Chief Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti, an accomplished teacher and distinguished school administrator, Finance Commissioner in the legendary Adekunle Ajasin administration, and Afenifere leader. We have been told that Papa is also is an active member of the UI Alumni Association.
Chief Fasoranti exhibits aplenty, those character traits referred to as ‘fruits of the spirit’ in the book of Galatians 5: 22 - 23 – ‘love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.’ In addition, Papa is very accomodating, non-recriminatory, and always on the side of the weak and disadvantaged. Each time I look at
Papa Fasoranti, what readily comes to mind are those words our Lord Jesus Christ used to describe Nathanial, in the Bible, in John 1: 47 – ‘an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile!’
Chief Fasoranti is a progressive – in the true meaning of the concept, not being enarmoured of neither wealth nor power, not to talk of concentrating same in himself – these being the most critical canons by which progressivism is defined. To begin to understand the Fasoranti persona, all you need do is take a walk around his house here in Akure, and you see a man who is modesty personified, and one who deeply appreciates nature. It is a part of our recent history that way back in 1998/1999, when the transition to extant civil rule commenced, Papa Fasoranti was tapped by the Awolowo political family, to which he has always belonged, to get set to run for governor on the platform of whichever party the group would operate in, he being the most senior member of the exalted political group in Ondo State. Papa calmly rejected the entreaties, citing the need to spend time with his children, having by then become a widower.
How I wish the current cast of political players in our country are this comfortable with the possibility of life outside of the boundaries of political power!
At the personal level, my wife, Bosede and I, didn’t hesitate at all sending our kids to Omolere Nursery and Primary School, which Papa was superintending, as soon as we became parents of kids old enough to be in school. We have no regret for making that decision; and Sir, I humbly bring to you the felicitations of those kids, our kids, your kids, adults all, now, by the grace of God. They wish you, Happy 97th! Pray, how can we forget how often they would come back from school in those days, and say to us with so much excitement, ‘Daddy, Mummy, we saw Baba today! Our Proprietor is really trying for us!!’ Even from the mouth of babes, shall the truth be proclaimed, the holy book tells us!!! The truth is that Papa Fasoranti has really tried, not just for the hordes of children that went through his tutelage, but indeed, for humanity.
The man we are celebrating today, Papa Fasoranti, is a pride of the Yoruba. I say, thank you, Sir, for continuing to be a quintessential ‘Omoluabi’ (Mimiko, 2017: 1-16), and worthy role model to younger generations, even in an age – in our country – of seismic migration of values, in which ‘anything goes.’ Happy birthday, sir! Igba odún, odún kan! In this birthday lecture, I intend to establish the problematic of my presentation; lay out the objectives and the theoretical framework within which rubric it is delivered; and interrogate
the nature of the nation-building challenges Nigeria faces, and the manner such had been managed in the past. I, thereafter, propose some remedial measures, and what, always, I like to refer to as, emulation possibilities for Nigeria from many other countries that had tamed such challenges that are threatening to destroy our own country today. Let me start with a word on the topic given to me, and why I chose to tweak it a little for greater effect. I was to speak on ‘Good Governance in Nigeria: Issues and Prospects for Development.’
The conception of governance, which I find most convenient out there in the literature, is that of Goran Hyden (1992: 7), which conceives it as ‘the conscious management of regime
structures with a view to enhancing the legitimacy of the public realm.’ Governance takes place across a broad spectrum of social settings, but in the specific case in which we speak today, it approximates governance of a polity. The overall objective is the spread of the public good.
For a robust conceptualization of good governance, we have the UNESCAP (2007) to turn to. It says, good governance is governance that ‘is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive and follows the rule of law.’ For the World Bank, it is governance, ‘… epitomised by predictable, open, and enlightened policy-making, a bureaucracy imbued with a professional ethos acting in furtherance of the public good, the rule of law, transparent processes, and a strong civil society participating in public affairs. Poor governance (on the other hand) is characterised by arbitrary policy making, unaccountable bureaucracies, unenforced or unjust legal system, the abuse of executive power, a civil society unengaged in public life and widespread corruption’
I note very quickly that the concept of good governance is of recent vintage. It actually came in the wake of the arrant failure of structural adjustment in Africa, a reality that persuaded the international aid agencies to begin to look beyond pure macroeconomic indexes for explanation of the varying outcomes attendant upon, what elsewhere, I referred to as their ‘gbogbonìse’ (Yoruba word for, ‘cure all’) policy prescriptions. It was intriguing enough that the same set of measures that seemed to work fine in some climes failed so woefully across Africa. What this suggested was that beyond these purely macroeconomic elements are institutional measures critical to the success of economic programming. This was the context in which ‘good governance’ became a conditionality for programme support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
What is notable in the conceptualisation of ‘good governance’ is that each of its components, as enunciated heretofore, emphasizes or reinforces ‘democratic norms and practices in one way or the other.’ They actually did more than that, as all of them are indeed, variables by
which democracy, originally conceived as popular democracy is defined. Its flip side is, neoliberalism, which is the fulcrum on which the Washington Consensus runs. With a topic of such great importance, I could have just done a review of how well these basic democratic, or more appropriately, neoliberal values are reflected in Nigeria; and what that means for the country’s development aspirations, since 1999, if not beyond. I, however, considered that option a bit restrictive. Thus, my decision, with the permission of the organizers, of course, to focus on how to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of immense promise. I was also quite certain that this angle would be the honouree’s delight. And so, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, what I shall be speaking to, in the next thirty or so minutes would be, ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise.’
The main question that arises from this is, how has Nigeria, our principal unit of reference, fared these past years, 63 years after relative political independence? We must note, however, that posing the question in this manner does not suggest that Nigeria, or indeed, any social formation that is under focus, has not made some progress; after all, even staying together as a nation, is some accomplishment! What with such debilitating centrifugal forces to contend with; and in the context in which many nations, small and big, poor and rich, weak and nuclear bearing, etc., had broken up? Our inquiry only suggests that we are considering the country against the backdrop of its potentials, the legitimate expectations (of its people and disinterested watchers alike); and in comparative terms, with similar social formations. The sense in comparative study actually is that if the features of two subjects are similar, it is expected that, exposed to the same set of stimuli, their reactions – in the social context – should be as close to same as possible; and if they are not, the comparatist is obliged to forage for, and provide explanations. That is why this presentation would be ending on the note of possibilities of adaptation of ideas that seemed to have worked elsewhere.
