APC’s ‘progressivism’ is atavistic. It needs the dynamism of the ‘Third Way’
Recently, on August 26, governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC), under the banner of the Progressive Governors’ Forum (PGF), held their 4th “Progressive Governance Lecture Series”. The event triggered memories of, and comparison with, two earlier eras of progressivism: the first was in the 1960s and 1980s in Nigeria, the second in the 1990s internationally. The second era, in the late 1990s, similarly involved leaders of progressive governments around the world having “Progressive Governance” meetings and conferences; the first major conference was held in Florence, Italy, on November 20, 1999, titled, “Progressive Governance for the 21st Century”.
However, APC’s progressivism has very little in common with either previous era of progressive movement. First, it is different from the 1960s and 1980s progressivism because today, in Nigeria, party ideology or orientation is meaningless and the label “progressives” can hardly describe any distinct group of like-minded ideological bed-fellows. Secondly, it is far removed from the 1990s global progressive movement, or the Third Way, because, as a set of practical ideas for government, APC’s ‘progressivism’ relies on an old set of ‘big government’ policies that can’t work in today’s globalised world.
Now, before we discuss these propositions further, let’s define “progressivism” first. What does it mean? Well, progressivism is a philosophy based on the idea of progress to improve the human condition. As John Stuart Mills put it, people are “progressive beings”. By contrast, conservatism is resistant to radical change; it is an ideology of entrenched privilege, feudalism and a static social order. For instance, the North is often seen as ‘conservative’, because of a tradition that allows people’s social conditions to determine their progress in life. But Obafemi Awolowo’s progressivism, and Nnamdi Azikiwe’s humanism, wanted to liberate the human mind and enhance people’s social progress.
In Nigeria, there was always a distinction between the forces of conservatism and progressivism. For instance, in the 1960s, Awolowo’s Action Group, Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), Aminu Kano’s Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) and others like it, such as Joseph Tarka’s United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC), which opposed the prevailing social order in the North, all belonged to the progressive movement, while Ahmadu Bello’s Northern People’s Congress (NPC) was firmly in the conservative camp. This pattern continued in the early 1980s. When the governors of Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), Azikiwe’s Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), Ibrahim Waziri’s Great Nigerian People’s Party (GNPP) and Aminu Kano’s People Redemption Party (PRP) met under the Progressive Governors’ Forum, there was a clear blue water between them and their counterparts in the conservative National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which was a reincarnation of the old NPC. There were, indeed, ideological divides between the conservative and progressive camps in the 1960s and early 1980s.
But, today, there is virtually no difference between the two main parties: People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which governed Nigeria for sixteen years, and the APC, now ruling the country. Many members of the former parties of Awolowo, Azikiwe and Kano were/are in the PDP. Are they now “conservatives”, that is, if you regard the PDP as a conservative party? A former PDP vice president joined the APC, as did three former PDP national chairmen, several former PDP governors, ministers and legislators. Presumably, they were all “conservatives” who are now “progressives”. Bukola Saraki, the aristocratic feudal lord of Kwara politics, was a PDP governor for eight years; he is now the APC Senate President. Is he a conservative or a progressive? The truth is that the flakiness and fluidity of party affiliations makes party labels or identification meaningless in today’s Nigeria.
Okay, let’s not quibble about what a party calls itself; let’s judge it by its values. So, what does APC’s progressivism really mean? At its core, every progressive party must believe in social justice, that is, it must hate poverty, inequality and workers’ exploitation. But many APC “progressive” governors “exploit workers” by owing them several months of unpaid salaries! That said, President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo are really indignant about poverty and inequality. But that’s not enough. The challenge facing progressive governments all over the world is how to tackle social injustice.
In the 1920s to 1970s, the “progressive” response was Keynesian state intervention in the economy, through large public spending and social intervention programmes. As Tony Blair notes in his memoir, “A Journey”, progressive parties always believe that if they have power “they will use it for the benefit of the people; and the more power, the more benefit”. But while they focus on the power of the state, they often ignore the roles of the markets, of business, and, generally pay little attention to economic efficiency. Inevitably, Keynesian interventionism produced low or negative growth and hyper-inflation, or stagflation.
This provoked a neo-liberal backlash against state interventionist policies in the 1970s and 1980s, and, with the coming into power of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US, progressive politics was eclipsed. The Labour Party was out of power for eighteen years! This was the context in which Tony Blair became leader of the party in 1994 and concluded that if Labour was ever to regain and retain power, it must move away from its socialist past, and become a party that embraced both social justice and economic efficiency, a party of aspiration, of business, entrepreneurship, enterprise and growth. The first thing he did was to change Clause IV of his party’s constitution, which called for “the common ownership of means of production, distribution and exchange”. Earlier, in the US, Bill Clinton had introduced the concept of “Triangulation”, combining the best policies of the Right and the best of the Left.
By the late 1990s, the alliance between Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, with intellectual and theoretical input from Anthony Giddens, former head of the London School of Economics, had produced the Third Way ideology. Essentially, this meant reconciling adequate social protection with the creation of conditions of economic growth. Traditionally, progressive governments focused mainly on social justice issues, while conservative ones were only concerned with economic prudence. Each alone produced inadequate outcomes. Third-Way ideology reconciled the differences, for instance, tackling poverty and inequality while promoting wealth creation and growth. The ideology became global, with interesting policy options.
In the US, President Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over”, and pursued fiscal conservatism and balanced budget. By the time he left office, he had balanced the US budget, and the economy was booming. Clinton also replaced welfare with workfare, and strongly supported free trade and opposed protectionism. He concluded the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), for instance. In the UK, Tony Blair’s government granted independence, through legislation, to the Bank of England, reformed the public services and pursued explicit pro-business policies. As he put it in his memoir, the Labour party needed a “governing coalition” consisting of “business support, the self-employed and the aspirant people”. Further, his government carried out political restructuring of Britain by creating semi-autonomous governments in, and devolving powers to, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
By contrast, Nigeria’s “progressive” government is wedded to the old socialist policies of state intervention, high spending and borrowing, excessive deficit, preference for price-fixing (there was a proposal to fix interest rate by legislation), political control of the central bank, nationalisation (airline, steel?), trade protection (41 items still banned from accessing forex), capital controls, anti-private sector sentiments, etc. Unfortunately, these are not the “Third Way” policies that made the Clinton and Blair progressive governments successful in the 1990s and 2000s. They are policies of the socialist governments of Latin America, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador etc, which have left them with zero to negative growth, sky-rocketing inflation and unbelievable levels of poverty and inequality. Truth is, as the economist Simon Kuznets argued, growth is a rising tide that lifts all boats. If you want to reduce poverty and inequality, you need balanced economic growth, but you can’t have economic growth with statist policies that crowd out the private sector or that disincentive market operators and investors. Rather, you need Third-Way policies that embrace social justice and economic efficiency.
What’s more, very strange for a “progressive” government/party, the APC is opposed to political restructuring. That’s not progressivism; it’s conservatism!
On Nigeria’s former leaders and their memoirs
Last week, in this column, I implied that General Olusegun Obasanjo was the only former Nigerian leader who has published his memoirs. In fact, former President Shagari published his, “Beckoned to Serve”, in 2001. How could I forget!
Olu Fasan