Nigeria today is trapped in the cusps of protests and agitations,
sometimes violent and sometimes peaceful. It is arguable that, perhaps except
in the heyday of Abacha’s brutal military dictatorship, Nigeria has never faced
this degree of militant opposition against it by its citizens and citizens
groups. Different social and political groups are challenging the legitimacy and
utility of the Nigerian state. It is ok to argue that there are violent
challenges against the liberal concept of the nation-state across the world so
Nigeria’s present predicament should not be exaggerated. But the point is that
Nigeria’s crisis today is different and aggravated because it tugs at different
points of nationhood. It is not just a crisis of leadership. It is not just a
crisis of institutional legitimacy. It is also a crisis of identity and
survival, not just of the entity itself but also of the people who seemed
trapped in the malfunctioning balloon.
Anyhow we conceive the
various crises afflicting Nigeria today we need to a matter of urgency develop
a strategy of containment in the short time and of resolution, in the long
term. Nigeria needs to wake up to the fact that the present crisis is not completely
deja vu. We have seen crisis in the past, but not exactly of this nature and
this magnitude. Therefore, we need to awake to the fact that our repertoire of
institutional practices for crisis management may be inadequate for this crisis
and needs retooling. As the Marine Manual of Warfighting cautions, we should
not base strategic action on the routine. Rather we should base it on awareness
of how the environment is changing.
The present crisis is
made more pernicious because of the extent that the Nigerian state has lost
legitimacy and trust. Political authority is usually based on one form of
legitimacy or the other. If the state has a monopoly of violence in a given
territory as Max Weber famously observed, it is because it has secured the
trust and faith of majority of the people. Contrariwise, the Nigerian state has
lost tremendous trust and faith, especially under the present government that
has, perhaps, unwittingly, promoted a divisive and disarticulate leadership has
deepened the communication gulf between the people and the state.
So, in today’s Nigeria,
the government is largely mute and incapacitated. The Nigerian government
suffers a communication problem. It cannot speak to the concern of its
citizens. This inarticulacy is further caused by its conservatism. Take for
example, the growing determination of the Nigerian people to rethink the
foundational basis of statehood, whether in form of restructuring or
referendum. Whilst the clamor for restructuring and referendum is growing like
wildfire, the government is playing deaf-and-dumb because of the strategic
commitments of the managers of the state to the status quo. In fact, many of
them are speaking above or below the heads of their citizens who are engaged in
frenetic and existentialist soliloquies about the identity and utility of the
Nigerian state.
As days wear on the
crisis of legitimacy and utility of the Nigerian state complicates. The centers
of agitations spread so fast. During the Jonathan administration challenges
against the legitimacy and utility of the state was restricted to the northeast
of Nigeria. Early in the Buhari administration it spreads to the Niger Delta
even as the Northeast experienced some respite. Today, we have multiple centers
of challenge across the entire geography of Nigeria. Southeasterners are
challenging the legitimacy of the Nigerian state and demanding either
dissolution or a fundamental renegotiation. The southwest would require a new
Nigeria that either reverts to the pre1963 constitutional order or a clear
confederacy. The Niger Delta militants and political nationalists are still
demanding for resource control, which is a pseudonym for regionalism and
confederacy. Northcentral has been the site of horrid violence instigated by
alleged quest for fiefdom by the privileged Fulani.
We never had it this
bad. The highpoint of this is the quit notice issued by some coalition of
so-called northern youths on Igbos living in northern Nigeria. That quit-notice
characterizes the new criminal brigandage at the heart of the present political
disorder. Add to that this unjustified and unconstitutional military annexation
of the southeast and the state murder of innocent and not-so-innocent citizens.
These challenges pose
severe problem for public leadership in Nigeria. The prospect of mass violence,
of the magnitude that built up to the civil war, means that Nigeria must act
quick to solve these issues behind the challenges in the medium to long term;
and in the short time, develop framework for managing and containing them. Such
a framework requires a strategic rethinking of the fundamental assumptions
about the Nigerian state.
Distinguishing the Substantive from the Procedural:
Managing the spate of
agitations and protests against the Nigerian state requires distinguishing
between substantive and procedural issues. There are substantive issues to
resolve. These include ethnicity, citizenship, religious freedom and revenue
sharing. But there are also procedural issues, which relate to the framework
for managing the inevitable crises arising from the failure to tackle the
substantive issues.
The present crisis is a
mutation of the past crises. Nigeria has refused to confront frontally, and
resolve definitively, the crisis of nationality. This crisis consists in one
simple problematic: should Nigeria be a modern civic and democratic state built
on the foundation of a single and robust citizenship; or should Nigeria be a
multiethnic and religious state that accommodates different citizenships based
on religion and ethnicity. At the eve of its independence Nigeria,
unconvincingly and reluctantly ‘voted’ to be a feudal, multiethnic and
multi-religious state. Ever since Nigeria has been fending off rebuttals of
this error and has been refusing to reverse itself.
