Professor Hassan Ajisafe Salihu, the current President of the Political Science Association of Nigeria, talks on the issue of constitution, governance in the country, brand of democracy and the future. BIOLA AZEEZ brings the excerpts:
What are those solutions that your association proffers for Nigeria’s problems?
For us as a professional association, we don’t believe in chasing the shadow. Most Nigerians talk about high cost of this and that. Some would blame the All Progressives Congress (APC), and others, while some talk about ethnic rivalry or chauvinism, religious intolerance and so on, but we, as an association, have risen above all that.
We say all these are manifestations of a system. Why can’t you confront the system? The system, in this case, happens to be the vehicle with which we’re practising our democracy; which is liberal democracy. Look around the world, liberal democracy is facing challenges. It’s the most popular form of democracy, yet it’s facing challenges across the world. In our view, no much tinkering, policy, efforts can cure liberal democracy from its original sickness. What’s the original sickness? Liberal democracy was developed as a form of complementing capitalism. In other words, liberal democracy is the political face of capitalism. It was not designed for commoners. And one fundamental assumptions of liberal democracy is that there’s a reasonable level of production in the society.
As it is, what are we producing in Nigeria? There’s almost zero level of production in Nigeria. So, one fundamental level of assumption of liberal democracy is not attainable in Nigeria. If I may break it down, liberal democracy is expected at all time to seek for anything that would contribute to the growth of capitalism. It’s a system built around property class. When you see policies of Nigeria’s government in terms of subsidy removal, etc, they’re being incubated in the oven of neo-liberal economic doctrine. And neo-liberal economic doctrine is economic angle to liberal democracy. They go pari passu. The private sector upon which capitalism built its hope is non-existent in Nigeria. For us, the vehicle we’re using to practise our democracy is the heart of the matter. Therefore, we’ve suggested a set up of a technical committee to look at the concept of liberal democracy and its practice in Nigeria, so that it would not look as if my association is biased. Let a technical committee be constituted, otherwise, this problem would continue because both capitalism and its offspring, liberal democracy have been observed to suffer from perennial crisis, not only in Nigeria but everywhere in the world. So, why is it going to be different in Nigeria?
Being political scientists, we’re saying that Nigeria should look at preferred vehicle to practice your democracy. Are we sure the vehicle is fit enough for the kind of aspirations you have? Our aspirations revolve around rapid development, better condition of life. Maybe our democrats have forgotten. The only thing that makes sense to Nigerians is for them to enjoy a reasonable cost of living. Nigerians want to see how the economic conditions have improved due to democratic practice. But each time they try to plot the graph, what they see is, as accountants would say, in the red. This means it’s not meaningful or not so impactful to them. Democracy in Africa is being seen for its utilitarian value. For its ability to transform lives. I’ve always argued that, yes, we value freedom of speech, press, and so on, but Africa wants democracy to liberate them from poverty. Unfortunately, that’s not happening now. Whether in Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, people are lamenting the failure of democracy to improve their lives. I hope you’re aware of happenings in South Africa recently. You can see that the protest really is against liberal democracy they were practising because it has just failed to deliver.
So, what form of democracy will you proffer for Nigeria?
My association will not want to appear as if it has a preconceived form of democracy we want. We have asked government to constitute a technical committee to reexamine the concept of liberal democracy that is practised in Nigeria. After all, liberal democracy is not the only form of democracy. We have social democracy and Olusegun Obasanjo is talking about Afro- democracy which is still in its infancy. What we are saying essentially is that there are other options. But we don’t want to pick for Nigeria.
Some would argue that political parties should be the focus, being the producers of candidates in elections who later on become political leaders. What’s your take on that?
There are two levels of reaction to that. One, are we having democratic political parties in Nigeria? Which of the feasible political parties is not having crisis? In some states, they are papering over their crisis before of patronage. The problem of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is coming up just because they’re out of government. I’m not too sure if APC is not also having its problem. But because it’s APC in power, it’s expected that you would not be hearing much of negative things about the people as we hear of the PDP. Two, I repeat, the parties are wobbling and fumbling along the path of liberal democracy which has elevated the issue of property class. In other words liberal democracy is not intended to meet expectations of ordinary Nigerians. It’s an ideological pursuit. This means that if you democratise decision-making, capital will have an unfettered environment to grow bigger. Liberal democracy is to prepare for the growth and development of capitalism. It’s an ideological project which they’re marketing to us in freedom of the speech, press, etc. Yes, we enjoy it, but if Africans have a choice to make between all the freedoms in the democratic bag and economic empowerment, you can be rest assured that majority would vote for economic empowerment. So, as long as form of democracy we’re practising is not right, or not serving our interest, how do you expect agents of this democracy like political parties to be extraordinary? They can’t be extraordinary.
There are calls for regionalism by some people. Do you believe regionalism can provide succour?
