Pat Utomi
When I chose the rather long subtitle for my book, ‘Why Not’, in 2019, few saw what I was seeing. Citizenship, State Capture, Creeping Fascism and the Criminal Hijack of Politics in Nigeria is truly long for a book subtitle. But I wanted to leave no doubt about what was crystallizing before my stunned gaze.
The prophetic alarm was needed not because this army of evil people was arrayed before Nigeria but because I realized the trailblazers to perdition were not fully conscious of what they were doing, nor see where they were going. The harm not primed leaves the bigger scar.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelFor most of the lot, it was all just a little silly game to corral power by free or foul means. Just grab it. They were not the authors of ignoring free and fair. Arthur Nzeribe wrote one of the rule books long before them. Just have your name announced as the winner, even if no one voted, take office and use public money to meet them in court, he used to advise the apparently naive.
Today, we know that in this hustle for power, they take money from foreign actors and powers to cause the deaths of thousands of innocents. In the process, they unwittingly sacrifice the progress of a country they actually love to say they love.
Many of them were people I got along with, but knew well enough to know they were limited in understanding the full import of what they thought were mere power games.
Bertrand Russell’s weary wisdom modulated much of my peep at the future back then, and why I thought alarm was necessary. He had warned that men were born ignorant, not stupid. They were made stupid by education. Profound words are hard to argue with. What education made our elite so stupid?
I saw a rentier state ‘educate’ its emerging participants in public life into the stupidity of Gandhi’s social sins, like wealth without work, and politics without principles, and I could see a class able to gamble away the future of a people for the glamour of siren escorts and the ease of corrupt enrichment in public life. I warned. I shouted. I pointed to the better examples in Singapore, Dubai and even Botswana. But they said I was an idealist. Even after misery changed its mailing address to Nigeria, they continued to believe that if they stole enough for their children and sent them abroad, they would be ok. Now they have visa troubles for their grandchildren and bother those of us who sacrificed to erect decent places for learning.
Why Not: Citizenship, State Capture, Creeping Fascism and the Criminal Hijack of Politics in Nigeria was a manifesto on halting a frightening future foretold.
It was important to make the point that fascism is often not an ideological putsch, for as Russell again explains ‘fascism is not an ordered set of beliefs, like laissez faire or socialism…(but) is essentially an emotional protest…partly of anarchic (actors) whose love of power has grown into megalomania….if it could succeed the result would be widespread misery’. It has nearly succeeded in Nigeria and can still reach heights of damage if we let it.
Even more troubling is one of Bertrand Russell’s most famous quotes about how fascism starts. First, they fascinate the fools. Then they muzzle the intelligent.
I saw fools lining up to be fascinated a few years ago and knew the time to muzzle the intelligent was around the corner.
As they fascinated the fools, they unleashed dim wits on social media and scared those who could think but had not the moral fibre to stand by principles.
Even those whose education did not move close to chronic stupidity began to rationalize the emerging consensus. I told those who bothered to listen that the one-party state would soon be fashionable. Some said I was alarmist until APC chairman Ganduje said China was doing great as a one-party state, so why not? The Governors, almost all worthy of a place in Jail, lined up to kiss the King’s ring as the ‘China model’ was declared in vogue.
When reminded that if China was the model, almost all of the top of the APC would long have been executed by Firing Squads for how they use public resources, the silence became louder than thunder.
The worst part of the advance of creeping Fascism is how the media gets sucked in.
Several times in the last few years, I pointed out how Paul Joseph Goebbels rose in Berlin and hooked up with Adolf Hitler to take fascism to its apogee. But the pointers were shrugged off. Then they subtly forced Patito’s Gang off the air. I smiled and waited for what was coming.
Hagiographers became praetorian guard columnists, huffing and puffing. Journalists got big brown envelopes that renewed their hope. Commerce became the excuse as media owners allowed thugs in public life full coverage to insult the intelligence of citizens. After all, they paid for it. No one asks if the money came from the Treasury or the savings of departed rich parents. Who should ask? Values now count for naught in Nigeria.
Does it not matter that where progress is the norm, they say values shape human progress? But that’s grammar for where people like Daniel Patrick Moynihan had a voice. So we carry on.
But all through history, it has ended the same way. The muzzled German intelligentsia emerged from World War 11 in a daze, wondering what had happened. Martin Niemoller is remembered for pointing out that eventually all become victims who lacked the moral courage to speak truth to creeping fascism.
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Dante may remind that the hottest part of Hell belongs to those who in the face of a moral crisis take refuge in neutrality but the real problem that makes this Nigerian moment so frightening is not in joining the ‘ruling party’ or being neutral about the moral crisis in Nigeria, it is that those who aid and abet are not wicked or greedy people as their opponents suggest. They are just fascinated fools, as Bertrand Russell suggests. Their numbers rise to legions. But history waits to remind. It is the weak consciousness of the weight of simple games of muscle and ‘chesting out’ not to be left out in power games that butter our bread, that makes these moments frightening. When the ignorant and the stupid are one and the same, the Salvation Army may need new musical equipment.
The truth is that Nigeria is walking into the Lion’s den with eyes fully open, but manages to say to itself that it is the cat’s pet shop that it’s making a big leap into. The creeping nature of the advance of fascism and emotions fanned by those who play down the meeting point of modernity and democracy, which Jurgen Habermas advertises as rational public conversation, adds speed to this tragic journey. Unable and unwilling to engage in rational conversation on policy and public accountability, government by propaganda sedates the public consciousness and facilitates this sleepwalking into the Lion’s den.
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But let us not cry over spilt milk. I saw today coming years ago and raised the alarm. But the narcissism that has been the blinder for Nigeria’s emergent elite got in the way of preventive action. Now that we are here, what can we do?
Every good family has elders who see from their sitting position what many who stand cannot see. It is they who frame doctrines of necessity and who alert sensibilities to the dysfunctions of a current order, which makes yielding to a new order imperative.
These elders must now don the toga of truth. What are the troubling issues they must speak to?
The Nigerian State suffers from a crisis of legitimacy. Its redemption lies in a credible, transparent, and credible electoral process.
A system that puts politicians ahead of the people must be dismantled.
An incentive system that shifts effort away from production in favour of scammers and those who game the system must be scorned.
Culture must celebrate the principled people of character who invest in procuring competencies that elevate the human condition. The sad litmus test of how Nigerian society has failed is found easily in how it has rewarded Doctors and Academics of distinction relative to public office holders.
Corruption is, of course, the big elephant in the room. Until shame becomes a dreaded thing again and the corrupt feel shame and are ostracized, Airport officials will embarrass with their petty begging, policemen will do the unthinkable to extort, and those who negotiate contracts will sign off on collective well being for a mesh of pottage.
The rule of law and a truly Independent judiciary have to be non-negotiable items, even as the principle of subsidiarity pushes back on over-centralization.
Most importantly, those who preach hate should be called out and care and concern for people, simple love, has to be the banner of public life.
Many times I have considered the cost of this current darkness of our backwardness and the ‘gain’ for those who got us here, and it is clear even they by the material cravings they seek, would have been better off doing the right things. And society would have been far further forward.
In what practical ways can we proceed on these matters?
INEC must be immediately dissolved and a high-trust council involving no politician be appointed to plan the next election.
Massive voter education that elevates civility in public life and calls the violent to order has to be promoted through a rejuvenated civil society.
Importantly, you all must feel a great urgency for ownership of the movement for the reversal of course.
I continue to take solace in where I saw India in 1991 and where India is today. It surely is possible to pull Nigeria back and save a race.
Pat Utomi, Professor at the LBS, is a Political Economist and Founder of the CVL
