Welcome Tough 2016: Wow, We Made it Past 2015
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 4th January 2015
President Goodluck Jonathan was right when he declared in August 2013 that Nigeria will not break up in 2015. He affirmed that Nigeria would remain one indivisible entity, in his own words: "For those who are predicting that this country will separate in 2015 based on the fault lines as of the time of amalgamation, they will know that this prediction will not be of any consequence. Nigeria will continue to remain one indivisible entity." President Jonathan was referring to the 2005 war games of the United States armed forces in which one of the scenarios developed was the break-up of Nigeria by 2015. The Nigerian media had gone frantic on the war games scenario angrily castigating the Americans for "predicting" that Nigeria would break up in 2015. So many Nigerians including former President Jonathan came out to declare we would remain intact as a country. The Americans never actually predicted that Nigeria would break up in 2015. The President and other Nigerians in general were wrong to take these sorts of scenario building as a PREDICTION of what will happen. It is a very serious exercise of futures analysis which countries that prepare for their future do regularly for themselves and their partners so that they can plan better to confront and triumph over future challenges. We need to be less visceral and more rational in considering our future. The point is not to predict break-up but to review developments and carry out trends analysis so that we understand the forces that are driving us towards various possible outcomes and adopt alternative measures that would lead us into the desired productive, happy, democratic and united future outcome.
We have known the following about unfolding trends in Nigeria. We are a country that is endowed with rich natural resources backed with an abundant supply of human capital. We however have one of the largest populations of poor people in the world, over 100 million or about 70% of the population. Poor governance, mega corruption and rising insecurity as well as a widening insurgency have characterized our daily lives for the past two decades. Poor infrastructure, lack of power and a deep process of de-industrialisation over the period have crippled our economy. A ruling party in power for sixteen years had become a threat to our political system because it could no longer control or limit the mega corruption of its key players. The public sector had been bloated and was consuming over 90% of the national budget, which meant that public goods were not longer receiving any investment. The defining rule of the ruling party power game organised around rotation of power had broken down following the death of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and the rise to power of President Goodluck Jonathan. The 2011 election campaigns were organised around sectarian ethno-religious lines and led to considerable level of post election violence. In the build up to the 2015 elections, the electronic media, in particular the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) and Africa Independent Television (AIT) went wild massively producing hate programmes designed to provoke one set of Nigerians to commit atrocities against the other. The ruling party was clearly determined to remain in power by hook or crook and at one point just before the election wanted to remove the Chairman of the Electoral Commission who appeared determined to prevent massive electoral rigging using the technology developed around the permanent voter card and the card readers. All these events could have easily led to the breakdown of law and order and the tearing apart of the country along the seams.
Nigeria escaped the booby traps laid ahead of the 2015 elections because we have matured as democracy actors with a 16-year track record of democracy learning. In the First and Second Republics, system breakdown developed with the first elections organised and rigged by incumbents. In 2003, when the PDP organised massive electoral fraud, Nigerians were more patient. We were even more patient with the larger level of rigging in 2007. In the process, both the opposition parties and Nigerian voters were building up experience and competence in mandate protection. In 2011 and 2015 Nigerians started reaping the fruits of democracy learning. Objectively, there was enough provocation by the ruling party in 2015 to push Nigerians into violent responses. Nigerians however realised that violence was the response they were being pushed into and decided to avoid it. The opposition parties learnt from their mistakes and for the first time in our political history, they were able to merge into a unified opposition party that was strong enough and had sufficient resources and national spread to contest for power against a hitherto rampaging ruling party. The 2015 victory of an apposition party happened because Nigerians have been learning to read political trends correctly and act appropriately.
At the social and economic level, the failure of successive governments to adequately cater for citizens through the provision of basic infrastructure and amenities has triggered acts of resilience by citizens seeking to improve their lives and livelihoods across the country through ingenious innovations and initiatives. Now that there is a new government in place that emanates from the peoples' vote, their expectation is nothing less than good governance. The Buhari Administration should be conscious that democrats are no respecter of persons. Citizens expect delivery and a failure to deliver could lead to a rapid fall from grace.
The current conditions are very difficult. A sociological review of the key drivers and actors of our society provides the following trends analysis. We have had over one decade of continuous economic growth of more than 6%, which unfortunately did not produce more jobs especially for the youth. At the same time, inequality has been rising and the gap between the poor and the wealthy is widening. Our economic growth has been used to promote massive importation and the source countries for the imports have shifted from Europe, Japan and the United States to Asia in general and China in particular. The collapse of the price of oil means that delivery of the dividends of democracy would be even more difficult today. Nonetheless, the people would expect that their conditions should improve. 2016 would be a tough year for the 37 governments in the country and they must become more capable of trends analysis to uncover rising problems and the best ways of handling them.
Trends analysis as mentioned above is to improve our capacity to analyse where events and actions are taking us to, not to predict the future but to address the challenges that they pose to our progress. The trends analysis or futures studies as they are usually called simply provide the raw materials for horizon scanning and scenario building for the purpose of anticipating problems and adapting measures that would promote the best possible outcome in the future. It is important for all societies to regularly review where they are based on retrospective analysis of their history and a trend analysis of where they might be in the future. In so doing, the main objectives are to understand the drivers of change and key actors in precipitating change. The analysis of drivers and actors provide the material for scenario building, which are projections of possible futures. These possible futures are not predictions but analytical and heuristic tools to enable society to go in the direction of the best possible future. It is about foresight and planning and allows societies to anticipate and be proactive so that they can avoid pitfalls and seize the best possible opportunities that exist. 2016, here we come.
16 A7 Street,
CITEC Mbora Estate,
Jabi/Airport Road By-pass,
P.O.Box14345, Wuse
Abuja, Nigeria
Tel - +234 8053913837
Twitter- @jibrinibrahim17
Facebook- jibrin.ibrahim
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