WHEN A STATE LEFT THE UNION PAT UTOMI The National Assembly raved and ranted but failed to reflect, when the erroneous report that a foreign government scenario planning report suggested Nigeria would break up by 2015,made the rounds a little over 10 years ago. Today many are saying we have worked ourselves straight to the result. Some now say Jonathan could be Nigeria’s last president as they expectArmageddon in 2015. One thing is evident though, one state has almost taken leave of Nigeria. But who is to blame? The bad but true answer is all of us. The trouble of Nigeria is a failure of citizenship. To start with, no one said Nigeria would break up in 15years that is by 2015. A routine 5 yearly survey of trends around the world for United States strategic planning was ostensibly the source of these speculations. The report hinted 14 years ago that Nigeria’s declining influence and degrading institutions, which if unchecked, would within 15 years, place Nigeria in failed state status There are many who look at the so called failed state index and can conclude that the prediction already came through. But, in some ways, the idea of a failed state as a definitive destination and a point of collapse, as science would for example define boiling point under standard temperature and pressure, is neither here nor there. In ways the failed state idea is an emotive point used to make those not in conformity with some parameters of modernity feel a sense of shame. That notwithstanding, the truth is, no one said Nigeria would break up in 2015 As one of the global thought leaders assembled in Stockholm by the peace research institute in Stockholm, SIPRI, a few years later to consider the successor report, I know that it is not about predicting break up, but it is an indicator of great faltering. Nigeria had faltered. Its influence had waned. So how come we are all responsible for where we are. I recall now a number of quotes I have used to rouse people to become citizens, get involved. The most frequent goes back to World War ll and the Reverend Martin Niemoller .First they came for the Jews and I said well, those Jews are trouble makers. Then they came for the Communists and I said, thank God I am not a Communist, then they came for the Catholics and I thanked my stars I was a Protestant. When they came for me there was no one left to speak up. I have also often turned to Dante’sInferno, reminding that the hottest part of hell is for those who in moral crisis take refuge in neutrality. Again we draw from Martin Luther King Jnr who reminds us that in the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends. I think Nigeria lies prostrate because of the silence of its citizens not the guns of Boko Haram, or the voice of the foreign media. And part of it is in what the state invests in trying to ensure the silence of citizens. So how can we better educate power to understand how it’s greater interest is better served by an open, critical society. I listen in on the cacophony of now and I hear the deafening silence of the elders, those you will call elder statesmen, elsewhere. I hear the hum of the murmur of business leaders and I see the Abacha era all over again. I hear the voices of those sponsored by state actors to muffle the voices of citizens like the *BringBackOurGirls torchbearers; and those muscling all who dare ask how come the Leviathan fails in its primary duty of securing lives, property and the pursuit of happiness. The louder voices powered by state Treasury says ‘do not hold your elected representatives accountable for security’; you should instead hold accountable, it legitimizes a group of anarchist, threatening our civilization. What remarkable wisdom. It reminds me, at the level of economic analysis of how many development scholars first reacted to early writings of people like the MIT Economist Rudiger Dormbusch when they canvassed the idea of the open economy. Today those concepts are welcome. They are the reforms we all tout now. What is sadder is that those who are deploying Abacha methods either did or would have called Abacha names. The truth is that it is this squelching of voices of reason and good conscience that allows the alternative which rises to be the voices of the outrage of the iconoclast, leading to polarization of the polity and deep cleavages that push all to the brink, to predominate. I do not take a holier than thou, condescending view of those who are acting this way from power because it is a human phenomenon of which even the finest have run afoul. The concept of groupthink after all came to us from a world so perplexed by how America’s finest cabinet of the best and brightest, under John F. Kennedy, could make as foolish a choice as the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, prompting a study by Irving Janis that produced the concept and book Victims of Groupthink. My suspicion is that because of the lows to which partisanship can descend in our politics Goodluck Jonathan was blinded to events in the North East, seeing all as a plot of his enemies, and so for 18 days, as General Obasanjo recently pointed out, did not believe there was such thing as kidnapping of the Chibok girls. In some