The Nigerian Polity, Politics and Politicians:

Moving from Transaction to Transformation

By

Dr ‘Kayode Fayemi,

Governor, Ekiti State.

Being Lecture delivered on the occasion of the public

presentation of The Nigerian Political Turf: Polity, Politics and

Politicians written by Mobolade Omonijo on Tuesday, August

7, 2012 at The Muson Centre, Onikan-Lagos.

PROTOCOLS

Let me express my deep gratitude for the privilege of addressing this special audience on the

occasion of the public presentation of Mobolade Omonijo’s book, The Nigerian Political Turf:

Polity, Politics, Politicians. When I first saw the title of the book, it reminded me so much of a

similarly titled book by the late James Ajibola Ige (aka Uncle Bola), progressive politician,

intellectual par excellence and former Attorney-General of post-military Nigeria. That

fascinating book entitled, People, Politics and Politicians of Nigeria: 1940 – 1979, chronicles

Uncle Bola’s reflections on the triumphs and travails of Nigerian politics and polity during the

period before independence to the resumption of democratic rule in 1979. Written almost twenty

years before Mobolade’s book, Uncle Bola’s inimitable and often irreverent style had presaged

many of the issues raised in this new book in a prescient manner leaving anyone reading

Mobolade’s book with a sense of déjà vu. While it is really not my task to review Bolade

Omonijo’s book - having been saddled with an altogether different task – that of reflecting on the

polity, politics and politicians from the perspective of an “active participant” as he put it in his

invitation letter, it would nevertheless be remiss of me not to comment on the timeliness and

timelessness of the book at a time that many continue to worry about the Nigeria project.

As a journalist of repute, experience and exposure, Mr Omonijo has done a brilliant job of

placing the people, citizens at the centre of this retrospective assessment of his last twenty five

years in journalism. He highlights important issues like democracy, constitutionalism, poverty

and development as well as regional integration. In his own view, fifty years after independence

and a century after amalgamation, politics and politicking have still not served the people well.

The country is far from being a nation and the polity is in need of thorough restructuring. He

underscores the importance of institutions much more than personalities. Especially, institutions

that can mediate the relationship between the leaders and the led; relationship between tiers of

government; and the electoral process through which leaders are recruited. He paints the polity in

the frightening image of the Hobbessian state of nature – nasty, brutish and about to be cut short!

Many groan that Nigeria is at another crossroads. For such people, the country only seems to go

from crisis to crisis. If truth be told, there seems to be a vibrant industry of ‘Niger-pessimism’.

Like most Nigerians, the author appears very cynical about the average Nigerian politician. He is

however hopeful about the possibilities the country holds for the future, certain things being in

place. The picture of the politician he paints is one of an unconscionable, venal, greedy, corrupt

leech feeding off society and one who would seize any opportunity to fleece the people. Whether

one agrees with this view of the Nigerian politician or not, very few in our country disagree that

the nation is experiencing a ‘leadership challenge.’ Nigerians mistrust and distrust their leaders –

whether they are politicians, captains of industry, faith based clerics, media watchdogs or civil

society activists. I suppose as an active participant who has been asked to reflect on current

challenges in the polity, my task is not to bemoan the fate of our troubled institutions in the

polity. It is to proffer, in so far as my experience can take me, what should be done about the

critical problems highlighted in Mr Omonijo’s book and outline how we must work

expeditiously towards their resolutions.

A progressive participant-observer in my view would want to call attention to what must be done

to increase the population of those who access power with a view to serving the people and

launching the country on an irreversible path of development. He would want to reflect, for

example, on what is the place of values in politics? How can transactional politics be replaced by

transformational leadership? How should institutions of state be strengthened to ensure effective

checks and balances? What should be done to promote internal democracy in political parties?

How should leaders and the led - work together? What systems and processes should be put in

place for genuine empowerment of the citizens towards the attainment of full rights? In short,

how can excellence become the habit in our beleaguered nation?

