Is Nigeria beyond redemption? Reflection on the state of the nation (III)

“For let the truth be spoken”, Joseph Conrad   In my piece titled “The Lethargy of the Oppressed”, previously published in this column, I reflected on the character of our citizens that have proved detrimental and even injurious to the construction of a progressive and respectable nation. I discussed the pitfalls of our character as […]

“For let the truth be spoken”, Joseph Conrad

 

In my piece titled “The Lethargy of the Oppressed”, previously published in this column, I reflected on the character of our citizens that have proved detrimental and even injurious to the construction of a progressive and respectable nation. I discussed the pitfalls of our character as a nation that did not in any way improve our capacity to enjoy the bounties of democracy or the the blessings of civil society. I noted the backward and retrogressive aspects of our sentiments and cultures, that did not allow us to construct a national edifice based on rationality and the conscious delivery of justice and good governance as our natural inheritance and collective entitlement.

I also highlighted aspects of democracy from a utilitarian perspective in my article “What Democracy Means to Me”, in order to show that it is not simply about sloganeering or the frequency of elections that are held in a country, but the delivery of social goods and justice. In our particular situation, some home truths will need to be told regarding the relevance of democracy itself in the scheme of things in Nigeria, and the role of our political parties in particular in the development of consciousness towards the fulfillment of duties required to construct a sound and lasting national edifice.

As a country, we have been left devoid of any concrete guiding ideology of national renewal apart from the sloganeering of political parties that are ephemeral, inconsequential and insubstantial in their outlooks and goals. Without any grand national projects to conceive and no particular objectives to achieve other than capturing power and coming into office, the relevance of political parties ends after every round of elections. The purposes for which power is obtained are perceived with indifference while it is pursued with reckless abandon and desperate energy, testifying to the utilitarian and self-preserving instinct of the so-called political class, that is neither a class nor a politically indoctrinated group, but a cluster of individuals pursuing their interests around the semblance of a democratic order that is neither fulfilling nor edifying to the larger idea of the nation or the collective advancement of the people.

Every boundary of good taste and decorum is crossed while nothing sacred or profane is respected. Political parties have no ethics, ethos or principles to uphold and propagate, but only a semblance of responsibility that has little to do with the national collective and its advancement along the paths of greatness and respectability. They manipulate both sacred and profane ideas alike with equal abandon and recklessness, be it around religious identities or constitutional arrangements of the country without helping to contribute to the construction of national edifices and institutions of repute. The operators or manipulators as the case may be of the system, posing as “servants” of the people, have extended their grips on power and the sentiments of the populace, to perpetuate their inordinate ambitions of remaining in the positions of privileges that they have carved out for themselves. In the furtherance of their objectives, they know no bounds of propriety or good taste, or the limits of controversies to be respected, that could likely injure the prospects of the country’s unity and stability.

It is the same factor that led to the demise of the First Republic. The results of the 1959 national population census declared the Northern Region as having the largest population size with 29 million people. That was bitterly contested by the Southern political parties and establishments along partisan and ethnic lines. That led to serious problems and the subsequent demise of the First Republic. The subsequent collapse of the coalition that ruled the country in 1960 was a huge blow to the civil democratic space in Nigeria. The Northern People’s Congress (NPC) which controlled the Northern Region, and the National Council for Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) which controlled the Eastern Region, were in a coalition that formed the government. The NPC was so dominant that it did not seek to form political alliances with other parties. It had a majority control in the Federal Executive and Legislature owing to the population size of the North.

The NCNC although not in coalition with the Action Group (AG), was popular in the West and also exerted dominance in the Eastern Region. The Action Group which controlled the Western Region was in the opposition at the federal level. It had entered into coalition arrangements with smaller political parties in the West and also with the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) led by Mr. Joseph Tarka. The UMBC was formed after the transformation of the Northern Nigerian Non-Muslim League (NNNML) into the Middle Zone League (MZL) which merged with the Middle Belt People’s Party (MBPP) in June 1955 to form the UMBC. These actions were encouraged and supported openly by the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) led by Mallam Aminu Kano.

NEPU itself emerged as an opposing party fighting against the Northern traditional establishment and the predominance of the NPC in the region. It had closer working relationship with the smaller parties of the North, such as the UMBC and the Borno Youth Movement (BYM) led by Mallam Ibrahim Imam, the Ilorin Parapo (IP) and the Ilorin Tanaka Parapo (ITP) whose factions were alternately led by Alhaji Busari Isale Oja and Moyito whose outlooks were essentially similar to NEPU’s in their attachment to the anit-establishment sentiments. NEPU also had close ideological affinity with the NCNC, leading it to form an alliance of convenience in fighting against the NPC in the North.

The Second Republic was ushered in by the process of disengagement of the military from government and politics. In July 1978, the then military government declared the commencement of the process by redeploying military governors and federal commissioners to purely military responsibilities. In August 1978, a draft National Constitution was presented to the Supreme Military Council (SMC) and in September the National Constituent Assembly was formally dissolved after completing its assignment. On 1st October, 1979, the “Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979” came into force. The Presidential system of government with a Bicameral National Assembly was chosen for Nigeria.

In September 1978, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), the National People’s Party (NPP), the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), the National Advance Party (NAP), the Nigerian National Congress (NNC), the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), the Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP) and other political parties emerged to contest the forthcoming general elections in 1979. In the said elections, the presidential leg was won by the NPN’s Alhaji Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari, who subsequently formed the government at the center. The results that were declared showed the following outcomes:

NPN – 5,698,857 votes

UPN – 4,916,651 votes

NPP – 2,822,523 votes

PRP – 1,732,113

GNPP – 1,686,489.

In the ensuing struggle for power, the other parties rejected the results outright. The leader of the UPN, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, challenged the results in the courts. He was joined in the action by Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim of the GNPP, thereby tacitly conveying a sense of alliance or convergence of options between the UPN and the GNPP. Along the line, fictionalisation and alliance building became a norm in the national politics, leading to rearrangement of convenience and objectives towards formation of governments at the center and in the states.

The GNPP government in Borno for instance, under Governor Muhammad Goni, went along with the UPN by aligning closely with the Lateef Jakande-led government of Lagos. In the same vein, the PRP Governors of Kano and Kaduna rebelled against the party’s rule and aligned themselves with the UPN and created the “Tabo” and Tsantsi” factions in these two states. The Second Republic continued to be mired in controversy until the second term elections in 1983. Subsequently, in 1984, the Military struck once more and terminated that phase in Nigeria’s democratic transition.