There were two things that surprised me in my early days as a political journalist in Poland, my mother’s home nation. The first was how relatively easy it was for me to arrange one-on-one interviews with ministers and other VIPs running the country. The second was how nicely and respectfully they treated me. My Nigerian upbringing hadn’t prepared me for this. These were Big People running things, I was “just” a journalist. How come I didn’t have to jump through countless hoops just to get in the same room with them? How come the interviews felt like a conversation of equals? How come I never felt small in their presence?
The numerous testimonies offered by Nigerian journalists and public commentators as to what a nice man the late Abba Kyari was, remind me of the feelings I had back then. Feelings of gratitude towards power for being nice to me. Because that was not what I had expected. This is not about Abba Kyari, it is about the fact that one of the biggest obstacles towards developing Nigeria, and indeed Africa as a whole, lies in our attitudes to power. Specifically, in our assumptions about what power is entitled to and what we feel entitled to demand of it.
When we complain about Nigeria’s leaders, what we often complain about aside issues of competence is the manner in which they exercise their power. The way they lord it over us. Though some Nigerian politicians are classic scumbags whose leadership flaws are directly attributable to their character flaws, the bigger problem is that even those who were no worse people than you or me before getting to power tend to look down on us, exploit us and treat us like rubbish once they do. What makes them behave this way and more importantly why do we keep letting them get away with it over and over again?
It is because both we and they have been conditioned to view power in exactly the same way. As something that entitles you to more than the rest of society. More money, more status, more respect.
In the field of cultural studies, the concept of “power distance” is used to assess how people interpret power inequalities in their society. There are power inequalities in every country on earth, but where societies differ significantly is to what extent their members view these power inequalities as “legitimate” and “unavoidable.” This matters because it determines the degree of domination by the powerful that is considered acceptable by the rest of society.
The Hofstede Power Distance Index which measures attitudes to power based on country surveys conducted, shows Nigerians scoring very high – 80 – in terms of power distance. This means we accept as pretty much obvious a strongly-hierarchical social order in which the powerful have a more or less natural right to dominate the less powerful as they see fit. We say we want equality, but truth is, we are culturally conditioned to instinctively accept significant inequalities of power as legitimate and unavoidable. As just the way the world is.
In comparison, Britain, a country originally built around a dominant aristocracy, today scores 35 on the power distance index, meaning British people are radically less accepting of power inequalities in their society than Nigerians. Most successful nations score much lower than Nigeria on the index: Germany 35, Australia 38, Canada 39, America 40, Japan 54. People in these countries have a much more interrogative attitude towards power than Nigerians.
The only countries that have high power distance scores and can be described as successful today are classic authoritarian states: Singapore (74), China (80), United Arab Emirates (90). These societies have decided to exploit the deferential attitudes of their citizens towards power by building tightly-controlled top-down systems that offer economic efficiency and high standards of living but limited individual autonomy.
However, since Nigeria is pursuing a democratic pathway to development, we have little choice but to radically modify our attitudes to power to render them more compatible with the kind that make democracies work. Because at present, our instinctive attitude towards power is the opposite of the kind needed to make a democracy work. Democracy is all about the taming of power. For it to work, power must feel on itself a gaze so unflinchingly questioning that it is constantly unsure of its footing. On the defensive. Trying to please. Not the other way round. This is not about throwing insults at politicians on Twitter, anybody can do that, no, this is about fighting the instinctive fawning in the actual presence of power that comes so quickly to us.
Make no mistake, Nigeria’s powerful are well-aware of our instinctive acceptance of their right to dominate us and they exploit this mercilessly. They know we take delight in the slightest nod of recognition from power. They know a mere phone call acknowledging our existence can make us feel important. Because no matter the number of degrees we have, there is no validation we crave more than the validation of power. Because if we tell our Nigerian neighbour that Minister X or Governor Y called us on the day of our daughter’s wedding, that neighbour will never look at us the same again. They will look at us with respect. Even envy. Because attention from power means we too are “somebodies.” That is why nothing suspends the critical-reasoning capacity of a Nigerian faster than attention from power.
The Edos have a saying: “If you want to catch a Bini man mugu, show him respect.” As long as we continue to crave validation from power, we will be powerless before it. As long as we continue to believe power is entitled to more, it will continue to enjoy more at our expense. As long as we believe power is the ultimate virtue, it will continue to behave like it is special.
If we truly dream of a successful democratic Nigeria, then I believe it is the duty of those of us privileged enough to write for the public to expend our energies demystifying power rather than deifying it. For our good as well as the good of those in power. For anyone worshipped long enough will soon start to believe themself a god. And only when power knows it is seen as ordinary does it feel obliged to behave itself. Power is what we make it to be.
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