PERSPECTIVE

The return of the professor

By

Mohammed Haruna

kudugana@yahoo.com

Once upon a time there was this doctor of political science who believed, by and large, in the liberal tradition of democracy. In other words, his philosophical home was, among other things, the tradition which cherished the largely unrestricted evolution of a multi-party system of democracy. People, he believed, should be free to associate to seek for power at whatever level of society and for whatever cause they choose, so long as their intentions were not treasonable or felonious.

His belief in the liberal tradition of democracy was, however, tampered by one passion. This was his passion for broadening the superstructure of Nigerian politics from one that stood on a tripod to one that stood on four legs. For many years after independence, it seemed as if Nigerian politics revolved only around the country’s three big tribes, namely the Hausa in the North, the Igbo in the East and the Yoruba in the West. Our doctor of political science thought Nigeria’s politics ought also to have factored in the lesser tribes in the three regions.

Our doctor of political science was still trying to solve this double riddle of how to square the triangle of Nigerian politics while simultaneously keeping within the liberal tradition of democracy, when a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to put his ideas into practice came knocking on his door in 1990. This was the year in which his friend and political mentor, military president Ibrahim Babangida, appointed him the director-general of a newly minted Centre for Democratic Studies in Bwari, a suburb of Abuja. By this appointment, our doctor of philosophy became, for all practical purposes, the intellectual guide of Babangida’s  rather ambitious attempt at the political reengineering of Nigeria.

By now it should be obvious to the reader that our doctor of philosophy is no other person than my good old friend Professor Omo Omoruyi who has been in self-exile in America following an attempt on his life not long after his mentor had to “step aside” in August 1993, and after the professor himself had to leave the CDS in rather controversial circumstances.

As the intellectual guide of Babangida’s attempt at politically reengineering Nigeria, Omoruyi seemed to have betrayed his old belief in liberal democracy. Omoruyi, who had been a champion of the natural evolution of party system for the country, suddenly became the apostle of a regimented two-party system. Knowing his old passion for squaring the triangle of Nigerian politics, a passion which he amply demonstrated as one of the leading thinkers in the Constituent Assembly of 1978, it was not surprising that he also tried to sell the ideology of turn-by-turn politics to Nigerians.

As we are all aware, Babangida’s political reengineering and, with it, Omoruyi’s CDS, came to grief in November 1993 when General Sani Abacha swept aside the interim government of Chief Ernest Shonekan which was supposed to round off Babangida’s political experimentation. Babangida had handed over power to Shonekan when he realized that his somewhat gratuitous cancellation of the presidential election of June 12, 1993, had just about broken the limit of Nigerians’ collective patience with his political experimentation.

Inspite of the apparent failure of Babangida’s political experimentation, Omoruyi’s conversion to regimented two-party system and turn-by-turn politics seemed, for many years, to have become even stronger. Two years ago, precisely on October 6, 2000, Omoruyi articulated this belief in a lengthy article he entitled “How Obasanjo should tackle the Arewa Consultative Forum” in the Vanguard edition of the said date. In that article he contended that the North, having ruled the country for the better part of our 40 years of independence, should know that power will reside in the South for at least 30 years before it returns to the North.

“Do the northern political leaders”, he said, “know the feeling among the Southern groups? If they don’t know they should be told that the Southern politicians are determined to rule in turns for another thirty years… They are determined to ensure that after two terms of President Obasanjo (Yoruba) the other two groups, the Ndi-Igbo and the Southern minorities would take turns… The key element in the fundamental restructuring of Nigeria is that the South would not surrender power voluntarily to the North in the next thirty years.”

The faithful reader of this column will recall that Omoruyi’s transformation from a liberal democrat into a two-party system and turn-by-turn political ideologue was the subject of a lengthy and somewhat acrimonious debate between the professor and myself between late April and mid-June this year. For denouncing his political transformation on these pages and for insisting that only multi-party liberal democracy can set Nigeria free, Omoruyi, the reader would recall, dismissed me as someone with a pathological hatred for Southerners and also a believer in permanent Northern hegemony, among other things.

Barely two months later Omoruyi seems to have rediscovered his old true self as an edifying liberal democrat. A little over two months ago, the professor started a seven-part article in The Country, on how the tazarce problem which is hanging fire over Nigeria can be resolved. Titled “Neither candidate nor an office holder be,” the series should be read and digested, not just by President Obasanjo to whom it was principally directed, it should also be read by everyone interested in how it is possible for us, for once, to have a successful civilian to civilian transition in his country.

The key element in Omoruyi’s article is his suggestion about what he called the Bangladeshi formula for conducting the next election freely and fairly. The formula basically is about all current incumbents stepping aside for an interim administration whose composition should be decided by a summit of all political parties in the country. This, says the professor, is the only way that a level playing field, necessary for a successful transition, can be guaranteed. 

“Can the other candidates”, asked Omoruyi, “trust President Obasanjo as a candidate to preside over a free and fair election? Nothing that this administration has so far done will make other candidates trust him. Nigerians do not believe that President Obasanjo could be trusted to provide a level playing field for all.”

Many people may regard Omoruyi’s Bangladeshi formula as something of doubtful merit, if not seemingly a little impractical, but I personally find it more sensible than The Patriots’ suggestion that current incumbents should serve a single term of an extended tenure of five years instead of the current four, with, of course, the corollary that the geo-political zones of this country should then take turns in ruling this country. I find Omoruyi’s formula more sensible because it seeks to restore the principle of multi-party liberal democracy back to the centre of our politics as it was during the First Republic and, to a lesser extent, during the Second.

“Nigeria”, said Omoruyi in reference to the cry that it is long overdue for the Igbo to produce a president, “wants a President who just happens to be an Igbo and not an Igbo who just wants the office because it is the turn of the Igbo. There is nothing like turn by turn politics where voters are concerned”.

Not only is Omoruyi now against turn-by-turn politics, in rediscovering his old belief in liberal democracy, he also seems to have reconverted away from Babangida’s regimented two-party system. “The issue of the number of political parties should be let to the interplay of democratic forces”, he said. “The politicians would sort themselves out, depending on the offices and the level they wish to participate in. A party that is interested in just the state government needs not be a national party. In fact, a party could emerge just to take over a local council. They would have to affiliate with other parties eventually to pursue national programmes”.