As for the polity, the question that many continue to pose will have to be answered with all its

attendant ramifications if we are to respond to Mr Omonijo’s thought provoking treatise. I agree

with Mr Omonijo that many of the internal contradictions of the Nigerian state have been

sharpened to a point that the bare bones are now visible. The failure to address the national (ity)

question in an inclusive manner is evident in the varied responses across country to conflicts

over identity, nationality, self-determination and autonomy. These issues are, in turn, bound up

with such questions as what manner of federation do Nigerians want? Unlike in the past when

government has always decreed issues like religion, autonomy and resource control as

constitutional “no-go areas”, Nigerians are now forcing these issues in the open and the hitherto

authoritarian might of the federal centre is being put to test. What is this nation called Nigeria?

What does it mean to be Nigerian? How do we manage diversity and difference in a multi-

ethnic, multi-faith polity? These were some of the questions that we avoided in the events

leading up to May 29 1999 in the desperation for anything but the military.

As a participant-observer equally troubled and concerned by these untoward developments in the

polity, I have attempted to reflect on these questions as they affect the polity and its politicians.

Of course, as someone who was on the outside looking in and now an active participant on the

inside undertaking self-introspection, I know how tempting it is for those on the outside,

particularly my friends in the fourth estate to assume a moral high ground. They are irrepressible

in the belief that the politicians are the problem. I also know that politicians see themselves as

reflections of their milieu which often compel them to act in a Jekyll and Hyde dual mode – on

the one hand, charismatic, visionary, caring, fascinating and sophisticated, and on the other,

repulsive, cynical, calculating, corrupt, venal and opportunistic. My own interest is really not to

indulge in any deep philosophical or academic arguments about the distinctions between

transactional politics and transformational leadership - many of which you are familiar with but

to simply explore the necessity for citizens’ engagement in a democracy. I also want to

underscore the importance of accountability to the citizens by those elected to serve them. It is

my own conviction that where there is no active civil society engagement, there can be no

responsible and responsive political society. Such a State runs the risk of decay and illegitimacy.

I intend to argue based on my experience that politics – properly conducted - is a form of social

activism and another stage in the struggle to restore the dignity of humankind. It is an integrated

continuum rather than discretely compartmentalised oppositional phenomena, often complicated

and contradictory, but mostly in the quest to make a fundamental difference. This is perhaps

why the issue should not be one for politicians or non-politicians, but the extent to which we are

able to achieve citizen participation in our democracy. The issue of leadership – particularly

how we conceptualise leadership is central to the discourse. In my view, our discussion should

really focus more on the making of leaders and citizens in a good society because without direct

citizen participation, the legitimacy of our political institutions will continue to decline. It is for

this reason that I strongly believe that leaders – be they politicians or non-politicians should

worry because their ability to lead effectively is being seriously undermined by the desertion of

average citizens from the public space, deepening the crisis of legitimacy in the country. Yet, this

lack of legitimacy cuts both ways. When we the people withdraw our trust in leaders or

discountenance politicians, we make our democratic institutions less effective and risk making

ourselves ungovernable.

For too long, our political culture has perpetuated the myth that strong leaders can bring about

change single-handedly – rather than convert the formal authority derived from legitimate

electoral mandate into a process of democratic renewal. The myth of the heroic and charismatic

leader dominates the literature on leadership. After all, to lead in Greek and Latin was originally

a military term meaning a “General of soldiers”. In my own view, real leadership ought to

involve motivating people to solve problems within their own communities, rather than

reinforcing the over-lordship of the state on citizens. It is to build as well as strengthen political

institutions that can mediate between individual and group interests, between human and

peoples’ rights. Joseph Nye, jr, the Dean of Harvard’s John Kennedy’s School of Government

who coined the term ‘soft power’, define leaders as ‘those who help a group create and achieve

shared goals.1 The authoritarian residues of politics continue to see leaders as magicians with all

the answers to societal problems – hence the immeasurable disappointment when they fail to

leave up to this exaggerated expectations.

The main challenge in my view therefore is both a psychological and a contextual one and it

centres on de-emphasising superficial and unearned notions of heroic leadership by reconnecting

democratic choices with people’s day-to-day experience and to extend democratic principles to

everyday situations in citizens’ communities and constituencies.

