Slide into Demostocracy

Also published in Daily Trust print edition of Friday, 8 June 2012

 

My above coined term is designed to refer to the current constitutional amendment bill that literally seeks to blend democracy and some elements of aristocracy together in Nigeria; hence I give it the name “demostocracy” to reflect both concepts in a single word.
 

Anyway, as the bill continues its smooth journey into the country’s constitution, I really wonder what vacuum are traditional establishments expected to fill up, or what solutions are they expected to propose, which have not been proposed in the past. Incidentally, Nigeria has never been short of ideas and proposals to solve all its problems, all it needs are upright and competent leaders to implement the proposals and follow them through.

Interestingly enough, the whole idea underscores the crisis of confidence that characterizes the relationship between Nigerian rulers on one hand and the ruled on the other, which has built up over the decades of misrule. After all, it is evident that, there is hardly if at all a single average Nigerian who actually trusts the government. After all, believing the government is commonly (and to a large extent rightly) regarded as gullibility. 

This explains why almost everybody is out to grab as much as he can, which has predictably created the current mess in the country. It also explains why the increasingly dejected public predictably (and to some extent understandably) reacts violently from time to time out of sheer frustration.

 

Such violent reactions have become quite common in the country, and worse still is how they are increasingly taking a much more terrifying dimension that warns of an overwhelming chaos if care is not taken. 

    

Unfortunately however, instead of addressing the root cause of the mess to restore peace and social harmony in the country, Nigerian rulers simply beat about the bush desperately looking for scapegoats to blame and indeed some unrealistic and unsustainable measures to curb the crises. One of such desperate measures is this proposed constitutional amendment purportedly designed to bridge the gap between government and the people through their respective traditional establishments.

The reality is that, Nigerian ruling elite realizes the looming danger represented in the persistent sense of frustration that is increasing engulfing the people, which warns of a spontaneous and insurmountable popular uprising. They therefore decided to bring traditional rulers onboard in order to use their perceived cultural and socio-religious influence over their respective people to pacify and subdue them to keep chasing the elusive reforms promised by the rulers. 

  

This is despite the fact that, maneuvering traditional establishments into the current structural equation of three independent arms of government i.e. executive, legislature and judiciary will definitely create unnecessary confusion over which particular organ they belong to.

In the same vein, the issues of what will govern their appointments, tenure, jurisdiction and indeed how they get their mandates need to be explained. I suppose their appointments have to be subject to either popular election or any of the existing federal, state and local government service rules and regulations, which by implication abolishes their dynastic and hereditary nature.

In any case this also raises the issue of their expenditure, which of course has to be borne by the government in a time when it is claiming commitment to cut the cost of governance. Ironically, when the Speaker of the National Assembly recently accused the President of withholding his assent to bills passed by the National Assembly, the President responded by arguing that most of such bills were about the creation of more parastatals without considering the issue of funding them, which will increase government’s overhead cost.

By the way also, even the method of their interaction with the general public will be quite interesting to behold, because their aristocratic attitude and superiority complex would not allow them to interact with the public civilly, as they are used to such uncivilized approach where people are made to virtually prostrate before them, in addition to other practices, which neither religion no logic approves of. 

       

Nevertheless, unfortunately in Nigerian context all such systemic constraints and structural impediments are not enough to stop the proposal from becoming a law anyway, after all the bill has recently scaled through the second reading at the Senate floor. 

    

It is noteworthy also that, the very assumption that traditional rulers still command public respect strong enough to enable them to inspire the public is itself an embarrassing naivety. This is because their largely sycophantic, facilitative and indeed contributory roles in the successive governments’ commissions and omissions over the decades, which landed the country in this dilemma have substantially stripped them of their moral credibility to inspire the people anymore.

This is reflected in the increasingly audacious individual and public reactions against some of their controversial stands on some issues.  After all, there have been incidents where some powerful traditional rulers in the north were pelted and harassed by angry people right in their domains, particularly after the country’s return to democracy.

  

Similarly, one wonders what moral right do traditional establishments have to guarantee fairness while they are largely (and to a large extent rightly) associated with the promotion of nepotism and encouragement of impunity.

For instance, it is commonly known that applicants and candidates for various public or civil service positions do whatever it takes to get access to some connected traditional rulers to secure their intercession to get appointments at various levels of government regardless of merit. Likewise, crooks and rogues, who loot public resources, employ traditional rulers’ services to escape justice and even get traditional titles to shroud their notorious past in traditional and religious cloaks.

It is really very ironic that while the trend all over the world moves towards more transparent and accountable leadership, Nigerian ruling elite has chosen to go against it. How I wish that, instead of beating about the bush they came to terms with the unavoidable fact that, there is no alternative to the provision of good governance, for them to win back the public confidence and restore peace and harmony in the country.

After all, with or without the involvement of traditional establishment, the status-quo is simply unsustainable, though I suspect that when this proposed unholy marriage fails they might consider involving the British imperialists in the system for that matter.