By Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi
Forty-three years ago, the late Muhammadu Abubakar Rimi, the former governor of Kano State, presented this paper in remembrance of his slain political adviser. The paper was prophetic because the issues it raised are with us today.
This paper is dedicated to a patriot, a nationalist, a Pan-Africanist, a teacher, a broadcaster, a colleague. It’s dedicated to my late political adviser, Dr. Bala Mohammed, who was assassinated in an organised, premeditated violence aimed at halting the wheel of progress in Kano State on Friday, July 10, 1981.
The subject matter of his assassination and the nature of emerging neo-fascist regime calls for this paper. The level of composition would be a critique of this emerging system. The unit of analysis is Nigeria. The approach is a combination of theory and fact, logic and history. The purpose is to analyze and make it possible to understand the nature of a neo-fascist regime and its common tendencies. Fascism has many faces, it can be dictatorship of the extreme right, or totalitarianism which is a collectivistic system of government in which system of control is exercised over all economic, political and social activities.
Both definitions reject liberal democracy. Both present a return to an authoritarian system of power elite. It’s based on exaggerated nationalism with an organised system of terror and propaganda. Fascism, in its modern form can be traced to Mussolini’s Italy. But fascism per se and authoritarianism are as old as human history. In modern times, it’s akin to Hitler’s Germany, Baby Duval Doc’s Haiti and contemporary Marco’s Philippines. The Fascists believe that their political party should have complete control of the country. The intellectual tradition of Fascism is from Hegelian tradition that emphasizes the power of state and the citizens blind obedience to it.
Today, that tradition is anti-socialist, anti-liberal and anti-intellectual. And in the context of Nigeria, neo-fascism is in league with feudalism and in opposition to everything that is progressive. Neo- fascism is a replay of fascism in an official non-fascist setting. That is, the constitutional guarantee of the land may be presidential or parliamentary, in which cases democratic, but the power play by the power brokers at the helm of affairs is fascist.
The functions dispensed in economics, politics and culture are neo-fascist. There is no concentrated programme for progressive economic development in a neo-fascist regime. Instead, the economic system is subordinated to the political ends of small power elite. The principle of terror(police brutality) is the chief cant phrase of the time as individuals are submerged, brutalized, terrorized and sometimes murdered. It is in remembrance of a colleague murdered in pursuit of neo-fascist action and the cause which he lost his life that gave rise to this seminar and this paper. Neo-fascism relies heavily on private ownership of property but denies the equality of men in the process while emphasizes class and racial distinction. It maintains that one ethnic group or class is superior to the others and is therefore ordained to rule. It disseminates this propaganda in public media in order to indoctrinate the people and coerce them into submission.
Neo-fascist Symptoms: The government is unnecessarily aggressive and coercive,
very insensitive to and intolerant of opposition. It’s characterized by suppression of critical information that is not in its favor. It creates superficial conflict and crisis( where there is none) only to deflect people’s concern for the real issue in the regime.
Emphasis is placed on stability induced through terror while their conscious actions generate unconscious instability. Power elite resist social change and alternatively vouch to retain the pattern that continuously reproduces their kind. They crack down on rival political parties and relentlessly plot to destabilize the constituted authorities of rival state governments. There is an attack on the press, political entities, critics and government that hold contrary points of views from those who forced or rigged themselves into power.
Psychology of Neo-Fascism: In the case of Nigeria, this attack emanates from the sensibility that the masses are aware of the government’s wrongdoings ( like the Abuja contracts, the foreign policy blunders; the mismanagement of the economy; the corruption at the N.ET ( Nigerian External Telecommunications), NEPA, Central Bank and Ribadu Road; the incompetence in government, the illegal deportation of Shugaba Darman, the Revenue Bill, the Bakolori Massacre, the misapplication of police power and innumerable misdeeds which go beyond pardon. But the masses of the people know these neo-fascist acts of the NPN Federal Government… A government that comes to power through election rigging must feel insecure, resort to violence and terror as a means of intimidating the masses to induce subservience.
