National transformation and the people

On September 18, I was a discussant for the paper presented by the former President of Ghana, John Kufour, at the independence anniversary lecture. The theme was – Nigeria: Security, Development and National Transformation. In my paper, I questioned the assumption of President Jonathan that national transformation is about what presidents do on their own. I argued that transformation is what has been on-going in Nigeria for the past three decades and the motive force of the transformation has been the role of trade unions, professional associations, citizens and civil society in putting up barricades to confront three decades of military dictatorship and fight against tyranny at a very high cost to their lives and liberties. The result has the return of democracy based on popular struggles. In the march of the Nigerian people to impose the transformation agenda, those in power were stumbling blocks rather than partners. In the 1980s, our ruling classes took the side of the multi- lateral agencies, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. They told Nigerians a narrative about how we have lived above our means in a context in which our production was not at pace our consumption so they must impose discipline and austerity on us. It was in that context that SAP was imposed. There were cuts in public employment, massive devaluation of the naira and inflation, the withdrawal of the state from social provisioning and so on.

The imposition of austerity measures was extremely traumatic for the people. Even the middle class was pauperised and a massive brain drain occurred as professional groups moved out to search for better lives else- where. It was in that context that the suffering Nigerian people engaged in the transformation agenda. Economic hardship was translated into political action as we the people fought against the conditionalities that were imposed by the Bretton Woods institutions. This happened in 36 African countries where austerity measures were imposed in Africa and the people got onto the barricades to contest the tyrannical and authoritarian that had turned public policy into a weapon to punish the people. It appeared very naturally at that point that the solution to economic hardship that Africans were suffering was to question the logic of the imposition of the austerity policy package by those who control the world economy. And it was in that context that massive riots started all over Africa, unions became very active, and churches started making political comments that the policy package was cruel and unacceptable. Prior to SAP, military governments acted as if they were above the law and reacted violently when their actions were questioned. When therefore they acceded to SAP and had to accept the principle of handling economic aid in line with the laid down conditionality, it became possible to start demanding accountability. In addition, the sudden upsurge in civil society activities aimed at combating the implementation of structural adjustment policies created synergy between the struggle against eco- nomic hardship and demands for democratisation. The logic on the part of the civil society therefore became that if the military could be held accountable by distant IMF and World Bank, why not by the citizens? It was in this context that strikes, popular revolts and uprisings became the order of the day in the 1980s and early 1990s. Those of us who were out in the streets demonstrating against SAP and suffered tear gas and beatings from security agencies were at the origins of the transformation agenda.

We all recall that the response by the international community to our demonstrations was that the policy package was not open to discussion; it simply must be implemented completely and immediately. That is the context that the phrase (TINA) arose. For every riot or economic argument, the response from the bosses was that “There is no alternative (TINA) to structural adjustment and austerity measures.” There is no alternative to the economic path we are giving you – just obey, just follow. Thank God we said to hell with them. Today, the World Bank and IMF have changed their discourse. They have confessed blind austerity cannot solve our problems.

I also made the point that in January this year, I was one of the thousands of Nigerians in the streets demonstrating against the removal of fuel subsidy by my beloved President Goodluck Jonathan. The leading intellectuals of the regime came out to criticise us for our lack of understanding of basic economics. We were told that the evidence is clear that the subsidy is unsustainable. We were dismissed as enemies of the transformation agenda who did not realise that the money for the transformation agenda was going into fuel subsidy rather than economic development so we were considered as saboteurs. The Nigerian people however stood their ground until the labour pulled the carpet under their feet.

The point the people made was that there was nothing wrong in subsidising a product that is of vital need to the people. The problem however was that people were not being subsidised, the money was being stolen. Today, the jury is out. It was not a subsidy regime; it was a regime of mega looting. It took massive street protests by the people for President Jonathan and his government to finally understand that the subsidy regime was not an abstract issue of abuses of a system but the most dramatic expression of mega corruption in Nigerian history. In his response to my comments, President Jonathan insisted that the demonstrations were an indication of manipulation. In his own words: “During the demonstration in Lagos, people were given bottled water that people in my village don’t have access to, people were given expensive food that the ordinary people in Lagos cannot eat. So even going to eat free food alone attracts people. They go and hire the best musician to come and play and the best comedian to come and entertain; is that demonstration?

Are you telling me that that is a demonstration from ordinary masses in Nigeria who want to communicate something to government? For me, if I see somebody is manipulating anything I don’t listen to you but when I see people genuinely talking about issues I listen. I am hardly intimidated by anybody who wants to push any issue he has. I believe that that protest in Lagos was manipulated by a class in Lagos and was not from the ordinary people.”

Maybe it is not surprising that President Jonathan would continue to believe that the hundreds of thou- sands of Nigerians in dozens of cities all over the country were on the barricades campaigning against fuel subsidy because they were manipulated. It’s the reflection of an attitude that sees the people as those who should just accept what they are told because it is their government that is talking and that government, as he said, was elected by a wide margin. The vision of national trans- formation he is articulating is one that conceives social and political change as something presidents and their ministers do. It denies the fundamentals that democracy is about accountability to the people and that all the people cannot be wrong in a democracy, they can only be right. People were killed by security agencies during the demonstrations and they continued to come out. Its disingenuous to think the water a few was offered was the essence of the street protests.