Body language of the president and activities of his foot soldiers are beginning to make Nigeria look like a system tailored to a feudal republic.
By Emeka Alex Duru
Substantial part of the headline for this engagement is not original to us but lifted from an intervention by Dele Farotimi, a lawyer and robust public affairs analyst. In it, he took a different position to the excitement by many on the recent Supreme Court judgement that granted autonomy to the local government areas. Farotimi identified inconsistencies in the judgement with some sections of the 1999 Constitution.
Besides, he expressed the fears that with President Bola Tinubu’s anti-democratic tendencies and the trademark corruption of the Professor Mahmood Yakubu-led Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), entrusting the future of the councils to the federal government in terms of elections and general administration, is a subtle invitation to danger. Farotimi concluded by inviting the citizens to the ‘Feudal Republic of Nigeria’. That summary drew my attention, instantly.
I had earlier in this space about two weeks ago, precisely, July 19, posted an article titled; “Beyond Supreme Court verdict on LG autonomy”, in which I remarked that; “We are not bothered with legal interpretation of the judgement here. Lawyers are doing so. Ours is how to tailor the councils to serve the people”.
Farotimi’s reaction is therefore a refreshing perspective. There is particularly an angle where his fears make sense. You only need to take a look at the President’s dictatorial outings since coming to office to understand the feudal path he is taking the country to.
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By explanation, feudalism, was a system in which people were given land and protection by officials of higher rank, while the recipients worked and fought for them in return. It was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries.
Feudalism had elements of master-servant relationship in which the people – the vassals, who were given the land to work on, owed their existence to the land owners – the lords. Sycophancy was a major factor in winning favour from the master. The land owner, saw himself as demi-god, entitled to subservience by his beneficiaries. In such situation, the rule of law did not matter. The leader was the law and the lord.
Body language of the president and activities of his foot soldiers are beginning to make Nigeria look like a system tailored to a feudal republic. At no other instance in recent time had that picture become clearer as in the buildup to the ongoing national protest, that has brought out the worst in Tinubu’s handlers and followers. From the likes of his media attack dog, Bayo Onanuga, accusing political opponents of using the protest to unseat Tinubu, to the various arms of the security agencies, raising alerts on the matter even before the commencement of the exercise, the agenda at making the president the supreme leader is becoming. Other instances make the suspicion potent. There is therefore the need for the people to be at alert.
Some days ago, a viral social media video showed a hideous group of Tinubu’s supporters moving round markets populated by non-indigenes in Lagos especially the Igbo, warning them not to participate in the youth protests or face the consequences of doing so. In their warped interpretation, the protest was against the president and a plot to topple his administration.
But that is not what should be. The march by the aggrieved Nigerians is not directed at Tinubu as a person but against the policies of the government that have reduced them to the status of serfs in their country.
The realities of the present economic challenges – rampaging hunger, poverty, unemployment, hyperinflation, freefall of the naira, debt crisis, and exit of multinationals are enough for the citizens to be agitated. According to The Guardian of December 21, 2023, a daily meal of N800 approved for a security dog, and N750 for prison inmates are now higher than what an average Nigerian household earns a day. As of last week, the naira exchanged for N1,600/$1 in the parallel market.
Market surveys indicate that a bag of rice that was bought at N30,000 some months ago currently sells at over N80,000 or more, depending on location and quality. Cement has gone up from N4,000 to N10,000 and beyond. The same measure of Garri that was sold at N1,200, currently goes for N2,500, in some places, higher. House rents have gone up, transport fares hiked, companies are closing shops and families in disarray due to unbearable hardship. No ethnic group is spared the conspiracies of the government. This is not how to run a country.
So, when the people demand that the situation cannot continue like that, it has nothing to do with Tinubu as a person but for him, if he was truly elected by them, to sit up and save the state from going under. What the people demand from him now, is an assurance that their tomorrow will be better than today. No right-thinking Nigerian should of course, endorse any protest that will lead to destruction of public or private properties. Doing so, will mean adding more to the excruciating pains Nigerians are passing through.
Tinubu therefore, needs to change course and call his cheer leaders to order. What they are doing do not portray him in good lights. He was known to have been an advocate of protests and expression of dissenting opinions. Anything to the contrary because he is now in power, is being hypocritical. That was part of the argument in the 2018 publication on comparative politics by Harvard University political scientists, Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, titled; How Democracies Die.
In their words; “Democracies may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders – presidents or prime ministers who subvert the very process that brought them to power”. Levitsky and Ziblatt used soccer game to illustrate how autocrats subtly undermine national institutions to achieve their desire. They start by compromising the referee, sideline at least some of other’s star players and rewrite the rules of the game to lock in their advantage. The institutions that are readily targeted, include the judiciary, law enforcement agencies and other regulatory bodies, that are ordinarily supposed to be neutral arbiters. “Capturing the referees provides the government with more than a shield”, the authors note.
All these antics have played out under Tinubu’s administration within just a year. Few days ago, the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its corruption pattern and trend in Nigeria for 2023, ranked judges and magistrates as first among collectors of cash bribes among other public officials. They were followed by customs or immigration service officers and members of the armed forces. INEC is of course, mentioned by Nigerians with derision due to its gross inefficiency and culture of corruption.
The next step is to subdue the people. By the time that is concluded, it would be a full-blown state capture and drive to a feudal republic.