As Nigeria celebrates 60 years of nationhood this week, the Archbishop of Sokoto Diocese of the Catholic Church, Rev Father Hassan Kukah, has lamented the crass nepotism and poor governance which have culminated in the country’s political stagnation and economic retrogression, and advocated a review of the nation’s leadership recruitment system.
Kuka, who decried what he called “diminishing involvements of the elites in governance in the face of massive hemorrhage of Nigerian intellectuals and best hands outside the country”, urged the elite and intellectuals to get involved in politics and take back leadership from mediocre.
Delivering a paper titled: “Sixty Years of Nigeria’s Journey to Democracy: Hopes and Impediments” as part of lectures organised by the Association of Retired Career Ambassadors of Nigeria,(ARCAN), he said contrary to the practice in Nigeria, alumni of the best universities in the world today are governing various countries.
“At independence, Nigerians had high hopes. We expected more than what we have now. Nigeria has never been as sad, as cynical as divided as frustrated as we are now. The nation is full of ethnic jingoism and cultural arrogance. Political power has been so privatised along ethnic lines. Despite the fact that we gained independence without bloodshed, 60 years after, blood now flows on our streets. We didn’t prepare for this.
“We have had too many accidental leaders, people who are not mentally prepared to govern; people who do not have the requisite education and lack the capacity to lead and manage diversity are the one governing the nation. We cannot succeed as a nation this way.
“Most of British leaders are products of Cambridge and other top universities, and that explains why they are doing well, but no such can be said of Nigeria. We must insist that anybody seeking public office possess requisite education,” he said. Kukah identified justice, representation, equity and freedom as four pillars of democracy, stating that “When we want to identify what has gone wrong with our democracy, we must look at the corrosive influence of military rule. It is not enough to say soldiers tried.
Yes they may have tried, in the same say that even if the church becomes active in politics they may try to govern, but that is not what that institution was made to achieve. In the same way the military was never, even at the best of times to achieve he principles of democracy.
“So we must correlate our political stagnation, our democratic decay with these excesses that were imposed into the system and this is why we are finding it increasingly difficult to produce an acceptable constitution because the military came with a Messiah complex but was never able to achieve the goals it set for itself.
“Just to tell you how far we have travelled, and it has not been very far, today, after many years, since 1966 we have been under a form of military rule, because our President is a retired General, and you cannot expect either himself or former President Olusegun Obasanjo to suddenly put on agbada and hold the constitution and expect that over 40 years of military discipline ingrained in them to suddenly disappear.
And that is while (either President Buhari or former President Obasanjo) are finding it with severe difficulty to manage diversity which are the key ingredients of democracy. In the military they say you are either for us or against us, like Obasanjo said eloquently, we do not accept 99 per cent loyalty. You can’t speak like that in a democracy.”
Father Kukah, who relieved found memories of Nigeria’s independence as a flagwaving pupil in the primary school then, said clearly Nigeria has not got to where it expected when it started this journey, and to identify what went wrong it must appreciate the context and not just the concept of democracy.
“It is important we reflect on our democracy and by extension the country, regarding where we are now and where we are expected to be. Reflecting on the lofty dreams of our founding fathers to build a just and equitable nation where no man is oppressed can be attained.
“Many forms of government have been tested, but it is true that very few of these systems of government meet the need of the aggregate number of people, especially as it affects the pursuit of happiness.” He said happiness of the citizens was central to the United States such that its declaration of independence in 1776, happiness speaks to the foundation of the new government and adoption of democracy, giving them the right to vote out a government that failed to meet their inherent needs.
Quoting from the American independence declaration, he said: “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“We hold this truth to be self-evident that all men and women were created equal and were endowed by the creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, derive in their just power from the consent of the governed.
“Whenever any form of government is destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organising its power in such form that they shall see mostly likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
The Bishop therefore, queried: “Is anybody worried therefore, that Nigerians are exploring alternatives, asking for restructuring, Republic of Biafra and other agitations, seeking a new nation or wanting to go separate ways? It is because intrinsically, they look at the mirror and can see serious and sever constraints and obstacles to pursuit of happiness in the country.”
He said neither the government nor religion defines happiness for the people, but the structures like constitution and other rules put in place by government are important only to the extent that they make the pursuit of happiness a reality.
He urged Nigerian leaders and all to refocus on the dreams of the nation’s founding fathers and learn from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Speech which has become the cornerstone of democracy that states: “It is for us the living, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which those who died fought for,…It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task before us.”
He said we need to build on the opportunities available now, beause the rest of th world is not going to slow down to accommodate our waywardness, hoping that October 2021 will see us a better nation, better prepared to hold hands together and be a great country.
He warned that in this knowledge age where millions of Nigerian youths have become very educated, the nation must prepare for a storm Chairman of ARCAN, Ambassador Dapo Fafowora, said though Nigeria had high hopes in 1960, such factors as military coups, inherent internal conflict, communal and ethnic and religious clashes, pervasive corruption, increasing poverty and massive mismanagement of the economy have concertedly crippled national development.
“When the British Union Jack was lowered in 1960, we had high hopes. But by 1962, Nigeria was in trouble with the political crises in the Western Region when the government at the central sacked the regional government and imposed emergency rule. And so began the chains of crises since then. However, we should still be optimistic” he said.
In his remarks, Ambassador Godknows Igali said with the evolution of democracy in Africa, the continent needs a reconstruction of democracy to produce a sort of tradodemocracy, akin to the Ubuntu philosophy in South Africa.
