This Democracy is Not Working
BY BASHIR YUSUF IBRAHIM
There is something ironic, almost out of place, about the idea and the practice of democracy in Africa. After nearly seven decades of trying, it is difficult to identify a single nation on the continent that could be considered a successful model. Elections after elections, African nations have ended up with a considerably declining quality of political leaders who exhibit a criminal poverty of vision and an unusual appetite for destruction. This combination of systemic incongruence and visionless leaders has kept the continent in a prolonged state of political and economic paralysis and its people wondering if democracy is an elaborate system of elite deception.
What passes for democracy in Africa is a mere agglomeration of ruinous political parties, sham elections, weak and corrupt institutions, unaccountable and non-responsive governments, presided over by incompetent and unconscionable individuals. It is only in Africa that holding elections becomes a national emergency, requiring the mobilization of the national army and the temporary cessation of the normal rhythm of life. In much of Africa, elections have become a meaningless ritual, a veritable threat to law and order, often culminating in tragic loss of lives, and the very antithesis of the true will of the people. In the rare cases where elections reflect the will of the people, the beneficiaries have been known to suddenly morph into little beasts and monsters, turn against the people and brazenly commence the plot to stay in power beyond their constitutional limit.
In Nigeria, as in much of Africa, the average citizen relates to democracy only as something that is remote and external, which state institutions and politicians manufacture and hand down to citizens. Like most Africans, the average Nigerian does not see himself as part of the democratic process or as an important actor with rights and obligations, mainly because he does not relate to the idea of a system that does not deliver on his basic needs and general well-being, a system that manages to create higher rates of poverty, inequality, prebendalism as well as a tiny class of super citizens in the midst of progressively falling standards of living. Many would argue these are aberrations and not part of the essential nature of democracy in Africa but such argument would be academic in the face of the realities that manifest in the daily lives of ordinary citizens.
To be sure, Nigeria’s democracy has, over the last 25 years, been hijacked by imposters who promote personal and private interests at the expense of the nation’s viability and its future. These imposters consist of a coterie of party officials, senior public office holders at various levels as well as private and highly placed traditional friends of power who are obsessed with and locked in a ceaseless competition for influence and wealth accumulation. Those keenly observing this phenomenon will recognize it as approximating the classical Hobbesian State of Nature of war of all against all in which life itself becomes “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” and in which the dramatis parsonae are at once in competition against each other on the one hand and, on the other, united against the legitimate interests of ordinary citizens.
Let us look at some numbers. In 1999 the budget for Nigeria’s general elections was N1.5 billion but by 2023 the overall budget had ballooned to a whopping N355 billion, which the nation is still paying for, one year after the elections. Relying on data and estimates obtained from various sources, the direct cost of general, local council and off-season elections to the central and sub-national governments, political parties and candidates in Nigeria from 1999 and 2023 may well have been in the region of N8 trillion. This does not factor in the indirect costs of virtual cessation of economic activities, thinning out of foreign direct investment, capital flight, pressure on foreign exchange occasioned by the massive acquisition of dollars by politicians during elections, etc. One informed estimate put forward by the respected economist, Mr. Bismarck Rewane of Financial Derivatives Company Ltd, put the direct and indirect costs of the 2023 general elections alone at N6 trillion.
The picture worsens when it comes to the more straightforward issue of cost of governance. Nearly everyone agrees, supported by credible data, that Nigeria’s democracy is the most expensive in the world, not just in terms of the size, function and questionable relevance of its sprawling institutions but also in terms of the quality of service delivery and the massive corruption involved in maintaining those institutions. All that is necessary to substantiate this assertion is to undertake an analysis of the budgets of the three tiers of government, on both the capital and recurrent sides. Given the constraints of space, it suffices to say, on average, 70% of all public expenditure in Nigeria in the last 25 years had been earmarked to fund the cost of governance. For context, the National Assembly alone costs the nation a whopping N3.132 trillion to maintain in the last 25 years, at the average cost of nearly N4 billion for every one of the 816 bills it passed into law over the same period.
