IV. Putting the citizen first in Nigeria: the roadblocks and the headaches

“You cannot enslave a mind that knows itself, that values itself, that understands itself.”
— Wangari Maathai

“Your creation as well as your resurrection is but as an individual soul” –Holy Qur’an, Surah 31/Luqman, Ayah 28.

“He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior” – Confucius

The moles and the “sleepers” embedded in law enforcement agencies have, in all probability, been sponsored or planted by powerful individuals that have little or no regard for national security. These other beneficiaries of patronage aid and abet kidnapping, banditry, and sundry crimes giving Nigerians sleepless nights. 

Why does “the system” appear not to be working in Nigeria? Why, in spite of the huge sums allocated to Ministries, Departments and Agencies every budget cycle, Nigerian public administration has not delivered the expected results? Access to essential services (such as safety and security, electricity, potable water, sewage disposal, enforcement of zoning laws and building codes, urban and rural infrastructure) remains highly restricted. The economy persistently fails to keep pace with population growth and to meet basic needs. Jobs are still scarce.  Highway contracts are awarded with little prospect of being executed on time and to specification. The majority of the population remains trapped in poverty. Inequality continues to widen. And corruption is a beast that is yet to be tamed. 

The system is not working as it should because it is guided, not by one, but by two competing public administration doctrines, one leaning towards the status quo and the other, against all odds, pushing for change.  Instead of moving proactively to satisfy individual citizens’ demands, the system expends its energy placating amorphous groups and dispensing favors to select, as well as vociferous, members of the groups. The subordination of individual will to the dictatorship of “the group” begins at birth, as the child is branded as a member of a particular ethnic community or adherent of a specific religious order. The citizen’s involuntary affiliation to a group continues right up to the time of death, what with the stipulation that wills be drawn up, not as a testator deems fit, but strictly in accordance with his community’s “customary law”[1]!

[1] This highly questionable, Constitution-defying, jurisprudence is what gold diggers rely on in suing dead relatives for a share of the latter’s estate. How Nigerian courts entertain such patently incompetent suits—suits that deny dead persons the right to fair hearing—is a lacuna that is difficult to explain. It is an absurdity that law reform must quickly remedy.

The story so far

We have thus far examined the foundation on which the apparatus of the Nigerian state was super-imposed when power changed hands at independence. As argued in the last article, the neo-feudal state owes its existence to a combination of circumstances–especially, those prevailing at the pre- and post-colonial Nigeria. The new set of rulers not only inherited the esoteric and intimidating technology of modern administration, but also came with the attitude of mind unique to their indigenous environments. The dual influences explain the contradictions which are ever noticeable in the prevailing public administration culture and practices. On the one hand is the traditional structure, with its diverse, contextual, and emotion-laden characterizations of the truth. On the other is the colonial super-structure with its universalistic, legal-rational, perfection-oriented ideals. Even though both the traditional and the modern have learnt to co-exist, the former appears to have  overpowered the latter. The hybrid that has evolved since the attainment of independence has unsurprisingly tilted the balance from “governing” as known in modern, politically competitive democracies, to “ruling” as understood in traditional, feudal, competition-killing, largely authoritarian societies.

Meanwhile, but unnoticed by the post-independence rulers, socioeconomic growth and demographic changes have shifted (and continued to shift) the center of gravity from the nebulous groups that sustained traditional, precolonial societies, to the individual, who is indispensable to the effective functioning of modern political systems. As argued later, the failure to give the individual citizen adequate recognition in the contemporary setting has turned to be a mistake of the highest order.

Unlike the group whose preferences are difficult to pin-point, individual demands tend to be precise. Among these are demands for personal security, for food and shelter, for clean, hygienic, environment, for prompt and affordable access to services like health, education, gainful employment, electricity and water supply, paved highways, for dignity and equality, and for expeditious and fair dispensation of justice. These are the type of demands that can only be met by a “governing” rather than a “ruling” and regimentation mindset. They are the type of demands the satisfaction of which self-aware, politically active, individuals hold their governments accountable for in modern societies. When such demands go unfulfilled, the individual is, as demonstrated by the experience of Uganda in the 1980s, likely to “switch off” government and to turn to underground subculture. It is only a matter of time before an unacknowledged individual submits to anarchic impulses (Brett, 1994).

