Political Power And The Crisis Of Morality In Nigeria

By Sunny Awhefeada

Inherent in Nigeria’s civic space is a deep crisis of ambiguity that social scientists and philosophers need to interrogate. This crisis is multilayered, complex and obfuscating. At the core of our collective malaise is a multiplicity of factors which fanned and continues to fan the embers that enable the sustenance of the conflict which has become the source of our national ordeal. Nigerians, like most human beings, seek to secure their private space by making choices which advance their opportunities and thus consolidate their good standing. This propensity for self-advancement and wholesome self-affirmation is never brought to the public sphere. The public sphere is in Urhobo parlance an “ogo onovworo” to mean a “farmland owned by nobody”. Ultimately, such a farmland will be left unattended to and go to waste. This reality, albeit metaphorical, must have been a consideration for what prodded Professor Peter Ekeh in his deployment of the theory of “the two publics” in his apprehension of the Nigerian, nay African condition. The gap between Ekeh’s “two publics” continues to deepen and gets even wider. The manifestation of the effects of this reality is evident in why Nigeria is hanging precariously by the cliff of disaster. The attainment of leadership in Nigeria since 1966 has always been by brawn and not brains. The cloak and dagger character of the political enterprise in Nigeria has made the quest for power as a buccaneering enterprise. The outcome of this is our fate as citizens of a country perpetually in crises.

At independence, Nigeria was gifted with enlightened and people-oriented leaders who were intent on relieving the spirit and letters of the social contract. These leaders who were also nationalists were cerebral and philosophical and understood the uses of political power. Although they were not angels, they envisioned a destiny for Nigeria and had surmised that the country would take its rightful place within a few years of independence. Nigeria was actually on the march to greatness when “things fell apart” in 1966. The leaders at independence, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, Obafemi Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello, were not angels. They had their foibles which manifested in their utterances, actions and inactions. These cumulatively provided casus belli for military intervention in January 1966. From that moment, Nigeria lost the essence of morality and good conscience. Nigeria lost her soul. Fifty-seven years on, Nigeria has been in turmoil and our ordeal has been orchestrated by the quest for power without morality. The quest for power in the last fifty-seven years has been through the bullet and the ballot. The soldiers who ruled us for three decades usually emerged from the smoke of gun battle after outshooting the other gang of state captors. The civilian dispensation has not been different. Although configured for the ballot, the civilian regime these twenty-four years has been enabled by bullets. It is democracy at gun point. Security personnel and touts and thugs wield the gun and the ballot conforms.

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Public office has for too long not been held in trust in Nigeria. The quest for the public good is a remote reason for why people seek political office in Nigeria. The basic drive is the self and not the collective. Political morality or political ethics is not configured among the factors that inspire public service in Nigeria because moral judgment has long been sacrificed. Gone with it are reason, good, justice, fairness and equity. In Aristotle’s thinking, “politics takes the greatest care in making the citizens to be of certain sorts, namely, good and capable of noble actions”. His disposition aligns with the ideal state and condition which have for now been banished from our shores. Looking back, the Nigeria of 1957 to 1966, before the first military intervention, was anchored on Aristotle’s template of politics. Why was that so and what happened that altered the scale from the ideal to the bizarre state in which we now find ourselves? The reason is not farfetched. Ignorance has taken centrestage in our affairs. The soldiers who ruled Nigeria for close to thirty years were largely illiterates who joined the army when it was not a fashionable profession. Having seized power, they went on to destroy every atom of knowledge that could have propelled Nigerian statecraft for good.

By the time the military left the political scene and Nigeria returned to civil rule they handed over power to one of their own whose idea of statecraft was driven by philistinism. The soldiers returned to the barracks on the eve of the current millennium and many saw it as an opportunity for a rebirth for Nigeria. But not so for those who took over power and never thought of a legacy. While the people had looked forward to a new dawn, the new ruling elite settled down to a carnival of mindless looting which made the past we were fleeing from look like paradise. Yes, people now look back and ruefully say, “oh during the time of so and so, Nigeria was this and that….”. This has been said again and again about even the vilest of regimes. Today, Nigeria ranks abysmally low on all the indices of development. We have never been this hopeless. In other climes, election times usually imbue citizens with hope, but not in Nigeria where the outcome of national election is often predetermined.

The 2023 presidential election has again violated our hope. It has entrenched the unending betrayal of our beloved country. And who are the betrayers? They are among us. They are the big men, the politicians who perpetually weave and spin the loom of crisis in Nigeria. But they also have accomplices among us. The big men do not act alone. They need pliant men and women among the downtrodden that collude with them to sell their patrimony. This is our dilemma. Many activists of old have been bought over and they now describe black as white and explain away inanities. Their number is increasing by the day. What happened in the last one year point to the fact that where we are right now is worse than what we were running away from. We have not been able to escape from that sordid past. We have consistently opened an old wound that refused to heal.

We now have a crop of “leaders” who do not care about leaving legacies. They think not about what they should be remembered for. Their mind is marooned on an island of irresolution and they have become so unfeeling. That is why there is no governance in Nigeria at the moment. The crisis that attended the currency redesign, the fuel crisis and the fiasco that the 2023 presidential election turned out to be all happened because of the crash of governance. Have we ever pondered why the personal affairs of those who rule us are perfectly attended to? How their private homes, the schools their children attend, the hospitals they visit and every other thing they do for themselves are the best and well appointed? Can’t the same thing be obtainable for the generality of the people? The answer to the last question is YES! It can be if the people so want it and insist. It can be if the people in one accord reject the present order of things. It can be if the people hinge the quest for political power on morality. It has happened elsewhere. It can also happen here. The recent presidential election deflated our hope, but we must not give up. Nation building is perpetually an ongoing project. Let us continue to aspire for a new Nigeria and work towards its realization. The task and the quest for that new Nigeria has started. Let us not relent. We shall have the country of our dreams. It is well. Happy Easter!