At fix politics conference, stakeholders identify, proffer solution to Nigeria’s political crisis

By Ihesiulo Grace 23 February 2020 27 No comment

Last week Monday is one day that will remain evergreen in the minds of many Nigerians, especially those who put a high premium on developing a political system that will not only be workable for the Nigerian political system and possibly peculiar to the nation’s diverse cultural and political divide, but will also be acceptable as credible alternative by the international community.

It was a day that politicians, political scholars, leaders of non-governmental organisations with focus on nation building and members of the international community, even from the disapora came together to brainstorm on how to birth a new and workable political system that can take Nigeria out of its present political quagmire.

The gathering was at the instance of Nigeria’s former Minister for Education and 2019 presidential candidate, Oby Ezekwesili and had in attendance many political heavyweights and scholars in politics, including political economist Prof. Pat Utomi, former minister of Information,

Mr. Frank Nweke Jnr, former Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, now Chairman, House Committee on Judiciary in the House of Representatives, Anofiok Akpan Luke, Johann Lambsdorff, who is a Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Passau, Germany among many others.

The event was a two day conference titled: #Fix Politics, changing politics structurally for Africa’s prosperity and was an initiative of Ezekwesili and the Robert Bosch Academy and held at the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.

It was also an opportunity for Oby Ezekwesili to present her recent research work focusing on the nation’s political struggle and how to possibly address it towards birthing a Nigeria that works for everyone.

Ezekwesili reasoned that part of the reasons for leadership failure and stagnation which the country has faced over the years was the inherent monopoly in the political system by few individuals and groups and canvassed active participation of citizenry in the electoral process for a change.

Using basic economics to analyse the Nigerian political system, the former Education Minister noted that in the economic context, choosing one brand of product or service out of the range of options available is a function of the degree of competition (e.g. substitutes) that exists in the market for that particular good or service.

“In the economic context the degree of competition in the market describes the type of market a product or service is said to offer the buyers. The degree of competition determines the quality, the price, the scale of value to the buyer and the size of profits to the sellers.”

Juxtaposing that with the political system, she ask, “How can we refer to a Democracy in which there are several political parties and diverse politicians seeking to vie for elective offices from the local to nation, from legislative to executive as a monopoly?

“It is the characteristics of the product the political class supply that is more relevant than their number.

“Although the politicians may be many and are members of different parties, their dominant political culture is the same,” she said.

According to her, the people must realise the power they have over those that hold political offices through election and be ready to use such powers to their advantage if the system was to change, “Elections and other political processes are pivotal to the quality of a country’s governance and can either advance or stagnate or decline the short, medium and long term prospects of a people.

“All citizens in a democracy who qualify to select those that govern their society are inherent possessors of Political Power.

“Election in a democracy is the means of competition that enables people to choose their candidates or make preferences among options, individuals who wish to be handed the Political Power that belongs to the People.

“The Political Power that citizens hand to those they elect is a delegated authority which they must have to legitimately make decisions that will produce outcomes which are favorable to the collective welfare of society.

“Political Power by those elected ought to produce public goods and services that improve the well-being of those that delegated authority to them,” she said.

Adding, “Nigeria’s monopoly democracy has no incentive to yield the distortionary damage it does to governance.

“In the absence of an effective regulatory system to reduce the powers of the monopoly, a few citizens can step up and take responsibility for correcting the distortion in the political system.”

It is her contention that the problems in the nation’s political environment were exacerbated by “The failure of the independence nationalists to at the end of colonial governance, discuss and peacefully agree their self-negotiated terms for shared values and uniﬁed vision of nationhood.

“So Nigeria emerged, made up of people who had nothing in common. There was no common identifying point of reference beyond the colonial power’s administrative convenience.

“As Europe got mired in its own internal rivalry and war among the key countries and began paying less attention to its colonies in Africa, the fervor of nationalistic self-determination grew on the continent.

“The absence of and emergence of an agreed framework of a minimum Common Identity as a “New Nation” of multi-ethnic, multi-religious multi-cultural and multi-lingual diversity of people who have negotiated the basis for Unity.”

She reasoned that some errors at the nation’s formative years and the failures left by those who ought to know but failed to act still haunt the country and its people up until today.

Those failures she said includes, “The failure of the independence nationalists to at the end of colonial governance, discuss and peacefully agree their self-negotiated terms for shared values and unified vision of Nationhood.

She therefore noted that “It is evident that the country formation process haunts Nigeria. It is evident that the country to nation transition gap haunts Nigeria.

“It is evident that military interruptions of Democracy six years after independence in the first coup of 1966 and intermittently until 1999 transition to civilian government structurally undermined the evolution of institutions, principles and values that fundamentally underpin Functional Democracies.

“It is evident that the failure of Nigeria 60 years after independence to translate its legendary endowments in natural, human and geographic resources to Economic Prosperity and Stability is because of these many structural issues of governance of the territory and people.

