POST EXPRESS


Category: Business and Economy
Date of Article: 03/24/2000
Topic: How Politics Impacts Nigeria's Economy, by Mazrui
Author:
Full Text of Article:


Renowned scholar, Prof. Ali Mazrui, was in Nigeria as the guest of First
Securities Discount House (FSDH) in her maiden annual seminar. Mazrui
delivered the paper on "Economic Development and Political Reform in an
Emerging Democracy: The Nigerian Case" where he offered some massive views
on how to move Nigeria forward. Excerpts:

HERE are certain attributes which make Nigeria strikingly unique in Africa -
setting it apart in configuration from all other African countries. This
aspect might be called Nigeria's exceptionalism.
There are other attributes, however, which make Nigeria a mirror of the
African experience as a whole - making Nigeria a good illustration of what
the whole of Africa is all about. This side of Nigeria might be called
Nigeria's typicality. Some particular ups-and-downs of the country may be
typical of the entire continent. To understand Nigeria is to comprehend this
dialectic between the exceptionalism of Nigeria in the African configuration
and the typicality of Nigeria as a mirror of the continent.
The excepitonalism of Nigeria includes, of course, the huge size of its
population in relation to its neighbours. It is by far the most populous
country in Africa. The next in size on the African continent is Egypt - and
yet Egypt is only a little more than half of Nigeria's population. It is
this size of Nigeria which is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's character
Gulliver in his travels among the people of Liliput (Gulliver's Travels,
1726). Nigeria is the black Gulliver bestriding a narrow world like a
Colossus - if Swift's character can be mated to Shakespeare's imagery.
When ECOWAS was formed in 1975 upon the initiative of Nigeria and Togo, its
population comprised 150 million people in 16 countries; more than half of
that total population were Nigerians. The Gross National Product of ECOWAS
in 1975 was $85 billion - the bulk of that came from Nigeria. General Yakubu
Gowon was a major architect of this ambitious African regional organisation.
Nigeria's exceptionalism also includes the combination of immense human
resources (youthful and potentially gifted population) with immense natural
resources (led by oil and gas).
Towards a Pax Nigeriana
Almost from independence Nigeria's exceptionalism included a potential
leadership role to help keep the peace in West Africa - a kind of Pax
Nigeriana. For better or for worse, Nigeria's regional rival in this
peace-keeping role has not been another West African country. It has, in
fact, been France. It has been France, combined with Nigeria's own internal
problems, which have prevented Pax Nigeriana from fulfilling its regional
mission to the full.
Opinion is divided within France at the end of the 20th Century as to
whether to continue Paris' historic role in Africa or whether to find a new
mission for French destiny in the newly emerging countries of Eastern and
Central Europe. If France is beginning to withdraw from Africa (as the
devaluation of the CFA France portended) the so-called regional "vacuum"
left behind is likely to be filled by Pax Nigeriana.
On the evidence so far Pax Nigeriana - keeping the peace in West Africa
under Nigeria's auspices - is better fulfilled when Nigeria is under
military rule than when it is under the politicians. The most spectacular
exercises in Pax Nigeriana have occurred in the 1990s when Nigeria led the
forces of ECOWAS (the ECOMOG troops) in Liberia first to restore peace and
then to help re-start electoral democracy. The final result were elections
in Liberia in 1997 which returned Charles Taylor to power.
In 1998, Nigeria more unilaterally took on the army in Sierra Leone which
had overthrown the elected government of President Kaba. Nigeria reversed
the military takeover and restored the constitutionally elected government.
For most of the 1990s Nigeria paradoxically became a force for democracy
abroad but dictatorship at home. Nigerian forces helped to restore relative
freedom to the people of Liberia and Sierra Leone - but the Nigerian forces
were slow to extend freedom to the Nigerian people at home.
