTHS"
Only on Friday last week, President Jonathan signed an amended Electoral Act into law with the declaration that the new law "contains fundamental changes aimed at improving the conduct of elections in our country." Now, what are the fundamental changes and how do they relate to the recommendations of the Uwais Committee?
One amendment is that there is now a stipulation of the order in which elections are to be held, with elections for the Senate and House of Representatives coming first, followed by the presidential election, and finally votes for the 36 state governors. The new electoral act also provides that INEC must publish the date of the election not less than 90 days in advance of the date on which elections will hold. It also gives political parties 60 days before polling day to submit their candidates. The new act also gives INEC more time to finalise the voters' register, allowing it to be revised until 60 days before polling day instead of 120 days provided in the 2006 Electoral Act.
While these amendments may ease the pressure on INEC especially with respect to the compilation of the voters' register, it is clear that they do not address the substance of the recommendations in the Uwais Report. Among others, they do not address the issues of the manner of the appointment of the Chairman of INEC, the need for genuine independence of the body, and the role of big money in elections. They do not address the nature of electoral violence and rigging and the need to have stiff sanctions as deterrents.
Let me say that while the questions of zoning and the destiny of Jonathan may be important to the ruling class, and while it is important to frustrate the tradition of conducting politics as warfare, of greater significance is the need to recognise that as practice, politics and the struggle for power in society are informed and shaped by interests. The issues of zoning, the fate of Jonathan, electoral reforms and having an issues-driven election cannot be approached from 'a citizen's' point of view although that is possible. This is because every citizen is a locus of a parochial worldview that may derive from his or her class, religious, ethnic, or gender location and experience. In today's world, even these primary identifications are being moderated by concerns with and hence positions on the environment, the rights of special groups and so on. Thus behind every citizen's point of view are to be found the impressions that these other identifications leave on the individual's consciousness.
As members of the working class and as patriots, our interest cannot be that the 2011 elections are successful simply because that success is important for the survival of Nigeria. Our interest and hence our way of defining the success of the elections must be shaped by the kind of Nigeria that we seek to build and therefore the kind of elections that can bring such a Nigeria about. What kind of Nigeria do we, and should we, want? As a minimum and obviously for pragmatic purposes, the answer to this question, I believe, has to be found in the verdict of the people in the Political Debate of 1985 but which Babangida dismissed with the arrogance that Nigerians are not competent to pronounce on ideology. The rudiments of that verdict are also to be found in the 2nd Chapter in the 1963 Nigerian Constitution.
What kind of elections and electoral practices would we need to bring such a Nigeria about? I believe that they would be elections in which we participated not just as voters but as participants in the struggle for power on the basis of our own working class party. That party would also be grounded in the values and ideology of the working class; it would canvass issues before the electorate on the basis of these values and ideology. On the basis of these requirements alone, it is clear today that the Nigerian Labour Party although the product of the collective efforts of the labour – civil society coalition can only be regarded as work-in-progress. How to advance that work is today one of our greatest challenges but as a first step, it would require consultations of the broadest kind to enable us build the party from below and make it truly responsive to the needs of workers, patriots and nationalists.
Conclusions
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's simple and yet profound tale, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the brothers of a young woman find her weeping profusely shortly after the departure of her fiancée. Arriving at the conclusion that their sister has been violated and defiled and that the name and honour of their family have been shamed and need to be restored, they make a vow in the market square that they will kill the man who has defiled their sister and brought shame to their family. They go round the town repeating the vow. Indeed, to demonstrate the irrevocability of their resolve, they brandish and sharpen the daggers they intend to use on the potential victim in the market in full view of hundreds of people.
The tragedy however is that while the entire town is aware of the vow and also knows that it will be executed, no one tells the potential victim; there is the silent and unspoken assumption that since everybody knows, the potential victim must also know or at the very least, someone must have informed or will inform the potential victim. In the meantime, the victim goes from the house of one neighbour to another, exchanging pleasantries, totally oblivious of the danger lurking round the corner. In the course of the day, the brothers come across the victim, plunge their daggers into him and kill him. When his mother, who had a premonition of his death in a dream the previous night hears of her son's death, she lets out a loud wail. So does his fiancée who proclaims too late that she had only been in an argument with him and that he had never laid a finger on her or violated her.
