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The godfather re-echos
By CHIMAROKE
NNAMANI
Monday, January 23,
2006
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•Gov Chimaroke
Nnamani
Photo: Sun News
Publishing |
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Since Governor Chimaroke Nnamani of Enugu State gave his
epic lecture on the godfather phenomenon in Nigeria,
countrymen have witnessed repeated versions of this brand of
power game of which more than four Chief Executives of States
had had to come tumbling down on account of the menace of
their erstwhile masters.
Of course, Governor Nnamani
had freshly emerged from a deafening tussle with a self
confessed father of Enugu politics, Senator Jim Nwobodo.
What transpired at the rupture of the Senator’s
relationship with his assumed godson was like a thunder of
political storm, which virtually brought Enugu to its knees.
But the triumph of the godson was to further define the safety
valves of which would be godsons could latch on.
Yet, such
fine points deriving from the political experiences and
Nnamani’s intellectual stamina have yet to be picked by the
present generation of godsons, one of whom, Governor Rashidi
Ladoja, just kissed the dust a fortnight ago.
The
on-going has therefore compelled our bringing to the
foreground, the debate that has taken the front burner as
Ladoja, rather than realizing that the oxygen of his
administration was being terminated, preferred to fight from
outside.
Bellow is the full text of
Nnamani’s thesis:
To my mind, there is a hint of unusual challenge in this
invitation extended to me by The Source Magazine and Udi Hills
Nigeria " a Centre for Public Affairs Research and
Development."
This challenge, if I am right, arises from my
consideration of the depth of the topic in two major
dimensions. One is the dimension of the truth of my personal
experience, while the other is the angle of the reality of the
need for the debate for our true political re-engineering to
be kept up in earnest.
Since I got into this business
of critical consciousness, I have laboured to find out how
best we can take on the fuller texture of discourse to quickly
ascertain the best track on which an emerging democratic
Nigeria would take. In that process, I have discovered that
the more efforts we make in positioning Nigeria as a
democratic environment, particularly in the areas of thinking
and actions, the more the threat of relapse into the malaise
of long habits of undemocratic practices.
Somehow, I
have been at pains trying to relate the level of democratic
enthusiasm of our fellow countrymen with the elite
intellectual game play which sometimes leaves me with the
impression that we always play fancies with the people simply
because we never fully realized the dangers of the myth we
create in undue speculations and irrelevant attentions often
given to matters of little or no meaning to the greater number
of the citizenry.
Sometimes, I am perplexed by the
fancy of the elite engaged in cult worship as well as
desperation for the rise of lords over them even as global
attitude has long shifted in favour of total and equal
participation in the affairs of polities.
Although
considering the trend of our immediate political history, we
came on the fillip of the leadership and guts of liberation
fighters who dared and who excelled in mobilization as it
were. This had built its own clan of cult personalities
alongside the economic upheavals, which produced masters where
minions once held as their cove.
I am not unmindful of
the fact that the supposition of clouts on the plank of access
to fortune and levers of mass communication have been built
into our psyche and so caused a culture of celebration of
personality, bigness and claim to prowess, even without the
substance of a real contact with the larger
community.
The intricacy of this reality of our history
and the tendency of phenomenal influence of the rich and the
mighty over the common herd leaves the stage for those who
have erected the supposition of the imposition of the will of
those possessed of great material opulence and the requisite
hint of "comedy" to dazzle the masses.
By way of
introducing one dimension of this topic, I can say that it is
completely strange to me that today, I, Chimaroke Nnamani, a
Wawa kid from Agbani, in Nkanu West Local Government Area of
Enugu State, having come of the immediate political experience
which contended with a certain level of pretension about cult
personality and having had a headlong collision with what
resembles a godfather onslaught, have been invited to mount
this podium of the Nigeria Institute of International Affairs
(NIIA) to take on a subject called godfather phenomenon "¯in
democratic Nigeria"¯ Silicon or Real?
Somehow, I feel
slightly hampered by the possible implication of my
contribution to this topic since I am at a loss as to whether
I am invited to relate my experiences or to take on the more
sober angles which shall provide some insight into the
tendency of the so called godfather scenario in the field of
an elaborating democratic environment.