This does not mean that Nigeria should not have helped to re-democratise
Liberia and Sierra Leone. General Sani Abacha's regional role was one of the
positive aspects of Pax Nigeriana. But doing good abroad is no excuse for
not doing better at home. Fortunately, there were indications that the
military government after Abacha wanted an honourable way towards
re-civilisation.
It is arguable that one of the first exercises of Pax Nigeriana occurred in
Tanzania in 1964. Army mutinies in Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika had forced
the three governments to invite British troops to return to East Africa and
disarm their own mutinous soldiers.
President Julius K. Nyerere, understandably disbanded the whole mutinous
army once order was restored. But who was going to keep the peace in a
Tanganyika without an army? Julius Nyerere called upon fraternal troops from
Nigeria to fill the vacuum while Nyerere set about creating an alternate
indigenous security force. It is arguable that the beginnings of Pax
Nigeriana lie in a voluntary partnership between Nigeria and what later
became Tanzania. Nigerians helped the Tanzanians to keep the peace in their
own country in 1964.
Nigerian Politics: Between the Sublime and the Theatrical
Perhaps it is also part of Nigeria's exceptionalism that it has not just one
pivotal ethnic group in a national configuration but three. Uganda has one
pivotal group - the Baganda. Kenya has in reality two outstanding pivotal
groups - the Luo and Kikuyu. Senegal's outstanding pivotal group are the
Wolof.
Is Nigeria exceptional in having three very large pivotal ethnic groups,
each with a dazzling record of achievement?
The Hausa are by far the largest linguistic group not only in Nigeria but in
West Africa as a whole. Within Nigeria itself the Hausa also have a long
record of skills of governance from precolonial days, right through
colonialism until postcolonial days.
The Yoruba have in many ways the most complex indigenous culture of them
all. The Yoruba impact on global Africa and the rest of the black world is
less about the Yoruba language and more about the Yoruba religion and
culture. Yoruba religion rites are to be witnessed in countries as diverse
as Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti, Surinam, Nigeria, Dahomey (now Republic of Benin)
and the United States.
The Igbo are the great technologists of Nigeria in the second half of the
20th century. Their triumph in economic skills in northern Nigeria in the
1950s and 1960s contributed to their vulnerability as a people in 1966.
During the Nigerian Civil War the Igbo's innovation also produced Africa's
first locally made gun-vehicles. During the Civil War the Igbo displayed
levels of innovative daring unknown in postcolonial African history. The
Igbo created rough-and-ready armed militarised vehicles as well as the
beginnings of Africa's industrial revolution. This renaissance was aborted
by the oil bonanza from 1997 onwards.
During the Biafran war, Nigeria was more internally innovative than
externally prosperous. The Nigerian civil war produced some of the high
points of Nigeria's experience with technological innovation. The Nigerian
oil bonanza after the 1973 OPEC price escalation created disincentives to
Nigerian enterprise.
War had brought out both the best and the worst of Nigeria in human terms.
But technologically the power of spilt blood in Nigeria produced greater
innovation than the power of sprouting petroleum. The pain of Biafra was
technologically, more fruitful than the profit of OPEC.
Ideologies: The Cultural and the Economic
Nigeria's typicality includes the fact that Nigerians are more strongly
moved by socio-cultural ideologies than by socio-economic ideologies.
Socio-cultural ideologies appeal to such cultural forces as ethnicity,
religion, nationalism, race-consciousness and regional allegiance.
Socio-economic ideologies try to appeal to such economic interests as class,
economic equity, trade union and rights and the like. Marxism, ujamaa and
most other forms of socio-economic ideologies. Ethnicity, nationalism and
regional allegiance are socio-cultural ideologies.
In Nigeria - as in most other parts of Africa - ethno-cultural ideologies
are much stronger than ethno-economic ones. My favourite Nigerian example is
Obafemi Awolowo's effort to move Nigeria a little to the left. When he
looked to see who was following him, it was not the dispossessed of all
ethnic groups of Nigeria who followed, it was his fellow Yoruba of all
social classes and levels of income.
