It is 20 years but this democracy has more traits of adolescence than manhood. We are still like the title of James Baldwin’s novel, “Going to meet the man.” The man in our democracy still eludes like a tantalising fruit in a mango tree.
In this country lurk anti-democratic demons – the reign of monarchism, the shadow of the strong man, the corruption of money, the fear of change. But hanging over all these is the spirit of impunity. It hangs like the sword dropping blood in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It haunts us like Banquo’s ghost.
But no other way to look at it than the power of the soldier over our lives. It is not for nothing that two of our four presidents in the past 20 years were soldiers. Obj and PMB were not only soldiers but were military heads of state. It is like the double episode of the rapist who becomes so gentle, the victim agrees to wed him.
But the evidence of the rapist overshadows the marriage. Nuptials do not erase character. Character appropriates marriage. That explains why we still love the king, or will confer us with chieftaincy titles. And we still embrace the strong man. With these two traits, we loose ourselves in the allure of money and resist change. It began with Obj, whose martial background was too strong to let go. He saw himself as the father, or more appropriately, the baba of our democracy. He ruled rather than reigned. He took advantage of the queer power of the centre in a federal union. The states could not and cannot stand on their own. So, the centre serves as the receptacle of indulgences. Every governor comes, bowl in hand, making the states the al majiris of our democracy.
The other civilians saw the baba as a model. Even Yar-Adua fell to it somewhat, although he was hemmed in by illness. Jonathan followed, and his rhetoric of self-indulgence and defiance were only a rung lower than that of Obasanjo. His regime stole with flourish and ostentation. The British press celebrated our spendthrift elite on London streets. Our purse was like a broken dam. Obasanjo hid the corruption of his time by blackmailing his foes with the EFCC and ICPC. Offence was the best defence. He even wanted to perpetuate himself in power with a third term.
PMB has defied calls to follow court orders. El Zakzaki and Dasuki continue to languish in detention as though the courts were impotent. Even now, the Navy is holding 40 civilians captive. Barrister Femi Falana (SAN) has been yelling that this cannot be permitted in a democracy. Persons are held in detention both in vessels and underground of their facilities in Abuja.
Falana has written a letter to the president on the matter, but the impunity festers. Rather than charge the persons to court, the Navy has acted as an arbiter of justice. It has challenged Falana to take them to court.
The military overhang is imperious and increasingly a presage of darker days. Soldiers in advanced societies have joined democracy and subjected themselves to republican values. It began with Cato the Younger in Rome who relinquished his fidelity to tyranny and devoted his life to republican virtues. He became a counterpoise to Caesar and died of suicide for the cause. He became a role model to America’s first president George Washington.
Cato was the first major figure in history to turn soldiery against tyranny and sow the seed of the democratic idea. Hence the Poet Jonathan Mitchel wrote: “Great in the council, glorious in the field.”
We have had in the modern era soldiers who became statesmen. Too much blood in Napoleon’s hands, but he inspired a generation of European young, even spawning a literary classic, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. We have had others like Churchill, De Gaulle, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Tito, Eisenhower. De Gaulle kicked against democratic pricks of the French and sparked a youth revolt that birthed a new republic.
Soldiers can make good democrats but they have to take off their martial sloughs first. We see it in kings and generals, even democrats.
We saw that recently in Kano in the battle between the emir and the governor, which demonstrates the power of history over impulses of change. But more dangerous now is the appropriation of impunity by the civil society. The power elite have no monopoly of violence. They have begun to imitate their masters. If their masters cannot slough off their military fatigues, the street and bush hoodlums have decided to tailor their own uniforms – in their minds. They are not trained. They just became ragtag armies of impunity, laying waste our resources, kidnapping the innocent, holding ransom the governor and the well-heeled.
If the martial strain in our democracy is not checked from the top, we shall suffer it from below. This is not a democracy of obeisance. A constitution monger of the French Revolution, Abbe Sieyes once said, “power from above, confidence from below.”
Those in the nether regions of society are not seeing it that way in the country. Those from the top think they are immune to the heart cries of the poor and vulnerable. They are daring the power elite. The power elite now are afraid.
Democracy cannot be said to have failed altogether. We have had it unbroken for 20 years, and that’s a record. Democracies do not start perfect. They work with myths. The American was rooted in the idea of Manifest Destiny with the founding father. The French rose from the three Rs of the 1789 revolution. The British picked it up from the Magna Carta. A nation fails when it forgets its founding myths. Athens rose on its myths until it flourished and fell victim of hubris. It forgot its myth of Daedalus and Icarus, and its legislature abolished democracy. It prioritised man over gods. “Man is the measure of all things,” said Protagoras.
Nigeria does not even have a myth, a rallying emotion. Not Awo, not Zik, not Ahmadu Bello provided it because of interplays of suspicions and jealousies that still plague us today. The army coarsened it, and has haunted us since. To save our democracy, we must first kill the army in us, and throw up leaders that will look beyond those ancient burdens.
One Tusk For Lalong
I visited Jos a few days ago, and it heartened to see a city back to the semblance of its old bustle. It was not just because of the sanguine weather or the variegated fruit fest from grapes to apples. It was an opportunity to visit its Wild Park. What drew my attention to it was Governor Simon Lalong’s adoption of the elephant and male lion. His wife Regina adopted a lioness. The park heralded one with its row of pine trees, giving the sense of natural ambience of animals.
I met the elephant, ruddy, young and full of life. I befriended it as my guide Thomas Artu encouraged me to feed it. I gave it a stalk with fresh leaves. It concentrated on me as I handed it the food. It sealed our bond until I moved on and saw a variety of animals from the sprightly Jackal to the opportunistic Hyena. The python coiled ominously. The ferret’s eyes menaced. The lioness in its massive cage and fresh fur ignored me peevishly and swaggered to shelter beside a wall. Recently a lion escaped the zoo. According to Artu, the cage was not properly locked, and it slid out to meet the keeper with a goat in hand. “The lion was born in the cage and did not know anywhere else. It was only fed with goat and went after the goat while the keeper fled,” he said. The lion did not go far, but crouched in a nearby bush until the security forces “quelled” it. I saw a 260-year-old tortoise, many a crocodile asleep and the predatory bird known as Marabou stocks. The park houses 102 buoyant animals in an eight square kilometres expanse.
As he adopted those animals, Governor Lalong immediately had offers from persons, including two white men, who wanted to adopt. . Each cage will bear the name of the adopter. He thinks as peace returns to his state, the parks are a way to highlight tourism, wealth and normalcy . I agree.
