The last 16 years have been very good for the democratic project in Nigeria. We have broken at least four records.
One, we have held on to democratic rule for more than a decade. The
First Republic lasted just a little over half a decade, the Second
Republic was even shorter, and the Third Republic was dead at birth.
Two, we have held two general elections back-to-back without igniting
a conflagration that would give the military an excuse to take over.
Democracy did not survive the post-election combustions of 1964/1965 and
1983, but we broke that jinx in 2003. The result of the 2003 election
was contested all the way to the Supreme Court, but that’s well within
the latitude of democratic practice.
Three, we have seen one administration handing over to another, even
when the election was a low point and both administrations were from the
same party. That happened in 2007.
Four, and most important, we have just witnessed the defeat and the
concession of an incumbent president. The 2015 general election has
turned out to be a truly landmark one in a pleasantly surprising way
that has additionally held up our country as a good model. These are all
indicators of the good health and the growing maturity of our
democracy. They are also important markers in our march towards that
much desired endpoint of democratic journey: democratic consolidation.
Given the historic nature and outcome of the 2015 general election,
it is very tempting to crow that we have arrived democratically or that
we have fully consolidated our democracy. We have not. We are yet to
arrive at that point where our democracy is fully mature, where
important countervailing institutions have grown robust enough to serve
as arenas for resolving conflicts and checkmating possible excesses,
where rights and freedoms can be taken for granted, where democratic
norms and principles have become second nature, and where democracy has
become the only game in town that democratic breakdown and reversal are
totally impossible. That point is still some distance off. It is very
important that we do not confuse age with quality and do not mistake a
landmark, no matter how important, for the destination.
The good news is that we have not veered off the road. Some progress
have been made in the last 16 years in a way that reinforces the
hypothesis that when allowed to grow, democracy matures with age and has
an inbuilt mechanism for course-correction. It has been argued
severally that if the military had not intervened in 1966 and 1983,
democratic institutions and democratic culture would have developed
stronger roots and that the aberrations in our first two republics would
have corrected themselves. That’s a wee counter-factual, for we will
never know. What we know, however, is that the last 16 years of
democracy have gifted us the opportunity to move from a quasi/pseudo
democracy to a real democracy. It has not been an even or perfect
journey. But with one important record broken after another, we now have
a good foundation to build on. And build we must, and continuously too.
While we have earned the right to enjoy the glory of the rare moment
presented by the 2015 elections, we need to realise that there is still a
lot to do. The job of further democratising, of consolidating democracy
and of making democracy work for the people is not yet fully done. At
best, the great achievement that we sing and dance about is still a
work-in-progress. There is still an almost equal chance of further
progress, of standstill, and even of reversal. The incoming
administration, as the major beneficiary of an expanded democratic
space, has a moral and historic responsibility to further deepen
democracy in the country. Because of the embedded risks, embarking on
further democratic reforms might not be deemed politically urgent and
expedient, ironically, by the same people that have benefited from the
present openings. But it is important to insist that this is an
important order of business.
As I see it, the democracy deepening work needs to be undertaken in four broad areas.
The first is in the area of continuous electoral reforms to ensure
that votes always count. Even when it is almost a cliché that elections
do not equate democracy, it is also obvious that representative
democracy without elections will be a contradiction in terms, that a
democracy where votes do not count is nothing but a farce, and that
democracy’s promise of good governance will always be delivered in the
breach until governments know they stand a good chance of being voted
out by the electorate. There is no guarantee that the electorate will
always get it right, but at least they have the luxury of trying until
they do. When adjustment is made for some margins of error, it can be
stated that the results of the 2015 general election accurately mirror
the actual preferences of the voters. The use of permanent voter cards,
card readers, customised election materials etc. significantly reduced
the room for the usual electoral mischief. Professor Attahiru Jega and
his team should be commended for the innovations they introduced and for
insisting on implementing them despite the unprecedented level of
personal attacks they had to endure.
The electoral innovations were by no means perfect. The outstanding
task is to continue to perfect, not jettison, them. It is very important
that voter registration and PVC collection be made continuous and
convenient, that election logistics and processes are further
straightened out, that card readers work 100 per cent of the time, that
votes are counted more quickly and more transparently, and that results
are announced on time. It is a shame that Professor Attahiru Jega has
ruled himself out of another term. But he has put in an outstanding
shift in a most difficult job that many come out of with their
reputation in tatters. Maybe his job is done at the electoral
commission, but the job of electoral reform is not yet done. It is
important to ensure that Jega’s successor is someone who can advance,
not roll back, the current electoral reforms and is someone who can
introduce the next generation of reforms.
