CIVIL SOCIETY, DEMOCRATIC STABILITY AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: INSIGHTS YOUTHS MUST KNOW

CIVIL SOCIETY, DEMOCRATIC STABILITY AND NATIONALDEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: INSIGHTS YOUTHS MUST KNOW

IYANDA KAMORU AHMED PH.DDepartment Of History And International Studies,

Nigeria Police Academy, Wudil Kano.Email:[email protected]

Introduction

Nigeria democracy and development is very much fastly

progressing like a body without a soul; this bothers so

much on continuity and change. Part of the difficult

found in recent times in appealing to younger minds in

an organized fashion on serious issues grossly

affecting the youths in that young people have become

easily caught up in phantasising frenzies of today’s

democratic sermons without serious resource to

historical realities. And this has been a general norm

of prosperous conservatives everywhere that facing

reality has become so much sacrosantly a mirage that

there seems only a nation of dreams, cultism and drugs

1

left to escape into and continue to nonsensicate

democratically and otherwise.

Deeper insights into Nigerian political history

reveal that democratization process nowadays has safely

allowed and indeed encouraged a form of liberty that

has come to be known as permissiveness. A collar to

this was happening in France before 1989 and was

recognized in historical contexts where individual

license was spleely substituted for collective progress

or national development’ and where reconstruction of a

while social and political order became inevitably

overdue.

Recounting on this, it is crystal clear that we

must only be lately but sure quite abruptly and

inevitably be forced and brought up against the reality

sooner or later that’ reckless dehumanization of

2

Nigeria masses, combined with conceived, not a solution

to anything but a blind alley or trap of western

democratic development for at least, in the

underdeveloped nations.

Paradoxically, there is pessimism about the

practicability and fragility of stability of democratic

culture in peripheral social formations like Nigeria.

Such pessimism is largely derived from the Euro-centric

perspective of mainstream democratic theory and the

mechanistic products of the modernization and

dependency perspectives.

This paper envisioned that the problematic of civil

society or democracy and reality of democratic

stability law and national development has to be

properly located within a broad spectrum and concrete

underpinnings of the operate of Nigerian mode of socio-

3

economic formation and political behavior stemming from

it. It is from these that these crucial issues will be

concretely discerned. The paper in sighted that the

task of the struggle for the construction of a real and

stable democracy and national development has been

futile; and the role of the youths, the oppressed and

popular forces of the Nigerian masses are recognized in

carrying it forth through revolutionary strands of

democratic realism of Nigerian peculiar circumstances.

Conceptual and methodological Issues

Conceptual problematic arise in attempt first at

conceptualizing civil society. There is currently a

tendency to turn away from disappointments of nation-

statehood, to embrace the world outside the state as an

4

alternative source of inspiration and way out to of

development. Thus, the concept of civil society has

tended to become a catch-all alternative to a demonized

state of a nation such as Nigeria, (Mama, 1999). But it

must be made transparently clear that while it is more

than apparent that Nigeria and some other African

states generally have failed to fulfill the aspirations

of their people, it is still problematic to assume that

a viable alternative exists outside the state. Beckman

(1977) and Mamdani (1996) both interject cautionary

insights into the uncritical embracing of civil society

as the alternative to the pervasive crises of the

African state.

Beckman (1977) challenges the liberal assumptions

implicit in most conceptualizations of civil society,

drawing attention to the possibility of patriarchal,

Islamic communist and fascist civil societies. Mamdani

5

(1996) also throws substantial light and points to the

fact that the origins of modern civil society is far

from innocent; according to him “the history of civil

society in colonial Africa generally is laced with

racist imperialism, for civil society was first and

foremost the society of the colons”.

Historical material on Nigeria politics favours a

conceptualization of civil society as predation

colonial rule. This joins with those who argue that for

it to be properly applied, civil society insights must

be considered in the light of the historical relations

of Nigerian society. To do this would require an

“excavation” of the past raising the questions that

emanate from the perspective of civil society theory,

viz; what was the basis of consent to government, and

what social organizations restrained the exercise of

state power?

