FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY’S CHALLENGES

At the Joint Sitting of Parliament during State Visit to Jamaica

Kingston, Jamaica, 7 August, 2002

It is indeed a matter of great honour and satisfaction for me to address this assembly on this great occasion that in so many respects symbolises the march of freedom on the path of democracy.

I stand on this rostrum with a deep sense of humility and pride: humility in the wake of those noble architects of your national freedom, and pride, in the fact that the harmony of rainbow coalition depicted by representation in this Joint Assembly, is indeed noble and a source of hope for peaceful coexistence for the many races of humankind.

This occasion calls for reflection on the roles of your national heroes. We fondly remember Marcus Garvey, that charismatic leader who organized the first important US Black Nationalist movement, thus anticipating the espousal of black vision and destiny, and Pan Africanism, that would later inspire the nationalist movements of the sixties and the seventies. It was here in Jamaica that Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), whose goals were to promote unity among Negroes of the world by instilling pride of race.

Honourable Members of Parliament and distinguished Senators, permit me to pay tribute to the two founding fathers of Jamaica’s major political parties, Right Honourable Norman Manley and the Right Honourable Alexander Bustamente. I salute the vision of the founding fathers. And I applaud the courage with which the Parties have upheld the visions to remain the two pillars of democracy and governance in Jamaica.

Our tribute also goes to the people of Jamaica whose democratic culture, tolerance, understanding and love for freedom continue to provide an environment that nurtures and sustains Jamaica’s democracy.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, almost twenty-four months ago, when Nigeria celebrated her fortieth independence anniversary, we observed that our anniversary celebration at the turn of the century and at the beginning of a new millennium was a unique and symbolically compelling moment to reflect on our journey so far and to articulate, amongst other things, an enduring vision for our nation.

Out of that sober reflection a number of ideas pertaining to the destiny of our nation and to our future as a democratic society has since continued to gestate in my mind. I consider this meeting, here, an appropriate opportunity to share with you some of my thoughts on Freedom and the Challenges of Democracy in Nation Building, hoping this would be part of my modest contribution to the occasion of Jamaica’s 40^th Anniversary of Independence.

Jamaica and Nigeria share a number of characteristics, not least of which are the genetic pools in Jamaican society that are directly traceable to Nigerian origin. But, particularly relevant to this occasion, is the fact that our two countries were both conceived by oppression and colonialism. And both were born in freedom! Consequently, in both countries we face the challenge of forging nationhood with principles of democracy.

There is a uniqueness in the process of democratically building a nation born in freedom that is often ignored or understated, especially in discourses that assume Western democracies as the norms. The fact of the matter is that most Western nations started out as kingdoms, where the will of the people had been previously cemented together through subjugation to monarchies. The United States of America may appear to be an exception, but on closer examination, the American war of independence was only the beginning of nation building process which reached the final stages with the American civil war, and even then the economic foundation on which the nation of the United States finally settled, was largely the product of forced labour and captive market.

The point here is that it takes a compelling force to weld people together into a nation. That initial force has to be strong enough to forge bonds between interest groups, otherwise, no sooner is the nation established the weakness of the nation begins to show in the poor links as instability.

The dilemma which Nigeria shares with most nations born in freedom, is that freedom often turns out not to be a strong enough initial force, and we often face the onerous task of resorting to democracy as a primary force. In our particular circumstance in Nigeria, we have had to fight a ghastly civil war which, historically, could be said to be an extreme manner of enforcing the avowed commitment and loyalty of all ethnic groups to the Nigerian nation born in the struggle for freedom from colonialism. Even though, we are pleased to note that no group is now calling for a breakup of Nigeria, there are still divisive tendencies which are continually challenging our democratic aspirations for a united nation.

Of all the conditions that sustain democracy as the driving force in nation building, the most important of them, in my view, is that the people must first internalise its ideals and values, and must be prepared to defend them, even at the cost of shedding their own blood. These ideals and values sometimes arise from philosophical conviction. But in all circumstances they must also reflect the collective experience of the people, and their decision to choose how to be governed.

In Nigeria we have had to experience deeply and personally, the evils of oppression and dictatorship, before we could make our own categorical choice. Our struggle for freedom did not end with the departure of the British from our shores, or with the formal declaration of independence in October, 1960. Indeed, compared to what we have had to suffer subsequently at the hands of our own home grown tyrants, the struggle against British colonialism would seem to have been a merely prolonged skirmish.

