------- Forwarded message -----From: "Niyi Akinnaso" <niyi.tlc@gmail.com>To: "Prof Ayo OLUKOTUN" <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>Cc:Sent: Thu, 29 Aug 2019 at 16:34Subject: Re: Fw: Prof.'s columnThank you for the citation and your timely rebuttal of Young's hypercritical thesis, well situated within a global context.Young may have overstated his case but there is a sense in which he is right. To be honest, there is too much negative reporting and critical commentary on politicians and government programmes in our papers and on social media platforms.Besides, just take any opinion expressed in our columns and you'll see that the default stance is negative of government, so negative that the few steps the government (fed or state) takes in the right direction slides by unacknowledged.Any outsider like Young, whose views about Nigeria are molded largely by the press, cannot but agree with him to a reasonable extent.Nevertheless, you have done a beautiful job of illustrating the proverbial adage about the man trying to condemn the mote in another person's eyes, overlooking the one in his.Niyi AkinnasoOn Thu, Aug 29, 2019, 2:12 PM Ayo Olukotun <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com> wrote:
----- Forwarded message -----From: "orogun olanike" <dam_nik@yahoo.com>To: "Ayo Olukotun" <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>Cc:Sent: Thu, 29 Aug 2019 at 13:45Subject: Prof.'s columnHypercritical Disposition of Nigerians? Is Andrew Young Right?
AYO OLUKOTUN
"You (Nigerians) always complain about every government you've had. I have never heard of a good government in Nigeria; something is wrong with everybody. Well, let's face the fact, the world had not been and will never be perfect".
American civil rights activist, diplomat and politician, Andrew Young, The Punch August 24,2019.
Prominent black American politician, Andrew Young, quoted in the opening paragraph, has raised the issue of whether Nigerian civil society is hypercritical of successive leaders. He buttressed his verdict with the claim that he has never heard Nigerians commending or praising any of their leaders, but rather indulge in blaming them for the citizen's woes. Young went on to say and, in my view, correctly that we live in an imperfect world, especially as political leadership is concerned. If we begin the discussion by dwelling on the latter part of the statement, then we will be making an example of Young's home country, the United States, where the current President, Donald Trump, is viewed within and outside the country as America's headache or albatross. His never ending acerbic, racist, often unbalanced twitter comments, are cases in point, not to mention his theory of citizenship, stated or implied, that white America is all that really counts. A sampler, Trump called Baltimore, with its huge black population 'a rat and rodent infested mess, the worst in the United States', causing an uproar, in which the President has been described as a serial abuser of Americans, especially the minorities. That is how low, political leadership has descended in God's Own Country. If you imaginatively cross the Atlantic, you encounter a hard liner of a Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who climbed down recently to the authoritarian expedient of suspending parliament, so that it will not have a chance to interrupt or rearrange the Prime Minister's position as the Brexit deadline approaches. If this is not evidence of the regression of democracy in the flagship warehouse of its existence, then I don't know what it is.
A succession of unglamorous Prime Ministers has brought that lovely Island country close to the brink, and to a future with several question marks. Just across the Channel, we see Emmanuel Macron, positioning himself as the new European leader, sometimes as the leader of the free world, in view of Trump's own-goals and self-cancellation. But everyone knows that for all the illusion of grandeur abroad, home, to use a favourite expression, is where the hurt is. Protracted civil rights disobedience and street demonstrations by the yellow vests, over Macron's economic reforms severely damaged the President's credentials, with consequent plummeting of his approval rating. Italy is in disarray while xenophobic nationalism, with the ascent of right-wing parties, remains a problem on the European continent, and beyond.
So, to connect back with Young, imperfections in the political arena are not peculiarly Nigerian, but global occurrences. Nonetheless, it is important to stress that those countries which have, over time built social safety nets for their citizens have reliable infrastructure, and where poverty does not exist in desperate proportions, are luckier. Nigeria, like most African countries is in distress, in terms of antecedent substructures and social buffers which can cushion adversity. As Prof. Niyi Akinnaso, made clear recently, the generalised discontent and unease, that one finds around in our country owe its origins to 'the poor state of the economy, typified by ravaging poverty and a high youth unemployment rate—Nigeria has lived with the badge of dishonour of being the poverty capital of the world for some time now'.(The Nation Wednesday, August 28, 2019).
In other words, and in the context of the perennial disgruntlement fingered by Young, the raw, upbeat mood is a function of the perceived failure of successive governments, to turn the tide in favour of Nigerian citizens, notwithstanding that a small percentage of the population continues to call the shots. For example, how do you expect parents whose children cannot go to school, either because they cannot come up with the funds needed, or because the schools have descended to poorly furnished playgrounds, to congratulate politicians who display obscene affluence? Young, therefore, should have put his observation in the context of the pervasive poverty in Nigeria, soaring unemployment, and sundry governance woes which afflict the larger percentage of the population.
Even at that, and in spite of the subsisting substratum, of hardship, side by side with a galloping population, Nigerians are easy to rule, not least because the standard of governance has fallen so low, that merely tarring an unkempt road, or building boreholes, where none exist, or paying salary, as at when due, easily attract mention. Indeed, in the period since 1999, all governments have enjoyed a period of political honeymoon, in which they are more or less adulated, or welcome with open hands until they did things, which landed them in trouble with Nigerians. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, began his presidency with a lot of goodwill and hoopla, carried forward by his own rhetorical grandeur of making a fresh start, which persisted for a good deal of his tenure. He began to have trouble however, when he repeatedly increased the price of petroleum, without considering the human face, which he had himself advocated as a civil society activist. There were also his failures to match words with action, and seminally the aborted third term project. Still, his approval rating, roughly measured by newspaper editorial comments, did not decline dramatically until the ill-fated third term protect. As this columnist recalls it, the late president Umaru Yar'adua, was much beloved, not just for the innovation of the Niger Delta Amnesty, but for his frankness in admitting that the election that brought him to power was massively rigged, thereby setting up the much regarded. Mohammed Uwais Election Reform Committee, which came up with interesting answers. Even President Goodluck Jonathan, who was later to be derided for his 'cluelessness' and corruption, began his tenure auspiciously, benefiting from his status as the country's first minority president, and the sympathy which accrued to him, because of attempts to deny him of the presidency by subtle methods. The parting of ways between him and Civil Society, no doubt fuelled by his political opponents, occurred when he dramatically increased the price of petroleum products, necessitating an Occupy Nigeria Protest Movement, which dovetailed into a nationwide debate on the abuse of fuel subsidy, growing official corruption, and widening class inequalities.
President Muhammadu Buhari, also began his tenure with tremendous goodwill, and identity of being the first opposition leader to displace an incumbent in our history. The goodwill was enhanced by the buy in of many Nigerians into his anti-corruption programme. The draw backs under his tenure so far, include rising insecurity, and a tardiness in paying adequate attention to the inclusive requirements of Nigerian federalism. Overall therefore, Young is wrong in his remarks on the hypercritical nature of Nigerians, with respect to their leaders, especially when you factor how much Nigerians have had to endure under successive administrations.
I have often argued against Nigerian exceptionalism, which portrays our country, as being different from other parts of the world. Finally, the distemper in civil society is often creative and rewarding, and in the absence of effective institutions, our best buffer against dictatorship.
Prof. Ayo Olukotun is the Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Adetona Chair of Governance, at the Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye.
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