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It's What, Not Who
By
Okey Ndibe
culled from GUARDIAN, April
27, 2006
Each day Nigerians are
saddled with the diversion of third term is another day lost to
productive meditation on the nation's myriad problems. The rhetoric of
term elongation amounts to a wastage of national time and energy.
Nigeria's malaise has nothing to do with who occupies Aso Rock as well
as state gubernatorial houses. It has everything to do with the
distortions, missed opportunities, untaken roads and tragic choices of
our national experience.
I shared the foregoing
thoughts with a friend who rang me up recently to discuss, what
else, third term. Did I not realize, he asked, that Obasanjo's exit
meant the return of Ibrahim Babangida or Atiku Abubakar? Since the
choice was between these three men, why did I not recognise the
wisdom of supporting Obasanjo's extended tenancy in power? Did I not
know, he queried, that the present president was an infinitely more
attractive choice than the other options? If I was unimpressed by
Obasanjo's war against corruption, was I aware that Babangida was
more likely to wage a war against the war on corruption? If I
regarded the current dispensation's anti-graft enterprise as puny,
could I imagine an Atiku even deigning to read a single speech
against corrupt enrichment, much less lift a finger to combat the
scourge?
As a first principle,
I had to disavow my friend's central thesis, namely, that
Nigeria's leadership pool was reducible to exactly three men. To
make that contention is, I believe, not just fallacious; it is
nothing short of moronic. Anybody who imagines the three men as
a troika of titans is admitting, perhaps without knowing it, a
fundamental defect in the polity we know as Nigeria. That defect
is this: that Nigeria is a malformed entity, at best a nation
waiting to be born, but more akin to a space (to paraphrase Wole
Soyinka) with no national spirit inhering in it. The Nigeria in
which men like Obasanjo, Babangida and Atiku are seen as
defining the limits of leadership options is a bandit nation
where mandates can be carted off by men steeped in the logic of
guns and wealth.
In fact, the
nation in which the issue of Obasanjo's continuation can be
raised at all, much less commandeer the discourse, is
indistinguishable from the one in which Babangida's
candidacy, or Atiku's, is taken seriously. Nigerians have
been compelled to invest tremendous energy in the debate
over third term, a non-issue. What we should be focusing on
is how to conceive and bring about a nation in which poseurs
like Obasanjo, Babangida, and Atiku will not show up on the
radar at all.
Both
Babangida and Atiku are apt to thrive in the same
political economy that threw up and sustains Obasanjo.
It is a system where supposedly elected officials bear
the appellation of rulers. It is a system where the
president is treated by his aides as if he were god, and
where he acclimates himself to acting like one. It is a
rubric where the national treasury is treated as the
private bequest of the man of power, to be dispensed at
his pleasure and whim. The Nigeria that Obasanjo
inherited, and the one he wants to maintain, is one
where oil rigs blocks are handed to party faithful,
where the anointed few are permitted to enrich
themselves from the public till, where court orders are
flouted with impunity, where party thieftains and other
unctuous sycophants of the man in power are regaled with
national honours, where blatant rigging is ascribed to
divine acts. It is a nation where iniquitous men strut
the public stage, where the parvenu daily enact opulent
displays of spectacular wealth whose provenance is, to
be euphemistic, suspect.
Nigerians, it is clear, desire a break from that
aberrancy that announces itself as a nation. That
explains the multiplication of groups whose sole
catechism is ethnic separatism, whose purchase on
public sympathy grows by the day, and whose
incendiary rhetoric is sometimes wedded to violent
action. The drumbeat of secessionism is being beaten
by the hordes of the disaffected, the millions of
Nigerians sick and tired of being discounted in the
scheme of things. Many so-called ordinary Nigerians,
aware that their names are subtracted whenever the
crowd in Abuja talks about the nation's "stake
holders," are raising a battle cry: "Destroy this
temple!" Long victimized by the drear prospects of
Nigeria, they now fantasise about beginning anew
within a different, ethnic template. Convinced of
the bankruptcy of Nigeria, they are willing to try a
different option, however uncertain. It is less a
vote for the miniaturizing of Nigeria than a
declaration that Nigeria, as currently constituted
and operated, has become an insupportable absurdity.
About
twenty years ago, the novelist Chinua Achebe
told me in an interview that the Nigerian nation
had not yet been founded. Lacking his depth of
knowledge about the vicissitudes and misfortunes
of Nigeria, I was somewhat scandalized by his
claim. Today, I know better. And I know too that
Nigeria is even less founded than it was when
Achebe delivered that trenchant assessment.
A
concomitant of that conclusion is that
Nigeria stands today in desperate need to be
fundamentally re-imagined. It is a task that
President Olusegun Obasanjo might have
undertaken. Perhaps it was too much to ask
of a man whose gifts and inclinations lie
elsewhere. Perhaps he was blinded by a
desire to bask in the sheer glamour of
power. Perhaps he was too deeply invested in
the arid version of Nigeria to lend his
energy to the heraldry of a new, invigorated
nation. Whatever the reason, he has done his
nation a disservice and his legacy a
discredit by substituting his personal
ambition for the national imperative.
Anybody who begins by asking who will
have his address at Aso Rock come 2007
already has tragically missed the point.
The issue is, what kind of Nigeria do we
envision in 2007 and beyond? It is a
question that the delegates at the
ongoing PRONACO parley are admiringly
grappling with. Nigeria must become a
nation founded on equitable laws, a
nation underwritten by the principle
that no citizen is above subjection to
the rule of law. We must become a nation
where citizenship counts for something,
where each citizen has a robust sense of
belonging to a purpose-driven national
entity.
We ought to be dreaming a Nigeria
where public funds are put to public
purpose, not emptied into private
bank accounts; a nation where
leaders are held truly accountable,
where citizens are guaranteed access
to public officials' asset
declarations; a polity whose
soldiers would not be instruments of
genocide against fellow citizens,
whose police would refuse to carry
out an illicit order, however
exalted the order's issuer; a
Nigeria where voters are truly
sovereign and elections are not
doctored by false gods; a nation
whose three arms of government
functions independently and with
integrity; a collectivity whose
leaders do not rule but lead; where
politicians espouse sound visions
rather than spout the facile clichˇ
about "moving the nation forward."
While we distract ourselves with
false elixir of third term and
seek to frighten its opponents
with the spectral figures of
Babangida and Atiku, we woefully
fail to take the path that alone
offers us an opportunity to
rescue Nigeria from moribundity.
While we fritter away precious
time on the outsized ambitions
of three men with questionable
leadership credentials, our
nation slips ever closer to the
edge of the chasm.
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