STATE FAILURE SYNDROME

STATE FAILURE SYNDROME

By Babatunde Jose

It was my often-quoted friend who said: Nigeria is the ultimate nightmare of the political analyst. The chaotic and anarchic realities do not conform to any model anywhere in the world. Yet they keep getting in the way, making a fool of the most determined of analysts and political scientists. – and I concur with his prognosis.

Contrary to the stand of many so-called wailing wailers, Nigeria is not a failed state, but is in the throes of state failure going by contemporary developments.

Common characteristics of a failing state include a weak and increasingly ineffectual central government with inability to raise taxes or other support in some parts of the country and has little practical control over some of its territory.

However, a failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly.

Failed states create an environment of flourishing corruption and negative growth rates, where honest economic activity cannot flourish. Thus, state failure manifests itself when a state can no longer deliver physical security, a productive economic environment, and a stable political system for its people.

State collapse, breakdown, or downfall is the complete failure of a mode of government within a sovereign state. … State collapse may coincide with economic collapse. State collapse is not always synonymous with societal collapse, which often is a more prolonged process, as in the fall of the western Roman Empire, the collapse of Byzantium, the Caliphates, and the Ottoman Empire.

It was R. Briffault, in his book, The Making of Humanity who said: “A society based on false principles inevitably disintegrates. What really happens is that the phase of society, the order of things in which disregard of right is habitual and accepted, inevitably deteriorates, and perishes.

However much the individual may temporarily benefit by inequity, the social organization of which he is a part and the very class which enjoys the fruits of that inequity, suffer inevitable deterioration through its operation. The ‘wages of sin is death’ by the inevitable operation of natural selections”.

There are five pathways to state failure: escalating ethnic conflicts, state predation, regional guerrilla rebellion, democratic collapse, and succession/reform crises, all of which are daily manifestations in our clime.

There is no doubt ours is a fragile or weak state characterized by low capacity or shaky legitimacy, leaving citizens vulnerable to a range of shocks and growing inability to maintain a monopoly on force in its declared territory.

Failing states or states in decline have the following characteristics: rise in political and criminal violence, loss of control of borders, rising ethnic, religious, and cultural hostilities and cleavages, weak institutions, food insecurity, rise in unemployment, inflation and fall in GDP with attendant rise in infant mortality, falling educational standards and a failed basic health delivery system.

The Quran has repeatedly directed our attention to the phenomena of nations that flourished in the past, but which went into ruin because of their way of life, the goals they pursued, the values around which their culture was organized, their actions and the consequences of those actions.By looking back at them we can avoid pitfalls. See Quran 24: 34; 40: 82-83; 21:11-14.

The Quran says: To every People is a term appointed: When their term is reached, not an hour can they cause delay, nor (an hour) can they advance (it in anticipation). (Quran 7:34)

Just as states can be fragile in various ways, not all regimes (or combinations of institutions) show the same characteristics of fragility. Stable political systems have institutions that mutually reinforce each other and are therefore able to manage tensions without a population resorting to violence.

Natural resources, ethnic composition and a colonial heritage do not in themselves drive fragility. Rather, it is the political manipulation of these factors that can impact on state stability.

Violent conflict is the ultimate manifestation of state fragility. However, it is not just an outcome of fragility, it can also be a driving factor of fragility.
Strong states offer high levels of security from political and criminal violence, ensure political freedom and civil liberties, and create environments conducive to the growth of economic opportunity. The rule of law prevails. Judges are independent. And so on.

Weak states typically harbor ethnic, religious, linguistic, or other intercommunal tensions. Urban crime rates tend to be higher and increasing. Also, the ability to provide adequate measures of other political goods is diminished or diminishing.

Physical infrastructural networks have deteriorated. Schools and hospitals show signs of neglect, particularly outside the main cities. GDP per capita and other critical economic indicators have fallen or are falling, sometimes dramatically; levels of venal corruption are embarrassingly high and escalating. Weak states usually honor rule of law precepts in the breach.
An analysis, published in Foreign Policy, based on 12 social, economic, political, and military indicators put Côte d’Ivoire at the top of the list of failed states, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Yemen, Liberia, and Haiti.

Five oil-exporting countries make the top 60 list, including Venezuela (twenty-first), Indonesia (forty-sixth), and Nigeria (fifty-fourth).

The three top indicators used in constructing the Foreign Policy scorecard are uneven development, the loss of governmental legitimacy, and demographic pressure. Uneven development typically means that a small segment of the population is accumulating wealth while much of the society may be suffering a decline in living conditions. This unevenness is often associated with political corruption.