6

Democratic insight and political theory also poses

fundamental challenges of accepting notions of civil

society, drawing attention to its exclusionary

characteristics/Philips, (1992). Although some people

remain naïve enough to assume “civil society to be

inherently more democratic than the state", in Nigeria,

the notion of civil society even conjures not "only the

pre-democracy movement, youth organizations and

organized professional labour and students

organizations, but also the array of traditional

forces, indigenous political structures, religious

groups and capitalists syndicates, some of which have

unapologetically collaborated with the military, who

also spawned their own set of "quasi-government"

organizations and have penetrated others that night

have been nongovernmental organizations, causing

political fragmentation, instability, systemic

7

democratic corruption and widespread confusion, Osoba,

(1996) Tony, (2008).

Under such circumstances, it is not potent to

assume that civil society, once unshackled, will

automatically generate a stable democratic set up and

viable national development. In fact, Nigerian

democratic reality clearly suggests that there are good

grounds for rejecting any simple polarization of

"State and civil society" or accepting a merely

simplistic and uncritical concept of it. Indeed, one

must be clear of his insight that civil society in

Nigeria had already witnessed a

proliferation which accompanied the introduction of a

string cut structural Adjustment programme (SAP) in the

late nineteen eighties. It moreover, accompanied the

emergence of a sophisticated democratic dispensation

which introduces deregulations from the late nineteen

8

nineties to the first part of

the new millennium and have also consolidated a crudely

repressive form of democratization of the military with

its cornucopeia of cosmetics, stimulants,

tranquillizers and insidious truncheons for an aridity

of irrational and empty

process of national development and finally, its

fascist evolution to scape-goated presented day

emergent cultic democratic regimes of materiality.

Democracy has been re-conceptualized from its

popular Lincolnian conception to mean a restatement of

the market principles in a political form "under the

canopy of iconions of equality, pluralism and

competitive party politics, freedom of choice by

individuals, constitutionalism and the rule of law,

separation of powers, limited government, free fair and

competitive elections (held at constitutionally fixed

9

intervals to select leaders, and thereafter, the

insistence) through a vibrant civil society assisted by

an unfettered press system, on

accountability as the abiding code of behavior for

public office holders throughout tenure of office,

Bangura, (1985), Barogo, (1997), Omoruyi, K (1998), Ake

(1999), Okpaga, (1999), Kukah, (2000), Pranab, (2006).

Democracy has two basic diametrically and

dialectically opposing faces, one facing the East and

the other the West. The west is based strictly on the

pioneering agenda of capitalism viz: free enterprise. A

free political system or civil society is required in

which unmitigated capitalist production, distribution

and exchange, could be actualized hence bourgeois or

western democracy. Indeed, it is precisely

this free market order that is known as civil society,

which is indispensable for democracy's existence:

10

Otherwise termed liberal democracy. This (liberal)

democracy is therefore, the political correlate of the

free market which demands as an essential prerequisite

the development of market economies for

democratization, as the sequence in Europe clearly

indicates (Bardhan, 2006; Inge, 1997; Dahl, 1998).

On the other hand the East, otherwise known as the

popular socialist or radical democracy is one based

assumptiously on the attainment of concrete social

values politicking system with promises of social

welfarism reflecting full interests of the masses. Here

emphasis is placed on the quality of life of the

people. In this type of democracy economic

restructuring is envisaged as fundamental and

public based more than political reformism. Here

attempt to embark upon economic restructuring

(Perestroika) and satiation of yearnings for political

11

freedom (glasnut) is carefully directed and centrally

planned such that political

freedom is not given higher preference to economic

restructuring, as was the unfortunate case of

Gorbachev's Sovet's tragedy. However, this alternative

notwithstanding the soviets union has been successfully

pioneered by

communist China today, (Norman, 1976). Indeed, the

reforms of this perspective are seen by many scholars

as the most viable and potent instruments for actively

moderating the sharper edges of modem capitalism as was

applicable during

the great depressions, the crash of the wall street,

U.S. Economy under President Bush and the current

Health Policy of President Obama, (Girling 1997, Ake

1999, Dick 1999, Kukah 2000).

12

The concept of national development implied a

positively radical and qualitative transformation of a

nation in realms of growth, socio-economic and

political dynamism and other recalibrative indexes of

change in a progressive process of nation building.

