Dictatorship of the minorities
- Details
- Category: Philosofaith
- Written by Kabir Mato
- Hits: 1968
When Karl Marx propounded the theory of dialectical and historical materialism from the famous works of earlier German philosophers, Ludwig Feuerbach and Hegel, the conclusions were that the inherent crisis that typify the capitalist system were going to be the source of the destruction and overthrow of the system.
The theory posits that capitalism as a profit-inclined system driven by the thirst of capitalists who are few and minority in the society, lording it over the mass of the people who are mostly the labor force, there will exist relationship between the two social classes that is antagonistic and will perpetuate class struggle until the tiny minority is overthrown by the majority working class.
Marx referred to capitalism as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, who are in the minority while the end result will eventually be the overthrow of that system and its replacement with the dictatorship of the proletariat who are the majority in the society, which according to Marx is the foundation of what he called proletariat internationalism.
What we have in Nigeria today is not exactly what Marx spoke about because in the first place the national economy is not capitalistic enough. It is more of a dependent peripheral bourgeois system as the third option theorists would call it. Capitalism is not rooted because industry is still at its lowest level so production relations are not defined in terms of labor and capital even though there is a conspiratorial bourgeois class that does business with its foreign superiors but mainly in the swindling of national assets and resources to overseas.
This is responsible for the growing poverty in the society, failure to industrialize despite the abundant opportunities that are opened to the nation and its citizens through abundant deposit of rich mineral resources everywhere in the country. As the late Robert Nesta Marley would say, in the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty. This is a result of very poor political and economic brinkmanship.
No doubt, Nigerian politics since the colonial period took more or less a different dimension in terms of what actually the political class wanted in relation to the attainment of national goals and objectives. I have argued time and again that in Nigeria, we have always had a different notion and interpretation of what politics is all about and its essence.
No doubt the political class especially of contemporary times sees politics as basically an economic enterprise. Their concept of leadership is not anchored on the philosophy of service and history. This was though not the case in the beginning of the country in the 1940s and the formative years, but it has become the rule rather than exception in the contemporary political clime of Nigeria.
The first republic was brought down by the overzealous young military officers because it was fashionable in Africa to stage a coup then, the reasons proffered as stupid as they were revolved around failure to secure national integration on the part of the political leadership. That excessive regionalism according to Major Kaduna et al was counterproductive.
This was the beginning of Nigeria’s national calamity because the soldiers thought that national unity was an artificial contraption in a fragile federal structure like Nigeria. They thought and even subsequently that the only way politics and governance could guarantee national unity and development was through the dissolution of the differences which Nigerians have into one nation.
When the late Dr. Nanmadi Azikiwe called on the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa that they needed to dissolve their difference, forget about them and build a nation, the Prime Minister was categorical that what they needed to do most was to understand more their differences as a strategy of building national cohesion and development through unity.
The soldiers mutilated the country into several states. There are 36 states in the country today. 19 states in the North and 18 in the South and a federal capital. The basis of federating was eroded since the states which are supposed to be the units of federation are so tiny and many and therefore unable to retain any measure of autonomy unlike what the nation had in the first republic.
Military rule further centralized the art of governance because of its hierarchical nature and thus reduced the capacity of different states to take decisions as units of the federation. The civil political class became seriously incapacitated and has since assumed a role that is unfortunately parasitic. This among several other reasons is responsible for the weak political class and culture in the country today.
The politicians have seemingly fizzled out of ideas. They are seriously pauperized and would do anything to remain lackeys because out of their dishonesty, they loot the till today and by tomorrow they are broke. The implication of that is that they have to continue to rely on the powers-that-be at any point in order to lubricate their exotic ways of life that is unsustainable whenever they are out of the corridors of power or lost favor of the current powers-that-be.
