By Kayode Fayemi, PhD
Let me express my deep gratitude for the privilege of being the pioneer Guest Lecturer at the Ist Michael Opeyemi Bamidele Birthday Lecture. I am not unaware of the special place Barrister Bamidele occupies among the friends who have put this event together and I really want to thank them for honouring him in this manner. I also want to thank his parents, his mentors and most important, his lovely wife and the children for bringing him up, mentoring him well and giving him the space and support to blossom in the way he has successfully done so far.
Mindful as I am of the roots of his success, I must say however that I am more fascinated by the place Barrister Bamidele occupies in the annals of the struggle for a better Nigeria and a liberated continent. As a keen student of history, this fascination has encouraged a reflection on my part about the political context of Ope’s birth and the path, pace and progress of his development as a budding activist and politician and above all, what this means for activists and politicians alike.
Born three years into Nigeria’s independence, Opeyemi came into a country in crisis. The attainment of national sovereignty on our continent was accompanied in several cases by intense political turmoil and revolutionary changes of government. Those familiar with the period of the celebrant’s birth particularly in the Western Region of Nigeria would immediately recall that a State of Emergency was declared on May 29, 1962 with Dr Moses Majekodunmi chosen as the Administrator and the erstwhile Premier of the West, Chief Obafemi Awolowo restricted to Ikenne – his home town before he was later transferred to the mosquito infested village of Lekki. By June 1962, a Commission of Enquiry headed by Dr GBA Coker, a Lagos judge was set up by the NPC controlled Federal Government to investigate the activities of six Western Nigerian statutory corporations. By November 1962, Chief Awolowo and 26 others were arraigned on a treason trial which lasted till September 1963 when Chief Awolowo was convicted and sentenced. All of these tumultuous events served as a precursor to the military coup of January 15, 1966 and the counter coup which took place on the day the celebrant turned three years on July 29, 1966. There are of course many observers who may argue that there was nothing extra-ordinary about these times since Nigeria only exhibited the features of a dependent, neo-colonial state experiencing a crisis of political succession, but I would venture to argue that while indeed the celebrant might have been a child of a common political circumstance, the environmental features of the times were certainly central to his growth and development as an individual, an activist and the politician that he is today. His ascent has been meteoric as it has been challenging.
That is why in ruminating about the topic of today’s lecture, I decided after some considerable thought to reflect on transitions from activism to politics in the development of our fragile democracy, particularly on the making of new leaders and building a successor generation without compromising age long values and traditions. Barrister Bamidele is in all ramifications a most appropriate example of a judicious mix of a life of activism and politics in defence of the people. The trajectory of his young but eventful life is worth recalling. From his days as the Public Relations Officer of the University of Ife (later Obafemi Awolowo University Students’ Union) in 1984 to his period as a Senator of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in 1985, President of the University of Benin Students Union in 1989, before capping his meteoric rise in the Student Union movement with the ultimate post of the National President of NANS in 1990, Opeyemi consistently exhibited those leadership skills of charisma, uncommon courage, humility, dedication to duty and industry - features that took him into law having served pupillage under the great socialist lawyer and former President of the Bar Association, the late Alao Aka-Bashorun and into politics under the tutelage of the Grand-master strategist, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu whom he served as Special Assistant when he was Senator of the Federal Republic and Chairman of the Senate Finance and Appropriation Committee between October 1992 and November 1993.
Even in the difficult period that followed an already action packed life when the celebrant was forced into exile between 1995 and 1999, he quickly re-tooled himself, acquired additional knowledge and began to serve fellow refugees and asylum seekers in the Boston area of Massachusetts, United States where he worked as a pro-bono attorney and Coordinator of the Refugee Law Centre’s Asylum Representation Project. He earned his LL.M in Intellectual Property Law before returning to the country in 1999/2000 to join his erstwhile boss, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu who had been elected Governor of Lagos State. Since then, he has been active both at the local, party and government levels as Special Adviser to the Governor, National Publicity Officer of the Alliance for Democracy, Commissioner for Youth, Sports and Social Development and now Commissioner for Information and Strategy.
Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen - what you have heard so far gives the impression that there is a difference between activism and politics, and that it requires moving from one to the other – especially if one goes by the trajectory of the celebrant’s life. Indeed, if one follows this line of thought, one might be tempted to assume that the two – politics and activism – are mutually exclusive. There have always been attempts both in recent times and in our not so recent past to make a distinction between those who stand at the barricades seeking change in their quest for a better society and those who wield power politically in defence of the State. Consequently, theories have been propounded about State-society relations deepening the difference between civil society and political society. Activists are often seen as occupying the moral high ground, irrepressible in their campaigns, often living in utopia in the quest of the unattainable and generally cantankerous in the pursuit of their beliefs. On the other hand, politicians are seen to be janus-faced – on the one hand, charismatic, visionary, fascinating and sophisticated, and on the other, repulsive, cynical, calculating, and opportunistic. My own interest is really not to indulge in any deep philosophical or political arguments about these distinctions many of which you are familiar with but to simply explore – based on my own limited experience, the possibilities of harmony in this pseudo-dichotomy – to explain that this pattern of categorizing people is at best a luxury, and at worst irrelevant in our own setting.
I am going to suggest that this pseudo-divide of activism and politics has impeded our own abilities to connect with each other and work together towards a more positive future. We are all familiar with the claims that some have committed political suicide and gone to the other side. Of course, there is no doubt that there are those who abandon their moral compass once they move into partisan politics but I am convinced that the structuring of actors on the basis of either/or, and us/them with one of the other being valued more leads to domination and we need to really try as much as possible to avoid such separation and fragmentation and work towards community and cohesion. Consequently, my central thesis in this lecture is that politics – properly conducted - is a form of activism and another stage in the struggle to restore the dignity of humankind – an integrated continuum rather than discretely compartmentalised oppositional phenomena, often complicated, competitive and contradictory, but mostly aimed at making a fundamental difference in the lives of ordinary citizens. (This is not to suggest that there aren’t times that both politics and activism take negative turns. The common reference to “uncivil’ society in political science literature is but one example of this occurrence)
Between Activists and Politicians in Nigeria: A Recent History
Activists have always occupied that realm between the household and the State, populated by voluntary groups and associations, sharing common interests and largely autonomous from the State, but often promoting core values that are consistent with what the State ought to stand for – participatory involvement, transparency, accountability, openness, ownership, legitimacy, equality of opportunities and respect for fundamental human rights. Many people always ask activists and politicians the same question: Why, with all the callings in this world that could perhaps earn one considerable social, financial and personal security, would anyone want to go into something like activism or politics, particularly in a setting as dangerous as Nigeria, unless one has a death wish? The unvarnished truth is that many activists and, I believe, politicians love life too much to want to celebrate death. Many activists who make a transition into partisan politics have probably done so for the same reasons they embraced activism. It was not aimless boldness that drew many into activism. It was often a selfish desire to live a life in freedom, peace and in a democracy that transformed ordinary folks into bold activists against all forms of oppression and in the service of their communities.
This is why perhaps the issue should not be one of transition from activism to politics, but the extent to which we are able to achieve citizen participation in our democracy. Our discussion should really focus more on the making of leaders and citizens in a good society because without direct citizen participation, the legitimacy of our political institutions will continue to decline. It is for this reason that I strongly believe that political leaders – be they politicians or activists should worry because their ability to lead effectively is being seriously undermined by the desertion of average citizens from the public space, deepening the crisis of legitimacy not only in our country, but all over the world. Yet, this lack of legitimacy cuts both ways. When we the people withdraw our trust in our leaders or discountenance politicians, we make our democratic institutions less effective and risk making ourselves ungovernable.
But let me locate this theoretical discourse within the context of our recent history in Nigeria as it concerns the relationship between activism and politics. Many will recall that with the unexpected demise of the dictator, General Sani Abacha in June 1998, things had begun to look up for the country. We saw the end of military dictatorship in sight. Those of us involved in the campaign to restore the mandate of Chief MKO Abiola, the winner of the annulled election of 1993 had expected that it was only a matter of time for Chief Abiola to be installed as President and for him to convene the much sought after sovereign national conference. Our focus at the time was not on elections, but the institutionalisation of a fundamental restructuring of the Nigerian state and the strategy in the democracy movement was to put pressure on the new military leadership to release Abiola and install him as President. The new military leader, General Abdul-Salami Abubakar was seen as a common sense choice amid a largely obdurate military clique determined to maintain the status quo.