This is the reason why leadership must be mediated by the context of power and political

structure. What do I mean by this? Many will recall that at the commencement of the current

political dispensation in 1999, many were of the view that the path we were treading was one of

transition without transformation.2 We argued severally that it was wrong to suggest that any

opening after Nigeria’s prolonged authoritarian rule was inherently irreversible and would lead

to the deepening of democracy without interrogating the nature of the opening itself. We felt at

the time that we needed to think more carefully about the implications of what we considered to

be a staged-managed and guided democratic transition because even if Ali Baba was dead, the

forty thieves were still very much around, especially in a setting where the authoritarian ethos,

language, and character of command and control of public discourse remained in place.

Looking back, we may have been correct to be cautious about embracing the military transition

of 1999, but I now believe we were tactically wrong for completely eschewing participation in

politics. The fact that the military had not responded to a full-scale defeat by the democracy

movement could hardly be discounted in understanding the nature of post-military governance.

The eventual dominance of the party hierarchy by retired military generals and civilians closely

connected to them certainly set the tone for party formation and also resulted in authoritarian 1 Joseph S.Nye Jr, The Powers to Lead, (London: Oxford University Press, 2008), p.x. 2 For a discussion of my scepticism, see ‘Kayode Fayemi, “Military Hegemony and the Transition Program”, Issue: Journal of Opinion – Special Edition on Nigeria, Vol.XXXXII, No.1, 1999., Journal of the African Studies Association, Rutgers University, USA.

presidential governance particularly under President Obasanjo. Essentially, the outcome of that

particular phase of the transition ensured a mere reconfiguration of the political space, rather

than guarantee transformative leadership.

Yet, even with all of this, we could have started the process of organising along political lines,

rather than agonising about the militarised nature of power and leadership. After all, we

(journalists and activists alike) were the ones who risked our lives to fight for the restoration of

democracy in Nigeria – only to vacate the space when power was literally lying on the streets.

So, we ended up with a democracy with pseudo-democrats and yet we are worried about the low

quality of our democracy and deficits in governance. For the majority of our citizens –

democracy was supposed to bring the end of military dictatorship in form and content; they

hoped that it would bring greater involvement of ordinary people in politics, whether in the

federal, state and local institutions or even in civil society ones. They hoped for real and

immediate dividends in employment, clean water, affordable shelter, accessible health care,

improved education, reliable and consistent power supply, rehabilitated roads and food on the

table. While we generally enjoy a qualitative air of freedom in the last decade, there is still

despair, despondency and disillusionment about material dividends of this democracy.

Democracy is not an abstract concept to the ordinary people. Indeed, they do not value

democracy any less than their elite compatriots. But they want democracy to be relevant to their

lives in a concrete and fundamental manner. If democracy is not capable of wiping out poverty,

curbing corruption, guaranteeing transparency and improving people’s well being and quality of

life, it is at best an empty concept, at worst a sham to many. Poverty and despair, oppression and

humiliation, economic and social insecurities are breeding grounds – even if not the only reasons

– for violence and conflict. As much as Nigerians want democracy, they also want to see

concrete evidence of democracy making a difference in their lives and not just in an

instrumentalist sense of embracing freedom.

These are, however, not challenges charismatic politicians or heroic leaders are able to resolve

on their own without a careful consideration of the context of the issues. It is for this reason that

those who want to re-draw the map of Nigeria’s future for the better must return to more solid

grounds rather than tie themselves to the apron strings of power-holders. Power wielders who

neither have a track record nor demonstrate a vision that can inspire our people and offer them

hope about tangible transformation. This solid ground must be within a larger movement though,

one that accommodates the place of political institutions. It should not simply be the celebration

of astute individuals as the ultimate panacea to our crisis of governance. The most practical way

to link individual choice to collective responsibility is to participate in the institutions that

influence our lives. We must ensure that formal and informal institutions are democratised and

giving more responsibilities for exercising state power. To do it well, we have to see Nigeria as a

permanent enterprise that has to be fought over and restructured in order to provide cover for all

Nigerians.

