POWER WITHOUT PERSUASION

“If you have only a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail” Abraham Maslow “Optimism,” wrote Voltaire, “is a mania for maintaining that all is well when things are going badly”. It is becoming increasingly difficult to disagree with Voltaire if you have been living in or reading about this country in the last five years or so. This is a country, which has suffered decades of decay and decline under the military, bringing it to the verge of a rogue state in 1998. Today, after nearly five years of “democracy”, it is facing the prospects of becoming a failed state. To believe otherwise is to believe that you can change the weather by simply changing the forecast. It is fairly easy to see the reasons for the decline and decay in the last two decades, under military dictatorship led by people who were barely educated and were largely motivated by insatiable greed and gluttony, ever ready to maim or kill at the slightest opposition. But it is difficult to see why after four years of democracy and high oil prices we are again on our knees, on the verge of being a failed state. For the avoidance of doubt, this administration came at a time when the price of oil in the world market was about $10 per barrel. About six months after, the price of oil rose to nearly $25 per barrel and stayed between $20-25 for the most of 2000-2002 and this year has been about $30 per barrel. If we go by the Analysis Magazine (of September 2003) figures of revenue allocation, the FG received a total of over two trillion Naira by April 2003. Yet, as many now know, we have had budgets that were more of a mockery, for they were never implemented. Agriculture, which we were misled to believe to be a top priority, was deliberately subverted as billions went to build FM stations and issue ID cards as if to tell everybody that we are a nation with no sense of priority at all. Or, as someone had said, our priorities form the cornerstone of our madness. Even after the Ikeja bomb blasts we have continued to ignore the safety of our soldiers under the pretext of dearth of funds, yet, we miraculously found the funds to host the 8th All Africa Games (COJA) and now the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). If we believe the press, we even have some five billion Naira to spare for the rebuilding of the valedrome that was torn off, some would say deservedly, before the games were over. For four years we have injected billions into the revival of our decayed infrastructure, particularly electric power and roads with hardly anything to show for the billions sunk and no one is ready to offer any explanation. And apparently no one dare asks, not even those who have a constitutional responsibility to do so. To be sure these are not the problems, they are the consequences rather than the cause. In other words, these are the symptoms and not the disease and we must not, like we too often do, mistake the symptoms for the disease. The danger is obvious, symptomatic treatments never work, they only waste valuable time and resources and further endanger the life of the patient. For the disease degenerates from an acute stage to a chronic one, which as doctors know, makes it difficult if not impossible to treat. Little wonder, our problems have become protracted and the whole country has been going down the drain with dwindling prospects of recovery. Dwindling prospects; precisely because we have consistently been unable to plan, even when and where we did, we seem unable to implement it. We are not aware of any nation that has survived planlessness. As they say, failure to plan is actually planning to fail. We have all been engrossed in the rat race of amassing wealth and we have allowed little men with mercantile ambitions to take over the corridors of power where only the rich are respected and ushered in to see the powerful. Business and all manners of deals have become the new game in government, the poor can go to blazes. Is it any wonder that we are perceived to be the second most corrupt nation in the world? Someone told me that we actually topped the list, but because we are so good in the game we quickly bribed Bangladesh and it moved to the top. What then is the problem or what is the disease? Since I don’t claim monopoly of wisdom, I can only offer some suggestions. Let me start with what I believe are at the roots of these problems - the making of our constitution. From its colonial antecedents to date, Nigeria can be said to have had ten different constitutions. But none of these constitutions can be said to be a true constitution, which the people of Nigeria through their representatives have given themselves. This is because after the people have decided what they wanted, British colonial authorities and later the military umpires have always tempered with this sacred document behind closed doors before proclaiming it. But what is the problem here, we have always operated these kinds of constitutions and the country has never stopped for one day? In fact there are, at least, three problems. Tempering with a sacred document which the people have given themselves is a desecration of that document which at once violates its sanctity and diminishes its esteem and therefore undermines its legitimacy. The second problem has to do with the process. Altering a document, which has gone through a process, is the violation of that process. In constitution making the process can be more important than the product itself, because a constitution derives its strength and inviolability not so much from its content like from its process. Tempering therefore robs it of a good measure of that inviolability and send the wrong signals to the citizens. If leaders cannot show deference to that process how do they expect their followers to? Thirdly there is a problem of ownership. The people of this country may not want to own a document which has been tempered by people they have neither elected, nor consented to have their mandates. A careful reader will notice