Ending impunity in Nigeria through ‘Social Pact’

However, this article did not assume social pact as stipulated in the corporatist literature for obvious reasons. One of which is the absence of balance of power between state, corporations, labour and civil society groups in Nigeria. Therefore, social pact is applied to suggest a form of social bondage among the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, […]

However, this article did not assume social pact as stipulated in the corporatist literature for obvious reasons. One of which is the absence of balance of power between state, corporations, labour and civil society groups in Nigeria. Therefore, social pact is applied to suggest a form of social bondage among the ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, so as to unravel the centrifugal tendencies that threaten the existence of Nigeria. Thus, social pact from below is privileged against pacts that usually emerge from above through elite machinations.
The fratricidal civil wars that brought Nigeria to a social and political comatose between 1967 and 1970 was addressed by the doctrine of no victor no vanquish, as a way of forging social pacts among the ethnic nationalities. Or what Mamdani reduced to ‘survivors justice’ in the case of south Africa’s’ transition to Democracy in 1991 as a way to reconcile the South African social formation and deracialise its political atmosphere with a view to have a sustainable democracy and combat South Africa’s form of insurgents’ citizenship.
State led social pacts often not succeed because they valorise elite sentiments against the popular sentiments and wishes. Recently, the Nigerian Government was embarking on a centenary celebration to mark Nigeria’s 100 years of existence, as stated by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim in an occasion that  the rationale behind the project was anchored on the need to celebrate Nigeria’s unity and emphasize the imperative of its corporate existence especially given the current wave of ethnic nationalism, regional sentiments, and spate of insecurity that threatened the unity of Nigeria.
Will the euphoria of centenary celebration be a catalyst of addressing our national question or will it be a mere symbolic policy to demonstrate the Government desire towards national unity? In addition to this state based social pact, is the recent attempt at National Dialogue whose agenda is to be determine by the people during the recently held public hearing across the geo-political zones. Nigerians have been enmeshed in several dialogues but it ended being a jamboree, as views expressed by people were either thwarted or treated casually. Will this dialogue be a paradigm shift from the past? Would we have time to subject its deliberation into constitution making?
Previous experiences of Confab in Nigeria indicate that it used to be a forum of provoking more problems than solving them, overheating the polity rather than maintaining calm. Nigerian citizens and mass of the people should be more proactive in strengthening the bond of their relations by insulating themselves from the dubious politics of the elites, whose interest is based on the patronages they can get from the state, as Nigerian state remains the centre of political contestation, as we can see on the on-going alignment of political class expressed in political mergers. People should form the onus of our democracy and pacting, it should be a democracy from the below that could address the existing inequalities and social antagonism among the ethnic nationalities.
The social pact among the Nigerian citizens should be regarded as the masses equivalent of the political merger, it should be based on embedded autonomy, that is the Nigerian ethnic groups are independent from each other, but should be embedded in each other in developmental issues, so ethnic and religious differences should be exploited in areas that could promote development, unity and progress. The social pact reached by Nigerians during the fuel subsidy mass-protest was a watershed of championing a unified form of citizenship across social and political divides.
I borrowed the notion of embedded autonomy from Peter Evans (a great Sociologist) who uses the term to describe the emerging developmental states among the Third World Countries, such as the Newly Industrialised Countries (NIC). For Evans, the state is insulated from patronages’ and rent seeking of  political` elites, while embedding itself with groups that have development initiatives, for Evans, developmental state came to fruition by approximating the Weberian ideal type of bureaucracy which preaches greater insulation of state from vested interest.
Arguing in this context, in most African states the state was ‘captured’ by vested interest therefore development became skewed. Zaire under Maboutu Sesseko was mostly cited as a ‘captured state’ or what Evans called ‘predatory state’. Richard Joseph also described this trend as ‘Prebendal politics’ in his description of state patronages and patrimony that engulfed the Second Republic under Shagari’s administration in Nigeria (1979-1983).
Recent happenings in Nigeria’s political economy, from fuel subsidy fiasco, to pension scam, purchase of Bullet Proof vehicles and the alleged non remittance of substantial oil revenue by the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) to federation account, are clear vindication of a ‘captured state’, which apparently translate into a  wide gap in state society relations. The implication of this is the emergence of various ‘counter movements’ expressed religious, social or ethnic form so as to contest the state primitive accumulation.
As argued by Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim during the Trust annual Dialogue on ending impunity in Nigeria and safeguarding our democracy beyond 2015, he noted that the crucial issue is not the perpetrator of the impunity, but how Nigerians respond to the impunity; he cited the case of how Nigerians defeated the Third Term agenda. As citizens, we should be more active and determine the tune of the game, by forging a mass-based social pact that guarantee our unity and combating the culture of impunity by the political class and state apparatuses. This would help in conditioning the political elites to be more accountable and eschew impunity in governance.
Abdulra’uf wrote from Labour House, Abuja. [email protected]