Frankly speaking, if the invitation is for me to relate my
experiences, I apologise that I may be out to disappoint some
of my audience. And even while I may have much to say about my
view of the attempt by the elite to create a godfather zone -
a region for a select few - to escape the rigours of proper
democratic mobilization and mass participation, I consider
myself not quite fortified to be on the side of those who
should evaluate media impact and roles in a rather confusing
intellectual grandstanding.
However, before I set sail,
let me express my deep appreciation to The Source Magazine and
Udi Hills, Nigeria for putting together this series as an
opportunity for examining issues incumbent immediately after
elections. Indeed, I am not surprised that our sister, Comfort
Obi, would work with an intellectual Centre as the Udi hills
Nigeria to fashion a shop for the development of the national
mind. As a pioneer of note, I have always felt that she has
set on the way for greater heights. It is our hope that all
the golden dreams be realized with showers of God’s
blessings.
Indeed, if it is the intension of the
organizers that we take a bold leap now that we have
successfully undertaken an all civil-to-civil rule transition,
I dare share in the view that it has become imperative, even
for the gains of intellectual exercise, to seek the full
implication and operational modes of many a political player
in a polity which seeks to be classified democratic but which
appears undecided in relation with definite matters of
democratic plurality.
It has remained my view that
debate, as we have embarked on in this enterprise of today,
goes a long way to formalizing the emerging culture of the
alternative viewpoint, which shall remain the dominant vehicle
for the perpetuation of democracy.
In popular debate
and dialogue, as we know, we are assured of the alternative
viewpoint. It is on the strength of this position that I
consider it proper that all issues must be tabled and
discussed, and all positions modified in the interest of the
rest of us who must remain steadfast with this enterprise
called Nigeria.
As you know, I have not minced words
about this nation riding its promises on the crest of
discussion, establishing the entire dimensions and building in
the whole framework. I have tried to sustain my earlier
position that it is incumbent on the elite to shape the
expectation framework so as to carry the citizens along and to
promote Nigeria on the pedestal of corresponding national
abilities.
In this regard, my first approach to the
challenge of this topic, The godfather phenomenon "in
democratic Nigeria," ¯silicon or real?, is that we have no
choice but to seek to return to the basic context in which
Nigerians see the godfather as a segment of the political
process as well as the figure, standing against the
intellectual extrapolations originating in, and also
sustained, by the media.
By way of getting sucked into
the American underworld stereotype, some Nigerians see the
godfather scenario as the emergence of a looming and imperious
guardian figure who provided the lifeline and direction for
the godson, perceived to live a life of total submission,
subservience and protection of the oracular personality
located in the large, material frame of opulence, affluence
and decisiveness; that is, if not ruthlessness.
In a
way, it came to be related as the supremely father figure,
who, for the lack of completeness of the toddling upstart
known as his godson, cuts the paths and upstages the system to
prove the mastery of the terrain for the benefit of the
neophyte. Meadow Klansk in his elaborate work on father
figures, The Master Ant, sustains the viability of the father
figure but with the proviso that it must consistently feather
the nest of the upstart, who, even for any measure of
misdemeanor would have no more than spanking. Certainly, he
was not projecting an onslaught, not a disregard for the
order, and not a hint of the looming monster at the city’s
main gate.
Mark Anthony, the great orator who presented
both Caesar’s supremacy over Pompei and the pretension to
power, did realize his holy duty as godfather and pursued the
potentials of the young Augustus Octavius Caesar when he
declared that it shall be for whom the power is ordained even
at the outset of the war, the youth crossed my path and
upturned the arrangement that I command the West and he,
youth, commands the East.
Even before his holy head
was taken on a platter to the princess, there was no further
doubt about the greatness and supremacy of the values argued
by John the Baptist. Yet, he did not get stuck with the
pre-eminence of his preachments to undermine the youthful
upstart, Jesus of Nazareth who had journeyed from Galilee to
the River Jordan for the baptism of the great master.
Indeed, it may not have been too difficult for the
then proclaimed master to unsay: "I need to be baptized by you
and do you come to me?" (Matthew 3 v 13), having set the stage
for his preparation for a godson for whom he declared, "¯I did
baptize you with water… but he who cometh after me is mightier
than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to bear" (Matthew 3 v
11). Yet it was the same John The Baptist, the ordained
prophet, for whom Jesus said in Matthew 11 v 12 "verily,
verily, I say unto you, among them that are born of women,
there has not risen a greater (man) than John The
Baptist."