“It is evident that Nigeria and Nigerians are structurally stuck in a low level equilibrium trap from which they must escape urgently to avoid imminent implosion.”

In his keynote address, Johann Lambsdorff, who is a Professor of Economic Theory at the University of Passau, Germany, said it was imperative that citizens take more active roles, interest in the emergence of political leadership.

Lambsdorff, noted that it was crucial that in tackling graft and sanitising the political system, citizens must put trust in their leaders rather than institutions which could be manipulated and compromised.

Speaking with journalists at the sideline of the event, Utomi noted that “Our democracy is considered a valuable tool for economic growth, development of social harmony and all of that essentially because of one of its most important attributes, which is a rational public conversation.

“The thinker that is most closely identified with this subject is a German philosopher called Jürgen Habermas who is spending his later years now at Harvard. His thesis is very simple and very correct.

Democracies are able to solve problems because citizens can rationally raise issues, converse amongst themselves and find them and find an optimal solution.

“In Nigeria, that is unlikely to take place because we have a terrible thing that has happened to us, where any view that is not a ‘kabiyesi, we love you’ view is taken on by public officials.

“I was hoping that this law or bill on social media would be passed, because people in government now when they leave office, they would be sent to death because they are the biggest sponsors of fake news against people whose views don’t carry a ‘kabiyesi’ view.

“Democracy cannot make progress without rational public conversation. That way we can learn collectively, and the common good is advanced.

“The thesis that Oby Ezekwesili has just advanced, which is, in theory, the thesis of monopoly democracy is exactly the point I was making. When you have that mindset of only one perspective, you can’t make progress.

“Monopoly capitalism never results in innovation and growth, that is why countries like the United States have anti-trust laws to prevent monopoly. What has happened is that we have multiple monopolies in Nigeria.

“We have monopoly capitalism layered on top of monopoly politics, so the country is not making any progress, because a few people have captured the Nigerian state as politicians and as business people and innovation does not take place in that situation.

“Nigeria is at the bottom of the innovation index, even on the continent of Africa. In most indicators around human progress, Nigeria is at the bottom.

Why are we that way? It’s because our politics is monopoly politics, and our business has to align with whatever politicians are dominant at this moment.

“Of course, we know that we don’t have a democracy because I can argue and show evidence that no election has been won in this country since 1999 without fraud. So we have a crisis as a country and we have to determine how to start.

“My new thesis is that we have a moral majority, which has just kept quiet and is watching, and an immoral minority took over this country and are holding all of us hostage and we see the outcome is violence everywhere, we see it in lack of economic progress everywhere.

“Nigerian people must take their country back as a moral majority and prevent this immoral minority from keeping all of us down.”

According to him Nigerian politicians are not open to other ideas, “it is a closed system. Even as a member of the so-called leading political party in the country, I consistently went to the leaders of the party to say ‘look let us bring our people together and educate them,

the policies are killing our country’ they are saying ‘hold on, there is no money’. What else are you going to do? They are just impervious to ideas that would bring the country to change and progress.

He argues that the only way the people can regain the country from their oppressors is for the moral majority to get up and take back its power “I have said it repeatedly that I don’t mind if three hundred thousand Nigerians mass up in front of Aso Rock, in front of the National Assembly every day for six weeks, things will change.”

In the view of Frank Nweke Jnr, all hands must be on deck to achieve a new Nigeria, arguing that, “The crisis in Nigeria requires a concerted effort by all well meaning Nigerians to address, this is because the problem dates back to many administrations

and can really not be blamed on the current government even though they have not done enough to tackle it, but it is really a challenge for all of us and we have to be up and doing if we really want a change.”

However, for former Rt. Hon. Inofiok Akpan Luke, experience has shown him that many Nigerians are really not in tune with the new dawn that is being sought as they are satisfied with the peacemeal that falls to their hands, arguing that efforts must be put in place to re-orient them for a changed mindset.

“From experience, I have discovered that a lot needs to be done in addressing the nation’s political challenges through continuous education of the electorates.

“As a representative of the people you may go out of your way to sponsor bills and attract developmental projects to your constituency, but that may not be of interest to them until you are able to meet their personal needs and on a regular basis, we cannot grow like this,” he said.

While many agree with the various submissions at the event, some are however of the opinion that the reason many Nigerians are not too excited about theories like this is because of the poverty level and hunger in the land, insisting that unless something is done and quickly too about the level of poverty, politicians will always get the people to do their bidding by the simple provision of stomach infrastructure at election time.

Quote

Monopoly capitalism never results in innovation and growth, that is why countries like the United States have anti-trust laws to prevent monopoly. What has happened is that we have multiple monopolies in Nigeria. We have monopoly capitalism layered on top of monopoly politics, so the country is not making any progress, because a few people have captured the Nigerian state as politicians and as business people and innovation does not take place in that situation.