MISGOVERNMENT 101

“Governments Never Learn. Only People Learn.”`

(Milton Friedman, 1912 – 2006).

Students of politics are often told that democracy is government of the people, for the people, by the people. Sadly many of them believe it. They also mouth it so often, that millions of people untutored in the nature and dynamics of power believe it as well. The tragedy, as billions of people who live under systems they believe are democratic have found out, is that democracy is very often just a means of changing leaders who do more or less the same things to the people. Leaders emerge from elections which may or may not be credible; and they exercise mandates within the limitations of their personal capacities, and the demands of the very few who influence what they do. The only time people are substantially involved in democracies is during elections, and even these are so choreographed or fixed that they successively alienate more of the electorate at every successive election.

President Goodluck Jonathan is re-writing the basic rules of leadership, such that established theories, strategies and ideas about governance, accountability and competence will have to be re-evaluated. On the face of it, you would think that he has read the late British statesman, C.R Atlee (1883 – 1967), who said: “Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking”. Or that he has literally taken the view of P.S. Buck (1892 – 1973), the American writer who said, “People on the whole are very simple-minded, and in whatever country one finds them. They are so simple as to take literally, more than not, the things leaders tell them”. Perhaps his long-term vision on the outcome of his contest with the Nigerian people over the fuel subsidy is informed by the insight of August Bebel, (1840 – 1913) the German politician who said that “All political questions, all matters of right, are at the bottom only questions of might.” If he believes that brawn alone will win him this battle, he clearly has not read Machiavelli, who said that a good leader should be both a fox and a lion, because a fox is defenseless against lions, and a lion is defenseless against traps.

If President Jonathan has a strategy for victory against all the battles he is currently engaged in, it is possible that at its heart is the assumption that the more problems you take on at the same time, the better your chances of victory. And the bigger the problem, the more you are likely to succeed against it. Just when he is being swamped by the insurgency of Boko Haram and a nation demanding that he acts decisively against security failures all over the nation, President Jonathan lights another fire around fuel subsidy. He abandons his “consultations with stakeholders” – please note that these are not defined as the Nigerian people – on his plans to remove subsidy, and decides to go it alone. Convinced of the validity of his position, he repudiates the position of the National Assembly, labour, civil society organizations, mothers, young people, the unemployed, the wealthy and the urban poor and just about everyone else. He obviously disagreed with Milton Friedman (1912 – 2006) the American economist who said that “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem”. Perhaps he paid little attention to history, and the experiences of his predecessors, virtually all of whom burnt their fingers very badly when they tinkered with pump prices.  

Or perhaps he had read Hegel (1770 – 1831) the German philosopher who said, “But what experience and history teach is this, that peoples and government have never learned anything from history”. Alone and isolated, he stands against a torrent of hostility from a nation which cannot understand or forgive him for serious miscalculations and serial ineptitude on vital issues around governance. Perhaps his advisers have convinced him that Andrew Jackson (1974 – 1826), a former US President was right when he said, “One man with courage makes a majority”. His economic advisers who sold him the dummy on subsidy removal as beneficial in the long run may have ignored John Maynard Keynes (1883 – 1946) who said, “This long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.”

The multitudes of challenges which President Jonathan has chosen to deal with at the same time are making him new enemies by the day. Book Haram makes Christians and Muslims feel he is not protecting them enough. Christians particularly feel vulnerable when they are attacked by a group that says all Nigerian Christians are guilty of the mass murders of Muslims in Plateau, Kaduna, Bauchi and Lagos, and they and their churches will be attacked at every opportunity. Muslims are angry that they are being blamed and made responsible for everything Boko Haram does by both the government and many other Christians. Security agencies are stretched and stressed, and it would not help their morale much when the Commander-In-Chief says they are infiltrated by Boko Haram sleepers. By his utterances and actions, President Jonathan has united former foes, adversaries and irritants into a formidable enemy. He has ignored Machiavelli’s advise, when he said, “All well-governed states and wise princes have taken care not to reduce the nobility to despair, nor the people to discontent.”

In the next few weeks, the nation will know whether President Jonathan has succeeded in transforming the live of Nigerians by making sure that everything they buy costs a lot more. Or the nation would be relieved that it does not have to go through this type of transformation. Either way, there will be a loser. Jonathan will do well to learn the lessons of dealing with enemies which Machiavelli put forward: “Men are either crushed, or pampered. They can get revenge for minor injuries, but not for fatal ones.” If he yields ground on the subsidy issue, his adversaries will punish him over and over for his weakness. If he sticks his ground, he may break the back of the popular resistance, but his opposition will warn Nigerians about their lives in the same manner Neil Kinnock, the former labour opposition leader in Britain warned his countrymen over Margaret Thatcher: “If Margaret Thatcher wins – I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old,”

Students of power have great opportunities to re-visit conventional wisdom under current developments. They may reach the same conclusions about the PDP and did Baron de Montesquieu (1689 – 1755) who said, “when a government lasts a long time, it deteriorates by insensible degrees.” If they seek to find an answer to the riddle that Jonathan says he is removing subsidy because of corruption, they will be further confounded by Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745) the British writer who said, “Politics, as the word is understood, are nothing but corruptions.” When we are faced with a choice of supporting the retention of the subsidy (and, Jonathan’s people will say, supporting the “cabal”) or supporting Jonathan, we could be further confused by the humor of George Carlin who said, “Politics is so corrupt, even the dishonest people get screwed.” Perhaps all Nigerians are coming to terms with the leadership which they elected to govern them. Henry Youngman, a comedian said, “Personally, I’m against political jokes. Too often they get elected to office.”