Death in Large Doses

By

Kevin Etta Jr.

On the sixth day, after five full days of creative work, we are told in the Biblical book of Genesis 1:31 that: “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” It was very good because it was a marked improvement upon the formless void that God met at the beginning of his mandate on the earth. He had made the lights in the heaven and on the earth for times and for seasons. He had made the flowers and the trees to beautify the earth and purify the air. He had made the beasts to move upon and plough the earth to stimulate the symbiotic relations that exist between all living things. Lastly, he had made and empowered man – in his own image and likeness – to dwell on the earth, enjoy its bounty, and live securely and safely within its borders. When God saw all He had done he patted himself on the back, and indeed we are told elsewhere that “the morning stars sang for joy” when God finished laying the foundations of the earth. There was cause to make merry.

By marked contrast, in the sixth year of his reign and after five full years of his imperial presidency we are told that President Obasanjo, after recently surveying the 2004 first quarter report of the National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC), saw everything that he had done and said: “the economy is track.” He patted himself and his administration on the back.

The economy is on track – despite spiraling unemployment. The economy is on track, despite degradation of real incomes of Nigerian workers resulting from skyrocketing inflation. Despite inability of consumers to drive the economy due to a woeful lack of purchasing power the economy is still on track. Despite prohibitive prices of the energy driving Nigeria’s industrial sector as a result of an import and dollar driven policy of deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector. Despite the absence of any pilot transportation scheme like a functional railway that would provide mass transportation of good and services at affordable prices. Despite unreliable and epileptic power supply. Despite the lack of reliable and workable portable water systems. Despite trenchant insecurity of lives and property at all levels of Nigerian life. Despite all this, Obasanjo saw all that he had done in five years and said it is good, it is very good.

I wonder, what metric does the administration use to determine that the economy is on track? What indices do they espouse? Indeed, according to Juan Forero of the New York Times, this same question is being asked by the Peruvian president, Mr. Toledo, of his own administration even after his country recorded the most impressive economic growth rate in years. Forero writes thus in his June 24 New York Times article titled, “Latin America Graft and Poverty Trying Patience With Democracy”:

“Peru is a good example. It has the region's most impressive

economic growth, on paper, with the economy expanding about

4 percent a year since Mr. Toledo was elected in 2001. But

that growth has not filtered down, and the deep

disillusionment that failure has inspired is not lost on

Mr. Toledo, whose approval rating is mired below 10

percent.

"What good is an impressive growth rate?" he said in a

speech in May. "Wall Street applauds us, but in the

streets, no. So what good is it?"

What good indeed, when the dividends of democracy are not forthcoming due to the wholesale espousal of free market economics with total state divestment from the public sector? In Latin American democracies there is a real crisis of instability because of the hardship and deprivation that free market economics and IMF policies have occasioned on the citizenry. Hear Juan Forero again:

“Analysts say that the main source of the discontent is

corruption and the widespread feeling that elected

governments have done little or nothing to help the 220

million people in the region who still live in poverty,

about 43 percent of the population.

"These are very, very fragile regimes," he added.

"Increasingly, there's frustration and resentment. The rate

of voting is going down. Blank ballots are increasing. The

average Latin American would prefer a very strong

government that produces a physical security and economic

security, and no government has been able to do that."

Their struggles vividly demonstrate an issue that animates

strife in nearly all Latin America - the gap between the

haves and have-nots of money and power that makes the

region the world's most inequitable, and increasingly the

most politically polarized.

The United Nations report, also drawn from interviews with

current and former presidents, political analysts and

cultural and economic figures, showed that 56 percent of

those asked said economic progress was more important than

democracy.

"Democracy today is broad, but it's not deep," said Larry

Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a

Washington-based policy group. "It's broad in that the

leadership talks about it, it's a buzzword. But the danger

is that the more they talk about it the more skeptical the

population becomes because they see a great deal of

rhetoric but the standard of living of the impoverished

hasn't improved."

The view is common among the common man, particularly in

poverty-stricken corners.

"I believe in an authoritarian government, if it works,"

said Daniel Vargas, 24, a university student from Ilave

whose father was accused with six others of having

orchestrated the lynching of the mayor, Fernando Cirilo

Robles. "They do this in other countries and it works. Look

at Cuba, that works. Look at Pinochet in Chile, that

worked."

“The United Nations report noted that the promise of

prosperity offered by democracy has gone unfulfilled.

Economic growth per capita, it said, "did not vary in a

significant manner" in Latin America in the last 20 years,

even though analysts had predicted that growth would pick

up as governments flung open the doors to free-market

changes prescribed by Washington and the International

Monetary Fund. That institution has instead come to be

considered a bête noire in this and many other developing

parts of the world.”

This almost seems like a contemporary and predictive commentary about the nature of political and economic discourse in Nigeria. The Latin American peoples, groaning under the unseemly burden of a failing and unworkable democracy much consider economic security and well being of more value and importance than political rhetoric. The mantra that we must do all we can to “save the nascent democracy” is absolute hogwash and of no essence and value to the common man in Nigeria. Democracy will only have value and legitimacy to the masses when it is synonymous with economic empowerment, social security, and public safety. Indeed, democracy should exist for the people and not the people for democracy. In other words, democracy must not remain at all costs. It must either conform and bend to our collective aspirations or be cast off as a yoke imposed by a manipulative few for their own narrow interests. This is the lesson that is being learned in Latin America, and I predict will soon be learnt in Nigeria.

