The extent to which the interests of a country’s ruling class align with the needs and wants of its citizens is the extent to which its governance style is seen as “democratic.”
Last Friday, while addressing State House correspondents in Abuja, the chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Umar Ganduje, made a statement that many Nigerians suspect is the grand plan of his party for Nigeria — a one-party state. During his chat with journalists, Ganduje, the immediate past governor of Kano State, weighed in on the raging and controversial discourse of the nation’s democracy being in danger and what the future holds for opposition parties in the country.
He opined that a multi-party system does not allow for efficient and effective governance that delivers the dividends of democracy to the people, saying, “Today, China is one of the strongest countries in the world and is a one-party system. We are not saying we are working for a one-party system, but if this is the wish of Nigerians, we cannot quarrel with that. You know they say too many cooks spoil the soup; too many political parties spoil governance.”
He further stated that “Leaders worried about a one-party state have no need to fear. A one-party state is not by force; it is by negotiation. It is because other political parties see the effect of the positive governance of our party. If they decide to come to our party willingly, I think there is nothing wrong with that”
Ganduje’s remarks came amid the wave of defections to the APC, including those of Senators Adamu Aliero (Kebbi Central), Yahaya Abdullahi (Kebbi North) and Garba Maidoki (Kebbi South) who joined the party after meeting with President Tinubu on Friday.
Anyone following happenings and events in Nigeria’s political arena in recent months, especially the furore and crisis in the opposition parties, won’t be taken aback by Ganduje’s remark, from the gale of defection from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling APC to the use of state institutions as a tool for persecution and blackmail of the opposition parties politicians and the clandestine deployment of state resources to weaken opposition parties.
Ganduje’s one-party remark may have flown under the radar of public discourse if he had not brought China into the mix. To buttress his assertion and manufacture consent for the sinister one-party plan of his party, he was quick to cite China as a shining example of what a nation can achieve if it were to be run indefinitely by one political party. Never mind that there are a plethora of examples of one-party states that have not been able to replicate the success story of China and are a textbook example of how not to run a nation. And judging by the performance of his party after nearly a decade in power, Nigeria is closer to some of these failed and pariah one-party states and it is nowhere near replicating the enviable socio-economic success of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Ganduje loves and extols the political system of China, but I’m not sure he will harbour the same sentiment for its style of governance, especially its zero tolerance for corruption and malfeasance in public and private sectors. In fact, if Nigeria were to be anything close to China, especially in the area of tackling corruption, Ganduje would most likely not be in a position to lecture Nigerians on the benefits or otherwise of a one-party state. He would either be languishing behind bars or executed for corruption. You’ll recall that in 2018 when Ganduje was Kano State governor, he was caught on tape receiving a bribe. In the footage that went viral, he was seen stuffing wads of dollars in his babariga. He is not standing trial for such blatant diversion of public funds and egregious betrayal of public trust. Instead, he is rewarded with the chairman of his party, and last November, a federal high court stopped the Kano State from probing him.
Ganduje must know that Nigeria’s high threshold for impunity, intemperate tolerance for corruption, and general lack of consequences for impropriety, illegal activities and bad behaviour are his lucky days. He won’t get that kind of luck in the same China he fantasises about. For someone who has become synonymous with morally repulsive actions, socially contemptible deeds and illegality, he would be lucky to escape capital punishment if he did not spend the rest of his days in prison. While Ganduje is quick to point out China as the gold standard for his party’s choice of political system, what he failed to mention is the general attitude and disposition of the CCP leadership and the Chinese elites toward leadership. At the core of the CCP’s goals and objectives in ruling China is building a nation that the average Chinese will be proud of, lifting 1.2 billion Chinese people out of poverty and uprooting the nation from the abyss of underdevelopment and backwardness and planting it firmly on the pedestal of economic prosperity. And all this they’ve been able to achieve in just 30 years. They have turned a largely agrarian nation teeming with impoverished and hapless people into an economic and military powerhouse that everyone envies.
