A few days ago I was in an unusual gathering. The gathering which was essentially a non-partisan one was to examine how a consensus could be forged between and among our political gladiators. If you like, what was being proposed was a tall agendum. This is in view of the zero-sum game of politics in Nigeria. The winners take everything while the losers lose all. Indeed, as someone chose to observe at the lecture, the losers may even go on to lose their lives. Such indeed is the nature of politics in Nigeria, whereas there is technical term in politics called consociationalism. This concept speaks essentially to an aspirational and inclusive dimension of politics whereby losers are accommodated in the new order. For those who know and remember, this was probably one of the vulnerable points of our first republic. The then status-quo powers took it upon themselves to liquidate the opposition. They succeeded in the short term. But in the long term, the civil war came about and Nigeria unravelled in a most disastrous way. Even then, it is apt to point out here that while the inquisition was on, a perceptive member of the opposition prophetically remarked that a chain of events had been set in motion which no one knew how it would end. The rest, as they say, is history.
It must be pointed out here that other countries have designed ways to accommodate losers such that at the end of the day, no one is left in the rain. Take the British from whom we supposedly learnt the trappings of democracy. They talk about a loyal opposition. In other words, one day that opposition could end up in government as it often does. It is not, so to say, in perpetual winter. This is why they have features like shadow government and shadow ministers. Again, across the Atlantic, a similar phenomenon of elite pact or elite conspiracy can be seen. Specifically, in the United States of America there is always a constant attempt to forge a bipartisan consensus.
I was therefore very happy when I was invited by the Minerva Philosophical Association to chair a lecture which was delivered by Olabode Ibiyinka George. Bode George, as he is popularly known, is a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). As the guest lecturer, however, he was not partisan. Indeed, he went as far as to say that the elections have been won and lost and that it was time to take the nation forward. True, and as the Bible says, there is indeed a time for everything. A time to fight, a time to play and, situationally, as in these times, a time to play politics and a time to build the society. Thus, dear reader, in my own preliminary remarks which constituted the appetizer that preceded the main lecture, I spoke on the need for the Nigerian political elite to build a consensus across partisan lines. This was complemented with comparative instances from other social formations as you will read below. Now read on:
I want to thank the Minerva Philosophical Association for this unique platform. The uniqueness stems from the fact that today’s discourse centres on what is very critical to the well-being of our nation.
As we all know, a nation is essentially a work in progress. In reality, the progress is a Sisyphean one in which, as we take one step forward, somehow, we find ourselves taking two steps backwards.
In a way, this paradox lies at the heart of some of the questions which we confront as a nation today. Some forty-five years after the end of the civil war, the Biafra question has emerged like a virus to torment this nation. Similarly, there is the interesting and potentially tragic face-off between herdsmen and farmers in various parts of our country. Meanwhile, there is no knowing when the militancy in the Niger Delta will rear its head again. Taken together, it is relevant to restate the question which Wole Soyinka posed several years ago: When is a nation?
Even then, the foregoing does not exhaust problems which confront this nation. This is because we have the equally important problem of being saddled with an economy whose technological base is not home-grown.
On this score, permit me to state that a recent report indicated that 90 percent of the technologies, which go into our economy, are derived from external sources. In other words, what passes for the Nigerian economy can be described as a mere shell.
The problems sketched above have been worsened by the fact that, as I speak, the leadership which is supposed to grasp and tackle these problems is yet to come into its own. Part of the reason for this is that the specifics of our history are such that our leadership continues to be hallmarked by discontinuity, rather than its antithesis. As is well known, we have had to contend with long years of military rule. One negative fallout of this is that most successful coup leaders justify their mission by slandering the past and glorifying the future. The consequence is that the all-important variable of leadership is characterized by discontinuity.
Kayode Soremekun