Governments that fail to effectively manage emerging issues and provide basic services are seen as ineffective. This often causes segments of the population to shift their allegiance to warlords, tribal chieftains, or religious leaders. A loss of political legitimacy is an early sign of state decline. This aptly describes the Nigerian situation where patently intelligent and intellectual minds shift their allegiance to non-state actors and budding warlords and other miscreants and nonentities.

The third top indicator is demographic pressure. In many that have experienced rapid population growth for several decades, governments are suffering from demographic fatigue, unable to cope with the steady shrinkage in per capita cropland and fresh water supplies or to build schools fast enough for the swelling ranks of children.

Foreign investment drying up and a resultant rise in unemployment are also part of the decline syndrome.
Another characteristic of failing states is a deterioration of the physical infrastructure—roads and power, water, and sewage systems.

Among the most conspicuous indications of state failure is a breakdown in law and order and a related loss of personal security. Unfortunately, Nigeria is getting to this point where some parts of the country are being increasingly controlled by bandits and terrorists.

Another indicator is long-standing civil conflicts. The Boko Haram insurrection in Northern parts of Nigeria comes under this purview and the sporadic actions in the Niger Delta and the IPOD menace in the Southeast.

The State is failing when it appoints hexagonal pegs into triangular holes.
The state is failing when it awards a N621 billion road contract to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Yet the country has a Ministry of Works, and a specialized road construction agency, FERMA.

The State is failing when those responsible for supervising building construction works close their eyes to major infractions that would later lead to building collapse and the death of people.

The State is failing when officials responsible for superintending workers’ pension embezzle billions of the fund and are given a slap on the wrist for doing so.
The State is failing when security is so bad that insurrectionists, bandits, and terrorists use our soldiers and in some cases Generals for target practice.

The State is failing when with available remote sensing, drones, and modern satellite imaging technology, we fail to locate the hideouts of terrorists who storm our towns in broad daylight to whisk away students from our schools and cart them off on motor bikes into the forest: We are not talking of the Amazon or the tropical forest of Borneo or the Congo but a forest in the Savanna geographical belt.

*Barka Jumu’ah and a happy weekend.*

*Babatunde Jose*

STATE FAILURE SYNDROME

By Babatunde Jose

It was my often-quoted friend who said: Nigeria is the ultimate nightmare of the political analyst. The chaotic and anarchic realities do not conform to any model anywhere in the world. Yet they keep getting in the way, making a fool of the most determined of analysts and political scientists. – and I concur with his prognosis.

Contrary to the stand of many so-called wailing wailers, Nigeria is not a failed state, but is in the throes of state failure going by contemporary developments.

Common characteristics of a failing state include a weak and increasingly ineffectual central government with inability to raise taxes or other support in some parts of the country and has little practical control over some of its territory.

However, a failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly.

Failed states create an environment of flourishing corruption and negative growth rates, where honest economic activity cannot flourish. Thus, state failure manifests itself when a state can no longer deliver physical security, a productive economic environment, and a stable political system for its people.

State collapse, breakdown, or downfall is the complete failure of a mode of government within a sovereign state. … State collapse may coincide with economic collapse. State collapse is not always synonymous with societal collapse, which often is a more prolonged process, as in the fall of the western Roman Empire, the collapse of Byzantium, the Caliphates, and the Ottoman Empire.

It was R. Briffault, in his book, The Making of Humanity who said: “A society based on false principles inevitably disintegrates. What really happens is that the phase of society, the order of things in which disregard of right is habitual and accepted, inevitably deteriorates, and perishes.

However much the individual may temporarily benefit by inequity, the social organization of which he is a part and the very class which enjoys the fruits of that inequity, suffer inevitable deterioration through its operation. The ‘wages of sin is death’ by the inevitable operation of natural selections”.

There are five pathways to state failure: escalating ethnic conflicts, state predation, regional guerrilla rebellion, democratic collapse, and succession/reform crises, all of which are daily manifestations in our clime.

There is no doubt ours is a fragile or weak state characterized by low capacity or shaky legitimacy, leaving citizens vulnerable to a range of shocks and growing inability to maintain a monopoly on force in its declared territory.

Failing states or states in decline have the following characteristics: rise in political and criminal violence, loss of control of borders, rising ethnic, religious, and cultural hostilities and cleavages, weak institutions, food insecurity, rise in unemployment, inflation and fall in GDP with attendant rise in infant mortality, falling educational standards and a failed basic health delivery system.

