How to make democracy work in Nigeria, Africa, by Don

… Say poverty, bad governance make coup d’etat inevitable

To make democracy work in Africa, a nation-building elite is needed to strengthen the basic laws of society by exemplary statesmanship, says Sylvester Odion Akhaine, a professor of Political Science.

The professor also noted that institutions cannot build themselves, but that they are nursed through practice to become customary. This, according to him, cannot come about without elite contestation, and a state with relative autonomy to mediate the contest of social forces in society.

Akhaine, who is lecturer at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences at the Lagos State University (LASU), stated this while delivering the 103rd inaugural lecture of the university entitled: ‘Shifting For Good: The Weapon of Empiricism In The Disorder of Third Wave of Democracy In Africa’, recently at the Buba Marwa Hall on the main campus in Ojo.

The political scientist argued that in a democratic setting, policies must be attuned to produce wealth to cater for the welfare of the citizenry.

“Institutions cannot build themselves; they are nursed through practice to become customary. This cannot come about without elite contestation, and a state with relative autonomy to mediate the contest of social forces in society.

“It is important to add that in a democratic setting, policies must be attuned to produce wealth to cater for the welfare of the citizenry. What is required is the political commitment of state actors,” the professor said.

Akhaine also said that the inability of democratic political regimes to resolve the economic problems rooted in the structure of production and then fulfil the welfare content of democracy has caused democratic reversals in the form of coup d’état.

He said that as long as poverty, intolerance, corruption and the consequent alienation of the people in the continent exist, coup d’état would remain constant in the political equation of Africa and thus a permanent threat to democracy on the continent.

The don noted that Africa’s liberal democracy is not participatory, noting that in a liberal democracy, power goes to the highest bidder due to process monetisation that occurs within the liberal process.

“For example, you need money to run for any office. And those who are financially disempowered may not be able to pick a nomination form. For instance, the presidential form of All Progress Congress (APC) was pegged at 100 million naira in the 2023 general elections. So, democracy can only be meaningful when it improves fundamentally the material condition of the people,” he said.

He urged fellow intellectuals to always stand for the truth at all times. He stressed that it is the only way to find solutions to the country’s problems.

According to him, the desire to tell the truth is the only condition for being an intellectual; adding that the other is the courage and readiness to carry on rational inquiry to wherever it may lead, to undertake ruthless criticism of everything that exists.

“The desire to tell the truth always, being the commitment of the intellectual, should be the focus of the Lagos School of Politics as I like to call the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University. It is the only way we can find solutions to our existential challenges in Nigeria, Africa and the world at large,” he said.

He said notwithstanding the sundry macro-economic indicators and growth projections; the economies of many African countries are “prostrate with burgeoning debt burden put at $1.52 trillion as of 2023.”

“Figures from the World Bank and UNDP painted a dire situation: Africa’s debt is put by some estimation at about $300 billion out of which that of sub-Saharan Africa alone is put at about $236 billion. Africa’s debt represents about 11 percent of the developing world’s debt estimated at $2.17 trillion as at 1997.

“In the last one and half decades an estimated $1.3 trillion in loan and debt servicing obligations went to the wealthy countries. Between 1970 and 2002, Africa received about $540 billion in loans, paid back $550 billion, principal and interest, and is still saddled with a debt cargo of $295 billion. For sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), it has received $294 billion in loans and expended $268 in debt services and is still indebted to the tune of about $210 billion,” he said.

When comparing Nigeria’s democracy with other countries in the continent of Africa, the professor who was one of the frontline leaders of the prodemocracy movement in Nigeria, pointed out that his research showed that Ghana’s democracy has made significant gains over the last two decade compared to Nigeria, explaining that in Ghana there are concerted attempts at institutional building which is evident in some innovations and incremental improvements in the electoral process and brinksmanship.

He stressed that in Ghana unlike in Nigeria, the Electoral Commission, the Judiciary, and Security Agencies demonstrated institutional strength through resilience, professionalism, and impartial adjudication of electoral matters.

The Political Scientist said that Ghanaian democracy had grown qualitatively, while Nigeria’s democracy had only grown quantitatively.

“The international community also helped to set up the peace council comprising religious and civic leaders that mediated election conflicts”, he said.

Drawing an allusion from Ghana’s leap with democratic transition that has seen power changing hands in four election cycles between the two leading parties – National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New People’s Party (NPP) since 2000, he noted that Nigeria had only witnessed transfer of power from the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) once in 2015.

Arguing that the Nigerian republic has continued to manifest the ills of the past, he attributed this to four major pathologies.

He revealed that the first, is the absence of free and fair elections, saying that virtually all the elections since 1999 had been rigged in absolute disregard to the democratic method anchored on the principle of consent of the governed.

“It got so bad that the Commonwealth Observers reported that Nigeria went below the standard, it set for itself in the 2007 election.

“The beneficiary of that election, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, admitted so and set up the Uwais Panel to reform the electoral process.”

He stated that the absence of fair elections were the politically motivated killings that had blighted the political landscape.

“The third term genie reared its head and was quickly smashed by the combined forces of the political and civil society elite”, he added.

The Professor said that the human rights violations had characterised every administration since 1999 exemplified by heinous violations such as Odi, Zaki Biam, and more recently Okuama massacres, and Boko Haram insurgency had created additional horrific human rights violations. “Identity politics is large in the polity,” he noted.

According to him, apart from periodic ethnic clashes among the various ethnic groups, ethnic identity as of old had continued to define voting patterns.

He further said that the mismanagement of public funds had been unprecedented in Nigeria’s fourth republic, stating that in the special political report on Nigeria, the Nigerian economy was described as one that was non-productive and indolence-rewarding.

He said, “This perspective of the national economy has not changed. The political elite constitutes its most hideous façade. Politics has become the only game in town due to the opportunity it provides for the blatant looting of public resources.

“The bleeding of the national economy by public officials is aggravated by expenditure on public office holders and sundry appendages. By some estimates, over 70 percent of national income is expended on recurrent expenditure to the detriment of capital expenditure. In Nigeria, we speak painfully of stolen billions.”