In one of those statements so banal that it requires great insight to make, Otto von Bismarck, the German statesman, once remarked that it is better to start a revolution than to suffer one. That is self-evident. As Mao Zedong, the Chinese revolutionary, reminds us, ‘a revolution is an act of violence wherein one class destroys the other’. Yet, revolution is inevitable because destruction precedes rebirth. ‘Verily, verily I say unto thee, unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’
For every Nigerian, it is obvious that our current situation needs to change. Indeed, we voted for it as a slogan, if nothing else, twice! Yet, while a minority of the Nigerian electorate made their choice at the ballot box, the majority rendered their verdict on the existing system by staying away. A more motivated minority have meanwhile embarked on their attempts and preparations for their revolution. Regardless of the labels we may choose to grant groups like Boko Haram, the Niger-Delta militants or IPOB, the fact is that they represent alternatives to the status quo. They are revolutionary. They are also warnings against revolutions that happen to you.
Buoyed by the winds of change buffeting the country, some have proposed ‘restructuring’ as the path ahead. It and its annexe: ‘true federalism’ must be rejected wholesale. They are reactionary throwbacks to a failed system. A system that failed precisely because it preferred fictional narratives of ethnic superiority and zero-sum competition.
A truly revolutionary approach to Nigerian politics would be to acknowledge, once and for all, that Nigeria is a unitary State. Unlike famous federations like the US or Switzerland, it was not a collection of independent polities that joined a new sovereign body. Unlike India, it did not inherit any monarchies whose frontiers were not already abolished. Nigeria was an entity called into being, whole, in 1914. Every attempt at division since has been as artificial and top-down as the country.
The politicians of the First Republic and politicians since were mistaken to frame administrative questions in primordial terms of ethnicity and religion. It is time to stop digging.
A good government is characterised by the depth of its social contract with its citizens, the quality of rights they exercise, their prosperity and, perhaps most importantly, its capacity to be obeyed. Nigeria fails on all those counts.
The social contract is shallow. And those shallow waters are crowded by middle-men. Why should any Nigerian need an ethnic or religious intermediary to claim what is their right as an individual? These middlemen have proliferated since the dawn of the country’s independent politics, what have they achieved?
In terms of rights available to the Nigerian, we might as well be a despotism with national queues every four years. Property is vested in the government, not individual owners, extra-judicial murder is normalised and freedoms of expression and assembly are contingent on government approval.
We are the ‘poverty capital’ of the world, mired in another recession and accustomed to persistently high inflation. The government’s writ, despite its tyranny, runs small. Despite these travails, which have plagued the country since its creation, Nigerians have chosen every option except the simplest and most revolutionary: simple administration.
We require a paradigm shift where our sole focus is solving our problems, not creating new ones or seeking to benefit sectional interests. Since the government is too expensive, shrink it. The civil service is ineffectual, replace and reform. The service chiefs are underperforming; retire them.
We know the answers to our problems. It is the will to act that is lacking. The reflexive genuflection to sectional priorities saps our will. Once we place national priorities first, the will to act will follow.
A shift in orientation is one aspect. Another necessary turn is an embrace of moonshots: collective projects that visibly demonstrates the necessity of Nigeria. Just as the entire nation is reliant on crude oil produced in the south, why not invest in a waterworks project to move water from water-abundant regions to water-scarce ones?
Regardless of our choices, revolution is in the air. The decision of who the architects and victims will be is up to us.
Emmanuel-Francis Nwaolisa Ogomegbunam is a Nigerian by conviction.
