By Chris Nwedo
July 2016
Good policies promote solidarity, stability and development. Bad government is one with wrong policies. The wrong policies naturally invent and subsidize instabilities and mismanagement. Instabilities in African states are sustained by preventable conflicts while corruption rises and falls in the treacherous mismanagement.
The fundamentals for what we may regard as political democratisation in Nigeria were provided by conscientious activism of Nigeria’s founding nationalists. The diligent enterprise was perfected with the autonomy given to the Nigerians to rule themselves, and to independently determine their future directions in all ramifications. On a broader-spectrum, a metaphorical ship of democratization arrived the shores of African states with strong waves for political self-determination in 1960s. Indeed by 1970, most African states, in principle, regained political, social and economic sovereignties. The freedom for self-direction was positive, warranted and pluralistically an encouragement for the states of Africa to stabilise, protect her patrimony and make progress. But for the many decades, the prospects for standardisation provided by the autonomies do not seem to have been fully utilised for the benefits of the states and the individual Africans. The veracity of this proposition is self-evident. It is undeniable that approximately no African state can be said to have achieved stability or made commendable progress in every ramification of sustainable development. Many are still toddling feebly unable to protect themselves and vulnerable to pulverising social turbulence, insecurity and worrisome underdevelopment.
The conscientious are deeply touched, indignant and discomforted by the endless plight of the Africans. The pulverising ethno-religious and political conflicts were compounded by bourgeoning terrorism to further degrade the continent. The intense turbulence gave no pause for social stability, good governance and quality development. Even when one argues that not all the African states are crippled, which is irrefutable, but these ones have practically nothing to demonstrate as clear evidence of doing better that than the ones left with rickety strength by man-made catastrophes. It is an established fact that Africans produced their malaise by culpable imprudence. The political power handed over to the nationalists was viciously snatched by elitist’s spirit and was used for construction of powerful personalities and perishable political dynasties that benefitted no one. The vainglorious dynasties at their own cost killed aspirations for strong national institutions and all prospects for virile African society.
It has always been the transfer of political power from one powerful personality to another that provokes the continent’s endless crisis. Libya is today grounded with all powerful forces of destruction fiercely at work in a disdainful endeavour to put everything and everybody in Libya to flames of ruin. Egypt is imperceptibly recovering after a fierce rage of popular revolution took that her away from decades of seizure by Hosni Mubarak. In fact, the movement of Egypt from despotic Mubarak to Mohammed Morsi’s dubious religious party, terrorism and the recapturing of the country by the military have continued to strip Egypt of her remaining value.
For a long time, states of Africa were ‘allowed’ to be cuddled and nursed with neither direction nor prudence by her self-seeking political midwives who became depraved, exploitive, repressive and tolerated no opposition to their hypothetical absolute right to keep the states for themselves. It is the contest for political control that naturally produced multiplicities religious terror groups as tools for power struggle while ethnic sentiments have not relented inflammation of social and political instabilities. The emotional components of ethnic or religious propaganda wars in Africa turn lambs to lions.
I believe Africa has what it takes to save herself from avoidable peril. She has enough potential to rebound with robust pressure and redress positively her systems of governance, and taking effective steps to invigorate the culture for productive politics. Good policies promote solidarity, stability and development. Bad government is one with wrong policies. The wrong policies naturally invent and subsidize instabilities and mismanagement. Instabilities in African states are sustained by preventable conflicts while corruption rises and falls in the treacherous mismanagement.
Corruption makes easy the expropriation of huge sources of funds from priority points, de-energises judicial institutions and ruins prospects for effective security. Physical insecurity was encouraged by discriminatory prosecutions. In Nigeria, corruption accounts for the reasons why the country is vulnerable and comparatively under developed with limited prospects of significant growth. The preponderant reliance on easy dollars from oil trade was damaging to the quality of governance because it literally took initiative away from the managers of the economy. They expropriated and squandered the oil wealth without concrete and supportable plan. It is self-evident that without a coherent reaction to crumbling naira occasioned by fall in oil revenues tangible hardship will be faced in the maintenance of the structures of the governance while significant attention will be taken away from infrastructure development. Deliberate and several steps needed be taken to signal a change in attitude in the issues diversification of national economy.
It is progressively acknowledged that the government should set several indispensable, yet reasonable benchmarks necessary to improve transparency in the management of the resources, discouraging waste and theft. It is pertinent that the managers are followed-up with definable chastisement plan if any fails to adhere to benchmarks for prudent use of the resources. The first of the benchmarks should be the reconstitution of the national anticorruption watchdogs into more transparent, comprehensive and genuinely independent body. I think limiting the anticorruption attacks to the political enemies by the government of the day creates the opportunities for corrupt attitudes among Nigerians to continue to mutate surreptitiously and to become more vicious. To vow destruction and death to Dasuki and co for diverting security budget and forgetting to ask former state governors to account for hundreds of billions of security votes is hypocritical. From the barefaced attitudes of the nation’s public servants to corruption, it is demonstrably clear that anticorruption agencies are unproductive. Reinvigorating and pumping pressure into them are the only ways of making them potent devices of chastisement for the villainous malefactors. The need for them to be independent and truly liberated from political manipulation cannot be over stated. It should be added that the reorganization of Nigeria’s fraudulent, abusive and overly politicized Police Force can make the anticorruption agencies and other efforts at better Nigeria productive. In spite of the claims of progress by all layers of Nigeria’s security watchdog impunities among the wrong and strong elites are on the rise topping every new record. The watchdogs have not been able to make it harder for treacherous crimes to buffet the nation.
