I have been following the debates with regard to the coming elections which some people say, we will be lucky if GEJ and PDP do not postpone it in the next forty -eight hours. I am amaze at how even though the members of this forum are highly educated, sometimes the conversation seems to be carried away by certain deeply preexisting strong feelings of anger, leading to comments that are in my assessment not decent for highly educated gentlemen. It is not because I am from Bauchi State and therefore the North that I am saying this, but I think it is fair to criticize Buhari on grounds of true and concrete things that he did but calling him or Jonathan names, like conman etc., to me is in contrast to the way we were brought up.
There was one student in my school who came from the UK. He is a Nigerian and of Yoruba ancestry. At one time, I sense that he may have good points to make but he uses language that was so disrespectful of people in authority especially given the way people in Britain sometimes communicate. I invited him to my office and told him that, he often has good points to make but the kind language he uses make even people who otherwise might support him feel repelled. I told him to develop great self-restrain and make his points or arguments without being deliberately disrespectful of his opponent or people in authority, while articulating it well. Otherwise, the disrespectful behavior now becomes an issue of focus instead of what he really intended to say. Sarah Palin thought she can make it politically by the use of acerbic language which can be entertaining but how far can someone go in terms of persuading people for social transformation using such a strategy.
Assuming we are still going to have the elections, I pray and plead that when people say things about GEJ or Buhari, we will observe just some decorum. My own personal opinion is that GEJ had all the opportunity to make history but he wasted it, notwithstanding the challenges he faced. No one expected him or anyone for that matter to solve all Nigeria's problems at once. He is our first president with a doctorate degree. He is from a minority ethnic group in the South. One great hope that some of us had was that if he governed Nigeria, assuming he had a clear vision and plan for transforming the country as transformative leaders have done for their countries, it will dispel two issues in Nigerian politics.
The first is the idea or myth that a northerner is the only person who can govern the country well. What we need is truly good governance and inclusive institutions so that all can feel they belong and when they wake in the morning they will have confidence that the government of their country has created conducive environment for them to exercise their ingenuity and prosper. This should have been the foremost concern of the PDP government and GEJ in particular. If he had done that and the evidence is there in the public domain beyond any degree of skepticism, I believe it will be difficult in the future to say that one has to be from one of the dominant ethnic groups or regions before he or she can be suited to govern Nigeria as a president. Results matter. But it is obvious that even if GEJ had any plan or vision for transforming Nigeria, he lost his bearing once in office. Given his education, and I say so with great respect, sometimes I privately feel like if I will have the opportunity to talk to him, I will just ask whether all that happened during this past few years, happened with his full awareness or some people surrounded him and never allowed him to listen to the radio, read newspapers, meet ordinary people or find a way to know what the real ordinary Nigerian is going through beyond what the people around him tell him. When I did my doctoral fieldwork in Malaysia, one of the things I learned about Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who has written several books that have become subject of analysis of his vision for his country and people, was that if he wanted to do something, he would first ask who is the most knowledgeable person on the subject in the universities in the country. When told, he would invite the person to the Prime Minister's office to receive a lecture on the subject and he would ask question. This is also a Prime Minister whose office is surrounded by TVs with satellites that kept him up to date about happenings in different parts of the world constantly. He studied medicine at the University of Singapore under colonial rule. One could see in his analysis that he believed in accurate diagnosis of a problem, maybe because of the influence of his medical profession. He would argue that the first step towards solving a problem is accurately diagnosing it.
The second thing that GEJ and PDP should have institutionalized in Nigeria is the idea that education matters. In that case, in the future, we will say all other things being equal, in choosing our leaders we will take into consideration the person's depth of education and experience. I am not saying that education per se is a panacea. I am aware that Carl Jung asserted that what we know and how we know it is an intellectual question and process, but what we decide to do with it is a moral and ethical question. But one hopes that Nigeria is a good enough country that people will not even aspire to the highest office unless they have deeply meditated and developed a clear vision of what they truly want to do for the sake of history and the sake of millions in the nation. Many people in Nigeria are truly like orphans and rely on the kind of leadership we have in the country to help them achieve their legitimate aspirations. They have no godfather. GEJ or PDP cannot be blamed for every problem in Nigeria. In my view, anyone in Nigeria having any position of authority needs to examine himself or herself, from GEJ down to his ministers, governors, local government chairpersons and ordinary citizens to be sure that they exercise their power or authority in a responsible, just, accountable and caring manner. But we must note that GEJ is the president for the whole of Nigeria, and Nigerian presidents in spite of our federal system have so much power that they can use their bully pulpit to set a tone for the country. In spite of our cultural and regional differences, there are still universal values that we as humans admire. I remember the traditional ruler of former Senate President Okadigbo criticized some of the excesses of the then senate president even though by today's standards, his was a child's play. The traditional ruler chose to stand for the truth, notwithstanding the fact that Chuba was from his place.
