Last week, I sat soberly, pondering upon and reflecting; I asked myself: why do I struggle weekly to keep a column? What is my objective for writing? I am not sure that my answer is likely to be comprehensive, neither is it likely to be coherent as I present it. But I try to sketch what I feel is the urge and the drive, what fires me inside to write.
The first reason why I write is that I want to challenge ignorance. There is a lot of ignorance around us; even among those we think or believe they know. Too often, we concede too much to people, believing that they know, only for us to discover, when it is too late that they do not know. The most dangerous form of ignorance in Nigeria today comes from our leadership, many of those who govern us do not know, they do not care to know and they do not want to know. Even when they are told that they do not know, they get angry, instead of looking up to their inadequacy and how to rectify them, they turn the heat on those who told them so.
A related reason I write is that I want to show to our people that we are great people and we can be great nation. I want to write about things that will make us a truly great nation. And rather than point to what divide us, I prefer to say that that is not sufficient a reason not to write about what unite us as a people. There is no country in the world that is not divided or that do not have issues over which they fundamentally disagreed, these disagreements often take various forms and dimensions- ethnic, religious, cultural, ideological, sociological, racial and so on. But they are agreed on the foundational basis of their country, the creed of their existence and the future of their children. They define their future in the context of their foundation, and the founders and builders of their nations. They do not regret neither are they ashamed about the foundation of their nation; they accept their imperfection and sought how they can correct them through informed governance. I view our consistent and persistent hinge of our failure on our ethnic and cultural differences, as mere rationalization for the failure of governance and leadership.
Third, I write because I believe that it is our inalienable right to speak the truth to power and tell the leadership what they have been doing wrong and how they can correct themselves and what they have been doing well and how they should continue. Is it, for instance, not a shame that after forty eight years of independence, close to one-third of Nigerians, including private companies do not pay tax, is it not also true that many companies do not pay the correct taxes, and as such deny government monies to develop the country? What moral right do such companies or individuals have to be critical of the government or complain of poor infrastructure and facilities?
Democracy is not simply about voting, it is fundamentally about accountability and respect for the citizens. Leadership in Nigeria do not wish to accountable, they simply want to govern. They consider the electorate, as having sold their mandate to them. They see the electorate as having enslaved themselves in the process. That is not the meaning of democracy.
Fourthly, I write because I want to point to the people that they also have a role to play in governance; that they cannot blame leadership at all times. After all, every society gets the leadership that it deserves. I believe this to be true. If people rig election, it is because they have accomplices in the society, those who are willing to support and abate their dastardly act. If a neighbourhood or community resists rigging, nobody will rig. The worst that may happen is that election results for that community or neighbourhood will be cancelled, and if this is done all over the country, then the country will be in terrible mess. I want the people to be vigilant to defend their votes and to be equally accountable in their actions or deeds, to behave like responsible citizens (note that I did not say “good citizens”); Aristotle differentiates between a good man and a good citizen. I do not believe in blind allegiance to the state, as I believe that an irresponsible government should be resisted, that was what sent me into exile; that was what saw me in litigation against the Nigerian state in the shores of the Unites States of America; that was what led me in a case against the Nigerian government to the America Supreme Court, and I won. My burning desire for justice to all Nigerians is unquenchable.
Overall, what purpose is my writing to serve? I intend that my essays serve as a mirror on all of us, leaders and followers, old and young, women and men, professionals and artisans. My goal is to say that we need to engage in a conversation and that only through such a conversation can we understand ourselves and seek a creative way out of our problems. I recognized a big limitation to my writings. I write in English whereas there are many people who still cannot read and write in English, some of them cannot even read and write in Igbo, Yoruba or Hausa. There is also another limitation; even those who could read and write in English cannot afford to purchase newspapers on a weekly basis. All these limitations exist. In the end, perhaps, only the elite, the lower middle class and the upper class who are able to purchase the newspaper, and a fewer percentage of them cultivate the time to read columns or go beyond the headlines and Editorials of newspapers. I say all this because the reading culture in Nigeria is low, the elite is lazy, they do not like reading; they are more concerned about making money by any means. They discuss governance and government through gossip and hearsay. They do not like issues of governance to be discussed in the public domain. They prefer soft-selling magazines and their gossips on high society people, their romance out of wedlock and so on. Hedonism is a major feature of the upper class in Nigeria . They are so perverted in their values, and this partly accounts for why they did not take the people seriously. Moneymaking is their key vocation, money at any cost. They do not care what happens to the country and its youth, its women and its orphans. We cannot leave this to go unchallenged. We must speak against it and act against it.
