Giant of Africa, Big for Nothing..

[Richard Akindele]

There is something about the character of the Nigerian psyche that beats imagination and defies all manner of understanding. Nigerians have been adjudged the happiest people on earth, yet they have all the reasons to be the saddest country in the world. Indeed, the very fact that the people are this happy is indicative of a lack of seriousness with themselves, with life and with the still ill-defined national purpose. It is not for nothing that it is seen as big-for-nothing by the rest of Africa.

Despite its large population, which is the biggest in Africa; despite its being endowed with a great diversity of natural resource, an endowment that is, no doubt, the most extensive on the continent; and despite the great diversity of its people which also, without doubt, is greater than that of any African country, the best that one can say about Nigeria is that it is just there.

It is there as the continental leader that is perpetually behind in the continental march forward; and to all practical purposes, it is the role model that plays no role. Whenever it tries to play some role, it always becomes a case of the physician unable to heal himself. It is the leader that, instead of being looked up to, is looked down upon by the continent.

In a move designed more to please the West than help give effective leadership at home, Nigeria tried enforcing the peace in Sierra Leone and Liberia. This was something its economy could ill-afford, and, in any case, not an act that could be accomplished without glaring contradictions at home. Nigeria couldn't keep the peace in its own Niger Delta, or stifle the virtual urban warfare unleashed in almost all of its cities by robbers and assassins. Yet it is there trying to keep peace in foreign lands.

It flexed muscle in Sao Tome and Principe to check a military putsch and in Togo stop a civilian coup. It insisted in each case that the constitution be adhered to and respected to the letter. This was at a time when President Olusegun Obasanjo was putting finishing touches to his own assault on the constitution to clear the way for him to beat the constitutional term limit.

When talk about the elongation of tenure began, everybody's response was that it was impossible here. Nigeria is not a banana republic, was the usual retort. Obasanjo dares not begin to do that type of adventure here, because, they say, he has seen what happened to General Ibrahim Babangida and General Sani Abacha. He also will fail.

But what exactly happened to the two generals was never elaborated. It never got to be said, for instance, that Babangida would have succeeded had it not been for General Shehu Yar'Adua and some people in Kaduna, even though June 12 strugglers had always taken the credit for making him step aside.

And of course Abacha would have successfully transformed had there been no divine intervention in the matter. Agitation there was and we had the National Democratic Coalition fugitives putting up pressure on the international scene; but Abacha was not one to worry about that. When Yar'Adua took on Abacha at the National Constitutional Conference, and contemplated repeating the Kaduna strategy, Abacha, who was not unaware of what he had done earlier, promptly picked him.

Obasanjo was around in the country when all this was happening. A forlorn retired general, soon to be a forlorn prisoner; he realised that the critical element necessary to stop a determined leader in Nigeria from becoming a life-president is missing. He didn't miss noticing this apparent lack of reason or capacity in Nigerians to oppose the government in power where it matters most - in the streets.

Out of prison, into politics and now in power, he began spinning the web of his terms of office. How he got his second term was even more unconstitutional than the manner he is trying to get the third term in office. Initially, for many, the third term bid was an unfounded rumour. Then it became founded a rumour. But it was always officially denied. Even when half of it came out as a slip of the tongue during Obasanjo's visit to Germany, it was still in the realm of speculative surmise.

After listening to the political grapevine and deciphering high society bush telegraph, speculative surmise soon became informed conclusion. And even for the sceptics, after Senator Ibrahim Mantu's performance in Port Harcourt, belief in the inevitability of third term trouble became the accepted wisdom. And the third term train rolled on. Meanwhile, the people of Nigeria were left engaged in an endless he-will-succeed - he-will-fail debate. As the debate became a national pastime, everybody was a participant and a spectator.

There was no political backlash for Obasanjo. The political class is composed of individuals most of whom repeat democratic platitude without actually believing in democracy; they talk of national unity without believing in it; and they condemn corruption while they look forward to it. There is no price to pay by the political leadership because the political sophistication of the populace is demonstrably lower than, for instance, that of the people of Niger Republic.

As a political force, the populace is unaware of its power or is unwilling to use it to influence events or change situations and circumstances in the country. Its level of tolerance and docility is legendary. Compared to Egypt, where Cairo residents could go on a riot if the price of bread is increased by 20%, the calm acceptance by Nigerians of a three-fold increase in petroleum product prices eight times within a three-year period by Nigerians makes the country the most politically-peaceful in the world.

It is a country effectively without civic defences. Despite many promising starts, there is still a glaring absence of sincere and outspoken non-governmental organisations dedicated to holding the political leadership to account.

That is why, for Obasanjo the debates and the voting in the National Assembly are just matter-of-fact goings-on that can as surely stop him from doing what he intends to do as the rounds of golf played on the nearby IBB Golf Course can.

But even if the National Assembly in the end does deny Obasanjo the majority required, for a number of reasons, the details of the voting will not be a good indicator of the real mood of the nation. Many of the legislators will vote not necessarily according to the will of their constituents or their conscience, but according to the circumstances they find themselves.

The third term bid is a phenomenon that is universally-opposed throughout the country. The fact that it does gather some measure of support in the National Assembly is one more indication of the great disparity between the wishes of the people of this country and their so-called representatives.

Currently, there are many influences that rob legislators of their resolve to act according to the dictates of their conscience. For some who are close to government or in the debt of the ruling party, they may harbour inordinate hopes for more favours and be living in fear of losing privileges.

There is also this uncanny regularity of coincidence between the expression of opposition to the third term bid by certain public officers - governors, the Senate President, the Speaker, heads of parastatals, etc. - and the arrival of the officials of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC at their gates.

The legislature may deny Obasanjo the two-thirds majority he needs, but bent as he is on third term, Obasanjo will attempt to see it through with the blessings of the National Assembly or without.

Unless people are ready, willing and able to stop the rot - physically if necessary, Nigeria's Constitution will almost certainly be raped by Obasanjo as he has been doing since 1999.

The Constitution provides for separation of powers as a safeguard against dictatorship; but, going by his actions, Obasanjo seems to think that what it confers on him is powers of separation which he uses against the people as a safeguard against democracy. On a number of occasions, he has indicated that he believes in political pluralism, but by action, he seems to think that it refers to the plurality of votes that his executive bills must always get in the National Assembly.

He has often spoken in glowing terms about the rule of law and its necessity in a democracy. From all indications, he has not seen the necessity for it in Nigeria's democratic experiment: because, going by his attitude to court orders, it will be more accurate to say that the president believes in the "rule of lawlessness." And he says he believes in opposition: the only problem is that he doesn't brook it.

Clearly, the nation has no refuge from his style, neither in the court of law nor in the chamber where law is made. You can't possibly defeat a president who is not a democrat at heart, whose known antecedent is that he has no patience with the niceties of democratic culture.

The psychology of the consciousness of the promoters and supporters of the third term bid is not imbued with or grounded in the culture of democracy; and it can only be understood in terms of its blind pursuit after power and its irresponsible use to lay hands on people's resources. From the governors, who will never get enough; to the legislators, who are in the process of being bought; to the party that wishes to rule forever, and to the businessmen, who are bankrolling the whole enterprise and milking the nation dry, that is all there is to them; money and more money; power and more power - but to no purpose.

There are only a few options left now. Members of the National Assembly have always had evidence of the president's gross misconduct. Now is the time, in the interest of the legislators and in the national interest, to impeach the man. From the foregoing, it is reasonable to assume that such a determined non-democratic president will probably ignore even an impeachment. In which case, people will have to decide what to do. Amen.

Source: Daily Trust