When in August I was with Professor Falola in Sokoto State University, I felt impressed that they thought it was a long short that he would honor their invitation when they invited him, but he did, and they were very happy and truly respected him. The Sultan of Sokoto gave him private audience, when we visited as a group. I say all this because I believe even if GEJ is not a humanities scholar or a social scientist, he could use available resources at his disposal in Nigeria and in the Diaspora to understand how he can leave his mark on Nigeria for the better, such that after him Nigerian history would be before and after him, because of the remarkable impact. When one reads history of African nationalism, what our people went through, read the history of the travails of Nigerian development, I think there is much to learn from the past of the country and globally to use so that one can inspire people. But this has not been the case, and it is easy for those of us here to make the case for his reelection by digging history and saying Buhari was a conman and a dictator, while ignoring the real lives and struggles of Nigerians right now. We cannot engage in abstracts debates even if they are made up of great ideas when we forget the main thing: which to me is the lived lives of people, those that John Rawls described as "the least advantage people." Have we forgotten about them? Will anyone of us be happy if students in his or her class made As in the course he or she teaches but after that, they cannot really apply the ideas or show how the ideas have impacted their thinking?
Similarly, no matter how much the Nigerian economy has grown, and irrespective of it being the largest economy in Africa, the ordinary Nigerian at the bottom cares not about those statistics. He or she uses his real life condition to measure how good or bad his or her society is changing. This is true among the Yorubas, among the Igbos, among Birom, Kanuri, Hausa-Fulani, Bini people, among the people of Bayelsa etc. etc. A situation where only those close to those in power benefit from the system because the political system is maintained through patronage instead of provision of public goods is not a substitute for building inclusive institutions that serve everyone. And given what we know, even if Buhari was to win the election, ultimately, if Buhari does not do want the people are yearning for, he will suffer the same kind of reaction. If he surrounded himself with people who are more interested in lining their pockets and never measuring the progress of Nigeria by the lives of the least advantage people, he would fail. The failure of GEJ in this respect is not because of his ethnicity or where he comes from, but because of public policy choices and failures. Even if there are people who try to frustrate him, if he has a reputation for publicly standing up for something and showing personal effort and commitment that is incontrovertible, I think people will differentiate his own personal commitment and that of others who frustrated the system.
Lagos economy along is about 30% if not more of the size of the Nigerian economy. For those that have more, much shall be added not them. This is true even in learning. People who have a lot of knowledge can make great use of little additional new information while those that have a limited repertoire of k knowledge will not make much use of such limited additional information. To be the president of the whole of Nigeria, one has to understand that the South is more developed, and with relatively even small additional resources, the South can make more out of it. But given the backwardness of some northern states, any Nigerian leader has to lead the country in such a way that will lay a foundation of development that is not dependent on oil. The density of capital and population is higher in the south than north, and density of capital and population is good for investment. But capital from the south can move to the north, under healthy conditions where Nigeria is really one and there is infrastructure and appropriate policy. Nigerians from the south can move to the north where in some cases population is space and land is cheaper to stay there for as long as they like. But all this requires ruling elite that understands the challenges of Nigeria very well. So some ordinary northerners feel neglected but part of the problem is not just the low level of per capita money to invest in the North, but the attempt to govern the country through personal patronage and not provision of public goods that increases people's productive capacity. Personally, I truly believe that with dynamic leadership, Nigeria does not need oil money to survive. If we can build appropriate institutions that are inclusive and invest in our human capital, you will see wonders.
One mistake in my view in some of the discussion I have read so far is that some people tend to think the average Nigerian or the least advantaged Nigerians would think the way we think. As a sociologist, I know this is not the case. First, Buhari was in power almost thirty years ago. If Nigerians have a record of good historical memory and factoring that into their decisions, some of the mistakes under GEJ would not have happened. Indeed, even Nigerian elites who are leading do not seem to indicate that they have good historical memory and if they do, they do not use it very well. Second, what many ignored because they are premising their arguments on some abstract principles which even though very good, ignored how we sociologists will say ignores the social contexts of how events happened.