It is a shame that in Latin America the populace are increasingly drawing comparisons between the democratic governments of the day and the unwholesome dictatorships of the past, and are even prepared to consider the erstwhile dictatorships with a greater degree of endearment than they were wont to do whilst they were still the incumbent power in the land. This mirrors what we see in Nigeria when the citizenry begin look upon Abacha’s government more favorably than that of Olusegun Obasanjo. Sadly, a dispassionate and arguable comparison will show Abacha’s government to be more purposeful, patriotic, and compassionate, than the reckless and unbridled kleptocracy of the Obasanjo regime that considers it their prime calling to adopt the economic metrics of the West and impose them on a third world country like Nigeria with a different social, economic, cultural, and historical demographic and milieu. Nigeria has become a nation of 130 million guinea pigs in Obasanjo’s big IMF-sponsored laboratory, and his cabinet of mad scientists is administering death in large doses to the citizenry. God save us so that there will even be a Nigeria to talk about in 2007.

The fact is that total state divestment from the public sector is antithetical to the nurturing and growth of a society such as ours. We should eliminate this tokumboh democracy and replace it with something more homegrown, more original, and attuned to our diverse socio-cultural architecture. Thabo Mbeki and John Kufuor have realized this and are moving more to the center while Obasanjo is still at the far right espousing his destructive policies of anti-people, anti-African economic reforms.

South Africa’s Business Day publication details Thabo Mbeki’s disavowal of Western economic metrics due to their destructive effects on third world countries in a June article titled: “Mbeki signals policy shift to the left with fiery defence of state.”

“President Thabo Mbeki yesterday set the seal on a decisive broad policy shift to the left for his final term in office as he lashed out at what he called the "new conservatism" sweeping the world, which enshrined the individual and denigrated the state in a way which could never bring a better life for SA's millions.

In a full frontal attack on freemarket economics… Mbeki's remarks may explain some of the more strident comments of his ministers in recent weeks. These include a new questioning of the property rights of foreign investors and a verbal assault on mining companies this week by Minerals and Energy Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who said they were "sabotaging" empowerment in the sector.

The president's comments, which might prove to be a watershed in South African politics, came as he introduced his budget vote in the National Assembly. They signal not so much a return to the old socialism of the exiled African National Congress (ANC), but a retreat from the ruling party's wholesale conversion to free-market economics just before it came to power.

Implying that he wanted to begin a new debate in the country about the shape of its economy, Mbeki devoted the last half of his speech to an attack on those who supported the liberal and so-called neo-liberal values that characterised American conservatives.

His attack mirrors a similar, but little reported speech to the Socialist International in London last October. Attacking the power of multinational corporations, Mbeki told the gathering then that "the process of the concentration and centralisation of capital has meant the continuous growth of the political power of the countries in which the headquarters of these global economic players are domiciled".

"All this occurs during a period when neo-liberalism has come to occupy dominant positions in the global ideological and political discourse and right-wing parties seem to constitute the majority of governments in the world.

"Among the central theses of the proponents of neo-liberalism are the sanctity of the market economy, property rights and a minimalist state. In reality this means granting the greatest freedom to private corporations to do as they wish. It is a call for the radical reduction of the capacity of the state to intervene for the benefit of the billions of human beings in individual countries and the world," Mbeki said in October.

His remarks yesterday follow a visit earlier this month to the home of the "new conservatism", the US, as a senior member of an African delegation to the Group of Eight conference. The delegation came home largely empty-handed.

Mbeki said yesterday the issue was about individuals who believed government should be as minimal as possible and that market values had primacy and public citizenship was without purpose.

He quoted Hutton as saying "as the new conservatism has honed its rhetoric and political programmes in the US to celebrate individualism and denigrate the state, so that same philosophy has seamlessly become part of the new international common sense; we are all becoming American conservatives now".

He said Hutton had also found that "the social, the collective and the public realm are portrayed as the enemies of prosperity and individual autonomy".

Hutton was quoted as saying: "The conservative creed we have been asked to accept barely needs rehearsing. The Americans live with increasingly unequal distribution of income and wealth indeed many argue that it is the necessary stick and carrot on which a successful capitalism depends. The message is merciless"

Mbeki said that in contrast, the ANC was clearly aligned with the ideas characterised as "the left" because the "obligations of the democratic state to the masses of our people do not allow that we should join those who celebrate individualism and denigrate the state".

"We could never succeed to eradicate the legacy of colonialism and apartheid if we joined the campaign to portray the social, collective and the public realm as the enemies of prosperity and individual autonomy."

I wish to reiterate the following statements by Mbeki:

“the issue…about individuals who believed government should be as minimal as possible and that market values had primacy and public citizenship was without purpose.”

Indeed, Africa and African societies need a different formula when evolving economic and social policy targeted at development. We cannot import Western metrics and impose them wholesale on the Nigerian people. We have to break them down and extract those elements that are applicable then merge them with home grown formulas. It is only then that our people will see the real democracy dividends and there will be social security and economic stability. Not by looking at some report based on a foreign metric with no intrinsic value to the urban dwelling man who treks to work because he cannot afford available transport or the rural dwelling woman who treks to her farm because there is no transport available to her. A retinue of aids and ministers – some dollar-driven and incentivized – that have World Bank experience, etc., is actually a recipe for disaster and a very fearful prospect when considering a country like Nigeria.

Nigerians should unite in mobilize to compelled President Obasanjo to step aside and make way for an interim government of national unity that will organize a sovereign national conference and a new peoples’ constitution. If we allow Obasanjo to escape till 2007 he will hand over to a carbon copy of himself, which will be even worse. If we do not salvage the situation now, the prediction of Prof. Wole Soyinka about an imminent violent implosion is on the horizon.