Profiling Nigeria
It is trite that Nigeria is a land awash with potentials, a place of great promise. This is self evident in the array of natural resources that it parades. It has a large land mass (923,768 square kilometres), a good percentage of which is arable. At 220 million people, it has a huge population, made up of a youth demographic (unde-30 years), that constitutes 70% of the total, the type, which everywhere, had proven to be a real dynamo for social development – when appropriately mobilised (Mimiko and Usman, 2021: 63-75). It also parades a large population of well-educated elites; and very vibrant Diaspora, remitting well over $20 billion into the national economy every year. Nigeria abuts the Atlantic Ocean at the strategic Gulf of Guinea, one of the most important navigation routes in the world (Mimiko, 2013: 119-237). The weather is clement, much of the year, and suited for agriculture. Above all, the country is bound by neighbours with a long history of commitment to its goodness; nations which at any event, are too weak in power capability terms to seriously threaten Nigeria. It is, therefore, in order to aver that Nigeria is one country with virtually all that it takes to be developed, and capable of meeting the needs of its people, on a sustained basis; be of consequential help to its neighbours; and a credible and respected voice in the global system. It actually was once a part of the elite Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs), regarded with great attention globally, as the new frontier of economic development. It was a time when the country was widely regarded and consulted, especially on African issues, where its global leadership was not in question.
Juxtaposed against extant reality of Nigeria, it is unmistakable that this country of great promise remains at best a land of (wasted) potentials. By 2022, 133m or 63% of its 220 million people lived in multidimensional poverty (National Bureau of Statistics, 2023). Some 20m of its Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ children, who are of school going age (20% of the world’s children in this category), were out of school, scavenging for survival on its very unfriendly streets. Maternal mortality rate (MMR) in the country is at 512 per 100,000 live births, the world’s worst. Unemployment stands at 33.6%, and 42% among its youth population, one of the worst in the world. Inflation had increased to 22% in the first quarter of 2023, and higher still for food items. The national currency, the Naira, has been a victim of devaluation, and so has shifted from N195 to US$1 in 2015, to N740 to US$1 in 2023 – at the parallel market. The National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult and Non-formal Education proclaims 70 million Nigerians as functional illiterates; while the World Bank categorises the general state of infrastructure in the country – in particular, the quality of roads – as eighth in West Africa (Mimiko, 2020a: 8-12).
The state of insecurity in the country remains, to all intents and purposes, unspeakable, with the Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP), Boko Haram, and Indigenous Peoples of
Biafra (IPOB) – all operating in Nigeria, now regarded as the world’s 6 th , 7 th, and 10th deadliest terrorist groups in the world, in the Global Terrorism Index 2023 (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2023). Small wonder, the military is engaged in security operations in virtually all the 36 States. Many of the major ethnic nationalities now want out, of the country, feeling that what Restructuring offers is too little, too late. The youth demographic is alienated, frustrated, and angry. Against this backdrop, the cup metaphor – half full or empty – comes to mind; and I declare without any equivocation whatsoever, that for me, this cup is half empty, as Nigeria has certainly not done well by its people! The indexes are clear, regardless of what self-saluting, or chichidodo mode, we may want to enter into. Chichidodo is a Ghanian bird, which hates excrement so much, but feeds on the maggots deriving therefrom!
Even so, the foregoing does not detract from my central thesis here, that Nigeria’s extant challenges belong in the realm of nation-building pressures, which every country, especially the newer, as well as prismatic ones, had at one time or the other had to deal with, on their national development trajectory. The concept of nation-building speaks to the processes of making an attitudinally unified entity of a bouquet of ethnic nationalities that inhabit a clearly delineated territorial state. The end-state is a sociologically congruous entity where little or no cleavages subsists, and such that do, are managed in a manner that does not threaten the spatial integrity, and social fundamentals of the country. How does the Nigerian state manage its own slew of nation-building challenges? Why does it seem that the country is incapable of having a grip over these challenges? What does Nigeria need do to ensure that it does not continue to evoke the image of a country of mismanaged potentials? Are the experiences of countries that had traversed similar trajectories of any value to Nigeria?
III. Structural-functionalism, state failure and relative deprivation
This paper, with the instrumentality of the political economy framework, attempts a deconstruction of the nation-building challenges Nigeria faces in relation to its development aspirations. It, thereafter, offers some perspectives on the rational pathways out of the crises and into an era of stability and development. For explicit analysis, the paper adopts, in an
eclectic manner, the structural-functionalist, state failure, and relative deprivation theories. Structural-Functionalism was developed by Herbert Spencer (in Turner, et. al., 2002: 54-89; Offer, 2019), who argued that in the same way different organs of the body function compositely to meet the biological and social needs of an individual, so must interrelated parts
of a structure function for society to be in order. Emile Durkheim (in Pope, 1975: 361-379) adapted this postulation to explain the process through which society change and survive over time; while Almond and Powell (1966) brought it into the study of political systems, especially Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ of the newer states that are not easily amenable to the older theories by which Western societies are easily explicable.
Structural-functionalism conceives a country as made up of a variety of structures that operate in a systemic manner of interrelatedness. Each of these structures is meant to execute some functions, often multiple. Dissonance exists between what a structure is supposed to do, and what it does in reality; making the latter the critical point of focus in analysis. The theory is adapted here to the extent that if a structure saddled with specific functions is itself not appropriately structured, it hardly would be able to carry out the functions purposed for it. A flawed structure cannot but be dysfunctional.
I have very often used what I call, the water stanchion metaphor, to explain these realities. A water stanchion is a metal or concrete device built to support loaded water tanks, constructed to service a building, in a clime like ours, where the public water system hardly produces water!
