By Tunji Olaopa
The grand consensus by the majority of Nigerians is that the Nigerian state stands on a precipice. Indeed, most people believe that this is the most critical point in Nigeria’s political history; the point that we are very close to imminent war, or even final dissolution. This opinion is shared by both ordinary Nigerians whose very lives bear the inscriptions of the failed governance process in Nigeria, as well as the elite who keep struggling to keep the state from tottering and falling.
The imminent danger at the moment is not even the COVID-19 pandemic and its multidimensional implications. With the first wave, Nigeria somehow escaped the death statistics that went into millions across the world. And Nigerians escaped outside of any governmental attempt at providing a stimulus package which could have alleviated the pains and agonies of a lockdown protocol that was so out of tune with Nigerian socioeconomic realities. Now, the second wave of the pandemic is biting hard, and the death tolls are increasing globally.
And right in the midst of the pandemic, Nigeria’s national development problems are escalating. And they are escalating right at the most fundamental core of a state’s responsibility to its citizens—law and order. Since the turn of the 21th century, the national anomalies created by the amalgamation of the Nigerian state started culminating in several dysfunctional consequences. Central to these structural and institutional dysfunctions is Nigeria’s status as a federation. Nigeria’s constitutional past was a careful consideration of Nigeria’s plural reality and what constitutional history teaches about dealing with such realities.
And yet, political adventurism, induced by military intrusions, led to a unitary imposition that engendered acute centralisation. The centralisation of the law enforcement machinery of the Nigerian state, for instance, stands in acute contradiction to the semblance of federal framework the Constitution promises, to wit, the governor of a state shall be the chief security officer of such a state, and shall be responsible for preserving the life of the citizens. The result is that the president dictates an order to the Inspector-General of Police that flies in the face of sociopolitical realities in each of the 36 states of the federation.
The Nigerian security reality is presently accentuated around the evils of kidnapping, banditry, insurgency and multiple killings. The terrible combination of Boko Haram insurgency and the herdsmen conflict has brought the Nigerian state to a watershed in her history that is only matched by the pre-civil war tension of 1966.
In fact, many Nigerians fear that we are on the direct path to an imminent civil war. News reports and political commentaries and analyses in the public sphere are filled with lamentations and anger. For some, it is either that the Nigerian leadership is playing a dangerous game or that the state as guarantor of peace and security is overwhelmed. This amounts to the same thing: neither can the state get the work of development done nor are public institutions working.
It takes a little reflection to see how such perception from the citizenry could lead to acute and depressing pessimism. Even political elites are throwing up their hands in resignation. And those who have not resigned themselves to fate are engaged in unceasing interrogation of a state that keeps frustrating every attempt at resolution. One major capitulation to pessimism was by Chief Bola Ige, the late attorney general of the federation who, unfortunately, fell to the insecurity of the Nigerian state.
He popularised the catchphrase “siddon look.” This is a pidgin statement that speaks to a decision to fold one’s arms and watch as political incidents and events unfolds—without making any attempt at intervention. This attitude of political apathy is not nonchalance. On the contrary, it is borne out of the experience of bitter frustration that borders on cynicism.
And yet, cynicism is most cowardly of all responses to political troubles. And it is because it obviates the politics of hope. Stephen Colbert, the American comedian puts it most aptly: “Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it…. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness: a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.
Cynics always say ‘no.’ But saying ‘yes’ begins things. Saying ‘yes’ is how things grow.” And there is one political commentator, and active participant in Nigeria’s national project, who has never given in to cynicism, but rather has consistently been saying “yes”: As a public intellectual, Prof Pat Utomi, has never shied away from projecting his hope and patriotism about Nigeria and her latent possibilities. He does not just analysed, he also participates in national affairs.
He believed so much in Nigeria’s future and his blueprint for bringing it to pass that he actively took fundamental steps to become, first, the president of Nigeria, and then second, the governor of Delta State. For him, Nigeria is too significant to be cynical about. Founding the Centre for Values in Leadership ensures that he keeps pushing the boundaries of thinking and action about making Nigeria a great nation. This means that there was no way he could be an armchair critic.
Utomi’s way of “yes” to Nigeria and her possibility to is to retort a “why not?” to the anguished and resigned chorus of those in the “Siddon Look Movement” who ask why we should bother about Nigeria and her consistent failure as a nation. It was therefore apt that he would make his optimistic retort the focus of a book aptly titled Why Not: Citizenship, State Capture, Creeping Fascism, and Criminal Hijack of Politics in Nigeria (2019). This is an autobiographical narration of the author’s immersion in Nigerian politics, and perspectives on how it could be better.
It is a book that speaks in a timely manner to Nigeria’s current security and governance challenge, and how we should begin to reflect on the solution, even though it was published almost two years ago. In the Preface to the book, the author categorically states that “why not” is the response to “the question ‘why bother,’ which is posed by those who believed that criminal capture of political parties in Nigeria is complete and that those outside the league of cult members, 419ers and con men have no chance of breaking in.” The book is Utomi’s own way of recoiling from cynicism, and spelling out fundamentally his vision for retrieving Nigeria from imminent collapse.
