‘To make a democrat, too many ingredients are needed’

The lecture was titled: How to Make a Democrat.  It was the second edition of the Faculty of Arts Distinguished Alumni Lecture delivered by Sam Omatseye, Chairman, Editorial Board of The Nation Newspapers.  Venue was the Oduduwa Hall of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, Osun State, where a mammoth crowd from far and near converged to listen to this epoch-making theme.  Omatseye took time to trace the odyssey of a democrat, the origin of democracy and then narrowed his gaze on Nigeria.  Edozie Udeze reports.

THE second edition of the Faculty of Arts Distinguished Alumni Lecture of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ile-Ife, Osun State, delivered by Sam Omatseye of The Nation Newspapers, Lagos, was indeed a landmark living conversation.  The event which took place penultimate week, titled, ‘How to make a Democrat, was apt for Omatseye to open up people’s minds and memories about the genesis of democracy, the responsibilities thrown at the shoulders of democrats.  It offered him time to renew the never-ending conversation of whether there is a true democracy or if the world has ever produced or witnessed a true democrat in operation anywhere on the surface of the earth.

It was an overcrowded Oduduwa Hall where eyes glued to him as he spoke.  The topic was chosen to allow Omatseye, a prolific writer, opinion molder and champion of true and responsible governance to let the world know that to make a democrat is the responsibility that comes with too many ingredients.  This was why he opened up by saying, in the form of a warning, “Let me be clear.  I am not here to bury the democrat.  If I tried, I would fail.  I am not here to praise the democrat.  It does not need my panegyrics.  I am here only to look it in the eye and see whether I will blink”.  With this sound provocative salvo, the hall came to a standstill.  The crowd, populated by students, academics, traditional rulers and politicians waited with their hearts in their hands as pin drop silence enveloped the hall.

In the hall were Governor Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti State, who was the chairman of the event and with him were some members of the state executive council.  Also in the hall were his political praise singers who came from different parts of Ekiti State to honour Omatseye and give kudos to the governor.  Students of OAU from all the faculties surged on from different angles of the hall.  The high table and the front row of the hall were occupied by high caliber personalities who graced the occasion from far and near.

But in his characteristic way of holding an audience spellbound with expectation, Omatseye tore on.  “To ever do justice to the subject, I must say that we do a great injustice to the democrat as politicians, scholars, democrats, subalterns, persons in the streets, street sellers and even the Area boy”.  At this, his tone rose, squirmed and appealed with measured decorum. “Before I look at one of the problematics of the concept of the democrat”, he went on looking up slightly to survey the crowd, “I want to list some of the qualities we associate with a practitioner.

“Democrats love human rights, embrace free and fair elections, believe in citizen involvement, espouse the rule of law, defend and advance the freedom of expression and press, stand for the equality before the law, political choice and accountability and majority rule”.

If there is ever an absolute democrat or a society with the best and perfect democratic practice in the world, the guest lecturer was yet to decipher one.  As the audience waited for the chicken to come home to roost, he delved into the core of the theme.  He hit the nail on the head, by saying, “One of the countries with great democracies, as they say, had a leader known as Abraham Lincoln who, during a way to keep its democracy together, gave us the simplistic but most popular definition of democracy”.

Yes, in his own wisdom, driven by the love of democratic nuances of his time and society, Lincoln inferred: “democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people.  We are therefore speaking of the United States.  But that is where I begin the story of how to make a democrat.  If the United States, as people say, is the number one democracy in the world, then the leader, by implication, should be the leader of democrats in the entire world”, he said with subtle but deep-rooted reference to President Donald Trump of the US whom he described as a man who has expansionist tendency.

In a world where true democratic demonstration is like an aberration or cannot be found in a society that is the greatest proponents of the true ideals of democracy, who can then be seen to be a true democrat?  In his deep but genuine reflection as the people eagerly hoped to hear a total anchor on how to attain a true democrat, Omatseye breezed on: “This same man, a great democrat that he is, lost an election and he claimed he won it.  A democrat is supposed, according to one of the items (principles) on our list of democratic qualities, to believe in the rule of law, or what some political and historical scholars call institutionalism”.

Now with the subversive outburst and actions displayed by this sort of leader of the so-called foremost democracy in the world, where is democracy headed?  Is it really possible, so to say, to make a democrat in a world peopled by all sorts of characters with self-serving ideals, tendencies and attitudes and ideologies?.

