It is five years today that he died. He remains a subject of engagement by academic colleagues, activists and think tankers as in this Keynote Presentation at the 5th Memorial of Professor Abubakar Momoh at the Secretariat of Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED), Professor Abubakar Momoh House, Hse 5, Malcom X Street, Off 451 Road, First Avenue, Gwarimpa,Abuja, FCT, Abuja, Nigeria May 29th, 2022.
By Dele Seteolu, PhD
At this moment when many are positioning themselves for 2023, I would like to specially appreciate the Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) for deeming it appropriate and timely to convening this event with a view to remember and celebrate a scholar-activist, Abubakar Momoh, a professor of political theory. Humans by their very nature are forgetful. So, the Centre must be commended for deeming it fit and important to remember an organic scholar; especially in a country where the morally bankrupt and intellectual lightweights are largely worshipped. Given that I was a colleague, friend and comrade of Abu who witnessed some of his activities as an enigmatic activist, needless to stress that I am delighted to be invited to deliver this talk.
My presentation is divided into four main parts. It starts with an introduction that will flow into a short discourse of Momoh and his interaction with what I refer to as the ‘‘African and Africanist intellectual universe.’’ This second section will be followed by a third that underscores Momoh’s postulations on democracy, democratisation, de-democratisation and 2023. My presentation concludes with why it is important to remember our heroes and heroines ‘from below’ – such as Momoh – in our contemporary interrogation of the socio-economic and political challenges confronting Nigeria and indeed Africa.
- Introducing a scholar-activist
The Late Professor Abubakar Momoh had insatiable drive for knowledge and rigorous analysis; he was polemical, didactic, intellectually profound, and posed alternative constructs to extant orthodoxies. His writings were hinged on Marxian analytic framework to interrogate social, political and developmental questions at local and global level. Momoh though opted for the Marxian theory and political economy approach showed erudition in competing bourgeois theories. He deconstructed social struggles that underline state policies and political actions through the materialist interpretation of social reality without receding into economic determinism.
The Late Professor of Political Science, Abu Momoh was bothered about the contradictions in Nigeria’s political economy amidst the socio-economic conditions of the working people, urban poor and rural peasants. He critiqued economic policies and political actions that pauperised, alienated, and impoverished the mass of the people in Nigeria. Comrade Momoh was an ardent critic of market reforms in transition societies including Nigeria. He published several works on market reforms, development trajectories, impact of state economic policies on the weak social classes, the falsity of abstract based development without the requisite human development, and the political philosophy of development.
Abu activist role at the University of Lagos was remarkable, indeed, profound. He participated in the programmes of the Thomas Sankara Movement, Youth Solidarity on South Africa, YOUSSA and other centrist and left organisations on campus. He became a visible and regular speaker at public events on many campuses especially the main campus of the University of Lagos in the 1980s. Momoh was passionate about his beliefs, ideas and world view; he was a consummate speaker who had the gift of oratory and eloquence. The campuses in Nigeria were particularly exciting in the 1970s- 80s. It coincided with cold war politics amidst the preponderance of regular debates on domestic and international affairs. Coincidentally, these citadels were populated, at this point in time, by some of the most intellectual and didactic scholars across ideological leanings like Patrick Wilmot, Late Eskor Toyo, Late Bade Onimode, Late Claude Ake, Late Ojetunji Aboyade, Late Bala Usman, Toye Olorode, Dipo Fasina, Tekina Tamuno, Late Akinjogbin, Alaba Ogunsanwo, Bolaji Akinyemi, Omo Omoruyi, Peter Ekeh and Africanist scholars- Gavin Williams, Bjorn Beckman, Billy Dudley et al. The campuses ‘‘bubbled’’ with dialogues and robust debates on topical issues, which drew the anger and suspicion of military dictators. It is noteworthy that Abu featured prominently in these trajectories of post-colonial Nigeria as a student and later a university teacher.
