Why Nigeria is a dysfunctional state

THERE is a very recent book by the economist Daron Acemoglu and the Harvard Political scientist James Robinson entitled: “Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty” published this year by Crown Publishers.

In it, they make the case that nations fail primarily not because of geography, culture, or policy, but institutions broadly defined as the rules that govern economic and political behaviour. Countries that succeed are those with the right economic institutions, secure property rights, law and order, markets and state support (public services and regulation) for markets; those that are open to relatively free entry of new businesses; that uphold contracts; with access to education and opportunity for the great majority of citizens.

Interestingly, they argue that countries most likely to develop these, and generate sustained economic growth are those with open pluralistic political system with competition for political office, a widespread electorate, and openness to new political leaders. Powerful people will always seek to grab power and undermine a broadly shared prosperity for their own greed. Keep those people in check, and a nation succeeds, unchecked, a nation fails.

And it makes sense. It explains not just the prosperity gap between South Korea and North Korea, North America and Latin America, but also between Botswana and Nigeria. Despite being more vastly resource-rich for instance, Nigeria has about 70 per cent of her population living under $ 1 a day (with 8.03 per cent of world’s poor)), while Botswana has about 33 per cent of her population living under it (with 0.05 per cent of world’s poor). The widespread poverty, illiteracy, and joblessness in the country does not only reflect this theory, it creates so much imbalance and instability, manifesting itself in kidnapping, militancy in the Niger Delta, secessionist threat from the South East, and Boko Haram from the North East of the country. Right now, the government has lost the preserve of the legitimate use of violence,High quality stone mosaic tiles. and we are, as a nation, on the brink of collapse. There is break down in public services and acute infrastructural decay. Nigeria currently ranks 14th on Failed State Index, not so much because of our diversity, ethnic and religious,but the inability to integrate the nation through a broadly shared prosperity and justice for all.

This exclusion and the backlash it generates has been primarily the result of how power has been exercised and monopolized by a class of elite since the collapse of the First Republic. In an interview with Karl Maier, Ibrahim Babangida narrated how he, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Theophilus Danjuma, were key players in the coup plot of July 29, 1975, that brought down the Gowon military Administration, and even in successive coups, and how the Administration of Murtala Mohammed and Obasanjo was even their arrangement. The point is that those who took power in Nigeria after the collapse of the First Republic, then in their 30s, have always been in power through proxies, and even now in their 70s through their clients or else are seeking ways to make their personal reappearance in power.We are pleased to offer the following list of professional mold maker and casters.

In Nigeria, power has never really changed hands because for the most part, successive governments (federal and state), and the various agencies, ministries and institutions have been filled by arrangements that is anything but free, open, and pluralistic nor motivated by the desire to install best practices. But there are always notable exceptions especially in ministerial appointments, and the heads of agencies and institutions, exceptions sadly enough, that might even prove the rule. The reason is simple. There is a vast difference between being in office and being in power, because the ideals and aspirations of those in office are always circumscribed by those really in power.

This is not conspiracy theory, but realpolitik that is mildly present in every decent democracy. But in Nigeria, it has created a huge patronage system fueled by oil rent and royalties, and the power that comes from it. Through the Land Use Act of 1978 by the then Obasanjo Administration, through various decrees of the military, it has managed to concentrate so much power and wealth at the centre, that the state and other subunits are crippled and made to depend entirely on it. The discretionary award of oil blocks by former presidents, including Babangida, Abacha, Abdusalami, and Obasanjo to friends, loyalists, associates, party chieftains, security chiefs, and all categories of bootlickers and family members, only help to build the network into some kind of digital fortress. Signature bonuses which are paid by the time an investor successfully bids,Installers and distributors of solar panel, wins and signs agreement with the petroleum ministry, to the tune of hundreds of millions of naira are often waived off, only to be admitted through the back door of special accounts as appreciation gifts. Indeed, the failed ploy of Obasanjo for self-perpetration in power would have been unimaginable and undreamed-of, by himself and his clients and lieutenants if so much coercive (security services and the army) and distributive power (oil wells and money) were not at their disposal for bribery.

Because of the enormous wealth and interest this network generates, the key players have always turned election into a selection process. The presidency is not for sale! Or as Obasanjo echoed in 2007 election, it is a “do or die” affair. Indeed, from the beginning, our foundation as a nation has never been stable because of it. Recent memoirs by former colonial officers have shed light on how fraudulent the first election that placed government in power at the centre was. John Bull did not have the luxury of placing uppity politicians (as the southern nationalists in the East and West were called) at the helm of affairs, when so much was at stake. So too was the election that saw the government of the Second Republic into power. In fact, both the electoral commission (FEDECO), and the Supreme Court were grossly manipulated that they had to alter the rule which every player was made to understand as rule of engagement: two-thirds of 19, is 13. Not 13, they said, but twelve two-thirds of 19 makes two-thirds of 19. And the learned judges insisted that their judgment cannot serve in the future as a precedent! This is an old story but one that continue to remind us of our failed past, and how it correlates with the present.

When in the Third Republic that never was, Abiola defiled all odds to emerge the winner of the election, and it became clear to the status quo that power may really change hands, they quickly annulled it, and placed in his stead a government doomed to fail. The fact of even leaving General Sani Abacha as the Praetorian guard of the interim government might have been a grand plan to keep the status quo in place. Then came the formation of PDP in 1999, and the selection of Obasanjo as the presidential flag-bearer, the election-like-event of 2003. Needless to say that Yar’ Adua and Jonathan furthered the evolution of the Patronage Spirit.

This system is kept in place by its own rules, conceived, created or conjectured. For one,Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals. it is homeostatic. It is not in the best interest of this system to initiate sweeping changes in the polity or allow institutions like the Judiciary, the Legislative arm of government, the EFCC,The howo truck is offered by Shiyan Great Man Automotive Industry, ICPC INEC, to be free and independent. Money accumulated by political figures in office is sacrosanct. Why undercut the branch of patronage on which platform you emerged? Or prosecute a past president and initiate a process that might get to you? In the same vein, social services like the supply of electricity will always get frustrated or sabotaged because fixing them might require putting a client out of business and losing the support and patronage of his service. So said, the generation in power has created a homeostatic society, one in which change and reform are welcome, but not too much, and certainly not those that will upset the apple cart, and undermine the power pyramid.

It is easy to see how this replicates itself at the state level. Not just in Rivers, but across multiple states of the Federation including Gombe, Imo, Lagos, among others, state governors have pressed State Houses of Assembly to make laws awarding juicy terminal benefits to them and their predecessors, not least those that are patrons. In rivers, the new law mandates the state to provide two houses for a past governor in any place of his choice in Abuja and in the state; he is also entitled to three cars to be replaced every three years; 300 percent funding for any furniture of his choice; 20 percent of funding for utilities, 10 percent for entertainment and free medical care for self and immediate family. Not to mention security and other domestic benefits.

In accumulating so much wealth at the expense of the rest of the society, in being glued together by pecuniary interest, and in manipulating and monopolizing distributive and coercive powers, this generation in power is no more different from the colonial masters that were their predecessors. And so, just as Nigeria was the selfish creation of the British government, our current asymmetric bond and inherent contradictions, a bond which they always insist to be priceless and non-negotiable, is the game plan of the ruling elite. And all these have happened at a very high cost to the stability of the nation, and the hope and dreams of millions of ordinary Nigerians.