Ideas, think tanks, public intellectuals in nation building
By Patrick Dele Cole
Sometime in 1972, it dawned on the Federal Government that to meet the promises made by General Gowon that he would hand over to a civilian Government in 1976, the Government that had to solve a number of political problems.
How does the military disengage in politics? What would be the constitution that would govern the new national arrangement? Which political parties?
How should the government be organized to avoid another military incursion in politics? The idea of a diarchy – a mixture of military and civilian government-was that practicable?
How about the clamour for new states; local government reforms and direct Federal funding for that tier of government?
Should Nigeria have a new Federal capital? How can the army be mobbed from over one quarter of a million to about 80,000?
The then Secretary to the Federal Government sent his best permanent secretaries to headhunt Nigerians overseas. I was already a Fellow at Kings College, Cambridge when the call came for me to join others to help with the above tasks; I took a leave of absence in 1973.
By 1974 the outlines of what famously General Murtala Mohammed announced as the 9 point of Political Programme after ousting General Gowon to whom we had submitted as the plan to return to civil rule.
In the Cabinet Office, a think tank was established to deal with these issues. In 1974, Dr. Uma Eleazu joined us: under the general supervision of Abubakar We had an incredible freedom, set up task forces to deal with the various problems enumerated above.
We were determined to restore a sustainable democracy: we bought hundreds of books, read the works of other think tanks throughout the world and crafted our recommendations.
Democracy – a young enticing vigorous child constantly maltreatred, buffeted, bruised, thrown out of the home, yet, even as a vagabond endures, always surviving and charming its traducers to try again and again to reinstate it after each successive coup.
This constant toying and froing deprives democracy of traction. Even so it remains so close to the touch of our leaders that they always pay lip service to it, pretending to worship at its temple and promising its restoration.
Democracy is a demanding allencompassing temptress. Its demands tests approbation rededication to fact. It demands institutions which must be strong and flexible. It demands obedience but also consent.
It demands a watchdog’s consciousness which is sometimes deliberately inconvenient to leaders. It demands institutions – where representatives of the people gather to debate policies.
To survive, there must be another group of people with similar ideas who are opposed to the ruling party and ready to take over from it.
Democracy demands that people be informed of the acts of government through the press and that those in power always be held to account.
These ideas do not sit well with a military government of which we have had too many for too long. If ever or a Helegian theory needed proof, it is in the military/ democracy paradigm.
No sooner a military government takes over than it begins to promise its antithesis that is that the military would hand over to a democratic government. But militarism in government rubs off on the politicians and the only model of rule they want or indeed know is militaristic, authoritarian.
Just listen to your civilian Governors and members of the state and National assemblies!!
The civilian democratic system undergoes an elaborate exchange. Members of the state houses must now all tow the line of the Governor in exchange for lucrative handouts.
The verbal skirmishes in the parliamentary houses are no more than the cork dancing before he mounts a hen, who had been calling the cock’s attention by coquerist songs.
The democratic civilian Governor in fact sees himself as the military Governor. There are no longer party caucus meetings; members of the houses are denied entry to the Governor.
How did we end up here? Most democratic countries have values, democracy being one of them.
The other is a deep belief that the people’s vote should decide which of us is to govern.
The values include having a vigorous opposition whose duty is to catch the government out and show the voters that the Government in power was, to put it mildly, an incompetent biased lemon.
Other Institutions that a functioning democracy has will be an efficient implementation organ – usually the civil service.
The Government in power is to act in such a way that a vigorous private prosperous sector compliments it: after all, someone has to pay taxes for all the above to work.
The nationals of such a nation must see progress in their lifestyle, schools for their children, hospitals and health care for the people, roads and other infrastructure for development, hospitality and entertainment to give the people a feeling of joy and well-being and certainty within a secure nation able to defend itself and its interest wherever threatened.
As Awolowo put it, not just life but life more abundant. Finally, Political parties must exist which can aggregate opinion, recruit practitioners in the enterprise of governance, setting out, amending functioning policies and programmes made to get the franchise to rule.
Everything I have said above bears heavily on ideas. Think thanks, public intellectuals and nation building.
Let me throw a little more light. You cannot form a political party without ideas. Whatever we have in Nigeria today are not political parties. They are special purpose vehicles (SPVs).
If APC and PDP had ideas, I may have missed them and I am sure Dr. Eleazu would agree with me that we old men sometimes forget what we have seen or are confused by them or did not hear well what had been said.
So blame my ignorance on age. There is something called Western values, or United states values and any one from there would talk about democracy as a value; they would expect a long useful life where education is good, good health is cherished and promoted, freedom of worship and belief, freedom of association, right to speak and the establishment of a strong security system to protect these values.
Their political parties are homes of well-funded think tanks, churning out statistics studies, scenarios for all conceivably eventualities.
The Republican and Democratic parties in the United States have these countless think tanks. Some are attached to the universities Kennedy School of Politics, the Hoover institution, the Heritage Foundation, Brooking Institutions and countless others.
The West is seized by fever for knowledge because that in itself is a value. Now says it is data and innovation but underlying all that is a belief that the educated population is a contended population where everyone is allowed to develop to the extent of his potential in a nation that has been built strong and can blow itself and half the world to blazes if unnecessarily provoked.
Because the west has these mechanisms, Russia and China also must have them to protect themselves albeit through very different political structures. But even here the work of think tanks is even more pivotal and crucial.
What are Nigeria’s values? When I hear that Dangote is building the world’s largest refinery, that between him and BUA they produce half of Africa‘s cement, my heart swells up that these are things Nigerians can produce.