Clearly under pressure locally and on the international scene, he made every effort to win the confidence of the civil society and the democracy movement by releasing jailed leaders and requesting exiles to return home. And then, all of a sudden – Chief Abiola died and this threw the democracy movement into a deeper quandary and the country tilted on the precipice. To arrest the religious and ethnic polarisation that had surfaced, General Abubakar quickly went for elections, even at a time that activists3 felt the national question had gone beyond simply organising elections and putting people in positions of power. Yet, because the military was so despised, the decision coupled with the sudden death of the most legitimate arrowhead of our struggle increased the urge for anything but the military, a mood which many of us shared but which equally caught us unawares in the democracy movement.
In the ensuing confusion, the central question for us in the democracy movement was: should the democracy community and the human rights movement participate in, or boycott the transition programme announced by General Abubakar? After extensive deliberations, we agreed that the new dispensation required new strategies, which should reflect a balance between principles and pragmatism. Some expressed strong views that the democracy movement’s capacity to influence change would be severely limited if we decided to boycott the transition programme. Equally, others felt that getting involved in the military-directed transition would amount to a betrayal of the last bastion of the people’s defence against oppression – especially as the professional politicians were eager to return to business as usual with the military, without addressing the root cause of the governance crisis in the first place. In the end, there was no consensus on the way the pro-democracy movement should proceed and we only agreed that individuals could participate while letting political groups stay out of the fray.
Looking back, the civil society leadership may have been correct in its caution about embracing the military transition of 1999, but I now believe we were tactically wrong for completely eschewing participation in politics. As it later became obvious to many of us, there was never going to be a time when all the perfect conditions for involvement in partisan politics would have been met. The fact that the military was not responding to a full-scale defeat by the democracy movement could hardly be discounted in understanding the nature of post-military governance. No doubt, the rushed transition was responsible for the lack-lustre, mostly non-ideological political parties that emerged in 1998/9 and the eventual dominance of the party hierarchy by retired military generals and civilians closely connected to the Abacha era – a fact which eventually culminated in the authoritarian presidential governance we got from 1999 to 2007. Inevitably, the provenance of that transition ensured entrenched neo-militarism and a mere reconfiguration of the political space, rather than a transformation of politics. (But the few amongst our own in the democracy movement who ventured into the partisan field like Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 1999 turned out to be our saving grace and they have continued to make a major difference in the political terrain till today.)
Transition without Transformation
Given the political context painted above, the eventual election of an ex-military General with significant support from the military constituency was seen by many in civil society as an extension of continued military rule. The fact that most of the governors elected (save in the South West) were all what we referred to at the time as “Abacha politicians” was further confirmation to some of us that we had no business being involved. In fact, our refrain at the time was that Ali Baba may be dead, but the forty thieves are still around. Yet, even with all of this, we could have started the process of organising seriously along political lines, rather than agonising about the dominance of these elements in government. After all, we were the ones who risked our lives to fight for the restoration of democracy in Nigeria – only to vacate the space when power was literally lying on the streets. Indeed, as our Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, noted in 2005,
One ceaseless complaint against the democratic movement is that its protagonists carried out this struggle at immense personal sacrifices of varying dimensions, only to hand over future responsibilities to proven reprobates and opportunists…whatever self retiring principles may have governed the impulses of a number of us in that struggle…we have indeed left the field to brigands, parasites and unworthy custodians of power and authority, including even collaborators, that is those who have not only made such struggles necessary in the first place, but contributed to our personal woes, and even stained their hands with the blood of our fallen comrades.4
So, we ended up with a democracy without democrats in charge and this has produced the democratic deficit we are currently experiencing to a large extent. For many of our citizens – democracy was supposed to bring the end of military dictatorship in form and content; they hoped that it would bring greater involvement of ordinary people in politics, whether in state institutions or in civil society ones. They hoped for real and immediate dividends in employment, clean water, better shelter, accessible health care, improved education, reliable and consistent power supply, rehabilitated roads and food on the table. Beyond electoral democracy though, it was also obvious that the nation-state has become a source of unending conflict itself. Many Nigerians of unquestionable nationalist credentials had begun to question the very viability of Nigeria, especially if left in the hands of a rapacious, centralised state. Constitutional reform was therefore seen as a major pivot for renewal and sustenance of the nation’s fragile democratic institutions. To many of our people, the rising disquiet in the Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria, for example, may not be a sign of a failing democracy but a sign of a maturing democracy that is conflictual and contradictory – which should find its own level through mediation, deliberation and negotiations.