The crucial question that the tale has raised is how the fiancé could still meet his death even though his death had been foretold in dreams, in the market square, on the streets, in the barber shops? Why was it that no one among the hundreds of people who heard and knew of the vow did not tell the victim of the impending danger? Was it inevitable that he had to be killed?
As I read and re-read Marquez's profound tale, I begin to think of Nigeria's ruling class as a group whose death has also been foretold. There are, however, two major differences between Nigeria's ruling class and Marquez's hapless victim. The first difference is that unlike the protagonist in Marquez's tale who does not get to learn of the fate that is to befall him, the rulers of Nigeria have been told in dreams, market places, pulpits, conferences, newspapers, beer parlors, barber shops, and even in the whispers exchanged between married men who are cavorting with prostitutes within the length of the shadows cast by the night gowns of their wives that unless there is a major change in their practices and attitude towards politics, elections and corruption the nation will not survive. Even a date, 2015 has been prophesized as one when the country may well implode. However, in spite of repeated warnings from sages and prophets, the ruling class in Nigeria continues to drive itself to perdition.
The second difference is that unlike the protagonist in Marquez's tale who is totally innocent of the offence of which he is accused and for which he pays the ultimate price, the Nigerian ruling class is guilty of raping the country violently, repeatedly, without mercy and with impunity. It will not take 'Stop' for an answer; rather its greed increases as the exasperation of the country increases. It continues not only with business as usual but continues to introduce new unusual forms of business.
I believe that the ruling class in Nigeria is doomed. We should therefore not be interested in elections that will save it. We should not fight for electoral reforms, protection of the vote or the appointment of credible Chairpersons for INEC in order to have elections that allow for the continuation of this doomed ruling class in power. However, we need to recognise that the tragedy in the adage of the dog that gets lost because it fails to heed the whistles of its master speaks only to half of the tragedy; the tragedy of the dog. It does not speak to the other half of the tragedy – the tragedy of the hunter who must return home empty handed because it has lost the support of the dog. Today, the ruling class is not only driving itself to perdition; it is also dragging down the rest of the country with it. Thus, when it collapses, it will also bring down the rest of the country with it. This is the lesson of all failed states. If we doubt this, we need to relocate to Somalia.
Therefore, if we fight for electoral reforms and credible elections, it must be with the recognition that in social systems unlike in biological systems, apples do not fall of their own even when they are rotten. They have to be prodded with sharp sticks; they need to be wrenched from the tree. Our task is to ensure that we build our capacity to take back the country from the assassins who are hacking at the vital organs of our country and that in doing so, we save the country and build a nation. Taking steps to ensure that we have credible elections in 2011 will ease this task, but it will not accomplish it. It is only by building a genuine party of the working class and waging the struggle for political power on the platform of the party that the task will be accomplished. I want to suggest that this is the task of our generation and the reason why, in spite of the dismal failure of our nation 'to launch', we are here to share with Comrade John Odah the contributions that he has made to the effort over the last many years.
Thank you.
References
Pervez, K. , 2004-03-20 "Narrating the "Nation": A Relational Methodology exploring the India-Pakistan conflict" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada <Not Available>. 2009-05-26 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p72462_index.html
Hello Comrade.
What are you trying to communicate to us? Yours came without a message.
Pam
--- On Sat, 8/28/10, Adagbo Onoja <adagboonoja@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Adagbo Onoja <adagboonoja@gmail.com>
Subject: FROM ONOJA
To: "editor" <editor@newsdiaryonline.com>, "aliyumaliyu" <aliyumaliyu@yahoo.com>, "natikyur" <natikyur@yahoo.com>, ngukwase@yahoo.co.uk, "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooqkperogi@gmail.com>, "Abubakar Mohmoh" <amomoh2002@yahoo.com>, "Mohammed Aminu Aliyu" <aliyuma@yahoo.co.uk>, "Moses Ebe Ochonu" <meochonu@gmail.com>, "Yakubu aliyu" <aliyakubus@gmail.com>, "Bamidele Aturu" <aturulaw@yahoo.com>, "Yunusa Yau" <yunusa_yau@yahoo.com>, "danbala danju" <ddanju@hotmail.com>, dungpamsha@yahoo.com, "Lawrence Onah" <onahiduh@yahoo.co.uk>, issaaremu@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, August 28, 2010, 11:20 AM
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There is enough in the world for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed.
---Mohandas Ghandi
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