At the time of Buhari's coup, many in the country were happy because like now, the country was moving in the wrong direction. The elites were squandering money but the masses were suffering. I come from the family of such masses and I h have promised not to forsake them. It is not fair and just that they are treated as non-persons. In those days, Umaru Dikko spoke arrogantly as though Nigeria was NPN's private property. So those who said Buhari's regime was arrogant, I will say they should reflected more carefully at the Shagari and NPN regime before their collapse. For those not aware or have forgotten about the second republic, just read Richard Joseph's "Democracy and Prebendal Politics" and see how the second republic operated. I read it from cover to cover while working on my dissertation. It was eye-opening to me. NPN was a national association of looters; they had national character in that abysmal job of pursuing private interest at the expense of the nation. Indeed, Joseph argues that even some Northern technocrats felt Shagari's government was a failure even though Shagari as a person did not enrich himself. When we were in Sokoto we saw former President Shagari and he looked really very ordinary. Definitely he did not enrich himself even though people under him did enrich themselves at the expense of the general public. Some northern elites felt Shagari's speeches were very hollow because there is nothing there to indicate deep substance that can move or capture someone's attention and reach his soul. Just watch Hitler's films to see how he had the capacity to reach the soul of his people even if it was for bad reasons. Yusuf Maitama Sule, Nigeria's former permanent representative to the United Nations was rated higher in terms of the ability to communicate and move people to see things clearly. So when Buhari's coup happened, many thought it was really great. Moreover, we should not as did Theda Skocpol in her "States and Social Revolutions" treat military coups in Africa as independent or closed cases that had no influence on each other. The nations influenced each other. But Buhari did not as some leaders did execute the leaders. As many pointed out here, he executed some criminals and some political elites were arrested and kept in prison for too long. They still execute people in China today. It was obvious his regime was in a hurry. He concluded is ascension speech by saying something to the effect that this generation of Nigerians and future generations had no other place to go to but this country, i.e., Nigeria. And therefore we must remain and salvage. He called on people to contribute and make sacrifices even if they did not cause the problem that brought the crisis on the nation. They rushed in changing the currency of the nation in order to make the stolen money that some kept in their roofs or holes underground useless. It is fair to analyze all those decisions but we must do so in context. And if we analyze in context, there is a difference.
And here is the difference. One can get away with accusing Buhari of killings or violation of human rights, but what the person cannot deny is that under Buhari, rights violations an insecurity of life and property for ordinary citizens was not a random phenomenon as it is now. Many Nigerians who were ordinary citizens and millions had nothing to worry about the Buhari regime. There were certain categories of people who were likely to suffer: the rich and powerful who had political connections. There was no breakdown of law and order in the country for ordinary citizens. On the contrary for the most majority of citizens, they felt the country was becoming more orderly and more predictable. So the difference between his context and now is that for anyone who cares to know what is happening across Nigeria, the degree of lawlessness today is all over the place.
One good example of the kind of scary lawlessness under PDP is how one of the parents of Okonjo-Iwela, one of the most powerful ministers got abducted. Of all people, Okonjo-Iwela's parent. If that happened to her, what of "lesser mortals?" How many people in Southeast, Southwest, the North and many parts of Nigeria suffered insecurity that had nothing to do with BOKO HARAM? We should not out of ignorance assume that insecurity of Nigeria is just Boko Haram. Boko Haram does receive a lot of press coverage, but it is not the only source of insecurity in the country on daily basis. On the contrary, this is not the case. Boko Haram is unique because it is a threat to Nigeria's national sovereignty. And people who think Boko Haram is a simple question or problem of some politicians ignored two factors. First, many northern citizens of all religions and northern elites have become victims of the Boko Haram menace. Business and the economy in the North been terribly affected. Second, it is an embarrassment to Nigeria's image that with all the money we have, and almost "manifest destiny" kind of arrogance on the part of some Nigerian statesmen with regard to the status of the country in Africa our military cannot stop Boko Haram. Does it mean if Chad decides to colonize a part of Nigeria, Nigeria cannot defend herself? If Cameroon decides to takeover Adamawa, does it mean the Nigerian federation does not have the capacity to maintain its integrity? Shame! What is the function of government if it cannot even maintain law and order? Shame! So even if there are politicians sponsoring Boko Haram, isn't the inability of the Nigerian state and federation to deal with that issue a monumental indication of leadership failure and state institutional capacity decline? This is not a question of criticizing GEJ or just his personal responsibility alone because he is a southerner. This is the failure of the PDP regime which involves people from all parts of the country. Is this not true? If the Nigerian elites want to forfeit a part of the country, then let the national assembly do so or have a referendum but when you say the Northeast is part of Nigeria and we still decide to remain one Nigeria, one wonders whether the Nigerian army that went abroad to bring law and order in places like Liberia and Sierra Leon, now cannot even solve their own problems? I lament this. Given this, we should abandon the defense that politicians are sponsoring Boko Haram as an excuse for the continuation of the menace, in the nursery school of social responsibility.