The intimidated masses are subjected to feelings of helplessness and insecurity transmitted by neo-fascist government… the illogical 2/3 of 19=12(states) of 1979 Presidential election defies all sensible reasoning. The character of irrationality of a neo-fascist calculation is the induced justification based on non-logical action. That action was justified right from the very cradle of our presidential democracy. It’s not only the actions, nor the methods of actions themselves that are repressive, the consequences ( products) of both the actions methods are far more so…
The consequences have been a bad government that governs not by the collective conscience or the will of the people but by the sentiments of its few party patronages; the regime that uses carrot and stick approach to gain temporary sympathy from an unwilling people can’t sustain public support. The killers ( of democratic ideals) whose passion for greed and thirst for destruction…
We thought the military government was corrupt relative to time and space of its regime. If the military in 13 years failed to produce a higher critical mass of millionaires than the civilian government in 2,3/4 years, then by all logical inferences one has been more corrupt than the other. Of course, the production of millionaires in most countries takes more than 13 years. It’s only in Nigeria that an unaccountable number have been produced in the past 2,3/4 years. We have no ill-feelings towards their production since Nigeria is supposed to be operating free economy but we have misgivings towards the method of their proliferation, the circumstances under which they grow up and the socioeconomic and political consequences of their growth.
Dubious federal government awards have been largely responsible for the consequences of their multiplicity. The contracting partners both become millionaires with the signing of the contract papers without implementing the contract.
The socioeconomic consequences are:
(1) the skewed income distribution that allocates poverty to many, and millions of naira to a few.
(2) the deepening dependency of neo-colonialism and the rise in the ratio of disgruntled and dissatisfied Nigerians who advocate for a revolutionary change to bring to an end of wanton onslaught on the masses of the people and the national wealth which they collectively own.
Popular Ideological Ploy: One of the repressive tendencies of a neo-fascist regime is the deliberate use of popular ideology to manipulate and divert the frustration and anxieties of the mass following away from their objective source. The ideology of ‘green revolution’ is mass ideology because every Nigerian needs and knows the value of food.
But, what the average Nigerian doesn’t know is how much and for what purpose
the green revolution had become a fascist repressive agenda. Billions of Naira of the nations scarce resources has been deliberately wasted on importation of the cow-dung (called fertilizers) which we have more than enough for export in the Northern part of the country but have not been researched to utilize it massively as an alternative fertilizer…
The main principle of the green revolution is to create avenues for patronage to party supporters by importing and distributing foreign fertilizers, tractors and food supplies. The rush to import is not only dictated by the pro- imperialist petit bourgeoisie link with foreign counterpart but, also by the greed for economic and political domination of Nigeria by a fascist political party. The rush to create illicit fascist millionaires (out of contracting partners) who will be party financiers for continuous domination of Nigeria by a fascism supersedes the urge to take stock of alternatives.
The slogan of ‘fertilizer’ and ‘rice’ to boost the green revolution is sold to the masses on television and Radio Nigeria in different multi-linguistic group every night…But the propaganda on the public media to take government achievements in the field of agriculture to the people is not devoid of ideological content. The praise goes to the few fascists who have swindled the people and not the people who have been swindled. A massive nationwide campaign is stepped up like the one that has just been undertaken by the Federal Ministry for Information to indoctrinate and program the masses from frustration and anxieties into hope of raising expectation that will never be fulfilled.
Irrational Concept: Fascist ideology is characterized by emphasis on essentially irrational concepts such as, authority, obedience, honor, duty based on blind obedience and leadership principles…
Both the NPC and NPN have been authoritarian and therefore repressive. We could go back in history to recall the reigns of fascists. Though each historical epoch and its influences were different, the difference is more of time and place than of character and tendency. Personalities were mystified to induce blind adulation to the extent that it became a cult…
Feudal-Fascist Alliance…
The repressive role of the police since the return of the civil rule in Nigeria in October, 1979 in the name of maintaining law and order such as opening fire on demonstrating university students or the mass arrest of political opponents of the government at the center are the derivative of the official immoral conduct of an unpopular regime insisting on gaining support through brutal force.
Otherwise, can anyone explain brutality independent of official conduct of Mr. President and his NPN administration? How can anyone explain corruption, mismanagement, ineptitude and other repressive tendencies outside of the policies and actions of the NPN federal government? How can anyone defend the blunders in foreign policy and domestic affairs.
Foreign Policy Failure: The feelings of insecurity and helplessness spill over foreign policy. The conduct of Nigeria’s foreign policy indicates the policy of realism. The foreign policy of realism is based on the concept of power capability to change and influence the outcome of events in the world. Nigeria has such power (economic, political, population, size and of course military). But what Nigeria does not have is the leadership that has the will and the right political bearing at the center to direct the affairs of this country.