But the battle has come
to a head. Nigeria must revise itself in a fundamental sense and recreate
itself in such a way that it can reinvest itself with legitimacy and trust. But
Nigeria’s peculiar political institutional set-up may mean that this crisis
will not be resolved as quickly as desirable. So, we can bet that these
protests and agitations will continue.
This paper will focus on
the procedural framework because it provides the holding environment to tackle
the substantive issues. Therefore, the urgent task is to create procedural
safeguard for the Nigerian state as it struggles to resolve its existentialist
challenges.
The Reality of Dissent:
The first pillar of the
procedural framework is a mindset change. Government’s capacity to effectively
manage the ongoing agitations and protests will depend on its ability to switch
paradigm. First, it must acknowledge the reality of dissent. We now live in a
world of empowered bitterness. Globalization has built expectations of good
governance, social welfare and dignity for everyone everywhere. But our
politics and policies have lagged behind our promises. So, there is so much
resentment.
In Nigeria, this is more
so as we have woefully failed to produce even the most basic social and
physical goods. Unemployment is now a scourge, a pandemic that threatens to
overthrow the social order. Yet, the politics of ethnic and elite competition
for power ensures we cannot step up to the quality of leadership required to
mobilize towards the right direction and the right action.
Nigeria’s autocratic and
conservative leadership has been dealt a big blow by the invasion of new media.
It has empowered bitterness against the state. We can afford to discountenance
an irritating complaint in Kaura Namoda or Agatu when it has no means of
speaking to other complaining voices across the country. But now with a laptop and
a cheap data plan that voice can rally a million other voices to trouble the
diffident and arrogant state. So, the game has changed. The Nigerian state, nay
any modern state, is no longer a sovereign that can afford to disregard the
people’s voices and have a good night sleep. The new media has significantly
scrambled the Westphalia and the Sultanate state models. Today’s state now must
negotiate its legitimacy and existence daily by paying attention.
The wisdom is that a
focus on law and order state is a huge mistake. Dissent will continue to be
part of the modern state until it is able to align expectations and results.
And this will not happen soon. The new mindset is to acknowledge that we will
now live with the reality of dissent by most of our citizens. This enables us
to substitute exasperation and coercion with anticipation and cajolery.
The Contending Versions of Government:
The Contending Versions of Government:
The reality of dissent
and the ubiquity of the empowered bitter citizens throw up the challenge of how
government should respond to agitations and protests. Government has a
self-image, which determines its response to crisis of governance. For too long
Nigerian governments have regard themselves as a coercive and prescriptive
state that directs and commands, rather than a mobilizing and persuading state
nudging citizens to a desired direction. This image relates to the concept of
‘governmentality’ rather than ‘governance’ as the modus operandi of the public
sector.
As an adviser at the
foreign affairs ministry I saw this model in operation. Whenever issues of
state policy is to be determined you see an exclusive focus on getting the top
guns of the military and paramilitary agencies to the table. No one remembers
the members of the epistemic and civil society groups who may possess more and
better knowledge on the issue. That is the idea of ‘governmentality’. It
believes that only official institutions that have stakes in managing public
interest. It is this same mindset that encourages the Nigerian security
institutions to shut itself away from meaningful engagement with the civic
community because security is a business for officialdom only. Elsewhere in the
world, governance has moved beyond officialdom and government work together
with civic communities in a cooperative search for security and development. In
those places the state has been civilianized.
Changing the DNA of the State Institution:
We cannot effectively
manage agitations and protests if we don’t civilize the DNA of state
institutions in Nigeria. One of the enduring legacies of colonialism is the
pathological constitution of state institution with logic of repressing the
people. So, in spite of the many welfare and infrastructural challenges of the
Nigerian Police, its central problem remains that its DNA is wired as a
colonial force to repress restive natives. Up till now the police continues to
see itself as an instrument of the ruling class or ruling government to
brutalize the people if they challenge the order.
This sort of policing
will not work in today’s world. Clearly, the policing institutions lack the
capacity to stop-and-smash at will. Insurgents and sundry rebels have capacity
to hit and run in an asymmetrical war. Again, dissent is now virulent so
maintaining the colonial legacy would mean a totally illegitimate state. And in
a situation of underwhelming state power instability will be the order of the
day. So, it is in the best interest of the state to move away from the response
suggested by the DNA of repression.
Take for example, the
unprovoked killing of activists of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) who
were rallying in Port Harcourt to celebrate the election of Trump as President
of the USA. Even as the celebration of Trump’s election may be senseless the
repression of the rally is provoking and needless. It proceeds from the error
that whatever roils the emotion of those in power deserves to be clamped down.