As an indication of everyday insecurity in Nigeria, in my village in Buachi State, my classmate told me in a telephone call that I cannot come and stay in the village anymore, it will not be safe. I would be abducted on grounds that I have money. In my local government, many people suffered because on broad daylight people will come and demand money or else the people would be killed. They started abducting rich people who have now all left the village. Then they started attacking ordinary families with assets like cows. Much of this is not reported in the news. My friend who occupies a high ranking position in government in the local government system told me that some young people came and told him that if he would give them N10, 000, they would go and kill anyone he likes them to kill. This is happening in the North where for those who are familiar with affairs in that region, nothing like that was the case when we were growing up. Even though there was armed robbery in other parts of Nigeria, still the security situation was not as it is now, where people are afraid of being abducted. So what is sociologically in GEJ disadvantaged, unlike Buhari's authoritarianism that was highlighted by others is not that GEJ or PDP caused all Nigeria's problems, no, this is not the case. But under GEJ and PDP government, Nigeria made a lot of money. But the federal government of Nigeria for the first time under GEJ and PDP lost the confidence of most ordinary citizens on its ability to just guarantee or maintain law and order, which is a Hobbesian concern or problem. In some parts of the North, if you harvest your crops you have to move it home that day from the farm because if you leave it in the farm, it would be stolen before the next morning. What kind of insecurity is this? State governments have a lot of blame too.
But sociologically what caused all this among other things is extreme poverty, and aggrandizement. At the very time when people are becoming desperately hungry, elites are playing with money recklessly. Corruption is more present than sincere worship of God or Allah, notwithstanding many Imams, Bishops, churches and mosques. It is just like the situation in South Africa where there are many Blacks living in informal settlements in Johannesburg and Cape Town but Malema who claims to be a radical, used caterpillar to destroy a house he had which was worth more than one million dollars in order to build a more expensive one. Shame! What moral grounds to Black people have to condemn white racism and prejudice when we equally practice such evils against our own people? We fight against white racism in the West but then when we go back to Africa we practice behaviors that are similar to what we are fighting here. This is hypocrisy. If racism, injustice and prejudice by white people is bad because there is something inherently wrong with it, then it is also wrong for us to practice the same in Nigeria or in Africa. I am sorry.
If PDP wanted to remain in power, they should have read social history very well. They could have studied Nigerian history to see past failures. And they could have invited those here defending the PDP government even on issues that are in my view on honest grounds indefensible to help the government improve its effectiveness, its institutional capacity so that it can reach the poorest of the poor. We do not have any hatred against PDP or GEJ but we want good governance that will transform the lives of the least advantaged people, the masses, the "talakawas." Is it a criminal act to demand that? But it was just party time in Abuja. I met one former minister of finance in Abuja last year in August and he told me that when he was finance minister the money Nigeria was earning was way smaller than what the GEJ government was earning. But even if assuming poverty is reduced (which I doubt much), inequality is widening.
For those of us who invest a lot of time to study inequality in sociology, I always tell people that it is naive and simplistic to assume that even if inequality is legitimate as libertarians like Robert Nozick might say it is under certain circumstances, then the world will remain in peace. On the contrary high inequality even if legitimate has negative consequences on the health and stability of a society. It creates envy, affects the pattern of consumption and becomes even worse when the pattern of inequality coincides with religious grouping, ethnic groups or regions. In some East Asian countries, during the time of their struggle for development, the governments were strong enough to restrict the luxurious consumption of elites because they thought it was difficult to suppress wages and make the general public make sacrifices for the sake of national development when elites are allowed to live in luxury at the expense of the general public. It will create animosity. If we all want to develop, let us all share the cost of the development and the prosperity. Sure, I know that Voltaire argues in contrast to Rousseau that the consumption of luxury creates jobs and leads to innovation, but long term history is on the side of Rousseau. When people are so poor or inequality is so wide, people may even sacrifice their freedom, conscience and human dignity in order to survive. This is happening in Nigeria today.
