I have this Zimbabwean acquaintance who is a staunch, hero-worshipping supporter of Robert Mugabe. So this Zimbabwean declares the other day his belief that multi-party democracy has "failed" in Africa and followed up by insisting a one-party state was the ideal system for Africa.
First let me say I am always fascinated by that micro-minority of Africans who say multi-party democracy has failed in Africa. I always want to ask them ... when did we try multi-party democracy? I mean, if you are saying it failed somewhere in Africa, then surely it means it was tried somewhere in Africa and didn't work there. So where is this place in Africa you are talking about; when did they try it; how long did the experiment last; and when did it fail?
I was under the impression that we had spent the last 50 years doing everything in the world EXCEPT multi-party democracy. Mind you, those are two different, separate words; you can have many political parties (like Nigeria) without having "democracy". Heck, you can hold any number of elections (like Egypt) without there being any "democracy"
Ghana's experience with multi-party democracy is 10 years old; it seems to be working well for them.
Other than Ghana, the closest thing Africa has to democracy are those countries that (like Japan between 1955 and 2009) are one-party states in all but name. In those countries (as, ironically in Japan), the inertia and rigidity of the ruling parties, and the complete lack of motivation to do anything (because even if they do nothing, they still "win") retard development.
Either way, it is silly to say multi-party democracy has failed when the continent's political, economic, social and cultural elite have done everything in the world to AVOID multi-party democracy.
But that is not the worst part of it.
You see, my Zimbabwean acquaintance does not really support the one-party state, nor does he really believe it is the best system for Africa. What he really supports is Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF, and in order to keep them in power forever, he is quite willing to prevent the existence of democracy in his homeland.
Let me put it this way: If Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC somehow came to power and subsequently declared Zimbabwe a one-party state, this acquaintance of mine would be the first and most vociferous opponent of the move. And in doing so, he would have proven the very reason why the one-party state is such a failure; you see, once a person and party you dislike (or in his case, hate) is in office, you cannot remove them because there are no elections. You are stuck with a situation you do not want "forever".
Yet, he sees nothing wrong with denying people who oppose ZANU and Mugabe the very constitutional right he would demand if it were Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC in office. Indeed, stupid claims like "democracy has failed in Africa" are usually uttered by the very same people who work so hard to prevent it from existing in the first place as an excuse for their actions in blocking it.
My Zimbabwean acquaintance is quite typical of the people who dominate Africa's politics, business community and society. When they are in power, they tell you Africa does not need democracy, constitutionalism, rule of law, human rights, etc, but when they are out of power and their opponents are crushing them with the same tools of state they used to use against their opponents, they become born-again believers in all of the things they did not do when in office. And if by some chance they return to office, they will simply carry on where they left off, explaining to all and sundry that democracy has never worked in Africa, and how constitutionalism and rule of law are "foreign" concepts, etc, etc.
I have another acquaintance, a fellow Nigerian. He and I get into arguments because he believes the proper response to a "bad" African government is to support the "opposition" party. I keep telling him the "opposition" party (or parties) are exactly the same as the "government" party. Opposition politicians will exploit his passion and desire for change in their quest for power, will promise him everything they know he wants, and will oppose every aspect of the current government they know he opposes....
....but if they somehow seize power, they will immediately forget about him and do exactly the same things as the current government he is opposed to.
Some of them do not even wait until their faction gains power, but instead opt for a sort of trade-by-barter or extortion. We who believe in nothing will oppose you and mobilize those who truly believe in something to oppose you too .... unless you cut us in on the deal. As soon as the ruling faction gives them a share of the political spoils, they undergo an "ideological" conversion and begin to defend the very things they were vociferously opposed to just a few seconds before.
I am baffled and exasperated by those of my countrymen who get really militant about issues of "power shift". We have had more changes of government in the last 50 years than most countries in the world, and I am not just talking about countries with lifetime dictators; the "democratic" countries of Western Europe and the United States have changed their governments fewer times than we have.
We have had army generals and civilians; we have had northerners and southerners; we have had "minorities" and "majorities"; we have had parliamentary, presidential and authoritarians systems; we have had Open Ballot, Option A-4, Closed Ballot; I could go on and on and on. We have been power-shifting like crazy and nothing about the substance of governance in Nigeria has ever changed.
Don't you understand? These people competing for the power of political office stand for nothing and believe in nothing.
You might argue that the same thing happens in other countries. Regardless of which political faction wins the world over, the fundamental nature of governance, administration, policy-making and policy-execution in those countries does not really change.
