The anatomy of good and bad governance: From liberalism to liberation (II)

“Everything depends upon the course of social development and on the relation of social forces”, Georgi Plekhanov

The advancement of social development and the transformation of the conditions in a given country that favour the strengthening of social forces, should be the highest purpose of governance. This, of course, is subject to the collective advancement of the development of the country’s productive forces, especially in terms of the contribution of the labouring classes towards the betterment of their own conditions of existence.

This philosophical context should underpin our understanding of the concept of governance and our classification of its typology as good or bad, depending on our standpoints and aspirations. This in turn, should be in conformity with the broad outlooks, demands and expectations of the Nigerian people, especially the working classes and their associate classes in the middle ranks of society.

Herein lies the critical importance of subjecting the relevant provisions of Chapters 2 and 4 of the liberal 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (As amended) on governance to careful scrutiny and assessment of their contents. The success and resilience of any institution rest on the capacity of that structure to deliver on the expectations and needs of the public.

The only criteria that we can use to determine the quality or the characteristics of a governance system should be those which can be objectively determined rather than those factors that are subjective in their very nature and conception, such as those being pushed by the liberal bourgeois outlook on governance.

Attempting to establish whether a system of governance is good or bad therefore, must be done through the process of questioning not the motives of government but its ultimate ability to perform certain tasks and duties mainly that conduce towards creating general harmony and felicity in the society.

As far as the Nigeria situation is concerned, our examination of the governance model should arise from our own appraisal of our needs and requirements as a collective, rather than resting such expectations on speculative exercises and what have generally been created as models or yardsticks by external forces that have little or no correlation with our aspirations.

As such, we must decide and resolve that governance should evolve and grow from internal dynamics of our country and not to be imposed from outside, especially predicted on the needs or interests of international finance capital.

The most important consideration as far as the Nigerian masses, especially the working people are concerned, is for governance to liberate our country from the fetters of international capital that have so far reduced us into a state of utter dependency on external supplies to meet most of our essential needs as a nation.

What can be more debilitating than to be told that Nigeria relies on foreign supplies to meet its requirements for ordinary dairy products such as milk, cheese, butter and cream to the tune of $1.5 billion every year?

What can be more poignant and demonstrative of our abject condition than to be told that we rely for almost 100% of our supplies of all refined petroleum products in Nigeria to the tune of $25 billion every year while our local refineries were left to rot? What can be more depressing than the thought that we cannot be near self-sufficient in food production while we sit on some of the most arable lands in the world? What can be more disheartening than to know that Nigeria has become the poverty capital of the world amidst virtually limitless endowments of nature in terms of resources?

The transformation of the Nigerian condition cannot be achieved without addressing the concomitant aspects of good governance and sound management predicated on disciplined approaches to the exercise of leadership in all sectors of the country’s activities. Herein lies the significance of the chapters alluded to earlier in our liberal national constitution.

The responsibilities and the directive principles of State have been clearly elaborated in those chapters by way of provision of good governance to the country along liberal lines. The meeting of these basic or elementary provisions must therefore, form our yardstick of determining whether we have good governance in our country or not.

It is in this spirit that our national policy institutions and professional associations should be called upon to supply the elements that should persuade us, the citizens of this country, to determine whether we are being governed well or not.

Institutions like the National Assembly, the Judiciary, the Nigeria Police Force, NIPSS, EFCC, ICPC, the Nigerian Bar Association, the National Bureau of Statistics, our institutions of higher learning, our various media establishments as well as other recognised bodies, should formulate their own assessments of good governance and provide the baselines for determining the achievement of the objectives that have been outlined in our liberal national constitution.

These should be the only yardsticks that we should use rather than be inundated with various concepts that mean little or nothing in our perception of good and bad governance models. Liberal and bourgeois oriented institutions like the Mo Ibrahim Foundation have created certain parameters based upon which judgment is passed on the performance of governments in Africa. Even by the yardsticks established by that Foundation, Nigeria was deemed to have performed rather poorly in terms of meeting the various elements that constituted good governance by the institution.

The 2024 Ibrahim Index of African Governance makes for interested reading on the subject matter that we are treating. Deepening insecurity and growing mistrust in democratic institutions including democratic governance have today become the realities of the perception of governance in many climes.

The situation in Nigeria has been compounded by the shrinking spaces for participation in governance by the people, with the near total retreat of the so-called political parties and civil society organisations from the decision-making sphere. Even elected bodies like Sate Houses of Assembly and the National Assembly are becoming conformist institutions rather than making their relevance felt as checks on the government of the day.

The themes of bad governance and deficit in leadership have remained the focus of well-meaning Nigerians for some time now. Elder statesmen like former President Olusegun Obasanjo and General T. Y. Danjuma, have decried the situation in Nigeria and pointed out the critical aspects of governance and leadership in our country. General Danjuma was emphatic in this instance when he called upon the League of Northern Democrats (LND) to address the issue of bad governance in Nigeria, pointing out to the alarming fall in standards of political leadership and governance in the country.

The prerogative of establishing the frameworks of governance in Nigeria should belong to the people first and foremost, mainly to the working masses of the country. It should be the people who should determine if their government is good or bad depending on their ultimate perception of the utility of such institutions in their lives.

Meeting the material needs of the people and the security of their lives and property makes the fundamental objectives of governance more acceptable to the people, rather than dwelling on rights that are generally flawed both in their conception and application.

Where rights only are invoked without the need for asserting the needs of the people in terms of the improvement of their conditions of life and the provision of their basic means of livelihood, it becomes an exercise in futility that does not lead to liberation but to further entrenchment of the conditions of alienation of the people from the economic activities of their country.