HOW REPUBLICS START TO FALL: An Exercise in Introspection

With APC victory over PDP, Nigerians look forward to a corrupt free government that would block all loopholes and making for an economic Eldorado. But after over two years the common man is worse shit than they were under PDP. With the happenings in the last one month, especially the Mainagate, the people have become more disillusioned about the system, even with tokenistic sack of the former SGF.

The major challenge of governance in our clime is the fact that no one really fight for the general good. Once people get into government, their preoccupation becomes primitive private accumulation. No matter the background before assuming office, no one is bothered about transparency and accountability, nor the issues that will benefit the people. We are, at all times engrossed in rapacious plunder for ourselves.

We have representatives and Senators who are paying themselves outlandishly, while the ordinary worker is left to live on pittance and no one seem to care about their plight. As it is today, there is no difference between the current administration and the preceding one. It is all a case of musical chairs.

The question is: What is it that happens that cracks the foundation of Republics?”

When you zoom into periods prior to collapse of Republics, there are a lot of familiar problems: growing economic inequality, intransigent elites more focused on petty political one-upmanship than addressing the needs of their citizens, endemic social and ethnic prejudice, the breakdown of unspoken political norms — very fertile ground if you want to study how it could all go horribly awry if we are not careful.

Tension is created as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer — and the poor feel exploited and ignored by the political elite — this leads to opening for a new “popular” path to political power for ambitious groups looking to exploit all the resentful energy that is circulating.

The problem of growing and unaddressed economic inequality is not just that it's “not fair” or that everyone ought to be “equal.” It's that it opens fertile ground for demagogues to step in and exploit the rage, grief and insecurity felt by people and ride that resentful energy to power.

The core problem is that it creates a far more confrontational style of politics, because it is not just that popular grievances would lead some leaders to try to channel it. It is also that the rest of the political elite fight tooth and nail to prevent even limited and fairly reasonable reform, as they are now doing against restructuring. The popular desire for reform is being met by intransigent resistance from the elite.

The elites are naturally skeptical of change, but their resistance to “popular” demands is driven by the dominant political position they occupy, not principle.

It is easy to take over teeming horde of the poor, by promising the hopeless and the angry and the bitter that one has all the answers to their problems — and, more importantly, that one knows who is to blame for all those problems. With that — anyone can harness their anger and ride it to the top. With the population of the poor growing we can expect anything and at any time.