I agree, and it isn't a problem if the fundamental substance of governance, administration, policy-making and policy-execution in your country is working well enough for your country and its people. But when "the system" is a failure, a hindrance, a roadblock, then you start to run into trouble ... and the trouble starts to persist and gain a certain permanence.
[By the way, for the record, a large part of the world's current economic troubles lie in the fact that the political party systems are good for maintaining Mid-20th Century realities, but lack the flexibility or originality of thought to deal with the changed reality of the 21st Century. Honestly speaking, none of them have a clue as to what to do.
But I digress.]
If you are a Nigerian (or African) interested in fundamental reform, restructuring and transformation, then politically you have nowhere to turn. The political factions that profess to want what you want will stop "wanting" those things the moment they get into political office. Once they have access to the same "enjoyment" the current occupants of those offices are enjoying, they will forget what they promised. Actually, they never believed in their promises, only using the words to mobilize support from the masses.
And they are successful at it. Over the decades, many of the Nigerian/African masses have invested so much hope and belief in certain political figures/factions. Some of use have fought for, shed blood for, and even died on behalf of our chosen heroes and their factions. We keep doing it though time and again we have been betrayed by the very people in whom we placed so much trust. They have wasted our energies and wasted our lives and achieved little of what we truly want. Again and again it has been like George Orwell's Animal Farm ... after an initial period of morale-boosting publicity stunts (what we Nigerians call "initial gra-gra") the new regime eventually becomes indistinguishable from the old regime.
It is funny ... in a sad way.
In Nigeria, men and women who claim to be "progressive reformers" are nevertheless quite keen on gaining wealth, status and position as the technocratic managers of the very system they pretend they want to reform. Some continue talking-the-talk of reform while walking-the-status-quo-walk. Others metamorphose to become vociferous defenders of the status quo. Either way, they (secretly or openly) become enemies of true reform, because reform might eliminate their cushy positions, or at best open their jobs up to competition -- and like my Zimbabwean acquaintance, the "supporter" of one-party states, they hate the idea of having to compete for their jobs.
And so the alleged "progressives" and "reformers" make a lucrative career out of being the mouthpieces and bureaucratic functionaries of the same class of oligarchs, godfathers, plutocrats, kleptocrats and political vagabonds they once loquaciously pretended to oppose. Their only real "ideology" is doing anything that GUARANTEES themselves a political job. Their allegiance is to any political machine willing to grant them a well-paid job, with no care to the consequences to the country.
This is the point where some people will accuse me of "bad belle". As Jos burns (again), bombs explode in Abuja (again), police are killed in Maiduguri (again) and violence flares in the Niger-Delta (again), there are still many citizens willing to hail those who acquire wealth and any costs and denigrate anyone who points out the obvious -- our political system is rubbish!
For the record, a few years ago I was offered a well-paying Abuja-based job. At first, I thought it was a dream job where I would get to do some of the things I can only blog about .... but then I realized I would be working for someone who is directly and personally responsible for some of the crises faced by the federal republic in the Fourth Republic. I turned the job down. What would have been the point? I would have been drawing a salary to participate in propagating avoidable crises.
The funny thing is, the man in question has since fallen out of favour in Abuja. Had I been inclined to sell my soul for money, I would probably be jobless by now.
But you see, I have actual principles. There are things I believe to be right, and things I believe to be wrong. As I read news of the violence in Jos (for example), what would I have thought of myself if I was a part of causing the mess?
In fact, what do these people think of themselves? How can people be so bad at their jobs, but still be so pompous, self-important and arrogant? Have they no shame?
Nobody really cares about anything, except power.
Ahead of the 2011 (rigged) Elections, politicians are moving around like cockroaches surprised by someone turning on the light. Everyone is looking for guaranteed candidature and guaranteed victories at the polls. Like my Zimbabwean acquaintance, the thought of a fair contest, may the best man win, is anathema to them.
Mohammedu Buhari has created a party from scratch so he could be a presidential candidate without having to hassle with the few remaining ANPP governors. Much of the ANPP had already decamped to the PDP anyway, the trickle of movement becoming a flood during the administration of the late President Umaru Yar'Adua (RIP); Isa Yuguda and Mahmud Shinkafi, governors of Bauchi and Zamfara respectively were among the more notable decampees. What remains of the ANPP exists only because the holdouts have no hope of GUARANTEED candidatures in the PDP (their state branch is the private property of rival machines), or CPC (Buhari left the ANPP to get away from them in the first place).
