How The Masses Make Themselves Ungovernable

How The Masses Make Themselves Ungovernable

Abdullah Musa

We were driving across some Kano West Senatorial district’s local governments when we stopped on the outskirts of one of them to ask for the direction of our destination. We stopped by a person who was squatting in front of his house and asked him which road we were to follow; he directed us on. We thanked him and proceeded. I remarked to my companion that I envied that particular person for he was not facing the problems I and others like me who went through educational institutions face.

Let me describe the person who gave us direction. The first thing that struck you about him was his teeth: they were very large, and heavily stained by years of un-cleaned kola nuts residues. His garments were tattered, and he must have been alternating from sitting on the bare earth to squatting, the posture we saw him on. If we are to describe his abode which was behind him, the best description might be to cost the sum total of the value of the materials that made up the edifice. The total value of the mud and cornstalk that made up the house could not have been more than thirty thousand naira.

If you are an elite who has made it: with a palatial mansion either in the nation’s capital or your state’s capital, with a glittering missus at your beckon, (or as is usually the case, you at hers; a willing slave in the garb of the master) with millions of gotten wealth, (someone says ill-gotten is out of use since all wealth now seems to be gotten that way, so why use archaic nomenclature?) safely stashed either in either new, accommodating banks, or in a more accommodating stock market, or in real estate; you might wonder at the sanity of one who envies a poor, stark illiterate villager. You may be right, but read on, for neither I nor the kind illiterate is the subject of the discourse; though on his part, he is a member of the group under discussion.

It may be worth while to recap what others have said earlier about democracy: that it is a government for the people, by the people. If it is an ideal, it might be worth striving for; but the way it is bandied about gives you the impression that a democracy wherever it is practiced presupposes that it is run for the people. But more importantly, it is run by them. Many a Nigerian would tell you that the government that is running in the name of democracy is not meant for him, and there is no way you will ‘accuse’ him of being in any way involved with its running processes.

There are some powerful groups who can clearly be seen to be part of the machinery that runs ‘democratic’ governments, particularly in nations like ours. The civil servants are one such group. They formulate the budget on behalf of the politicians, and due to the peculiarity of our nation they eat the budget together; how can you deny the one who baked the ‘pie’ a portion thereof? The politicians are the second group even though they are the first in the pecking order. We put them second because the civil servant is more permanent, and may in some instances even chop more than the politician. The other equally powerful group, who currently is even seen as victim of injustice, is the group of traditional rulers. They may in some instances even determine who comes to power as an ‘elected’ civilian. An gudu ba a tsira ba, says the Hausa man. The military as a group that held power longest in Nigeria is also a force to reckon with. Were it a laughing matter, Nigerians would have laughed hilariously seeing those who made civil servants to frog-jump whenever a new Military Governor or Administrator came to power, today are being rubbished by some determined youths of an area called Niger Delta.

There are many others who though small in number, influence greatly the affairs of governance in our country. They include female and male prostitutes; they include the marabouts, if you prefer, gardawa; then the enfant terrible, the thug. They come with so many names: jagaliya in Kano; sara suka in Bauchi; Yan’ kalare in Gombe; and OPC in South-West Nigeria. There is however an interesting transformation in South-West where it is reported that the lead thug of OPC in the name of Ganiyu Adams is attending the meetings of Yoruba elders, daring any elder who doubts his credentials to send him away.

Though I had earlier said that the kind illiterate is not the focus of our discourse as an individual, but he will be as a representative of the group under discussion, the masses. The only group that does not directly oppress him in the groups cited above is that of the prostitutes. Female prostitution groups cannot recruit his daughter, because the most portent prostitution, I mean the one that gives more rewards, is the one undertaken by undergraduates, Youth Corpers, or even serving civil servants.

The masses make them themselves ungovernable principally because they are un-educated. Their lack of education on the one hand cripples their ability to participate in governance even if it were democratic in the true sense of the word, and it cripples them in never having the understanding of what being a member of a civilized community or country entails.

When I confessed my envy for that poor wretch on the outskirts of his local government headquarters, and even also being on the outskirts of civilization, I did so because he seems to manage failed expectations better. In some cases, he does not aspire to, nor hanker after mirages. Above all, he does what he is directed to do even though it does not give him the rewards that are promised: he participates in elections, he elects a candidate, a different one assumes the mantle, and logically the goodies do not come his way. But tomorrow, he will respond to the cajoling of the traditional ruler in order to either vote, or be counted in a census, or even allow an unknown liquid to be squeezed into the mouth of his child just because a member of the oppressor class says so.

He and his brothers cannot read the constitution. They do not know from which sources those who run the show derive their power. In real fact, he does not know that he is the source of their power. What he knows from years of their oppression is that he is a victim of their power. Nothing is allocated to him; or rather nothing allocated to him comes to him; unless of course he goes to the house of the powerful councilor or the like to beg for what to use to take his sick and sickening wife to hospital. Do you remember my reference to a glittering missus belonging to an equally glittering member of the elites? The illiterate has a sickening wife, belonging to an equally revolting creature.

Was it by choice that they are what they are, or was it due to negligence, or lack of understanding of the potency of the power of education? The politician would say that he loves the masses. Of course he would, with equal ferocity that I would love a dying bacterium that was causing havoc in my body. How would you not love a competitor who deliberately cripples himself, so that in the race of life you overtake him effortlessly, only to return to see him in squalid state, while you hold your trophies: the glittering missus, the fat bank accounts; the Jeeps; the scented brocades; and above all, the feeling that you are more human than the wretched of the earth.

If that illiterate were a city dweller, and there are millions of their type in the so-called cities of arewacin nijeriya, it is he and his children that defecate by the road side; of course urination is not even evil talk less of considering it a lesser evil. If and if only, by some Supreme intervention he becomes rich, he it is who would want to pay corrupt government planning officers to allow him to build illegal structures; to use electric power without paying for it; to do shoddy work as a contractor; and to hire thugs when he purchases or hijacks a political party as Chairman.

If Nigerian farmers are more numerous than many other groups, for instance the civil servants, why are they not having an equal or greater influence? The answer though obvious to the reader is worth exposing. They have no influence simply because they are uneducated. They do not know how the system runs. They do not understand the budget and the need to have their input therein. They do not see the need to have one of their own as Minister or Commissioner of Agriculture in federal or state government’s cabinet. Why should they whine when they receive a Mudu of fertilizer?

Democracy is for interest groups. You are able to corner more when you place yourself on the path of the flow line. The civil servants direct the flow, so any wonder that there is a dedicated channel that leads directly to their bank accounts? Those who run our democratic system want to eat their cake and also to retain it: they want an enlightened citizenry that can understand government’s policies and thus minimize the cost of enlightenment campaigns, while at the same time they prefer very docile and sheepish masses who cannot insist on Fiscal Responsibility. They have so far shown preference for the latter. In Muslim North who has the capability to upset this oppressive apple cart? The Ulama are best suited. But would they be willing to do so? This is most unlikely for na together with the politicians dem also de chop!

Talaka ka mutu!