The Paradox Of Politics Page 1 of 2

The Paradox Of Politics

By

Pat Utomi

There are times when it really seems so hopeless. You look and it seems like Frank Olizeh is about to be reactivated on his old turf except this time he will not be in search of the common man but for who is responsible for the crash of the Naira. It is upsetting you because you think any moron can tell why the value of the Naira is south bound, then you read that people who should be saying their mea culpas ten times a minute for their contribution to lying prostrate are about to found a new political party. You think it is all getting too much. Then someone comes in with the story of how local government allocations are shared out between councillors with total disregard for the object of the allocations in providing for a poverty stricken people, that they may find some succor. You are about to say damn the whole system, then you remember military rule and you say it could be worse. But why can it not be better?

Surely the news from politics is not so cheering when you look at how election or is it selection fever took over long before the halfway mark at a time when the people were feeling, rightly or wrongly, that they have seen little dividend from this democracy. Just as you are about to give up you hear or witness something comforting. In the past I have indicated pleasure at reports that some governors like and Adamu Mu'azu are doing a yeo man's job of the challenge before them. This Easter I travelled to Delta. I was pleased to listen to a cross section of people with different expectations come to agreement that is touching the lives of the people with creative application of the resources available to the state.

This same period also witnessed a spate of commentary about Bola Tinubu's resourcefulness in State. I have been quite reluctant to comment on in public lest I be seen as a judge in my own court, in some manner of speaking. My close association with the Tinubu transition working team and my close participant observer status in some fairly sophisticated process adopted to lay proper foundation and give systematic service to the people of Lagos by the Governor would make my comments seem incestuous. This has not stopped people from repeatedly questioning me about the performance of the government in Lagos. My answer this past year and half has been to the effect that if the systematic way he and his people have approached solving complex endemic problems in a state more populous and challenging then more than half the countries of Africa, you would know that with time things would bear fruit.

My fear for Tinubu was that the nature of politics was such that instant results count so much even if better and sustainable outcomes required investing more time and effort to get to the root cause of problems. This could result in quick ascendancy of the politics of power to erosion and slippage of the legitimacy required to execute different propositions. But Tinubu kept faith with private sector practices. It is comforting that the results are becoming obvious and people are beginning to recognise the nature of the effort.

Herein lies the paradox of politics. In many instances and places the politics of the land is so debilitative of progress and brings ruin to the integrity of the process of governance that you wish you did not have to put up with some of the people and practices in the public arena that are such glaring bad news. But to get rid of a system that brings you some good, some bad and plenty ugly

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could amount, in the long run, to throwing away the baby with the bath-water. Should we therefore live in a desert of bad governance because we have a few oases of hope? I think not.

The challenge posed here is the challenge of civil society. Resurrecting civil society is imperative if government is to work in the interest of a majority of the people, if not all the people. In this environment in which institutions are weak the onus is on civil society to monitor government actions, help educate public office holders who, acting in ignorance, not because they are wicked and greedy, as some suggests, perpetuate this systemic corruption that raises transaction costs, ensure that capital projects that is foreign-denominated up to 85 percent manage to put pressure on the exchange rate. But because elements of civil society that are not the best informed are the most active, what they tend to promote with good intentions, are ideas that perpetuate the current unjust system in which the strong, especially those who have access and can there from extract monopoly economic rents, prey on the weak and the poor. The manifestation of this weakness of civil society could be seem in opposition to privatisation. Here is an appropriate place to raise the need for affirmative action. As in the United States, corporations should be required to use indigenous subcontractors and inputs up to a certain level. Not to so do will stem development, keep pressure on the exchange rate and heighten corruption.

Even those parts of the system that hold up hope in this fallen house of Nigeria still reek of the odium of the patrimonial state where the same people in public life, corner economic life by awarding the contracts to themselves and keeping the size of government big, thus crowding out the wealth creating private sector. The point has been made often enough about the ratio of public to private consumption in Nigeria being one of the worst in the world. Most of the consumption is in the less efficient public sector. As it is, energies that could create wealth are needlessly locked up in negotiations with the public sector for a piece of the rent in their big shopping war chest. The result is that resources do far less for the quality of life of the citizens because of the quantum and quality of consumption activity.

In its bare essence this discussion reacts to the cliché that democracy is the worst form of government, but for the rest. For democracy to return desired dividend and government to work in the interest of the people and not that of a narrow band that captures power, civil society has to be active in monitoring and speaking up in ensuring that elections actually reflect the wishes of the people. Today our democracy stands on one foot because legitimacy is cautiously given. Few are in doubt that our elections so far do not truly say who was voted for by how many. So long as people feel their votes count for little, the state will continue to have problems of legitimacy which hamper policy implementation and good governance.

The question of credibility of our voting came alive to me on election night in 1999 as President Jimmy Carter and General Colin Powell walked into the dinner my group hosted in their honour at the NICON Hilton. President Carter seemed a bit in a daze as he shuffled for words to give conditional accent to the conduct of the elections. Yes they thought voting in the main reflected the wishes of the Nigerian people but they could not in good conscience call it free and fair.

Civil society has to move voting closer to free and fair if people who can give service to the people are to become involved, that politics be liberated.

http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/particles/paradox_of_politics.htm 7/16/2008