If the water stanchion is itself not properly constructed, it goes without saying that it would hardly be able to discharge its mandate; implying that when a structure purposed to deliver a responsibility is itself flawed, the manner in which that function is discharged is easily predictable. It will come to grief. In the context of a state, the outcome may be atrophy and incipient failure.
The concept of state failure addresses three dimensions of dysfunctionality, to wit, a situation in which a state has failed; be inexorably on the path of failure (without any agency capable of pulling it back from the social precipice); or failing, but in the context in which it could still be saved by positive action. The latter two I characterise elsewhere as, creeping failure. A state is deemed to have failed when it loses all capacity to govern (Mimiko, 2013: 119-237). Its manifestations include, the emergence of alternative claimants to usage of force, and loyalty of segments of the population; and virtual absence of state apparatai in areas and issues that ordinarily are its space. Here, armed and organised non-state actors effectively contend with the state – which ordinarily should be the dominant force – over physical space. Rotberg (2003) surmarises the reality of state faliure in loss of legitimacy and capacity. According to him, ‘Nation-states fail because they are convulsed by internal violence and can no longer deliver positive political goods to their inhabitants. Their governments lose legitimacy, and the very nature of the particular nation-state itself becomes illegitimate in the eyes and in the hearts of a growing plurality of its citizens.’
My second thesis is that the manifestation of state failure is multidimensional, but the fulcrum around which all of it run is, exclusion – social, political, and economic; making state failure the inexorable outcome of untrammelled social, political, and economic exclusivity in a polity.
Thus, my third thesis, that the more stable polities around the world are the ones that make the most provisions for social inclusion, and the ones with very limited space for inclusion tend always to be unstable. The implication of this, encapsulated in my fourth thesis, is that the more inclusive a nation is, in its social, political and economic processes, the greater its chances of stability and development. This is what gives democracy its edge, as it, perhaps more than any other system, makes for inclusion, reducing the space for frustration.
In his relative deprivation theory, Ted Gurr (1970), uses frustration-aggression theory, developed by Dollard, et. al. (1939), to explain ‘aggression and violence on a group or societal
level,’ i.e., collective aggressive and violent political behaviour. He makes a distinction between value expectations and value capacities. Value expectations are ‘the goods and
conditions of life to which people believe they are rightfully entitled. Value capabilities are the Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ goods and conditions they think they are capable of getting and keeping’ (in Dugan, 2004).
Relative deprivation speaks to ‘actors’ perception of discrepancy between their value expectations and their value capacities.’ Deriving from these are two propositions by Gurr (1970). First is that ‘the potential for collective violence varies strongly with the intensity and scope of relative deprivation among members of a collective’; and secondly, that ‘just as frustration produces aggressive behaviour on the part of an individual, so too does relative deprivation predict collective violence by social groups.’ According to him, ‘if … there is a
significant discrepancy between what (people) think they deserve and what they think they will get, there is a likelihood of rebellion’ on their part, directed at the perceived basis of that deprivation. The way it functions is that when a people have a sense of relative deprivation, they tend naturally to be violent. And when they are able to link the basis of their frustration or denial to the actions/inactions of the State, they tend to make same the focus of their aggression, taking actions and positions that are decidedly directed at undermining the totality of the State, starting with the withdrawal of their support for it. The more organized those resisting the state become, in the circumstances, the more dangerous their activities are for the well-being of the former. A situation in which the State itself lacks the capacity/will either to address the basis of frustration in a comprehensive and agreeable manner, or provide effective control directed at staving off the frustration induced aggression on the part of segments of its population, the activities of the latter become the compass by which the direction of State action is defined.
To recap, when a structure of state that is assigned some responsibilities and functions is incapable of delivering desirable outcomes because itself is improperly structured, the state saddled with such a contraption tends, over time, to atrophy, and creeps into failure, as it is incapable of delivering on its mandate, which constitutes, in the first instance, the very raison d’etre of state formation. A most potent basis for the withdrawal of the critical support a state needs to function appropriately is frustration on the part of segments of the population that are excluded from the normal workings of a political economy.
One of the things these theories underscore is the fact that the challenges Nigeria currently faces are neither new nor peculiar to the country. They are such as have been confronted and dealt with by many other countries in the course of their nation-building and development experiences. What makes the Nigerian case unique, I propose as my fifth thesis, is that these crises are not addressed holistically, and in a creative and utilitarian manner by a governing elite that is short on both social commitment and capacity. For the purpose of analysis, a taxonomy of the crises is done here, into relative economic stagnation; (mis)management of diversity; and dysfunctionality of governance structure. These are challenges of such fundamental and ramifying nature that they constitute the fulcrum around which Nigeria’s nation-building crises run.
The challenge of economic development
The conception of development has morphed over the years, from macroeconomic indicators to the human development approach. The old assumptions that as long as indicators of
economic growth were looking up, development ipso facto was taking place; and that development was the inevitable outcome of economic growth, no longer hold true. Emphasis has since shifted to the human development approach, which emphasises ‘expanding the richness of human life, rather than simply the richness of the economy in which human beings
live.’ It focuses on ‘creating fair opportunities and choices for all people’ (https://www.hdr.undp.org); and thus, we now know that while growth may be necessary for
development, it is not a sufficient condition for the latter (Okigbo, 1992).Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ It must be borne in mind, as the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG, 2019: 1) aptly notes, that ‘economic progress or backwardness is not a coincidence but rather, it is as a result of consistent and deliberate actions or inactions of decision makers in the economy.’ This agrees with the thoughts of Bill Gates (2018), that ‘… growth is not inevitable. Nigeria has unmatched economic potential, but what becomes of that potential depends on the choices you make as Nigerian leaders.’ The same point had been made much earlier by the IMF (in Calamitsis, et. al., 1999: 1-35) in the following words, per capita real GDP growth is positively influenced by economic policies that raise the ratio of private investment to GDP, promote human capital development, lower the ratio of the budget deficit to GDP, safeguard external competitiveness, and stimulate export volume growth.