The gap between “ruling” and “governing” continues to widen in Nigeria due largely to the contradictory interpretations of succeeding constitutions. The underlying aim of the constitutions is to secure citizen obedience to a central authority. Obedience, in this sense, serves as a metaphor for the acceptance of cosmopolitan ideals, such as those of universalism, open-mindedness, public spiritedness, justice, equity, constitutionalism, and multi-party competition. It may sound counter-intuitive, but the practice to-date has been to pursue the universal ideals by falling back, and harping, on primordial, group-centered, individual-disregarding, loyalties.

The 1999 Constitution attempts, though unsuccessfully, to resolve the tension between national and sectional, and between both and individual allegiance. In the preamble, it conveys the wrong impression that “we the People” came together as individuals to author, and sign off on, the nation’s fundamental law. In Chapter II, Section 14 (2), it avers that sovereignty belongs to, and resides with, the people. It then stipulates that the “security and welfare of the people (meaning, individual citizens) shall be the primary purpose of government”. It further provides, in Section 15 that “national integration shall be actively encouraged, whilst discrimination on the ground of place of origin, sex, religion, status, ethnic or linguistic association shall be prohibited”. The same Constitution contains elaborate provisions on citizenship. The Constitution [particularly, in Sections 14. (2), 17. (1) and (2), as well as 42. (1) (a) and (b)] fully acknowledges, and underscores, the individuality of the citizen.

However, in trying to forge unity out of diversity, the Constitution’s interpreters frequently deny the individuality, and by implication, the sovereign authority, of the citizen, preferring instead to use groups as decoys, that is, as ploys to distract individuals from their daily worries. Instead of focusing on the citizen’s pressing concerns, succeeding Administrations have found perfect distractions in groups–ethnic, religious, cultural, and the like.

Denial of individuality takes at least three forms, notably, refusal to acknowledge the citizen’s unique personality, abrogation or confiscation of the citizen’s constitutional rights, and deprivation of opportunity to rise or fall based on one’s personal effort. To put it differently, the operators of the constitution routinely deny the average citizen’s humanity, his/her constitutional rights, as well as the opportunity to compete for the benefits of citizenship.

Instead of allowing and encouraging each citizen to be the best Nigerian s/he can possibly be, succeeding administrations constantly harp on his/her primary identities, thus effectively devaluing his/her citizenship of the Nigerian state and placing a ceiling on his/her growth aspirations. Rather than allow each citizen to rise or fall based on his/her choices, the rulers have taken it upon themselves to merge individuals with groups, as a first step towards determining who, within each group, gets ahead and who is denied the opportunity of reaching his/her full, God-ordained, potential.

When it comes to deciding on who gets what, the country’s rulers have persistently denied the individuality of the citizen, preferring instead to give preferences to their cronies in ethnic or other politically weighty demographic groups. The due consideration which the Constitution expects the government and its agents to give to Nigeria’s “federal character” has almost invariably been interpreted to mean favoring whomsoever the rulers choose, as long as the rulers’ favorite belongs to a politically and demographically significant group.

Rather than acknowledge every eligible Nigerian’s fundamental right to be given full and fair consideration for political and civil service vacancies (based on personal merit), succeeding rulers have, in the typical neo-feudal fashion, allocated job quotas to themselves and their proxies, while denying suitably qualified candidates the opportunity to serve their motherland. Favoritism also manifests in the conferment of national honors, award of oil blocks and licenses, and sale of privatized enterprises. It rears its head in the administration of justice, as reflected in instances of purchased or unduly influenced court verdicts. Political favoritism extends to the penal realm, with well-connected law breakers enjoying immunity from arrest or prosecution. Similarly, convicts with high-level connections can, with state pardon, rub their impunity (or untouchability) in the face of their adversaries and of law-abiding citizens.

It is of course in the recruitment of personnel that favoritism wreaks the greatest havoc and unfailingly ignites heated, albeit, needless, controversies. Proceeding on the easily falsifiable assumption that the otherwise discrete individual is a lifeless and voiceless part of a group, or, to put it differently, that the group supersedes the individual, powerful state officials expend their appointment or nomination “quotas” on their favorites in various states or zones while denying better-qualified rivals from the same states or zones the opportunity to compete at all, much less, on a level playing field. Other privileged individuals (like traditional rulers and political godfathers) unabashedly sell their slots to the highest bidding jobseekers or hand job slots over to their favorites. 

