Each group of politicians who have ruled Nigeria from 1914 have always urged those who succeeded them to do what they did NOT do! And like good copycats, each government that came after the other had done what the previous politicians did adding a fat dollop of jaara!! The British colonial politicians hiding under the nickname of colonial administrators instead of what they were, colonial politicians, abjured democracy. Yet, they came from over three hundred years of democratic practice.
With the blatant audacity of colonisers, they ‘pacified’ natives, ‘stopped’ barbaric practices and ‘introduced’ civilised behaviour to the African population at large. In Nigeria, they introduced democratic elections from 1922. But, not forgetting their own history of rotten boroughs of the 19th Century, British Colonial Politicians began to undermine democracy by rigging elections. How did they go about doing this?
They ‘tribalised’ the natives giving each tribe value-laden designations that the Natives imbibed and used against one another. In no time at all there were natives who were military in their ancestry. There were those who were good labourers. There were those who had clerical genes and so on and so forth. In doing these, they ignored the designations that the natives gave themselves, with which they had related to their neighbours before their coming. They decided who were aristocratic ‘tribes’ and who were plebeian ‘tribes’ by the shapes of their noses or the bend of their heads!!!
They divided the country space to aid their rigging of elections and undermining of democracy. They divided Nigeria into three regions, North, East and West, where the North was bigger than the other two regions many times over. To finish of the territorial manipulation, they then manipulated the census figures to say that the North has as many people as twice the number of the people in the East and the West.
The outcome of all these interferences is that forever the country can never be ruled by any politicians other than Northerners. That is why, with the exception of General Aguiyi Ironsi, a Northern politician has always been Nigeria’s premier or president or else Vice President or Deputy head of state. Always and forever.
To recap: the British colonial politicians who deceived our people that they were colonial administrators were not only not democratic. They subverted democracy and the institutions that build democracy. Yet, this same undemocratic, and even anti-democratic British Colonial Politicians expected the Nigerian politicians who succeeded to be paragons of democratic behaviour.
Which they were not. Rather, they were exactly like the British colonial politicians who manipulated elections in their favour. They were greedy for power and they did everything to hold on to it even when the people refused to vote for them. As one of them, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode famously said: “If you don’t vote for us tomorrow, angels will vote for us!” The rest, as they say, is history.
By 1965 Nigerian civilian politicians had so angered Nigerian military politicians that they replaced them vowing to undo everything that the civilian politicians had done. The Nigerian civilian politicians believed them! And in the wake of that belief, the Nigerian population at large also believed that the military politicians would be democratic, would seek and entrench the rule of law and let justice flow like water. . . It did not happen.
The military politicians began to argue among themselves. There they were politicians manipulating political and economic power and wanting the hierarchies of the military to guide and guard their protocol. It was like the colonial politicians wanting the British experience of politics to guide and guard their activities when they were in fact colonial politicians. Of itself, colonial subjects are not equal to their subjects. The military politicians have simply used ‘military’ to gain power. They were politicians. Political behaviour rules. Yet only Nigerian politicians who had no superiority complex vis-a-vis their fellow Nigerians could foster democracy and build institutions to sustain it. With this idea at the back of our minds, the military handed over power to civilians reluctantly in 1979. But by 1983, the military insisted that the civilian politicians had not learnt anything, nor had they forgotten anything of their previous undemocratic behaviour. So the military politicians returned with a vengeance.
When, during the period between 1966 and 1979 did the military politicians organise training in democracy and democratic institutions? The military politicians ruled by decree, and every order had to be obeyed with immediate effect and military alacrity! Where were they to find this democracy in the behaviour of the military politicians?
With the return of military politicians was the return of the argument among the military. The last time that argument led to civil war. This time the argument simply led to those who had the choice leaving the country. When would they come back? When the military politicians have ceased their arguments and released the country to made democracy a building in progress, not a edifice already built. Doctors, nurses, university teachers, lecturers from polytechnics and colleges of education left the country in thousands, if not millions. Later still, tragedy upon tragedy, the youth began to leave with or without qualifications, they left. Male to work as labourers, females to work as comforters, in foreign lands. Andrew, the typical Nigerian emigrant, became a figure in our folklore.
Transitions and attempted transitions followed between 1983 and 1998. The fairest and most free elections in the history of the country were annulled because the military politicians could no longer trust the civilian politicians to rule the country. Bringing the instrumentality of the military with them into politics, soldiers of the retired hue, took over government.
In 1999 former General Obasanjo became Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and president of Nigeria. He represented both the military politician as well as the civilian politician. And much as democracy as a word occurred in his speeches from time to time, it was far from his thoughts. Preoccupation with self-enrichment and self-preservation prevented his attention being focused on providing education, health and security for the people of the country. The elections of 2003 as well as the ones of 2007 were called the worst in the history of the country.
As another election takes place in over two weeks from now Chief Obasanjo is accusing the government of having already rigged these future elections. Really?
bankole.omotoso@elizadeuniversity.edu.ng
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