3rd January, 2019
By: Amir Abdulazeez
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he death of Nigeria’s first executive and only Second
Republic President, Alhaji Shehu Aliyu Shagari, GCFR few days
ago, have taken many of us back into the history books and archives to refresh
ourselves on events that shaped and defined the life, administration and other
issues related to the ex-president. With the death of Chief Alex Ekwueme,
Shagari’s Deputy last year and the man himself as well as many others before
them like Ummaru Dikko, the major and leading stakeholders of the Second
Republic are all but gone.
One of yesterday’s main men who is also a leading Second
Republic political figure, now a nonagenarian and still alive, Alhaji Tanko
Yakasai was once reported to have said that all the current Nigeria’s political
and socio-economic problems have their genesis from the 1983 coup, a coup that
didn’t only toppled President Shagari but truncated democratic rule that was
just over four years old, established after about 14 years of military dictatorship.
One may easily dismiss Alhaji Yakasai’s claims as
those of someone who was a personal victim of the coup, however probing further;
there is a lot of substance in it. One, Nigeria was never better off in the
long run after the coup. In fact what is happening today is far worse than what
hypothetically led to the coup. General Muhammadu Buhari who took over may have
made visible significant attempts towards stabilizing the situation in bis own
way, but generally speaking, the post-coup era which ushered in the military
quartet of Buhari himself, Babangida, Abacha and Abdussalmi never made the
nation better than the pre-coup era.
Secondly, history has shown that democracy is about learning
and maturing over time. Truncating it after six years like in 1966 and after
just four like in 1983 denied it of the adequate time and opportunity it
required to thrive. Many have argued that the problems of democracy can only be
solved by more democracy. The inadequacies we are seeing in our polity today
would all have been experienced, solved and learned from thirty five years ago
and today we will only need to be reflecting and reaping from the benefits of
the past experience, if democracy had been allowed to thrive.
The year 2019 is significant in different respects; it
is not only an election year, it represents a democratic milestone of 20
uninterrupted years that had witnessed five (and potentially six in few weeks)
elections that ensured power changed hands between civilians. By African
standards, this is a big reason to be hopeful, for if this can be sustained,
our challenges would be overcome in due course.
From the general break down of internal security to
territorial defence threats, massive corruption to electoral fraud, unprecedented
poverty to social challenges, the journey has been very turbulent from 1999 to
date. Nonetheless, the solutions are still within if the system and process can
be sustained and improved with deliberate attempts through policies and reforms
sincerely, consistently and diligently implemented while also doing away with
the one-step-forward and two-steps-backward disease that have been bedevilling
us over the years.
For example, in due course every region, tribe and
religion will get the adequate opportunity to rule. No region will rule or call
the shots forever just like none will remain marginalized till eternity. No one
thought in the near future, a minority like Dr. Goodluck Jonathan will defy all
odds to emerge and remain president. Therefore, a time will come when all
regions must have ruled and people will realize that all that matters is good
governance and not who the governor is. This is evident from the fact that
Nigeria’s current president and commander in chief is from the North, about 90%
of the heads of the nation’s security and para-security architecture he
appointed are northerners, but the region is now the insecurity capital of West
Africa or perhaps the whole of Africa.
Despite having enough dose of it, democracy alone even
if sustained is not going to solve our problem. It must be accompanied with
many conscious and deliberate efforts. The attention is traditionally always
towards government, but the truth is that the bulk of development worldwide has
never directly come from government. In fact, relying on government for
development is a major sign of underdevelopment. Looking up to government for
everything only breeds the culture of irresponsibility. The ingenuity of a people
is what moves a society forward.
One thing we need to address moving forward is the
love for easy wealth and the shortcut to success syndrome prevalent among the
current generation of Nigerians. Conservatively, three out of every four Nigerians
do not only see money and wealth as the only guaranteed ticket to success or as
the only true accomplishment, but want to acquire it easily and effortlessly.
With this, the corruption mentality is always at its default settings, especially
among our youths. This is why corruption does not only remain our way of life,
but corrupt people remain our role models. Until and unless, we can build a
society which there is a limit to what money can get you and what lack of it
can deprive you, we can only dream of progress.
Some
other things democracy cannot guarantee you are unity and cohesion. It may give
you opportunity to establish unity of purpose among yourselves if you sincerely
wish to, but cannot guarantee you anything. It is year 2019, 105 years after
amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates and almost 60 years after
independence, but to be a detribalized Nigerian is still a virtue. When notable
Nigerians pass away, you will hear their eulogizers praising them as ‘detribalized’
as one of their top virtues. Is this not a huge minus in a century which there is probably no reasonable
society left (except may be us) whose aspiration is to build a nation populated
by people of the same ethnic group or religion only?
Democracy can only work when you allow it. Therefore,
it cannot stop you from rendering it useless or helpless. It is quite
surprising how average Nigerians have overestimated the relevance and power of
the Permanent Voters Card (PVC). This is why they have an illusionary feeling
that they can vote anybody out during elections. The truth is that our political
process and parties have worked very hard to limit our electoral options. We
have limited or no power over our choices and hence we are always left with bad
options to choose from most of the time. As long as Nigerians will not summon
the courage and wherewithal to back smaller parties and facilitate citizen’s candidacy,
outrightly voting out nonperforming politicians and replacing them with
competent ones will remain a mirage.
In all these, one last thing we have and must hold on
dearly to is hope. Our current crop of leaders and stakeholders at various
levels and capacities must do their best to make sure that citizens still have
hope. If they can’t transform hope into substance, they must work hard not to
kill it. This is not going to happen by allowing (under whatever guise) our
universities to remain closed for over 50 days now or at any other time in the
future. I don’t think even countries at war like Syria or those frequently
under the threat of natural disasters like Indonesia will afford to keep their
apex institutions of learning closed for reasons that are simply avoidable and then
resort to blame trading in place of collectively addressing the problem.
In their different New Year messages, Nigerian past
and present leaders have in various words and contexts encouraged us to remain
hopeful, positive and optimistic. This is even when signs on ground and the
realities facing us calls for so much pessimism and hopelessness. Within these
few weeks of festivities, I had to personally counsel many young Nigerians to
not give up and keep their hopes for a better country alive, even if I myself don’t
have much of that hope left inside me. In a country where a huge scandal like that
which exposed a state governor on video allegedly receiving bribe in dollars can
disappear into thin air within weeks, how can you convince yourself and others
to remain optimistic? All
2019 prophecies notwithstanding, I’ll go with our
elders who will say, hope is the only reason why we are still alive.
Twitter:
@AmirAbdulazeez
