© Numero Unoma
Exactly a year from today, we will be awaiting the results of the 2023 election with bated breath. Will you have voted? I hope so! Whom will you have voted in? What will you have voted for? How many of the circa 16 votes you have in your lifespan will you have put to good use? Please answer these questions honestly to yourself, ESPECIALLY if you are one of the 50%.
Worldometer puts our population at 215 million, meaning that every 38th person on the planet is a Nigerian. Moreover, 2021 numbers from Statista show that half the population of Nigeria is under 19, meaning that over 50% of Nigerians are eligible to vote. That’s over 108 million votes!
I grew up under a father whose name Onuora, means the voice of the people. I imagine that this name is rooted in the traditional republican nature of Igbo society, in which even women acted as effective pressure groups, and in fact, post-menopausal women were allowed to attend the assembly. Anybody who has worked for me will tell you that I insist that all my staff register and vote, or leave the job with me. Yes, first show a PVC, and then an ink-stained thumb. Otherwise, please go elsewhere, and in any case, STOP COMPLAINING!!
But in light of the current disillusionment with democracy, of Nigerians young and old, let’s dissect democracy, shall we? I mean even Fela tells us timelessly, that democracy is a demonstration of ‘craze’. You’d be surprised just how crazy, actually. Please read on.
In the contemporary context, a democracy is described to be a political system in which all members have an equal share of power. Apparently, that is. In essence, democracy is a numbers game. Numbers of voters, of monies spent on elections, and of elections had over time.
I tried to find out which is the oldest democracy on the planet, and though India got a mention, with typical caucacity (that’s caucasian audacity btw), most of the opinions out there seem to think it was one white culture or another, with no mention of our ancient African democracies. Before nko?
So I am going to be a bit lazy, and choose the obvious as a reference point: America. Reasons for this include that fact that it is old enough, big enough, diverse enough (really?), and documented enough to offer viable reference points. Another good reason is that though Nigeria inherited British law, which to all intents and purposes does not include a written constitution per se, though it is also said that it does (confusing, I know!), the 1999 Nigerian Constitution has more similarities with the US Constitution than its British origins would imply. A significant difference however, IMHO is the opening words of the US constitution, which read:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution”
By comparison, the Nigerian constitution comes across merely as a judicial prescription, in contrast to an agreement among equals.
For the record, I am no blind lover of America. I am very clear about the merits and the flaws of a country I first visited in 1978, as a youngster, and have done so many times again after that. Let’s look at a few significant points on the timeline of the US democracy, which was birthed with the ratification of their constitution in 1788:
- With the 19th century rise of industrialisation and of corporations seeking to influence government policy, President Roosevelt’s Tillman Act of 1907 banned corporations from expending their money to influence federal elections.
- In the late 1970s the Federal Trade Commission was closed down because of their new policy on unhealthy advertising targeting children, the first real demonstration that large corporations and wealthy individuals can change laws to favour themselves, and to hurt very many other people.
- • In 2010 the Supreme Court abrogated certain laws, once again allowing corporations to spend freely on political campaigns, and causing ‘Dark Money’ spending to multiply by over 200 by the year 2012
- In 1964 when America’s middle class was growing, about 77% trusted government, but by comparison it was only 20% in 2017.
- One poll showed that issues that almost no-one supports have a 30% chance of becoming law, but ironically, conversely, issues that almost everyone supports also have a 30% chance of becoming law.
Robert Reich, former Labour Secretary under Bill Clinton says that “a lot of people know the game is rigged, they hear it, they feel it, but they don’t know exactly how it’s rigged.”
See any similarities with Nigeria? No democracy is perfect, but is that enough reason to abandon it?
A few more ‘demo-crazy’ facts from the Economist:
Christopher Claassen of the University of Glasgow found that as a democracy grows in strength, so does support for it weaken, and conversely also, as measures of liberal democracy decline, the support for democracy in turn, grows.
One intriguing perspective from Harvard University, proposes that “social capital, the affinity people feel for members of their society whom they do not know, leads to robust political institutions and a steady rule of law.” This study suggests that Catholicism nudged Europe toward democracy. “A growing body of research suggests that populations characterised as Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) tend to be more individualistic, independent, and impersonally prosocial (e.g., trusting of strangers) while revealing less conformity and in-group loyalty. Research proposes that the Western Church was a key factor behind a shift towards a WEIRDer society.”
Hmmm…Redeemed Church, House on the Rock and the rest of you…what do you have to say for yourselves? Since we are such a religious folk in Africa, how is it that we cannot even muster enough social capital to put our houses in order, and to patiently and purposefully hone our democracies, just like all the other countries of the world have had to? Look around you, coups everywhere – Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry, Mali – all in the last 12 months. Alarming, if you ask me! Lawd knows I have lived through several coups in Nigeria alone, during this my long-short life.
In an article this month, the BBC asks “Are military takeovers on the rise in Africa?” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46783600
Soldiers arrest the development of our democracies for years on end, when they do not act as interim guardians of law and order, but install themselves for long periods as a law unto themselves.
Fundamentally, we Africans have trust issues. We cannot trust each other or one another. And mistrust begets mistrust. One insidious propagator of political mistrust is our political amnesia, which leads to political impunity.
It hasn’t helped that an American born of an African father partnered with a female WASP to throw us back into chaos, just when we seemed to gradually be getting a grip on the trust issues. But we continue to pay obeisance to Obama, just as colonial mentality had the Nigerian Twitter chorus wishing the then recently deceased Mitterand “rest his gentle soul” when he was behind the killing of the progressive revolutionary, Thomas Sankara.
And why do we still lack the political consciousness to understand that the APC – PDP two horse race is tantamount to a musical chairs game in a looped recycling of political apostasy? And that every four years we sell out to and ‘Election Economy’, when as individuals we earn money from election disruption and disingenuous election observation, as financed by so many supposedly well-meaning foreign funders?
For every generation, in every country, the youth are our hope, but never more so than today. Will they keep their ideals as life begins to lumber them with responsibility, obligation and disillusionment…and where in the first place do they get ideals from, if they have never in their lifetime experienced a system that works? Can we blame them for not believing in democracy? Or for living in despair, hopelessness, and a feeling that it’s all for nothing?
In northern African Arab countries, where political parties are religious by nature, the youth are being driven to apostasy in the true sense of the word. If the stats out there are to be trusted, then almost half of young Tunisians, a third of young Libyans, a quarter of young Algerians, and a fifth of young Egyptians have turned away from religion just because of their disillusionment with their political parties. But the actual disillusionment is with democracy and politics.
Here’s what I have to say to Nigerian youth:
Quit the pathetic generational blame game – we have all had revolutionaries, we just didn’t have the internet, and as a result, we had to live through and stand up to far worse than you have, and yet we did it in an organised fashion without tools like mobile phones. Judge past governments, but don’t be so unintelligent as to tarnish a whole generation with that brush. Many of us have lived lives of integrity, just as many of you will. But until you prove yourselves to be better, I put to you that today’s youth are just as corruptible as the youth of any other generation. While political power is necessary, and must be assiduously cultivated, and when necessary used aggressively, it should always be used purposefully and with integrity.
My parting shot to you today is that everyone needs democracy…and democracy needs everyone. So go out and do the needful. There is power in numbers. Register…and VOTE. Even if it is for some unknown party. Just use that vote, or else another can…and will.