The first part of this piece was published yesterday
WHAT options do we have to energise the system and restore our people’s confidence in themselves and their beloved country? How long shall we remain insecure, suspicious and frightened of one another? How long shall we remain hungry, sick, without shelter, with hope slipping by? I want to seek answers to these issues by making five key points.

First, there is need for the political class to return to the fine principles that have made democracy an attractive system of government through the centuries. Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Roseau, Hobbes all laid the foundations for the development of what is today, modern democracy. Central to their various theses were the key issues of human freedom (Liberty), pursuit of the good life and justice. It is clear that our political jobbers have really no higher moral conception of politics other than a means of access and outright theft and banditry.

Essentially, relationship between government and people was supposed to be based on what has come to be known as the social contract. By this contract, we citizens accept to subordinate our will to the state; we allow it the monopoly of the instruments of coercion and violence for the attainment of the common good. In return, citizens are saved from the excesses and brutality of the powerful among them, a situation which Hobbes called the state of nature where life was nasty, brutish and short for the average citizen. Clearly, with the endless carnage, our lives have become not only short but equally nasty and brutish.

How has the Nigerian politician fared in this regard? The answer is simple; even the political class will confess as they say in basketball that, they ain’t even close!

Scattered debrisof broken dreams

The ruinous history of our nation and the scattered debris of broken dreams are there for all of us to see. Sadder still is the fact that we are not even seriously and clearly attempting to lay a solid foundation based on discipline, sacrifice and hard work. Rather, the goal of the Nigerian politician is to continue to feast on the carcass of a sick and severely weakened state.

Two, with stealing of state resources taking up all our energy, it is little wonder that today, the state has become terminally ill. What we are witnessing now, the atrophy, failure, and incapacity of the component units of state to perform their duties is the greatest evidence of this tragedy. The Bureaucracy, the central hub that should oil the engine of state, the Judiciary which should adjudicate among the component units, the Police which should serve as the referee in the game of life by citizens, all these institutions have been weakened by corruption. The state itself, being the domain of massive corruption has become unable to flex its muscle as the beneficiaries of its corruption have recycled themselves into power.

The result is that with this the state as a central organizing principle missing in the lives of citizens, little wonder that Tribe, Club, Church/Mosque or Association have become the guarantor and purveyors of security. Now, rather than offering their experiences for the common good, some of the best brains in the military and bureaucracy of yesterday have now gone home to serve their communities as Chiefs. Today, almost every group from retirees, Military officers, Permanent Secretaries, Directors are now forming welfare associations. These splinter groups show clearly that the centre is not holding and not trusted. The paltry state of these retirees is the evidence that those in service need to sustain their appetite for theft.

Three, we must try to square the circles of contradictions that have become part of our society. First, how could we have organized a relatively peaceful election only to turn around to reap a massive harvest of violence from which the state has not recovered? How could we be one of the most hungry nations in the world and still remain one of the happiest? Or, how could we be the most visibly prayerful nation (consider the hundreds of billions of dollars and naira that are spent on Pilgrimages and Chaplaincies across the country) and still rank one of the most corruption-ridden nations in the world?

Four, have we really come to terms with the consequences of insecurity? Are we now running the risk of security becoming a booming trade from which the oligarchs are now feasting? Since the ugly events of April and the October bombings, our situation has gotten progressively worse by the day. There is evidence that we may be treating a disease that has not been properly diagnosed.

In her book, No Higher Honour, Professor Condoleezza Rice has explained clearly how scholarship and science helped the United States to frame the issues of security after the September 11 attacks. For example, she argued, after the attacks, even when George Bush made up his mind to take on the terrorists, they had to debate the best methodologies to adopt. Should they declare a war against Al Qaeda or against some of its affiliates and those who threaten the United States and the rest of the world? This thinking produced the concept of the war on terror as opposed to the war on Al Qaeda. Compare this with the way that Nigeria has taken up the so-called war against Boko Haram. We have made no attempt to connect it with other forms of revolts, treated it as a Muslim or Northern thing without clearly showing its connection with social conditions on the ground. For example, should we not be asking how Boko Haram which started out as an internal struggle for the purification of Islam within a specific location and against an identified and specified subject has mutated into the greatest threat against the foundation of the Nigerian state? Sadly, politics has depleted so many of the best brains and men and women with experience and the nation is paying the price.

Finally, I am convinced that there is a correlation between the social conditions, knowledge of the political health of our country accounts for where we now find ourselves.

Policy options

The OECD has just released a report titled, Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising. In thinking out policy options against the backdrop of the current crises around Europe, the report states that: Inequality of opportunity will inevitably impact economic performance as a whole, even if the relationship is not straightforward. Inequality also raises political challenges because it breeds social resentment and generates political instability. It can also fuel populist, protectionist, and anti-globalisation sentiments.

The President should have learnt that it was not guns that brought relative peace to the Niger Delta and created the conditions for his Presidency. The late President Yar’Adua adopted the principles of humility, metaphorically laid down his arms and then reached out to the militants. As the saying goes, a giant does not lose his gianthood by shaking a dwarf. If the President does not talk to Nigerians, I fear that a trillion naira will not bring about peace in our country. More bread, a full stomach not bullets, is the ultimate guarantee for peace.