AND THE ALL POLITICIANS SUMMIT HELD Sad as it may seem we evidently have made it a part of national character to treat the most serious things with a slight of hand. This ugly strain got a tiff more tardy when on a day like June 12 an all- politicians summit held in Abuja. What was visible to those who had just the media window to look in from was those gathered either desired to put on a show or were totally unaware of the dangers many of them have put the lives of Nigerians into in pursuit of power and personal gain. The absence of rigor and seriousness at the so called All-Politicians summit, including President Goodluck Jonathan’s platitudes about his ambition not being worth a person’s life, and some talk from Peter Obi that once a person is elected everyone should line up behind him and cheer till the next elections, was so evident. What terrible shallowness from people who manage the destiny of tens of millions of people. It made me feel sick. At the risk of appearing to take out a patent on the idea of an all- politician’s conference no one has canvassed the idea more resolutely than I have these last few years. The idea was not to have a shambolic display of a desire for statesmanship by politicians but to develop some shared values about the cost of extreme partisanship, a code of ethics on canvassing support to partisan courses and the containment of impunity especially in transitions across party boundaries. It was also important to discuss why the best among us tend to run away from public life and the low lives of society crowd into politics. The least that should happen at such a summit is that a select group of experts, and of citizens, make presentations to politicians gathered about how their conduct frighten and takes away from good governance; then the partisans will themselves raise issues troubling about the conduct of their political opponents. This should be conducted in a rigorous manner with politicians breaking up into working groups to come back with outline ethos, codes of conduct and guidelines for both institutional monitoring of these agreed values and citizen monitory platforms. The reason doing this well is important is the high cost to the Nigerian promise and the quality of life of Nigerians, of the political class not acting with an appropriate level of responsibility. Had such responsibility been exercised well previously, many of the challenges that hunt us today would long have been anticipated and nipped in the bud. Let us illustrate with a few troubles of now before brief reflections on some of the platitudes offered by those who spoke. Let us begin with the crippling violence and creeping anarchy. The signals that anarchy could consume us were all around us already by 2000. At that time, Robert Kaplan’s book, the Coming Anarchy, had pointed to what was coming and many of the events around us were suggesting dark paths ahead. I recall that I tried to initiate a social movement about that time that was called Nigerians United To Resist Anarchy (NUTRA). It was designed as a civil society project to alert to this looming threat. But everywhere you looked people pursing power showed scant regard for human life and often deployed the harbingers of this looming anarchy as vehicles for contestation. In many cases yesterday’s thugs became today’s insurgents, militants and Armed Robbers. Now bombs are going off around us, hundreds of girls are getting abducted and we think Armageddon is upon us. But it gave notice and a political culture with no clear limits led to its escalation. In the face of such weighty consequences of politician conduct we have seen a steady erosion of the legitimacy of the regime as captured in Afro barometer readings of what Nigerians feel about their democracy since 1999 when enthusiasm for democracy was remarkably high, then politicians get together to reflect on how they should conduct themselves and what we get is platitudes. Let us visit with two of them. The president said his ambition was not worth a life being lost. True statement. But hundreds, if not thousands died when he got elected in 2011. I am not suggesting he should have quit as a result but if that statement he made is to have the force of believability the weight of state might should have gone into ensuring it never happen again. Not even an idiot expects it will not happen in 2015 if similar results come. Most expects much worse. Nothing, practically nothing, has been done since 2011 to deescalate tension and do or die politics. The easy path is to blame opponents, which remains the direction of the narrative at the so called summit. In many ways that summit being held on the 12th of June made a mockery of the sacredness of that date for democracy in Nigeria. Many had died that others may not die so someone can be elected. In tribute to those who made the sacrifice for the ideals of the 12th of June that meeting ought to have been more purposive. On the Obi comment, one must say that it’s a rights and duties quid pro quo matter. Citizens do not have to be cheerleaders for those in power, whether they be from same party or opposition. Those elected must be representatives of all once they are elected and act for all. Nigerian politicians do not typically do that and work with merit which is why business people are perennially afraid of truth and unwilling to speak truth to power. They do not think, and they often know they will be discriminated against if they are not seen to be cheerleaders for the person in power. To be neutral is not even good enough. This creates a nepotistic state and crony capitalism that is a high cost to the Nigerian people. It gets worse when power changes hands. The lack of discipline to follow the rule of law makes Nigeria a difficult investment destination. I can use a personal example. I watched Ogun State wine and dine with the world inviting investments yet I am part of an investment with South Africans that obtained a lease on a plot from the Ogun State government, through OPIC, with no infraction of any law. Just because it was approved by Gbenga Daniel, the successor government, with one excuse after the other has held up more than a hundred and fifty million Naira of already sunk investments. Who would take such a BOT destination seriously. One former Attorney-General of Lagos who has watched how patiently I have followed Ibikunle Amosun on the matter has expressed aloud what could be happening to others if that can happen to me. The bottom line is that these all have the cumulative effect that any longitudinal data, like the Afro barometer will show, that Nigeria care less for their democracy than they used to. The waning of legitimacy invariably triggers the politics of power erosion. Regime eclipse is the end game and the politicians are often the biggest losers even though all of society loses. A simple ‘litmus test’ of the efficacy of the all- politicians summit intervention would be how many Nigerians think politicians will behave differently from June 13 than they did on June 11, as a result of that meeting. Few I talked to thought nothing changed. Its time to get serious. There are still many issues like how ideas and progress of society rather than the egos and self interest of political actors will return to political life, the de- monetization of politics, the wholesale corruption that has made us an object of ridicule in the world but which many Nigerian politicians see as a natural right. There is also the big question of how to make politics less materially attractive. To serve is to take risks on behalf of the people so history treat them with kindness, not so they can get rich. People should leave power no richer than when they got there like Sir Ahmadu Bello, Dr Michael Okpara and Alhaji Shehu Shagari. They may even come out less wealthy because they were not their to man the shop like Dr Alex Ekwueme. But their service will open avenues for good income after office not dependent on obnoxious retirement packages for elected officials. Civil society needs to campaign to scrap all pensions that give public office holders anything more than a deputy director in the Civil Service will receive. And there is the return of the simple life to public life. Why can today’s politicians not be like Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa eating sugarcane on the floor of his hut in Bauchi as his vacation, having traveled by train from Lagos on a Second Class ticket purchased with his own money. Such a summit should also address how to bring the security vote under oversight of a committee of other ekected people with high security clearance. The political class needs rules to redeem itself and save the country the high cost of both a collapse of culture and collapse of regime legitimacy. That combination is extremely toxic alchemy. PU
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 17:57:32 +0000
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