By Ayodeji Jeremiah
In
the aftermath of the Ekiti state governorship elections and the ouster of Dr.
Kayode Fayemi, the jury has gone to town to determine why he lost and what
exactly happened. Prior to the elections, polls had shown a close run but it
was largely expected that the incumbent governor would win. When the results
came out, which were largely determined to have been free and fair by most
election observers, questions arose.
Ekiti
state was a stronghold of the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and
it was a foregone conclusion that an incumbent such as Kayode Fayemi with his
reforms and performance would be rewarded by the voters come Election Day. It
was a big win for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the party that rules
Nigeria at the federal level, which hitherto controlled none of Nigeria’s six
south-western states and has been struggling with internal divisions; several
PDP governors have defected to the opposition. By gaining a gubernatorial
foothold in Ekiti the PDP’s chance of victory in next year’s presidential
election looks brighter.
In
the aftermath, several new terminologies have been invented to explain the win
by Ayo Fayose, a former governor of the state who was once impeached following
charges, albeit unproven, of embezzling public money. The Lagos state Governor,
another reform minded governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola in an article on the
elections called it “stomachstructure”; others have referred to it as
“grassroots politics”. Another commentator called it “Danfo Driver politics”
(with reference to the unruly behaviour of Lagos public bus drivers and their
need for instant gratification). The Economist magazine of London called it “politics
of the belly”.
The
Economist of London in its editorial said, “In dismissing a forward-thinker,
the voters sent out a loud message. After coming to power in 2010, Mr Fayemi
laid new roads, improved the university system, presented a plan to get more
young people into jobs, created a social-security scheme for the elderly, and
cut corrupt wage payments to government workers. But such reforms upset people
with a vested interest in the old political system. Indeed, the election was a
clash between appeals to good governance on the one hand and the lure of
old-school clientelism and populism on the other. Despite Ekiti having a
relatively well-educated electorate, the old ways prevailed. This does not bode
well for political reform across the country.”
The
statement that Ekiti state having a well educated electorate was expected to
have re-elected Dr. Fayemi has been re-echoed in several quarters. The Ekiti
governorship poll results highlight public resistance to political reform. The
people are clearly saying they prefer the old “egunje politics”, which keeps
them comfortably on the state payroll and hands out cash in return for their
votes. It highlights just how much enlightenment the electorate needs.
The
results of the Ekiti polls also highlight the lack of a political culture and
the need to build one. In his article in the Daily Independent of Nigeria, ‘Madness
of politics: Is political culture possible in Nigeria?’, Dr. Chuks Osuji
commented that “in all Western democracies, political culture has been
developed, and this moves the wheel of democracy. However, when it comes to
Africa, particularly in Nigeria, one of the problems today is lack of political
culture. Many scholars opine that our own political culture must evolve after
all the seeming trials and errors, wobbling and fumbling period of political
experiments. Others disagree, saying that given the complexities of our
heterogeneous population with different social outlooks, tribal diversities and
sometimes numerous ethnic incompatibilities may make it difficult, if not
impossible, for the emergence of a political culture in this country to which
all and sundry could subscribe. The root of the disconnect in our political
system is the type of constitution imposed on the country by the military. The
constitutional provisions are seriously flawed in many respects; hence it has
remained difficult even for the Parliament to do something positive and
meaningful, because they are seeing everything from the perspectives of quantum
of selfishness and myopic tendencies.” This has trickled down from the
leadership to the followership and the electorate.
While
Nigerians have always appreciated the importance of good governance, long years
of military rule slowed development of democratic values and a culture of
transparency and accountability in governance. Consequently, corruption
pervaded all spheres of public and private life with serious implications for
service delivery. Among those who track corruption, Nigeria is a poster child
for the “resource curse.” According to the World Bank, some 80 percent of oil
monies are accrued by 1 percent of the population. Under international and
domestic pressure, the federal government has made efforts to combat corruption:
In 2006, the federal government began publishing the monthly amounts it
distributed to states and local government areas, and it has also established
several anticorruption government agencies. But the ruling party conducts most
of its anticorruption work behind closed doors. The most egregious graft
happens at the state level. Governors “run their states like personal fiefs,”
writes the Economist. These “big men” are not accountable to the general
population because they receive most of their money from the central
government, and when they run for office,
they rely on “godfathers,” or ethnic and political elites who sponsor
candidates with the understanding that they will reap the financial benefits
once the candidate takes office. Pervasive corruption at every level of
government has fostered similar sentiments in the populace. For the Nigerian
people, “democracy has become a kind of blackmail. They will take anything they
can get.”
Surveys
conducted by IFES (International Foundation for Electoral System) reveals that
a majority of Nigerians think it is wrong for an ordinary person to sell a vote
in return for goods or money. However, more than a third of the sampled
population thinks it is understandable to do so. Furthermore, “most think it is
wrong for political parties to offer money to people in return for their vote,
but a third think it is understandable for them to do so. A quarter of Nigerian
adults admit someone tried to offer them a reward or gift to vote for certain
candidates in the election.” Today in Nigeria, money politics, vote buying,
godfatherism and “share the money” are regular household phrases and slogans
portraying moral decadence of politicians. These usages adequately describe
rent-seeking behaviour of politicians, political parties and voters.
In
Nigeria, among political gladiators, spectators and bystanders, politics is an
entrepreneurial venture from which one can become rich overnight. That is why
people have not stopped registering political parties when few others are
merging; people struggling to become governors no matter what happens; all
manner of people gearing up for political activities in 2015 which they see as
the best opportunity to liberate themselves from the seeming enclave of impoverishment,
hardship as well as social and economic deprivation.