The second arena of work centres around the need to eliminate or
minimise the disruptive aspects of our politics. Chief in this area is
the manner in which violence is twinned with our politics in general and
elections in particular. We go into elections holding our breath,
fearful that the democratic project might be unhinged, worried that our
country might go up in flames, and reconciled to the fact that some
limbs and lives would be lost. Even in the effusively celebrated 2015
elections, scores of people were killed before, during and after the
polls. Violence has become a permanent feature of our elections because
the stakes of losing or winning are so high and because perpetrators of
violence do it without consequences.
Other disruptive elements that we need to take care of include our
do-or-die approach to politics and how we routinely manipulate religious
and ethnic differences for political advantage. There is need to design
and implement robust programmes for ending the culture of impunity that
encourages violence, for reducing the attraction of politics and
creating opportunities for self-actualisation outside of politics, for
enthroning a democratic political culture, and for building social
capital, strengthening existing mechanisms for integration, promoting
inclusion and healing the country of the open wounds of the 2015
campaign.
We also need to strengthen the restraining institutions that provide
necessary checks and balances and separate democracy from other ways of
organising and running society. This, to me, is the third arena of
democracy deepening work. The obvious restraining institutions on
executive powers are the judiciary and the legislature. They must be
truly independent and be accountable too. But we also need the press,
the security agencies and civil society to be professional, independent
and accountable to serve effectively as countervailing institutions,
ensure protection of rights and freedoms, and check autocratic impulses.
And most important, we need a robust opposition to keep the
government on its toes and to always provide the voters with a credible
alternative to the government in power. It is in our collective
interests for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to get over its loss
and re-organise itself, rather than disappear or dissolve into the All
Progressives Congress (APC). We wouldn’t have achieved much by merely
replacing one dominant party with another. In a manner of speaking, that
will take us back to square one. It will deny the system of needed
competition and constrict the space for democratic growth. These
restraining mechanisms and countervailing institutions are needed and
should be strengthened not only at the federal level, but especially at
the state and local government levels where they are sorely missing and
greatly needed.
The last arena of work is to return democracy to its essence: a form
of government where citizens make decisions. At the moment, we have
turned the idea of representative democracy on its head because we have
merely borrowed forms without the spirit and the culture behind them. It
is important to remember that we elect people to represent us in both
the executive and the legislative arms because it is impractical for all
of us to be at the decision-making table. So, the elected are the
agents and the people are the principals. But what we have is worse than
the principal-agent problem. We have agents that no only serve their
own interests at our expense but have become the lords who oppress the
very people they are meant to represent and have turned citizens into
subjects in a way that hacks back to our monarchical instincts. This
broken system is principally the reason why democracy is working more
for the elected than for the electorate, and unless it is fixed we
should not expect a better outcome.
I think there are two ways to fix this broken and dysfunctional
system. The first is through increased citizens’ engagement. The level
of engagement on the 2015 elections is very commendable. This shouldn’t
end with the election. It should not only be sustained but also
deepened. The bulk of the work for responsive, efficient and accountable
governance is actually done in-between elections. Without an active and
effective demand for these, the supply of good governance will at best
remain scanty. No one supplies what is not demanded. The second way is
for government to consciously and genuinely involve the people in the
decision-making process and graduate our democracy from mere electoral
representative democracy to a participatory and deliberative one.
John Dewey, the American political philosopher, memorably said that
though we need a shoe maker to make a shoe, we need the shoe wearer to
know where it pinches. From experiments in participatory budgeting in
Porto Alegre, Brazil to decentralised decision-making in Kerela, India,
it has been shown beyond doubts that decision-making can be enriched and
further legitimised when politicians, bureaucrats and the people
collaborate and that the people are the best determiners of their own
priorities. Coming closer home, it will be inconceivable that if
Nigerians were part of the decision-making process, they would make it a
priority for the National Assembly to have an annual budget of N150
billion that is not accounted for, for about N1billion to be spent on
food and entertainment in the State House, and for a new jet to be
bought for the presidential fleet. This area of reform, which is not
problem-free, won’t be favoured by politicians who are used to and have
benefited so much from the status quo. But it is necessary reform
nonetheless.
– this Piece was written by Waziri Adio/thisday
No comments:
Post a Comment