We all want an entrenched culture of civility and of social service delivery. We want Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) to function well, and for our schools and hospitals to work well. For too long we have complained about the poor state of infrastructure, but the more we complain about them the more inefficient they become. The more money spent on them, the more inefficient they are. Have we ever asked ourselves the question why that is so? It is because there is a disconnect between government and the people. So much money has been stolen in the name of making PHCN work, yet nobody wants to take responsibility for the looting that took place in the power sector, everybody is blaming everybody for the failure of Power Holding Company of Nigeria, because nobody wishes to take responsibility for corruption-yet we know that corruption stinks to the high heavens in the public sector. The Committees set up to investigate the power sector are producing contradictory reports, all the reports are self-serving; yet inside us we all know the truth about what really happened. But we all mute believing that no matter how much we spoke nothing will happen. But what we forgot is that our words must be backed by our action. What next after we complain or speak out against corruption? Our leaders know out psychology, we can only complain and do nothing. Demonstrate and go back to work- business as usual. But that truth will not come to the fore. That is not accountability, that is conspiracy. Nigerians must not allow things such as this to go unchecked; they must not allow people who govern in their name use the opportunity to rob them and corruptly enrich themselves. However, the tradition and perception of Nigerian leaders is that the people only complain they cannot do anything. This is certainly a case of taking the people for granted. But in so doing, the leaders are also digging their own grave; they are tasking a huge political risk that may back fire any day.
My belief is that if government is about the people, then the people should at all times have a right to speak as they pleased, to say what they like and dislike. For instance, the people should have a right to say how they wished to be governed, and they must be part of the government. That is the essence or meaning of empowerment. Empowerment is primarily about the will of the people being uppermost in everything, the ability of the people to have their way and take their own decision. Empowerment is about the people being proactive and controlling the spaces they occupy and using them as leverage to make higher demands and input into the social and political system. Democracy is incomplete if the people do not appreciate what their leaders are doing. If at the end of the day, the leads merely return to “renew their mandate” while having nothing to how the people as achievement. Democracy is incomplete if elections become nightmare and people are scared to turn out afraid of being hit by a stray bullet or being assaulted by a political hireling. All these can be corrected. We should all know the constitutional and cultural limits to our powers, as well as the power we command. In recognizing the limits to our power, we also realize how related and connected we all are, as leaders and followers. This will make us truly sober as a people. It will make our leaders realize that leadership is truly about service and duty, and followership is truly about civic responsibility.
In saying all this, I write to let the people know that because they are citizens, they have rights and they must not allow anybody to trample on those rights. Those rights are sacrosanct and they must be preserved and defended. In this regard, I eschew the arbitrariness of the state and its agencies, including the Nigeria Police and Para-military agencies. I am disgusted by arbitrariness in public spaces, in public hospitals, in banks, and so on. Such arbitrariness and lack of respect for people must cease. We must respect our people and treat them like human beings. Any country that has not respect for its citizens will never believe in their potentials or tap into it. I believe that as a people we have a lot to do and a long way to go. But we can shorten this way if we are all willing to respect each other and engage in a sober conversation about our country in a non-abusive, arrogant and insensitive manner. We must be civil and humanist. All great nations thrive towards respect and dignity for their citizens; this can only come through an institutionalized culture of civility, openness and accountability. As such, I do not write simply to have encomium showered on me. I write because I wish to point to our limitations and strengthen as a people and what we must do in order to build a truly great country based on the principle of justice and rights. I write to create awareness around these and spur leaders and followers to do the right things.
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