Nigeria: A Country In Search Of A New Social Order -By Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh

In the past several decades since Independence, the ruling elite in Nigeria have organized society around themselves and primarily for their own benefit. This explains why nothing seems to work for the citizens and why everything was fine with the ruling class. This Order has been so entrenched over the years that even the ruling elite in the religious circle have confirmed it by their open and shameless romance with the political class.

To be sure of the inequality, notice that since 1999, there has been more millionaires among the ruling elite and those around them than there has been among the common citizen. The scale of brain drain has gone higher since 1999 too. Nigerians are the ones building the economy of other nations by supplying the needed cheap labor for those countries because back home, they were never factored into the economic equation of the federal republic called Nigeria.

From the defunct Second Republic, we know how this system of societal organization profited the few who were in power. The same scenario can be observed all through the Third Republic till 1999. Today, more than 30 years after the system remains the same. This is precisely the reason why Nigeria has been acclaimed recently, as the poverty capital of the world because social order as presently constituted can not guarantee consolidation of relevant institutions needed to produce prosperity for all.

Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh

Professor Simon Johnson of MIT Sloan once said, “Countries rise when they put in place the right pro-growth political institutions and they fail—often spectacularly—when those institutions ossify or fail to adapt.” But the amazing aspect of his statement is that “Powerful people always and everywhere seek to grab complete control over government, undermining broader social progress for their own greed. Keep those people in check with effective democracy or watch your nation fail.”

The election year is very close, Nigerians in their hundreds of thousand are agitating for any alternative that was not the current government in power but some – also in their hundreds of thousand – are quite comfortable with how things played as well as what is happening now. Nigeria, being a multi-religious, multicultural and multi-tribal state is not likely to achieve a different form of prosperity so long as the order of things remained unchanged.

In history, we have read of the revolutions in England (1688), France (1789) and the USA (1776) and we are educated to think that all that was required to entrench a new social order was political transformation. But I have a shocker for you. No multi-tribal, multi-religious and multicultural society ever achieved a successful political transformation without first achieving success in mindset transformation.

It is attitudinal transformation that must be in place first before the Muslims and the Christians can be united enough to resist the ruling elite and successfully put in place a new social order that will guarantee prosperity for all. The ruling elite – it should be known – are not in power without popular support otherwise they will easily fall. It is the popular support they got from a select among the suffering masses plus their friends and allies that keep them in power.

Today, about every Nigerian home and abroad is disenchanted with the ruling APC and its President Muhammadu Buhari but this is happening at a time when what we ought to be thinking and talking about is a new social order. Under the current order, unemployment has not abated. Insecurity and defense spending is ever rising. Electricity is still a mirage. Basic economic infrastructures are ossifying due to the dearth of morals and values.

The citizens are divided between the PDP and the other smooth talkers who are in the race for Aso Rock. But the more they thought about voting the APC out, the more afraid they became with the idea of settling with the angel they did not know. A new order becomes imperative as soon as the old order becomes unable to grapple with contemporary realities. And to say that what Nigerians should agitate about is a new order is to state the obvious.

Advocates of restructuring have made a loud voice but no one cared to listen. Election time has come and the masses are excited about voting into power again, a government that is more concerned about creating cattle colonies than they cared about creating a new system that promoted fairness and equal citizenry. What the advocates for restructuring have not done enough was to take their argument to the masses through organized seminars.

When they captured the majority of the citizens – especially the illiterates – they can confront the ruling elite. The Arab Spring uprising that started with the death or self-immolation of a Tunisian in 2010, was most boisterous because it was a mass movement that the ruling elites in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria did not have an answer to. What am I saying? I am saying that what aileth Nigeria was beyond Buhari or an alternative to address.

Nigeria’s sorry state required a new social system; one that supported widespread distribution of wealth and encouraged the pursuit of excellence. It is beyond the calls to get the PVC, be involved or to vote. I dream to see a consolidation of the ‘Our mumu don do’ movement, the BBOG movement and the Not-too-young-to-run movement. This 4th Republic has so far benefited only the few who belong to the ruling elite.

The idea of getting involved as has been displayed by Comrade Shehu Sani is a great negation to what the situation called for. Folks have indicated interest to ‘go there’ and right the wrongs that have lingered on. But I have always said that if the likes of Senator Shehu Sani could not be different neither will anyone for that matter until there is a popular movement by the citizens of this federation to stop the ruling elite and change the order.

You will agree that despite the great momentum garnered by the Arab Spring uprising, it failed to change the social order because the people thought that the removal of Hosni Mubarak from power would automatically change the system. Today, insecurity and lawless are taking a toll on the Libyans despite the removal of Muammar Ghadafi. Today, Nigerians are worse off under the APC government than they were in Goodluck’s tenure.

Just yesterday (27/11/2018), a peace accord chaired by former head-of-state Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, was again signed. The idea is to secure a peaceful campaign and voting duration but then, was that the solution to the doldrums at hand? For me, a peace accord was unnecessary where the masses understood that no politician’s ambition was worth the blood of any innocent, law-abiding and hardworking citizen.

Nigerians have slaved for the political class for far too long; enough to prick any man without conscience to consider the plight of the people. Once, President Buhari castigated the health system but upon becoming president, has done little or nothing to remedy the situation. Indeed, many are insulted as he continued to back the recalcitrant Prof. Usman Yusuf of the NHIS from being suspended. So the mess called for a new social order.

The policies of government – however pro-people – can not bring remedy to the situation either. We know of the recent rice revolution of the APC government but what we can not find an answer that satisfied us was why the price of a bag of rice was costlier than it was in pre-rice revolution era. The Anchor Borrower’s funds are likely to be lost forever – especially the amounts that was advanced to farmers in northern Nigeria – as one challenge or the other are taken as good reasons for such monies to be lost.

I listened to a TVC documentary of rice farmers in one of the northern states some days ago and flooding was fingered as factor for why rice farming could fail. I know that rice farming is done in Fadama or marshy areas and when there is flooding, it should mean a bumper harvest for rice as a wider area can be claimed for farming rice. Guess what? The farmers said they’d lost monies with the flood!

In this, you can see a clear systematic pressure to sabotage government policies. And like Professor Simon Johnson have said, these powerful people who undermine broader social progress for their own greed can be kept in check through effective democracy and I’ll add, effective democracy is about getting the basics right. It is about the constant search for a social order that guaranteed equal citizenry and equitable wealth distribution. But Oprah Winfrey said it best, “We can not become what we want to be by remaining what we are.”

Comrade Ifeanyichukwu Mmoh is an advocate for attitudinal change, a researcher and authored (THE ORIGIN OF IGBO MARGINALIZATION IN NIGERIA). 08062577718.