DECLINING VALUES, POLITICAL CULTURE IN NIGERIA
By Babatunde Jose
The history of Nigeria’s politics since the coming into being of the Fourth Republic, like its earlier democratic experiments has shown intractable but avoidable defects and deficits in the practice of participatory democracy.
To interrogate this ugly phenomenon, we will focus primarily on the role played by undemocratic attitudes, unwholesome values, objectionable beliefs, and sentiment, in short, the declining values and political culture, ‘ala Nigeriana’.
This essay was first commissioned and published in The Nation newspaper while my friend Tatalo took a sabbatical from his Sunday column; but is very germane to the current political discourse in the country.
The impetus for this discourse is borne out by the incessant, reoccurring incidences of fraudulent, dishonest, and sometimes violent elections in Nigeria which has culminated in engendering undemocratic attitudes, values, and behavioural patterns that the politicians carry into the political terrain.
Political Values are a set of shared beliefs, convictions, and attitudinal dispositions and supportive idiosyncrasies, towards the socio-political system in the society. Yet there is sometimes a significant disconnect between what Nigerians are willing to uphold in principle and how they behave in practice.
There are certain requisite political norms, orientation and attitudes that create and sustain the environment for credible and democratic political evolution. This unfortunately is lacking in the Nigerian political space.
On the contrary, what we have, is a situation where electoral competitors engage the electoral process and system with anti-democratic values and attitudes that frustrate the enthronement and attainment of political development in Nigeria.
From the colonial period, Nigeria has conducted about 21 general elections to date: Apart from the annulled June 12 elections of 1993, they were all congenitally marred by electoral corruption.
There is a consensus that the integrity of elections has been on the decline since 1959 with the 2007 general elections widely assessed by both local and international observers as the worst in the country’s history.
Electoral crisis in Nigeria has been attributed to several factors which includes weak electoral laws and institutions, lack of independence and bias of the electoral umpire, long years of military involvement in politics and several other factors.
Political culture refers to the dominant pattern of orientations or popular attitudes to the political system, its processes, and institutions, among the members of that nation.
Political culture has normative and subjective qualities.
It is about the ideals that influence citizens’ perceptions about how governance ought to be carried out. It is this subjective realm which underlines and gives meaning to political activities as well as the level of the citizens’ involvement in the politics of the state.
There are three types of political culture: Parochial, Subject and Participant.
In parochial political cultures, there is poor political socialization, and the citizens are apathetic towards government, its structures, functions, and its functionaries, leading to poor political participation on the part of the people.
In a subject political culture, citizens see themselves not as participants in the political process but as subjects of the government.
Participant political culture on the other hand, is geared towards active involvement of the citizens in government. Unfortunately, what we have here since the departure of the military has been a politics of de-participation. Connoting a nonchalant attitude to the political process: A disposition borne out of despondency and frustration. As a result of the failure of leaders to deliver the so-called dividends of democracy.
It is the major cause of low-voter turnout, exemplified by the last Anambra gubernatorial election with less than 25% of the electorate voting. It was an election without the electorate.
The 2019 presidential election recorded the lowest turnout of voters in the history of recorded elections in Africa, with a 34% turnout.
There is however an element of ‘chua chua’ in this election thing. Consider these facts: A look at the data for the various elections in Nigeria, since 1979, you will discover that we have not been telling ourselves the truth. In 1979 the number of registered voters was said to be 48.6 million.
This jumped to N65 million in 1983; then miraculously went down, ten years later, to 37.8 million in 1993. In 1999, there were 57.9 million people in the voters’ register. Compare this with the figure for 1983 and see if you will make any sense out of it. In 2019 election INEC said it registered 84 million voters.
Nigerian political turf is dominated by parochial and subject political cultures. The citizens do not voluntarily and effectively participate in the political system and its processes because they are highly cynical and distrustful of their political leaders. They are also not loyal and proud of the political system because the system is not fair and responsive to their interest.
Moreover, it is hard to argue that elections have promoted positive change in the country. Nearly every elected government has underperformed. Successive governments have failed to reduce poverty, build infrastructure, and maintain law & order. Instead, Nigeria seems to be regressing.