Unquestionably, Nigeria’s efforts in economic development are a testimonial to how shortage of state capacity and limited patriotic zeal in the governing elites could make a country of huge potentials, come to naught. A survey of key economic policies of government since 1960 - from import substitution, through indigenization, to structural adjustment – in its different variants – brings this into bolder relief. They demonstrate clearly that most of these policies were poorly conceived and badly implemented; and at any event, have produced outcomes that make the country – against the backdrop of its potentials – practically a basket case.
Apart from allowing the crude oil sector to dominate the economic space, accounting for over 95% of export earnings, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (Business Day, 30 Nov. 2022), government’s poor outlook on policy facilitated the sector’s existence as an enclave economy. Other than raking in rents, not much exists in terms of linkage between the crude oil sector and the totality of the economy. It is in this sense that crude oil continues to undermine the Nigerian economy, and by implication, state and society, distorting in the process the agenda of national development (Mimiko, 1998: 170-183). One clear evidence of economic non-performance is unemployment, especially among the youths – now at 42%; and of course, widespread poverty among the population, with 133 million or 63% of them locked up in multidimensional poverty, as indicated by the National Bureau of Statistics (2023). External debt has spiralled up to some $41.8 billion (Olayinka, in The Guardian, Lagos, May 15, 2023); and, according to the World Bank, the country uses ‘96.3 per cent of its revenue generated in 2022 to service debts, saying that the constant fiscal deficit has aggravated the nation’s public debt stock.’ Meanwhile, the nation’s population grows at 2.65% per annum, against a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 1.9% annually, indicating that it may be long, moving at this pace, for prosperity to manifest among a preponderance of the population.
A comparison of economic performance of South Korea and Nigeria provides a bird’s view of the nature of the challenge that the latter is ensconced in. In 1960, South Korea had a GDP of $3.96 billion (nominal); and a per capita GDP of $158 (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/gdp-gross-domestic-product). For Nigeria, the figures were $4.20 billion, and $93 respectively. By 2022, however, the GDP of South Korea had shot up to $1.7 trillion, making it the 12th largest in the world, in nominal, and 14th in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. On the whole, it accounted for 1.96% of global GDP in 2020 (http://www.theglobaleconomy.com); with a per capita GDP of $33,591 in nominal, and $53,574 in PPP terms. GDP growth rate in 2022 was 2.6%. The comparison with Nigeria is jarring, with Africa’s largest economy posting a GDP of $440.83 billion in 2021 (0.2% of global GDP); and per capita GDP of $2,429.63 (nominal) and $4,922.63 in PPP terms,Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ in the same year (https://tradingeconomics.com/nigeria/gdp#:~). The growth rate of the economy was 1.9%.
Discounting the variance in the populations of the two countries, at 51.62 million (or 0.66% of global population) for South Korea in 2023, and 220.34 million (or 2.35% of global population) for Nigeria, same year, the conclusion remains unavoidable that the latter had been
punching below the belt in economic performance terms.
Ueconomic management; and a rent-seeking mentality, defined by the transactional mentality of the key mem in questionably, Nigeria’s bad economic outing is a function of poor choices; limited capacity in bers of the governing elite, who apparently cannot be bothered by Claude Ake’s well thought thesis on the fundamental contradiction between desire for rent-seeking and development (Ake, 1989: 54-65). By its nature, economic crisis is the beltway to the activation of centrifugal pressures in any polity, manifesting in the demonisation of the ‘other’; instability; insecurity; state delegitimization, among others. The very low level of voter turnout in the 2023 election cycle is a clear testimony to the growing irrelevance of the State to most Nigerians. Voter turnout shifted from a relatively high 52.9% in the 1999 elections; through 53.7% in 2011; to 26.72% in 2023 (Premium Times, March 5, 2023). If we account for the possibility that the voters roll, which Nigeria’s election management had been churning out over the years may be over bloated, it would still not detract from the reality of deep public trust deficit that attends the relationship between state and society in Nigeria.
To address the challenge represented by economic stagnation, and the accompanying crises, Nigeria requires to put in place a bouquet of macro-economic policies, to catalyse sustainedeconomic growth, a point to which I turn presently. Suffice it here to note that economic policies are basically contextual; and do not get formulated, or work in isolation of the prevailing social background that gives them context (Mimiko, in Premium Times, March 11, 2021). Thus, while not oblivious of the nuances of such economic programming and the specificities of macroeconomic tools requisite for this purpose, even this cannot be divulged from the sociality of economic policies. The point on positive correlation between good governance and economic performance has, indeed, been established in the literature. Lewis, (in NESG, 2018: 5-9) puts the argument succinctly thus, ‘it’s not labels, it’s not the regions, it’s politics that brings about the transition of a country from a stagnant economy to a prosperous one.’ In a similar vein, Acemoglu and Robinson (in NESG, 2018: 5-9) agree that ‘the main determinants of differences in prosperity across countries are differences in economic institutions, (and) economic institutions of a society depend on the nature of political institutions and the distribution of political power in society.’ This also constitutes the basis of ‘development of administration’ in Development Administration discourse in Political Science, a course I teach at Ife, where the focus is not just on correct programming, important as this is, for national development, but also the administrative vehicle through which programmes must be delivered. The two should ordinarily reinforce one another for positive outcomes to emerge from any agenda of national development.
The wider implication of these constitutes my sixth thesis, to wit, that unless Nigeria gets the governance structure/political institutions and their functionality right, all attempts at
catalysing economic growth in the country – the very bedrock of development – may remain but a mirage. This is yet another point of convergence, a nexus as it were, between the two core Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ challenges that confront Nigeria – a marginally productive economy, and dysfunctional state structure, underscoring the exposition of the structuralist-functionalist framework.
(Mis)management of diversity
The concept of diversity speaks to the existence of a multiplicity of identities in a population occupying an identifiable social formation. Every modern state parades some degree of diversity, but exhibit different outcomes in the way this reality is managed. Diversity may predispose a community to conflict, but it does not necessarily have to engender conflict. It, however, becomes a bedrock for such, if and when inappropriately mobilized. This is the sense in the metaphor of the melting pot, as representation of considerable success at managing diversity, and thus forging a cohesive nation from a bouquet of ethno-national differentiations in such a social formation. The flip side is the salad bowl representation, where in spite of all efforts, the constituting ethnic-nations simply refuse to fuse together into an attitudinally unified entity.