The reality of democracy, democratic stability and

national development implies one and the same process,

one leading to the other and vice versa, especially, a

democracy that is cardinally made people-oriented,

commanding predictable stakes on the peoples' welfare

and class action of a just elite stratum. Thus, in this

light, for democracy to be developmentally-oriented,

stable and genuine it must mean really that every

"citizen" can "govern" and that society must place one,

even if only abstractively in a general condition to

achieve this. It also means by implication that the

damaging specialization of so called democratic classes

13

fetishisingly existing over and over against the people

must be gotten rid

of. Intact the conditioning of members of a state,

class, part to think of democracy nation law and

national development as something external to

themselves; something over and above the people; as

tools of their individual capitalist profiteering

business, is grossly undemocratic. Instead, there

should be a

linking together of democracy and nation's development

of mental and manual work, legislative and executive

power. Paradoxically this is so because, to back

quality against quantity simply means to maintain

intact specific conditions of social life in which some

people are purely quantity and others quality, and this

will not be democratic or civil.

14

Several theoretical propositions are polarized in

contemplating democracy and stable democracy. These are

crystallized into two broad perspectives. One is the

modernization theorists which relates democracy with

the resilience of traditional values and see in these

the inevitability of democratic stability in the

evolution of the modem political systems along new

capitalist lives of development. There is also the

growth theorists of neo-classicalism which following

the maternists emphasis on the technical issues of

development and points these as conditions for

attainment of stable polity and national development

generally, smith (1970), Robinson & White (1998).

The dependency theorists on the other hand

emphasize on the external constraints and structural

economic issues of development in a nation as conducts

for realizing stable and viable democracy and focuses

15

on strong and purposeful

national leadership capable of exercising independent

decisions in the international system. This group

constitute a fly by virtue of their reliance on some

form of voluntarism (which is bourgeois) towards

socialist orientation for attainment of democratic

stability and development, Dudley (1969), Harrd (1974),

Frank (1972), Shenton and Fraud (1978), Olalokun

(1980), Beckman (1986).

The radical socialist perspective otherwise known

as democratic socialism on the other hand, contemplates

on issues of democracy and establishing a viable and

stable democracy and national development through a

recognition

that in a peripheral capitalist social formation,

democratic culture has been one consistently developed

in firmer association with the capitalist lines which

16

basically is market oriented democracy. This type of

capitalists' democracy is

versioned by the radical socialist perspective as

inherently unstable. In contrast, the radical

perspective insights for a self guiding process of

national development though provision of social

services that meets standardized quality of life of a

nation whose political and economic development as

predicated on fundamental social objectives huder the

twin concept of social justice and euqlity, O. Connel,

(1967), Coates (1972), Toyo, (1985), Ake (1999)

Madunagu, (200l).

It will therefore be futile and politically

suicidal to define democratic stability and national

development abstractively for democratic stability and

national development has told understood historically.

This is because

17

there has never existed in any nation, an absolute

state of stable tranquil democracy. Rather, periods of

seeming democratic stability are preceeded or

superceded by periods of democratic instability and

vice versa. Same is to development of a nation, where

democratic stability seemingly existed, it

did so because it is inevitably causing instability

elsewhere, and this applies to development where it is

capitalistically based as a model. Thus, there is

always a dialectical link between democratic stability

and democratic instability, just as

development and underdevelopment, no matter the seeming

longevity of either in a specific period of history.

Democratic instability and underdevelopment are

abhorred while democratic stability and development are

desired. But the fear of democratic instability may as

well, induce democratic stability while the search for

18

democratic stability may even beget democratic

instability. So also is the attempt to bring about

development of a nation which sometimes brings in its

wake underdevelopment and vice versa.

Thus, these concepts must be concretely erudicized

in their dialectical relationships.

Paradoxically, there has been more research on

political instability than on political stability,

Bangura, (1985) O'Connel (1987) Mazrui, (1998), Ilaigwu

(1998) Mangrwat, (1988), Usman (1999). As such, there

is as yet no coherent

theory of democratic stability; just as there abounds

many theorists on underdevelopment, Rodney, (1982),

Fanon, (1986), Frank (1986) Beckman, (1987), and no

Coherent theorist on development of a nation.

