Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Okay Ndibe: A case for abolishing democracy in Nigeria

On the Europe civilising Africa subject, I have examined the subject from various perspectives.

Africa did have civilisation but the colonial experience has provided key drivers for taking the African achievement beyond its endogenously  realized level. 

I wonder if  the general quality of development of social and material resources in pre-colonial Africa  was particularly sophisticated. 

My particular interest has been in their methods of managing knowledge because I understand knowledge development, management, application and transmission as central to civilisation if future generations are to move beyond the past. 

My exposure to cognitive systems in most African regions convinces me that their systems were  largely low scale systems marked by the limitations of orality and esotericism. 

Cognitive growth that transforms society needs a significant degree of demographic penetration. It also needs to be available   for criticism from various perspectives.

Central cognitive systems of Africans were their divinatory systems, such as the family of systems of structural similarity represented by the Yoruba Ifa, the Igbo Afa, the Benin Oguega, the Dahomean Fa, among others.  

It is taking the introduction of scribal literacy which the Africans did not develop in their centuries of pre-colonial existence, to demonstrate the cognitive potential of these systems beyond the mysteries in terms of which they were regarded by the general populace.

I have also looked into what are described as African writing systems and most of them are basic systems  in my view. It is also taking exposure to Western art and the modernity it provides to demonstrate the greater potential of these systems. 

 We can point  to sophisticated  social systems, complex cognitive systems , impressive urban planning and architecture  in pre-colonial Africa but all these represent a particular ceiling the civilisation had reached. 

Key drivers of more sophisticated development that could have created modern societies were absent, scribal literacy and more democratic  learning systems being among them.

 I wonder if Africans have been able yet to internalise  the cognitive strategies  and social systems necessary  for consistent scientific  and technological   achievement,  an aspect of civilisation in which they were particularly lacking and which they need to address in novel ways if they are to go beyond being consumers to large scale creators of science and technology.

I make these points in suggesting that the modern African state represents an opportunity to move beyond the limitations of its pre-colonial past. In that light, a central goal is how to advance the democratic process in those states, not truncate that democracy, the democratic process being the best  for developing an enlightened and empowered citizenry. 

The account of the odd spending strategies of the Nigerian administration are disturbing but not surprising on account of the character of politics that has emerged from the colonial context, in which the nation is still an embryonic ideological construct and loyalty is more to self and one's small group than to the abstraction that many may see a national ethos as being. 

How do we go beyond this point?

To me, not by breaking up into little ethnic enclaves supposed to  ensure loyalty through ethnicity, to me likely to be a regressive move, but by working at the current system. If one wants to give an example of how to be a good politician  why cant one set up a political  party or join the existing ones? Why cant one campaign against these excesses? The countries we celebrate today  grew through all kinds of permutations. It took centuries. So lets get to work.

On the voice of the majority.

I got the impression that Jonathan's election was largely democratic. There was no way any of the other parties were going to win that election. They did not have the national spread of the PDP. This remains the case even with the allegations of rigging. 

I also mentioned particular states where the recent gubernatorial  elections demonstrated the victory of the popular candidate, an example being Edo state. The terrain of elections in Nigeria is too multifaceted for any one to successfully dismiss all elections as manipulated. 

On the anti-fuel subsidy campaign. The problem with that campaign was mistake of strategy and lack of continuity.

My argument in this regard is that the space for successful peaceful  civil agitation exists in Nigeria but needs consistent leadership  to actualise.  It was a mistake to go on break from the demonstrations, giving the military time to occupy the spaces used. Even then  the demonstration could have continued  but that would have required a leadership that seemed to be lacking for that stage of the struggle.

What is my summative  argument-that we have a country we can shape by ourselves but that such shaping is best conducted by shaping  the existing democratic  process.

thanks

toyin


 On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 10:58 PM, <shina73_1999@yahoo.com> wrote:
"Central to commitment to democracy is an appreciation of its value over other systems. 
I also mentioned the evidence of the voice of the majority  in elections."

