Nigeria: Still a democracy with deficit of democrats- by Minabere Ibelema

Looking at the crisis rocking the Rivers State Government and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, it is hard not to see parallels with similar crises that have bedevilled several other states over the relatively few years of our Third Republic.

During President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, the states of Anambra, Ekiti, Oyo, among others were in convulsion. In some of the cases —Ekiti, for instance — the crisis outlasted the Obasanjo administration and dragged on into Umaru Yar’Adua’s.

Just as President Goodluck Jonathan is being blamed for the Rivers State crisis, Obasanjo was implicated in the crises in the states during his administration. They invariably involved states in which the governors were out of favour with him.

Yet, then and now, the crises is about the broader issue that Nigeria is a democracy that has a shortage of democrats. The problem of deficit in the democratic spirit is one that even long-established democracies still grapple with, though to a much lesser degree.

I will return to our current crises, but first here is an emerging and instructive case in America’s governance.

Throughout his presidency, President Barack Obama has had difficulty having his appointees confirmed by the Senate, though his party, the Democratic Party, has a significant majority in that chamber of Congress.

It is not that Obama’s appointees do not have the support of his party’s senators. It is that the rules of the US Senate make it easy for the minority party to block nominees. Specifically, a super-majority of 60 per cent is required to end procedural obstructions, including the filibuster or threat thereof.

And so a cynical Republican caucus that is hell-bent on obstructing Obama has used the tactic willy-nilly to deny confirmation to a throng of Obama appointees. And so cabinet and judicial positions have remained unfilled, thus impeding the proper functioning of the government.

Over the years, minority parties, including the Democrats, have used the tactics. Problem is that the Republicans have gone far beyond the norm in flexing that muscle. Whereas minority senators in the past were careful and selective in invoking the obstructive privilege, the Republicans are now deploying it carte blanche.

Well, early last week, the Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid threatened to have his party’s majority vote to remove the option of the filibuster, especially for appointments to the judiciary.

It is an option that the Democrats have had all along but were reluctant to use, because it is, as the press has dubbed it, “the nuclear option.” It is so characterised because it would substantially change the character of the Senate, the upper chamber, whose procedure is intended to protect interests beyond the wishes of the majority.

But to avert the nuclear option, Reid invited the senators to a special overnight retreat, where they could negotiate in good faith without the ideological posturing and blinders. It worked.

The Democrats agreed to withdraw (via the president, of course) two nominees that the Republicans found particularly unacceptable. In return the Republicans would allow the confirmation vote on the rest of nominees to proceed. In fact, a number of them were confirmed within hours of the deal.

For renascent democracies such as Nigeria, there are two lessons to be learned from this episode of American governance. First, regardless of its tenure in a given country, democracy is always vulnerable to civic and political cynicism.

Second  — actually this is a corollary — the success of any democratic order depends more on the spirit with which it is approached than on the soundness of the constitution and procedures.

Democracy is vulnerable to subversion and cynicism because it lacks the procedural rigidity of autocracies. The checks and balances between the three branches of government, as well as within each branch, are intended to deter any form of despotism. Alas, the checks are also the causes of the vulnerability of democracy.

For the checks and balances to work, all players in the system have to have as their guiding principle the viability of the system. Without that, the most thoughtful constitution will fail to hold up. Even the mechanisms for corrective action will fail.

For instance, though the judiciary is empowered to rule on procedural matters, there are logjams about which it is powerless to intervene.

For instance, Republican senators’ obstruction of Obama’s nominations is purely a legislative matter. Obama could not have sought judicial intervention, regardless of the adverse effects on the country. Only the senators could find within themselves the means of resolving it.

That they have found a compromise is an indication that even the most cynical legislative posture in recent American history can be made to see reason. No illegalities were involved. Certainly, no fist fights or mayhem.

The crisis in Rivers State, as well as that of the Nigeria Governors Forum, clearly indicates that some of our politicians still don’t have the intellectual or emotional requisites to be entrusted with running a democracy.

It is one thing to exploit procedural loopholes to advance personal or ideological interests. And that can be bad enough. It is another, still, to disregard the democratic process entirely. That is crudely undemocratic.

And that is what is happening in Rivers State. Whatever may be the desired end, it is untenable subversion of the democratic process for a handful legislators to arrogate to itself the power to remove its Speaker.

But then, such flagrant contravention of the democratic process still shouldn’t precipitate mayhem. There is a constitutional means for rectifying it, and that is judicial intervention.

That is what happened during Obasanjo’s administration when chaos reigned in the Plateau State government. Then eight of the state’s 24 legislators met and voted to impeach Governor Joshua Dariye, while the rest of the legislators were in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The legal question that arose then was what constitutes a quorum, whether it is a percentage of the full house or a percentage of those eligible to vote. The impeachment was properly nullified by the judiciary.

From all indications, Dariye did not deserve to be in office, given the evidence of massive corruption. But what would have been worse was to subvert the democratic process in order to get him out.

Of course, the judiciary can easily be overwhelmed if we continue to have so many undemocratic people running our democracy. Besides, some judges have issued errant decisions in the past. Still, the civil process is better anytime than thuggery.

culled from the punch.