In this respect, for the average Nigerian, because of the problem of historical memory, the comparison of Buhari's authoritarianism and GEJ's liberal democracy does not work and it is too superficial. The reason I say this is that under GEJ, you have the Washington Consensus and liberal democracy, human rights and freedom on paper, but: a) your children could be taken away from you and be hidden in a forest and the government of your country will just operate as if it is business as usual. When I say this, I want to say that there was a time tears rolled down my eyes when I saw children in Lagos demonstrating on behalf of the abducted girls. Why? Because I thought we have come a long way. Lagos is way far away from Yobe or Borno. But to their credit, Nigerians in the Southeast, Delta region, Southwest, etc. etc. saw the issue as a human problem, as a human dignity problem. They did not see it in terms of Hausa-Fulani, North South etc. or politicians trying to undermine Jonathan. This is something that I feel proud about how we have grown as Nigerians. When we see a problem somewhere in the world that is about human dignity we must take a position. It is not a question of Hausa Fulani, Kanuri, Yoruba, Igbo, Bini etc. Even on the question of widening social inequality and hopelessness which is highest in the North, there are many mature statesmen and women in the South who did not see this as a regional issue per se but as human problem that Nigeria cannot continue to tolerate. b) Under GEJ, you can have human rights, liberal democracy and Washington Consensus, but there is no respect for property rights, there is no guarantee of security. People are killed in very gruesome and humiliating manner and this has continued for a long time that you just wonder what Nigeria has become. Some people go for holidays in Nigeria but they cannot go to their home town. Nigerians cannot now even count on their government for basic right of survival. In some cities, there is a segregation of people's residence along religious lines. We criticize segregation in America or Europe but we have our own kind of segregation either along class lines in terms of residence or religion in some northern citizens. Why is this bad in France, UK and the U.S, but not bad in Nigeria or Africa? Is this not hypocrisy? You cannot build a strong country with such segregation. Nigerian universities are very regionally ethnicistic. Most students and faculty come from a particular region which does not help in truly creating a very liberalized worldview and education which is a precondition for a liberal democratic society that Nigerians have opted for. Let me give an example here.
When I was in Teacher Training College in Misau, Bauchi State, one of the guys who did his NYSC in my school was Mr. J. C. Agada, from Obizi, in what used to be Aboh-Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State. He left Misaua after I completed what in Nigeria is called form Four. But before he left he invited me on the eve of his departure to the staff quarters where the staff was living. In those days, they were well-maintained and prestigious. He gave me some clothes, mosquito net, but more importantly spent much time counselling me to work very hard, because he was sure I could make it. He taught us "Principles and Practice of Education." After he returned to Imo State, he started teaching at Alvan Ikoku College of Education. But we still continued to correspond with each other. After I took my Teachers Grade Two Exams and taught for one year after completing form 5. At one point, I wrote him that I wanted to join the military. He wrote me a response that was four writing pad pages long; explaining why he did not feel it was a good decision for me to do that. Note that my parents can only read Hausa and I had no one in Northern Nigeria up to that time who would write me such a long letter counselling me because he was genuinely interested in me. He told me that he fought in the Biafran war and found military life regimented and it affected his educational pursuit. I lost contact with J.C. Agada, meanwhile after I got admission into Bayero University Kano. Fortunately, when I did my NYSC in 1986/87, in Imo State, I reconnected with him. I would spend several weekends in his house. I became part of his family. At that time, I found out that they had my picture from the time when I was in form 5 in their family album. I was amaze. He was then living at Amakohia (if my spelling is correct) in Owerri, the Imo State capital. My relationship with this man who is of Igbo ancestry became like that of a younger and older brother. As I grew older and became more mature, I realized the great significance of his genuine human character, compassion and care. I will never forget that. I maintain contact with his children and him. And now my plan when I visit Nigeria and have a lot of time is to travel to Imo, hopefully this summer, I want to meet him and go to his church and ask for time to stand up and honor him for his human character. This story suggests that with all the problems in Nigeria, and Africa, under a different kind of leadership, we could have created an environment that would allow for such genuine development of relationship that would be the foundation of a new Nigeria or any African country for that matter. Does anyone think that I will for any reason think because I am from Bauchi, I fear someone just because he or she is Igbo? Why would I allow some corrupt politicians make me to start calling others names, when the elites are from empirical evidence not lived up to our expectations? We will need to set our standards so low to be satisfied with their work. Indeed, the average northerner who meets with an Igbo person only in the market, which as Hegel set is the ultimate place for the pursuit of egoism, has not gotten a full understanding of an Igbo person. When you visit an Igbo person in his or her house in his or her homeland, it is a different context. This is an anthropological subject for discussion elsewhere.
