It is infinitely educative to observe that during the period 1970-2010 the world witnessed outstanding political change manifesting in democracies and market-oriented economies becoming the norm and spreading like wildfire to virtually all parts of the world except for the Arab Middle East. By the late 1980s about 120 countries around the world – a staggering 60 per cent of the world’s independent states – had become electoral democracies.

It is tempting to take these changes for granted. However, it is insightful to note that massive social transformation has been the underlying reason for the changes. The choice of democracy in these parts was no accident but a result of millions of erstwhile passive individuals around the world becoming self-conscious and organising themselves and participating in the political life of their respective communities.

The ensuing social mobilisation itself has been brought about, in the main, by a number of factors chief among which are access to education that has made people more aware or conscious of their being and of the political world around them; information technology which has facilitated the rapid spread of ideas and knowledge; cheap or affordable travel and communication which have combined to allow people to move from one inclement political atmosphere to a more favourable clime; and greater well-being which encouraged people to demand the protection of their rights.

The beginning of the second decade of the 21st century however began to witness several distinct forms of unease in the democratic world. There were visible reversal of the democratic gains that had been made especially in countries like Russia, Venezuela, and Iran where elected leaders suddenly became disenchanted with the process that brought them to power and started dismantling or otherwise repudiating the democratic institutions by manipulating elections, compromising independent TV and newspaper outfits, and clamping down on opposition activities.

It must be recognised that liberal democracy is not just about the majority of the electorate voting in elections. It is a complex set of institutions that restrain and regularise the exercise of power through law and by checks and balances. In many countries, official acceptance of democratic legitimacy is curiously accompanied by the systematic removal of checks on executive power and the iniquitous erosion of the rule of law.

Many developing countries that once appeared to be transiting from authoritarian governance have become neither fully authoritarian nor manifestly democratic.

There is a category of democratic development trajectory which because it is relevant to our situation ought to be of concern to us. Here there is a façade of democracy in which the failure of the political system to become or remain democratic is seething.

The failure of the system to deliver the basic services that the people demand from their government is palpable in spite of official grandstanding to the contrary. The mere fact that a country has democratic institutions is of no moment or assistance respecting our recognition of whether the country is well or badly governed. The failure to deliver on the promise of democracy is perhaps the greatest challenge to the legitimacy of such political systems. An example of this scenario is currently playing out in Nigeria where the courts are labouring to inquire into allegations of manipulation of the country’s presidential election.

The emergence of populist contestants or candidates in the election is less a cause or raison d’etre of the general sense of hope respecting how the country ought to be run particularly since the return to democratic rule in 1999 than a symptom of the inequality and the feeling of social or political exclusion that is felt by many citizens. Pervasive poverty has also bred other forms of social dysfunction – narcotic trafficking, gangs, banditry, insurgency, insurrection, and a general feeling of insecurity on the part of the ordinary people.

Organised criminality threatens the state and its basic institutions even as the failure to deal effectively with these problems has tended to undermine the legitimacy of democracy. A sizeable portion of elected officials, for example, are sobering under one form of allegation of criminal indictment or another, some for serious crimes like forgery or character identity.

Nigerian politicians often practice patronage buying by which votes are traded for political favours. Further, the fractitiousness of Nigeria’s democracy often promoted by desperate politicians for cheap political gains, makes it very hard for the government to run seamlessly or to take major decisive decisions on issues like investments in major infrastructure project, etc. More burdensome is the present orgy of looting and civil conflict which if it continues may attenuate political, social and economic institutions and thus render the polity unable to fashion a stable, legitimate Nigerian state.

Political institutions are necessary and may not be taken for granted. High levels of wealth, for instance, rest on an unstated institutional foundation of a legal regime involving property rights, rule of law, and basic inviolable political order. A free market, a vigorous civil society, the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ are all important components of the democratic mix. There is today, a new thinking regarding the recogni’The thinking is to the effect that poor countries are poor not because they lack resources but because they lack effective political institutions.
In Nigeria, the primary purpose of politics is missed even as state institutions are flagrantly abused.

In the words of Adamolekun in his book, The Fall of the Second Republic “There is abundant evidence that the major concern of all our political actors regardless of the slight differences in their philosophical or ideological orientation, is with the distribution of the available natural resources, and each wants as much share as possible for himself, using the struggle over inter-ethnic group equality as a ready façade, thanks to the perverted interpretation of the constitutional concept of Federal Character”.
To be continued tomorrow.
Rotimi-John, a lawyer and public
affairs commentator, wrote vide [email protected]