While a few godfathers view their role as that of mentors and agents of development, their self-seeking counterparts run public institutions as extensions of their private fiefdoms. Sitting majestically on thrones, the reactionary godfathers hold court while their subjects, mostly loyalists, grovel obsequiously. Claiming personal ownership of posts financed from the public treasury, the godfathers decree who runs for elective office, who triumphs at primaries and at elections, who gets appointed to what sinecure, and who benefits from the munificence of the state.

The rulers’ unwillingness to acknowledge the individual citizen’s anxieties and aspirations accords perfectly well with the client-patron arrangements that have evolved over the years. Believing that amorphous groups (controlled by godfathers or oligarchies) are easier to control or manipulate than discrete, thinking, calculating, unpredictable, opinionated, assertive, and possibly, self-seeking individuals, current and aspiring rulers ignore their subjects’ unique energies and motivations, and, with an eye on the likely electoral return, devote a disproportionate amount of time to appeasing or cultivating the groups with which the subjects might (or might not) identify. In other words, the rulers ascribe shifting identities to otherwise autonomous individuals, almost invariably corralling these individuals within ethnic Bantustans, linguistic groups, sectarian orders, and religious communities. Individuals are also routinely profiled and branded, based on their places of birth, states of origin, “geo-political zones”, and, in recent years, their gender as well as the age brackets within which they fall. The individuals, for their part, have been inured to self-erase, that is, to obliterate the core of their personalities, and to look up to their own “kith and kin” or faith groups for protection against “greedy” and “conniving” rivals.

Non-government organizations play a crucial role in this routine, mostly unilateral ascription of identity, this steady nurturing of the average Nigerian’s dependency mentality. The civil society agents of ethnic profiling and indoctrination include socio-cultural organizations such as the Ohaneze Ndigbo, the Afenifere, the Oodua People’s Congress, the Ijaw National Congress, and the community of ethnic separatists who see the world solely from narrow angles. The groups ordinarily profess to look out for the interest of their members. In reality, a group serves as a platform for the advancement of an oligarchy’s’ agenda and for the propagation of emotive, hot-button causes, the type of causes that are likely to inflame ethno-religious passions and, by so doing, enable the group to arrogate to itself the authority to think and speak for each member.

As it so happens, the groups are rarely structured to handle individual members’ situation-specific grievances. The groups are not equipped to perform functions that an average voter typically expects of his MP or Congressman. They have no mechanism or instrument for gauging their members’ positions on burning issues. They have no call-centers that receive and process individual citizens’ complaints. 

These handicaps have curiously not prevented the self-seeking leaders from constantly projecting themselves as their groups’ spokespersons, and falsely, as the defenders of individual members’ interests. Taking advantage of a widely dispersed, ignorant, and apathetic public, and aided by an unsuspecting (most probably complicit) press, the ethnic solidarity fronts persistently brainwash their members into believing that they are under “outside attack”, and that staying safe requires placing their destiny in the hands of the self-appointed custodians of the groups’ conscience. The primary groups equate the political, as in presidential or gubernatorial, ambitions of specific personalities with the interest of every member of the amorphous kinship group. They, the groups, persistently coax their members into surrendering the rights to the basic freedoms, especially, the rights to freedom of thought, association, belief and expression.

The religious organizations have since got into the act. The Christian Association of Nigeria, for instance, has made it a habit to view government recruitment and allied policies from narrow, sectarian lens. It, at the slightest opportunity, disparages policies or decisions deemed unfavorable to its members, thereby forcing rival religious organizations to retire to the trenches and respond in kind.  Muslims, who would have left earthly matters in the hands of God, have suddenly developed interest in the religious affiliation of who gets appointed to what post. 

The intrusion of ethnicity and religion into public recruitment decisions ought to have led to a radical overhaul of the recruitment practices. However, rather than steer the process away from controversy, the transactional leaders get carried away by short-term power considerations, notably, the power to hire and fire whom they please. To consolidate this power, the leaders go as far as to involve those with the least knowledge of a vacancy’s requirements in the selection of candidates to fill it. Among these other clients that the rulers rely upon as agents of political control are traditional rulers and political godfathers. Without a stake in any regime’s political future, traditional rulers gladly serve “the government of the day” and, in return, enjoy the advantage of proximity to power. How succeeding regimes have so far missed the connection between their unfulfilled dreams of a better society and the imprudent allocation of power perquisites for short-term gain is still a mystery.

