Flip Flopping, But Moving Forward

BY OKEY IKECHUKWU

Many sceptics had their doubts about the sincerity of the military when the regime announced a transition to civil rule programme in 1999. Even more sceptics looked on with misgivings when details of the process that would lead to the “threatened” hand over to a democratically elected government were rolled out. 25 years later, out democracy has seen all manner of highs and lows. But we are making progress all the same.

Our progress is coming through bitter, mind boggling, morally disorienting and psychologically devastating lessons. The lessons are apparently unscripted, and the teachers are teaching away without Lesson Notes and conventional teaching certificates. And they are exacting and merciless – these teachers. The names of the teachers include the following: (1) Dishonest politicians, (2) Broken promises, (3) The consequences of citizen gullibility, (4) The results of supporting the wrong candidates, (5) The progressive denudation of the capacities of our national defense and security forces, and (6) The increasing inability of the ruling elite to protect itself from its own depredations.

President Olusegun Obasanjo, coming in as the first to hoist the flag of democratic rule after the military, was a quasi-military-civilian president. He did his best to craft good policies and establish institutions that would aid good governance. He was also very attentive to best global practices in many ways. He tried to assemble, and work with, a team of competent persons and listened to good counsel on many important issues.

It was the Third Term Project, real or imagined, that became his undoing in many ways. But since the jury is still out on that alleged gambit and given the trajectory of the Yar’Adua government immediately after Obasanjo, it is perhaps best to leave the matter here for now and look more closely at the further fallouts of the historical events of our nationhood, going much further back; beyond Obasanjo and those who handed over to him. So, let us properly situate Nigeria’s current profile and the trajectory of its democratic enterprise guided by a deep sense of history.

Presidents Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, for instance, were the circumstantial by-products of a system of elite myopia that had been prevailed in the land for over 50 years now. They were not entirely responsible for the problems they inherited. They were not entirely responsible for their approach to the problems they tried to solve. They were also not entirely responsible for all the wrong things that happened under them.

Their parties, the PDP the APC, were, again, not entirely responsible for everything wrong with Nigeria today. Without denying the shortcoming of all the political leaders and their parties, we must look much more closely at the basic conceptual framework with which the political elite approaches leadership and leadership positions, in order to see very clearly how the entrenched dysfunctionalities of our benighted nationhood has thrust upon us generations of leaders and followers who do not know how to really lead, or how to really follow.

The Nigerian State was taken hostage long ago. For over 50 years now, many powerful individuals and groups have succeeded in pushing personal and limited group interests into the front row of national consciousness; such that, today, 25 years into a now-unsettling experience with a fledgling democracy, we are not sure where we really are as a nation. Those whose interests are at variance with wider and deeper national interests have become the real enemies of Nigeria. They may well have actually constituted themselves into a team of highway men and women who waylay everything that could rescue Nigeria and consolidate our current democratic experiment.

This 25 years old democracy is being bombarded from all sides by (1) A fundamentally distorted eldership recruitment process, (2) Skewed values, (3) A largely dysfunctional educational system, (4) A flawed national psyche and (5) A youth bulge that is increasingly becoming the biggest unaddressed national crisis. With every passing day, these problems morph into new, and self-replicating, societal challenges.

Our nascent 25 years old democracy has thrown up leaders with sudden stupendous wealth from questionable sources. Their wealth has mostly impacted their immediate and extended families, of less than 15 persons, and a few friends. Their local communities, members of their religious congregations, most of their friends and even members of their extended families know how poor or rich they were a few years before they went into politics. The priests, traditional rulers and other supposed custodians of public conscience ask no questions. And that is one major difference between these pillars of value of yore and those of today. The traditional rules, the religious leaders, the family heads, uncles and aunts used to ask anyone of sudden wealth his means of income and livelihood. Not anymore! No more “My son, I hope you have not gone into strange and possibly evil ways.” You become an “illustrious” son or daughter, and a great pillar of faith in your place of worship once your cash value moves up. And this is while almost everyone, including their kith and kin, silently regard them as thieves who got away with their loot!

The Jonathan Presidency could have done much better than it did, but it allowed itself to be ruined by avoidable blunders, indecisiveness, image deficits, and a consistent failure to present an inspiring comportment. The Buhari Presidency, too, could have done everything it did very differently. But it chose to be appallingly nepotic, shamelessly insular and roundly impervious to everything a government should do to promote inclusivity, genuine national development and sustainable national values.

