Two propositions in that speech have always retained my attention. The first is that in which he said, “Africa does not need strong men, it needs strong institutions.” The second is the one in which he said the future of Africa will not be determined by “giants like Nkrumah and Kenyatta”. A tale of two autocrats I do not know if Obama had the two men—Nkrumah and Rawlings—in mind when he uttered those words.

What I know is that, in his audience as he addressed the Ghanaian parliament were men and women conversant with the history of Ghana. In that history, Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry Rawlings stood out as “strongmen”, to use Obama’s words. And, to that extent, Obama’s address to the Ghanaian parliament sounded like an allusion to Nkrumah and Rawlings. Nkrumah fought for the independence of Ghana, became her first Prime Minister, and was a strong leader with a vision.

But Nkrumah the strong man stifled opposition, turning Ghana, not into a one-party state, but into a one-man state—which is what autocracy is. Autocracy is the rule of one man who has succeeded in convincing or intimidating the people into believing that he has undergone an apotheosis. Autocracy represses the democratic spirit that releases developmental energy in peoples.

With their developmental energy released, their land becomes a habitation of persons of actualised potentials. One major factor that has weakened, and continues to weaken democracy in Africa, contributing to the under-development of the continent, is that Africans have had and still have too many autocratic rulers.

Such autocratic rulers might have acted and might be acting with good intentions. But autocracy manifests itself in paternalism, a totalitarian and tyrannical paternalism that insists that all must think like the leader who is presumed to be an unquestionable and infallible strategist simply because he is the leader. Let me remind my audience that this Ghanaian narrative is only an illustration of what is in fact a continental narrative.

Ghana, not unlike many African countries, including Nigeria, has had a history of being on the receiving end of her autocratic rulers in military and civilian dresses. In Ghana, after Nkrumah, not immediately though, was Jerry John Rawlings who presented himself as an anti-corruption crusader. At his first coming, he entered the political landscape of Ghana through a coup d’état. He overthrew a military government led by General Frederick Akuffo, who, in a palace coup, had earlier overthrown General Ignatius Acheampong.

At the end of his first coming, Rawlings organised elections won by Hilla Liman who took over from Rawlings on September 24, 1979, a week before President Shehu Shagari took over from General Olusegun Obasanjo in Nigeria. President Hilla Limann’s government was like a government on probation with Rawlings as probation officer.

For, shortly after handing over to Limann, on December 31, 1981, Rawlings staged a second comeback. He staged another military coup that truncated the Limann administration. His second coming was longer than his first coming. By the time he organised elections to return the country to democratic rule, not only was he presidential candidate, he had no strong opponent.

His reign had been so repressive that no strong opponent could have emerged. So, Rawlings was elected civilian president. Like Nkrumah, who governed Ghana with iron fists, Rawlings was brutal in dealing with dissenting opinions. It was dangerous to disagree with both men. They both imposed their idea of governance on the people. Many young Africans of today only read about them.

Many see them as heroes. Nkrumah and Rawlings represent two of the many instances of apotheosis of the African strongman leader. But I shall focus more on Rawlings. Brutality or illegitimate use of a legitimate institution It was quite significant that Jerry Rawlings died shortly after the #EndSARS protests in Nigeria. The #EndSARS protests represented a repudiation of police and military brutality in Nigeria. But the problem was neither SARS nor the Nigeria Police.

The problem was and still is, proximately, the relationship between the government and the citizen, and, ultimately, the constitution. The purpose of government is to protect the rights of the citizen. The purpose of the constitution is to establish institutions which ought to be used as instruments to protect the citizen. But here, there is a double jeopardy: the 1999 constitution is weak, and this weak constitution has established weak institutions incapable of protecting the citizen from the rule of the strong man.

That is why successive governments in Nigeria have been accused of being at the vanguard of human rights violation in Nigeria. We still carry on as if we were under military rule. If government is at the vanguard of human rights violation, then the police, more specifically, SARS, will violate the rights of Nigerians. And, we must add, it is not just the police. Nigerians are at the mercy of government and its officials at various levels and in every institution of government, and Nigerians are at the mercy of one another.

Police officers are agents of the state. What is at stake is the relationship between the government and the citizen? What kind of state do we have? What kind of state has the 1999 constitution created in Nigeria? Is it a friendly state? Is it a state that respects the citizen? “The police is your friend.” So says a slogan. But whoever believes that slogan will believe anything. It is one of the most cynical lies ever told to Nigerians. The Nigerian driving through police checkpoints knows that the police is not his friend because the state, whose agent the police is, is not his friend. If you have an unfriendly government then you will have unfriendly government agencies. If you have an unfriendly state you will have an unfriendly police. Police brutality in Nigeria is symptom of impunity by government.

In a country where impunity is paraded as governance, police brutality cannot be addressed by a presidential directive issued to the Inspector General of Police. It is one of the many symptoms of our dysfunctional constitution. We have ended up with a hostile state because we have a hostile constitution. The 1999 constitution sets up Nigeria in such a way that government is more powerful than the citizen. That is why the problem is not the police, not the judiciary, not the legislature, not the executive arm of government, but a weak constitution that has engendered weak institutions.

The urgent task before us is to re-envision our society, re-envision and rewrite our constitution, rediscover what it means to be a nation, re-envision the police. Not to embark on this task is to continue to beat about the bush. It is becoming increasingly clear that you cannot secure a country so vast and so populous as Nigeria with weak institutions controlled from Abuja. The brutality of the police and the military illustrate a lamentable absence of institutions capable of protecting the citizen. The military and the police are agencies of a strong-man state. Rawlings represented the ambiguity of military rule and its attendant brutality in Africa, and many instances can be sighted to buttress this assertion. A first instance.

Upon coming into power through a military coup on June 4, 1979, after an unsuccessful coup on May 15, 1979, an unsuccessful coup that earned him a death sentence, Rawlings and the military junta he headed lined up eight military officers, including Generals Kotei, Joy Amedume, Roger Felli, and Utuka, and three former military rulers of Ghana—Akwesi Afrifa, Ignatius Achaeampong and Frederick Akufo, and executed them by firing squad upon allegations of corruption. This is not an attempt to say the men were innocent.

This is to express profound regret that these men were not given proper trial. That can only happen where either there are no democratic institutions or democratic institutions have been weakened by rule of the strong man.
To be continued tomorrow.
Father Akinwale, OP, is Vice Chancellor, Augustine University Ilara-Epe, Lagos State.