­Missed Moments And The Search For Nationhood -By Abiodun KOMOLAFE

A critical tactical blunder in Nigeria’s chequered political history is that the country never gave birth to a unified party of independents, similar to the Congress Party in India (1947), the Convention People’s Party in Ghana (1952), the Alliance Party in Malaysia (1957), or the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa (1994). Such a movement carries loads of vital significance, as it reflects the institutional memory of the anti-colonial struggle and projects a cohesive national ethos essential to building a post-colonial state.

The closest Nigeria came to this was during the zenith of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). Unfortunately for the country, intense regionalization and bitter internal realignments prevented the party from assuming its rightful role as the unified embodiment of our national ethos. This historic truncation continues to trouble Nigeria’s destiny to this day.

Nigeria unfortunately lost a golden opportunity for redemption after the bare-knuckled fight for the restoration of democracy against a succession of brutal military dictatorships and their civilian collaborators. Once again, we failed to seize that decisive moment. The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) should – and could – have leveraged its mass appeal and credibility to become the foundation for a post-military democracy in 1999. Much like the ANC in South Africa at the time, it possessed national cohesion, credibility, and was taken seriously across the political spectrum both at home and abroad.

NADECO significantly encompassed civil society and enjoyed dynamic, respected partners such as the Concerned Professionals – an amalgamation of thinkers, technocrats, and activists exemplifying the best and brightest in Nigeria and the diaspora. As part of a NADECO-led administration, these professionals would have provided the technical expertise needed to guide and guard a nascent democratic government at both the federal and state levels.

In the absence of such expertise, the political parties that emerged to form governments at every level after 1999 simply lacked the managerial capacity and intellectual preparation so vital to building a new society and slaying inherited monsters. With NADECO regrettably failing to assume its historical role, what followed were governments populated by placemen, hustlers, opportunists, and accidental politicians seeking an escape from financial insecurity.

This assemblage simply lacked the vision, commitment, and roadmap required to break the mould necessary to construct a new nation. This remains deeply tragic because it is difficult to envisage when such an opportunity will arise again. NADECO missed its moment, and Nigeria has never truly recovered from the lapse. Those who inherited power from the military did little else beyond securing their own personal financial independence.

The origin of the word “Demos” is well chronicled from its beginnings in the Greek city-states. It was quite an audacious innovation, given the prevailing notion of the “Divine Right of Kings.” Yet even though Africa was well ahead in constitutional practice, the monarchical absolute remained the European norm.

We may recall that, while Europe was locked in the “Divine Right of Kings”, the Alaafin of Oyo contended with a cabinet under a strict separation of powers – a council possessing the authority to impeach him, which ultimately compelled his ritual suicide. Much of this rich constitutional tradition is documented and popularized through Yoruba history and framed in Wole Soyinka’s epic, Death and the King’s Horseman.

Africa contributed significantly to the evolution of democratic practice, and we should have cultivated a truly home-grown system. Therefore, any meaningful definition of democracy must take local African realities and governance norms into focus. This is precisely why the forced adoption of the Western model remains problematic.

The Western framework itself varies from country to country, yet out of sheer indolence, we adopt one model wholesale without tailoring it to our unique cultures and conditions. This is why The Economist can be forgiven for categorizing Nigeria’s post-1999 democratic experiment as a “semi-democracy.” Sadly, the publication was onto something.

It is often difficult to interpret democracy, its operations, and, most fundamentally, its dividends in Nigeria. For example, is democracy to be interpreted merely as “projects”, “palliatives”, and “empowerment”? Or should it be about lifting millions out of multidimensional poverty and elevating them, through sustainable development, into a thriving middle class?

A fundamental flaw in our democratic adaptation from the start is that civil society has been completely subjugated by the political establishment. This is dangerous, because the relationship between civil society and the political class in a functioning democracy is conventionally symbiotic. This is the only way we can realize Abraham Lincoln’s enduring precept that democracy is “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” In contrast, governance in Nigeria often resembles a patron-client relationship, which is precisely where patronizing concepts like “palliatives” and “empowerment” derive their oxygen. The end result is a nation that remains ill-equipped to compete in today’s brutally competitive, globalized world.

Democracy in this part of the world has fathered many children. Among them is noisome pestilence – that crude blend of praise-singers, turncoats, pretenders, and those Nyesom Wike referred to as “natural crisis builders”, who, within the geography of power, pose as champions, ever-scanning for hollow vanities. Victims of their own character and ineptitude, they bleat with the sheep and howl with the wolves. They shout in the streets today, desperate to bag a political appointment tomorrow. In most cases, it is an effective strategy that quickly yields the desired results.

Indeed, what we endure today is more of a democracy of the pockets. The setup punishes diligence and rewards idleness. It pumps public resources into private vaults while the country’s foundations rot. Worse still, apart from the judiciary being seen as offering no sanctuary and moving at a snail’s pace for the ordinary citizen, the law has not done enough to be seen as a shield for the weak. In some quarters, it is now a commodity traded to the highest bidder. And that’s where the problem lies!

So, instead of hiding like a rat being pursued by a cat, posterity demands that we interrogate the limit of facts, not by rhetorical flourish or cultural dominance but by the imposition of conviction. It behoves Nigeria to confront the logical consequences of the urgent imperative to reboot its democratic model. Thankfully, promising initial steps have been taken by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration. Among them are the local government financial autonomy reforms, the devolution of the long-contested electricity mandate to the states, and the strategic turning point of decentralising internal security to the subnational level.

Tinubu should be commended for emphasizing devolution, because even highly centralized states such as the United Kingdom have embraced decentralization with positive results. The poster child of a highly centralized “Bonapartist” state, France, is also loosening its grip – a shift that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago.

The president deserves credit because devolution inevitably fosters greater civil society participation, given that the pathway to sustainable development begins at the grassroots. This means civil society will become more engaged and committed, which in turn will revitalize the social contract as the essential foundation of any functioning democracy.

It is precisely this lack of public engagement through civil society that has led to an overreliance on the machinery of state, resulting in a bloated government marked by costly, time-consuming duplications of function. This is why the second Tinubu administration should show character and early promise to fully implement the long-overdue Oronsaye Report on administrative restructuring. History will likely judge this endeavour kindly, as he demonstrates immense political courage to break the mould.

May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!

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