And the President of Nigeria manages the various states and its institutions in the Union?
This is how we always set ourselves up for disappointment.
From: 'Victor Okafor' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday, September 30, 2022 at 1:02 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Abusive relationship
Well Toyin, I beg to differ by stating that running "before" is not necessarily a factor that in and of itself diminishes the authenticity of a political candidate, here or there. In fact, the Nigerian political culture tends to value experience and does not appear to easily embrace the "outsider" without an established record of public service or distinction in the private sector. It is the quality of the experience that could constitute either an asset or a liability. Second, casting a candidate as "a deep insider" could be subject to being interpreted negatively to imply some dirty linen where there may be none. I do not think that Peter Obi has attempted to portray himself as an outsider; rather, he appears to have succeeded in establishing in the hearts of a generality of the youth, that he was a political insider who conducted himself creditably during his time period of being inside—so to speak. While all 3 candidates that you referenced are all accomplished public servants in their own right, one factor that weighs in favor of Obi (which I think is the main reason for his seeming grassroots appeal) is his record or knack for frugal management of public funds (as demonstrated by his two-term transformative governorship of Anambra state—a record that he has marketed rather successfully, against the backdrop of a public perception that profligacy in governmental circles is the order of the day.
On Fri, Sep 30, 2022 at 11:44 AM Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Jibrin:
Where is the opportunity this time around? We already know most of the candidates!
To Obi's followers, they tend to forget that, like Tinubu and Atiku, he ran before. He is a deep insider, a PDP man recasting himself as an outsider.
Governors have become emperors!
TF
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, September 30, 2022 at 10:09 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Abusive relationshipTF
I agree that the culture of abusive relationships has been generalised. My argument is two fold. Citizens suffer greatly from the abuse. Citizens have the power to challenge and transform the abuse but have not done so yet. This is therefore a call to action for citizens to rise and challenge bad governance and resist manipulative tactics of the ruling class. So much relies on power transitions and if the opportunity is seized the outcome could hold significant dividends.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
On Fri, 30 Sept 2022 at 14:31, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
Jibrin:
I read everything you write! And I always have questions for you which means I take you seriously.
- Tell me any agency or institution in Nigeria where citizens are not abused. I am afraid of the police; I am afraid of immigration; I am afraid of the army. All forms of power in Nigeria are abusive.
- And citizens are abusive. Go to elite houses and see how they abuse maids, drivers, gatemen, even the police allocated to them who they send to the market to buy tomatoes and onions.
- Have we not worked abuses into regular interpersonal relations? The Babalawo abuse their clients, just as Adeboye and Oyedepo do.
- Are the elites of the nation not abusive? Professors and the Govt do not consider students in their so-called negotiations. The missionaries who came in the nineteenth century to bring Western education were not paid, and there was no electricity.
- Where are the non-abusive leaders going to come from? Another planet? In the most elegant display of loyalty and royalty, "Jesus then rode the donkey into Jerusalem." Can your new leaders ride bicycles into Abuja?
I think you are moving away from being a theorist to a teleologist.
TF
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, September 30, 2022 at 8:13 AM
To: 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Abusive relationshipTransforming the Abusive Relationship between Citizens and Elected Leaders
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 30th September 2022
As the Fourth Republic rolled on, Nigerians have become increasingly concerned with the abusive relationship they have had with their elected leaders. According to the fake saying: "people get the leaders they deserve". For the most part, Nigerians are democrats and have repeatedly elected leaders they believe will play by the democracy handbook, that is provide the services they promised to those who voted them into power. Repeatedly, Nigerians have discovered that it is a deceitful and abusive relationship in which the people are denied the outcome they had hoped to get from their civic engagement – the dividends of democracy. That is, that Nigeria is governed in the interest of all citizens.
The stark reality today is that the Nigerian State is not performing its duties and citizens have been consistently forced to provide for themselves services their elected leaders had sworn to provide. The core of the problem is deep. The State no longer protects the lives and property of Nigerians. It cannot even protect the territorial integrity of the national territory as increasingly, non-State actors takeover ungoverned territories. The time for citizens to rise up to the challenge of the collapse of State authority has therefore arrived. The strategic objective of citizen action should be to end this abusive relationship with elected leaders by voting in a new breed of leaders that are ready, willing and capable of governing in the interest of the people.
