NIGERIA NEEDS A BENEVOLENT MILITARY DICTATOR 

PHOTO: NIGERIAN SOLDIERS WITH A US AIRFORCE CARRIER.

The present unsettled political situation in Nigeria, the uncertainty as to who is the President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua or Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has led to fears that the military might intervene in Nigeria’s politics. The fear is that the Northerners, who, allegedly, believe that it is their turn to rule Nigeria, given that the South had its turn to rule under Olusegun Obasanjo’s eight year rule, might feel shortchanged if a southerner like Jonathan is made the de facto president while Yar Adua, the de jure President, remains incapacitated.

The idea is that Northern politicians and military folk would act to sack Jonathan and install a Northern military leader. The operating assumption is that such Northern rule would enable Northerners to get their fair share of the oil revenue that comes from the Niger River Delta, a revenue that since they have nothing else to generate wealth from desperately must have.

Folks, apparently, fear that were this situation to occur that it would truncate their budding democracy; they want to avert military rule so as to give the politicians opportunity to continue ruling.

On the surface this seems like a good argument until one looks a bit deeper. I have looked beneath the surface and ask: what good has civilian so-called democratic rule done for Nigeria? Are civilian rulers any better than military rulers? Are civilian politicians not as corrupt as military politicians? If the answer is affirmative, as it surely is, why fear military rulers? 

In this paper I argue that it is misguided to fear military rule and that military dictatorship if properly motivated could be what Nigeria needs most. Military rule does not have to be disastrous; it could provide the opportunity to bring about the much needed discipline in Nigeria’s society; the military could bring about a single minded dedication to developing the country.

Military rule, if determined, could eliminate corruption from the Nigerian polity. There is nothing that a little draconian behavior, which only the military could engage in, could not bring about.

Democracy seems over rated. Democracy and its endless talking fests and lack of decisive action are probably not what are useful in developing countries. Perhaps, post industrialized societies in Europe and North America could practice democracy (and live with their inability to agree on what to do hence have broken governments) but developing societies certainly do not need such political impasse as we currently see at Washington where nothing gets done as the two political parties, Republican and Democratic, oppose each other’s every move; what developing countries need is decisive action in pursuit of the goal of developing the economy.

I argue that a benevolent military dictator(s) who has the development of Nigeria in mind would do a better job than have a bunch of thieving politicians gather at Abuja working on how they are going to steal the wealth of the country while mouthing the mantra of democracy and due process of law.

Platitudes, such as democracy is the best form of government, need to be discarded in light of what in fact develops countries.

Before this thesis is dismissed let us pause and ask: has there been a country developed through democratic process? The answer is no. Most developed countries were developed during an era when a few persons, if not a single person, ruled them. It takes the decisive action of a few persons or a person to do what needs to be done to drag a country from a preindustrial stage to the industrial state.  

Britain was industrialized in 1746-1946; during that period only a small class ruled Britain. Perhaps, Britain became democratic after the Second World War?

Germany was industrialized between 1830s and 1930s; during that time only a small aristocratic, junka class ruled Germany. Italy and France and other Western European nations are not particularly industrialized, so let us not worry about them.

Japan was industrialized by the ex-Samurai class who entered politics and business after the Meiji restoration (after 1853) and lead Japan today.

China is currently undergoing rapid industrialization and is doing so under the iron fisted hands of a few persons, the communist overlords and their mixed socialist, capitalist economy.

South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Brazil etc the current industrializing countries are not particularly democratic.

No African country has even begun laying a realistic foundation for her industrialization, so let us not worry about Africans. 

Folks often cite the example of America as an exception to the general rule. They claim that America industrialized (1830s to 1930s) under a democratic dispensation. If so let us ask: is America, even at present, a democracy? America’s exceptionalism is much ballyhooed hot air.

Let it be stated that America does not call itself a democracy but a Republic. America has always structured its polity so that only a few ruled the many. When the founding fathers wrote their constitution in 1787 they made it clear that they did not expect all Americans to participate in their Republic. It was only wealthy white farmers that were expected to participate in politics. There was property requirement for voting. Those who did not have property were not allowed to vote.