Apart from the citizens, the leaders are not patriotic or nationalistic and altruistic in outlook. They are always ready and willing to sacrifice the democratic tenet of the rule of law to grab and sustain political power.
In their struggle for power, the citizens are seen as pawns to be used, abused, and dumped. This explains why elections in Nigeria are characterised by electoral corruption, violence and the abuse and usurpation of the inalienable rights of the citizens to decide who will govern them.
The products of undemocratic elections are distinctively exclusive, dictatorial, lawless, corrupt, predatory, and unresponsive to the needs and yearnings of the populace; the ultimate outcome is governance that falls short of the expectations and needs of the people.
I am in total agreement with Chidi Amuta’s profile of Nigerian political class when he wrote that: “Political parties change and increase in number every election season.
The acronyms that distinguish them are ideologically empty. They are merely arrangements among friends or strange bedfellows for the sake of cornering state power at regional, state, local government, or federal levels for the purpose of distributing patronage and perk. Beyond the drama of electioneering and the ritual of voting, our democracy delivers almost no positive change in the lives of citizens. . . . . . Political actors behave like characters from gangster chronicles.
Politicians act mostly out of self-interest and narrow short-term calculations rather than far-sighted national goals. Hardly any of the major players in the drama of intrigues . . . . display any serious commitment to national ideals or even a pan-Nigerian vision. Nor do we encounter a single individual politician whose stake in the power struggles is fired by any ideological convictions on how best to develop Nigeria. . . .
They have no political ancestry, being mostly political orphans with no solid convictions or even ethical moorings or moral qualms whatsoever. In quite a number of cases, the major political actors possess no credible educational qualifications.
Most are in politics because there is nothing else to do: businesses have failed, professional practices have collapsed, and unemployment has often driven many to the limits of creative survival.
They therefore act mostly in pursuit of their immediate personal or small group interests. All eyes seem to be fixated on the national treasury, the giant cheque book of oil royalties.”
These are not the men who would effect change in the structure of our political system. In the 20 years since they have been talking of ‘resource control’, ‘fiscal federalism’, true federalism’ and ‘restructuring, no bill has been raised in our ‘collective’ called the National Assembly.
What we have are demonstration of ’craze’ and crazy demonstration; a deranged senator promising to ‘impregnate’ a married fellow senator in open floor of the chamber, members dealing ‘dirty slaps’ on colleagues and all forms of rascality that are very unbecoming of the representatives of the people.
Under this tainted and odious climate, we might wait till eternity for any meaningful change; definitely, not from these gangsters and human barracudas. No doubt, our leaders have broken their ‘covenant’ with us.
But those who break the Covenant of Allah, after having plighted their word thereto, and cut asunder those things which Allah has commanded to be joined, and work mischief in the land; –on them is the Curse; for them is the terrible Home! (Quran 13:25)
Governance in Nigeria seems to be a zero-sum game producing leaders as winners and electorate as absolute losers. This pseudo-reality has shaped voter behaviour during election cycles, eroding the moral zeal to vote. With a long history of disappointment, individuals who choose not to participate in political activities can be forgiven for treating elections without reverence.
The Nigeria ruling class is economically unproductive and weak. Lacking an economic base, the Nigerian ruling class has used political power, particularly the control of state power, to amass wealth to consolidate its material base to the extent that political power is now the established way to wealth.
Thus, the capture of the state power inevitably becomes a matter of life and death. This is the primary reason why the struggle among political elites is so intense, anarchic, and violent. They compromised participatory and inclusive democracy as well as replaced the rule of law with the whims and caprices of men.
In summary let us part with the comments of Segun Adeniyi: “A democracy anchored on a ritualistic and mechanical conception of elections that are not issue-based will not only enthrone people who neither understand the rudiments of governance nor the ability to advance public good but will also ultimately run into trouble.”
And Tatalo Alamu: The devaluation of politics such as we have witnessed in this Fourth Republic leads to a progressive emasculation of alternative visions of the country.
Barka Juma’at and Happy weekend.
Babatunde Jose