No one will disagree with these yardsticks for measuring democratic maturation. Yet, I ask you: Do you sincerely believe that Nigerians have reached this levels? I wonder where you got the 'voice of the majority' from. The said 'majority' brought in Jonathan?

When you keep your ears open and to the ground, you can hear the (g)rumbling of the Nigerian street and the ominous expectations of something better, even from the military! You will foreclose the military option at your own peril. The flowering of the governance crop that could ensure such foreclosure has not manifested. It seems the tree is a bit blighted. Before you write off the military option, wait for the next coup, and watch out for the jubilations!

I agree with you that mobilisation serves a democratic purpose. But, does the last fuel subsidy strike not tell you anything? We did not occupy anything; rather, we were occupied! Do you consider that strike a success? Fuel is now selling for between 110 naira and most Nigerians are resigned to it. The government has tactically kept mum. We have largely adjusted to the high cost of living and attendant suffering occasioned by the initial increase to 97 naira per litre. So, where is that famed enlarged democratic consciousness you saw from afar?

I will ignore your statements about Europe effectively civilising Africa. I think it is dumb.



Adeshina Afolayan

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
From: OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tvade3@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 19:47:59 +0000
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Okay Ndibe: A case for abolishing democracy in Nigeria

Shina,

To do a serious critique of the Nigerian political process you need more than this-

'I am now certain you really don't know what you are talking about. I think you are too far away for the 'observation' you thought you made. You are the one making sky-criticism. '

Stating criticism is not difficult. Justifying it is something else.

We are discussing complex systems in a complex country. I stated categorically  two reasons why I am convinced that the democratic process in Nigeria has matured.

I mentioned a definitive understanding among the generality of people  that democracy is superior to autocracy, the latter  represented by military rule.

Central to commitment to democracy is an appreciation of its value over other systems. 

I also mentioned the evidence of the voice of the majority  in elections.

Do you have any evidence that contradicts these summations or do you want to argue that even if these examples are accurate  they dont have the significance I attribute to them?

Or do you want to introduce other indices for assessing growth in the country's  demotratic process that negate those I mentioned?

thanks

toyin
On Mon, Dec 3, 2012 at 9:37 AM, <shina73_1999@yahoo.com> wrote:
"I observe some significant progress in Nigerian democracy. This progress has been painful in significant instances but it represents a significant reconfiguration of social consciousness in ways that move the country forward....


We now run a more democratic  system in which the peoples' voice is significant even if the system may be manipulated to a degree.
The competitive space in Nigerian politics  has expanded with the appointment of Goodluck Jonathan as President"


Toyin,
I am now certain you really don't know what you are talking about. I think you are too far away for the 'observation' you thought you made. You are the one making sky-criticism.

Adeshina Afolayan
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
From: OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU <tvade3@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:53:18 +0000
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Okay Ndibe: A case for abolishing democracy in Nigeria

I think Ogugua's effort to analyse Nigeria's democracy as not working is  rather mechanistic. Mechanistic beceause he describes a complex system in terms of a few parameters in a manner better applied to mechanical or less complex forms.

A democratic system, however, is social not a mechanical system. 

I think democracy in Nigeria is better described as 'developing' rather than having failed.

What is democracy?

Democracy may be understood  as a social arrangement in which collective opinion is harnessed for the benefit of society. This is often done  through representatives understood as embodying sections of  this opinion.

I observe some significant progress in Nigerian democracy. This progress has been painful in significant instances but it represents a significant reconfiguration of social consciousness in ways that move the country forward.

What is or is not possible or likely within a society is an index of a society's health.

One demonstration of the growth of Nigerian democracy is the fact that the possibility of a military coup has become remote or impossible after the Abacha era.