Consider Virginia, the colony where many of the so-called revolutionaries (such as Jefferson, Madison, jay, Washington, Monroe etc) came from. It was only landed white gentlemen that participated in politics. The poor working class white men were not given the vote nor did they participate in politics. Women were ruled out from politics (it was only in 1920 that women were given the right to vote). As for the black population, a population that was, in fact, larger than the white population at that time, they were completely shut out from voting and participating in politics.

America’s democracy did not include black folks in its calculus as to who participates in politics.

At present, to run for political office in America costs millions of dollars. To run for the US Presidency probably costs over a billion dollars. This expense excludes most Americans from running for office.

Perhaps, only five percent, the moneyed class can really have a realistic hope of participating in American politics. The only option available to ninety five percent of Americans is to get themselves to polling stations and choose who rules them: vote for their favorite candidates (and many of them generally decide not to vote hence only about 30% of Americans vote in off presidential elections).

Regarding their vote, it is doubtful that the candidate with the highest vote gets elected. As the 2000 Presidential election showed, with each state in control of its electoral practices, a whole lot of shenanigans take place in America’s voting. In some southern states, police prevent African Americans from voting and generally the poor are discouraged from voting and their votes not properly counted. The salient point is that in America only a handful of the people rule the rest. This is not exactly the definition of democracy, is it?

Americans are racist enslavers and do not have anything worthwhile to tell the world about democracy. We do not need to imitate these folks who cannot even give all their people health insurance (because they do not want to give health insurance to black folk; they want black folk to die out). All the industrialized countries of Europe have given their people publicly paid health insurance, but not America. If all Americans were white there is no doubt that she would have given them health insurance (45 million Americans, mostly minority persons, are insured). A racist country should be no ones role model.

For all their supposed super power status their cities are ugly eyesores and unsafe; they consume material things in an obsessive-compulsive manner yet they are unhappy and are fed psychotropic medications, medications that in a few generations would cause genetic mutations that would destroy their bodies.

America tells the rest of the world to do something but does not do it herself! American conservatives spend most of their energies trying to prevent minorities from participating in electoral politics; they put every conceivable obstacle to their voting, be it the infamous poll taxes, reading/testing requirements, voter registration laws that make it impossible for folks to register and vote, apportionments of districts so that minorities are spread into white neighborhoods so that scarcely could minorities be elected.

There are over forty million African Americans but scarcely one African American senator; if participatory democracy reigned in a country of three hundred million folks there would be, at least, twenty two African Americans in the US House of Senate! The gerrymandering that characterizes America’s politics is disturbing; yet Americans go all over the world selling the razzmatazz that democracy is the solution to every ones problems.

In years past when Milton Friedman reigned in economics they told poor third world countries to sell off their state owned enterprises and embrace laisez faire market economy and those who listened to them went bankrupt.

Listen up, America does not have the best interest of Africans at heart; she wants to keep Africa a plantation economy supplying raw materials to her industry; wise folks ought not to listen to the preachments of America’s mercenary apostles about the virtues of democracy and capitalism.  

The Chinese, for example, have found a way to mix dictatorship and democracy, capitalism and socialism, and that explains their amazing rise from rags to riches. When the Russians under Boris Yeltsin the Drunk tried unfettered free enterprise and jungle democracy their country entered third world status (which enabled Americans to dominate them) until rational Russians, such as Vladimir Putin, reverted to reason; they recognized that human beings are not angels; people are both good and bad and therefore to rule them, as Theodor Roosevelt said, you need to carry both carrot and stick. If folks do as expected you praise them but if they step out of line, disobey the law, you whack them hard on their heads so that they do not ever want to stray from the law.

In 1933 Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party came to power in Germany. Prior to their coming to power Germany was a basket case. Unemployment was sky high and the German currency was literally worthless. Hitler managed to turn the country into a dictatorship of one man’s rule. Whereas we may decry some of the things that he did, such as kill non Germans, we must appreciate the good that he did. In the twelve years that he was in power Germany was reindustrialized and all Germans had jobs. The lawlessness that had existed under the Weimer Republic was brutally eradicated. Security returned to the land and the people felt safe as they went about earning their daily bread.