Sometimes I feel some naively assume that every Hausa-Fulani is this or that. I am not a Hausa-Fulani person by birth but I want to say that the attempt to indirectly essentialize human beings because they are either Hausa-Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba, Bini etc. etc. is not the best way for us as a people. Such assumptions suggest a poverty of sociology and anthropology. Note that the committee charged with advising the Sokoto state government about Sharia advised against the adoption or implementation of Sharia. I was in Sokoto and I interviewed people from the South and some from Southern Kaduna and wad amaze at how they initially thought it would be a difficult place for Christians but Christians in Sokoto operate freely. Note that this was the base of reformist Islam in the 19th century. Why is Boko Haram not in Sokoto? Sociologically, there is more than religion in Boko Haram. But even if we say it is politicians, why did the politicians not choose Sokoto, Katsina or Knao? I was told that conflict in Sokoto is most likely along political lines i.e., party-based and most people who moved there do not participate in the party politics given Nigeria's culture or rules. I have seen some analysis of Buhari that are more in consistence with a straw man image of a Northern royal person who thinks he or she is entitled to the whole of Nigeria. The idea that every Hausa-Fulani desires to rule Nigeria is mistaken. There are some who feel that way but there are people in different parts of Nigeria who may feel superior as well but we should not generalize to a whole group. Some, without a good understanding of Nigeria assume that a person can just wake up in the north and decide to Islamize the whole of Nigeria. Such persons ignore that there are different versions of even Islam in Nigeria. Just as Christianity is divided into denominations that seriously disagree, so also is Islam. Even Muslims do not agree among themselves. I have a report here where El Zak Zaky opposed Sharia because he said, Sharia is only for Islamic society but you cannot implement Sharia in a secular society. It was obvious that the Sharia debate was a strategy of a part of a faction of northern elites that was desperate to be relevant in a fast changing society (see the book: by Maier, "This House Has Fallen" ) and they were losing relevance just as it seems to me is happening honestly to PDP. As late as November 2014 when PDP felt assured, there was no any kind of indication of political desperation. But once the campaign started, and things started indicating that this is not business as usual, then we see desperate movements.
Like him or hate him, Obasanjo helped in managing the Sharia debate or crisis, otherwise, it could have exploded at that time. I requested people to photocopy magazines that were pubblished over the sharia debate and the Boko Haram affair when it was just starting. It was bound and sent to me. I took time to read it all. I remember Obasanjo saying that if you just ignore Sharia, it will fizzle out on its own. And he was right. He took the risk to travel to Maiduguri after leaving office to meet leaders of Boko Haram to ask them what they really wanted. It was a risky trip and they wanted to kill him initially but they were overwhelmed by his stature and presence in visiting them. As someone who grew up in the North, I truly believe that Boko Haram is a product of social neglect and predatory governance. And in order to make themselves relevant, they used resources at their disposal, which was religion, a distorted one. And they happened to be operating at Border States and in a period in the world where they got quick international support from more organized radical groups, and made themselves relevant in the Nigerian and global political equation -- a people who otherwise are treated like trash. Sociology can explain the situation easily but some people just feel it is just Radical Islam. Well the radicalism of every religion or situation can be sociologically explained. I am sorry. We can explained even the Jewish Masada rebellion.