It is the decades-long effects of the overlooked fundamentals of true patriotism and nationhood that are creeping out from the woodwork to haunt us today.  The absence of truth, deep knowledge, nobility of soul, propriety in public affairs, dignity in self-presentation, competence and decency in leadership have all come calling. They are all under the table as I write, shaking the table on which our democracy is standing in discomfort.

The nation blew its chance for a rebirth offered by the undeclared results of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections. The presidential candidate and his running mate were Muslims, but that did not matter to anyone. The electoral body put up an impressive performance, in preparing for the elections. The voters put up their best behaviour on the day of election. Electoral materials arrived on time. The voters queued up to exercise their franchise. The results, announced or not, were obvious. Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola was going to become the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by popular choice, after Gen Ibrahim Babangida.

Then, inexplicably, a malodourous stench began to envelop the entire exercise. It was subtle at first. A sort of vague, but silently menacing, spectre. Or so it seemed at first. Then, to everyone’s horror, it began to gain solidity. Yes! The electoral body just wouldn’t announce the obvious results. As minutes turned to hours and hours turned to days and weeks, concerns mounted. Then there was an announcement: The outcome of elections had been annulled. It put the nation in a mood that is best captured in the Lamentations of David in the Bible thus: “The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places. How art the mighty fallen? Tell it not in Garth, publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon, lest the daughters of the philistines rejoice…exalt”. For Nigeria, it was this: “The proof that Nigerians can rally and speak with one voice, in response to someone they consider their own, irrespective of ethnic roots and religious loyalties, is murdered by an ethnocentric cabal that has inflicted a desperate stranglehold on the nation.”

But, unlike the biblical David, who called on his people not to voice the great calamity, to avoid ridicule by perceived enemies who never wished them well, Nigerians were urged to go to town. “On June 12 we stand” became the most popular war cry all over the country in 1993, immediately after the annulment of that near-flawless election results. Sections of the elite, traders and tradesmen/women, workers, business owners, and many retired military officers spoke up and acted up. The international community was invited to say “no” to such travesty.

Then, and very sadly, this national battle cry, born of true patriotism and a sense of brotherhood among Nigerians, began to wane in a section of the country. A disengagement from one Nigeria, not from Abiola, was fanned and made to crystalize even further. The federation created by Abiola began to recede. The strikes, sit-at-homes and protests achieved nothing. A nation had just been buried. Then came a not-very-surprising wonder: Many who were initially standing on June 12 out of genuine conviction began to lose their enthusiasm; for various reasons. Some moved from “On June 12 we stand” to “On June 12 we sit”. Many who were standing on June 12, including those who had moved from standing to sitting, joined a new, “On June twelve we feed” group. “On June 12, and from June 12 shenanigans, we get our daily bread” was born.

But that was after General Sani Abacha had displaced the Interim National Government (ING) put in place by Babangida. Abacha met three categories of June Twelvers, namely: (1) Those who stuck to their guns on the need to announce the results and declare Abiola President Elect and (2) Others, including Abiola himself, who were in league with Abacha on his coup on the naïve understanding that the foxy soldier would hand them political power after displacing the ING. If only there was a law against delusions and reckless dreaming!

The message for us today, and especially for President Bola Tinubu, is that honest pursuit of our long-term national interest is the greatest investment anyone can make in Nigeria today. This democracy is threatened by elite irresponsibility, grave security challenges, declining national productivity, and unparalleled grand larceny in the form of institutional and personal corrupt practices.

What have we gained in the last 25 years? A lot, in terms of the lessons of life. Tottering, wobbling and flip flopping, we are being taken on a path of growth which many great nations of today have gone through. It is not yet time for the ideal, because the profane is still tolerated and celebrated. A time will come when that will also not be possible. Meanwhile, flip flopping is real. But so is the forward movement – for those who see the wood despite the trees. There will be a day of reckoning, not the same for all the bad actors. Each in his own time and turn. We are on course, strange as this may sound!

OKEY IKECHUKWU  With three decades of hands-on experience in the university system, the media and government at the highest levels, Ikechukwu, mni, is the Executive Director of Development Specs Academy, an internationally certified management consultancy and training partner of several institutions and organizations. Ikechukwu was, at various times, Lecturer at the University of Lagos, Acting Editorial Page Editor, and acting chairman of the editorial board of The Guardian Newspapers. He holds a doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Lagos.