Indeed, even in the erstwhile Igbo worldview,
the godfather is not too strange, only that in the context it
was applied, it never really came to the political scenario
where the supposed "father" lost sleep because the supposed
"son" was becoming a man.
In a brief seminal
contribution, Igbo Socio-political System, Eme Awa makes it
clear that the normal Igbo family seeks out a guardian, a sort
of a godfather for the sons, "who are expected to be inspired
and motivated by the streak of perfections, deftness, contact,
courage, experiences and accomplishments associated with the
guestmaster."
Commenting on the scenario of Igbo
merchant apprenticeship, Ogbunugo Anyiam states in his work,
Ndigbo after the War, that "to leave the child to fend for
himself or to let him live and grow with the dangers of his
father’s light-handed upbringing is akin to undue pampering
which is like spelling disaster at the commencement of the
journey of life for the youngster."
In Nnam Ukwu’s "
my master - a slim fictional work of Onuigbo Ikoro, who tried
to capture the sustaining sojourn of the Aros of Eastern
Nigeria, in the 16th to19th centuries, no one was left in
doubt about the utility value of the master, may be a
godfather sort of, who had a challenge in bringing up the
child but who must go to sleep in the wake of the exhibition
of the prowess he inculcated in the rising star as the kid is
under compulsion to bring to play, his own version of the
journey of life.
If we continue to look at the
godfather incident from the foregoing perspective, we may have
to accept the slightly developed theory of Idoma
nma-agaba-idu.s " the young lion" which on learning the whole
tricks of the supremely powerful master took over kingdoms and
territories which the master and tutor never dared, even if
the great fore-runner was hindered by the finesse of diplomacy
and respect for the tradition of the time.
These all
confirm the age-old Igbo view that the prayers of any complete
man, mind you, complete man is that "the child will ascend and
indeed surpass the master or father or uncle. Ekpere nna bu na
nwa g’aka nna ya."
Somehow, I have this feeling that
The Source Magazine and Udi Hills Nigeria are not getting us
here to listen to the dynamics of the relationships between
the pristine guardian figure: master - and the upstart - son -
in our pre-colonial environment. Every indication shows that
the political dimension of the godfather scenario appears more
attractive to the intellectual thirst exhibited for the
purpose of this exercise.
While we may never discard
the reality of the context of master/guardian and the son "
odibo" in real life, the situation of political leadership and
emergence of new factors in the making of personalities in
governance, reveal far deeper, complicated and more intricate
factors in establishing the values of achieving pre-eminence
and rulership in a pluralized political
setting.
Consequently, we must come to view the
godfather scenario from the context of power struggles
inherent in a Third-World political economy environment where
access to state authorities is assumed, even if wrongly, to
translate into access to vast material fortune.
Before we
embark on this, it may be necessary to raise questions on the
relationship between the aspiration of the individual economic
and political player on one hand and the state and managers of
state on the other.
Indeed, any formation or in this
case, a nation as Nigeria, which embraces democracy as its
approach to political and social organization, ought to have
some mechanics of attaining its objectives. It ought to be
established, what the objectives are?; what the interests
are?; what means and factors should be at play?; at each time
and at what tempo?
Ultimately, even as universally
appreciated, democracy as a vehicle of social cohesion, not
coercion, ought to attain the platform for cohabitation,
debate, popular participation, free enterprise, high
productivity as well as change which arises from a well placed
definition of the entire dimensions of the state in
preparation for the emergence of the new order.
Of
course, the dominant facilitator of this is the government,
which on the strength of the mandate of democracy provides the
sufficient ground of law for the running of the other values
of the state such as free enterprise, the infrastructure and
the conduct of the substructure.
Beyond this shore,
particularly in the famed advanced democracies, the
relationship between the liberal social factors and the fixed
institutions of the state determine the extent of
actualization of the formal as well as informal
factor-elements in the perpetuation of the political
environment. In most cases, the liberal environment provided
the leverage for the various social factors, including the
individual players, social classes and major economic players
to apply the objective values in throwing up leadership for
the realization of the national dream.
By way of taking
off in the case of the State, we may consider the position of
the enabling law, which sustains the government, and in this
case a democratic one. The constitution of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria defines the state as a political
organization at the level of the federal, state and council.
The fundamental objectives of the state as a corporate entity
are to achieve the fullness of sovereignty, security and
welfare, popular participation, orderly composition of
government and recognition of national variety.