Understandably, if you make political discourse more negative as some do – you deliberately

turn ordinary people off politics; more people grow cynical and stop paying any serious attention

to politics. This experience is not unique to us in Nigeria; in fact it is the crisis that democracy is

experiencing all over the world, with low turn out at the polls and scant regard for political

leaders. Yet, if we as citizens choose not to play a part in this process of activism in our

communities and our State, we will get the politicians we deserve, allow the hijack of the

political realm by special interests, religious bigots and ethnic jingoists only keen in the

promotion of their narrow agendas. So, being political is being patriotic and we all must be ready

to leave our comfort zones to embrace active engagement.

The State of the Polity

Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, this is why I see the extended focus of the

book on the polity quite useful. Important as politicians are, they are just the tip of the iceberg in

the democratisation complex. Indeed, genuine democracy ought to rest on a much richer ecology

of associational and organisational life and should be nourished and reproduced through every-

day struggles of the citizens. Operating in the practical field of politics, I have come to realise

how detached many citizens are from the institutions and structures that should ordinarily

empower them to engage the State. To enable the citizens to engage, they must feel and actually

be empowered to have oversight of their own state agencies and functions. They should be given

local input and control in a genuine and open, not tokenistic and patronage-based, manner.

Giving communities a role in their own development is the essential part of dismantling the

command mentality which plagues our country today.

This is why I am not sure that the solution to the current deficit that our polity is experiencing

can be solved with this either - or approaches of politicians and non-politicians. For autonomous

institutions to play a different role in mediating citizens’ democratic choices, their organic

development must be combined in a more nuanced manner and a more systematic way with the

use of public and state power. The choice is therefore simple: one can continue to snipe on the

fringe and complain that government is not listening to the yearnings of the people.

Alternatively, one can stop agonising about missed policy opportunities and organise in a manner

that places citizens as drivers of change. Especially in our quest to restore communitarian values

and create a future of hope and possibilities for our people.

This is why I am in politics. It is my belief that committed social activism must help provide the

road map that people can employ to help undertake various empowerment projects that will give

them control over their own destinies and lives. It is the belief that public office is too serious to

be entrusted in the hands of charlatans and that when serious people turn away from politics, the

field is left to those who have nothing to offer than crass opportunism and damage to our

people’s well being. We must – politicians and journalists alike - be determined to ensure that

the State empowers rather than dictate, enables rather than control, pushes power down to the

people and shares the responsibility of governing with them rather than turn them to supplicants

at the table of power wielders.

Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no doubt that the democracy we are

enjoying today continues to be threatened by severe internal contradictions. Nowhere are the

limits of the democratic project in Nigeria more apparent than in the question of creating

appropriate institutional arrangements for the political accommodation and management of social

diversities and difference. By its very nature, democratic politics has radically altered the

existing social boundaries and divisions, accentuating hitherto dormant identities and conflicts.

The consequences of the relationship between the two have not only posed a challenge to those

who seek to understand these dynamics, it has also placed a question mark on the very viability

of Nigeria’s democratic enterprise. The lethality of many of these conflicts has been transformed

in scope and intensity with the unrestricted availability of small arms and unemployed youths. At

the core of the crisis either in the Niger Delta or in the North is the failure of politics to allocate

authority, legitimise it, and use it to achieve the social as well as economic ends that conduce to

communal wellbeing. The ordinary people, expelled to the margins of politics and economics for

so long appear now to be knocking insistently on the gate, demanding to be let in - in the

renewed context of democratisation and freedom.

