By an extremely simplistic definition, trade is “the action of buying and selling of goods and services” or the “exchange of goods and services” and, for the way economies are now structured, money is the means of facilitating that exchange.
Even though when money is exchanged for a good or service, it is assumed that the good or service is what is being traded; sometimes, we may need to look at things slightly deeper. Sometimes, what is being exchanged is not what is being traded.
When I exchange money for a movie ticket, for example, even though I am purchasing a movie ticket, I am essentially trading amusement and entertainment. Similarly, whether I exchange money for medicines, chemotherapy, or dialysis, what I’m really exchanging is healing and well-being. Or, at the very least, that is the true trading aim.
On the other hand, if I am an unauthorised person and exchange money for a bomb, it appears that a bomb has been purchased or sold, but in reality, death has been traded. It may not be obvious on the day, but when the bomb is deployed, it will only result in death.
We’ve heard a lot about aspirants and delegates “trading” in the previous few weeks as parties went through their processes to choose which members will be put forward as party candidates to represent the public. By “trading,” I mean the exchange of money for products or services, with the “good/service” in this case being a party nomination. However, when politicians and delegates exchange money for nominations, you have to wonder what exactly is being traded. Yes, we observe positions being purchased and sold, but what exactly is being traded?
To figure out what is being traded, we must look at the underlying structure of governance. As I mentioned in an article a few weeks ago, what we have in Nigeria is a pseudo-democracy called ‘electocracy’, and one of the characteristics of this style is that aspirants will do anything to get into power because leaders in an electocracy are not held accountable.
An excerpt of the article I refer to is below:
What exactly is an “electocracy”? Simply described, it is a political system in which power is obtained by elections or merely voting. A more dictionary-type definition would be: “where citizens can vote for their government but cannot directly participate in their governance decision-making; and when the government does not share power with the citizens.”
Its characteristics (better known as “consequences”) are pretty easy to determine from the definition. I’ll give you a few examples of the more obvious ones:
Politicians will operate on a “winner-takes-all” basis, and elections will be plagued with violence since it is a do-or-die situation because once in power, there is practically nothing that can be done to remove them. It is a form of government in which, despite being elected, the power obtained is nearly absolute. And I’m sure we’ve all heard Lord Acton’s famous quote: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Accountability to the people is near zero and this breeds another evidence of an electocracy in what Malcolm Gladwell calls the ‘Power Distance Index”, which remains extremely high i.e. while the people suffer and get impoverished, the politicians are ring-fenced from the reality of the people and therefore are both unaware and uncaring about the quality and standard of living of those who elected them.
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I will stretch this hypothesis a little and add that a country practising electocracy will have to decimate its educational sector!! Of course, ending education or schooling in today’s world is impossible; so what you will find will be a generational decline in the sustainable development of the education sector.
The sector takes low priority, of course – a very low “education budget to GDP” ratio. Obviously, the more enlightened and educated the population, the less likely they will accept an electocracy in place of democracy; hence, systematic destruction of the sector by all not-so-subtle means necessary.
In order for an electocracy to exist, politicians will have to disrupt democracy’s core institutions and blur the borders around the cardinal premise of democracy, “SEPARATION OF POWERS AND ACCOUNTABILITY.” You’ll note that the executive, legislature, and judiciary will all be in cahoots with one another, deferring to one another rather than holding one another accountable.
The ensuing casualties will be rule of law, accountability and livelihood of the common man.
Based on this, in a tragic and brutal behaviour endemic in Nigeria, positions of politics are used for power and that power is used for personal enrichment at the expense of communal development and at the expense of the citizens.
As a result, when delegates receive money, they are trading, or rather selling, our communal future and resources. They are appropriating a portion of our joint enterprise’s value and selling it to someone who will do worse. Because of this, the INEC Act 2020 (and even the one before it) outlaws and criminalises the trade of money for votes, in accordance with ethical norms and moral sensibilities.
When it comes down to it, there’s no difference between them and those who sell guns to armed robbers or bombs to terrorists when it comes to the final outcomes… Delegates selling positions, in my opinion, are far worse than that!!!!! The buyers aren’t much better.
The blatant disregard for the law, the blatant immorality of their acts, the parties’ mind-boggling greed, and the electorate’s, law enforcement’s, and judiciary’s nonchalant acquiescence all provide a worrisome image of what we truly want for the country.
If we remain quiet in the face of the blatant trade of our future, our kids’ future and our resources, then though we are victims, we are also complicit.
Zeal Arakaiwe is a financial advisor based in Lagos