The two and half decades of Nigeria's experience with democracy reveals clearly that what has been in practice has is a distorted and dis-functional form of democracy. Although there has been six general elections and transitions within the period under review, what is clear is that democracy has not been consolidated as expected. The Nigerian people believe profoundly in democracy but an irresponsible and anti-democratic elite has hijacked the process for its own personal interest. The elite have had a negative impact on the process and many of the elections were hijacked and the ordinary citizen has had little say in electoral outcomes. The elites undermined the basic institutions of democracy - legislature, executive, judiciary, political parties, the election management body, the police and the media among others. These anomalies were perpetuated largely due to the absence of a common agenda for action by the citizens, which should have been inspired by thought leadership that is able to mobilize, aggregate and articulate the broad interest of the people as the repository of political power.
How then can Nigerians salvage the country's democracy from vested interests, which conflicts with the interests of the majority of the people. First, Nigerians must address the crisis generated by our collective failure to recruit successive leaderships that are good and competent. We must change the reality that Nigerian politics is the only profession or vocation that people can enter without any capacity, ethics, training or qualification. Even a cursory review of the politics of the Fourth Republic will scream out the anomaly that people that are too sick, too old or too weak to govern have taken over the reigns of power which is immediately seized by the cable around them. The very simple question of whether those who seek to govern have the strength to govern must be placed on the ballot because that is what our experience has shown us is a critical first step to induce change.
The second issue is competence. We must ensure that those who exercise leadership in this country have cognate experience, are competent and above all are people of good character rather than thieves and crooks. The issue here is that if they have passed the first test of the strength to govern, the next step is to find out if their strength would be used to govern in the interest of the people. The fact of having made a lot of money, usually through corrupt means, should disqualify people from leadership in a democracy. Liberal democracy is constructed on the basis of a promise from the leader to citizens that if elected they will keep to the word they have given of fulfilling the promises they have made to the people. The ethics of the players is therefore a central element of the edifice. The candidate must have the ethical standard to keep to their oath and if that does not happen, the citizens must have the moral courage to remove them from power irrespective of who they are – members of the same ethnic, religious or cult group. For the equation to work, both sides must play their roles.
Citizens should recognise that precisely because of poor leadership, we have failed in the management of our diversity and more Nigerians each day feel alienated from the Nigerian Nation. Essentially, all Nigerians repeat the same narrative of their marginalisation but rather than see the problem as an attribute of poor national leadership, they are manipulated into remaining at the level of blaming the other ethnic group or the other religion for their situation. In this context, political education to rise above ethno-religious reductionism becomes important. Civic actors and leaders' must close ranks and collectively address the challenge of lack of inclusion in our system. The solution is inclusive democracy which guarantee that all Nigerians can freely participate in the political process without unfair barriers.
The campaigns for the 2023 elections have just opened and the moment has arrived for Nigerians to deliberately begin the work of ending the abusive relationship with elected leaders. We must open our eyes and look carefully at the criteria for leadership and assess all the candidates on these matters – the strength to govern because governing a large, complex country with a track record of bad governance is difficult and requires high capacity. Secondly, whether their experience shows that they have both the competence and ethical standards to be trusted with the task. This requires no training in voodoo methods. The candidates and their track records are known. We must begin to learn to act on our knowledge. Finally, we must outgrow the sentiments of promoting people simply because they are "our own people". The knowledge we have is that those in power have not done well for the members of their ethnic or religious groups, they have done well for themselves and their cabals. The people are not in any cabal. We must become objective and go beyond ethno-religious stereotyping. It is not easy but that is the pathway we must take if we are to end the abusive relationship between our elected leaders and we the people.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
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Sincerely,
Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of Africology and African American Studies
Eastern Michigan University
Email: vokafor@emich.edu
Tel: 734.487.9594
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