Prince Justice J Faloye
Pa Ayo Adebanjo, the longest participant in Nigeria’s nation building, hit the nail on the head in the Arise Interview when asked what could be done to ever have credible elections. He stated that even before the European Union recommendations, Justice Uwais Committee had zeroed into the foundational issue of who choses the INEC chairman to make it truly independent. However the Uwais Report didn’t go deep enough to the roots of a true democracy with the suggestion that a body made up of ex-judges and other professionals should set up the INEC, failing to recognize that democracy or any form of government for the people should be civilizationally grounded and made up of both short term and long term stakeholders.
Government systems should reflect and be guided by the local civilizational values and aspirations. European democracies even that of the USA without a monarchy is civilizationally biased. There is usually a sociopolitical narrative that explains common origins, values and aspirations, which enables a quantitative measurement in terms of collective intelligence determined by how many in the society that know, accept and push the collective narrative.
It is understood that in democracies, politicians are mainly short termist in perspective and their decisions are greatly influenced by electoral cycles. Politicians are mainly about perceptions and opinion polls that are often superficial and they usually pass on difficult decisions to future governments. Therefore to make a political system stable and sustainable, there must be stakeholders guided by long term considerations and collective aspirations as outlined by their collective narrative of origins and aspirations. These long term stakeholders that are mainly the monarchy and aristocrats are usually guided and defined by civilizational values and identities. While short term stakeholders make short term decisions which after they leave office can not be held responsible for their actions, the long term stakeholders come from known family lineages that could always be held accountable for past decisions of their representatives.
Following the abolition of slavery, to conserve and protect their civilizational identity and values from freed Blacks, European conservatism was born under Queen Victoria. This led to the mid-1800s creation of the British Conservative Party and the US Republican Party, as well as European Christian Democratic Parties. The Christian civilizational political spectrum was split into right and left wings as labour parties were established by early 1900s. While the Conservative Parties mainly protected their aristocracies from free Blacks, it became imperative for the White working classes to protect their livelihoods and wages from being undercut by freed slaves offering lower labour costs. This brought about the take over of the US Democratic Party, the creation of the UK Labour Party, as well as Social Democrat Parties across continental Europe. Though the parties were in opposition, they operated within a civilizational political spectrum which they both upheld and stood firmly against other civilizational values. It was forbidden for others from other civilizations to take leadership. In Britain based on Anglicanism, a Catholic could not become a Prime Minister, not to talk of a Muslim or Original African traditionalist. The same applied in the USA, where a Muslim could never be accepted as a President.
The same thing applied in other civilizations especially the Chinese that built a civilizational state based on common narratives fashioned by Buddhism and Confucianism. In the Afroasiatic civilizations, a non-Muslim couldn’t be allowed to head or take leadership of the upper echelons of their institutions. Before the colonization of Africa, African government systems were based on civilizational narratives, however to effectively colonize Africans, the colonists had to kill off our episteme, our knowledge trail to our origins, and supplant it with their own civilizational narrative. To make this possible, they created missionary schools to train Africans in European civilizational narratives, thereby creating a neocolonial guard to perpetuate the colonial narrative.
Due to the European colonial epistemicide, the Original African civilizational narratives of common origins, moral values and collective aspirations were derailed, therefore our political systems are built on adopted foreign narratives. The neocolonial guards ensured that the monarchy and other traditional institutions were relegated to local governance where they couldn’t inspire nor influence a collective narrative for a people conscious government. This bred a dysfunctional system that the operators of the neocolonial political system are not affiliated to their people and civilization, therefore bringing about corruption of the system whereby the benefits only accrued to the neocolonial class and their colonial masters.
Nigeria is made up of two civilizations – the well articulated and united Northern Afro-Arabic civilization that traces it’s origins to Arabia as well as their aspirations, and the Original Indigenous African civilization that is inarticulate and derailed by European coloniality and epistemicide. The Northern Afroasiatic civilization has a higher collective intelligence since there is a common sociopolitical narrative that both literate and illiterates follow. However, the Original African civilizations without a common narrative breeds mercenary politicians that are not tied to any civilizational narrative, and therefore only about personal ambitions that are fulfilled by other civilizational powerbases. So, we ended up with a Northern Afroasiatic hegemony whose collective narrative enables them to unite Northwest and Northeast regions, while none of the three Original African Southern regions can unite since they don’t have a common civilizational sociopolitical narrative despite sharing common genetic and cultural origins.
Fortunately Nigeria has evolved to recognized the two civilizations and made Sultan of Sokoto and Ooni of Ife stools the co-chairmen of the Nigerian Traditional Council. Though the Original African civilization monarchs know their common origins and civilizational marrative, the Eurocentric scholars and neocolonial guards trained in the colonial narrative are Pan Tribalistic and fiercely resist any attempts by the long term civilizational stakeholders to furnish a civilizational narrative. This is why Yoruba Eurocentric scholars were at the forefront attacking the Ooni of Ife that rightly stated that Yorubas, Igbos and others all came from the same source.
To build a stable and just polity, Nigeria has to crystalize and articulate the civilizational narrative of the Original African civilization that accounts for 70% of the Nigerian population, and across Africa. Just like European civilizational conservatism of their common origins came from Britain leading Europeans at the time, the lack of a civilizational narrative that must come from the Southern Nigerian heartland of the Original African civilization is why not only Nigeria but the entire Black Race has not been able to build sustainable progressive political systems. The lack of an Original African civilizational narrative also puts them at a disadvantage against the Pro-Arabic lobby in the African Union, leading to anomalies like making Swahili the offical language.
Therefore Nigeria must build and safeguard it’s democracy on the two civilizations in Nigeria, and across Africa – Original and Afroasiatic civilizations. The long-term civilizational stakeholders must be the guarantee and guardians of the political system, and not local stakeholders of European civilizations. The neocolonial guards aim is the sustenance of the colonial civilizational institutions, so they can’t cater for the aspirations of the local masses. This is why despite different regimes since independence, the people have not been uplifted or even regarded. The neocolonial guards only takes care of themselves and their foreign master whose civilizational narratives they ascribe to.
To form a truly independent and just electoral body, the Sultan of Sokoto and the rest of the Afroasiatic Emirs, and the Ooni of Ife and the rest of the South and Middlebelt monarchs, must be the ones that chose the makeup of INEC. The civilizational leaders, being the long term guardians and guarantors of the political system, will make sure the professional politicians and academicians are more accountable to the people. Currently, the politicians use the long term stakeholders, especially the palaces, to start their campaigns, employing their traditional information channels to reach the people, but can’t be held accountable since the foreign adapted constitutions relegate them to the local sphere. This must change and the long term stakeholders should not only be campaign managers but regulators of the system that the people can hold accountable for politicians and the political system. This would bring an end to the irresponsible political systems currently in use in Nigeria and across Africa.