Late Professor Momoh was visible in the trade movement and civil society organisations. He used the labour platform to engage Nigerian social and economic problems and labour issues. He deconstructed mainstream industrial relations, which had been characterised by ‘‘quietism’’. He insisted that this disciple should raise critical questions on labour relations and working-class conditions; and pose alternatives to extant orthodoxies within the context of working class interest. He was sought by some of the leading unions such as the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, Nigeria Union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, Iron and Steel Workers Union, Health and Medical Workers Union, Maritime Workers Union, Civil Service Union, et cetera. Abu was equally prominent in the programmes and political actions of civil society organisations. The centrist and radical civil society groups also offered platforms for Momoh to ventilate his ideas on major local and global issues. This scholar -activist featured prominently in the programmes of Committee for Defence of Human Rights, CDHR, Civil Liberties Organisation, CLO, Campaign for Democracy, CD, Joint Action Front, JAF, Centre for Constitutional Governance, CCG, United Action for Democracy, UAD, Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD, Resouce Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education, CHRICED and others. He was Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, Lagos State University, LASU, and National Treasurer, Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.
- Momoh and the African – and Africanist – intellectual universe
More faces at a different ‘celebration’ of Momoh in Lagos previously
Comrade Momoh was rooted in Africa as signposted in his interventions and collaborations with pro-masses collectives such as Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa, CODESRIA, African Political Science Association, AAPS. He had physical and intellectual interface with high level African intellectuals and Africanist scholars. He had immense respect for these scholars and read thoroughly the works of Samir Amir, Issa Shivji, Thandika Mkandawire, Walter Rodney, Cheik Anta Diop, Amilcal Cabra, Claude Ake, Bade Onimode, Eskor Toyo, Horace Campbell, Bjorn Beckman, Gavin Williams, Late Bala Usman, Yusuf Bangura, Tijanni Bande and Rauf Mustapha et al. His works were largely influenced by the original thoughts and perspectives of these scholars especially on African issues. He did not despise liberal scholarship and celebrated the works of the like of Adele Jinadu, who wrote a profound Doctoral Thesis on the philosophy of Frank Fanon, Bayo Adekanye, Alex Gboyega, Adigun Agbaje, Okechukwu Ibeanu, Tade Akin Aina et al.
This paper notes the link between Abu’s scholarship and his activism. Both were focused on the contradictions within the Nigerian state and globally, and the challenge to organise intellectually based struggles to liberate exploited, alienated, disempowered social groups on the basis of new social relations to production. He was therefore a public intellectual who relied on knowledge for social liberation especially of repressed social classes. To Professor Momoh, ‘‘the Public intellectual operates on four main principles. The first is the principle of patriotism which entails belief that being patriotic is far nobler than being sectional, sectarian and ethnic. The second is the principle of the public good. This implies that a public and common good has utilitarian meaning and value for majority of the citizens than the private or individual good which serves the interest of a few people. Third, the public intellectual is the conscience of the nation and the voice of the voiceless, articulates his interests and grants agency to the subalterns, lumpen and working class. Fourth, ‘the public intellectual valorizes or essentialises ideas believing that change can only occur through ideas of change and transformation.’’
The scholar-activist canvassed with passion his opinions on election, democracy and democratisation question in Africa. He was the Director General of ‘The Electoral Institute,’ TEI, Abuja. He re-introduced rigorous research at the Institute and ensured that the members of staff were exposed to varying experiences on election management in different countries. He sought as Director General the critical inputs of academics and the civil society organisations on the different aspects of election. He re-interrogated the dilemmas of politically related violence and inconclusive election when the orgy of political violence and inconclusive election had assumed major impediments to the consolidation of Nigeria’s democracy. Ironically, he was a victim of election violence in the Ekiti Gubernatorial elections in Dr Fayemi’s tenure. He had travelled to Ekiti to monitor the elections but was ambushed by exuberant and reckless mob that inflicted serious injuries on him. This rather unfortunate incident drew local and international condemnation; it signposted the nature of politics in Nigeria as warfare and rancorous struggle for state power. The Nigerian state is therefore a captured terrain to consolidate class interests and objectives.