Like the traditional rulers, political godfathers  welcome the opportunity not only to consolidate their hold on local institutions but also to enjoy the patronage and protection of the center. Meanwhile, entrenched neo-feudal favoritism continues to impede the smooth running of government and the accumulation (and delivery) of welfare gains. Beneficiaries of patronage have neither the motivation nor the capacity to excel on their jobs, much less, respond meaningfully to the demands of a diverse public for quality service. The moles and the “sleepers” embedded in law enforcement agencies have, in all probability, been sponsored or planted by powerful individuals that have little or no regard for national security. These other beneficiaries of patronage aid and abet kidnapping, banditry, and sundry crimes giving Nigerians sleepless nights. 

In any case, the gradual reduction of the individual to a group-controlled robot has profound governance and public administration implications. The insensitive display of power (or extension of favoritism towards specific individuals within groups) has a negative impact on the image of government. At best, it breeds widespread discontent and amplifies the “marginalization” claims which cultural and religious organizations milk for political gain. At worst, it turns the state into a caste system, a system that tacitly approves of selection by ethnic origin, religious identity, political connections and/or social status. Not surprisingly, youths, especially job seekers, who feel abandoned and short-changed by a patently unjust system look for escape in mind-bending drugs, in disorderly behavior, in separatist agitations, or as a final option, in suicide. 

Growing citizen disaffection with the state

Without any doubt, dysfunctional, individuality-denying governance and public administration practices are capable of driving normal human beings nuts. But can such practices trigger pure insanity? Answering this question warrants embarking on multi-disciplinary studies with a view to exploring the mental health angle of the prevailing governance arrangements. Proceeding from the assumption, no matter how tenuous, of a linkage between extant governance practices and the average citizen’s susceptibility (or, as the case may be, immunity) to wide-ranging mental afflictions, the teams should ask whether there is any link between the suppression of a citizen’s individuality and the citizen’s predisposition to mental health disorders. Among mental health challenges that Nigeria is battling with in recent years– challenges whose root causes need to be established–are paranoia, childlike tantrum-throwing, misplaced aggression, schizophrenia, hysteria, depression, drug addiction, lack of self-confidence or self-esteem, psychosis,  mood swings, predisposition towards extremist and separatist causes, and suicide. 

Regardless of what the multi-disciplinary inquiry reveals, we may proceed tentatively on the assumption that constant negation or devaluation of the citizen’s individuality spoils whatever chance the state has of “civilizing” the self-seeking, unruly, individual. Already, Nigeria of today is looking very much like, if not more dangerous to inhabit than, the Uganda of the early 1980s. As was the case with the Uganda of the early 1980s,  life in contemporary Nigeria is liable to be “nasty, short, and brutish”.  Everybody is to himself, believing that God, but certainly not the state, is looking out for all.

In a nutshell, a neo-feudal system, like the one just described, is neither fit for purpose nor for the pursuit of excellence. By eroding the value of citizenship, such a system places a cap on individual aspirations, weakens citizen allegiance to the Nigerian state, literally kills the competitive spirit, and denies the citizen the God-given right to apply his/her endowments and to fulfil his/her destiny. While additional empirical studies are necessary to track the link between the acknowledgement of a citizen’s individuality and public spiritedness, available anecdotal evidence suggests a connection of sorts. At least, it is possible to argue the proposition that the system’s constant negation of individuality is likely to produce a citizen ideal-type with a neurotic, maladjusted personality, and an uncivil deportment.  

At any rate, a backlash cannot be ruled out where the state ignores real but uniquely different persons, and instead panders to the divisive inclinations of nebulous “groups”, and of the groups’ self-appointed but legally unaccountable spokespersons. The backlash, which is the upshot of appropriated responsibility, may take the form of anarchic or uncivil behavior in a society that craves civility. Other troubling signs of the lurch toward anarchy are minor or major infractions on public highways, engagement in acts of vandalism, frequent renunciation of legal and moral obligations, a lack of empathy for compatriots deemed to be “strangers” on one’s land, the refusal to extend to “fellow” citizens the courtesy or regard to which human beings are ordinarily entitled, readiness to lend support to secessionist causes, the progressive impairment of the capacity to think rationally and independently, the tendency to spot faults in others but not in oneself or in one’s “tribe”, the persistent urge to regard the truth and falsehood as interchangeable (or as a function of who utters it), the inclination to attribute unfavorable developments to “enemy plots” or to the wrath of ancestral gods, outright insubordination in the career civil service, the declining feeling of self-worth, the belief that the ordinary man’s voice does not count, and most serious of all, the waning allegiance to the sovereign commonwealth.