USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: NIGERIA: ENSLAVED BETWEEN ELECTIONS?

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From: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>

Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:47:58 +0000 (GMT)

To: <ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>

Subject: NIGERIA: ENSLAVED BETWEEN ELECTIONS?

NIGERIA: ENSLAVED BETWEEN ELECTIONS?    by   Ayo Olukotun        Mired in corrupt dealings and criminality in high places that boggle the mind, with each day bringing fresh, sensational disclosures, one is reminded of the European philosopher, Jean-Jacque Rousseau's lament that the British of the 18th century are slaves in between elections.  Of course, British democracy though far from perfect has since matured past the civic amnesia and helplessness in the midst of official graft that characterised its previous incarnations; but Nigeria is stalled in that unhappy groove.      Thank God our elections are no longer the arranged abracadabra and official swindles that they not so long ago were. The votes now to a large extent count and president Jonathan for all his limitations and travails as well as Prof Atahiru Jega and his INEC team deserve a part of the credit for this achievement.  Factor in this connection that as we learnt from the recent American experience, a free and fair election is not necessarily hitch free. Recall voters queuing for over four hours in parts of Virginia, Florida and other states, outdated electronic voter records in Georgia and the denial of access in Philadelphia to poll monitors until the observers sought protection of law enforcement. And so, bad as our bumbling and organisational hitches are, they do not cancel out the progress Nigeria has made in organising genuine as opposed to fictional elections.   But having said that, it needs to be emphasized that democracy to be substantive must proceed beyond electoralism; the vigil of voters on election days must be translated into regular and sustained oversight over the conduct of elected officials.  And this is the crux of our current predicament.  The growing sense that we are helpless before the rising and overpowering stench of routine pillage of public funds; the arrogant demeanour of thieving politicians and the apparent determination of those in charge to bleed the country to death. At the federal level, once a complaint is made, the president responds promptly by setting up a committee and often committees are set up to review the work of an earlier committee but you can be sure that these proliferating committees are the death chambers of those issues.        What has become for example of the once loudly advertised report of the committee set up to prune public expenditure and merge parastatals, the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) headed by retired General T. Y. Danjuma, Presidential Committee on the Review on the Reform Processes in the Nigerian Public Sector, the Special Panel on Violent Post Election Disturbances, Advisory Committee on the Niger-Delta to name but a few? An update of the tactic of burying burning issues through the committee is to create red herrings or diversionary trivia to rubbish their findings. The controversy much of it orchestrated around the Mallam Nuhu Ribadu led Petroleum Task Force report is a case in point here.  The law is simple; either postpone action by setting up a committee, or set up review committees to wade through the earlier report and if those do not work, engineer some theatre which will make the report controversial and then kill it!    Leaving aside the issue of how much public expenditure goes down the drain through the never-ending game of sidestepping fundamental governance issues through the riot of overlapping committees, it is obvious that the country is the loser for these ploys of non-implementation and disguised inertia. Whatever the weaknesses of the Obasanjo administration he could not be accused of not taking decisive actions even if those actions where sometimes controversial.  Under him for example, the country paid a substantial chunk of its foreign debt while initiating the policy of building a national savings account for the rainy day. These modest gains have been reversed by the overwhelming prodigality that we currently face resulting in a recent pending request by government for a loan of 7.9 billion dollars. Ironically, it is the same minister who played a noteworthy role in the financial prudence of those years that is apparently championing our return to debt slavery.      There is the issue too of the large-scale and bare-faced looting of public funds unprecedented in scope taking place before our very eyes with little more than tepid official assurances and occasional effete gestures that government "will leave no stone unturned in bringing culprits to book." To compound this political rascality is the ostentatious lifestyle of politicians evidenced by the flaunting of private jets as an arriviste totem. The political opposition though they have less funds to play around with are also implicated in the enveloping quagmire. Almost a week after The Punch commented editorially on the strange policy of Mr. Oloruntoba Oke, chairman of Ifako-Ijaiye local government who recently appointed 52 special assistant to facilitate "responsible governance at the grassroots" he is yet to be called to order by his party, the Action Congress of Nigeria. During the campaign, that party made much of the efficiency record of Governor Babatunde Fashola and with justification. It is amazing that it does not see that purifying its own ranks would be an effective way of setting a new moral agenda.    To return to the point about a citizenry being enslaved in between elections it is obvious that our democracy is going nowhere if all it can boast of is an improved record in conducting free and fair elections. Crucial to the deepening of democracy is the ability of the electorate to be the constant watchdog of the conduct of those elected to lead them. The media thanks to them do play this role now and then but that institution is not itself without its own imperfections and blind spots one of them being the politicisation of moral reformism. That notwithstanding, it is crucial to encourage our media in staying at the barricades in a season of pervasive political sleaze such as we are currently in. That is not enough however. Civil society, one of Nigeria's formidable assets must come into its own once more. There must be included as has been suggested clauses in our constitution enabling the power to recall public officials who toy with the social contract. Politics in a season of dysfunction is too important to be left to the politicians with their ceaseless shenanigans and subversion of the people's will. Professional associations for example must broaden their purview beyond customary demand for improved wages, to draw a linkage between their deteriorating condition and the escalating banditry. They can lend gravity to the call for urgent reform by evidenced-based advocacy buttressed by scientific data. Non-governmental organisations, trade unions and other civic groups must see the need to act as  checks on new forms of predatory governance by bringing their power of organisation and sanctions to bear on a system fast careering out of control.      It is futile to predict or even call for revolution as several people including some eminent citizens despairingly do.  A more profitable recourse is to strengthen and organise civil society to hold down the political class to a modicum of accountability and decency. That is how to prevent being enslaved in between elections.     Prof Olukotun is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies at Lead City University, Ibadan. ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236