ways that is both puzzling and a statement about information flow around power because kidnapping of girls in those parts by Boko Haram had been going on for a while, and it is extraordinary intelligence failure for the truth not to reach him through his channels. But that mindset which makes me call for an all politician conference to agree limits of conduct, led his aides to focus, not on the natural thing for anybody of conscience, the pain of the parents, but on the games of their political opponents. They came out looking as if they were deadened to such human need for empathy was far worse than losing power. This led to conduct that made those in power look like moral pygmies before the world press. Labaran Maku looked a real dwarf as Aisha Sise of CNN took him apart, and my dear friend Doyin Okupe looked marooned, toe to toe with Funmi Iyanda. It does not have to be so. Power can have a graceful human face, even if it is true there are some ideological enemies dedicated to undermining your legacy. Bill Clinton had it and commentators like Rush Limbau who counted every day of his Presidency as one more day of America held hostage, for 8 years. So even though they may have said they would make the country ungovernable with you in power, you can silence them by how you govern and communicate. Even if the script of the Presidency was right that it was all the machinery of their political opponents, they failed to take the strategy that could easily give them the moral high ground. Worse still the process seems to lack discipline and rigor: is the President going to Chibok or not, is Boko Haram getting to amnesty or not, are they negotiating with Boko Haram or not. To these and any other questions one newspaper says yea, the other nay. It made me long for the steady hands of the now Igwe Alex Nwokedi and DuroOnabule and the honest of the cool of Emeka Chikelu. Come on guys we can do better. Free consulting is available. What are friends for? By the way, most of the team are friends of mine. In these entire one must bear in mind the times we live in. Stephen R. Covey had surely not seen the power of social media when he decided his very successful book; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was inadequate, so he wrote a whole book, The 8 Habit. He makes a point there that the most important habit of the 21st century is to help people find their voice. Any strategy of containing the politics of power erosion that depends on fitting a silencer or muffler, as Americans prefer to call it, on the throats of people, in this era will ricochet very badly. We need superior strategy and building empathy with stakeholders is key here. It is less than charitable to suggest all those responsible are tyrants,or mercenaries. Some are victims of groupthink, others are capacity challenged and most are victims of a culture of extreme partisanship and zero sum political logic. In the same way to suggest demonstrators are opponents is to make enemies of most people of conscience, including foreign heads of government. It brings to mind a famous cartoon in Newsweek during the Pinochet era in Chile when one soldier points to a stadium full of people and declares, I arrest you all. As many in the communication machine of the presidency are dear friends of mine I am doubly pained that they have fallen into a trap of lacking the courage to say these kinds of strategies which make village politicians happy, like Kingkong who just hauled a tree across the ravine, but really add up to lowering everyone, including the paymasters who enjoy it, are short sighted. I can feel the trap they are in but at this point all must think big picture. I know it is easier said than done, but this is where professionalism kicks in. It is the current mindset that has caused us to sacrifice Borno to a group of anarchists who are the true sovereign there now. If as citizens we promptly speak truth to power, and as politicians we care passionately about those we represent, then we will honorably open ourselves to being accountable to the people, many of the festering sores would long have been bandaged. But a poor political culture make us acts like gladiators rather than nation builders. So it is probably time for citizen Telemachus. As the legend goes the Gladiator battled to death in the coliseum of Rome that came to an end when a Christian Monk Telemachus on entering Rome saw the crowds moving into an arena and followed. Horrified at the scene unfolding, he jumped in and commanded in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, stop. As Ronald Reagan told the story, one of the gladiators struck him dead, and one by one, the audience filed out of the Amphitheatre, bringing that tradition to a close. The Christian Emperor Honorius then banned gladiator fights. Who will play Telemachus between the political gladiators, that we may have a working village square that can fashion for us all a workable modus Vivendi. We need a St Telemachus. Enough of Hard Talk appearances reducing the Nigerian public square to an Amphitheatre of gladiators. PU
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 19:16:01 +0000
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