that I have not raised the issue of legality, I leave this to the competent minds of our legal luminaries. I have only raised the issue of process and legitimacy. We should be able to distinguish the difference between legality and legitimacy. In other words I am interested here only in the psychodynamics of constitution making. The result is there for everybody to see: clamour for constitutional amendments soon after a new one has been promulgated and constant agitation for a national conference which cannot be wished away. And of course out of a disregard for processes, we have invented industries for avoiding taxes, avoiding examinations, rigging elections, etc., we should now know where the inspiration is coming from. Now the powers, or better still the style, of the president. Let me take off from Mr. President’s inauguration of the National Assembly. It is relieving to hear Mr. President say about the executive-legislature relationship, “A new attitude and new orientation is definitely called for.” But in the same breadth he was also saying, “The definition and use of the instrument of oversight function to mean attempts to extort and blackmail, will simply not work. … this executive will not succumb to blackmail, threats and intimidation under any circumstances.” This does not by any standard sound like a democrat. Democrats persuade and do not flaunt power in a military fashion. It did not surprise many of us that six months after a promise of “co-operation, consultation and dialogue”; we are still waiting to be consulted, even as major policy decisions have been taken, decisions that may require the backing of a legal framework to be passed by the National Assembly. One of these decisions on deregulation of the petroleum pricing brought this country to halt. In his address to the nation on the eve of NLC strike, Mr President told the nation that “the time has come when this government must decide whether it was elected by the people to serve the interests of all Nigerians … or whether it would succumb to the clearly misguided and irresponsible leadership of the NLC… That the government’s hands of friendship, tolerance and statesmanship are being misinterpreted to mean weakness. This must stop.”  Some of us have difficulty in seeing this friendship, tolerance and statesmanship. What comes across clearly is a President who has only a hammer and naturally he sees all problems as nails. A President who even after four years of internship still has problems disengaging with a military culture where dialogue and consultation are seen as surrender.  And no soldier wants to surrender. It reminds one of an old Chinese proverb: “To make nails do not waste good iron. To make soldiers do not waste good men”. The Eisenhowers, De Gaulles and Yar’aduas are clearly the exceptions. This, I hardly need to add, is not to hold brief for NLC or even to justify the behaviour of our people. Far from it. But these are people who have spent the best part of their lives under a military regime where confrontation was the only language and currency of daily discourse. They need to put those kinds of techniques behind them and embrace the more civilised ways of dialogue and negotiations.  Part of the responsibilities of leaders is to re-orient the citizenry and persuade them to imbibe a civilian culture. As Thomas Jefferson would say, “I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but the people themselves; and if I think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” And this is where the men and women around the President should help. We appreciate that it is difficult to advise someone with a monopoly of wisdom.  Even more difficult is advising a man who takes his instructions directly from God. But they have a task to do. They should persuade him that we are not running a theocracy, at least, not as yet. We are still running a democracy where power rests with ordinary mortals and here persuasion is the key tool. Power without persuasion in a democracy is not only an aberration, but also an assault on the intelligence and integrity of the people, on behalf of whom we hold power in trust. It destroys confidence and trust and undermines freedom, which is essential for growth of any society and ultimately derails democracy. How? Someone may insist. Democracy, many will easily agree, is not just about registering political parties and conducting elections. There is a lot more. It is founded on four foundations: the freedom of expression, the freedom of association, the freedom of choice and the freedom to pursue legitimate economic activities. It is these freedoms that guarantee justice and equity, which is ultimately the objective of democracy. In turn it is this justice and equity that brings about stability and progress of human society. Social Psychologists have come to concede that man’s inherent quest for freedom, justice and equity have moulded his behaviour far more than social and economic factors in society. Societies that have frustrated these intrinsic quests have not only stunted their growth but have generated social dislocations and violence. Erich Fromm, the author of Sane Society, has observed in a recent book, that “this general tendency to grow – which is the psychological equivalent of the identical biological tendency – results in such specific tendencies as the desire for freedom and the hatred against oppression, since freedom is the fundamental condition for any growth.” Power without persuasion, is the beginning of autocracy which leads to despotism and runs counter to the very grain of democracy and like a clog in the wheel it will soon bring a nation aground. Zimbabwe is perhaps the latest example. Power without persuasion is therefore the single most potent threat to democracy and that is what makes it dangerous. It is a danger we cannot be indifferent to. What to do? The first line of defence are the constitutional checks, the National Assembly and the Judiciary. The judiciary, perhaps because it is the final arbiter, is a little laid back