With regard to the fizzling out of Sharia, you can get a woman from anywhere and checked into a hotel in many northern cities and do whatever you want. But the Nigerian elites hypocritically pass a law against homosexuality. Why not pass one against fornication and adultery? Well many of them will be jailed in the Nigerian national assembly. It is cheap to pass a law against homosexuality because they are straight people. But in both Islam and Christianity, taking away someone's right and corruption are equally sinful acts. Shame! So in strict sociological terms, religious debates in Nigeria are just a kind of strategy for getting advantage in labor market competition or controlling market share for contribution and influence, which you can cash on. For some it may be part of what Donald Horowitz in his book "Ethnic Groups in Conflict" called the struggle for "group worth." Otherwise, Sharia has not changed the poverty level of the people etc. It is has not changed public morality as well. In Bauchi State, as a Christian, it may mean I am at a disadvantaged in Labor Market competition, while some who are less qualified than me will use religion to their advantage. It can happen with any religion.
We can learn a lot about Nigeria by doing comparative studies or studying what happened in other lands. In Iraq for instance, the U.S. felt they can impose liberal democracy and neoliberal capitalism. Paul Bremer was charged with that responsibility. But Bremer, after Saddam was overthrown, undermined all preexisting institutions under Saddam that provided social order. What happened was mass chaos. And many ordinary citizens turned against the U.S. because they said, even though Saddam was a dictator, sure, but he was only a threat to people who were a threat to him. For ordinary Iraqis, they went about their lives normally. Thus some of the ordinary citizens started saying that they should have been left alone under Saddam since now they started seeing the kidnapping of their children or relatives for ransom money, which create unpredictability in life. This is similar to the situation in Nigeria. We can accept that a military dictatorship is like an authoritarian regime like the Beijing Consensus trying to bring about rapid development under a controlled social order, where some freedoms are denied to people. We can definitely criticize such a system for denying people freedoms, but for the great majority of Nigerians, they did not have to worry with the kind of insecurity we see today in Nigeria, even though they presumably have freedom, but only to be killed, or their children abducted. China is an authoritarian society where the people had less freedom and they can rush you through their justice system and execute you. But the same Nigerians who criticize Buhari have no shame of inviting such an authoritarian government (i.e., China) to help them develop their country or give them some loans. Indeed this is happening all over Africa. Why not be consistent with your principles? Even if someone is wrong if he or she is consistent, maybe some will admire such a person. But they go to an authoritarian country to get support so that they can manage some aspects of their economy because their liberal constitution or Washington Consensus which assumes liberal democracy does not full work for them. If the people truly hate authoritarianism, tell the Chinese to leave. Authoritarianism does not mean anarchy or chaos as we see today in many parts of Nigeria where people could be abducted for no other reason but for the sake of ransom money. The Chinese government is very effective in many ways far better than Nigeria and even western nations cannot ignore it.
This in a way is similar to Muslims and Christians in Nigeria claiming to worship the true living monotheistic God who created heaven and earth but yet, all the inspiration they receive from Him is not enough to help them improve human development, improve morality and ethics in the public sphere and give them creativity and innovation so that they can manufacture their own cell phones, motorcycles and cars. Instead, they go to "pagan" countries that do not have relationship with monotheistic living God, to buy these products. Obviously, there is something the so-called "pagan" countries are doing well or that they have figured out, which even the huge number of churches and mosques, prayers and Holy Books we have in Nigeria cannot help us figure out. Human society is very complex. There are not simple answers. You can be religious, fine, but please do not fail to give credit to Nordic countries that are least religious but highly orderly and successful and even East Asian countries do not believe in Abrahamic religions but that doing far better than a country like Nigeria that talks too much about religion but has little to show it terms of its impact on public morality and shaping social ethics.
If GEJ and PDP do not cancel the elections, whoever wins, Nigeria cannot move forward with people defending the indefensible. We want the lives of the people of the country to be the real measure of progress. This approach goes back to the 1970s when Professor Dudley Sears of Institute of Development Studies Sussex said, the question to ask about whether a country is developing or not are: what is happening to poverty, what is happening to inequality, and what is happening to unemployment?. Anywhere any of these three is increasing, the country is not developing even if the growth rate is impressive. From a sociological point of view, the challenging questions become what kinds of institutions, or social structural or social arrangement enable a country to reduce or eradicate poverty, drastically reduce inequality (Nigeria's Gini coefficient is high), and drastically reduce unemployment? What kind of state institutional arrangement ensures the realization of such noble goals, and what kind of growth results in shared prosperity? As Benjamin Friedman said in his book, "The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth," growth has social consequences and so the nature of growth and not just growth per say matters. When the state has no relative autonomy as extensively highlighted in Peter Evans' "Embedded Autonomy," no vision or transformational agenda can take pl ace, when political parties just represent interests of elites that are morally and ethically bankrupt and the state institution itself becomes the crucible of fratricidal war for making personal gains. Such a state institutional cannot bring about genuine development; it is a predatory state to use Evans' term.