What the lecturer did by going from one clime to another in forms of historical and political references was to draw attention to different ideological examples of democracies and democrats.  As America imposes herself on other less-privileged nations under the guise of installing and instilling ideal democracy, how then can its leaders serve as true democrats?  He who comes to equity, must come with a clean hand.  However, in his wisdom, Omatseye came nearer home to Nigeria.  He drew an analogy with lots and lots of political actions perpetrated by local leaders in Nigeria.

“Here in Nigeria”, he quipped as more eyes looked in his way, we did not crave democracy before a country foisted it on us.  Talk about a system that is based on freedom and we were forced to adopt it.  Yes, many historians, especially of the West African sub-region, have argued that the region was embroiled in wars of nation building in the late 18th and 19th centuries.  And then it was no thanks to the British and French that they had interrupted our efforts to create our own nations”.

And perhaps that type of indigenous system of democracy or whatever, to suit our immediate and local needs.  This disruption has today remained endemic, and leading to a democracy that is still evolving, needing more ingredients to spice it up.

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Local Scenarios

As much as the sub-region tried to live within its own political needs, the likes of Uthman Dan Fodio came in.  In Yoruba land, the 19th century wars initiated avenues to restore true governance. But Omatseye, using the semantics of historiography of a historian, narrowed his gaze on western Nigeria.  “Let us take the Yoruba environment”, he said.

“The system of government was called feudal.  But it was not the sort of feudalism we had in England with the Tudors or the sort we had in the years of Russia’s Peter the Great.

“But in some sense, we might say it had what we might call elements of a democratic society with the checks and balances from institutions like the lawmakers.  This was in form of the Oyo mesi and that peculiar protocol that made a king to commit suicide”.

In other words, this system was able to build and install democrats in the right places.  Oyo mesi were those that ensured that the Oba did not end up an anti- democratic ruler.  What he is saying is that each society had already set in motion its own democratic elements working steadily to reach perfection.  The disruption by the West in the form of colonialism or modern civilization as they termed it has indeed thrown some spanner in the works.

In Lagos as well, the squabble between the Akintoyes and the Kosokos drew attention to the foibles of the struggle to have access to leadership.  So from Ibadan to Oyo mesi, to Lagos, “British adventurers, interlopers, and people very alien to the culture of the locals waded into what did not concern them.  The British hence began to craft a system that did not befit the needs of the people.  By taking sides in these matters, they ended up creating an “atavistic feud that has refused to abate up till today”.  So, in all these, where or who is a democrat?.

Colonial impunity, and the democrat

In France at that period, some local philosophers kept propounding the philosophies that suited the French system of government vis-à-vis the needs of the people.  They made democrats out of their own ideals and necessities.  “Just as our political system was our own normal until they came to disturb our peace with their own brand of a system of popular persuasion or democracy” Omatseye decided.

“Just like Chinua Achebe observed, the rain started to beat us.  But that may sound simplistic.  We can safely say now that the White halted our historic journey”, Omatseye demonstrated, bringing the historian in him to bear on the angst in this disruption and the consequent quagmire thereof.

“Now after they came and they established democracy for us, they also disturbed our elites…  In the colonial era, freedom was a contradiction to the whole mammoth infrastructure of British rule.  How then do you create democrats without liberty?.  Yet Britain refused to remove their strongholds on the people.  They rather invented indirect rule, where they were also in charge through surrogates.  Was there any democracy in all these?  Omatseye asked as he delved into the ancient models of democracy in far flung places like Greece, Egypt, France and so on.

And in a way of a recast, he asked.  “Before the amalgamation in 1914, their Britishisation policy had begun.  Before that, they had instituted what was called indirect rule.  They had also taken charge of the language of rule”.

Nationalism and Nigerian democrats

Some Nigerian scholars who taught in the process of correcting the erroneous impressions created by Britain, devised historiography to set things right.  While Omatseye acknowledged such historians like Professor Tunji Oloruntimehin, he stated how he taught them about the paternalism of the British recourse to undermining our local systems to be able to hoist theirs.

Was there such a thing as indirect rule?  Britain ruled through agencies.  They just sat back and let the local chiefs do the work”.  We still remember the atrocious acts of some warrant chiefs who appropriated people’s wives and lands and dared you to oppose them.