What is unmistakeable is that patterns of mobilisation of diversity are directly related to the level of stability possible in a state. When power entrepreneurs begin to mobilise diversity in the pursuit of power, and other particularistic ends, often at variance with the collective interest, challenges occur. This often manifests in the Nigerian context in, among others, politicisation of ethnicity and ethnicization of politics; politicisation of religion, and what I call, ‘religionization’ of politics – which expresses a situation in which an individual or community holds tenaciously onto a narrow position, without regard to prevailing reality and facts, as it is often the case in the manner in which people relate to their religion. This often does not admit of grey area, but rather makes politics a zero-sum game, a win-lose situation, in which one’s win is seen, practically, as tantamount to another’s loss, nay liquidation.
Mismanagement of diversity has been the basis of deep estrangement and loss of public trust, which has compelled many to transition from otherwise patriotic citizens of Nigeria, to virulent and implacable protagonists of sundry ideas directed at compromising the spatial orientation and integrity of the country. The current can neither ignored, nor permanently put out by sheer force of state violence. It has to be managed creatively, and stanched; and what remains of it, made completely benign, in the overall interest of the country. This calls for the best in statecraft on the part of those who have responsibility over the direction of politics and governance in the country.
Politics and governance structure
It is trite that governance has not ‘enhanced the legitimacy of the public realm’ in Nigeria. The Nigerian state is not responsive. It is dysfunctional and, as presently constituted, incapable of administering neither development nor stability. It institutes a system of exclusivity that stokes centrifugal forces, and disdains diversity. In addition, it implements socio-economic programmes that impoverish rather than uplift the mass of the people; administers a culture of impunity, and abuse of power; superintends over large-scale corruption; and exhibits a general disdain of the people, including wanton abuse of their democratic rights.
Summarily, governance in Nigeria is defined by public trust deficit. It has not been a pivot for meeting the legitimate aspirations of the Nigerian people; and is thus, lowly regarded in the estimation of most Nigerians. The nation’s politics, as Hoffmann (2023) argues, ‘overlooks, excludes and disempowers.’ Small wonder, in a survey conducted by African Polling Institute (API) (Premium Times, Feb. 3, 2022), some 77% and 89% respectively of Nigerians, indicated that they were dissatisfied with the country’s democracy, and believed that the country was actually headed in the wrong direction. Only 8% of the population said they were happy with their country’s state of affairs under President Muhammadu Buhari; while 78% said they were ‘sad’ or ‘extremely sad.’ These are indications that elections are, to all intents and purposes, becoming increasingly inconsequential, and the democracy project, losing its legitimacy. The question that arises from all of the foregoing is, why and how did the Nigerian state assume this type of character?
In his pioneering effort, Max Weber (2015: 129-198) describes a state as that ‘human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence within a given territory’ – its most basic intrinsic values being territoriality, population, and legitimate claim to deployment of violence. For him, it is the most complex abstraction of social organization. For broader comprehension, I conceive of the state as a contraption that equates the collective will of a people for organized habitation of a spatial entity, embedded with structures of engagement, including those for enforcement of rules for regulating same, and capacity for sustenance of the autonomous existence by which its uniqueness is defined (Mimiko, 2018; 2020b: 141-168).
While perspectives on the evolution of the state in the literature are legion, it suffices to underscore its social contract foundation, following on John Locke (1981), in which a state is taken as a framework for the protection of property, conceived specifically as the ‘lives, liberties, and estates’ of a human community. Failure to discharge this primary mandate constitutes enough ground for dismantling, and recomposing a state; or what more succinctly, Ted Gurr (1970) references as, the right to rebel.
The Nigerian state came into formal existence in the post-World War II era. It is the third largest in Africa, and the most populous on the continent. It also has a peculiar place as the largest concentration of black people in the world, providing the basis for some form of ‘manifest destiny’ for the country. At a GDP of $510 billion in 2014, and $440.83 billion in 2021, Nigeria’s economy is rated the largest in Africa and 26th in the world. It has exported, on the average, some two million barrels of crude oil since 1971. In spite of these, the country
remains, to all intent and purposes, a colonial economy, exhibiting the same trappings that it had more than a century ago, upon its being taken in, as a possession of the British. It remains, essentially, a commodity exporter – from slaves, through cash crops, to crude oil. A preponderance of its population is heavily alienated and remains poor. Lacking substantially in capacity, autonomy and hegemony, the state remains quite fragile, and with convoluted institutions, several times only being pulled back fortuitously from the edge of the precipice.
The foregoing does not, however, completely validate the suggestion that Nigeria was ‘a mere geographical expression’ before colonialism (Awolowo, 1947), except when this is viewed strictly in terms of nomenclature, rather than sociological composition. For, evidence abounds that the different peoples and cultures in the spatial arena later named Nigeria by the British had indeed, been in contact and exhibited extensive networks of interaction for several years before the arrival of the colonists. What colonialism facilitated, therefore, was at best the process of formally bringing all of these populations together as one modern state (state formation). Yet, it is true that more than a century thereafter, the different nations have not blended enough into the equivalent of a ‘melting pot’ as the country is still fractured along long-prevailing fault-lines, severally defined by patterns of socially-constructed identities, steeped in religious, ethnic, and regional differentiations. These are readily invoked by different Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ fractions of the ruling elite, determined as it were always, to outdo each other in the scramble for political power, which in the context of prebendalism, comes with the attendant primitive privileges and accoutrements for the victorious faction.
Upon the effective takeover of the vast land mass that it later named, Nigeria; the British colonial government began a gradual but deliberate programme of reorientation of the new
national economy. The logic consisted in the fact that the objective of the colonists, which was exploitation of the peoples of Nigeria, was at variance with the goals of subsistence agriculture, fishing and pastoralism, to which the different communities were committed. Agricultural products and engagements directed at feeding the emergent industries in the metropole rather than empowering the people were thus introduced through the deliberate creation of a money economy that soon developed a life of its own. Wanton exploitation of the solid mineral resources of the land by the colonists at once consolidated and complemented this exercise in national despoliation – setting the stage for a warped national economy oriented to external interests, which Nigerians were to inherit at independence.
