Dysfunctional at 51

Nigeria is not (yet) a failed state, but clearly failing and dysfunctional! Signs of system failure include inability of the state to protect its people and territory against sundry adversaries-regional militants seeking greater share of oil revenues; Islamic fundamentalists demanding a full Sharia state; armed robbers who take over public highways and banks; kidnappers who regularly and casually abduct citizens for ransom; an educational sector that has basically collapsed-most who can afford it (and many who can’t!) educate their children in countries as varied as UK, USA, Ireland, Canada, Ghana, Togo, Kenya, South Africa, Malaysia, Dubai etc and middle class families go abroad for medical treatment and simple health checks. The Judicial system does not work-litigation may linger for more than five years, and appeals to higher courts may elongate the process to decades; corruption subverts the state which has essentially been hijacked-apportioned for the benefit of those who paid nothing, but have basically converted the state for their own purposes! Policemen request, demand or plead for bribes on public highways; immigration officers solicit “gifts” from returning Nigerians and foreigners at airports; civil servants negotiate payments from citizens who require services from the state. There is no shared sense of common good and the only irreducible minimum is that the “national cake” must be shared equally in line with “federal character”, “zoning”, “rotation” and “consensus”. We cannot agree on anything-citizens’ perspectives are shaped not by any commonly-held values or national ethos, but by ethnic, religious, regional, state, or clan loyalties or alternatively personal interest. It is possible to reverse the process of state failure, but what worries me more these days is the all pervading dysfunction! Or perhaps that is just one more signpost down the road towards state failure!!! A system is dysfunctional when it doesn’t work normally or properly but contrary to normal design and expectations. Let’s examine some examples. Usually people with high risk appetite and entrepreneurial energy create businesses which generate economic activity and employment. Here entrepreneurial types become politicians! Only entrepreneurs will sell their houses and property in order to raise money to contest a party primary in which there are nine other contestants! And then borrow heavily to finance the actual election. Entrepreneurial energy is devoted not to business, but towards capturing a portion of the state. The successful “candidate” proceeds to earn stupendous return on investment, while the losers fight another day! In normal systems, contractors to federal, state and local governments should be business persons while civil servants are those with a passion for social services and administration but here most government contracts are executed by public officers, with the nominal contractors as mere stooges fronting for them. The same officers have responsibility for conceiving, costing and awarding the contracts and since they only can guarantee contract award and payment, they take the largest portion of the contract booty! The political scientist or constitutional lawyer will say the role of legislators in parliamentary democracies is making laws and providing “checks and balances” on the executive, but in Nigeria, legislators do make laws, but (as can be inferred from the relatively few laws passed by the National and State Assemblies since 1999) they may also be contractors as well, as illustrated by the Senate Education Committee and Rural Electrification Agency scandals. So instead of exercising “oversight” over the executive, a legislator may become co-conspirator in executive fraud. All these dysfunctional categories may indeed respond (with some validity perhaps!) that many journalists and newspaper columnists have become public relations consultants, and that much of what is said in newspapers and other media are paid for! The federal government insists on being in charge of every conceivable activity based on a defective constitution. You would imagine that federal authorities desire a long exclusive legislative list on which they alone legislate, as well as a concurrent list on which they can overrule state governments, because they actually intend to manage all those activities they have cornered via the constitution. Well wrong again! Virtually all federal agencies once deployed to the states are almost completely abandoned to state governors-police, customs, immigration, INEC, SSS and even military formations! Talk to any governor and you will understand that (except in cases where there is a political undertone) the notion of federal government is a myth in the states! State governors maintain and sustain virtually all federal institutions in their states, while ogas in Abuja “take care” of their budgetary allocations! There are other instances-state legislatures are de facto departments of state governors’ offices; governors recommend and “appoint” members of the federal cabinet; labour leaders posture for the benefit of naive members, while telling government privately to go ahead with any intended policy; many policemen are criminals; religious leaders are entrepreneurs and often the richest ones; many occultists are Pastors and Alhajis; Nigerians proclaim great religiosity but corruption is endemic; state governors ask for “true federalism” and then beg the federal government to take-over state universities and airports; NGOs are mechanisms for their founders and leaders to live comfortably; university lecturers and medical doctors are always on strike; police summarily execute armed robbers; SSS releases terrorists to Emirs! Nothing functions the way it was designed to work. Why are we surprised that Nigeria is failing?