It is a void so serious that citizens have not been meaningful participators in laundering Nigeria her injurious mess. Where there are some cooperate attempts, they have not been forceful and without prejudices. United and objective public statements on national question are politically powerful. The initiative of this nature has its positive capacities and ‘could signal the beginning of a break with business as usual, help generate momentum for change, and lend moral support to the efforts of Nigerians working to transform the country’. Many are appalled and regret dissatisfying roles Nigerians play in the face of national catastrophes. The incessant bloody upheavals, the ravages of terrorism and use of religion as tools of oppression and impoverishment of the masses impair cooperate interest of Nigeria and Nigerians irrespective of the place, they take place. Logically there is no safe zone in Nigeria when a part is inflames.
This is why Nigerians must be united to overcome the greatest obstacles to their humanity instead of believing that self-conceited national elites have magical wands and are ready to intervene. It is necessary we recover the positive political legacies of the heroes past from the grips of death by monstrous ideologists in whatever colours. Nigerians are by this fact challenged for conscientious change of culture, to accost the spirit of indifference as the society face deliberate devastation from the faceless. It imperative for Nigerians to once again realise that they have inviolable right over their political destiny and therefore have the obligation to fight for freedom and good governance. Citizens are obliged to rise up against political and religious dictatorships, and the dictatorship of armed gangs. We must mobilize for rights to good governance, supporting the government without bias for objectively people-oriented policies and impeding the government when it gets it wrong.
Since the contemporary change of trend has transferred all powers to politics, we need good politics to eat and drink, worship in liberty and stay alive. For these, an active struggle needed be orchestrated against political corruption, economic exploitation, religious intolerance and social repression. This has also called for re-evaluation of the risks involved in political associations, coalitions, movements and structures of power that are methodically organized along ethnic or religious lines. It is not evident that Nigerians have earned anything but violence and bloodshed by making ethnicity or religious affiliations too relevant in the national discuss. It is to the pain of all that ethnicity are politicized and religious affiliation given unnecessary relevance.
In Egypt, the victory of fundamentalists religious party, Muslim Brotherhood, in the national election was a subtraction. The intervention of the military saved Egypt from the excesses of a government by the religious activists which may open a new vista of more flagrant era of religious intolerance and violence that comes with it. We have seen to everyone’s horror the dictatorship of these fundamentalists Islamists in Afghanistan in a form of government by Taliban. Raw power of wrong religious people can be catastrophic.
Unfortunately, Nigeria is an admixture of disparate cultural and religious ideologies that have so little in common. It is for economic and administrative convenience of imperial rulers that we are forced to stay together as a political entity. For many, Nigeria will remain indivisible, and it will be nonsensical to have it divided soonest. It is therefore the responsibility of the citizens to work-out amenable strategies for reconsolidation of the geo-political unity and must work actively for new processes of reintegration. The issue of unity among each nationality is central to stability, peace and development. It is a united and stable country that ‘provides a secure warehouse to her economic and social activities’. The wobbling pace and unclear directions for integration after decades of self-government are phenomena both discomforting and challenging.
It is regrettable that ‘statism designed to provide healthy decentralization, has degenerated to widening the gulf of disparities along our national fault-lines. And elections which supposed to convey popular will and enrich a melting unifying point of various interests, have collapsed into cockpits of domino manoeuvres among godfathers of political parties and self-perpetuating elites. Meanwhile, communication gaps between groups and classes have continued to widen to mutual discomfort. If the opportunities offered by the various problems of national integration were taken seriously by any ideologically conscious political party, the heterogeneous cultures and peoples could have been transformed into endless national treasure.
It is not contestable that the greatest obstacle on the way to national integration, democratization and development in Nigeria is the interminable interests of networks of national oppressors who maintain influence by fanning the embers of disaffection among the people. Nigeria’s political, economic and social stabilities have continued to be undermined by this intractable phenomenon. The ethno-emotional rhetoric has continued to be antithetical to united front in pragmatic shift to stamp out corruption and political criminality in the national life. It has been working against launch of a transparent, comprehensive, and impartial inquiry into allegations of corruption, terrorism, and vote-rigging, sponsorship of political violence elections and ethno-religious butchery rampant in volatile parts of Nigeria. Nigeria will be secured, become developed to the pride of all as soon as Nigerians are ready.
