The Challenge of Politics and Governance in Nigeria (Part 1)

By Ambassador Usman Sarki

 “Every age has its own manners, and its politics dependent upon them”, Edmund Burke, 1729-1797

Contemporary manners in Nigeria are amorphous, brittle and capricious. They are also fluid and insubstantial in content. Accordingly, our politics are shallow, whose only end in view is to seek elective offices of state. The redemptive purposes of politics have been forgotten since their abandonment with the demise of the First Republic in 1966.

Much of what passes for politics in Nigeria is the excavation of base sentiments and wildly flinging them about often with destructive intent. The necessary acts of nation-building in the context of strengthening of state institutions and regulation of government according to norms and behaviours that are guided by far-sighted objectives, have been relegated to the dark recesses of expediency.

The decisive element that seems to be missing in Nigerian politics is the quality of persons who seek to be entrusted with the affairs of state. The randomness with which men and women of unproven antecedents and questionable integrity are pushed forward to assume higher responsibilities of managing the country’s affairs, calls for some introspection and a sober reflection on the manners of our times and the nature of our leadership selection process.

While in other lands and climes leaders pass through a rigorous system of filtration and osmosis to prepare them for higher responsibilities in their careers, in Nigeria it has become a facile matter of routine to dredge up characters from the general pool of non-discrete elements and present them for election and to hold great offices of state.

I am forced to recall the words of the Honourable Edmund Burke who wrote thus, “Before men are put forward into the great trusts of the State, they ought by their conduct to have obtained such a degree of estimation in their country as may be some sort of pledge and security to the public that they will not abuse those trusts.”

It is doubtful if many of the people that are thrust forward into the great trusts of the state in Nigeria are tried and tested personalities whose conduct can testify to their suitability to lead the country ably and faithfully. This trust deficit has marked Nigeria’s downward spiral into the cesspool of corruption and disarray over several decades now.

Nigerians are left without any pledge or assurances that people elected into offices of state will not abuse the trusts that come with holding such offices. The systems that have been put in place to provide those guarantees are themselves as frail and transient as our manners. They lack commitment and purpose and are not driven by the higher ethos of duty and honour.

Nigerians are left bereft of assurances of faithfulness and fidelity towards them through thick and thin from their elected leaders. The situation is aggravated by the failure of institutions to regulate themselves in terms of weeding out the rotten elements and stabilising the system of governance around precepts and norms that are sacrosanct and inviolable.

The application of wisdom and informed judgment in governance is needed in Nigeria now more than ever before to bring back order in our country and integrity into our governance. Our country needs men and women of intellectual refinement and philosophical grounding; who can combine the practical precepts of politics with the routine of governance, to successfully man the institutions of state and run the affairs of our nation adroitly.

Governance, and the management of the state apparatus, especially in democratic systems that intrinsically and constantly seek to calibrate and navigate a precarious path between might and right, and between the laws and individual responsibilities, should entail reflection and consultation at all times, especially during moments of troubles and difficulties, when vigilance is required and decisiveness should be the norm.

Sound judgments and timely actions are; therefore, the fruits of careful deliberations, intense consultations and precision in planning and execution of choices made to confront realities of governance and to maintain the fundamental principles and purposes of the state. Here, a recourse will always have to be made to philosophical reflections, historical precepts and political precedents in all matters to do with running the affairs of a country.

Sadly though, for some time now, it seems only the forms of democracy are observed in Nigeria, that imperfectly too, while its spirit is debased, and its content is neglected or even remained unknown. Governance, therefore, became an aimless exercise observed only in form while the premeditated manning and running of the state apparatus became only a sham, with personal and group interests over-riding the national interest in almost all considerations.

Persons entrusted with leadership positions became effectively above the law and remained so without remorse or scruples, or a sense of accountability to the nation. In this evidently desultory and disinterested manner, they run the ship of state aground, and marooned an entire nation on the shores of despair and irrelevance. They played politics without intent or direction, and without producing true statesmen and women, who could be applauded as politicians in the straight, narrow and respectable sense of the word.

Overnight, or even within the spate of half a day, people without the requisite backgrounds or competences, are plucked from relative obscurity and transformed into leading figures of government. They are entrusted with the fate of the nation, with no calling made on their antecedents, experiences or even proof of deeds in the public’s interest.

In this way, high institutions of state were debased, rendered as irrelevant and dysfunctional as the non-discrete persons occupying them. The institutions became at best the machinery of aiding and abetting corruption and elevating nepotism and incompetence, and at worse the degradation of the national ethos and spirit, that are supposed to bind us in a tight knot of solidarity and fraternity.

Thus undermined and belittled, atrophy gradually set into the affairs of state and the iron sinews of government, of the laws and of administration, all became weakened and degraded, by rust and corrosion of values and debasement of the high essences of national being. Alienation and the sense of hopelessness have left Nigerians exasperated and despondent about their fate within the overall progress of their country towards a democratic order that should provide them with the minimum of dignity and comfort.