A great majority of the leaders of the anti-colonial struggle in Nigeria, died in their beds, at a ripe old age. Not a single one of them died in prison. But, in contrast, the history of the Nigerian struggle against internal tyranny is a history of torture, unexplained disappearances, deaths by assassination or poisoning, unjust imprisonment, and forced or voluntary exile.

I say all this here only to emphasise a single point: Our commitment today to democracy and its values is not at all a theoretical matter! It is not a leisured preference for one constitutional norm against others. It is, on the contrary, a gut reaction to a lived and abhorrent experience. We uphold today the principles of freedom and individual liberty, and we renounce tyranny in all its forms, because we have seen where dictatorship can lead us, what it can do to the human soul. Our commitment to democracy today is not at all an option. It is a fundamental imperative. It is the one form of government that guarantees the unity of our country in a sustainable way. It is the only system of government that effectively protects us against authoritarianism and dictatorship. And Nigerians today are perfectly willing to shed their blood in its defence.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, having so affirmed our commitment to democracy and its principles, we note, with profound concern, the persistent tendency of Western institutions to sit in judgment over the practice of democracy in relatively young nations, like Nigeria and Jamaica. For instance, as I speak, the reputable Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which I have had the opportunity to address on a number of occasions, is circulating a report which pronounces the forthcoming elections in Nigeria to have already failed to meet international credibility standards. We vehemently reject, in absolute terms, this sanctimonious view of democracy as political fashion that is designed and fitted only in Western intellectual shops.

It may have been true that we in Nigeria once adopted democratic norms because it was the fashionable thing to do. However, our recent experience of bad governance, has transformed that previously formal preference into a deep-seated, internalised creed. Today, we affirm democracy and its values because it is good for us, and not because the world demands it of us.

Let me, at this point, thank the Jamaican Parliament for supporting the Commonwealth sanctions against tyranny in Nigeria. That particular episode in our experience, demonstrated to us that those engaged in the internal Nigerian struggle for the restoration of democracy could count on the active support and understanding of the international community. We have also become conscious of the critical world consensus that the democratic project does indeed have a global dimension by which it follows that every country that shares this view has a responsibility to uphold and encourage it, especially in the developing world. All process of governance however must be practically related to the culture and tradition, as well as the reality of the people’s values.

On our part, in Nigeria, we are convinced that the primary responsibility for sustaining democracy in our country is ours. It is equally clear to us, however, that Nigeria, being a developing country just emerging from a long period of devastation by tyranny, desperately needs the help, support and understanding of all democratic countries to achieve the universally accepted goals that we have set for ourselves.

Those goals can quickly be summarised in this way. For us, democracy is not merely about forms of government. Peaceful, free and fair elections are not ends in themselves, but only the best possible means for installing representative governments that embody the collective hopes and aspirations of our citizens, and their faith in their ability to change things for the better. And for me, in essence that is what development is all about. Our Administration has constantly drawn attention to the need for moral regeneration in our country. We believe that the state has responsibilities to its citizens, but that every citizen also has an equally important responsibility to the state, and to his fellow citizen. And we will continue to fight against corruption in all its forms, because we see it as little more than a cynical and anti-social response to the admitted imperfections of the state itself.

One basic problem of democracy, particularly in a developing country, is that it is an expensive project. Apart from the enormous cost of funding numerous levels of government, democracy, by its very nature, must seek to achieve multiple objectives simultaneously. Authoritarian regimes, for instance, are not obliged to bother much with environmental impact assessments of industrial projects, nor are they obliged to accommodate the rights and sentiments of those who may differ on the perceived benefits of government programmes and policies.

It is not without reason, therefore, that dictatorships such as we have experienced in Nigeria, tend to prefer state-controlled economies in which the minutest decisions regarding economic and industrial policy are made by a few and imposed on the many. A centralised economy, by whatever name called, is much easier to manipulate and corrupt. Our Administration, on the other hand, is determined to evolve a system in which the role of government is primarily directed towards the making of laws and regulations, the administration of justice, and the provision of general security and enabling infrastructure; while the private sector is left with the major responsibility of serving as the engine of growth and development.

Empowering private enterprise in this way is not, however, without its imperfections and distortions. Private enterprise depends a great deal on the ability to raise capital. And since we do not live in a perfect world, it is often the case that only those who already have capital, or can raise it, have the opportunity of acquiring even more. A major task of democratic governance is, consequently, always to so arrange the affairs of the state as to continuously expand access to capital. But in spite of this and other limitations, private enterprise does minimise graft, greed and corruption, at least at the level of state operations, and democratises the process of economic and industrial planning and growth.