Sadly, successive Nigerian governments have seen these communal crises as purely a security

matter.3 Given Nigeria’s experience of prolonged authoritarian rule, a very narrow and

traditional definition of security persists as the psyche of militarism remains pervasive in the

system. There is therefore the need to re-conceptualise ‘security’ in a more responsive direction

3 Save in the context of the Amnesty programme adopted by the late President Yar’adua to tackle the lingering crisis of militancy in the Delta, security response has been the norm rather than the exception since President Obasanjo’s invasion of Odi and the pacification of Zaki Biam.

with a move away from the traditional emphasis on national/state/regime security to a focus on

‘human security’, with an expansion, concomitantly in the scope of the concept from its

minimalist meaning (as in physical security) to include access to the means of life, the provision

of essential goods, a clean and sustainable environment, as well as to human rights and

democratic freedoms. It may well be that as Nigeria purges itself of its military, authoritarian

past, the chance of embracing a more humane perspective of security becomes increasingly

realistic. In this respect, a complement to massive security and law and order response and

containment of conflict ought to be a new political and economic framework, guaranteed by a

new federal constitution, that would transfer power, and with it the control of economic

resources, to local people allowing them in turn to pay appropriate taxes to federal coffers. This

would entail the democratisation of politics in such a way that the ordinary people would become

the object and subject of development.

In a country where stupendous wealth often lies astride abject poverty, the seeds of conflict are

easily sown and understandably germinate faster. Set against the inability of the State to

provide basic services for its citizens, new conflicts have manifested through politicised agents

who appear to be using the conditions of the poor to address the responses or non-responses of

the State to the legitimate yearnings of the people. This comes into clear relief in the context of a

democratic transition, in which, conflict becomes an integral, and often inevitable result of power

shift. In fact this is because democratisation or at least democratic transition represents in the

large part restoration of agency to some actors, but also loss of power by others accustomed to its

unaccountable use. There can be no doubt that the transformation and utilisation of objective

factors in the exacerbation of conflicts in Nigeria is not unconnected to this fact.

Given the above, the key to understanding and explaining conflict in Nigeria, it seems to us, lies

primarily (though not exclusively) in specific local dynamics and responses, on the part of the

communities and states, to the crisis conditions created by the existing economic and political

conditions. It is also in the lack of institutional mechanisms to mediate conflict when they occur.

The above, in our view returns our search to the patterns, texture and quality of politics that

emerged with political liberalisation and transitions, which in Nigeria’s case reflected a

reconfiguration and reassertion of pre-existing (though temporarily submerged) structures of

national and local power bases, rather than a fundamental transformation. It also involved, in

other cases, the activation of alienated new strata – especially amongst the youths, reflecting the

dangerous ideological transformations wrought by the combined forces of authoritarianism,

economic decline and social marginalisation in Nigeria.

Yet, as argued earlier, democracy is much more than just achieving material benefits. But

without economic improvement, especially the broadening of the basis of wealth creation and

possession, the conditions which threaten democracy and civil peace will continue to worsen.

Poverty in Nigeria has not bred radical politics, but radical religious, ethnic and opportunistic

agendas. Those who in the last decade would have eked out a living in the informal economy,

are beginning to turn to the criminal economy to effect direct redistribution of wealth through the

rising tide of terrorism, armed robbery, assassinations and kidnappings which form the backdrop

to an increasingly brutalised society. Unemployed youths, when they do not become criminals,

join vigilante organisations which supplant the job of the security forces by dealing out direct

justice – at which point this threatens the state's supposed monopoly on the legitimate use of

force? Also, beyond this, they become thugs-for-hire, abused in their vulnerability by their

scheming elders, who expend them in gang fights over electoral wards, or dispose of them for a

few hundred Naira in order to destabilise towns and cities for sectarian advantage. Nigeria's

youth needs gainful employment. And so do its rural and urban poor, its old, its women, and

anyone who does not happen to be lucky enough to have connections to persons of influence.

It is in this sense that the current debate on the insurgency known as Boko Haram is itself a

debate about the status and quality of democracy in Nigeria; a debate about the future of the

country as a united, federal entity. With bombs going off incessantly in the Northern part of the

country in particular and an increasing level of panic in other parts of the country, thinking of

innovative ways of accommodating social diversity in a democratic frame is a challenge that is at

once intellectual and political and it is perhaps the greatest challenge to democratic transition and

security in our country today. Consequently, it is my view that we must at least see what is

happening in Nigeria today as an outcome of the nature of the country’s democratic transition. It

is an argument for treating Nigeria’s democratisation project as a work in progress, not as a

condition for hopelessness.