Nuhu Ribadu has moved from the corruption-filled PDP to work for the corrupt Bola Tinubu because Tinubu promised him the ACN presidential ticket.
Dora Akunyili has decamped from PDP to APGA, because Governor Peter Obi will use the power of the Governor's mansion to give her the Senatorial nomination, and may have promised to hand her the gubernatorial mansion in 2014. The enemy of my enemy is my friend; Peter Obi and Dora Akunyili are both feuding with the Anambra political machines helmed by Charles Soludo (former CBN Governor), Andy Uba (former illicit cash carrier for President Olusegun Obasanjo) and Chris Uba (former breaker of every felony law in the Nigerian statute book in broad daylight and full view of everyone, though was never prosecuted, convicted or jailed).
Adams Oshiomhole had no interest in the hard work necessary to mobilize rally blue-collar workers and the poor masses into creating a left-leaning party to fight for change politicially (as opposed to hurting citizens, harming the economy, and wasting everyone's time with strikes that never achieve anything); alas, Oshiomhole decided it was much easier to ride Tinubu's powerful coat-tails into office, even though Tinubu is the sort of politician a left-leaning party should be trying to unseat.
The garrulous and oft-unintelligible Patrick Obahiagbon has defected from the PDP to the ACN. He says his "peregrination" to ACN was in response to his people who had left the PDP and joined the ACN. But why was he in the PDP to begin with? Because that was the one his people wanted him to be in? Does he have a political opinion or does he change party when "his people" ask him to? Why can't he be honest and say he was in the PDP because their political machines controlled Edo State, so any PDP candidate was guaranteed a seat in the federal legislature. Now that those political machines have switched allegiance to Tinubu's ACN, he has made sure to switch too. I bet if the machines switch to APGA or CPC or even the Chinese Communist Party, Patrick Obahiagbon will switch with them.
I know I sound harsh, but these people are supposed to be LEADERS. They are supposed to guide the federal republic in a particular direction, towards something they BELIEVE IN. But they just flit like butterflies from flower to flower looking for nectar anywhere they can find it, concerned only with filling their bellies.
They are ridiculous.
Future students of Nigerian politics will surely study the chameleon-like antics of the Ilorin political warlord, Olusola Saraki. Lets focus just on his activities in the Fourth Republic. In 1999, as a chieftain of the All People's Party (later All Nigeria People's Party, ANPP), Saraki imposed Mohammed Lawal as Governor of Kwara. When Lawal rebelled (as all Fourth Republic godsons have done to their godfathers), Saraki left the ANPP and joined the PDP, from where he handed Kwara State to his son Bukola Saraki. Since Bukola was his won, Papa Saraki probably figured he had escaped the inevitable godfater-vs-godson battle, but alas, Bukola is refusing to play along with his father's plans to impose Senator Gbemisola Saraki (Olusola's daughter and Bukola's sister) as Bukola's successor. So Papa Saraki has left the PDP and invested in an unknown micro-party called Allied Congress Party of Nigeria, his third party since 1999.
Its not like it matters. All of the parties are the same. The big ones. The small ones. The ones in government. The ones in opposition. The ones that were registered and kept vacant and disused so the owner can sell it to when a politician cannot get a nomination elsewhere and needs to rent the empty shell to use as his election vehicle (which is what Saraki seems to have done).
Everyone does it.
Nnamdi "Andy" Uba facilitated illegal movements of cash for the Obasanjo regime. Having served Obasanjo loyally, he was rewarded with (rigged) "victory" at the 2007 Anambra gubernatorial elections. But then Obasanjo was gone from Aso Rock, freeing the courts to annul Uba's so-called victory and restore Peter Obi to office. The late President Yar'Adua, keen on ridding Anambra of the Uba brothers, imposed Charles Soludo as the PDP candidate for the eventual 2010 state polls. In response, the Labour Party (which sounds like something Oshiomhole should have been leading, but which in fact is as much a joke as the rest of the parties) saw an opportunity and offered Andy Uba a guaranteed ticket as their candidate. Uba took their offer. Uba assured his new party of his loyalty by promising the Labour Party he would not dump them and return to the PDP if he won. He lost, and (you guessed it) has now defected from the Labour Party back to the PDP.
How can you take any of them seriously? What do they believe in? Do they even believe in anything? Anything at all, good, bad or otherwise? What principle are they willing to fight for, other than their own political and financial ambitions?
And where are you supposed to turn if you are interested in reform, restructuring and transformation?
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