It is, however, at the level of international economic relations, that the idea of a free market economy, of a globalised and uniform system of trade and economic relations, begins to show more clearly the contradictions and distortions inherent in it. In the mid-70s, for instance, the United States Agency for International Development suspended all aid to Nigeria, on the grounds that Nigeria did not at the time require international financial aid, mainly because of the revenue it was deriving from oil exports. Indeed, a great deal of pressure was put on successive Nigerian governments of the time, by international financial institutions and multi-national companies, to go out and borrow money. Successful borrowing, the governments were told, was a persuasive index of the financial and economic health of the country. The first “jumbo” loan was obtained from the international finance market, at this time. It was, in relation to the massive indebtedness of Nigeria today, a mere pittance.

But today, Nigeria’s debt burden stands at about 28 billion US dollars, and continues to escalate, not because of any further borrowing, but because of the interest and so-called penalty that continues to accrue on the money already borrowed. Conventional wisdom enjoins us to neither a lender nor a borrower be. A certain version of economic theory tells us, on the other hand, that the capacity to borrow is in fact an index of fiscal virtue. Our reality, however, is much more prosaic. No significant measure of development is at all possible for as long as we must continue to pay up on these loans strictly in accordance with agreed schedules. At best, rescheduling is a mere palliative. It does not address the substantive problem of a huge and unwieldy debt exposure, some of which we have repaid twice over without significant reduction in our debt stock. What, then, is to be done?

Indeed, were we to restrict ourselves to the imperatives of rapid industrialisation and development, we could obviously have chosen the path that some of the more industrialised countries of the Third World had adopted. Many of them, in Asia and South America, achieved their relative development under military or semi-authoritarian regimes. That implied a deliberate choice in favour of rapid economic and industrial growth, and at the expense of any serious concern with human freedoms. But we in Nigeria have made a different and, in our view, a more enriching choice. We have committed ourselves to rapid economic growth. But we have equally chosen to pursue this course without surrendering or down-grading our dedication to fundamental freedoms. It would consequently be quite in the nature of things, if the rate and pace of development in Nigeria is not as spectacular, perhaps, as has been the case in some other countries. But there is, we are certain, sufficient recompense in this outcome. Development in freedom is, in our view, much to be preferred to development in bondage.

But why should the rest of the world be concerned with our peculiar predicament as far as our debt situation is concerned? Why should the industrialised world be interested in the fate of an impoverished Third World country like Nigeria? The reasons, I hope, are sufficiently obvious.

The tension between the impulse towards rapid industrialisation and the necessity to provide for the ordinary needs of our citizens is always severe. We must provide the funding for improvements in health, education, potable water, general social welfare, transportation, communication, and increased food production and food security. We must simultaneously ensure that every citizen is at all times protected in the enjoyment of his rights, both civil and human. And at the same time, we must do all that we can, to discharge our international responsibilities, including our obligation to pay our debts.

In the case of Nigeria, we could choose to severely minimise our involvement, if not totally repudiate our responsibilities to actively participate in sub-regional, regional or even global affairs. We could declare a policy of fortress Nigeria, and withdraw from our major role in peace-keeping and peace-enforcement activities in ECOMOG, and the rest of Africa and the world. We could then use the money we save from such withdrawals to improve the quality of life of our own citizens.

But we reject all these options, and choose instead to remain valid and hopefully viable members of the world community. Taking this latter course means, naturally, that we as a government must continue to live precariously with the ever present possibility of internal discord and upheaval, arising from popular frustration. Very few of our citizens are ever likely to accept that fulfilling our international obligations justifies the inevitable deprivations they must suffer as a result of this. The prospect of sub-regional or regional disharmony is an even more tangible danger in these circumstances, if we should choose to look to the internal well-being of Nigerians, with scant concern for what happens around us.

And for these reasons, therefore, we respectfully ask: what is the dividend that we can legitimately anticipate in so deliberately courting internal hardship and possible social upheaval, as we meticulously continue to discharge our international responsibilities in world affairs, without a visible and reciprocal concern by the rest of the world for our own difficulties? Why, in these circumstances, is it so difficult for the industrialised world to understand and concede that we and they do have a mutuality of interests which need to be vigorously protected by them and by us?

When we demand relief from our debts, we do so because such relief would naturally leave us with greater resources to dispose not only of our domestic responsibilities, but also of our international obligations. When we demand that the governments of the industrialised countries assist us in recovering the vast sums of money stolen from us and deposited in foreign banks, we do so because it would make it easier for us to pay part of our foreign debts, and thereby afford us greater flexibility in respect of the speed with which we discharge our obligatory domestic commitments.