and awaits issues to be brought before it first. But this makes it no less potent. Many are worried by the way its independence is subtly if administratively eroded. But it is encouraging to see how the higher echelon is holding out and courageously bearing the pains of their deliberate deprivation. The National Assembly (NASS), however, has an immediate and spontaneous responsibility to check the abuse of power. The Committee on Public Accounts for example should be able to let Nigerians know how their money, over two trillion has been spent, and whether they have good value for money. Appropriation Committee cannot proceed to look at a new budget without first asking for records of implementation of the previous budget, if only to avoid previous mistakes. The Committee on Power and Committee on Works should be able to match the funds released with work done. The NASS has a responsibility to ensure Nigerians get value for money in every sector of public activity. But because I am involved I should not be the one to assess the ability or otherwise of the National Assembly in delivering on its constitutional responsibilities and checking power without persuasion. I leave this in the competent hands of Nigerians themselves to judge. There are other non-constitutional checks, but which are no less effective. First there is the party, which has gone round the country to ask the Nigerian people to elect its candidates. It has a responsibility to ensure that these people do not get a raw deal, if only because it hopes after another four years to return to the same people to ask for yet another vote. We have all been instructed like school children that the party is supreme. We are still waiting to see that supremacy. It may be too early to judge the party, but one cannot help express worries over the quality of the people or lack of it as it were who run the political parties generally. The records of our parties so far are not inspiring. The ominous happenings in Anambra State are still unfolding; Osun State is another story waiting to be told – a murder that as refused to be unrevelled, a suspect who contested and won election even as he was behind bars – still others may well be waiting to explode. Any hope that the party concerned can rise above itself to muster the necessary moral clout to resolve these issues? The other is the civil society, it has very good records, if they can do what they did during the military, it should be even easier now. With the benefit of hindsight they ought not to have rested on their oars in the first place. They may have been too optimistic, or is it naïve, to go to sleep soon after the military left for the barracks. The veterans should be able to pick the danger signals on the political horizon. They should be able to appreciate the need to do something in good enough time to avoid having to go through what some of us went through in the late nineties. We are confident that the veterans have sufficient resolve to sustain what appears to be another round of struggle to secure a democracy under threat. Last but not the least, the wider society, the people themselves. They may not be as organised as the civil society but they should not be underestimated. We should realise that they are unwittingly mobilised by a de-regulation, which has ignored their plight, by the delay in local government elections, and by a monetisation policy that appears to have a hidden agenda. They are becoming angry by the day and we are not communicating with them we are only talking down to them. As they become dispossessed daily by ravaging poverty and decline in the economy, they become freer and feel less obliged. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn would say, “You have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you have robbed a man of everything he is no longer in your power – he is free” Or as James Baldwin would put it “ the most dangerous man in a society is someone who has nothing to lose.” If we care to look closely at what we call armed robbery, it is no longer what it used be, it is today becoming a movement led not by some uneducated social misfits, but by graduates who are out to avenge themselves on a society that appears not to care; a society that has lost its rudder and just floating in the sea of uncertainty; a society in which wealth has become the ultimate, once acquired by any means possible, one can win any election, buy protection and purchase justice form the courts. The level and sophistication of organised crime and the alarming rise in the quantity of arms in private hands has led many perceptive observers to cite Nigeria as the source of the “new mafia”. Are we waiting for the coming anarchy? Can we learn from Somalia, seeing how it has remained torn by armed gangs for the most of two decades now? Do we want to go the way of Colombia, where the mafia have taken over and paralysed development and therefore hope? The point being made is the simple one that power without persuasion is perhaps the single most serious threat to our democracy today. If left unchecked it will easily degenerate into despotism. Despotism, as has been amply demonstrated, stifles human ability to grow, generates social tension and eventually social dislocations and ultimately triggers a circle of violence from which society rarely recovers. It would appear that all our democratic and social institutions designed to check this dangerous development have been either intimidated or attenuated. As this creeping autocracy sets in, it is bound to ravish further these defences leaving us with a prospect for anarchy. If we should activate and deploy the more civilised defences in good time we may obviate recourse to the less refined forms of resistance and save ourselves and posterity. Usman Bugaje, Chairman House Committee on Foreign Relations 22/11/03 [Printed on pages 8 & 9 of The Guardian, …..December, 2003] Footnote 1. The title is that of a book by W.G. Howell which came out last August, which I have ordered but not yet read.