Now, in the first and second republics, Nigerian politics was dictated by alliances of the majority groups with the minority groups. For instance, the dominant North comprising of the Hausas, Fulanis, Nupes, Knauris and other predominantly Muslim groups aligned with the minority groups in the Niger Delta area, but the NPC was not able to form government until it aligned with the NCNC which was a party of the Ibo majority group in the Eastern part of the country. On the other hand, the AG which was the party of the Yoruba majority in Western part of the country aligned with the UMBC and secured tremendous support in the North Central parts of the country especially amongst the Christian groups,
This format of alliance except the realignment of forces between the Tiv, a major and cardinal group in the North Central with what has come to be known as the dominant Hausa/Fulani North were retained in the politics of the second republic. This saw the ascendency of the NPN to power in 1979.
Since the collapse of the second republic, the military has tried to reposition Nigerian politics in the same format and mistake of national identity without commensurate attention for unity in diversity which is the secret of success in every major federal setting in the world. Stringent conditions that are normally given to political parties that they must possess some national spread is responsible for the contraptions that usually emerge as political parties during electoral contests. The PDP is a good example here.
The political parties that we have in Nigeria did not emerge from natural processes and therefore the outcome is this confusion that is everywhere. Zoning, power rotation today and tomorrow, those who benefited or are benefitting from it will or are rejecting it. That is what has brought the nation to this mess of contestation between political forces of either there should be zoning and power rotation or not.
Obviously those who are benefiting from the current arrangement are against rotation because by natural default they are on the driver seat. They will not mind if the ladder should be removed because tomorrow will take care of itself.
The Northern Governors Forum has taken a position though through a split decision that zoning should be retained in their party. It is left for Goodlock Jonathan and those who are instigating him to take the decision of whether to appear on the ballot or not.
I am aware that the development which has very prominent citizens who have benefitted from the alliance as a result of political compromises are now encouraging divide along majority/ minority divides. If such considerations were not at work in the North and if truly there is massive marginalization of the minority groups in the North as some of these opportunists are claiming, then, people like Senator Ameh Ebute wouldn’t have become the senate president in 1993. Equally Senator David Mark wouldn’t have become the senate president in 2007.
I am not worried when people like Jerry Gana take the position that they are taking. I am however worried when people like Senator Jonathan Zwingina, a thorough-bred intellectual are taking shelter under the umbrella of pseudo sentiments and obscurantism. There are people who live and feed fat in emphasizing and capitalizing on peoples’ differences. There are those who are known to be above board.
I hope it is not age that is the problem. But it must be made known very clear to all and sundry that without compromises in form of zoning and rotation, certain groups would never have made it to top public offices in a plural society like Nigeria. A ready example is President Goodluck Jonathan himself. A personification of the benefit of zoning and rotation. If some people around him are instigating him into disrespecting a noble arrangement that catapulted him to the top of national political landscape, then, he is at liberty to either get drowned in this ocean of political confusion or open honest dialogue with Nigerians for the sake of the system.
Articles
Dictatorship of the minorities
Category: Philosofaith Written by Kabir Mato Hits: 1968
When Karl Marx propounded the theory of dialectical and historical materialism from the famous works of earlier German philosophers, Ludwig Feuerbach and Hegel, the conclusions were that the inherent crisis that typify the capitalist system were going to be the source of the destruction and overthrow of the system.
The theory posits that capitalism as a profit-inclined system driven by the thirst of capitalists who are few and minority in the society, lording it over the mass of the people who are mostly the labor force, there will exist relationship between the two social classes that is antagonistic and will perpetuate class struggle until the tiny minority is overthrown by the majority working class.
Marx referred to capitalism as the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, who are in the minority while the end result will eventually be the overthrow of that system and its replacement with the dictatorship of the proletariat who are the majority in the society, which according to Marx is the foundation of what he called proletariat internationalism.
What we have in Nigeria today is not exactly what Marx spoke about because in the first place the national economy is not capitalistic enough. It is more of a dependent peripheral bourgeois system as the third option theorists would call it. Capitalism is not rooted because industry is still at its lowest level so production relations are not defined in terms of labor and capital even though there is a conspiratorial bourgeois class that does business with its foreign superiors but mainly in the swindling of national assets and resources to overseas.
