August 2, 2013 by Ayo olukotun (ayo_olukotun@yahoo.com)
The persistent, ominous calls for a revolution
Elder statesman, Yusuf Maitama Sule, joined, this week, the frighteningly long list of distinguished Nigerians calling for a revolution as a way out of the political decadence and regression in the country. The Guardian Sunday edition quoted Sule on July 28 as saying that Nigeria requires a revolution, with the rider, however, that he does not advocate a bloody revolution.
Sule’s allusion to the revolutionary option came on the heels of a similar more categorical advocacy by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, who said early in July that all the ingredients of a revolution, namely injustice, crushing poverty, rampant corruption, joblessness and the like are present in Nigeria. Senior citizens such as Prof. Ben Nwabueze, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, Gen. T.Y. Danjuma, Bishop David Oyedepo, Pastor Tunde Bakare, among others have made similar calls or predictions in the past.
It is one thing for students or workers’ union activists to advocate a revolution which connotes a violent overthrow of an existing order for the purpose of radical transformation; it is quite another for established and privileged citizens to call for radical break with the present. Factoring, for example, that these are citizens who have President Goodluck Jonathan’s “hotline”, one is left to wonder whether they had reached the end of their tether in seeking a peaceful reform behind the stage. To be sure, this is not the only group of Nigerians making this prescription. As a columnist, I receive several telephone calls from concerned Nigerians commending or commenting upon something I had written. Most of them invariably end their analyses with the refrain: Only a revolution can sort out Nigeria’s problems.
Even if a revolutionary option is not on the cards, the pedigree and number of people reaching the conclusion that it is inevitable may actually trigger or predispose Nigerians to that eventuality. Sunday PUNCH columnist, Tunde Fagbenle, provided some insight on July 28 into the circumstances fuelling the growing frustration in the country. Fagbenle highlighted the recent publication by The Economist that our legislators are the highest paid globally, when salaries are related to a country’s Gross Domestic Product per capita. Fagbenle then went on to ask: “Would it change? Is anyone alarmed? Does it disturb the mind of anyone out there sufficiently to want to probe this and seek amelioration? Of course not. A shrug is perhaps the most you’ll get and business goes on as usual.”
In other words, no matter how shocking the statistics of official prodigality get, no one seems concerned enough to do anything about them, because those who ought to restrain others are themselves too implicated in the same business to blow the whistle. At any rate, why blow the whistle, now that elections are around the corner, and the support of all the guilty and criminalised are needed in what is shaping up like another do-or-die contest? Again, who is to blow the whistle on the legislators in a government which had no qualms about “storming China” with a large entourage of 13 ministers and four state governors for negotiations which could have been carried out by diplomatic officials?
If government is aware that it is the disparity between official affluence and the worsening state of infrastructure as well as the plight of the citizens that is fuelling the calls for revolution, it has not demonstrated any such knowledge. All we hear, most times, is that it is those who are disgruntled or who want to “bring down” the Jonathan government that are “making noise”. There is a hardening of the political arena. Those in power, pick and choose who they listen to and which voices they black out or demonise. There is no conversation worth the name, the critics are talking to one another while government carries on in its obdurate, often reprehensible ways.
My reading of the persistent calls for revolution from senior citizens is that they would have preferred a reformist segment of the political class to drive overdue reforms if for no other reason than the enlightened interest of self-preservation. However, they see that such a prospect is receding by the day as the jostling for power usurps serious matters of governance. They are therefore raising the alarm of revolutionary change so that those who still have ears may rise to the occasion to pre-empt such a drastic and unpredictable occurrence. On the other hand, it may also be that these citizens are so frustrated and disillusioned in their efforts to nudge our leaders in the right direction, that they are willing to consider radical renewal by revolutionary means.
However we interpret the growing calls for revolution championed by notable citizens, they send around frightening messages in high decibels about the deteriorating state of things. Matters are not helped by the perception of Jonathan as a genial easy-going leader who is however too weak to cleanse the Augean stables that are riddled with the overpowering stench of corruption.
Attractive as a revolutionary scenario is, however, it is not without its problems as the descent into anarchy in Egypt illustrates. It is interesting that Prof. Charles Tilly, distinguished scholar of revolutions, discusses them along the two related concepts of coups and civil wars, suggesting their unpredictable trajectories. There is also the issue of whether you can have a revolution without revolutionaries or scholars of a new utopia.
Where are the revolutionary vanguards with their green or red books? Indeed, what sort of revolution are we talking about: A left wing, a right wing, fundamentalist religious ones and so on? The questions are endless; but the concerns are real and urgent. As matters stand, I do not think we have exhausted the possibilities of radical reform within the current democratic dispensation. The people through protests and peaceful demonstrations should set an agenda which would determine the shape of elections in 2015 and beyond as well as generate a charter of reforms that can reorder the political space in an edifying manner. Protests over fuel price hikes in January 2012, for example, threw up an engagingly querulous national conversation over corruption and official profligacy. It showed too that the people will not always be spectators on burning issues of governance as well as provided a template for possible system change initiated from below.
There is also the need for those talking about revolutions and who are in a position to make changes to do the little they can to inspire wider reforms. What stops Tambuwal, for example, from championing a move to whittle down the salaries and emoluments of legislators? Similarly, those we may call reformers within the system can match their words with action by initiating changes in their terrains and by personal example.
At any rate, we must begin to actively canvass creative alternatives to the ominous prospects of revolutionary anarchy.
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