The last 16 years have been very good for the democratic project in Nigeria. We have broken at least four records. One, we have held on to democratic rule for more than a decade. The First Republic lasted just a little over half a decade, the Second Republic was even shorter, and the Third Republic was dead at birth. Two, we have held two general elections back-to-back without igniting a conflagration that would give the military an excuse to take over. Democracy did not survive the post-election combustions of 1964/1965 and 1983, but we broke that jinx in 2003. The result of the 2003 election was contested all the way to the Supreme Court, but that’s well within the latitude of democratic practice.
Three, we have seen one administration handing over to another, even when the election was a low point and both administrations were from the same party. That happened in 2007. Four, and most important, we have just witnessed the defeat and the concession of an incumbent president. The 2015 general election has turned out to be a truly landmark one in a pleasantly surprising way that has additionally held up our country as a good model. These are all indicators of the good health and the growing maturity of our democracy. They are also important markers in our march towards that much desired endpoint of democratic journey: democratic consolidation.
Given the historic nature and outcome of the 2015 general election, it is very tempting to crow that we have arrived democratically or that we have fully consolidated our democracy. We have not. We are yet to arrive at that point where our democracy is fully mature, where important countervailing institutions have grown robust enough to serve as arenas for resolving conflicts and checkmating possible excesses, where rights and freedoms can be taken for granted, where democratic norms and principles have become second nature, and where democracy has become the only game in town that democratic breakdown and reversal are totally impossible. That point is still some distance off. It is very important that we do not confuse age with quality and do not mistake a landmark, no matter how important, for the destination.
The good news is that we have not veered off the road. Some progress have been made in the last 16 years in a way that reinforces the hypothesis that when allowed to grow, democracy matures with age and has an inbuilt mechanism for course-correction. It has been argued severally that if the military had not intervened in 1966 and 1983, democratic institutions and democratic culture would have developed stronger roots and that the aberrations in our first two republics would have corrected themselves. That’s a wee counter-factual, for we will never know. What we know, however, is that the last 16 years of democracy have gifted us the opportunity to move from a quasi/pseudo democracy to a real democracy. It has not been an even or perfect journey. But with one important record broken after another, we now have a good foundation to build on. And build we must, and continuously too.
While we have earned the right to enjoy the glory of the rare moment presented by the 2015 elections, we need to realise that there is still a lot to do. The job of further democratising, of consolidating democracy and of making democracy work for the people is not yet fully done. At best, the great achievement that we sing and dance about is still a work-in-progress. There is still an almost equal chance of further progress, of standstill, and even of reversal. The incoming administration, as the major beneficiary of an expanded democratic space, has a moral and historic responsibility to further deepen democracy in the country. Because of the embedded risks, embarking on further democratic reforms might not be deemed politically urgent and expedient, ironically, by the same people that have benefited from the present openings. But it is important to insist that this is an important order of business.
As I see it, the democracy deepening work needs to be undertaken in four broad areas. The first is in the area of continuous electoral reforms to ensure that votes always count. Even when it is almost a cliché that elections do not equate democracy, it is also obvious that representative democracy without elections will be a contradiction in terms, that a democracy where votes do not count is nothing but a farce, and that democracy’s promise of good governance will always be delivered in the breach until governments know they stand a good chance of being voted out by the electorate. There is no guarantee that the electorate will always get it right, but at least they have the luxury of trying until they do. When adjustment is made for some margins of error, it can be stated that the results of the 2015 general election accurately mirror the actual preferences of the voters. The use of permanent voter cards, card readers, customised election materials etc. significantly reduced the room for the usual electoral mischief. Professor Attahiru Jega and his team should be commended for the innovations they introduced and for insisting on implementing them despite the unprecedented level of personal attacks they had to endure.
The electoral innovations were by no means perfect. The outstanding task is to continue to perfect, not jettison, them. It is very important that voter registration and PVC collection be made continuous and convenient, that election logistics and processes are further straightened out, that card readers work 100 per cent of the time, that votes are counted more quickly and more transparently, and that results are announced on time. It is a shame that Professor Attahiru Jega has ruled himself out of another term. But he has put in an outstanding shift in a most difficult job that many come out of with their reputation in tatters. Maybe his job is done at the electoral commission, but the job of electoral reform is not yet done. It is important to ensure that Jega’s successor is someone who can advance, not roll back, the current electoral reforms and is someone who can introduce the next generation of reforms.