If Hitler had not engaged in the uncalled for Second World War, I believe that he would have gone down in history as one of the greatest rulers of men. If this man had merely unified all German speaking folk in one country and worked to develop them and not attack his neighbors in a foolish effort to appropriate their lands and resources he would have made Germany the greatest country in the world. In 1939, before he attacked Poland, Germany was, actually, the greatest industrial and military power in the world. Hitler frittered it all away in a senseless war to conquer the world.

The relevant point is that Hitler’s dictatorship was not all bad, that it had its advantages before the man’s egomania led him astray.

The same was the case in Italy. Mussolini’s Italy, among other things, made the trains run on time, an amazing achievement in a country known for its lack of discipline. Mussolini, in his own way, made Italy work. Dictatorship worked; it worked until the man became monomaniac and went on foreign adventures to glorify his name or as he said, to resuscitate the old Roman Empire. If Mussolini had not attacked places in North Africa, Eastern Europe and Ethiopia but concentrated on developing Italy there is no doubt that he would have left a positive legacy for his people.

Stalin’s Russia was responsible for industrializing Russia. The iron fisted dictatorship of the little Georgian was responsible for dragging Russia from a feudal society into the modern world. Russia would not have become a superpower without what Stalin did to industrialize her.

One does not approve some of Stalin’s excesses (which were due to his paranoid suspiciousness and megalomania). The salient point is that on balance the man did for Russia what no democracy has done for a people in the same period of time.

Democracy gathers folks to talk issues to death and do nothing about them. It takes the resolute action of a committed person to solve problems. I do not see the advantages of getting a bunch of ignorant fools gather and talk about a problem when a man with the right information could solve that problem in no time. See, the Nigerian legislature, for over a year now, claims to be reviewing the 1999 constitution. At the rate it is going about it, it would take the so-called lawmakers a hundred years to write a new constitution for Nigeria! Yet, that so-called constitution was written in less than three months by General Abubakar Abdulsalami and his attorney friends (and illegally foisted on Nigerians).

We all know what the problem with Nigeria is. Nigerians are mostly thieves. Nigerians are mostly corrupt. Given the chance to occupy political offices, Nigerians transform such offices into thieving fiefdoms. To the present Nigerians have not turned their attention to industrializing their country. They only talk about it but given the opportunity to do so they rob the national treasury down.

What needs to be done about Nigeria’s problem is simple: have a strong hand, a hand that is not afraid of spilling blood, beat Nigerians into shape, discipline them, and stamp out their tendency to stealing and corruption.

Those who steal and take bribes tend to be cowards; they are fearful persons. They want to live at all costs and are afraid of dying. Therefore, if the strong leader deliberately lined up thieves and corrupt officials against a wall and shot them to death the rest of the population would hesitate from doing what they did. If a strong military upstart rounded corrupt Nigerians, say, rounded up two million Nigerians, and lined them against a wall and shot them to death, the remaining population would think twice before they engaged in corruption.

If a strong leader came to the scene and killed all the thieves and corrupt officials that has bedeviled Nigeria since her independence fifty years ago, and insisted that the people work like a driven people to develop their country, the country would be industrialized in two decades.

I personally do not see anything wrong with killing thieves and corrupt officials. Killing millions of thievish and corrupt Nigerians would be a joy for me to do. As far as I am concerned, I do not see why criminals and corrupt officials should live; what are they living for, to pollute the environment with their disgusting presence? Get rid of rubbish, I say.

I personally do not mind it if the strong leader that does what needs to be done in Nigeria is a Hausa man, a Yoruba man, an Igbo man etc. I could care less about a fellow’s tribe; what I care for is what he does. Let a military fellow take over the government and immediately liquidate the thieves of Abuja and then embark on modernizing the Nigerian polity (divide the country into fifteen states, each state made up of a specific tribe, each state with one legislative body, elected for five years, six terms limit, a professional civil service judiciary, an executive branch elected for five years, two terms limit; replicate the structure at the center: a national legislature, elected for five years, a president elected for five years, an independent judiciary etc…establish a real federation where the states are empowered to develop their areas’ economy and have the central government be in charge of national security and foreign affairs, and get to work developing Nigeria…I have written in detail about this ideal constitution for Nigeria elsewhere). Do this and Nigeria would turn the corner in a few years.