Adding
to these is the absence of any ideological train of thought amongst the various
political parties present in the polity. A look at the various parties shows an
array of dysfunctional actors coming together and riding on public sentiments
of disapproval of the current leadership. Cross carpeting (defection as it is
called) from one party to the next is the order of the day all based on what
each person can gain from the party.
A
blogger Mark Amaza in his post, ‘We Are Not Ready For Intellectual Politics’
opined that political debates are virtually absent in our politics. “Our
politicians and political parties prefer to, at worst, engage in banal, empty
statements that either criticize each other without providing alternatives or
in vituperation. At best, they make promises without providing an action plan
for achieving the promises. Less than nine months to the general elections, I
am yet to hear any person intending to unseat the incumbent President Goodluck
Jonathan offer his or her alternative ideas to solving our current issues, such
as the insurgency waged by the Boko Haram terrorist sect, or how to create jobs
for our millions of unemployed young people. It is the same thing at the state
levels and for the legislative races. One would have expected that robust
debates would be ongoing on these issues so that Nigerians can compare and
contrast and choose to back the candidate they feel offers the ideas.”
Giving
reasons as to why this is so, illiteracy and poverty top the list. 70% of
Nigerians still live on less than $4 per day i.e. N650 on the average.
Illiteracy rate still stands at a very high 30%. Of the literate 70%, more than
half are educated only to primary and secondary school levels and only 51.1% of
those eligible to vote can read and write. Intellectual debates and badly
needed public sector reforms do not really count in winning votes. It does not
really matter whether you propose the best ideas to solving problems because
the impact of this factor in your winning elections is quite small. This will
come especially as a rude shock to young Nigerians, particularly the ones that
populate social networks such as Twitter and Facebook and analyze politicians
and candidates based on their smarts – they are a very small percentage of the
entire voting population. Outside of cities like Lagos, Port-Harcourt and
Abuja, Nigeria is still a country largely driven by government jobs and civil
service contracts. The economy of most states is influenced by the amount of
money spent by the state government and most state governments are the largest
employers of labour in their various states. Most governments therefore rather
than take on the gargantuan task of putting money into much needed
infrastructure development and civil service reforms (that will free up
recurrent expenditure needed for capital expenditure) and transform the civil service
bureaucracy needed to get things moving will rather stick with the status quo,
which in the process enables them to pilfer as much as possible while
portraying them as ‘givers’ and being ‘sensitive’. It was widely said that Dr.
Fayemi (and his Lagos state counterpart Mr. Fashola who has transformed Lagos)
are ‘intellectuals, selfish, elitists who don’t know how to spend money and
speak too much English’. Spending money in this sense means distributing the so
called largesse of the national cake and government funds into the hands of the
average Nigerian through trickles of gifts and cash donations. After all, ‘it’s
not their money; it’s our money’ so the sayings go.
Less
than a month after the Ekiti state elections, the Edo state governor Adams
Oshiomole (An ACN governor) recalled teachers who had been laid off for not
having the necessary qualifications and who had been unable to pass the
competency tests given them. We join the Punch editorial team in believing that
this action was a direct response to the results of the polls in Ekiti. Unqualified
teachers who have been told to take tests as part of Mr Fayemi’s education
reforms probably voted against him. So did civil servants upset by his more
meritocratic hiring practices. Such ‘educated’ teachers and civil servants
therefore become very willing tools in the hands of so called populist
politicians (who promise the status quo) in spreading such messages as in the
above paragraph.
Olutosin
Ogunmola in his treatise, ‘The Challenges Of Democracy In Nigeria’ notes that the
failure of democracy and economic development in Africa is due in large part to
the scramble for wealth by predator elites who have dominated politics since
independence and see the state as a source of personal wealth accumulation. “We
have continued to have a ruling class that is grossly disinclined to ideas and
the life of serious reflection. Military intervention in governance has further
added more woes to the plight of democratic governance in Nigeria. Not only did
it adversely affect the legislative component of government, it also brought
the people, the electorate, down to a revoltingly unacceptable level of
acquiescence to the undemocratic actions of their rulers. That’s why even now,
some of the electorates would carry placards and demonstrate in favour of
rulers who, apparently, are doing nothing for their good. Also, the lack of
sophistication and independence by the press is not helping matters. There can
be no meaningful representation to elevate the fundamental principles of checks
and balances when we have a passive civil society and a weak press. This
democracy has no plan other than one to serve the interest of the select few
who want to continue to have their way at the expense of the collective will
and interest of the people; with so much power concentrated in the executive,
there are no strong institutions to curtail excesses.”
In
our May 2014 cover feature, we stated that developing the middle class and
lifting those at the bottom of the economic pyramid into lower middle class
remains one of the solutions to sustaining and building democratic ideals and
structures. The middle class in most African countries do not have the means
(including votes and clout) to empower progressive groups into governance; most
economic policies continue to favour the establishment and foreign interests
except radical changes occur. A report says a third of Africans are now middle
class. Their interests coincide with the interests of the poor and should help
to bring about change. Think about the middle classes who voted with the poor
for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president in Brazil, or the vibrant civil
society of India that brings together the poor and middle-class activists (or
possibly even the middle classes who are the protesters in the Middle East).
The
Civil Society and Press in Nigeria clearly have their work cut out for them.
While we wait and hope for the economic emancipation of the average Nigerian,
enlightenment is also needed as to what constitutes good governance. The fight
against corruption must be stepped up as Nigerians generally believe now that
if our elected profiteers can gain away with anything, the only option is to
try and take as much as they are being offered from them.
Our
political system needs to be one of several coherent systems infused with a
central value to it. This central value, i.e. shared orientations towards
action, would define the type of role relationships, which can arise and allow
the individual to develop stable expectations about the behaviour of others.
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