However, the behavioural patterns and attitude of the All Progressives Congress (APC) towards power are in sharp contrast to that of the CCP. For APC, addressing the myriad of challenges facing Nigeria and building a nation with a thriving economy and a happy populace are inconsequential. Their main goal is the consolidation of power by any means necessary, not nation-building. They have a disturbing reputation that is hinged on self-aggrandisement, blatant theft and diversion of public funds and resources and sickening disregard for the rule of law. It’s as though there is an unspoken consensus in the party that the more you indulge in activities that sabotage the growth of Nigeria, the better your chances of rising to the highest rung of the political ladder. The party’s disposition condones corruption. Its value system encourages illegality. Its doctrine tolerates impropriety. Its culture enables criminality, and its creeds embolden those who put personal goals and tribal considerations over national interest and see politics and governance as an avenue to acquire questionable wealth.
When we talk about democracy, especially in Nigeria, the focus is more on elections and how people can attain power. There is little by way of how people elected into public offices perform, this is so because elections are nothing more than a charade here. The social contract between the governed and the governors is absent. China is not regarded as a democratic nation, at least by the acceptable definition of democracy, but its system of government is performance-driven. You deliver results, then you are promoted. The best of the bunch gets to hold public office. They understand the principle of a social contract. Even though public office holders are selected and not elected, they understand that they serve at the pleasure of the people, and whatever they do, the welfare and well-being of the people must be their priority.
Making life easy and ameliorating the suffering of their people are always at the core and centre of every government policy and regulation.
In Nigeria, we keep recycling mediocre people, and then “pray to God” for economic progress.
“Democracy” is an illusion. What we’ve everywhere in the world is various forms of elite consensus.
The extent to which the interests of a country’s ruling class align with the needs and wants of its citizens is the extent to which its governance style is seen as “democratic.” Having a prosperous nation with a thriving economy has nothing to do with liberalism or democracy; some of the rich nations of the world don’t practice democracy. You just need competent, visionary and selfless leaders.
Maybe many Nigerians would not squirm and recoil at the mere mention of Nigeria becoming a one-party state if Ganduje and his party had not made Nigeria the country with the highest number of poor people on earth if they had not tanked the economy so badly that Nigeria’s economy, which was the largest in Africa with a gross domestic product of $568.5 billion and third fastest growing economy in the world behind China and Qatar in 2015 projected to become a trillion dollar economy by 2014, is now the fourth largest economy in Africa and its GDP $252.7. Who knows, Nigerians may be receptive to the idea of a one-party state if Ganduje and his party have not plunged Nigeria into a perennial, deepening economic crisis characterised by violence, wanton killings of unarmed Nigerians and their displacement from their homes by rampaging armed non-state actors.
Nigerians may be willing to embrace Ganduje’s vision of a new Nigeria where opposition parties are non-existent and his party rules forever if they were not grappling with the worst economic hardship and cost of living crisis in the nation’s history if they were not contending with a depreciating currency, runaway food inflation which has decimated their purchasing power, eroded their disposable income and depleted their savings. If they were not led by a bunch of kleptomaniac and terrorist sympathisers, if they were not ruled by a motley crowd of money-hungry, power-seeking and self-serving charlatans who see the nation as one gigantic cash cow, who deem the nation’s commonwealth and patrimony theirs only and to be divvied up and used as they see fit.
Nigerians may not have issues with Ganduje broaching the idea of a one-party state if the lives of the majority of them have not got progressively worse since his party came to power. I’m quite sure many Nigerians will pick an altruistic, visionary, people-oriented, purpose-driven, economically-prosperous, scientifically and technologically advanced, merit-based quasi-capitalist one-party communist state over the sham we call democracy here. Ganduje needs to do some introspection and soul-searching. He must decide if he and his party want power for the sake of just having it or if they want it to improve their lives and the lives of the people.
Having said that, what will become of Nigeria is clear and simple if a ruling political party that, under a somewhat normal and ideal democratic setting, has not been able to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people, has performed abysmally and disastrously on every socio-economic index, and has repeatedly shown dictatorship tendencies, is allowed to turn the country into a one-party state. If Nigeria should become a one-party state under the APC, what you will get is not the economic prosperity of China, its world-class infrastructure, its selfless leaders and its happy and thriving citizens. What you will get is a brutal police state where the rights of the citizens are violated, and the words of those in power are the Constitution. What you will get is a repressive and draconian state that will not hesitate to crush dissents or unleash violence and terror on vocal opposition voices. What you will get is more economic hardship and crippling inflation.
I’m sure Nigerians, having lived under the rulership of the APC for a decade, are perfectly aware of the danger a one-party state portends for them and the nation, and they will surely avert the nation’s descent into such a catastrophic arrangement.
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