The extreme degeneration of democracy and development today is largely due to the prolonged years of military rule. The adoption of the witchcraft neoliberalism of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank is, aside the avoidable bloody Civil War and incessant mass killings of civil and military population by professional military coup makers, the greatest disaster that has befallen Nigeria.
Nigeria operated liberal democracy during the First Republic (1 October, 1960 – 15 January, 1966). Democracy is the negation of all monopoly of power; the empowerment of the people in affairs of the state and society; and the development and humanisation of the political arena. This type of democracy did not fully reign in the First Republic. But liberal democracy did reign.
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Liberal democracy is one that is restricted to the political sphere and even so, it is formal in nature. It does not eliminate the dominance of the ruling classes. The equality it proclaims is in contradiction and irreconcilable with the economic system. Which is why liberal democracy is unrestrictedly enjoyed by the ruling classes, not by the working and vulnerable peoples.
Nevertheless, the liberal democracy of the First Republic allowed the working and other vulnerable masses to organise, promote and defend their interests, without much ado. Ethnic, religious, regional, provincial and divisional groups formed political parties to defend and promote their interests, whether real or imagined. So also did the working masses.
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The First Republic had political parties that were grass-rooted, membership-funded, ideologically-informed, and development-driven. Not so today! Politicians in the First Republic did their best to respect the norms, rules, procedures and practices of the civil and public services. The reverse was the case in the Second Republic. It is extremely worse in today’s Third Republic.
In the Second and Third Republics, party formation became legally restricted and extremely monetised. Ethnic minorities and the working masses are legally discouraged and technically disqualified from forming their own parties.
In the First Republic, governments had development plans which they religiously implemented. They provided free and compulsory education, at least in the Western and Northern Regions. Universities and other tertiary institutions were built and well-funded by the Federal and Regional/State governments. Academic freedom was respected. Autonomy of the schools was upheld. Scholarships and grants were provided to students. Workers organised independently without crude oil and direct interference by the state. The reverse was the case in the Second Republic, and is still the case today.
In the First Republic, factories were established by governments to modernise the nation, cut down on imports, and provide employment. They did not waste state resources flying all over the globe begging foreigners to come invest in Nigeria. Agriculture was promoted in various ways, including research, alongside the provision of fertilisers and improved seedlings.
Capitalising on the inability of the politicians to manage democracy, highly opportunist, retrograde and divisive elements in the military terminated both Republics. Thereafter, they kept slaughtering themselves in coups and counter-coups. They threw the nation into an avoidable, senseless and bloody Civil War in which millions of people were killed, and properties destroyed!
Yes, peasant farmers were exploited; but they were not totally left to the vagaries of market forces. In the Second Republic, much attention was paid in destroying state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through primitive accumulation. In the Third Republic, SOEs were totally destroyed through privatisation and seizures.
Communities in the First Republic, especially in the South, embarked on development projects. They built and ran schools, hospitals and halls. They negotiated with their governments to construct asphalt roads, provide electricity, establish post offices, amongst others. Today, communities are so impoverished that the miserable and painful existence they are experiencing has led to the acceptance and glorification of the saying: “Everyone for himself and God for us all.”
Politicians in the First Republic did their best to respect the norms, rules, procedures and practices of the civil and public services. The reverse was the case in the Second Republic, and worse in the Third Republic.
Like the First Republic, the Second Republic collapsed because of the inability of the political gladiators to manage the challenges inherent in the democracy they practiced. They did not pay adequate attention to development and the peoples’ welfare and interests. So when degenerate elements in the military struck, the people hailed them.
Capitalising on the inability of the politicians to manage democracy, highly opportunist, retrograde and divisive elements in the military terminated both Republics. Thereafter, they kept slaughtering themselves in coups and counter-coups. They threw the nation into an avoidable, senseless and bloody Civil War in which millions of people were killed, and properties destroyed!
The military drastically weakened the capacity of the state to execute development plans, discipline wayward servants, check corruption, and restrain the rich. They, more than the politicians, promoted ethnic, religious, and primordial politics, while creating and consolidating new divides. They devalued human lives, imposed a culture of fear and silence, humiliated the campuses, and antagonised society more than the colonial rulers did. They drew constitutions which legalised elections without choice!
The First Republic significantly developed the nation because liberal democracy flourished and people were highly politicised. Politicians respected the civil and public services.
Just as the Second Republic was designed and programmed to exclude critical forces and those committed to emancipatory politics, in the transition to civil rule programme, so was General Abdulsalam Abubakar’s political transition programmed to handover power to lumpen elements.
General Yakubu Gowon built on the development goals of the First Republic, partly due to the country’s oil wealth but mainly as a result of the respect and adherence to civil and public service rules and traditions.
General Murtala Mohammed firmly cleared the path to destroying the civil and public services under the pretext of fighting “indiscipline and corruption.” General Ibrahim Babangida completed the destruction of the services. Since then it has been the increasing and qualitative destruction of the services.
The extreme degeneration of democracy and development today is largely due to the prolonged years of military rule. The adoption of the witchcraft neoliberalism of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank is, aside the avoidable bloody Civil War and incessant mass killings of civil and military population by professional military coup makers, the greatest disaster that has befallen Nigeria.
As such, military rule is everything that is worse than negativity and disaster. Which is why those calling on retired professional coup plotters to politically intervene and “save our democracy” are being intellectually dishonest and politically rascally. Okwudiba Nnoli, the noted political scientist rightly asserted that military rule, “represents a harkening to the undemocratic rule of the early colonial period when the people were objects rather than subjects of rule. It contradicts the struggles of Nigerians for political independence and the right of the individual to equality before the law, freedom of assembly and association, and freedom of speech… military rule not only diverts attention from further progress in the struggle for full democracy; it abolishes democracy itself and with it, the historical gains of the people in the field of political relations.”
Just as the Second Republic was designed and programmed to exclude critical forces and those committed to emancipatory politics, in the transition to civil rule programme, so was General Abdulsalam Abubakar’s political transition programmed to handover power to lumpen elements.
Lumpen elements are those Karl Marx described as, “ruined rogues, with questionable means of support and of dubious origin, degenerate and adventurous scions of the bourgeoisie, … (and) vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged convicts, runaway galley slaves, swindlers, charlatans, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, procurers, brothel keepers, porters, literati, organ grinders, rag-pickers, knife-grinders, tinkers, beggars; in short, the entirely undefined, disintegrating mass, thrown hither and yon, which the French call la bohème.”
Hence, the lumpen ‘democracy’ Nigeria is currently operating.
Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet). Email: [email protected]
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