Democratising Democracy

Among other things, 2023 will prove the institutionalisation of democracy in the national scheme of things. Prove, not validate. For all I know, democracy has been perfectly entrenched and does, in fact, determine who gets into what high political office in the land.

How does this work? There seems to be a misunderstanding of what democracy is and is not. Over the weekend, while hanging with friends, an outlawed topic of discussion found a way through the back door: 2023. In the middle of the melee, was a self-styled legionnaire of one of the two horses racing to Abuja from Lagos and Adamawa who could have swallowed a Qur’an whole swearing that his horse would have an easy sail to Aso Rock if there was indeed such a thing as democracy in Nigeria. It was remarkable how religiously he seemed to believe all he was saying. From where I was standing, he believed everything he was saying. I knew him as a terrible actor, so. “In 20 years, when votes start to really count, we [his political descendants] will run things and that will include you”, he prophesied.

He believed that the only problem was that votes did not count – and that is a familiar and quite popular sentiment. But it doesn’t really matter… you can look at it this way: that our votes do count because even when outcomes are “rigged”, in that votes were bought and sold so that the highest bidder gets the election, the will of the people has still prevailed. That is what democracy has always been about – the highest bidder always carries the day. The difference is the bid itself. If someone will bind the society into a single force of nature in the pursuit of a collective agenda, if they will make sure there is sunshine every morning – just because the education system works, because healthcare services are available, because the courts are open and justice accessible to the good, the bad and the ugly, because food is so plentiful that a functional network of potable fura supply is in material fruition, well that is a political bid. If they offer a thousand naira only, or maybe five or even fifty for your vote, that too is a bid.

If you take the N1000 or the blue pill, because it is at least a better deal than getting nothing now and nothing at all for four years, you will wake up from the silly slumber back to reality, with a token of gratuity to boot. A delicious snack of suya and some orange juice will certainly hit the spot right there and then. That or a mudu of rice. That is one way to go, but then that is what life is worth to you. But if you ignore the red flag in the red colour of the red pill and damned all consequences to choose it, then no suya for you. You will have no electricity either, no drugs at hospitals and dispensaries, you will not be able to pay the Primary IV tuition for your little daughter and your son who has a medical scholarship will spend half of every school year at home no thanks to ASUU. That is another way to go – one heck of a slap down, but a way to go. Your reward will be in finding out how deep the fabled rabbit hole went, and consequently taking back your life.

Democracy is about having a choice, but also about the capacity to make the right (or difficult) choice, the one that might take you through the valley of the shadow of death. On the second count, about holding out for what is right against wrong, we are almost hopeless.

According to Winston Churchill, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” On most streets in Nigeria, you don’t need five minutes to hate the very idea of democracy. The cult of ignorance, arrogance and ignorant arrogance as well as arrogant ignorance is a respectable element of contemporary popular culture. As Isaac Asimov puts it, talking about the United States, “The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’.

The thing is that in a society where almost everyone is dominated by someone else’s mind or by a disembodied reality, it will be difficult if not impossible to learn the truth about what is going on behind the scenes… where the gladiators don’t have to maintain character in the Greek parodies they’re acting out. A number of important scholars already argue that democracy was illusory, and has served only to mask the reality of elite rule. Indeed, it is arguable that elite oligarchy is the unbendable law of human nature, due largely to the apathy and division of the masses – as opposed to the drive, initiative and unity of the elites as we have seen time and again in this country and beyond, when the rich and powerful muster their private jets to attend wedding fatihas and such – and that democratic institutions would do no more than shift the exercise of power from oppression to manipulation.

But the fact is that in Nigeria, just as much as in the ‘advanced democracies’, we decide who governs us. Our votes actually do count even if the count is not necessarily done by INEC. Rest assured, they all go to Aso Rock, and to NASS and to all the other smaller rocks and nests with our full consent. But the choice, this consent, is not as straightforward as it might appear.

They say democracy is a slow process of stumbling to the right decision instead of going straight forward to the wrong one. The problem is not democracy but institutional arrangements backed by consistent administrative policies of the state and participation by the citizenry. It was still the same Winston Churchill who said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others”. The consolation for us is that it will get better before it get worse, and then better, and then worse in a perpetual pendulum of gloom and glory.

Democracy has to be democratised to be what most of us imagine when the word is mentioned. Bottomline is that, as James Bovard puts it, “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”