Professor Momoh intervened in the debate on democratisation question in Nigeria. He differed with the Late Claude Ake that the country was not democratising. Claude Ake had argued at the Guardian Lecture at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs that the Nigerian state was not democratising as a result of the absence of requisite economic conditions for democratisation. Ake identified these conditions as the increasing level of poverty, low literacy level, low per capita income, low life expectancy rate, increasing maternal and child morbidity, poor social infrastructure. He insisted that the structures of democracy; the organs of government, bureaucracy, political parties, elections are not sufficient to foster democratisation. Ake thesis differentiates the political superstructure and the economic sub structure as typified by the democracy and democratisation. Momoh, however, viewed democracy as ‘‘representative government and the empowerment of the people’’. He critiqued the Western template for democracy in Africa and compared it to the Western bourgeois theory of Modernisation and its prescription for Africa. The continent, he insisted, should adopt models that reflected her historic conditions. The inability of this region, he argued, to replicate liberal democracy should therefore be found in her historic conditions. He insisted the lack of liberal democracy in Nigeria aided the shift to ‘‘populism and popular democracy’’. Momoh noted the prevalence of ‘‘political rhetorics’’ especially since 1999 to justify state policies, demand for sacrifice of the people amid the promise of a better future, as deepening the conditions for de-democratisation. He cited political rhetorics in the Obasanjo civilian administration amidst ‘‘primitive capital accumulation, primitive accumulation of power, and terror accumulation’’. These socio-political conditions, he argued, led to ‘‘de-democratising tendencies’’ in the polity.
Momoh differentiated between ‘process and outcome’ in relation to democracy and democratisation. He averred that democratisation is a construct of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to sustain influence on the political development of adjusting states through neo-liberal economic policies. He condemned the political conditionality attached to debt rescheduling and new financial transfer to developing countries. Abu noted the social backlash of market reforms and the resultant struggles against the state. The state became alienated from the Nigerian people as a result of harsh social and economic policies and the perception of state actors as arrogant and malevolent.
- Most recent trends in de-democratisation in Nigeria
Momoh’s contributions to activism and scholarship on democratisation are robust and insightful. In terms of his scholarship, one of Momoh’s major interventions was published in 2006 in the Nigerian Journal of International Affairs – the flagship journal of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA). In the article entitled ‘‘Democracy, De-democratisation and Development in Nigeria,’’ Momoh articulated his views of the (dis)connection between democracy and democratization, a contradiction that gains expression in what he described as de-democratisation. In my estimation, Momoh’s de-democratisation article is more relevant in Nigeria today than when it was first published a decade and half ago. Abu, as he is often called by comrades, friends and colleagues, raised three principal arguments in the article. His first argument is that democracy is not democratization. He postulated that while “democracy has to do with representativeness and empowerment, … democratization is a process leading to liberal democracy more of a carasole of neo-liberal fundamentalism or market democracy prescribed for the Third World” (p. 62). In other words, Momoh did not miss words by referring to democratization as a corrupt form of democracy – a statement he made when the so-called Nigerian democratic experiment was merely seven years.
Momoh’s second argument is that civilian leaders employ political rhetoric, which led to de-democratisation. For him, the civilian leaders are merely agents of de-democratization. He had defined de-democratization as “the action and inactions of politicians, militians and all those saddled with the political responsibility of expanding the democratic space under the civilian era, whose actions, however, have led to shrinking the democratic space and the imposition of authoritarian culture” (p. 63). When Abu wrote the article, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was the President; today he has been replaced by President Muhammadu Buhari. Interestingly, The Punch newspapers will have us refer to the President as General Buhari (rtd) and nothing else. I am sure virtually everyone in this audience would remember the popular advert of 7up drink (and its mascot, Fido Dido) that often ended with “7up, the difference is clear!” In Momoh’s evaluation of de-democratization in the Fourth Republic, the difference is not clear. A significant proportion of the issues he raised in the tenure of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo; the phenomenon of Big Man’s rule, disregard for judicial processes, electoral manipulations, et cetera, are still pervasive. The political climate is sometimes worse than when Momoh wrote. Two examples will be used to illustrate this worse turn: one is the strangeness of running for offices in Nigeria, and second is the destructive tendency of the (amended) Electoral Act.
Example One: The All Progressives Congress, APC, had asked her Presidential aspirants to pay N100 million for expression of interest and nomination form. It is noteworthy that the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, had collected N40 million for the expression of interest and nomination form. The social contradictions within the polity has become sharper and it is increasing clear that politics is class based to reproduce the conditions of exploitation and domination. How can the politicians be so callous and incredulous to the point of accepting and then broadcasting to Nigerians this strange expression of interest and nomination form? We must remind ourselves that our health care system is in shambles. The President does not have enough faith in the national health system. It is almost now a status symbol to mention that “Mr A or B has recently returned to Abuja, Lagos or Katsina from medical check-up.” The universities have been closed for over 100 days and we do not yet know the impact on the lives of our youths who will soon be told ‘‘you cannot get this job because you are over 25 years!’’ Why won’t many of our youth be over 25 years when they graduate? Interestingly, we have failed to ask the pertinent questions. Why will a Nigerian President vouch for the health sector when some of the product of the universities will be finding their way into the hospitals as doctors? Yet, the youth have been called lazy when the nomination form for their saviour is N100 million!