What’s giving that idea the necessary attention is because people are out to condemn what’s on ground. So, they’re going back to history to say our yesterday is this or that. And I want to disagree. Regionalism or let’s say balance federalism, because a proper function of federalism gives rise to regionalism. So, the umbrella is operation of balance federalism. In terms of the control economic resources, in terms of the ability of the then regions to embark on development projects, one would want to say that the federal system that was practised that time was far better than what we’re practising now. But that’s where the positive side ends. When you look at it politically, I don’t think anybody is praying for the return of ‘Operation Wet e’ or a situation we won’t have a Prime Minister for three days in Nigeria. I hope no one is praying for the kind of politics being played out in the old Western Region, where a state of emergency was declared. In other words, not everything about the First Republic was good. But in comparison with what we’re having, people are saying that it would be better for us to return. I then ask, what’s the population of Nigeria, and how many people among us now were around when the parliamentary system was practised in Nigeria? We are told over 60% of the Nigerian population is the youth. So, where are they going to get the experience from to practise parliamentary system? What about the possibility of the country’s political environment becoming more unstable, giving the attitude of politicians? When there is a provision of pass of no confidence, even in the UK cannot be said to be stable, given how many prime ministers have been produced in the last couple of years. Nigeria’s population is made up of many people that were born under a presidential system and only a few were born under parliamentary.
As beautiful as other alternative to liberal democracy may seem, what about issue of corruption, attitude of Nigerians to fail at implementation stage?
Yes, I’m talking theoretically, what do you expect a professor of Political Science to do? We should always have our entry point. What makes us different from market people is that our level of reasoning is higher. While people would be talking about symptoms, we confront the disease. And I’m saying that wobbling and fumbling we’re experiencing is largely due to the faulty vehicle that we’re using to get to our democratic destination. And I’m saying it’s not only about Nigeria but a global phenomenon. It’s called democratic recession. How come Norway, Sweden are ranked much higher than America and UK? Judged by our perception and orientation, America should be number one, but America is not even number 20 in the world. Meaning that over the time, liberal democracy has abandoned the people at the bus stop (to use Nigeria phrase). Quality of services being rendered by democracy in Norway and Sweden is higher. The amount of money being spent on education is higher. But we’re talking about 6% in Nigeria. Liberal democracy favours property class. It’s a class project. Therefore, whoever you put there would not want to commit what they call class suicide. Capital must be healthy all the time starting from nomination fee. How much was being charged for people to contest governorship or presidential elections? If you put all my salary as a professor, where will I get N100 million to contest such election? That’s why you see us keeping away from politics because we don’t have the money. And politicians want people they can mess up. They would use your theory wrongly and still attribute its failure to you. Theory drives politics and development, but in Nigeria, most politicians hate the idea of theory. And any country that doesn’t value theory may not do well practically.
Were you to be in President Tinubu team as it is right now in the country, how would you advise him?
In our releases, I listed 22 recommendations. It’s not right to talk about problems; we should be able to tell government about likely things to do. That’s what I believe. But is government ready to listen to advice? But since you have asked me, I’ll answer. One is to be holistic in terms of what’s currently happening in Nigeria. I think there’s a gap somewhere. Some people being relied upon are not giving correct information. If I happen to see Mr. President, I’ll say, ‘Mr. President, do the observation yourself. Get the basic facts and you’ll know Nigerians are really suffering.’
The beginning of finding solution to a problem is to have proper understanding of the problem. Once the understanding is not too clear, whatever suggestions or steps that would be taken will never achieve the target. The first thing is to forget theoretical submissions of advisers and be practical in terms of what is really happening in Nigeria. Government appointees would not want to lose their jobs. Therefore, they can be pardoned if they don’t make full revelations to the President. President should know that Nigerians do not hate him but they’re not happy about the harsh economic situation they have found themselves in. Number two. If he himself has come to the understanding that things are different from the way they’re being reported to him, the next thing is ‘What do I want to do about the situation; short, medium and long terms to change the narrative?’ He needs to have his vision properly developed and not disjointed vision; a coherent vision that every Nigerian can relate to. So, big we’re to suffer now, we’ll know for what purpose. But for now, there is a disjoint. We are doing reform, but the timeline has not been given. The destinations are broadly defined and that is why it is difficult to mobilize Nigerians.
To promote robust relationship between government and citizens, we have to consider one thing. As long as people have no confidence in government, for whatever reason, either rightly or wrongly, mobilizing them behind national goal will be difficult. So, after coming up with the vision, the next thing he would do is to reconnect Nigerians to his government. Nigerians are disconnected from his government. Which is the truth; forget about propaganda. Most Nigerians are not connected to their government at all levels.
After reconnection with the people, the next thing to consider is ‹who are the materials? People’s comments about reshuffle or not reshuffling show that government has more work to do. It›s too cosmetic. People were expecting massive reshuffling, but what we had is just token. And the token cannot take us to where we want to be. President should come to the realization that the way things are there will be need to have better hands than those he›s assembled. I›m not in any way ridiculing the people, but I am just speaking nationally. I think we can do better in terms of those we put in the cabinet giving the situation on ground now. Backgrounds of those in the cabinet are not the kind of background that can fire or power the nation to the next level.
More importantly, there should be improved communication with the people.
Can we have a situation where party members contribute to growth and development of political parties in Nigeria?
Now, political parties are not derived from the people. Governors are too powerful as leaders of political parties in Nigeria. They’re kind of hanging in the air as agents of democracy. That’s another angle to look at. Once parties are not on ground, you’re just deceiving people and deceiving yourself saying you’re practising democracy. In Nigeria, political parties are the only vehicles to assume political office or political power. Without belonging to any political party, you can’t be anything politically and currently, meaning that Nigerians should begin to focus on political parties. Their sickness is even affecting Nigeria democratic practice. You can’t build something on nothing. The parties are not just there. How are you talking about reforming something that’s not just there? We have political parties but they are not functioning the way they should function. Part of rebranding Nigeria’s democracy should focus on political parties.
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