Although the challenge of reforming the State is fundamentally structural, the issue of leadership – particularly how we conceptualise leadership and ensure a steady stream of morally upright and politically competent leaders is central to it. For too long, our political culture has perpetuated the myth that strong leaders (like Obasanjo) can bring about change single-handedly – rather than convert the formal authority derived from their electoral mandate into a process of democratic renewal. In times past, this myth has proved to be unfounded. In my own view, real leadership ought to involve motivating people to solve problems within their own communities, rather than reinforcing the over-lordship of the state on its citizens and to build and strengthen political institutions that can mediate between individual and group interests. The authoritarian residues of politics over the last decade have achieved the purpose of turning many away from politics even if they still want to be active in their neighbourhood associations and their community projects. The main challenge of political leadership in my view therefore is to reconnect democratic choices with people’s day-to-day experience and to extend democratic principles to everyday situations in the citizens’ communities and constituencies. It is this ability to combine his experience as a grassroots community organiser with his latter-day involvement in politics that has turned Barack Obama into something of a fairy tale phenomenon and it is also partly what is turning Lagos and its leadership into a model of excellence in Nigeria today.
On the flip-side, if you make political discourse more negative as some of our politicians very often do – you deliberately turn ordinary people off politics; more people grow cynical and stop paying any serious attention. This experience is not unique to us in Nigeria; in fact it is the crisis that democracy is experiencing all over Africa and the rest of the world, with low turn out at the polls and scant regard for political leaders. Yet, if we as citizens choose not to play our part in this process of activism in our communities and our State, we will get the politicians we deserve, allow the hijack of the political realm by special interests groups and those only interested in capturing power for the promotion of their narrow agendas, not the termination of crass opportunism in politics.
Instead of confronting the challenge of organising for democracy head-on, many of us in the Nigerian civil society were at first confused in the new dispensation and some quickly sought the middle way after the election of the new government in Nigeria in 1999, even as we were lukewarm about the dawn of electoral democracy in the country.
We put skills that we acquired during the democratic struggle to the service of the new government at the federal and state levels as a way of helping to bridge the gap between civil society and the elected governments. At my former institution - the Centre for Democracy & Development - we became associated with government at several policy and practical levels – assisting with the shaping and running of the Human Rights Violations Investigations Commission (the Oputa Commission); promoting an agenda for constitutional reform, helping with the reform of the security sector and democratic control of the defence and security establishments, building civil society capacity and pursuing issues of transparency and accountability.
Our point always was that democracy is not an abstract concept. It must be relevant to people’s lives. If democracy is not capable of curbing corruption, guaranteeing transparency and improving people’s well being and quality of life, it is at best an empty concept, at worst a sham. Poverty and despair, oppression and humiliation, economic and social insecurities are breeding grounds – even if not the only reasons – for violence and conflict and as much as Nigerians want democracy, they also want to see concrete evidence of democracy making a difference in their lives.
My own experience of working with government over the past decade as an outsider looking in is captured by the MKO Abiola’s proverb that it’s not possible to shave someone’s head in his absence. The wheel of government bureaucracy turns very slowly and frustratingly so if the central actors are not alive to issues of transformation. No matter how good the policies formulated by outsiders are, implementation is key to transformation. It is for this reason that those of us keen on re-drawing the map of Nigeria’s political future must return to more solid grounds. This solid ground must be within a larger movement though, one that accommodates the place of political institutions and not simply the celebration of astute individuals as the ultimate panacea to our crisis of governance. The most practical way to link individual choice to collective responsibility is to participate in the institutions that influence our lives. We must ensure that formal and informal institutions are democratised and giving more responsibilities for exercising state power. To do it well, we have to see our various little enclaves as avenues for transformation to be restructured in order to provide cover for all our people.
Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, this is why I and many others usually referred to as activists are in politics today. While we see the debate about whether activists should become politicians superfluous, we do not believe political parties are the only avenues of organising for change. Important as they are, the institutions of direct state power and electoralism are just the tip of the iceberg in the democratisation complex. Indeed, genuine democracy ought to rest on a much richer ecology of associational and organisational life and should be nourished and reproduced through every-day struggles of the citizens in the market-places, in our towns-unions and our community development associations. But when we broadly define this everyday struggles of ordinary people as simply the handiwork of ‘activists and civil society’, we strip it bare of its spontaneity and deeper meaning and romanticise the civil society as if it is rationally ordered, codified and the all-knowing alternative to government and exaggerate our capacity as activists to counter the inherent inequities of the state and society. Even worse, we are presented or we present ourselves as antidotes to all the ills in government, which is why it is often difficult for the issues championed in civil society such as the Freedom of Information campaign to gather resonance in the complicated world of politics even when the need for such laws is unassailable..
Towards a Harmony
The reason for this crisis of exaggerated expectation that activists suffer is not far fetched. The truth is that as long as we live in the world of sovereign states, we exaggerate the ability of the civil society to stand up to the power of the nation-state or the mega corporations on its own steam. I am therefore not sure that the solution to the current deficit that our democracy is experiencing can be solved with posing activism as a counterpunch to politics. For autonomous institutions to play a different role in mediating citizens’ democratic choices, their organic development must be combined in a more nuanced manner and a more systematic way with the use of public and state power. The choice is therefore simple: one can continue to snipe on the fringe and complain that government is not listening to the yearning of the people. Alternatively, one can stop agonising about missed policy opportunities and start organising in a manner that places citizens as drivers of change in our quest to restore communitarian values and a future of hope and possibilities for our people.
Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not just a theoretical postulation. it is my own humble contention that it is already happening before our own eyes. The hope that has been rekindled about the restoration of genuine citizenship by the immediate past and present governments in Lagos State, in which Barrister Bamidele has been an active participant, is real. What we have witnessed in Lagos State has been the restoration of our much needed communitarian values. This, I hasten to add, is not the bleary-eyed optimism of a partisan out to praise political associates and ideological soul-mates, but something that one hears on every street corner in Lagos today. My contention is not that the crisis of governance in our land will simply go away by the sterling performance of an individual; it is not the hope that we will all be winners of million dollar lottery tickets today and make poverty disappear overnight. I am talking about the hope that springs forth from selfless, dedicated leadership with an unshaken belief in our inalienable right to rule ourselves well. I am talking about the determination that led the celebrant and other activists to resist military oppression in our land because of our genuine belief that another Nigeria is possible – one that will be accountable to its citizens, legitimate in their eyes, transparent and respected around the world; the hope that allows us to hold our heads high, proud of our accomplishments and contributions to humankind - the hope that promises a bright, rewarding future based on a collective rescue mission. That is what Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his able successor, Barrister Babatunde Fashola and their colleagues have restored in the Centre of Excellence and that is what true leadership ought to be about.
Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen – I know there are many who might see this as misplaced optimism since what we are experiencing today in the country is not what Nigerians bargained for when we fought for democracy in the 90s. Yet, we must admit proudly that the government of which the celebrant is a member continues to give us hope that we can revive Nigeria in a qualitative manner and make democracy more meaningful to our people, provide jobs for the jobless, improve healthcare, modernise education and reclaim our young people from a future of violence, decadence and despair by linking serious activism to politics in the interest of humanity. The challenge is therefore not to allow despair and despondency to overwhelm us. We must continue to see possibilities amid the enormous challenges in order to restore our faith in politics and government. It seems to me a self-evident truth that where there is no civil society engaged actively in social activism and the promotion of core values in society, there can be no political society and the state runs the risk of decay and illegitimacy. Renewing our democracy through the strengthening of institutions of public participation increases our collective capacity to tackle the major problems facing society – with a corresponding achievement of individual contentment even as we pursue the common good.
This is what Barrister Opeyemi Bamidele has proved in his little corner – whether as a political leader in his Oshodi-Isolo constituency, two-time Commissioner in Lagos State, as an activist for democracy and good governance and a lawyer. It is by providing the type of political training that he received as a young activist that we can produce a successor generation of leaders properly schooled to help us deepen this fragile democracy and empower others to become leaders in their own right. I congratulate Barrister Bamidele on his 45th birthday but also would like to say that it is not yet time to clink the glasses. In the words of the famous American jurist and late Supreme Court Judge, Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must set sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it – but sail we must, and not drift, nor lie at the anchor”
•Lecture delivered at the Eko FM Centre, Agidingbi, Lagos in honour of Barrister Opeyemi Bamidele on his 45th Birthday Celebration on July 29, 2008.
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