As we build up to a
possible solution of the substantive issues of citizenship, nationality and
development in Nigeria we would need a new normative framework for management
of dissent and disagreements in the polity. At the foundation of this new
institutional personality would be security institutions that conceive
themselves as providers of public security and not enforcers of elitist preferences
and convenience.
The Imperative of Rule of Law (Human Rights):
The Nigerian security
agencies have terrible human rights record. This stretches from military to
civilian administrations. Under Abacha the security agencies became Gestapo and
henchmen, killing and maiming anyone who spoke up or marched against the puny
dictator. The Amnesty International indicted the military under President
Jonathan for violation of human rights standards in its conduct of war against
terrorism. The same organization has roundly accused the Buhari government of
gross violation of human rights in its cold-blooded killing of hundreds of IPOB
and Shiite activists who were neither armed nor violent. Refusal to comply with
the rule of law and violation of human rights in security engagement are
established protocol in security management in Nigeria.
The problem is that
these institutions have a dismissive view of human rights and the need for rule
of law in security operations. Raised in the political culture of impunity of
an unaccountable state they consider human rights as dispensable
side-constraints and not enablers of public security management. The recent
efforts of the military, though belatedly and perhaps halfhearted, to establish
an army human rights office is in the right direction. Hopefully, this center
will mainstream human rights norm in the operative manual of all security
operations in Nigeria.
The resolution of the
vexing national question will take long and probably turn violent and militant
at some point down the road. Therefore, it is very important for the police and
other security agencies to develop new cognitive capabilities that see human
rights not as noxious constraints but as directive principles for the use of
legitimate force.
The Inevitability of Civility: the Argumentative State:
In 21st century the
modern state can be nothing but a civil state. A civil state is a state that
replaces violence with arguments in dealing with dissenting citizens. A civil
state will necessarily be an argumentative state (I borrow the phrase from
Amartya Sen in his work on the argumentative India). One of the effects of
social globalization is the ubiquity of debates and commentaries in all forms
and shades. Governance now requires a herculean ability to monitor, tract and
engage wherever political and social debates are going on. The traditional
sites of ideation and ideological mobilization are no longer eminent and
influential. The social media is now a respectable and influential platform for
ideation and ideological mobilization.
The Nigerian government
is growing its influence in twitter, Facebook and other new media.
Communication handlers of the government and its agencies are sending videos
and audios of government activities. Even if many of these efforts reek of much
incompetence, they are commendation shift of mentality. But it is not enough.
Visibility in the social media and felicity in twitter and Facebook do not make
an argumentative state.
An argumentative state
must understand the unique importance of ideas and words in establishing and
maintaining political hegemony and legitimacy in an era defined by value
incommensurability and multipolarity. It must be willing to enter into debate
with those who propose alternative policies and challenge discursively those
who challenge its legitimacy or utility. The argumentative state cares about
cognition more than it care about obedience. So it does insist on breaking the
will of the citizens though violence but rather focuses on bending the will of
the citizens through persuasion. An argumentative state is a mobilizing,
rhetorical and communicative state.
We are seeing some signs
of the argumentative state in the manner in which Osinbajo is carrying on as
Acting President. He is arguing his way across the country. Instead of shouting
down or clamping down on those asking for restructuring and referendum the
Acting President is providing justification for the continuity of the Nigerian
federation as is. He is marshaling arguments that the problem with Nigeria is not
structure but character of government. He does not need to convince everyone to
be effective. But he is pushing citizens towards the ideals of deliberative
democracy, and entrenching the value of public reason, which is the true
character of a civil state.
A Weak State, a Failing State:
As a teaching fellow at
the Kennedy School of Government I ran into a stormy debate on whether Nigeria
was a failed, failing or malfunctioning state. I had refuted the claim that
Nigeria was a failed state on account of its very poor record on social services.
But that was in 2002. Today, I can’t make such argument. Nigeria is listed as
one of the countries showing strong signs of failure. Nigeria is a fragile
state because many non-state actors challenge its authority within its
territory. Besides being fragile Nigeria is also extremely weak. Its clout is
much diminished. Its inability to satisfy the social and economic needs of its
citizens now combines with its inability to effectively police its territory.
As we enter this long
winter of agitations and petitions the Nigerian state should not push its power
too much to the extent of focusing on exterminating all forms of dissent and
agitation without engaging in good faith dialogue. We are a weak state that has
been increasingly weakened by the loss of trust and competence. Bluffing about
capacity to ‘deal decisively with troublemakers’ instead of providing
justification and incentives for peaceful behavior will be an unwise approach
to managing dissent at this stage of state incapacity
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