Moreover, in the process of all this, nationalists emerged to oppose some of the whims of Britain.  But in-between they too needed to harmonise tendencies to give formidable democratic ideals.  Through books, literary narratives like Things Fall Apart, Death and King’s Horseman, Achebe, Soyinka and others drew attention to what colonialism did to us.  But people like Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Herbert Macaulay, Samuel Akinsanya, Kofo Abayomi and others rose to imply that they were not only leaders, they were equally politicians, nationalists and democrats.

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Putting it succinctly, Omatseye demurred thus: These qualities of democrats in deeds were merging in these men.  In the end, each was not necessarily conterminous with the others”.  As different political parties emerged, alignments, and realignments were emerging in the Nigerian political space.  They were configured to set the tone to usher in the new era of democratic principles.  But was this also allowed to ferment and grow?.

The civil war also came, disrupted the flow.  But again tribal politics set in as leaders became bigots and local champions.

“So we have always had a sense of privilege in democracies”, Omatseye, also an author of many books on political figures and their antecedents presented, saying “often democracy is idealist.  In our own case, it is because the democrat has always been half-born.  It was half-born before and at independence.  It was twice again in our history”.

Now hear his verdict: “To have a democrat in full they must be allowed to grow with all their witchcraft and beauties.  Too many ingredients make a democrat.  The most important one is often not canvassed by scholars.  It is called time”.

Interventions

In his contribution, Governor Oyebanji of Ekiti State, said, “There is no doubt that in spite of its inadequacies, democracy remains the best form of government for a diverse, complex and modern society as ours.  Even while this simple truth is apparent and incontestable, it is also the truth that democratic practice is a tough job anywhere in the world.  Because democracy is tied to plurality, contestations, group conspiracies, clash of interests and power struggle, it is therefore polarizing and contentious.  Anything that is polarizing and contentious is naturally prone to partisan conflicts”.

The Governor who was a former lecturer went on, “The fallouts of such conflicts and the capacity to manage them remain the major challenge that many democratic nations continue to confront…  As exciting as the promise of democracy suggests, it is the truth that it is a very difficult form of government because of its very nature of power and ideological contestation.  Consequently, human inadequacies, desperation for power, anti- democratic practice, electoral manipulation, violence, corruption and many other factors have continued to hinder seamless practice of democracy in many countries of the world…”

As an overview, he proffered an antidote.  “These inadequacies are, most of the time, a product of the prevailing dispositions of the ruling elites to the political process.  In other words, democratic practice in a particular political jurisdiction will always take the form and character of the political elites who shape and influence the agencies of political culture, mobilization, education and recruitment”.

In his own presentation, the lead discussant, Munirudeen Oyebamiji, said, “Omatseye’s lecture is a sweeping historical and philosophical critique, arguing that Nigerian democrats were not born of organic struggle but were colonial fabrications.  I agree with his erudition that the British project, through “manufactured consent” and the imposition of a “rule of law” without genuine liberty, created “subordinate democrats”.

For him therefore, “our early nationalists – Macaulay, Azikiwe, Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, and others were thus schooled in a borrowed, contradictory doctrine, leading to what he calls a “half-born” democrat.  The lecture brilliantly traces this congenital defect through the First Republic’s tribal politics, the rises of 1966, and subsequent military interventions, suggesting our democracy has been perpetually stunted by its inauthentic origins”.

In his speech, Dean of Arts, Prof. Gbenga Fasiku acknowledged the importance of the theme and the lecturer.  He also extended his hand of felicitation to the Governor of Ekiti State, Biodun Oyebanji who came with all members of the state executive council.  He also thanked the host governor, Jackson Ademola Adeleke of Osun State who sent one of his commissioners in his stead.

Fasiku said: “it is this respect that Governor’s (Oyebanji) sacrifice of attending, coordinating and participating in not just a speechmaking event but engaging in a hairsplitting and brainstorming exercise as witnessed at this lecture, is highly commended and appreciated”.  Omatseye’s lecture, he explained, helps in identifying and proffering solutions to the challenges bedeviling democracy and its actors: the democrats.

Omatseye signed autographs for many students who got the books either through purchase or as a free gift.  In the end, what inspired many was a little girl of eight years who asked that Nigeria should revert to the old traditional way of ruling since democracy and democrats are not working. “It is obvious modern democracy is not working”, the girl quipped, stern-faced.