I am happy to be a Nigerian but not all Nigerians are happy. When Amunike scored a goal, it was for Nigeria.
But why do we not excel in other sports?? The Ibo is seen as extraordinarily good in business.
He has long transport routes (now reduced by armed robbers), he is good at electronics, spare parts and building luxury houses in Lekki, Festac, Abuja, Port Harcourt, etc.
He is an aggressive, ambitious and achieving businessman. He seems to have social structures that encourage enterprises. So also has Hausa Fulani as shown by Dangote, Ismaila, Rabiu, Funtua, etc.
The Hausa Fulani are courteous, helpfully and I would not be who I am today if help had not come from the Northerners.
Again, I asked, when bandits capture school girls in Chibok and Dapchi, are you enraged that these are Nigerian girls to be molested as play things by a terrorist organisation? Do you feel personally violated?
What kind of ethics do we teach in school? In the West there is the concept of fair play? Do we have it enough in Nigeria or is every issue politicized along tribal lives?
The US constitution starts with a preamble (which we copied) that all man are created equal, have an inherent right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness: that all man are equal under law; no one is above the law.
These same precepts are in our constitution but do they hold? When George Floyd died by a white policeman choking him with his knee on his cortarouid vein.
There were protest all over the US and other parts of the West. George Floyd was a black man but the protests which had lasted for 8 months was made up all shades of people, in fact, mostly white. I did not see too much of a protest against Chibok and Dapeli.
The Northerners are diplomatic, respectful but they are great money changers often out performing calculators.
There are values that we could find among the Ijaw, the Ibibio, the Itesekiri, the Urhobo, and the Yoruba.
Perhaps this is a job for think tanks collating our values and finding glue to them to make them Nigeria’s values.
I acknowledge that ambition is strong in all Nigerians. Nigerians want to succeed and would do anything to success. Walk across Sahara , enter a dingy to get to Europe, manufacture documents to get to the United States, go to work in South Africa, UAE , Lebanon, Belgium , France, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Japan, Iceland, etc. Even the excessive spirituality among our fundamentalist Christians and Moslems.
(Who am I to doubt the depth of their sincerity?) Is it fired by ambition? But there seems to be a transitional relationship in the zeal and piety of the worshippers who call on Holy Ghost fire to destroy their enemies and swear haram to all unbelievers: all these people are all waiting and praying for their epiphany.
There must be some more good that can come from this desperate devotion. When people see that the president appointments have been a little one sided I believe protests are in order, but it should be protest by all including those from the area favoured.
No Yoruba man should be happy if 70% of the federal and Supreme Court appointments are Yoruba. He should protest against such deviancy.
The greatest good is a contented people. If the head of the army, Navy, Police, Immigration and Customs were all Ijaws appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan, I and a whole lot of Ijaws would protest.
A think tank can look into the functioning of the Political Parties, how policy is formulated and how to implement them.
Chief Awolowo was a Political genius – he saw that education was the most important tool of all development and started free primary education in Western Nigeria and that gap has never been filled.
He wanted to give Nigerians a joyous life, a life of more abundance: a feel good enhancement.
If you have the above, the blocks of your national building are there. In fact, they are their now but we pretend to be blind. Our constitution entrenched federal character, that you must resign your post if you leave your political party- Do we expect God to come show us the light and the people will find the way?
If it seems that Nigeria launches from one catastrophe to another it is probable because there are no think tanks.
Ideas move policy: policies move a nation: clarity solidifies a nation. Invertirate adhocism spells doom.
We need think tanks on the future and price of oil and indeed all our agriculture products (compare with the Falconi Institute in Israel); what would be the position of oil and coal in the energy sector in the next decade or two when electric cars, electric truck, electric trains are finally launched? Will Nigeria ever have had a steel industry?
If so to do what? If not what are the implications of not having steel? We have tried to have a steel industry since 1978; we have failed for 42 years.
We tried Aluminum and paper. We failed. What is the blueprint for growing our economy? It cannot be on the price of oil: what innovation have we brought into this most crucial of Nigeria’s lives?
We have not but does that mean we cannot? If NNPC is notoriously expensive to run, what should we do?
Suppose we had a study group to cut NNPC costs by say 30%. Have these questions ever been asked? Inflation is rated at 13% at the moment. Can it not be reduced to what is average in the rest of the prosperous world to below 3%. Have these question ever been asked?
What are the values of Nigeria? How do you stamp these values into the Nigeria psyche and use these for development and progress? It is good to have over 100 universities in Nigeria. But to what purpose?
Are they the spigot of ideas which become useful in industry, commerce, science, etc.? What arrangements have been made for the hundreds of thousands of graduates produced?
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A sea of unemployed graduates is a certainty for political instability. If we had a think tank to which Government listens to, we would never have closed our borders.
Whoever does that when there is no state of war? If Nigeria had an appropriate thinking machine and implementation ability, we would not be flaring gas since 1960.
When the rest of the world woke up to the importance of gas, we abandoned our refineries- all not working despite the fact that they could produce substantial gas. We jumped on the bandwagon of fueling our cars in Nigeria from using petrol and diesel to using gas, whose conversion the Government promised would be free and now changed its mind to charging N250, 000 per conversion.
What kind of drunkards do we have deciding our policies? In the South South, Warri, Sapele, Burutu, Ports do not work. Warri refinery does not work. The Warri airport is sold and then closed. There are no good roads in South South. What message is being sent to the indigenes of South South?
