From the title of his seminal work, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, the American political thinker and communications theorist, Harold D. Lasswell gave the world the standard definition of politics. Lasswell went on to extrapolate that the elite are the primary holders of political power. He then anchored his well-received thesis on the position that political power is located in the ability to participate in decisions that produce the intended effects on other people.

Placed in the Nigerian context, the Lasswell thesis would have to grapple with deeper realities about how a closed circle of the elite wield and exercise power for their own ends. Put another way, Western political theorists or their willing counterparts in Nigeria must do some original thinking, as well as a significant redefinition of the character trait of the political elite in a place like Nigeria. This should be the prelude to interrogating the extent to which rationality determines how the elite act as primary holders of political power.

Such an excursion is important for democracy. By its nature, democratic rule is supposed to be participatory. It is a system, which is supposed to give citizens the voice and the space to substantially shape decisions about the dominant issues affecting them. As would be seen from the recent example of the United Kingdom, where citizens made a democratic choice to exit the European Union, real democracy provides citizens with the platform to determine the direction in which they would prefer to go as a people. These participatory and transparent features of the democratic process have not been embraced in Nigeria. In place of popular and inclusive participation, what has been prevalent is the enforcement of narrow elite interest, which may sometimes be dressed in populist robes.

Since the advent of Nigeria’s latest democratic experience in 1999, the upheavals in the system have largely been driven by the conflicting interests of a narrow circle of the elite. As such, whatever recriminations that manifest are a direct result of a dominant arm of the narrow elite circle having a walk over another section of the same elite. It is the fight back by the section of the elite, which has been cornered in the power equation that generates some of the tensions in the polity.

This reality informs the unending debate about how the powers vested in various key national institutions like the Presidency or the National Assembly have been exercised in ways that constrained the political space and undermined the interest of the people. The continuous shrinking of the democratic space has given rise to shadowy and narrow elite power narratives. The prevalence of sinister words like “cabal,” and “mafia” in the Nigerian political lexicon since 1999 reflect the continuous emasculation of the democratic spirit.

This tendency began taking roots during the imperial Presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo. After a relatively calm take off in 1999, Obasanjo who fits the portrait of a one-man cabal, masterminded the electoral blitz, which snatched five states from the grasp of the then Alliance for Democracy in the South West. While the freeness and the fairness of those polls were being debated, the former President’s camp launched into a victory dance, as they celebrated the outcomes as the triumph of the brinkmanship of a wily old general.

Emboldened by results of his strong-armed tactics in the South West, the former President launched a not so hidden bid to amend the constitution and award himself a longer tenure. On that occasion however, a rainbow coalition of opposition politicians and the civil society stopped the general in his tracks. With tenure elongation aborted, the former President brow beat all other interested contestants to handpick Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan as Presidential candidate and running mates respectively of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). They went on to win the Presidency, and presided over an era in which the cabal narrative became much more accentuated in political discourse.

Ironically, President Yar’Adua before he succumbed to his health challenges had made a bold move to deepen democracy and reform the decrepit electoral process that was handed down to him by Obasanjo. His astute statesmanship, and willingness to consult gave birth to the Justice Mohammed Uwais Panel, as well as the comprehensive programme of Amnesty for militants in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta. Unfortunately, as his health challenge took its toll, shadowy figures from within his circle of close family members, friends and advisers snatched the moment to implement their own agenda. For months, they played hide and seek with the President’s health, leaving an equally sick nation in the limbo. At some point, the game could simply not go on; on May 5, 2010, Jonathan took over the reins with a promise to breathe fresh air into the polity.

Jonathan’s celebrated rise from the backwaters of the creeks to the Presidency, fired imaginations. His country men and women reckoned that he would govern to meet the needs of the ordinary folks especially knowing that he was once among those ordinary folks. None of those who had portrayed Jonathan in such pro-people light had imagined that the cabal narrative would once again be associated with his Presidency.

As soon as the President settled in, the glitz and glamour of Presidential power benumbed him. He didn’t realise it when real authority slipped from him, and the initiative was handed to a motley crowd of influence peddlers and the other grabbers of the nation’s resources. The peculiarity of the Jonathan cabal would be found in its big size and its very diffused effects. It is for this reason that its damage to the national soul was so far-reaching. Even the former President’s staunchest supporters in their sober moments would reflect that he left too much space for those around him to destroy his Presidency. That is why in spite of a few decent achievements like the National Conference Report, the Kaduna-Abuja rail line and his statesmanlike concession after his defeat at the 2015 Presidential poll, the details of how the national treasury was assaulted on his watch, would continue to amaze experts of governance.

Over one year after the coming of the Buhari Presidency, tongues have started wagging, claiming the existence of a cabal calling the shots from the shadows. The salvo alleging the existence of this unorthodox decision making structure is coming from the leadership of the National Assembly. Particularly, the Senate President, Bukola Saraki has been protesting that the action of the Attorney-General to bring him (Saraki) and his deputy, Ike Ikweremadu to trial over alleged forgery of Senate rules, is the work of a cabal within the Presidency. While the Presidency has refuted those claims, what is clear is that the case in question is before the judiciary. Nigerians would expect those concerned to go through the mill of the judicial process, an institution, which they must necessarily have some faith in.

However, one pertinent point that has been stressed is that the Presidency should move to institutionalise its anti-corruption war such that it would no longer be exposed to allegations of selectivity, vendetta and partisanship. In fact, Buharimeter the governance tracking tool designed to assess the Buhari Presidency in its first year report notes that while 82 percent of Nigerians surveyed support the ongoing anti-graft war, the war itself has not been institutionalised for optimum results. The report observes that “several pundits have consistently argued that the war against corruption mainly targets the opposition, with only politicians from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) singled out for prosecution in the new war against corruption.”

On the part of the legislature, which is now quarrelling about the existence of an alleged cabal, it has been admonished to carry itself with a little more seriousness. Close observers have commented that a legislature in which scores of senators are always willing to abandon their duties just to show solidarity with a helmsman standing trial, is itself succumbing to a cabal mind set. Such a law-making arm would find it difficult to muster the moral high ground to hold any other arm of government to account.

As for the trial of the Senate President and his deputy, there are those who have observed that it is the lethargy of the legislature that has come to haunt it. This position is premised on the fact that the legislature at some point had the opportunity to amend the constitution to separate the offices of the Attorney-General and that of the Minister of Justice. That would have helped create an independent institution, which would be immune from alleged interference from the executive.

But because that did not factor in the interest of the legislative cabal at the time, it was not given due attention. Now, the same institution which had the powers to do the right thing for the good of democracy is whining because it now claims that it is being victimised. The moral of the story is that even when they exercise power as a minority, those who have that privilege should act for the collective good, and not for narrow and selfish interests.