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From: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2014 13:35:01 +0100 (BST)
To: ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com<ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com>
ReplyTo: maggie anaeto <maganaeto@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: DEMOCRACY BLUES
DEMOCRACY DAY BLUES
Ayo Olukotun
"The national protest, Bring Back Our Girls, should be complemented with Build Us a State. There are some missions, such as overcoming the Nigerian state crisis, that require more than advanced intelligence technologies" – Prof Richard Joseph, May 22, 2014
Yesterday was Democracy Day in Nigeria, the 15th edition of the milestone which marked the formal inauguration of civilian rule on May 29, 1999. Eminent political science professor, Richard Joseph captures, in the opening quote of this essay, the sombre, despairing mood in which this year's Democracy Day was marked around the country. This writer quibbles mildly with Joseph's refrain, 'Build Us a State' by suggesting that it should have read, 'Bring Back our state'; without of course disagreeing with the agenda he proposes.
For, there was a Nigerian state, a developmental state at that, which laid the groundwork for an industrial Nigeria, by inaugurating iron and steel plants, fertilizer factories, petrochemical industries, oil refineries as well as an extensive road transportation network. The social contract of those years was one in which federal and state governments underwrote the costs of quality education and health for its citizens as well as ran institutions, which were competitive in ranking with the best in the English speaking world.
The story of Nigeria's decline to its current dishonourable ebb where a multinational force is required to police its borders and shore-up failing security institutions in the search for the abducted girls has been well narrated, not least by Joseph himself in his seminal book on Prebendal politics. The theft of state resources, legitimated by communal and ethnic bandwagons in the Second Republic which Joseph studied has been creatively reformulated in Nigeria's Fourth Republic. Raids on the state treasury are now structured to the extent that the Executive and Legislature in what has turned out to be the most prodigal governance system in the world appropriate, bonanza style a huge proportion of national revenue as salaries and emoluments for insensitively duplicated political offices.
As Professor Banji Oyeyinka revealed in his important book, 'Rich Country, Poor People', launched in Lagos a fortnight ago: "The country's recurrent expenditure which was in the past pegged to non-oil revenue rose significantly, largely as a result of sudden jump in personnel costs and overheads as political appointees took office. Significantly, recurrent expenditure rose to an average 150% of non-oil revenue." It seems unlikely that President Goodluck Jonathan or the National Conference will come up with any significant modification on this system of political parasitism in which the life blood of a nation is being slowly sucked to death by an elaborate and institutionalized patronage arrangement.
That is not all. Just as the country is bleeding from the actions of criminal rackets who are stealing oil on an industrial scale in the Niger Delta; business tycoons in collusion with state officials have converted the so called oil subsidy into private resources on a scale that is beyond belief. Meanwhile, and perhaps as comic relief in the midst of a tragedy, the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Related Offences Commission who is expected to cleanse the Augean Stable has flagged off a linguistic debate on the difference between stealing and corruption while Jonathan insists that Nigeria's problem is not corruption.
The chickens of political banditry are coming home to roost, however. Take the military institution, in the context of Boko Haram's relentless assaults and what appears to be the latter's superior weaponry. On Wednesday, the Punch reported the killing of 40 soldiers by Boko Haram and the setting ablaze in Yobe state of a military base and police station. Obviously, it is not just low morale and possible sabotage that are at work here. Hard questions are being raised about how we got to the current nadir where an otherwise reputed military institution is grossly underperforming and ill-equipped. Queried the Guardian on the 28th of May: "What happened to the trillions of naira voted for defence in the last three years? What of the security votes and sundry extra budgetary allocation for security? What is the nature of the procurement process within the military?" While we wait for answers to these troubling questions, it is pertinent to mention that the current status of the military illustrated by its reversals in the war against terror is a metaphor for the state of every Nigerian institution. Police officers have openly admitted that they now supplement inadequate budgetary allocations by bribes while government institutions have to bribe other government institutions in order to get things done.
And so, government officials and a section of the international community may enthuse about Nigeria's emergent status as a new kid on the bloc of dynamic MINT economies (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey); but the reality check of corrupt and flabby institutions in which the only game in town is the relentless carting away by highly placed individuals of state resources offers a different, sobering narrative. Similarly, some projections on Nigeria's rebased economy constructs it as possessing a vast consumer market that is worth more than $400 billion and therefore highly attractive to multinational companies offering a diverse menu of luxury consumer goods. Obviously however, an expansive and booming market do not a nation state make. Neither does it address fundamental problems of soaring inequality, gripping urban decay, the demographic disaster of teeming youths frantically besieging the employment market for the ever diminishing jobs. Neither does it speak to the lack of foundational amenities such as drinking water, electricity, security of lives and property.
The other day, this writer listened to the debate at the National Conference on our rapidly depleting environment, and was struck by the revelation that although the digging of boreholes constitute a veritable environmental hazard Nigerians cannot do without them because for many years now water has virtually disappeared from public taps. Furthermore, as this write up was being finalised, the announcement was published about yet another dip in power supply as a result of the failure of five transmission lines side by side with information on electricity tariff hike to take effect from June 1st. Indeed, the absence of governance in some parts of the North-East was so palpable that the Boko Haram at least at some points was viewed as liberation, counter-hegemonic militia. Of course, their subsequent evolution into roving and murderous bandits has erased this initial image.
Beyond the 2015 elections therefore, assuming that elections can hold under the current siege is the agenda to renew the state by bringing back the social contract annulled by the catastrophic recession of governance, the tyranny of unproductive institutions presided over by full time crooks as well as the restructuring of a top heavy and over-centralised federation. In this connection, the recent victory of the concept of resource democracy at the ongoing national conference if followed through may provide a useful starting point for re-compacting the state.
The ongoing shale oil revolution warns that a nation frantically consuming away its future is sooner than later headed for extinction. The problem however, is whether the acrimonious jockeying for control of the state by opposed political groups would allow them to hear the alarm bells.
Prof Olukotun is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies at Lead City University, Ibadan. ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com 07055841236
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