But from the various perceptions of democratic

stability and development, it is clear that these are

19

all purely historical. Their existence or non existence

has to be understood or located within a socio-economic

context, whether we are dealing with local, national,

or global democracy and development. In this regard,

there is therefore an organic relationship between

democratic stability, national

development and socio-economic formation It is this

that determines the nature of democratic stability and

development, in a formation as Mangvwat (1998), Ake

(19'09) and Kukah (2000) unveils; "An unjust social

formation would tend to be

democratically unstable such as; South Africa for

example under apartheid was", and by addition Nigeria

in its present time seems to be declining to; Osoba

(1996), Toyo (2006), Tony, (2008).

Thus, the degree of democratic instability and

underdevelopment in any social formation tends to

20

correspond with the degree of injustice in such a

nation. Conversely, the degree of political stability

and development enjoyed in a nation's socio-economic

formation tends to be a reflection of the measure of

social justice obtained in that nation. In fact,

without a socially justifiable democratic, stability

and national development is hardly achieved. Thus; "If

follows that a dictatorship can established order in a

nation but that nation cannot be said to be

democratically stable or viably developed, for a people

held under repression knows no justice, indeed cannot

be democratically stable their nation viably developed.

Nigerian Socio-Economic Formation, Democratic Stability

and National Development

Democratic stability has always been presented as an

ideal ground which good governance and national

development can and should be built. It is insightedly

21

argued that Democratic stability is a precondition for

national development, cohesion and integration of a

nation, indeed a desirable component of life, Kukah,

(1998), Mangvwat, (1998) West, (2005).

Democratic stability entails an establishment

politically of a concrete and sound socio-economic

development in which the people are all represented and

favorably express themselves through willing acceptance

of their quality of life.

This shapes people’s attitudes towards the political

community itself and defines its civil nature in terms

of loyalty to the political community, acceptance of

rulership, territorial boundaries, Economic structure

and property relations. A situation in which every

democratic disagreement threatens these basic

relationships and norms is indicative of the fragile

nature and questionable character of the political

22

community itself, its civil nature, its setting and

development generally.

Democratic stability is not even merely the absence

of disagreements, it is rather, the state of existence

which allows these disagreements to be addressed and

resolved within ideally shared socio-economic

parameters of peace and conflict

resolution for meaningful development of a nation. But

because of the nature capitalist civil society is being

constructed in Nigeria which is neo-colonial and

dependent the quality of life of most Nigerians fall

short of what is

supposed to be as Toyo, (1985), Mangvwat (1988) and

Dick, (2001) maintains, "There has been economic growth

without development". This has had grave consequences

for social justice, political stability and National

development in Nigeria.

23

Nigeria Law, Democratic Instability and the Emergent

Democratic Regimes of Material

Historical insights into Nigerian Socio-Economic

formation reveals that before independence colonial

masters acted as referees on democratic and other laws,

in the process flouting constitutionalism and

falsifying power struggle between the opposing and

contending internal forces. This development instituted

constitutional imbalances based on self interests, lack

of foresight and impatience to Law. This political

culture formed under colonial rule made inevitable

today's

democratic instability and lack of zeal for national

development, as O'Connel (1987) aptly puts it: "The

Local Politician had little opportunity to learn the

value of reverence for law and respect for the rules of

the game", and as a famous

24

political phrase has it, "once there are no rules of

the game, clubs become trumps".

Thus, a valuable part of political experience in

colonial political tradition is the lesson that once

constitutionalism which is a mixture of just and

acceptable law and rules of the game is flouted,

democracy becomes unstable; politics becomes

destructive for nearly all its participants and

national development sterile.

One worse problem of Nigerian law, democratic

instability and national development is that, even well

after her independence the nature of colonial education

in Nigeria which was non-synthetic for problem solving;

enforcement of

the law coupled with the low quality of the Nigerian

political class, was unable to effectively contribute

to state, both for proper understanding of the law and

25

for technologically advanced growth and development, as

the developed world is

fastly pulling away from the world which has become

like a fish bowl or to use McLuhan's (1967) term "a

global village".