My favourite Kenyan example is Oginga Odinga's modest attempt to move
Kenyans a little to the left. When Oginga looked to see who was following
him, once again it was not the dispossessed Kenya of all ethnic groups. It
was his fellow Luo of all social classes and levels of income.
Africa is a continent of surplus passion but deficit power. Nigerians as
Africans feel strongly about many aspirations. In the controversial words of
a very distinguished African philosopher president - a kind of philosopher
king - Leopold Senghor of Senegal: "Emotion is black... Reason is Greek."
But passion can become power if it is channelled in the right direction and
if the contents of the goals are relevant and fruitful. If education is both
an African and an Americal ideal, young Africans are probably more
passionate about getting an education than young Americans. Young Nigerians
often walk miles everyday for an education.
But good education is more difficult to get in Nigeria than in the USA. And
when one does get it in Nigeria, it may be good Western education without
adequate relevance to Nigeria or Africa.
Can we measure political development by the yardstick of declining scale of
political violence? Let us try with Nigeria. The first two decades of
Nigeria's independence were the age of regicide and primary violence. The
killing of the king or head executive as a trend was regicide. Of the eight
supreme leaders of Nigeria in the first 20 years, capital lettersfour had
been assassinated.
The eight supreme leaders were Azikiwe, Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Gowon,
Murtala, Obasanjo and Shagari. The 50 per cent who were assassinated were of
course Balewa, Ahmadu Bello, Ironsi and Murtala Muhammad. Regicide was at a
50 per cent rate - a high rate indeed. Ahmadu Bello was technically a
regional leader but with immense federal and national power.
The next 20 years of Nigeria's independence (1980 to the year 2000) were to
be of militarism, and constitutional experimentation. These were the last
years of Shagari, those of Buhari, those of Babangida and his immediate
successors, and the emergence of Sani Abacha. The most promising experiment
was the Babangida transition which collapsed ignominiously with the aborted
election of June 1993. That transition would apparently have brought M.K.O.
Abiola into power.
Under Abacha the years of militarism and constitutional experimentation
could have continued with a new concept of presidential recycling from
military ruler to elected head of state. If Abacha had lived and run for the
Presidency, he would have been partially following the precedent of Jerry
Rawlings who captured power twice by the barrel of gun and later gained
legitimacy through the ballot box and the electoral process. But Abacha died
in June 1998 before that scenario could be attempted.
Deplanning the Economy and Planning the Polity
Elsewhere in Africa there had been politicians who believed in the economic
ideologies of socialism and even Marxism-Leninism. Most of these have
collapsed in the 1990s as a result of the following factors:
. The socialist experiments in Africa had failed to deliver the economic
goods;
. The collapse of state-communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe
undermined the legitimacy of African equivalents of Marxism-Leninism.
. The end of the Cold War exposed fragile African economies to extra
pressure from the West and from international financial institutions.
. Structural adjustment programmes of the International Monetary Fund and
the World Bank have forced the pace of privatisation and the return to
market ideologies.
Five-year central economic plans have disappeared from almost the whole of
Africa. Some would say "Good riddance". What Nigeria needs now are 10 to
20-year political plans. I realise that presidents and parliamentarians are
elected for periods which are much shorter than 10 years, let alone 20. But
fundamental political planning needs longer term units of time. That is why
members of the European Union took decisions about long-term monetary union
which did not depend upon which particular European government would be in
power at which particular time.
The most fundamental goals in political planning which Nigeria needs are in
the following areas:
. How to release the developmental energies of the Nigerian people.
. How to balance agriculture and the industry,.
. How to reduce socio-economic inequalities especially between regions,
ethnic groups and religious communities;
.How to sanitise the political and economic system - and reduce corruption;
. How to empower women in the Nigerian system;
. How to stabilise civilian supremacy in Nigeria's civil-military relations;
. How to entrench human rights and civil liberties in actual practice and
not just in the document of the constitution.
. How to reconcile the cultural autonomy of states with the collective
principles of the whole nation.

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