Utomi’s thesis is simple: politics has underdeveloped Nigeria since the founding fathers calibrated a vision of how Nigeria’s plurality ought to be managed. Politics in Nigeria, rather than being emancipatory on behalf of the citizens, has rather become a cult of personality dedicated to advancing the selfish and greedy interests of those committed to siphoning the commonwealth. This led to the crowding out of legitimate and genuine participants and citizens who could contribute their quota to making politics work for Nigeria.
And this, in Prof. Utomi’s reckoning, is the reason why many had folded their arms and assumed the attitude of “why bother?” the “why not?” retort, Utomi insists, “should be a clarion call of a people determined to prevent their lives from being determined by a cluster of cultists, conmen, fraudsters and treasury looters masquerading as politicians and political party leaders.” These people consolidated their fetish grip on politics with the terrible understanding that people do not matter, even in a democratic experiment.
To get the people, Nigerians, back into politics and reform the odious politics that exclude them and steal their commonweal through state capture, Prof. Pat Utomi has two solid recommendations. First, he demands that we hold the Nigerian middle class responsible. By “middle class,” Utomi has in mind the intellectuals, the professionals and the civil society—the academics, the business professionals, the religious leaders, the students, and the media professionals.
The middle class is already complicit in state capture and the rape of the commonwealth because it has lost its moral authority. It has been reduced to an impotent and angry social media force that merely resort to name calling. The other side of the equation is to reform the political party dynamics that consistently make it practically impossible for those who genuinely want to participate to do so. Party politics has effectively become the competition of the rich and the wealthy.
Prof Olaopa is a directing staff, NIPPS, Kuru, Jos, Plateau State
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Like a candle in the wind
The death of Innocent Chukwuma hit the airwaves early on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2021. Coming after the sudden death of another illustrious activist, Yinka Odumakin on April 2, 2021, news of the death of Chukwuma the next day suggested that fate was being unfair to Nigeria taking away two patriotic and eminent Nigerian activists – Odumakin on Friday and Innocent on Saturday. The sun set for both in a most inauspicious time and prime, mid-50s.
I was a bit close to Chukwuma within the civil society and development agitation space. Long before he became the regional director for West Africa Office of Ford Foundation, our paths crossed in a number of civil society projects including serving as joint consultants for DFID in 2008 to design one of its development intervention projects in Nigeria. More recently, Chukwuma as leader of the Ford Foundation office for West Africa, partnered with the MacArthur Foundation led by Kole Shettima and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa led by Jude Ilo to support the Buhari government anti-corruption agenda especially the work of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption in which I served as member/executive secretary from 2015 to 2019, before assuming my current position. Without that strategic funding support from the three notable donor agencies, PACAC and indeed the lift up of the government’s anti-corruption drive would have remained a theoretical idea for quite some time.
That Chukwuma was eventually ambushed by unexpected leukemia, a health challenge that sneaked behind global focus and attention to COVID-19 is indicative of the providential and domineering hand of fate in the affairs of men. In January 2021, he finished strong at Ford Foundation as immediate past regional director and had concluded plans to proceed to Oxford in the UK for a fellowship programme. Indeed, his former position at Ford Foundation has yet to be filled by a substantive director before the cold hands of death snatched him.
In celebration of that milestone service at Ford Foundation, a memorable virtual send-off was organised for him on Friday, January 29, 2021. The event revealed that he was a man associated with many firsts having been part of Civil Liberties Organisation unarguably Nigeria’s first human rights organisation, from there he set up CLEEN Foundation one of the first African CSOs to focus on security, public safety and justice. CLEEN led the advocacy for community policing that has now become one of the inevitable solutions to Nigeria’s current security challenges. He used his gift, knowledge and leverage within the civil society space to lift and mentor a number of other activists and organisations often working behind the scene but nevertheless ensuring impact with his eyes on the ultimate goal of democratic sustainability and the development agenda.
Most recently, the Ford Foundation provided support to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission to advance its prevention work around illicit financial flows and associated corruption and money laundering and strengthen its capacity to investigate and prosecute allegations of sexual harassment as abuse of power especially in the public service and tertiary institutions.
While eulogies will not resurrect the dead, contributions to national development will remain indelible and undeniable. We can only be remembered by what we have done. This ought to, in the minimum, motivate the living to carefully number our days so we may daily apply our hearts to wisdom. Innocent has left footprints in the sands of time especially in Nigeria and in Africa. But, it has pleased God that service at Ford Foundation would be the terminal point of his earthly sojourn. Without notice, he suddenly reached his “Bus Stop” and disembarked! As the popular saying goes, “Quo sera sera” “What will be, will be.” For those left to mourn and reflect these mysteries, we ought to remind ourselves frequently – for whom does the bell toll? The answer as they say “is blowing in the wind.”
I extend my condolences to Josephine, the children, extended family, friends and colleagues especially in the civil society space. May God comfort all with words that human minds cannot fathom. Adieu, my dear friend and brother.
Prof Owasanoye, SAN, is the Chairman, ICPC.