Thus, insight here is that while it is difficult to

create school systems that impart a minimum level of

literacy and numeracy to understanding law and

development, it is even more difficult to convey

through schooling, the analytical and causal attitudes

that underlie modem (Western-type, if you wish)

education, and both the law requirements and

technological skills required by contemporary

technology and society. It is also practically

impossible to synchronize

educational expansion with respect to Law, Economic

growth and development: Skills being ideally taught

26

within a system that keeps a little ahead of the needs

of the economy, and at the same time puts pressure on

the political class to commit

themselves seriously to national laws, economic

progress and national development. Kukah (1999);

insisted that "Nigerian educational development

constantly tends to overreach itself and fall short.

It sends too many young persons with irrelevant

skills on the labour market and yet leaves the market

short of well- trained intermediate technicians and

administrators." A single greatest lack in the Nigerian

nation is skill; political skills are no more abundant

for the modernizing and stabilizing process of

democracy and development than are other skills.

A substantial insight drawn is that "majority of

Nigeria politicians are incompetent, corrupt and

communal and have continued to remain so. They are

27

caught between tradition and modernity, schooled to

make decisions in a traditional form but now obliged to

make them in a modernizing context, are

inevitably found wanting". O'Connel, (1965). In his apt

expression Dubley, (1967) related that "men trained to

play draughts are led to make those same moves in the

game of chess, the result is neither chess nor draught"

ahus, a good part of the psychology of political

corruption and democratic instability can be explained

by the breakdown of trust, law and predictability in

democratic moves and the impossibility for leaders with

such reputations to project an image of

democratic stability respect for law and mobilize

energies for any meaningful national development:

There is also the constitutional issue of striking of a

delicate balance between authoritarianism on the one

hand anarchy on the other, as Mazruel (1998) observed,

28

"tyranny is too much government, anarchy is too little

government. The

tyrannical tendency is often a centralization of

violence, while the anarchic tendency is

decentralization of violence often neighbor against

neighbor". Ibis exactly the cataclysmic consequence of

this democratic limbo that saw military coups play the

convenient electoral role of changing governments and

infiltrating deeply into democratic experiments

rejecting the law and pioneering instability over the

years. This crisis of legitimacy has to do with the

right to rule. Often the right to rule alone cases

democratic furore as to the dubt that the leader is

ruling right, that is at least in terms of the

expectation of the people.· Many Nigerian politicians

display irresponsibility and lack of political subtlet

and arrogance to

29

law as evidence of lack of proper values in democratic

politicking and this brings in the burning issue of

challenge of governance for a stable democracy which is

still facing us today.

Substantial insight has been drawn also on the

issue of progressive neutralization of socialist forces

and ideology and the continued denial of workers

commensurate share from the national wealth by

successive regimes in Nigeria. This campaign stated

during the 1975-1976 constitution drafting committee

(CDC) when mixed economy advocates prevailed against

the socialists. By then, the only two socialists on the

52 member committee were Yusuf Bala Us man and Segun

Osoba. This development continues to other bear on the

Nigerian constitution so that in 1979 none of the

socialist associations formed get off the ground. Thus,

on ideological stand, socialism has not been a central

30

issue and no socialist

movement, union or organization is presently allowed to

be engaged in the struggle for attainment of a stable

democracy in Nigeria. The Labour Unions, radical

intelligentsias and student's movements are

continuously ignored in bid to stemma off extremists -a

euphemism for socialists.

Insight into present Nigerian democratic

dispensation clearly reveals that the major project of

post colonial Nigerian state has been the creation of a

national bourgeoisie within the context of global

capitalism. The evolution of such classes has taken

place within. the broad spectrum of the articulation of

capital accumulation using undemocratic methods of

primitive accumulation of capital which are

progressively barbaric and authoritarian making

politics a game of "life and death". It’s not

31

surprising that the bourgeoisie emerging from such an

imperialistic environment has not been able to put

crucial questions of law, stable democracy and national

development on the genda of national politics even

after over fifty years of nationhood.

But most importantly, since the principal arena for

the creation these classes is the state the competition

and contest for capturing state power has been most

acute thereby resulting in a democratically cut-throat

struggles and demonic craze for power, Dick, (2001),

Girling (1997), Thrahim, (1988).