Why are these numbers important? The numbers illustrate the uneven cost and benefit of democratic governance in a country with roughly ten million out of school children, 33 % unemployment and average poverty rate of 70% over the last 25 years. To make matters worse, almost all the indices of human development with which the well-being of nations are measured are not showing up for a large majority of Nigerians. A significant number of citizens are living in fear due to spiraling violence and widespread insecurity, with 30 out of the 36 States of the Federation and FCT under one form of internal security operation or another, for as long as we can remember. High cost of living and devaluation of the local currency have continued to pauperize all categories of Nigerians, including the wealthy. The ever-shrinking rank of the nation’s middle class, in particular, never had it so bad.
In place of democracy, Nigeria is operating a revolving door patronage system where politicians, once in power, coalesce and perpetuate themselves and their interests either directly or through cronies. A system which has become hostage to personal and private interests is broken and cannot deliver good governance. The revolving door patronage system which Nigeria’s democracy has become has its roots in Nigeria’s (large and small) political parties. Party officials, public office holders and their private sector proxies have formed an unholy but undeclared alliance to hold Nigeria hostage. For Nigeria to begin to move in the right direction, the grip of these groups and the patronage system they have enthroned must be dismantled. Keeping it in place is not an option because that would mean keeping Nigeria running in a viscous cycle.
One of the ways to dismantle the patronage system is for citizens to organize popular resistance. Unfortunately, the history of most popular uprisings is unpleasant and unenviable. Uprisings tend to be chaotic and they come at enormous cost to life, property and public order. Often, they get hijacked by smart but equally vicious and power-grabbing politicians. Another is to allow the system to correct itself through trial and error until it evolves into the ideal model. However, evolutionary change is too slow, too uncertain and, often, takes a turn in the wrong direction. If the last seven decades have taught us any lesson, it is that democracy lacks the internal mechanism for self-correction, which is probably the reason it is often punctuated by military intervention.
The more realistic and least disruptive path to salvaging Nigeria’s democracy is through organized middle-class intervention. A new crop of conscientious middle-class citizens, driven only by values, enlightened self-interest and patriotism, who do not depend on politics and public office for their sustenance must begin to actively participate in partisan politics in an organized manner. This new crop of organized citizens must set as one of its cardinal objectives, the dismantling of the grip of party officials, political office holders, godfathers and private proxies on Nigerian politics.
Members of this group must seek the leadership of political parties and use the parties as platforms for the recruitment of credible leaders. They must also use their professional and organizational skills to institutionalize the parties and take them away from godfathers. They must contest elections to capture power at both national and sub-national levels, in the executive branch and in the legislature. Finally, this group must address the issue of the lucrative nature and the attractiveness of political office. It is the main reason elections in Nigeria have assumed the character of the Hobbesian State of Nature alluded to earlier in which politicians are so desperate to occupy positions of power by whatever means necessary.
In the meantime, the current wielders of the levers of power and influence, at various levels, have a choice to make before they run out of options. They have the rare, unique and historic opportunity to push the reset button and roll back the massive resentment that is building up the among citizens by embarking on a sincere, deliberate and transparent effort at course correction. Nigeria could be standing on the edge of a dangerous cliff at the moment and it is in the enlightened self-interest of those who have the means to pull it back to do so…
•This is an updated version of a paper with a different title delivered at the Conference on 20 Years of Democracy in Nigeria: 1999 – 2019 at Africa Studies Centre, University of Oxford, United Kingdom on 6th December 2019
BASHIR YUSUF IBRAHIM Fellow of the Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI) and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute, Ibrahim was a Member of the Justice Nikki Tobi Committee on the 1999 Constitution and served as Special Assistant to the President during the Obasanjo administration. He is currently the CEO of Dirham Group and Director of several private sector companies operating in a variety of sectors.
