POLITICS AND THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: IS NIGERIA GETTING IT RIGHT?

1. POLITICS AND THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: IS NIGERIA GETTING IT RIGHT? Adigun Agbaje, fspsp Department of Political Science University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria Second Dr. Abel Guobadia Memorial Lecture organized by the Women’s Health and Action Research Centre (WHARC) and delivered at the Akin Deko Main Auditorium, University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, on the 4th of February 2014

2. We have the hardware of democracy but the software of authoritarianism.- BernadoArevalo, Guatemalan Sociologist, referring to his country. (T)here are moments when something happens to remind one of the great possibilities of this nation if we get it right….Yes, another country is possible. But it will take a lot of incentives and disincentives. Incentives for good, civil and civilized behaviours, and disincentives in the form of harsh and swift retributions for uncivil and uncivilized conduct particularly in the public arena. -- Alamu, 2012: 3.

3. Lecture Outline • Introduction : The longer the Quest …. • Judging Nigeria : Global Expectations • Living a Political Lie : Local Realities • Conclusion: Back to the Future

4. INTRODUCTION • long search for the “right” quantum and quality of politics for national development • “The more you look, the less you see” ? • Long on constitutions, short on constitustionalism • Replacing democracy with democratism • Replacing robust elections with electoralism • Triumph of form over content for institutions • Yet, basis for optimism: A new country is possible • Note: What is “right” involves process, not destination

5. Judging Nigeria : Global Expectation political • Dimensions and indices for judgment • Democratic Regime/Governance • Rule of Law • Terrorism • Peace • competitiveness Note: Democratic governance and rule of law not necessarily a cure-all; Democratization can unleash own conflict and retard development

6. Living a political lie: Local Realities • Too many directors, Little sense of direction • Lack of meaningful progress in: • Federalism, despite nominal declarations • Democracy, despite the people’s opposition to undemocratic rule • Development, despite official commitment, given elite obsession with rent-seeking, corruption, and consumption • Rule of Law, given widespread culture of impunity

7. Living a political lie: Local Realities (contd) • Net result: Experience deficit and tendency to promote exclusionary practices along geopolitical, regional, ethnic, religious, gender, age and resource boundaries.

8. Living a Political Lie (contd) • Good News • Nigeria’s contribution to global efforts in democratic management of diversity in federal systems. • Resource curse argument is more of a myth that can be exploded through good policy mix. • Debate on security and policing can be moved beyond current stage in partisanship and quality of language and propositions. • Nigerian people leaving their leaders behind in march toward democracy and development • Increasing evidence of technocratic effectiveness in governance In certain federal institutions and sub-national government s

9. Living a Political Lie (contd) • Expanding spaces for democratic politics and more vibrant and society conventional and social media, organised business and professional groups

10. Living a Political Lie (contd) • Begin to invest more in the infrastructure, institutions, processes and values for rule of law, democracy, development, inclusive governance, social justice and peace; • Ensure that regulatory/oversight institutions enjoy the autonomy and capacity required for their vital functions; • Consciously encourage the elite (political, intellectual, economic/business, professional, bureaucratic, military/security, spiritual, traditional) to evolve and nurture a structure and process for strategic planning of leadership succession that aims at ensuring that only persons with required traits, experience and capacity attain positions of leadership in public and other spheres of life, and specifically with regard to the branches of government at federal, state and local levels, for regulatory institutions and institutions of oversight and accountability, within political parties, private sector organizations, and others yet to experience it;

11. Living a Political Lie (contd) • Revisit wholesale the recommendations of the Justice MuhammaduUwais-led Electoral Reform Committee (FRN, 2008: Ch 8); • Encourage the elite to transform from being conflict generators and violators of the rule of law to being agents of law, peace and positive change; • Adopt and facilitate strategies and instruments required for this role change, including the national dialogue option. They may not on their own solve all our problems; they may not even resolve any problem; they may even create new challenges or complicate existing ones. However, given demands for such strategies, it is imperative that they be utilized, since in emerging and other democracies, process is as important as outcome;

12. Living a Political Lie (contd) • Seek to further democratize the institutions of civil society themselves to purge them of the accretions of undemocratic values, including intolerance, lack of internal democracy and transparency, arising from many years of (military and civil) dictatorial rule; • Roll back the culture of venality and impunity in state and society while entrenching due process and the rule of law in a context of expansion of the culture of restraint, and • Specifically address growing poverty and unemployment while reversing the decline in quantity and quality of healthcare, education, housing and public infrastructure whose parlous state account for much of our nation’s socio-economic and political fragility.

13. Conclusion: Back to the Future Dissensions within the political (and other) elite and the increasing visibility of the fraction of the elite committed to meaningful rule of law, democracy, federalism, development, and entrenchment of legitimate governance and national security, provide a basis for more confidence in Nigeria’s future. This has been complemented by the growth in federalist and democratic forces in civil society and by the resilience, doggedness and anti-dictatorial tendencies of the Nigerian people.

14. Conclusion: Back to the Future The danger in all this, however, is that the more the anti-democratic fraction of the elite display inability or unwillingness to transform themselves for the better, the more the people of Nigeria may transform their rage against corrupt and insensitive dictatorship masquerading as democracy to rage against all forms of government, including the democratic. The message to the political (and other) elite, therefore, is: aspire to stay on top of the situation by moving over to the side of history and of the Nigerian people, OR GET SWEPT ASIDE by the tide of history

15. Conclusion: Back to the Future The future, therefore, rests on the resolution of the contending forces of dictatorship and democracy in state and society. In that context, we truly are at the crossroads and we can hope for a final resolution that is supportive of the rule of law and democracy, meaningful federalism and a system of governance that is so widely accepted as legitimate as to deliver sustained national development. For now, we can only say that, as for much of the future, only time will tell.

16. As we put it, Nigeria go better. We can have no other sustainable future apart from one that is politically mature, democratic, and developmental. I thank you for your attention.