Example Two: In any democracy, the rule of the game is documented in the Electoral Act or Law. What happens if the Electoral Act itself becomes the instrument of de-democratization? The Electoral Act as amended has elicited rift between the parliament and Presidency especially section 12 (4) and 84 (4). The court had been further drawn into the controversies on 12 (4) since the judgment of Umuahia High Court and its nullification by the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court should, however, expedite hearing on this important issue and avoid its politics. The politicisation of the court especially in the Fourth Republic raises doubt on its fairness and integrity. The challenge therefore is to depoliticise the court and strengthen its capacity to mediate threats to democracy.
The third argument is that “there is no binary relationship between democracy and development.” These projects have been “vulgarized and made banal” by external forces argues Momoh, 2006, p. 63). Momoh insisted that the IMF & World Bank agenda are largely economistic with least emphasis on human development. For him, the development agenda should stress the human condition and reflect social interventions to mediate the harsh consequences of economic reforms in adjusting economies. The post adjustment economies are still struggling with the consequences of neo liberal reforms and the withdrawal of the victims of economic reforms from the political space. The low political turn out of voters since 1999 General Elections suggests the disdain for the governing class and contempt for election. Momoh had described election as ‘‘allocation of votes’’, which rarely reflects popular choices. The increasing poverty level, job losses, closure of factories and shop floors, growing insecurity, inter-ethnic tension and money for vote should be understood within the context of growing inequality, deprivation and despair. The state actors have weaponised poverty to consolidate state power thus raising question on dividend of democracy and essentiality of democracy.
As I earlier noted, the three arguments in Momoh’s piece pose important questions that are still relevant. These questions point at the fixation of governing class with power and illustrates material helplessness to (mis)rule, Momoh averred. The polity is currently at a dangerous crossroad on multiple levels, but it is interesting that many of those that are struggling to lead have either been a part of the problem, demonstrated their inability to resolve the problems, or jokers. Yet, the country is at a dangerous precipice, with a growing frustrated population of youth…
- Conclusion: Remembrance as struggle
My conclusion is not academic but a reminder of what we must do as organic intellectuals and civil society. So, I will end on a note of appreciation – as I did start. The country needs heroes and heroines but sadly we have only a handful. The most corrupt are celebrated, patronised and those with character are pilloried, demonised, despised and vilified. It is assuming worse dimensions when the student union that had been a platform to recruit cadres and forge alliance with the academe and civil society became ‘‘captured’ by state governors. If the university is a microcosm of society – then the future of our society is bleak. Yet, we have individuals who are toiling and struggling to bear the flag. Many of these persons are getting older with least replacements. When people die in our milieu, they were forgotten by their friends and allies; I should therefore appreciate the Centre for reminding us that one way to mirror our society and project the best of us is to organise this type of occasion. We must remember our few heroes and heroines. The next generation must have role models – in spite of their fewness. I commend the Resource Center for Human Rights and Civic Education for dedicating a building to Abu. This is the way to go! At my university, the Moot Parliament in the Department of Political Science has been renamed Professor Abubakar Momoh Moot Parliament. I am delighted to inform this august audience that the first award for research ethics in any university in Nigeria has been introduced at LASU in honour of Professor Abubakar Momoh. We will not cease to celebrate Abu same with our fallen heroes and heroines like Baba Omojola, Chima Ubani, Bade Onimode, Gani Fawehimi, Beko Ransome Kuti, Bamidele Aturu, Ayodele Akele, Didi Adodo, Laitan Oyerinde, Funmilayo Ransome Kuti et al. If the Nigerian state will not remember, we have a sacred responsibility to do so.
It is in this sense that I strongly believe that the act of remembrance should not only be considered as a periodic ritual. It must also be viewed as a struggle – a struggle to show the next generation that there are indeed people that have followed the less pursued road but worthy of emulation.
Thank you for listening.
Reference
Momoh, Abubakar (2006). “Democracy, De-democratisation and Development,” Nigerian Journal of International Affairs, 32(2): 61-85.