This represents a sterling, major development in the consciousness of Nigerians beceause in the various coups up till Babangida, from  the bloody Nzeogwu coup of January 1966, the even bloodier counter coup of later that year, the Buhari coup, the Babangida coup, to mention those I have either read about or remember how they were received, the coups were celebrated  by large sections of the population as messianic interventions. On the Babangida coup, the Guardian, the most respected Nigerian paper at the time, ran a full page story of him, with an almost full page picture of him in full military uniform, charting his extensive travel within and acquaintance with Nigeria. 

After the slow horror of Babangida, as he educated us on the nature of intrigue, and our eyes opened slowly but surely, an experience spiked by the Dele Giwa assassination which some predicted on the very day it happened that nothing would ever emerge from any investigation into it as has turned out to be the case, and the morphing into the Abacha nightmare, climaxed by his horrifying effort to succeed himself in the midst of a national reign of terror, we were now largely or fully cured of military myopia.

I believe the military knows this too. Any military coup, with whatever level of firepower or cunning, is almost certain to fail simply by absolute rejection by Nigerians. 

That is great progress that took us more than 40 years to achieve.

We now run a more democratic  system in which the peoples' voice is significant even if the system may be manipulated to a degree.

The competitive space in Nigerian politics  has expanded with the appointment of Goodluck Jonathan as President.

The tight hold  of Northern Nigeria and the military on the Presidency was shifted by that appointment. 

The Boko Haram horror, designed by the terrorists  and their backers to undermine his credibility, among other goals it seems,  has strengthened that credibility.

The sheer embarrassment and confusion it caused the Northern elite has and further weakened the bargaining  power of the North, compelling a more equitable bargaining between that region and the rest of Nigeria.

In fact Boko Haram may be seen as cathartic in relation to the North in exemplifying the possibilities  of certain tendencies in the region when taken to an extreme. The   cycle of the crisis has seen various perspectives  and personalities come and go. Through it all, the Presidency has been strengthened as  as a pan-Nigerian institution through its approach to the crisis  an approach at times misfiring  against the victims  but generally balanced in favour  of the task and against   a sectionalist approach to the problem.

Significant examples exist of people electing popular politicians through the ballot box. Oshiomole in Edo state and Fashola in Lagos are two examples. 

There are serious problems of crime, from Boko Haram to kidnapping and armed robbery.  Does the scale this has reached  sugest a failed state?

I dont think so and the govt is fighting these steadily as it is doing with Boko Haram.

What is the scope of efforts  to combat some of the root causes of these problems through poverty alleviation?

I dont know since I know less about the economics  of the country.

I see the country however  as virgin territory  for many business opportunities. 

This is my understanding so far.

toyin

On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 8:19 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:
If a system is flawed that system is not working. A system works if it is efficient and effective which are measured by costs and expected outcomes achieved respectively. Democracy in Nigeria is neither efficient or effective. Costs are exceptionally high, increasingly unaffordable, and rising. Expected outcomes are unclear and hardly ever achieved. Public officials and politicians have authority, some responsibility, and little or no accountability. The rule of law is jagged and a joke. Those are not what one finds when democracy works. My question to some who choose to argue that democracy "is working in Nigeria but it is flawed" is a simple one; what is their statement intended to mean? How flawed does a system have to be before it is acknowledged to have failed?
Political systems are a choice for independent countries. Systems can always be replaced by better systems as Nigeria's political systems' experimentation and experience bear out. Would it be correct to argue that military dictatorships work but they are flawed? NO. Not if the one knows what purpose government should serve and does serve for free peoples who have ownership of it.
 
oa 
 
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John MBAKU [jmbaku@weber.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 4:23 PM
To: tvade3@gmail.com; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Okay Ndibe: A case for abolishing democracy in Nigeria

Why is Nigeria's democracy flawed? If we know why, then perhaps we could make it more efficient and responsive to the needs of the people. "Flawed" democracies have the habit of imposing significant costs (economic, social and political) on vulnerable groups and communities.

I am quite interested in working to make things better. Educate me.


JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
3807 University Circle
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax

>>> OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU 11/28/12 2:16 PM >>>
I am certainly hopeful.