I believe that what we all want Nigeria to accomplish can be better done by a benevolent military dictatorship that wants to modernize Nigeria. (See the military’s role in modernizing Turkey in the 1920s.)

When this dictatorship has laid the foundation for a future great Nigeria then it withdraws and let the talking heads take over. In the long run some sort of meritocratic democracy (where the best rule) is probably the best for every polity but during the period of developing the country I do not believe that democracy is useful.

Not every person is equally intelligent or educated and skilled and dedicated to working for the public welfare. At present perhaps ten percent of Nigerians are educated and perhaps one percent of those are men of goodwill who are dedicated to the prosperity of the country. Take that one percent of the population that wants to develop the country and use them to develop it and stop talking about democracy. (If it makes you feel fine to see me as not having an egalitarian view of society, so be it; if you would rather see me as elitist, so be it; see me any which way you want to and it does not bother me; what I care for is how to move the country forward.)

There will be time for democracy but this is not the right time for it. We should not fear the military taking over the country’s government; we should rather hope that the solder boys are of the right kind, those who are motivated to develop the country. 

The civilian politicians that have so far cursed the Nigerian political landscape were thieves; we should get rid of them in favor of those who are not thieves and who are dedicated to developing the country.

I believe that at this stage of her political and economic development that what Nigeria and, indeed, African countries need is strong hands at the helm of affairs. These dictators should set public policies, lay down the law and those who disobey them are whacked on their heads, inflicted with so much pain and death that those tempted to disobey the rules know what awaits them. Nations are developed by serious men who are not afraid to inflict pain on human beings.

I believe that a dictatorship, military or otherwise, would serve Nigeria best. Why either or, why not mix both military and civilian. Why not have the military take over the government and rule with select civilians to do what needs to be done to industrialize and modernize the nation?

In the long run I am a democrat but in the short run I am not a democrat; I am a disciple of authoritarian-totalitarian governments in developing countries.

DISCUSSION

There seems credible criticism to dictatorship: the fact that it prevents the gradual development of democratic institutions and behaviors. Democratic institutions and behaviors tend to take time to evolve; therefore, if dictatorships are permitted they tend to stifle those institutions. This seems true.

However, the observation assumes that democratic institutions are always ideal. In the real world no country has pure democracy; what obtains everywhere, even in the most democratic states, such as the Scandinavian countries, are attenuated democratic institutions. This is because whereas human beings may want to have every person expresses his opinion on matters at hand they recognize that the level of information available to folks differs. In a world of increasing specialization and complexity some persons have more information than other persons.

Civil engineers know more about building bridges than medical doctors. Therefore, if you want to build a bridge it is probably not wise to seek the opinion of non civil engineers on how to build bridges. In a complex, technological world it would seem that the opinion of technocrats ought to count more than the opinions of laypersons.

Be that as it may, there are some uses for democracy. It therefore seems that what needs to be done is for the dictatorial class to gradual lay down democratic institutions and supervises their growth.

It would take, at least, twenty years to train Nigerians to operate a democracy and not give in to taking bribery. They need supervisors who would punish them should they veer away from approved democratic norms. I believe that Nigeria needs two decades of non democratic dispensation, a period where iron fisted leaders gradually teach the people to behave responsibly before they hand power to them. Any thing sooner than that leads to chaos, as is the current case in Nigeria.

CONCLUSION

The military has the unique capacity to bring focused attention to the business of industrializing Nigeria and wiping out corruption from the country than civilian politicians. Therefore, it seems to me that we should not fear the military taking over the Nigerian government. What we should do is hope that the right type of military folk take over the government, and work with them to bring about the changes all Nigerians are crying out for.