These
give vent to the claim of the state as the ultimate of our
Nigeria universe. They go further to establish the obligations
of the state to the citizens who are, in turn, duty bound to
carry out some statutory functions. But by the values of
natural law and justice, the state must express these
principles, which indeed justify its existence and legitimacy
even as some of these impede individual and group
initiatives.
The expected scenario, indeed, derives
from the principles of John Locke’s Social Contract theory,
which, taken from the unavoidable imposition of mutual
obligation – between the sovereign and the people – may bring
us back to the practice of democracy.
The practice of
democracy, its hindrances, the values as well as the other
factors, cannot be in isolation. So, it must form on the basis
of the people, their interests, prevailing culture, contending
social factors, geography, character of social formation,
history and the admissibility of external social influences,
which all go to indicate the peculiar circumstances of the
state.
In the case of Nigeria, such anti-cultural
factors as systemic disorder, corruption, poverty, ignorance,
colonial experience and ethnocentrism (not ethnicity) all
impinge on the values of democracy such as the law, government
and free enterprise. They also form the background of our
democratic experience and in fact determine the extent to
which we can execute Locke’s Social Contract.
I say
ethnocentricism as against ethnicity because sometimes, we
tend to mix these up. Against the warning from Okwudiba Nnoli,
in his epic work on Ethnic Politics In Nigeria, we ignore the
fact of democracy promoting and indeed prompting the healthy
consciousness of the later as a springboard for national
variety against the perverse and rigid reduction of the entire
universe of the Nigeria project to the narrow prism of the
former.
Gradually, it is being assumed that the
immediate political history of Nigeria was the root of its
systemic disorder and that hope for realignment lies in the
consigning of national experience to amnesia so that the
vitiating tendencies, which characterized earlier national
conscientisation efforts, would be swept under.
This
thinking pre-supposes Nigeria as a nation taking off on a
faulty deck and which would not get it’s bearing with the
immediate political history hanging in the psyche of the
people and groups.
Closely related to this argument is
one, which holds that whereas the commencement of the journey
of nationhood did not take an excessively different track from
what obtained elsewhere in the world, the making of heroes out
of the processes of liberation struggles in Nigeria left much
to be desired.
Consequently, it follows that the
emerging leadership betrayed an appeal to the theatrics rather
than leadership and so produced a cult and of course the
welter of neo-colonial leadership, suckling on the values of
alien-driven mentality of superiority and imposition.
The stronger point of that argument has been that the
more altruistic efforts at socialization for popular
participation in Nigeria politics arose from virtually cult
personalities who, mimicking the then mysterious colonial
agents cut the image of demi-gods before the timorous
pre-independence fellow countrymen. This situation, it is
believed was made more complex by the tendency for these
emerging political elite to also forcibly seize their
immediate economic as well as social environments, having come
of the backing of State institutions and heavy material
affluence.
The opulence of their lives, being in a
largely pauperized environment, conferred on them the great
aura of oracles and some mystery of being, confounding fellow
citizens. Simply put, fellow countrymen, particularly of the
now oil rich region, could not have been more rattled and
bedazzled by the lure to have a bite of a piece of the
plantain fried with the new independence Nigeria currency.
And when they, along with other Nigerians, had to do
the "state duty" to line the routes, pound their domestic
utensils and scrub the floor to let the modern but imperious
new African leader, in his overflowing robe "agbada" - have a
smooth stride on the street; when they threw off their apparel
to hold in the phlegm of the new native masters; when it was
demanded of them to hold their breath as the new master had
his meal; then the roads from Sokoto to Maidugiri, Kano to
Port Harcourt, Enugu to Aba and Lagos to Calabar stood to
pronounce the ultimate new order in a desperate bid to bring
back the crest of the pre-colonial imperial impressions, even
as they stood in as holders of a modern people’s
mandate.
Some how, the case has been presented that it
was at this juncture that the first hint of godfather in
politics was noted. This goes to say that it is even very
likely that what we have long seen as the evidenced entry of
godfather arose from a deficient social situation in which
those who had access to state resources simply lived it up and
dispensed to the others as benevolent masters.
While
we look at matters associated with this and weave our way
through the intricate question of ascertaining altruistic
leadership, we cannot miss the fact that we suffered a major
socio-political upheaval in the way colonial values put up
leadership, first from those who made themselves available at
the outset of imperialism and later from those who developed
the fangs of the western-style consumeric
oligarchies.
