The equivalent of war

High rate of unemployment and the general inability of people to fend for themselves have caused people to take to the streets to register their anger at governments in Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Italy, and citizens of other countries are perpetually in a restive mood. The pervasive angst in Europe has woken the European Union—a […]

High rate of unemployment and the general inability of people to fend for themselves have caused people to take to the streets to register their anger at governments in Spain, Greece, Portugal, and Italy, and citizens of other countries are perpetually in a restive mood. The pervasive angst in Europe has woken the European Union—a supra- national body seeking to streamline governance in these countries—to sharply define its raison d’être and taken charge of the direction of Western Europe. With Germany and France leading, the EU has forced change of guards in Italy and Greece replacing democratically elected governments with technocratic but unelected ones.

Now, it should be stated that even hard boiled economists are hard put to it to explain the prostate state Western Europe’s economy has found itself. One fact is however incontrovertible, which is that the financial crisis into which Europe is plunged is a result of many years of living on borrowed money. Governments run perpetually on deficit budget as a result of emphasizing too much on borrowings as against building strong productive bases that are capable of generating the needed wherewithal—in terms of resources to run the economy with. This neglect of the real sector, as economists would put it, is now threatening to turn many of these countries—hitherto exemplars of strong economies—into banana republics, no longer able to pay their ways, thereby forcing their people into the streets picketing the misgovernment of their elected leaders.

What should be underscored here is the replacement of duly elected governments in Italy and Greece and replaced with unelected ones; and all this done with the tacit support, if not command of Germany and France –the two foremost countries in Europe. In Italy Mario Ponti replaced Silvio Bellusconi- a long serving prime minister of Italy, reputed for his philandering preoccupations with women and knack for subverting Italian laws to serve his purposes. A media magnate whose ownership spans newspapers, radio and television, Bellusconi was reputed to have held a romp party with women young enough to be his grand children, making many to think that it was no wonder he forgot his primary assignment of running the Italian economy. Before now, it had been difficult to remove Silvio Bellosconi by the Italian parliament who had been unable to muster the votes to throw him out. In Greece, George Papandreou was also replaced in similar fashion, by a technocrat.

In the two instances, it was easy to throw the niceties of democracy out of the window for something akin to usurpation of power by a supra-national body that imposed its own people on two of its members and surprisingly rather than meeting with disapproval, it was greeted with approbation of both the politicians and the generality of the people in these countries. The impression given was that the demands of economic wellbeing must take precedence over dictates of democratic tenets.  To put it in another sense, observances of rules of democracy should not stand in the way of effort to fight economic adversity. It is like saying the situation on the ground is a moral equivalent of war which justifies the measures taken to solve it.

Of course, many would say there is nothing new in putting economic matters of bread and butter over and above everything else. China chose that path to development by putting a short leash on freedom and democracy while giving economic development a free rein. At about 10 per cent growth rate for the past two decades, China has leap –frogged countries like Japan and Germany, and turned itself into the engine room of the whole world today.

Could there be any lesson in all this in this part of the world and particularly in Nigeria? No one can deny that after over a decade, the much promised democracy dividend has remained a mirage. The political elite has not been able to bring the el Dorado promised and as we all look on, frightening fault lines have developed which hitherto are unheard of. Worsening economic situation has not only thrown many people out of job but also driven them to desperation forcing them to embrace extremist tendencies. Except only for those wishing to bury their heads in the sand like the ostrich, Nigeria is a broken country where armed robbery is now a daily occurrence and bombs go off in our faces; where those paid at exorbitant rate to govern prefer simply to empty the coffers, and damn the consequences.

Meanwhile bleeding hearts among us are forever holding interminable conferences on the state of affairs that so far have helped in no way to find solution to the situation. A few days ago, a former president came out to warn darkly that with the mass of unemployed people that keep growing, there is the likelihood that Nigeria could witness something similar to the Arab spring—the revolution that took place about a year ago which unseated a number of their rulers. Of course, many people may retort that while he was there he had the opportunity of laying down the foundations of growth, and he did very little. But let’s ignore the sanctimonious, self serving implication of his warnings, the fact remains that they may very much become self –fulfilling.