The
Impeachment Issue and the Nigerian Chatteratti
By
Chudi Okoye
Many observers of Nigerian public affairs have been
commenting on the two-week ultimatum given about four weeks ago by members of
the Nigerian House of Representatives to the president, Rtd. General Olusegun
Obasanjo, telling him to resign honourably or face impeachment, on the grounds
of inept and corrupt leadership. In
a 17-point motion adopted by the House on August 13, the Reps (who have now
secured some sort of tactical support from the Senate) resolved as follows: “That
by reason of the monumental inadequacies, persistent disrespect for the rule of
law and the obvious corruption being perpetrated in the presidency which exposes
Mr. President's inability to steer the ship of state…, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo
is hereby advised to resign honourably as President and Commander-in-Chief of
the Federal Republic of Nigeria within two weeks from the date of this motion or
face impeachment.”
President
Obasanjo’s initial public reaction to the ultimatum appeared to be to dismiss
it as a “joke carried too far”. Some
have, perhaps uncharitably, construed the president’s early reaction to imply
a lack of concern about the legislators’ complaints, and for this reason he
has been roundly criticized. However
it is possible that Mr. Obasanjo’s public display may have been read too
simplistically. For although this
wily old general may act impassively in public (perhaps to convey signals of
stability and authoritative control to domestic and international stakeholders),
he seems nonetheless to be sufficiently aware of the threats presented by the
events. After all, he has spoken of
a possible “over-heating” of the political system by these events, which
suggests that he has undertaken a measure of analytical exploration of the
issue. And he has since begun to
deploy a counteractive strategy, activating several political actors at
governmental, party and even geo-strategic levels in order to dispel the
emerging threat.
Our public commentators have diverged widely, in terms
of their perspectives on this face-off between the president and the legislators
and their level of analytical rigour. No less than four different positions can be identified,
taken up by the protagonists, the cynics, the purists, and the analysts.
The protagonists are those who have adopted explicitly partisan
positions, working up arguments to support either the legislators or the
president. We know their logics:
they are either saying that “this president’s blunders are too many jare,
he has to go”, or they are pushing a rebuttal that “he is trying his best, biko,
leave him alone”. Then there are the cynics who seem quite unperturbed by the
unfolding drama. These people
dismiss the whole thing either as another self-serving pre-occupation of a
wretched political class or, more benignly, as a mere jurisdictional disputation
between two co-determinative arms of the government.
In the main, theirs is the cynical interpretation of a kettle sneering at
a blackened pot.
The observers with purist proclivities appear in two
guises, at least. Some of them have
got into a tease about the presentation of the legislators’ case, which
they say is most undignified. In
one particular case, one Internet columnist (hardly known for verbal economy)
went to great lengths to criticize the Reps for their lack of procedural
sophistication and the inelegant wording of their motion.
Among the purists too, some have peevishly waved off
the impeachment palaver altogether, arguing that it is yet another evidence of
the immaturity of the Nigerian democratic system. One of such writers recently produced an exegesis, dripping
with normative declamations, whose central thesis was the hardly insightful
point that “Nigeria is not yet a truly democratic state”.
The writer said that this was the case he was setting out to prove, and
it took the PhD holder all of 4,150 words to make the point.
To him, the impeachment wahala was yet another indication of Nigeria’s
primitive condition. This
particular writer went to some rather incautious lengths eulogising the practice
of democracy in the advanced countries of the West.
Reading him, you would think that western democracy as it is practised
today had hardly a blemish, that it is the theoretical optimum that all aspiring democracies like Nigeria would do well to
emulate.
But if the said writer was a little less uncritical in
his appreciation of western democracy and if he had a nuanced understanding of
current manifestations, he would perhaps be less trenchant in his denunciation
of political practices in Nigeria. If
he examined western democratic practice more critically he would notice deep
deviations from theoretical precept: whether these be in regard to the insidious
use of money in elections and in public policy lobby; in the overwhelming power
of sectionalist interest groups, especially the business classes; in the
declining level of public participation in mainstream political processes
(evinced for instance in the fall in voter turn-out at elections); in the
deepening conservatism of the mainstream political channels, which produces
undercurrents of extra-political mobilization; in the rising power of
intelligence services and security apparatuses and the use of these to control
opposition groups; in the declining level of public consultation and the
sophisticated use of “spin doctoring” to manipulate public opinion; in the
non-disclosure of critical information to the public… I could go on.
I have dwelt at some length on this latter perspective
because such normative indictment of Nigerian democracy often discounts the
possibility that amidst the seeming chaos of political life, something unique
and home-grown may be emerging that suits our peculiar settings.
Just like diligent Nigerian entrepreneurs and professionals are
improvising continuously in an environment that presents unique challenges, our
political practitioners are also improvising to cope with the challenges of
their environment. No doubt they
seem often, in the actions, to be motivated by sinister intentions.
They may lack the intellectual and behavioural sophistication of their
counterparts in centuries-old and economically developed democracies. And yes, there are manifold structural maladies in the
political system. But any argument
that dismisses the entire system as primitive, immature and irrational, without
recognising the subtle changes taking place, would seem to me to be misleading.
At some risk of being misunderstood, I am saying that if we look a bit
carefully we would find some “green shoots” of democratic development amidst
what seems like an overwhelming evidence of systemic imperfection.