By the late 1950s, Nigeria had exhibited signs of an expansive capacity for production of crude oil. Control over this product by foreign capital, prospecting for which had started in the early 20th century, and later in 1937 through the British oil giant, Shell D’Arcy, had long been structured. It is, therefore, not fortuitous that Shell has remained the dominant player in the nation’s crude oil sector since then. With little or no control over the critical value-chain of the crude oil sector, Nigeria has remained, to all intents and purposes, a mere crude oil exporter, earning humongous rent that has not only served to destroy the basis of its once thriving agricultural sector, but also created a sustained culture of rent seeking, and made of the people, mere laggards. With the legendary proclivity of the crude oil sector to develop into an enclave economy without much of a transforming impact on the other sectors, the nation’s economy is denied the powerful growth propellant that such a resource should ordinarily have provided.
It had become clear to the British colonists soon after World War II that Britain had to find a way to formally disengage from Nigeria. This was in part a consequence of the Atlantic Charter and the US government’s strong, albeit self-serving stand against its repudiation in relation to overseas colonies, by the British government. The latter then went ahead to cultivate and eventually handed over power to the more tolerant fraction of the nationalist elite in Nigeria.
However, even this was not before a well-structured programme of structural instability had been engineered into the new nation.
The process had started much earlier with the compartmentalisation put in place by London, underpinned by differentiation in governance styles between the northern and southern
segments of the emergent nation. A deliberate programme of promotion of education, literacy and numeracy, was also emplaced in the southern part of the country, while the north was largely held back from same. An implantation of a federal system in which the Northern Region (one of three regions) was better leveraged electorally than the others, against all tenets of federalism, was done. All of these ensured that Nigeria went into independence with a very thick cloud of distrust between the north and the south, providing the basis for the subsequent instability by which the country came to be defined. Inability of the civilian ruling elites to manage these multiple layers of distrust brought the military into the political process in January 1966. It too easily got enmeshed in the same contradictions it sought to stanch. Things degenerated rapidly, leading to a 30-month civil war between 1967 and 1970. Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ By the time the war came to an end, the federal government had consolidated its hold on the nation, employing the widespread sentiment for post-war national unity as a basis for undermining what fragments of federalism had survived the war. Several regional institutions were not only appropriated by the central government, legal frameworks were put in place to ensure the weakening of the regional (later State) governments. The most profound was the Petroleum Act, 1969, which in one fell swoop, vested ownership of all petroleum and related resources in Nigeria in the Federal Government. Even when attempts were made to hand over power back to the civilians, with the fundamental contradictions in nation-building still unaddressed, what the country began to witness were bouts of military and civil rule. At the last count, before extant democratic experimentation came to berth in 1999, the country had had some six democratic transition programmes, the one from colonialism to relative political independence inclusive. An overriding reason for the failure of these democratization programmes, I argue, remains the fact that its drivers sought to foster an essentially unitary structure over a plural and basically heterogeneous country, made up of disparate nations with long and unique histories and cultures. Even so, it is important to note that it was not so much the Unification Decree 34 of 1966 that fundamentally undermined the basis of Nigeria’s federalism, but the very nature of the military as a hierarchical organisation. When such an organisation takes over the art of governance of a polity, it is trite that the latter would take the shape of the former. That being the case, Decree 34 was, at best, the formal expression given to a reality that was there anyway.
On the economic plane, being a purely colonial economy, critical political and economic decisions in Nigeria are, overtly or otherwise, heavily influenced from outside of the shores of
the country by Western capitals and aid agencies, out to consolidate the role of the country as a neo-colony. The most significant of these was the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), a neo-liberal economic regime, which sought to change the orientation of the national economy from one in which, at least in principle, the state was allowed a dominant space, to one driven only by the logic of the market. Much of what successive governments had been trying to do since SAP was to stanch the free-fall of the economy and its orientation in the direction of the interest of global capital and its local lackeys. Meanwhile, the elites have been unable to create the basis of accumulation outside of the state. Development agendas are quite often not appropriately articulated and, therefore, remain incapable of facilitating the development of the nation’s economy. What you have, therefore, is the monstrosity of alienation of a huge segment of the population of the nation condemned, as it were, to live a life of abject poverty, paradoxically in a country that has earned billions of dollars in oil rents since independence.
VII. Taming the monsters: Towards appropriate programming
Taken together, it is the sustained constriction of economic opportunities, especially for the youths; arrant mismanagement of diversity, which ordinarily should be a platform for positive dynamism, as well as ordinarily benign crises, and making them snowball into full blown conflicts; and the orientation and character of the Nigerian state, that approximate the
environment of Nigeria’s nation-building challenges. But there is also the reality of climate change, which for instance, has served as a principal propellant of the terrorism and insurgency in the northeast. In the 1960s, Lake Chad was the bedrock of a thriving economy in the axis. It supported some 30 million people, in multiple dimensions. Today, the Lake has shrunk to 10% of what it used to be (Ross, in BBC, 2018), and has thus catalysed the systematic dispersal of individuals and communities in search of more clement environments rich in arable land, and pasture. This implies conflict with relatively more settled and sedentary communities across Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ the region, and towards the Benue valley. All of these cohere to reproduce insecurity in the
country, signposted by, first, its characterisation by the UN Rapporteur to Nigeria, Agnes Callamand (2019), as ‘an injustice pressure cooker.’ Secondly, and as heretofore noted, the
Institute of Economics and Peace, in its Global Terrorism Index 2023, describes ISWAP, Boko Haram and IPOB as the world’s sixth, seventh, and tenth deadliest terrorist groups in the world, wreaking havoc all across Nigeria. Thirdly, evidence of insecurity exists in virtually all the 36 states, making the military actively engaged in virtually all the states of the federation.
Fourthly, it is gleanable from comments from officials of the Buhari government that the government and its security apparatuses are indeed, overwhelmed by the insecurity, and would
rather Nigerians, as the Defence Minister, Bashir Magashi (2021) intoned, stop whining and figure out how to protect themselves.
The obvious question, in the circumstances, is whether the nature of the security challenges the Nigerian state faces is of such proportion as to threaten its very existence. While the answer to this important inquiry can only be conjectural, it is important to note that the country has a huge, mostly youthful population of deprived, disenchanted, disoriented and angry people. The state is bereft of the requisite capacity to administer development. It is structured to entrench and sustain exclusivity, and visibly deploys violence in the service of power. It, therefore, enjoys neither affective nor instrumental support from a good percentage of the population; and parades a privileged ruling elite that has little or no sensitivity to the reality of poverty that stokes up the land. Elections in the country are becoming increasingly inconsequential, and the democracy project is thereby losing its legitimacy. It is a forgone conclusion that such a state may not be able to survive for too long, if these processes are not stanched and reinvented. This is what the history of all failed states across the world teaches. It is what the state failure and relative deprivation theories espouse.
It is apposite to ask, in the circumstances, what is the specific social context of the policies needed to foster nation-building in Nigeria? A deep interrogation of extant nation-building
crises makes a number of points and the answer to this inquiry clear. The first is that none of Nigeria’s extant challenges is novel, as they are all such that had faced several countries across the world in their development trajectories. Secondly, the problem with Nigeria is that it does not address these challenges genuinely, creatively, and patriotically, making them seem intractable. Thirdly, inability to address these challenges appropriately is consequent upon shortage of leadership, given that what Nigeria keeps reproducing, discounting a few flashes of imaginative, responsive and responsible leadership, especially at the sub-national level, are leaders that are transactional in outlook, limited in vision, short on capacity, and hollow in social commitment. Fourthly, the manner in which the Nigerian state is organised makes it difficult for the required type of leadership to emerge, at the national level. Fifthly, considerable emulation possibilities exist for Nigeria from other climes in dealing with its contemporary challenges. Sixthly, all of these crises are inextricably linked, indicating that strategies of remediating them may also inevitably have to be intertwined.
In outline form, it is imperative that Nigeria moves expeditiously to end the monocultural orientation of the national economy, and move it away from the wholesale focus on crude oil,
and solid minerals generally, which are all extractive and so, basic. It must invest in agriculture; put the economy on an export-led production keel, in order to expand the scope for generating foreign exchange; expand the tax net; and do away with opacity in economic policies, especially on foreign exchange and contract administration, such as has wholly characterised Nigeria in the past few years. Above all, there must be a deliberate expansion of investment in human capital – education, health and nutrition; and upgrade of critical infrastructure, Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ especially power generation and distribution. Wholesale focus on power generation as catalyst of industrial development cannot be overemphasised; and in this regard, the possibilities in solar technology should be explored to the hilt. There should be catalysation of investment in the production of a few food items, with a view to making them so affordable to every family, and thus help in reducing the scope for desperation, which is almost palpable on the streets. A revival of technical and vocational education and training in particular, and the entire educational ecosystem in general is imperative. A programme to expeditiously tackle the menace of out-of-school children, and empowering them with skills, cannot be overemphasized. There must also be an uptake in research, appropriately canalized in a robust triple helix schema.
A comprehensive decentralization of the governance structure in Nigeria, such as to make for the possibility of autochthonous development is inevitable. To this end, the principle of
subsidiarity, as practiced in Switzerland in the relationship between the confederal government, cantons, and communes, should be made the bedrock of Nigeria’s governance reform agenda. It says that whatever a lower level of government is capable of doing does not come under the purview of a higher level of government. The idea is to make the country attain to the full measure of federalism, the end-state of which is greater inclusivity, national unity, security and development. These would also necessitate a retooling of the structure with which, and a paradigmatic shift, in the way Nigeria is governed. For a multiplicity of reasons, which are better addressed elsewhere, the parliamentary system of government is to be preferred, and is hereby recommended as worthy of adoption going forward. This is beyond the assumed cost effectiveness of the system over presidentialism, an idea that has no basis in empirical fact.
Efforts must be made to mainstream the rule of law, and a culture of meritocracy, without necessarily undermining the place for affirmative action in critical areas of the nation’s life,
especially for the female gender. Above all, inclusivity in the nation’s political economy remains the principal thing, and the Nigerian state must be consciously organised to make for
this.
What all of these sum up to is the imperative of a strong developmental state, ‘capable of moderating the complex interactions of conflicting social forces, for the ends of inclusive and
sustainable development’ (Mimiko, 1997: 241-267). This is without prejudice to some positive externalities derivable from of a carefully guided programme of neoliberalism, where the
development planners are sensitive to the fundamental limitations thereof, especially in the context of a newer economy like Nigeria’s, with its basically weak productive, and unintegrated market outlooks. Such a strong state, absolutely committed to inclusive growth, and determined to guide the market and correct its failures, is the antidote to extant dysfunctionality of the Nigerian political economy.
VIII. Onto a presidential honeymoon moment
A period of transition from one regime to another is, to all intents and purposes, a honeymoon moment. It is the short period when a new government has the latitude to get away with difficult policies, as the citizenry is wont to give it the benefit of the doubt, and adopt a wait-and-see attitude. It is significant that Nigeria is currently in a moment of transition, and onto the incoming government’s honeymoon moment. It is imperative that the opportunity afforded the incoming President in this regard, is seized, for maximum impact. While going for low-hanging fruits, to generate the type of mass support requisite for governance, the new government should also quickly enunciate and push through its most critical policies, during this period.Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’ The cliché that ‘Nigeria is indivisible’ is becoming like a broken record, and the new government should not latch onto it, as virtually all its predecessor did (Mimiko, in Premium Times, Oct. 27, 2021). Rather, it should recognise the right of ethnic nationalities to self determination, within the context of a united Nigeria, a la Article 39 of the Ethiopian constitution (Ibid). The new President must make it a point of duty to constitute an inclusive government, and ‘flee from all appearances of evil,’ as exemplified in the ‘Buhari Doctrine of Justifiable Exclusion,’ on the basis of which the outgoing President sought to validate his decision to shut some groups and nationalities out of the structures of governance (Mimiko, in The Guardian, 3 July, 2016). A deliberate effort must be made to reach out to angered constituencies, especially victims of violence, unleashed on them and their property by marauding gangs across the country, in the past eight years. The President would need to convoke a small but all-inclusive, short dialogue, to listen to the basis of the anger of whichever formation is angry, move to placate them, and chart a way forward.
Some populist steps would need to be taken immediately. In this regard, the humongous emoluments of legislators must be moderated. The emoluments, legitimate and otherwise,
which continue to flow into the pockets of state officials, at all levels, albeit in relative terms, is not sustainable. They are such that made a businessman acquaintance of mine, a few years ago, talk to me about his desire ‘to diversify,’ because, according to him, his ‘business was not doing well.’ I thought it was a good idea, as branching off to add some new lines to his main business could open new vistas and opportunities for him. To my utmost surprise, my friend looked me in the eyes and declared unabashedly that what he was diversifying into was, politics, where he said the money was, to be made! This remains a metaphor for politics in Nigeria, viewed by most of its players, strictly as platform for primitive accumulation, and the state as a mere prebend.
Ongoing attempts in the National Assembly to muzzle or hamstrung the youths of the country in their commitment to ‘japa’ should be discontinued forthwith. All the new President need do in this regard, is to make the local environment more secure and predictable, and, therefore, liveable for Nigerian youths. The new government should speedily pay Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)’s withheld salaries, while giving vent to a firm commitment to non-payment of striking workers going forward, in line with the provisions of the Trade Disputes Act. All operatives of the new government must be made to recognise that, ultimately, they are accountable to the people, and not just to their principal.
President Buhari did well by signing some decentralisation bills into law in the twilight of his administration. It is important that the new President sustains the momentum by looking at
what can be administratively accomplished immediately, in the governance reform agenda, heretofore advocated. A revisitation of the National Conference 2014, and All-Progressives
Congress (APC) True Federalism Reports would be a right step to take immediately. The social investment programme, including its Conditional Cash Transfer component, deserves to be expanded, and administered in a non-partisan and effective manner. What passes for policy on oil subsidy today, is scandalous, and has to be dealt with! There is also the need to institute a robust loan and scholarship scheme for tertiary educational institutions’ students; and some form of affirmative action for women, people with disabilities, and seniors, among others. The new President must build some semblance of consensus around key issues, especially on power and resource devolution; and take some creative, yet realistic steps in the global system that would excite Nigerians.Femi Mimiko, mni – ‘Good governance in Nigeria: How to not allow regular nation-building challenges destroy a land of promise,’
In all, the new President has about one year to make an impact; ignite instrumental (specific) support, as basis for affective (diffuse) support (Macridis and Berg, 1991: 8-9); stanch public trust deficit; and deepen legitimacy. If the new President fails to move in this direction, it may become inevitable for him to increasingly govern with force after about the first one year of his regime; and this is certainly not good for the country’s democracy. This scenario basically underscores the fact that Nigeria’s fledgling democracy is not immune to the dangers of ‘democratic backsliding.’ Sundry scholars have demonstrated how challenging this phenomenon is for democracy, no less in newer societies like Nigeria. In their book,
Unwelcome Change, Ellen Lust and David Waldner (2015), and Stephen Haggard and Robert Kaufman (2021), among several others, discuss the different dimensions of this unusual
democratization pathway. According to Kaufman (in Kaufman and Morgan, 2021), ‘What makes backsliding peculiar is the fact that it’s driven by duly elected incumbents. Once the
autocrat is in power, he or she undertakes actions that then weaken democratic rule: removal of horizontal checks on the executive; diminution of rights that citizens typically enjoy; and, in extremis, going after the integrity of the electoral system itself.’ A further engagement with this all important subject is for another day.
Emulation possibilities from elsewhere: In lieu of conclusion
I conclude on the note of the same argument made earlier on in this lecture; that while Nigeria’s challenges seem quite debilitating, nay existential, they are not unsimilar to such as had bedevilled other countries in the past, on their pathway to national development. Dealing with them in Nigeria should, therefore, not be like rocket science. The Asian Tigers have
demonstrated that even within the constraining boundaries of the global economic system, possibilities for navigation into prosperity exist. China has demonstrated how it is possible for a national economy to change its orientation completely, as it did from 1979, under Deng Xiaoping, with impressive results. It ended up posting the second largest economy in the world, and moved 800 million Chinese people out of poverty, in a generation! Terrorism and insurgency were defeated both in Sri Lanka (Tamil Tigers) and Colombia (Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia – FARC). In Kenya, via the efforts of former President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Nigeria has an example in the exemplary way in which political reconciliation could be delivered. The temptation is much, but it would be a mistake for the incoming Nigerian President to tow the path of Mohammed Morsi. The
former guerrilla leader was swept into office on the wings of the highly organised and resilient Muslim Brotherhood party, after several years of (quasi)military dictatorship in Egypt; but
rather than work for inclusion, and address critical social challenges confronting Egyptians, the President sought after political domination. The rest is history.
Once again, I congratulate Papa R.F. Fasoranti; and say, without any fear of contradiction whatsoever, that Papa has paid his dues! Chief Fasoranti’s credentials as a progressive are as
strong as they come. That is why the incipient crises in Afenifere continues to be a cause for worry for some of us. This, not just because of what it portends for the Yoruba, but because we cannot afford anything that would undo the very solid profile of our beloved Papa Fasoranti! I, therefore, appeal to the younger folks within and around the group, to desist from hiding behind the two elder statemen that are in the eyes of the storm – Chiefs Reuben Fasoranti and Ayo Adebanjo – to fan the embers of disunity. Do not also keep quiet. Rather, stand up to be counted on the side of peace, and amicable resolution of the incipient disagreement! That is the only path of honour! I thank the organizers, once again, for inviting me to give this lecture. I thank members of the audience for listening to me.