The Quran has repeatedly directed our attention to the phenomena of nations that flourished in the past, but which went into ruin because of their way of life, the goals they pursued, the values around which their culture was organized, their actions and the consequences of those actions.By looking back at them we can avoid pitfalls. See Quran 24: 34; 40: 82-83; 21:11-14.

The Quran says: To every People is a term appointed: When their term is reached, not an hour can they cause delay, nor (an hour) can they advance (it in anticipation). (Quran 7:34)

Just as states can be fragile in various ways, not all regimes (or combinations of institutions) show the same characteristics of fragility. Stable political systems have institutions that mutually reinforce each other and are therefore able to manage tensions without a population resorting to violence.

Natural resources, ethnic composition and a colonial heritage do not in themselves drive fragility. Rather, it is the political manipulation of these factors that can impact on state stability.

Violent conflict is the ultimate manifestation of state fragility. However, it is not just an outcome of fragility, it can also be a driving factor of fragility.
Strong states offer high levels of security from political and criminal violence, ensure political freedom and civil liberties, and create environments conducive to the growth of economic opportunity. The rule of law prevails. Judges are independent. And so on.

Weak states typically harbor ethnic, religious, linguistic, or other intercommunal tensions. Urban crime rates tend to be higher and increasing. Also, the ability to provide adequate measures of other political goods is diminished or diminishing.

Physical infrastructural networks have deteriorated. Schools and hospitals show signs of neglect, particularly outside the main cities. GDP per capita and other critical economic indicators have fallen or are falling, sometimes dramatically; levels of venal corruption are embarrassingly high and escalating. Weak states usually honor rule of law precepts in the breach.
An analysis, published in Foreign Policy, based on 12 social, economic, political, and military indicators put Côte d’Ivoire at the top of the list of failed states, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Yemen, Liberia, and Haiti.

Five oil-exporting countries make the top 60 list, including Venezuela (twenty-first), Indonesia (forty-sixth), and Nigeria (fifty-fourth).

The three top indicators used in constructing the Foreign Policy scorecard are uneven development, the loss of governmental legitimacy, and demographic pressure. Uneven development typically means that a small segment of the population is accumulating wealth while much of the society may be suffering a decline in living conditions. This unevenness is often associated with political corruption.

Governments that fail to effectively manage emerging issues and provide basic services are seen as ineffective. This often causes segments of the population to shift their allegiance to warlords, tribal chieftains, or religious leaders. A loss of political legitimacy is an early sign of state decline. This aptly describes the Nigerian situation where patently intelligent and intellectual minds shift their allegiance to non-state actors and budding warlords and other miscreants and nonentities.

The third top indicator is demographic pressure. In many that have experienced rapid population growth for several decades, governments are suffering from demographic fatigue, unable to cope with the steady shrinkage in per capita cropland and fresh water supplies or to build schools fast enough for the swelling ranks of children.

Foreign investment drying up and a resultant rise in unemployment are also part of the decline syndrome.
Another characteristic of failing states is a deterioration of the physical infrastructure—roads and power, water, and sewage systems.

Among the most conspicuous indications of state failure is a breakdown in law and order and a related loss of personal security. Unfortunately, Nigeria is getting to this point where some parts of the country are being increasingly controlled by bandits and terrorists.

Another indicator is long-standing civil conflicts. The Boko Haram insurrection in Northern parts of Nigeria comes under this purview and the sporadic actions in the Niger Delta and the IPOD menace in the Southeast.

The State is failing when it appoints hexagonal pegs into triangular holes.
The state is failing when it awards a N621 billion road contract to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC. Yet the country has a Ministry of Works, and a specialized road construction agency, FERMA.

The State is failing when those responsible for supervising building construction works close their eyes to major infractions that would later lead to building collapse and the death of people.

The State is failing when officials responsible for superintending workers’ pension embezzle billions of the fund and are given a slap on the wrist for doing so.
The State is failing when security is so bad that insurrectionists, bandits, and terrorists use our soldiers and in some cases Generals for target practice.

The State is failing when with available remote sensing, drones, and modern satellite imaging technology, we fail to locate the hideouts of terrorists who storm our towns in broad daylight to whisk away students from our schools and cart them off on motor bikes into the forest: We are not talking of the Amazon or the tropical forest of Borneo or the Congo but a forest in the Savanna geographical belt.

*Barka Jumu’ah and a happy weekend.*

*Babatunde Jose*