To further explain my point, I invoke now the argument
of those commentators I have termed the analysts. I describe them as such because their approach is disciplined
and evinces a flavour of positivist (that is, rationalist and empiricist)
analysis. They consider the
impeachment issue primarily from the prism of political strategy. This perspective assumes that the protagonists are not
entirely callous and stupid, as much of the Nigerian chatteratti would have us
believe, but that they are rational actors motivated by hard-headed calculations
of geo-strategic, commercial and personal advantages in canvassing their
particular positions. I believe
that it is the challenge of any meaningful analysis of the issue at hand to
unpick and theorize on such underlying motivations, rather than perpetually
bewail the absence of behavioural patterns more relevant to alien political
environments.
In this vein, I would like to congratulate Dr. Adebimpe
Onifade, who wrote a thoughtful article recently exploring the strategic issues
arising from the impeachment drama. Picking through his analysis, you will find a condemnation of politically irresponsible behaviour capable of
undermining the nation’s development. You will find a heart-felt, patriotic call for the
subjugation of personal political ambitions in the larger interest of national
development. But whilst covering
all that, Dr. Onifade well understood the primary role of the analyst, which is
to deconstruct an issue on hand and hack through to its primary causation.
To this end, he tried to provide as positivist an answer as possible
about the origins of the current impeachment move against President Obasanjo.
He provides a number of credible scenarios about its origins, and I
invite you to read him on nigeriaworld.com, urging you though to be patient
about his sometimes challenging phraseology.
My one disagreement with Dr. Onifade is in regard to
his call for Mr. Obasanjo to “do a Mandela” and give up his ambition for a
second term as democratic president, in order to save face and secure his place
in history. I disagree because I do
not believe that Mr. Obasanjo’s voluntary exit would produce the optimal
results for Nigeria in terms of democratic development. It was for this reason that I argued, at the height of the
debate on whether Mr. Obasanjo should contest in the 2003 election, that he
should indeed contest. In an
article I wrote at the time (prior to Mr. Obasanjo’s decision) I argued that
it was by no means certain that the president would win in that election if he
contested, given his historic under-performance and his vitiated political base.
I contended that it might be better for the development of Nigerian
democracy if candidate Obasanjo contested and lost the election, and duly handed
over the baton of power to the successful candidate.
The 2003 election is very
important for Nigeria in many respects. For
one thing, it presents a critical ‘second election’ test which the country
must pass. For many observers of
democratic transitions, the second election in an emergent democracy is
important because, if properly conducted, it shows that the democratic process
is taking root, and that the rebound of authoritarian rule is perhaps less
likely. The second election is
taken even more as a sign of democratic growth if it leads to the defeat of the
incumbent leader, and the latter duly surrenders power to the new winner.
For Nigeria, the second election test is particularly significant as she
has never managed to hold one without plunging herself into a spiral of
political crisis. Nigeria is
therefore under trial to show whether she can carry off a second election this
time around.
It is my contention that Mr. Obasanjo’s participation
in next year’s election presents an opportunity for Nigeria to make this
‘second election’ leap. It
would be a golden opportunity, that is, if Mr. Obasanjo is defeated at the
election and he is then obliged to surrender power.
A glorious tradition of democratic transfer of power will then have been
established in Nigeria. And one
should not be too concerned as to whether a defeated President Obasanjo would be
willing to surrender power. He has
done it before, remember, in 1979? Besides,
his grounding in the military is no longer so commanding, despite his being the
putative C-in-C of the Armed Forces. Also
he is not exactly a popular and charismatic leader, thanks to his personality
deficiencies and his dismal performance in office.
Yes, he has enormous advantages as the candidate in office.
But the much-mentioned advantages of incumbency could be neutralized, in
my view, with astute political strategizing.
This is precisely where the impeachment challenge being
mounted in the National Assembly comes in. It seems to me that a possible consequence of the impeachment
imbroglio would be to further weaken the political base of the president and
ensure that if he does contest in the 2003 election, the advantages of
incumbency available to him would be considerably negated.
This could make his defeat much more probable.
The idea is to mount a sustained ‘revolutionary’ pressure and propel
the president into a state of political distraction, to prevent him from
mobilizing an effective campaign for the 2003 election!
Granted, this sounds much like a Machiavellian
strategy, and I can hear many squirming and complaining that an entrapped
president would hardly have the bandwidth to govern the country effectively.
To such persons I say simply, please!
Does anyone seriously still expect that Mr. Obasanjo has anything
concrete to offer? Our leader has
somehow manoeuvred himself into a lame-duck presidency, and we should let him
enjoy his fortune for the rest of his tenure.
The business of governing contemporary Nigeria requires a change of
regime, and frankly even a mere substitution of personalities could be
invigorating for the polity.
None of this is to suggest that the endgame postulated
here is the same envisioned by all the impeachment protagonists, or indeed that
they have a consensus of public interest as their fundamental motivation.
Equally, it is improbable that the exertions of the legislators would
lead to the impeachment of the president in fact.
But if in their efforts the legislators manage to keep Mr. President
disorganized and disarticulated, and if this then eventuates in his defeat at
the next polls, then frankly they have my support, regardless of what the
chattering classes may be saying.