Appadural (1999) insighted that a possible direction in

which to comprehend these emergent democratic

materialities is to look at the entire area of global

trade and politics; in a world in which paper wealth is

exploding but actual purchasing power for the bulk of

the world's population declining.

32

Stable Democracy: A Western Agenda?

It is often asserted that the west under American

command needs the free u1.arket and a stable political

environment to guarantee the safety of investments. And

this informs a call for stable democracy in many

countries including Nigeria. This

required that Nigeria too needed peace and stability of

liberal democracy in order to progress in a new world

order to benefit of a harmonious relationship which

liberal democracy engenders among democratic nations.

It is foreseen that Nigerian economy is not only one of

the largest in Africa, but it has already developed

enormous octopus like entanglement with the procedures

of the global monetary institutions like the I.M.F the

World Bank and the General Agreement on Trades and

Tariffs (GAT) which constitute the tripod on which the

international free market economics stands, Ornoruyi,

33

(1998). It is in pursuit of the grand plan that the

council of Europe, marshaled out its own guidelines for

financial and other aids to the so called young

democratizing nations of the world. Thus, insightedly a

call for a stable democracy in Nigeria must be

critically watched.

What is to be Done?

The construction of a stable democracy and achievement

of national development demands a radical change in the

mode of capitalist accumulation in the Nigerian neo-

colony. If the Nigerian bourgeois class cannot be

relied upon to defend and stabilize Nigerian democracy

and ensure law and order as well as national

development. The popular forces of Nigeria must have to

impose their authority on them, and establish a type of

democracy that corresponds to the objective interest of

the masses. One that could transform the existing neo-

34

colonial society and gives power to the popular forces

in the administration of the political economy.

For a stable democracy, rule of law and national

development to be attained, Nigerian democracy must be

domestic a ted and not westernized to take firm root in

the modernizing political arena and must abide by law

strictly to its principles of universal choice, rule of

law, accountability and legitimacy. Nigerians should

work out democratic frameworks which suit their

environment; balancing the

primacy of politics with that of economics for the

betterment of all in full law, equality and justice. In

the words of Mazriu (1998) "we should democratize,

making it more subject to the control of the people and

more responsive to their needs we must also be

civilized in the sense of making it more sensitive to

higher moral and cultural values to avoid been victims

35

of alien order". Only Nigerians can provide viable

alternatives to their problems for it is a battle for

self-liberation in which all especially the youths have

very important roles to play.

How satisfied are we with the state of life in

Nigeria today?, and what are we doing about it? We must

shun the class that is our problem, we must reject bad

elections or bad leaders, shun corruption and the like,

we tend to be religious but" ungodly at heart; Nigeria

will not stabilize or develop by the primordial

sentiments we have today. We need to change or we have

to have no future.

Lack of guiding principle is another constraint to our

democracy. In the U.S. there is an ideology or

principle held both by democrats and Republicans. In

Nigeria today there is lack of commitment to service

and organizational framework

36

to guide government we have limited service to money

and power.

Again poor conception of democracy or politics is

another issue. Democracy suppose to be a reconciling of

claims, aspirations and resources, but Nigeria today it

is an investment or "war of do or die", and religious

and tribal groups are avenues of exploitation not of

organization of multiplication and even government

budget is seen in terms of chief executives percentages

and not as planned capital for national development.

We are being driven by trivialities and

have become dissocialized so much that even religion

has bccome a source of corruption, a major recipient of

corruption today. Nigeria has become a shame to

herself and the international community, which has

already ranked her among failing stales since both her

law and institutions have also become corrupt so much

37

that we have as the only alternative t0 sacrifice

personalities so as to rebuild institutions.

We have to turn to education, as focus of research

so as to "format" Nigeria, widespread "viruses” that is

to; sack corruption, shun the bourgen's classes,

depoliticize political space, put in place good

governance and social reforms. Already the reality of

anarchy in the socio-economic formation

of Nigeria is so profound so much that the

multiplication of youths not taken care of today,

signals that there is a reality that “we will be in

trouble" trouble"; a revolution or something like it

will likely open up to address these crucial issues in

Nigeria.

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