Essentially, however, what we seek is not charity, not even aid. We are striving in Nigeria, instead, to create an environment that is conducive to foreign investment. And that is what we seek: Investment! We seek a fairer and more rational understanding of the difficulties that developing countries face, especially as they strive to enthrone an enduring democratic culture, and simultaneously to provide for their peoples the basic amenities of modern living. If ever there was any truth in the saying, that no man is an island entirely unto himself, surely it must be now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when the interests of nations and states have become so closely interwoven that every insecurity in any corner of the globe has the potential of threatening the security of the entire world.

It is surely hypocritical, if you will permit me to say so, that the older democracies should continue to harangue us in the younger democracies, about the necessity to persevere in our efforts to build sustainable democratic cultures in our countries, while at the same time refusing to make the most elementary concessions that are necessary for this project to have a realistic hope of succeeding. Poverty is not a democratic virtue. Instead, it breeds frustration, and frustration frequently breeds aggression, both domestic and external. In other words democracy and poverty are strange bed-fellows

The salvation for developing countries, to my mind, lies in our hands. It is imperative that we device appropriate strategy to face these economic challenges or else even our cherished democracy would become threatened by civil and social unrest in our various countries.

Nigeria’s practical efforts in addressing this challenge of economic emancipation is to pursue economic development at different levels: The sub-regional, regional or continental and global level. In the West African Sub-region, our organization, ECOWAS is exerting efforts to harmonize our policies and ensure maximum utilization of comparative advantages of member-states for the benefits of the whole, in the social, economic as well as political sphere. We have succeeded in building a sound foundation for eventual integration of the region with other similar organizations in the continent.

At the continental level, the erstwhile OAU has fulfilled it envisaged role of securing political emancipation for Africa from colonialism, racism, and apartheid. Its recent transformation to African Union (AU) now underlies its new and expanded role as the vehicle for realizing African integration. It also constitutes a formal framework for conflict resolution, management, and most significantly conflict prevention. These are pre-conditions for socio-economic advancement of the continent.

Along with this socio-political aspect, African Leaders have also adopted a homegrown all-embracing development programme - the New Partnership for African Development or NEPAD. This programme seeks to bring about economic emancipation, through collaboration with the developed countries on the basis of genuine partnership and equality. It also enshrined in concrete terms, the principles and practice of good governance for instance, through the Peer Review Mechanism adopted by the African Leaders. Indeed, NEPAD represents a good example of economic cooperation among developing countries based on genuine partnership with the developed countries while not ignoring the imperative of self-reliance. It is very much in consonance with our quest for South-South Cooperation, which is being pursued through multilateral fora such as NAM, the G-77, G-15 in which Nigeria and Jamaica share common membership.

The leadership of the African Union recognises the challenges of finance for development in developing countries. Therefore, our aim is to eradicate poverty, achieve sustained economic growth and promote sustainable development preparatory to the new global economic system through partnership with different parts of the world. And we have been told by some leaders of the West that this will entail ‘New Experiment’.

The underlying philosophy of the ‘New Experiment’ is accountability and popular participation. We are comfortable with such ‘New Experiment’. No regime achieves sustainable development unless it hinges its programme on the people, as initiated by their elected representatives.

It is in this context that the Parliament is now relevant, more than ever before, in contemporary governance. Therefore, the onus of sustaining democracy and work in harmony with the Executive and the Judiciary in promoting the requirement of good governance and development under the ‘New Experiment’ principally rests on the Legislature.

Let me also urge us all to continue to work together, to allow democracy to flourish and empower the multiple layers of government in every jurisdiction within our respective countries. We should never underrate the power of democracy to unleash unseen and untapped potentials in every nook and cranny of our respective countries to positively propel us forward.

Finally, I must warn that posterity will ultimately judge our generation’s political stewardship, not in terms of how many roads we built or how many houses or private fortunes we amassed, but in terms of how well we are able to transform our respective countries, and thus help cure the developing world of its age-old disease of alienating our peoples from the state, and create the right environment for the progress and prosperity of our peoples. In short, how well we have advanced, in real and positive terms, the destiny of our nations. As elected representatives of our peoples, we will be judged on how well we can build bridges between the government and the governed, as well as establish enduring legacies, through the enactment of appropriate legislations and formulation of appropriate policies.

Democracy as the primary binding force in nation building may have a shorter history, and therefore poses more challenges in the process of governance. But ultimately, as our experiences indicate, democracy will prove its superiority over coercion, because it accords with the principles of natural justice, peace, equitable coexistence among human beings, and, above all, FREEDOM!

I thank you.