But as Fanon said, every generation would have to out of relative obscurity discover its historical mission, and once they do that, they can decide to fulfill it or betray it. Most Nigerian elites have no historical mission for transforming the nation for the better, let alone to fulfil it. They have betrayed the yearnings of ordinary Nigerians. By keeping millions of Nigerians in abject poverty, they have retarded the mental development of the people and their average intelligence. How can you develop your intelligence when you are always struggling to survive? And as Fanon said, we cannot be spectators in the midst of such challenges. With such challenges, if we remain spectators, we are either cowards or traitors. But I suggest as Matthew Arnold suggested the need for disinterested engagement with the Nigerian society. Even if you support PDP or APC, you have to provide objective analysis if your goal is to contribute to national development, instead of kissing up to anybody up there. If you are a Christian, the tradition I am a part of, I will say, be a Prophet Amos, and not the Priest Amaziah. If you are a prophet, you can tell truth to power at any historical moment. In my view, to feel compassionate and the need to act on such situations as in Nigeria does not require that one is a citizen of the country or from a poor background like me. It is about whether one cares and has the capacity to develop empathy. I know there are a lot of problems in Nigeria, but if people can be sincere with themselves, the problems are not insurmountable.
Contrary to what many might think, ordinary Nigerians without the elites are not as tribalistic or ethnistic as people may think. I was amaze during my NYSC to see the kind of business relations between people in the North and South. I am confident that if GEJ and PDP had truly improved the lives of the least advantaged Nigerians, not even their opponents can deny that and it will be difficult to have them on the defensive. The lesson is that when we have power or authority we should care about those on the other side. Properly understood, it is a privilege to be in a position to help in improving someone's life and when we do so, we should do so sincerely and not with the aim of making them slaves, or keeping them poor so that they will always come and beg us for something. If the elecetions is at all allowed to continue, and PDP fails to win, so be it. That should be a historical lesson not just to them but to any political party. To prevent that from happening is to deny Nigeria learning a historical lesson and that will be a great disservice because some lessons are only taught by history.
The way forward for any new regime in Nigeria is to make the masses be the custodians of justice, fairness and accountability. We need to educate. The elites as such, cannot be trusted. This much I can say based on sociological insights from the work of elites theorists like Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, Robert Michels and in the U.S. William Domhoff. So even if Buhari can be trusted, a good understanding of Nigerian society will lead one to conclude that not everyone in APC is necessarily committed to a radical transformation of the Nigerian social order in the interest of the poor. Assuming the election is not cancelled, people may vote for Buhari just as a kind of protest and a sense of hope that he will change the course of the country's affairs. Do not blame them. They have every right to do that and suffer the consequences of their choice. Unfortunately the PDP has no any vision or transformational agenda for leading Nigeria forward in the 21st century given the campaign so far. For them it is business as usual. Like Max Weber's disappointment with the lack of maturity of the Junkers as a political class to lead the Prussia of his time, I feel the same for PDP in Nigeria given what we have seen so far. A class may desire power, Weber would say, but that does not necessarily mean they have the political maturity to rule or govern. So where will Nigeria go from here? The masses are not really conscious enough to rise up and take history in their hands. We have a lot of work to do. I lament this. My humble opinion is that some elites have to commit "class suicide" by dedicating themselves to lead on behalf of the masses and in the process empower the masses. WE need a genuine political opportunity structure to open among some of the Nigerian elites, so that they can undermine the cohesion of the aggrandizers.
We pray for peace and greater unity in Nigeria, whether the elections hold or whether "those who own the country" decide to cancel it in order to protect their sudden or probable loss of their "fiefdoms." I cannot imagine someone telling me that simply because J.C. Agada is Igbo and I am a minority but form the North, there are fundamental differences in our worldview that we cannot continue to remain together in Nigeria. Those who think this way demonstrate a high level of political immaturity. All such threats are rooted in pursuit of VANITY.
May God help us transcend our selfish desires and see other people's lives in our own, and ours in theirs. In our struggle to build a better world, we should not set the standard for evaluating our leaders so low. Thank you.
Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112.
Office Phone: 651-638-6023
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment