Averting elite suicide in Nigeria
Two years into the
Tinubu
administration, the political society remains deeply polarized and bitterly divided. Some sections of the political class are still nursing the wounds of the last elections. Yet it is incontrovertible that before the current administration took over the reins of power, the country was on the verge of economic disintegration. All the indices were pointing towards a catastrophic collapse. But even if we ignore the countermanding chorus of hysterical supporters and hostile disapproval, not even Tinubu’s most virulent critic can deny the obvious fact. From his eclectic toolbox of orthodox and unconventional economic placebos sometimes so mutually exclusive and countervailing that they are supposed to cancel out each other, the president might have found the formula to stave off catastrophic economic collapse such as happened in Venezuela after the revolt against the ancient master-class, a development which sent millions of Venezuelans heading for the Colombian border\xa0 or the apocalyptic fiscal meltdown that overtook Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe after the old Shona wizard went to work on the buoyant economy the colonial masters left behind.
It is a classic study in the management of mismanagement, and we must thank God for little mercies. Three generations down the line, Zimbabweans are still feeling the pains and pangs of the ruinous economic policies of their founding father. Only the discipline and resilience of a proud people and the bitter conundrum of having to fight to liberate themselves from their old liberator kept the nation together. It could have been worse. After the harsh and unforgiving Treaty of Versailles, the collapse of the German currency led to the collapse of the Weimar Republic and opened the door to Hitler and the Third Reich and the nunc dimittis of the extant world order. But Germany is an organic country with its disparate sub-tribes and warring principalities forcibly welded together through “blood, sweat and tears” by Von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor.
After two million souls have been lost to a civil war which failed to resolve the fundamental question, Nigeria is struggling to remain a single unified entity. If we are to witness the kind of economic meltdown occasioning a total currency collapse, the tenuous cord binding the entity together might snap irretrievably. The Tinubu economic programme with its “shock and awe” tactics reminiscent of an economic pacification of an already brutalized society is far from perfect. It has led to a fiscal distress for the most vulnerable sectors of the society, further polarization of the political elite and a rapidly expanding multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multipurpose underclass ready to do anything to stay afloat or to upend the entire system accordingly. The tragedy and bane of the current conjuncture of post-military rule in Nigeria is the dearth of coherent paradigms of alternative economic development and political pathway beyond ethnic sabre rattling and outworn shibboleths. If we can avoid a catastrophic currency collapse and ramp up local production which adds value to the export of raw materials while the government continues the tinkering with economic fundamentals, there may still be a lot to play for.
\xa0Virtually all those shouting themselves hoarse while angling to replace the Tinubu administration are tired and jinxed political jobbers who cannot come up with a single productive idea. Without any sense of irony, some of them even ape and regurgitate Tinubu’s economic policies or their main planks. When a major opposition figure rents a thirty million hall to celebrate his birthday and all he could come up with were shouts of hunger, you begin to wonder whether Kafka’s celebrated hunger artist is on a visitation to Nigeria. If this is the stuff the opposition is made of, what may be the staring the nation in the face is not a one-party system but the possibility of an all-party meltdown leading to elite suicide in all its dire consequences. It is this possibility that we must fear most and the story that follows should be quite illustrative of that possibility.
In 2017 or thereabout, yours sincerely and one or two others accompanied Lieutenant General Ipoola Alani Akinrinade, the respected and influential former Chief of Defence Staff, to Bayelsa State to deliver a lecture on restructuring and the National Question. It was a golden opportunity to visit the old province which was part of the old Western Region ruled by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. That was in the magical days of regional governments and competitive federalism. There was no viable airport in Yenagoa at that point in time, so we had to undertake the journey, first by air to Port-Harcourt and then by road to Yenagoa. Before flying out, the famed warrior and celebrated military strategist had informed one that the aircraft was going to be a one-engine fixed propeller plane, a revelation which froze the spine.
As the plane dipped and banked perilously through the enveloping clouds on takeoff before leveraging into the clear blue sky, the general reassured that he had been through more precarious and dicey flights during the civil war. Reminding him that you were not enlisted as a soldier was a waste of time. Luckily after about an hour, the aircraft, after a steep descent, bumped on the runway and gamboled to a halt without any further trepidation. Our host this clear calm morning, the then governor of Bayelsa State, Henry Dickson Seriake, was already waiting for us in his office with his Deputy Chief of Staff, a Ms Ndiomu. Seriake, who traces his remote ancestry to an Ijebu woman named Bola, was as courteous, polite and welcoming in the best tradition of native Nigerian hospitality. After official formalities including a welcome address by the governor, we were rushed through breakfast joined by two notable Yoruba Nation activists who had materialized from an inner room. They were on a different mission.
The lecture hall was filled to the brim despite the tight security. It was a distinguished crowd that came to hear out the general as he pronounced passionately and with cerebral gusto about the desirability and inevitability of a major structural reconfiguration in a country wracked by ethnic, religious and cultural schisms. His global references were apt and his conclusions sharp and point-device. The audience listened with rapt attention. It was obvious that this was an issue very dear to the people of Bayelsa and the attendance cut across the partisan lines of party, creed and credo. Among them were top traditional rulers, notable politicians, retired military brass-hats and high-octane clergy. At the end of it all, the general got a standing ovation which lasted for about five minutes. The governor concluded events with a rousing speech which was a tour de force of hope and optimism for Nigeria.
In the intervening years, Henry Dickson Seriake has transited from the gubernatorial mansion in sleepy Yenagoa to the senatorial coliseum in Abuja. Last week, the hefty, imposing law maker with the embonpoint of a retired American heavyweight bruiser made a dramatic entry into the palatial venue hosting the sixtieth birthday anniversary of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the former speaker of the Rivers State of House of Assembly, former governor of the same state and former Minister of Transportation in the underwhelming Buhari government. His intervention was no less dramatic and explosive. Bearing down on the august crowd which bristled with luminaries of state incapacitation and stars of national eclipse who were gathered in stiff opposition and conspiracy against the Tinubu regime, Seriake reminded them that that was exactly what some of them did about eleven years earlier with baleful consequences for the nation. He dismissed them as masters of perpetual conspiracies to unseat sitting governments but who lack the requisite skills, the political capacity and the mental magnitude to rule a vast and complex country.
It was a damning verdict on the phantom state of opposition in the country and the unenviable circumstances in which multi-party democracy has found itself in Nigeria. One or two of them was even regurgitating wholesale Tinubu’s subsidy removal regimen and deregulation package. Seriake’s Facebook wall page filled with admiring endorsements with one hailing him as the lion of the creeks but one sly sourpuss dismissing it as a gambit for the vice-presidential slot in a coming configuration. Meanwhile, the seminal contribution of the celebrant himself was to proclaim that he was hungry like everyone else, a clear case of post traumatic stomach disorder. If this is all the putative opposition against the Tinubu administration could muster, the leading lights of the regime can as well go to sleep with their two eyes firmly shut.
But here lies the problem. The vulgarization of politics and the demise of a viable and functioning opposition bode ill for the entire nation. With discomfort slowly taking a firm grip and acute poverty spreading even if it is only temporary, the vulgarization of politics and the negation of its most sacred and noble ideals could push the masses and the vastly proliferating underclass in the direction of a revolt against politics and a ruinous de-marketing of liberal democracy itself. If that were to be the case, what is tugging at the undertow of the nation is not the prospect of a one-party state or all-party meltdown but the possibility of elite suicide in postcolonial Nigeria.
As it is, Nigeria is prey to two major forces of destabilization. Both appear to be aided by significant sections of the elite bent on bringing the state to its knees. On the one hand are the shadowy activities of an ancient superpower which believes it could topple the nation into radical chaos and anarchy through massive propaganda and the relentless insinuation of AI generated pictures of paradise and el Dorado from a military-run, poverty-wracked landlocked African country. The other group consists of resurgent Islamic groups already operating within the confines of the nation bent on turning it into a fifteenth century medieval tyranny. Calls to arms are sprouting every day.
To spring the trap laid by these groups of enemy nationals, government must come to terms with some sobering realities. First, elite pacification is not the same thing as elite consensus. While elite consensus is a product of strenuous but free negotiations, conciliations and concessions, which conduce to national harmony and cohesion, elite pacification is often superintended by economic coercion and political cajolery leading to abiding resentments and hidden animosities which could find temporary truce in a one-party state but which is bound to erupt in open treachery in the nearest future. Second, government must improve on its political capacity building through open forums, interactive sessions with various stakeholders and brainstorming retreats with critical sectors rather than shadowy consultations and confraternity-like communing which sow the seed of doubt, distrust and discord in the wider populace and which revives echoes of an Ottoman presidency. Balancing the competing and often conflicting claims of various elite groups without harmonized values makes effective governance very difficult if not impossible. Despite all these, the balance of momentum and the possibility of critical success still lie with the former senator from Lagos who has many things going for him. The game changer may yet be his pluck, courage and capacity to change direction once it is obvious that he has taken a wrong turn.
Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Syndigate.info
).