The second arena of work centres around the need to eliminate or minimise the disruptive aspects of our politics. Chief in this area is the manner in which violence is twinned with our politics in general and elections in particular. We go into elections holding our breath, fearful that the democratic project might be unhinged, worried that our country might go up in flames, and reconciled to the fact that some limbs and lives would be lost. Even in the effusively celebrated 2015 elections, scores of people were killed before, during and after the polls. Violence has become a permanent feature of our elections because the stakes of losing or winning are so high and because perpetrators of violence do it without consequences.
Other disruptive elements that we need to take care of include our do-or-die approach to politics and how we routinely manipulate religious and ethnic differences for political advantage. There is need to design and implement robust programmes for ending the culture of impunity that encourages violence, for reducing the attraction of politics and creating opportunities for self-actualisation outside of politics, for enthroning a democratic political culture, and for building social capital, strengthening existing mechanisms for integration, promoting inclusion and healing the country of the open wounds of the 2015 campaign.
We also need to strengthen the restraining institutions that provide necessary checks and balances and separate democracy from other ways of organising and running society. This, to me, is the third arena of democracy deepening work. The obvious restraining institutions on executive powers are the judiciary and the legislature. They must be truly independent and be accountable too. But we also need the press, the security agencies and civil society to be professional, independent and accountable to serve effectively as countervailing institutions, ensure protection of rights and freedoms, and check autocratic impulses.
And most important, we need a robust opposition to keep the government on its toes and to always provide the voters with a credible alternative to the government in power. It is in our collective interests for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to get over its loss and re-organise itself, rather than disappear or dissolve into the All Progressives Congress (APC). We wouldn’t have achieved much by merely replacing one dominant party with another. In a manner of speaking, that will take us back to square one. It will deny the system of needed competition and constrict the space for democratic growth. These restraining mechanisms and countervailing institutions are needed and should be strengthened not only at the federal level, but especially at the state and local government levels where they are sorely missing and greatly needed.
The last arena of work is to return democracy to its essence: a form of government where citizens make decisions. At the moment, we have turned the idea of representative democracy on its head because we have merely borrowed forms without the spirit and the culture behind them. It is important to remember that we elect people to represent us in both the executive and the legislative arms because it is impractical for all of us to be at the decision-making table. So, the elected are the agents and the people are the principals. But what we have is worse than the principal-agent problem. We have agents that no only serve their own interests at our expense but have become the lords who oppress the very people they are meant to represent and have turned citizens into subjects in a way that hacks back to our monarchical instincts. This broken system is principally the reason why democracy is working more for the elected than for the electorate, and unless it is fixed we should not expect a better outcome.
I think there are two ways to fix this broken and dysfunctional system. The first is through increased citizens’ engagement. The level of engagement on the 2015 elections is very commendable. This shouldn’t end with the election. It should not only be sustained but also deepened. The bulk of the work for responsive, efficient and accountable governance is actually done in-between elections. Without an active and effective demand for these, the supply of good governance will at best remain scanty. No one supplies what is not demanded. The second way is for government to consciously and genuinely involve the people in the decision-making process and graduate our democracy from mere electoral representative democracy to a participatory and deliberative one.
John Dewey, the American political philosopher, memorably said that though we need a shoe maker to make a shoe, we need the shoe wearer to know where it pinches. From experiments in participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil to decentralised decision-making in Kerela, India, it has been shown beyond doubts that decision-making can be enriched and further legitimised when politicians, bureaucrats and the people collaborate and that the people are the best determiners of their own priorities. Coming closer home, it will be inconceivable that if Nigerians were part of the decision-making process, they would make it a priority for the National Assembly to have an annual budget of N150 billion that is not accounted for, for about N1billion to be spent on food and entertainment in the State House, and for a new jet to be bought for the presidential fleet. This area of reform, which is not problem-free, won’t be favoured by politicians who are used to and have benefited so much from the status quo. But it is necessary reform nonetheless.
He's consulting for the Buhari Presidential Campaign.
Email him at waziri.adio@thisdaylive.com.