Consequent upon this, we need not seek
further to appreciate that the colonial antecedents in our
case did upturn, without exception, the primordial order of
succession and so had distorted the entire social formations
which previously provided for institutions charged with
spotting and grooming of leadership.
As in every society,
the pre-colonial order of succession, even in the highly
horizontal and consensus polity as the Igbo republican states
or the Yoruba constitutional monarchy, had adequate provisions
for the emergence of leadership, leaving in the system enough
hints for harmonization of contentions so that these societies
ran without distortion and certainly without the manipulations
of the looming benevolent personality.
The attendant
colonial insurgence, which sought for and indeed capsized our
old class formations, also enthroned such colonial values
which enabled the environment for total dominance as in
attenuating or indeed, in total eradication of old values. But
such colonial efforts at total transformation or is it
complete recreation of Africa, were to fail as social
crusaders questioned the entire colonial initiative and
presented good arguments about letting Africa resume her
journey to the arena of nation-states.
At the moment,
it is not for me to get into the very many arguments about the
quality of leadership in our national liberation struggles.
But suffice it that, had Nigeria continued on the track of
social formations and the tempo of nationalism, which led to
increased participations at the inception of the Lyttleton
Constitution of 1953/54 and the subsequent internal self
governments (1957 upwards) in the then colonies, much would
not have been lost in building a more gainful succession order
which would have lasted on experience.
However, we may
have, unavoidably, taken a different track of leadership,
particularly with the long presence of totalitarian
regime-culture, which fostered the clout of supreme
personalities and promoted the erroneous equation of the will
of the influential individual with that of the whole people.
With nearly thirty (30) of the forty three (43) years of
modern Nigeria existence run in the arbitrary culture of the
military and quasi-military regimes, it was almost the rule
rather than the exception that Nigeria ran a tradition of
forced accession to position of state headship and so, those
who had access to vast resources or state power, acted the
gods.
Perhaps, the totalitarian order, which fostered
the arbitrary culture in question, appeared to have created
the environment where suppositions of national leadership were
without a hint of understanding of the factor of the civil
society.
Predictably, a situation of institutional
mis-leadership had to ensue and so, undermined the goal of
state, heightening the pervading anomalies as ignorance,
systemic disorder, poverty and corruption. These established
the basis for a weakened state with politically and socially
famished citizenry who had to pawn and clown, giving room for
pretenders-to-godly-power to pervade the terrain.
Elsewhere, I did point out that this faltering trend
of leadership lost its chances, which I believe, came so often
and without terms of reference or criteria for state
governance in the recurring era of military forays in
government. It was, as it is to me today, that the stage
achieved nothing other than exposing the state so badly that
it became the rule rather than the exception that rise of
leadership got stuck in the quasi-military culture, which
predictably, had to undermine the rise, growth and development
of the civil society.
Previously, in reviewing the
order of rise in leadership in the current democratic
dispensation, I had acted on the confidence that a prolonged
practice of democracy, attendant upon a democratically
determined super-structure, would correct much of the rot of
the authoritarian military culture. Today, however, I must say
to you, sadly too, that it appears to me - and I am very
worried - that the unrelenting, though originating from the
past military and quasi-military order of dominance in the
polity, may be on its way at inducing a timorous society
dragged in fancy by the media establishment for the benefit of
the cult personality and crowd-hiring political comedians who
may have had access to vast fortunes.
I am curious
about this flipside-elite arising from a long sojourn in
appointive positions in military governments. Granted that
they are still a part of the society, they may have missed out
in the plurality, which sustains the civil society, and so
have not yet settled with this issue of power coming from the
people. If you come from as near as studying their inclusion
in current high State offices, you will note that they have
always lived this attitude of the dominant figure with a
measure of pretensions to the old edifices of the full
military authoritarian institutions.
Where they may
have had roles to play in appealing to the civil society for
reckoning, as in canvassing votes, many have long forgotten
the validity of the plural environment of the current
democratic society and so refused to part with the hope of
reinventing the dethroned order of imposition of
leadership.
I would not have been too bothered about
this trend if not the seeming commitment of the mass media in
promoting the evident inclination to cult personality and the
edifices of arbitrary rise to power. Somehow, it can be
pardoned that seemingly working the principles of regime
change, particularly the segment on violent seizure of reins
as a way of upsetting the hierarchy, it appears that Nigeria
has always ridden a perpetual track of acquiring democracy by
wresting political control through repeated exercises in
political and social insurgence. This may have been
strengthened by the sustained attitude of political leadership
in viewing electoral victory as, perhaps, conquest of not just
the political opposition but the civil society as
well.
