Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999 was greeted by an enthusiastic public fanfare with many believing that as it spelled the end of the successive authoritarian military regimes, it would equally mark the end of Nigerian masses collective sufferings and set the country into the development path.
Twenty-one years later, the life of an average Nigerian has only gotten worse and Nigeria as a nation has continued to descend into new lows in virtually all development indices.
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Prior to the recent democratic experiment in the country, much of the blame of the country’s stagnation and the lack of progress were put squarely on the intermittent military seizures of power.
However, with the country currently having spent half of its 60 years of existence, shall we persist in holding our past military authoritarian regimes responsible for our current predicaments?
As we unreservedly and invariably accused our past military regimes for Nigeria’s problems, shouldn’t we equally blame democracy for the problems we are facing today as a nation?
Why do we usually tend to give democracy a pass despite being the system that brings our bad leaders to power?
Much like many African countries, Nigeria is a product of colonial legacy that is still struggling to come to terms with her nature of existence.
Many still see it as an inconvenient loose conglomeration of units formed to the convenience of its colonisers.
Whether that’s the case or not, with the country being left pretty much on its own after independence and the majority believing in the continuation of the union, our priority should be on finding what should work best for us, not blindly following the Western political and economic models.
Unfortunately, the latter has been the case as we continue to dance to the tune of the West.
Adopting democratic rule provides a perfect example of that.
But is democracy good for us?
Is it suitable for Nigeria’s unique condition and social composition?
The answers to these questions are relatively simple, given the conditions of life under which most Nigerians live.
The United Kingdom, Germany, France and many of the current champions of democracy in the West evolved in time to become democratic and much of their economic development was achieved prior to their democratic evolution.
As Francis Fukuyama pointed out, in his most recent book: Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Present Day, that the countries that are dubbed the First Wave democracies mostly experienced non-democratic rule before gradually developing their democratic institutions.
If the aforementioned was the experience of the pioneers and the champions of democracy, then how can democracy propel Nigeria to prosperity?
Personally, I’m a firm believer that it can’t.
My reason is simple and somehow empirical.
None of the Second and the Third Waves democracies has achieved any notable development thus far.
Some countries, of course, have done better than others and many have experienced intermittent military seizures of power, as is the case with Nigeria.
A few of them have enjoyed long and uninterrupted democratic rule like India, Jamaica, Columbia, Costa Rica and so on.
These countries are classified as either lower middle income or upper middle income economies based on their Gross National Income (GNI).
By contrast, since 1950s, the countries that have made extraordinary progress and achieved miraculous economic development have done so under non-democratic institutions.
The best examples of these nations are the famous Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) that have successfully engineered and propelled themselves from the third world to the first world status.
The intention of this write up isn’t to proclaim that democracy is entirely a bad system of governance.
However, based on Nigeria’s experience, thus far, and the experience of many other developing countries, it may be the right system in a wrong place and at a wrong time of our relatively infant history.
Fukuyama theorised that democracy breeds patron-client politics, corruption and rent-seeking politicians when practised without having a strong state and an independent bureaucratic tradition in place.
Italy, Greece and the United States are all experiencing some of these negative consequences of democracy introduced without a strong foundation.
By contrast, the likes of Britain, Germany and France have better democratic institutions because they had strong state prior to the emergence of democracy.
If democracy isn’t the answer for Nigeria then what is?
I believe to find this answer, we need to look east and learn from those countries that have walked the walk.
Nigeria’s solution to its political and economic backwardness lies in what Daniel A Bell theorised as “political meritocracy’ (echoed by Parag Khanna as “technocratic meritocracy”) which is a system that functions based on experts analysis and long-term planning.
Leaders under this system of governance are chosen based on merit, expertise and skill in governance.
Singapore has been the champion of this model and other nations across Asia are fast learning from the experience of this tiny city-state.
China with its communist outlook has been modelling itself after Singapore and the result is the incredible economic growth and development the giant nation has been achieving over the last couple of decades.
In Africa, Rwanda (where Paul Kagami has revealed his explicit admiration for Lee Kuan Yew) has taken good heed and has been working hard to model the country after Singapore.
Nigeria, too, is in dire need of a completely radical change of political system that paves the way for its best mind to make ways into the corridors of power.
Our pseudo democracy will only continue to fulfil the prophecy of what the German sociologist, Robert Michels, called “The iron law of oligarchy” where, regardless of how superficially democratic the system appears, things go in a vicious circle and the elite continue to maintain the same extractive institutions and, more or less, the same policies that keep leading to the same devastating outcomes.
The only changes Nigerians witness since the return of the democratic rule 21 years ago is the change (or perhaps reshuffling) of the set of elite leading the country.
Therefore, democracy isn’t the answer; technocratic meritocracy is.
Abubakar Usman Abubakar (PhD)
