Two years of viewing Nigeria from abroad: My reflections
On 8 December 2014, two years ago this week, I made my debut as a columnist for this excellent newspaper. This week thus marks the second anniversary of this column. As I once explained on this page, the birth of the column was serendipitous. I had earlier written a couple of articles for this newspaper, which provoked some interesting rejoinders. I then emailed the editor to thank him for publishing the articles. His reply was pleasant and generous: “We really have you to thank for such an engaging debate in our newspaper”, he said. “As a matter of fact, I was discussing with my publisher yesterday and the issue came up about your beautiful writing and how we could get it more regularly”. Then, he said: “We would love to make you a weekly back-page columnist”. Quite unexpected, but it was a great gesture! And, thus, a column, this column, was born!
On a personal level, this is an accomplishment. I have an incredibly busy life in London, revolving around intense legal and policy work, academic engagements and consulting, church activities, and, of course, family! In these circumstances, it’s a small miracle that I have survived writing this column every week for the past two years! But it has been an exciting, if somewhat dilemmatic, experience. My biggest thanks go to the Almighty God for His grace. I am also grateful to my readers. And some are pretty loyal, such as Engr. (rtd) E Ajagbe, an avid reader, who let it be known that “I am one of your fans”, and wouldn’t stop telling everyone how much he likes the column.
Now, context is everything, and this column is not without context. Writing from London about Nigeria, I see some similarities between the setting for the column and that for Charles Dickens’ novel, “A Tale of Two Cities”. The novel was set in Paris and London between 1775-1792 in the years before, during and after the French Revolution. Dickens’ famous line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” captures the essence of his narrative. The first part of that line depicts the relative prosperity and stability in England in the late 1700s, and the second part the poverty, starvation, misery, economic decline and general unworkability of things in France.
As I traverse Britain and Nigeria in my writing in this column over the past two years, Dickens’ work provides a metaphorical backdrop, particularly in terms of the unflattering parallels between the two countries. I mean, here I am, living in the relative comfort of Britain, an approximation of Dickens’ England of the late 1700s, where things work reasonably well; where people are the focus of public policy, and where politicians are accountable for their actions. But I write about Nigeria, the equivalent of the decrepit France of the late 18th century, where hardly anything works, the political system is dysfunctional, the economy is moribund, the mass of the people live in extreme poverty, and the political class is self-serving, corrupt and unaccountable.
I read in Nigeria’s newspapers and get anecdotal accounts from friends and relatives about the appalling living conditions of ordinary Nigerians. There is the swollen class of the jobless, with unemployment at about 40%. But there is also the massive class of the working poor, that is, those who are in work, but can’t make ends meet, thanks to poor and stagnant wages and rising costs of living, with inflation at over 18%. Then, like the French aristocrats of the late 1700s who treated the peasants like the dregs of society, Nigeria’s self-enriching political class doesn’t just live in a different economic world from ordinary Nigerians, with their gold-plated salaries and gilded lifestyles, they have failed woefully to deliver any tangible change to improve the lives of the people.
Thus, as I said above, the contextual setting for this column is the Dickensian tale of two cities or, in this case, two nations, where for one nation, Britain, it is, at least by approximation, the best of times, while for the other, Nigeria, it is, arguably, the worst of times. Being a columnist in these circumstances is both stimulating and frustrating. It’s stimulating because you want to contribute ideas and offer challenge, based on your experience of what works elsewhere, but it is frustrating because talking to Nigerian political leaders is like talking to the deaf; they are set in their ways. In a post-fact Nigeria, there is much derision of expertise by politicians and policy makers!
Elite complacency is, indeed, a bane of governance in this country. Why, for instance, does the political class continue to ignore the popular anxieties of the people? Last year, there was a Donald Trump-style popular revolt when Nigerians turfed out a sitting president, for the first time in this country, because of his appalling performance. But the change they thought they voted for has been elusive, as, nearly two years in office, President Buhari has done nothing tangible to deliver most Nigerians from the shackles of poverty and misery. Yet, recently, one of Buhari’s spokesmen, Garba Shehu, said that “President Buhari enjoys a very strategic relationship with ordinary Nigerians”, adding that “The relationship is as solid as the proverbial rock”. That sounds like servitude to me, very much like in the 18th century France that Dickens describes, when the poor peasants had no choice but to be subject to the powerful aristocrats! Well, unless Buhari delivers serious change, I think he should brace himself for a working-class or peasants’ revolt in 2019!
My concern, though, is not the president’s electoral fate, but the democratic or governance process. And the aim of this column is to provoke thought and, hopefully, move to action. In doing so, I try to speak to the issues, without deference to the political class whose governance of this country has been, frankly, a complete balls-up. Columnists must speak truth to power and try to shake the political class and system out of ossification. The Economist rightly said in a recent edition that “The questioning of institutions and received wisdom is a democratic virtue”, adding that “A sceptical lack of deference towards leaders is the first step to reform”.
Well, over the past two years, this column’s key theme has been reform. I have advocated far-reaching bureaucratic, political and economic reforms. I am not a politician, and won’t be! But if I were and considered forming a party, I would call it the Reform Party of Nigeria. I believe that this country is in dire need of root-and-branch reforms; it can’t make any significant progress with its current dysfunctional bureaucratic, political and economic structures. Every successful country has constantly reinvented itself and transformed its institutions. But in Nigeria, the political elite and those who benefit from the corrupt and failing bureaucratic, political and economic systems continue to oppose change. Any leader who can inspire and drive fundamental structural transformations in this country will go down as Nigeria’s greatest leader. President Buhari could be that leader, but he seems determined to pass up the opportunity to leave an indelible legacy!
Now, another theme of this column is openness. I want Nigeria to be an open and outward-looking country that benchmarks itself and its institutions against the best in the world. I call the column “Global Perspectives” for this reason. A few years ago, I wrote a short piece for The Times of London, challenging the slogan “African solutions to African problems”, which was often used by African leaders to deflect criticisms of their policies by the West. I argued that if the phrase meant that Africans themselves must solve their own problems, well, that’s fine. But if it meant that there was, say, a peculiar African approach to running a successful economy or creating first-class institutions, well, that’s a fallacy. For instance, unless you count what Pat Utomi called “jujunomics” in a 1998 article recently reproduced in BusinessDay as an African economic approach, which is sheer absurdity, the truth is that the principles of economic management are universal. Ditto the principles for creating first-class bureaucratic and political systems. Sadly, Nigeria is too inward-looking, too self-referential and too defensive of mediocrity. But the Nigerian exceptionalism is not working!
In sum, the main thesis of this column is that Nigeria is massively underperforming and punching below its weight because its bureaucratic, political and economic systems are retarding its progress. Only reforms, fundamental reforms, and a willingness to embrace the best ideas from around the world would reverse the situation. The French revolution and subsequent reforms turned France from the 18th century economic and social backwater into one of the greatest countries in the world today. Nigeria doesn’t need the French-style violent revolution, of course, but it needs revolutions of its ideas and institutions. As this column marks its second anniversary, these are the themes it hopes to continue to advance.
Olu Fasan