It may not be entirely surprising since after a
long period of military rule, the state, as observed by
Adebayo Williams of the Africa Today Magazine appeared to be
wheeled on the values set by those he called "retired military
chieftains, their para-military adjutants and civilian storm
troopers," who invariably, amply too, upset the craved
succession order which should come, in-tow, with
democracy.
As pointed out, one remarkable consequence
was that the greater bulk of the citizenry had been pushed
further down in the order of appreciating their political
environment. This development first, altered the perception of
the citizenry against the state and, went further to exploit
to the fullest, the vulnerability of the common-herd by the
manipulative leadership who may have, as usual, cultivated the
propensity for high political spending attendant upon the
preceding, vast material accumulation.
Such players in
the family of accumulative oligarchies have always tended to
advance the cause of pursuing power not for the motive of
advancing the society beyond the present situation but to turn
the entire system into a client which has to work at paying
maximum material and prestige (ego) commissions to the master,
sometimes, at the risk of stagnating the state.
Of course,
the process and in fact, the business of rising in political
leadership is a costly one in an emerging democracy as
Nigeria. It is even costlier if the enterprise is geared at
emerging a chief executive of any of the executive branches in
the nation’s political formation.
Worse still, in a
formative democratic environment as Nigeria, the debilitating
incidences of poverty, ignorance, corruption and systemic
disorder always narrowed the options to the accumulative
oligarchs, who on their own rose from the clan of permanent
political appointees, jobbers, latch-on players in the arena
of power, and so created the situation of " messiah," – the
godfather if you like - for the people.
Usually,
preachments to tackle such depreciating social tragedies as
ignorance, poverty, corruption and disorder dominated their
argument for demand for power or sponsorship of a protege.
Such messianic pretensions, propelled by media-size pictures
of stunning opulence, make it possible for the benevolent
factors whom we may call godfathers to emerge and swamp the
state and citizen.
Of course, this would-be-godfather
or as in some cases, power seeker, may also be on track to
exploit the social segregation induced by the retardation or
the abortion of plural value-structure which should have
provided for more diffused form of social interaction.
Besides, as the cost of putting a government in power
is usually enormous, oftentimes beyond the resources of the
individual power seeker, then some sort of leaning would be on
the very few who are ready to finance and pay for mobilization
of the people for electoral purposes.
Of course, there
are just a few who are that able to finance the emergence of
government and these few now constitute themselves into
monopolists of the values of the outcomes of governance. These
have some definite tendencies, which if applied, as often
happens, they strive to indulge in total control of the state
through the candidates of government who owe them so much for
coming to power.
The incidence of poverty has a strong
influence in the emergence of those who see themselves as
"owners" of government where citizens are incapable of taking
care of their basic needs. The activities of those who are
materially endowed, which lead to the single-handed
installation of government through the funding of political
mobilization, campaigns, manipulation of the information flow,
distortion of the values as well as the eventual upsurge in
contending interests remain the exclusive preserve of the
rich, the big and the daring.
Therefore, the effect of
poverty on the electoral behaviour of the less endowed can be
considered in two main dimensions, namely, the psychological
and the physical. The psychological effect is rooted in the
poverty of awareness, which forecloses the ability of the poor
citizens to appreciate the dangers inherent in the abdication
of civic responsibilities as they often engage in.
This lack of awareness also provides the root for
reservation in relationship with government. The people rather
than see government as an institution which is built for them
and which they have to be a part of, tend to see government as
a remote enterprise created for the elite by the elite. To
this effect, they are frightened of dealings with government,
process of governance and candidates in government.
The physical dimension consists in the constant
shortfall in the access to means of adequate livelihood, which
impairs their energy to take active part in making and
sustenance of government. By previous policies, the citizens
were subsistent in virtually every facet of life and the
people have naturally been reduced to seeking for food to
sustain the family rather than engage in the capital-intensive
power drive characteristic of African political
environments.
The other factor is the prevalence of
systemic disorder, which has left the citizen with no clearly
distinguished ethos of a modern society. One of these is the
absence of national discipline, which ought to be contingent
upon solid civic education and a responsible civic citizenry.
This gap in the formation of the state creates its own low
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