OPINIONS ON BIAFRA
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News on Biafra
The media and democracy in Nigeria
Last Updated On: July 24, 2016 at 56 am 100 Report Content
The Editor of the Guardian, Mr. Abraham Ogbodo
The Editor of the Guardian, Mr. Abraham Ogbodo
This democracy was hard earned; actually with sweat, tears and blood and I suggest we do a little more to defend it against invaders. Leaving everything in the hands of their excellencies, honourables/distinguished and lordships is beginning to prove costly. I am, therefore, saying that if the executive, legislature and judiciary are having issues representing democracy the way it should be represented, there is a fourth force in the mix that should massively step in going forward. This is the media, which has every right under the general rules of democracy and with the status ascribed to it as the fourth arm of government after the executive, legislature and judiciary, to offer help at critical junctures.
Where we are today is critical. If democracy were to be defined against Nigeria’s backdrop, something far less than the standard definition of democracy being the government of the people by the people and for the people shall emerge. Maybe, something like: ‘government of ex-generals by ex-generals for ex-generals’ or ‘government of kinsmen by kinsmen for kinsmen.’ Driving it further down, if a standard democracy is underscored by its inclusiveness, the ongoing brand in Nigeria is outstanding for its exclusiveness. And if it is underscored by free speech and organised confusion, the Nigerian version is notable for graveyard silence and regimentation.
All the attributes of the rugged political system that the ancient Greece bequeathed to mankind are vanishing in the Nigerian experience. I can even add that the French political philosopher, Baron de Montesquieu got it all wrong regarding Nigeria, with his earth shaking theory of separation of power. Nothing seems separated here.
By design or default, all powers have been handed over to the executive through President Mohammadu Buhari, who is working hard to set new rules on democratic best practices. He has risen astronomically in moral profile to equate the conscience of the nation. His standard has become the standard for political judgment. And as a moral barometer with which goodness and evil are measured, his approvals and disapprovals remain eternally true.
Today, the executive is the only functioning leg in the governmental tripod. By the simple reason that Buhari, the nation’s moral compass, chose his ministers and other cabinet members after a tortuous search, these fellows are beyond reproach. They are his extension. The natural law does not allow species to reproduce outside their kind. A snake will beget a snake, a vulture will beget a vulture and a Buhari will beget a Buhari. That is the rule and nothing, except God can change it.
For obvious reasons, President Buhari did not have a hand in assembling the legislature and judiciary and that has been the problem. Both arms are not pure breed. They are a clog in the wheel of progress and the President is having serious problems working through them to rid Nigeria of evil.
What is even more disturbing is that the legislature and executive have accepted the presidential verdict and are getting close to abdicating their traditional roles so that Nigeria’s democracy can run on just one leg – the executive. And painfully, we are being forced by the changing dynamics into inventing a description outside what is known and familiar to explain the Nigeria’s brand of democracy.
When it is this bad and democracy becomes a fugitive in its own land, it is the Fourth Estate that is called to offer asylum, given that at most times, the free press or media generally, retains the capacity to act independently to cover the huge hole created by the abdication of the legislature and judiciary. British parliamentarian Edmund Burke saw this centuries ago when he told his colleagues that reporters seated in the public gallery during parliamentary sessions made up the fourth branch of government, and that in real terms, men and women of the pen profession were more powerful and responsive to the needs of society than the traditional branches of government.
Actually, the expression ‘Fourth Estate of the Realm’, which describes the role of the press in modern society, is traceable to Burke, who first used it in his address to the British Parliament in 1787. He couldn’t have envisaged the all-time potency of his declaration. But world over, no governmental structure runs on the three arms without the fourth and still bears the inherent capacity to guarantee the inalienable rights of the individual. I can add that without a vigilant and virile Fourth Estate, totalitarian leaders will so readily consolidate the other three estates under the subterfuge of national interest or some plea of emergency to abbreviate the rights of citizens.
Here in Nigeria, President Buhari has created a convenient subterfuge called war against corruption. Since everybody in Nigeria hates corruption and wants it killed by all means, whatever cost Buhari puts on killing corruption is approved without even basic checks. That is the narrative that has been foisted as Buhari reaches for emergency powers outside the operating rules to fight corruption. People are languishing in detention not on the strength of a proper judicial trial and conviction, but on allegation that they stole money from the public treasury.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been very helpful. It is everywhere literally picking up thieves from the streets. It has also gone into two or so banking halls to catch big thieves. The EFCC’s list of forbidden items is so extensive that one does not even know what is edible as good business from what cannot be eaten. For instance, if a Bank MD received huge deposits and alerted the CBN about the depositor and the big money as stipulated by regulations, he would still be liable by the EFCC rule, if the bubble got burst. It would be put to him by the EFCC that he had received stolen money. If a man got paid for job duly executed, he would be told at a later day that the bank notes he had received in payment were part of the missing arms money for which Col Sabo Dasuki has been in detention since December 1, 2015 without trial. Femi Fani-Kayode only got bail last week after 67 days in incarceration.
Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Independent People of Biafra (IPO has been in detention since October last year. His has nothing to do with EFCC, but for his impudence to contemplate a divided Nigeria that Buhari and other military officers fought hard to keep together between 1967 and 1970. The courts had made rulings regarding both men, but the Federal Government, hiding behind subterfuges, has not obeyed any. President Buhari only tried last week to heap the entire blame on delayed trials and convictions by the courts.
I guess his understanding of a cooperative judiciary is when all arrested suspected treasury looters become instant jailbirds. However, by that outburst, judicial officers have been put under immense psychological pressure to dispense justice to match what the executive has scripted . It cannot work that way even in a faulty democracy. Justice is not a military assignment that is done with alacrity. There are just too many things to consider so that miscarriages are most minimal in the dispensation of justice.
Even so, I am not as angry with President Buhari who apparently cannot over reach himself in the understanding of the justice system, as I am with my media constituency, which has joined the band of executive persecutors to run corruption trials outside the courtrooms. Just for this purpose, the EFCC, which is beginning to equate sensation with meaningful action, has struck an alliance with a section of the press, with the sole aim of pushing out salacious details of confessions of arrested corruption suspects for shouting newspapers’ headlines now and again. This is mob action to put it plainly. The problem with mob action is that many innocent people get injured or even killed in the process.
Supporting Buhari to subvert the constitution and due process under whatever exigency may appear heroic in the short-run. In the long-run however, we shall all be bruised. Enough to say that great leaders do not seek to weaken established institutions to earn more power; rather, they work to strengthen institutions to strengthen their own leadership. Buhari should be encouraged by the media along the latter line. The media is too important in a democracy to lose its head in unconscionable partisanship.
Nelson Besto
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