Road Map to Democratic Consolidation: Next Stage of the Collective Struggle

Having spent the last seven years in partisan politics and participating in grassroots organising,

my belief in the need to take politics beyond political parties is more reinforced. The immediate

challenge for all of us is to concentrate on how to rescue our people from bad governance.

Unless the critical mass of our people cutting across age, gender, zones and party political

affiliations adopt the same positions, with a more clearly defined collective agenda, the current

approach to solving our problem will not suffice. There is an urgent need to build coalitions and

permanent platform in the public sphere that is beyond party and personalities, but all embracing

enough to those who subscribe to the core values of integrity, honesty and dedication to

transformation in Nigeria.

This all-embracing platform could address a variety of issues, but none is more urgent today than

the question of the structure of the Nigerian state. However, the task of such an all-embracing

platform must not be limited to reforming the institutional framework of the State alone. It must

also focus on Leadership and Conduct in Public Life; The Constitution and the Legal Framework

of the Federal State; Human Rights, Militarism and Civil Violence; Public Sector Management,

Transparency and Accountability as well as visible economic progress and wealth creation for

the ordinary citizens. This is not an exhaustive list, but it certainly provides civil rights activists,

journalists and progressive politicians with a template for democratic renewal.

Based on my own trajectory and experience from direct anti-establishment confrontation at the

barricades through civic engagement with political actors and public officials to partisan political

involvement, I am convinced that the ordinary people in Nigeria are committed to democracy

and genuinely want to see it work. Herein lies my hope about the future. This hope is certainly

not bleary eyed optimism. It is not even the optimism that the crisis of governance in our land

will simply disappear or that journalists will stop being cynical; it is not the hope that political

impunity would stop being the name of the game, overnight. I am talking about the hope of our

founding fathers in the struggle for independence and freedom. I am talking about their unshaken

belief in our inalienable right to rule ourselves. It is the hope that led us to resist military

dictatorship in our land because of our belief that another Nigeria is possible – one that will be

accountable to its citizens, legitimate in their eyes, transparent and respected around the world;

the hope that allows us to hold our heads high, proud of our accomplishments and contributions

to humankind; the hope that help is on the way.

This hope is alive. I believe we can revive the Nigerian State in a qualitative manner and make

democracy more meaningful to our people, provide jobs for the jobless, improve healthcare,

modernise agriculture and reclaim our young people from a future of violence, decadence and

despair by linking social enterprise, civil society activism to politics and not draw artificial

divisions in our promotion of values-driven leadership. Renewing our democracy through the

strengthening of institutions and public participation increases our collective capacity to tackle

the major problems facing our society – with a corresponding achievement of individual

contentment even as we pursue the common good. We need leaders who have a clear vision of

the future, who see character as destiny, who advocate values-driven reorientation, who don’t

just mouth transformation, who are compassionate about changing the decrepit plight of our

people, who act with integrity and ethics, who create an entrepreneurial mindset and capabilities

in followers, who see leadership as service and responsibility and who are not content with

mediocrity. We must move away from transactional politics to transformative leadership.

Genuine representatives of our people, not retail traders of the Commonwealth. This is our

modest agenda for a collective rescue mission in Ekiti State, and indeed Nigeria. Our effort to

change the orientation of our youth and the designs to transform our local economies are already

bearing fruits. We are framing a future of virtue couched in values education and embedded in

everyday competencies for a generation whose challenges are in a world where they not only are

competing at the national level, but puts them against the best prepared of all nations at all times.

But we do not claim to have all the answers to the numerous challenges faced by the people.

What we do have is an unshaken faith in our people, the determination to restore integrity to

politics and the commitment to turn Ekiti into a model for the polity. This is where we are

headed and we are convinced we will get there but we must do it within the larger context of

transformation in Nigeria. It is the only way to consolidate this democracy and not suffer dire

reversals as we perch on this dangerous precipice.

Thank you very much for listening.