Democracy is working in Nigeria. 

It is a flawed democracy but it is functional. 

Rigging exists but the voice of voters also plays a significant role. 

There exists an active culture of political  engagement by people of various social strata.

There is plenty of poverty but the country is significantly  an economic virgin territory, where so much is available to be done and can be done, even if with more difficulty than necessary. 

Also, we all need to consider the challenge a challenge for all of us, rather than a challenge for 'them', the government authorities and the political  class and other authority figures.

Government is central to national development, but efforts of individuals and groups are also central to national growth, both forms of effort operating as either a dialectic or a unity.

The Jewish saying is most apt  "The task is not yours to finish but neither are you free to take no part in it".

thanks

toyin

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> wrote:

Everyone hopes that democracy will work in Nigeria sooner rather than later.

The exasperation and  frustration that many Nigerians and others feel and have expressed are not based on figments of the imagination. The predictions being made by some attentive friends and foe alike about Nigeria's likely future are not "doomsday prophesies"  as some have described them to be. They are based on facts. Nigeria is a grossly  underachieving country for its endowment and potential. The country is not working for the vast majority of citizens. There is not enough that is being done to change things for the better. Everyone know that this has been and is still the case. The hope is that things will change and soon too.

A country is not very likely to achieve its true potential if her problem is her people, more than anything else.  

Hope is still alive and well. Will it continue to be? That is the question in my considered opinion.

 

oa

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of OLUWATOYIN ADEPOJU
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2012 1:30 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Okay Ndibe: A case for abolishing democracy in Nigeria

 

I think we should give the country a chance and wish it well.

 

The doomsday prophecies and perpetual  lacerations are excessive.

 

Toyin

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 7:11 PM, John MBAKU <jmbaku@weber.edu> wrote:

There is a case to be made that what is being practiced in Nigeria's political economy is not democracy--at least, not the type undergirded by the rule of law. At a minimum, the behavior of many state custodians is not in line with what is expected of public servants in a country with a fully functioning democratic system.

JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
3807 University Circle
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax


>>> "Anunoby, Ogugua" 11/28/12 11:09 AM >>>

What do you do with a very high cost arrangement, process, or system that does not and will not deliver expected outcomes after reasonable time? Do you persevere with it infinitely? I am just asking?

 

oa    

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ikhide
Sent: Monday, November 26, 2012 4:46 PM
To: Toyin Falola
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Okay Ndibe: A case for abolishing democracy in Nigeria

 

"Nigerians have worked awfully hard for more than fifty years to achieve expertise in sheer badness. Even if we discounted the reports that ranked Nigeria as the most fraudulent place in Africa or the worst address for a new-born baby, we can hardly deny that Nigeria is a shadow, an inhuman space. We have lifted mediocrity to an art.

 

Name any sector of life in Nigeria and it?s infected by a malignant disease. Each year, Nigerian universities, private as well as public, churn out hundreds of thousands of unemployed and mostly unemployable illiterates. Too many academics sell grades for sex or cash. The Nigerian police strike fear in the heart not of criminals, but those without the cash to offer bribes. Too many Nigerian bishops, priests, pastors and imams are embedded with the politicians who daily wreck their country. For a bag or two of naira, these ostensible servants of God are willing to venerate any form of evil. The Nigerian president?s only formula for tackling serious crises is, one, to issue a hollow speech or, two, to form a committee. With either approach, the goal is to buy time for people to forget how messy the particular problem was. Most members of the president?s cabinet are in it for what they can steal and put away. Nigeria?s legislators, whether in Abuja or the state capitals, don?t have the foggiest idea how to use the legislative process to improve their environments.

 

Nigeria is worse and more dangerous than many other failed states. Its failure is both comprehensive and deep. It?s in a state of suspension, waiting for something to give, for an inevitable explosion to take place. Unless we act now, the roof is bound to fall on all our heads."

 

- Okey Ndibe

 

Read on...

 

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