This is responsible for the growing poverty in the society, failure to industrialize despite the abundant opportunities that are opened to the nation and its citizens through abundant deposit of rich mineral resources everywhere in the country. As the late Robert Nesta Marley would say, in the abundance of water, the fool is thirsty. This is a result of very poor political and economic brinkmanship.
No doubt, Nigerian politics since the colonial period took more or less a different dimension in terms of what actually the political class wanted in relation to the attainment of national goals and objectives. I have argued time and again that in Nigeria, we have always had a different notion and interpretation of what politics is all about and its essence.
No doubt the political class especially of contemporary times sees politics as basically an economic enterprise. Their concept of leadership is not anchored on the philosophy of service and history. This was though not the case in the beginning of the country in the 1940s and the formative years, but it has become the rule rather than exception in the contemporary political clime of Nigeria.
The first republic was brought down by the overzealous young military officers because it was fashionable in Africa to stage a coup then, the reasons proffered as stupid as they were revolved around failure to secure national integration on the part of the political leadership. That excessive regionalism according to Major Kaduna et al was counterproductive.
This was the beginning of Nigeria’s national calamity because the soldiers thought that national unity was an artificial contraption in a fragile federal structure like Nigeria. They thought and even subsequently that the only way politics and governance could guarantee national unity and development was through the dissolution of the differences which Nigerians have into one nation.
When the late Dr. Nanmadi Azikiwe called on the late Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa that they needed to dissolve their difference, forget about them and build a nation, the Prime Minister was categorical that what they needed to do most was to understand more their differences as a strategy of building national cohesion and development through unity.
The soldiers mutilated the country into several states. There are 36 states in the country today. 19 states in the North and 18 in the South and a federal capital. The basis of federating was eroded since the states which are supposed to be the units of federation are so tiny and many and therefore unable to retain any measure of autonomy unlike what the nation had in the first republic.
Military rule further centralized the art of governance because of its hierarchical nature and thus reduced the capacity of different states to take decisions as units of the federation. The civil political class became seriously incapacitated and has since assumed a role that is unfortunately parasitic. This among several other reasons is responsible for the weak political class and culture in the country today.
The politicians have seemingly fizzled out of ideas. They are seriously pauperized and would do anything to remain lackeys because out of their dishonesty, they loot the till today and by tomorrow they are broke. The implication of that is that they have to continue to rely on the powers-that-be at any point in order to lubricate their exotic ways of life that is unsustainable whenever they are out of the corridors of power or lost favor of the current powers-that-be.
Now, in the first and second republics, Nigerian politics was dictated by alliances of the majority groups with the minority groups. For instance, the dominant North comprising of the Hausas, Fulanis, Nupes, Knauris and other predominantly Muslim groups aligned with the minority groups in the Niger Delta area, but the NPC was not able to form government until it aligned with the NCNC which was a party of the Ibo majority group in the Eastern part of the country. On the other hand, the AG which was the party of the Yoruba majority in Western part of the country aligned with the UMBC and secured tremendous support in the North Central parts of the country especially amongst the Christian groups,
This format of alliance except the realignment of forces between the Tiv, a major and cardinal group in the North Central with what has come to be known as the dominant Hausa/Fulani North were retained in the politics of the second republic. This saw the ascendency of the NPN to power in 1979.
Since the collapse of the second republic, the military has tried to reposition Nigerian politics in the same format and mistake of national identity without commensurate attention for unity in diversity which is the secret of success in every major federal setting in the world. Stringent conditions that are normally given to political parties that they must possess some national spread is responsible for the contraptions that usually emerge as political parties during electoral contests. The PDP is a good example here.
The political parties that we have in Nigeria did not emerge from natural processes and therefore the outcome is this confusion that is everywhere. Zoning, power rotation today and tomorrow, those who benefited or are benefitting from it will or are rejecting it. That is what has brought the nation to this mess of contestation between political forces of either there should be zoning and power rotation or not.
Obviously those who are benefiting from the current arrangement are against rotation because by natural default they are on the driver seat. They will not mind if the ladder should be removed because tomorrow will take care of itself.
The Northern Governors Forum has taken a position though through a split decision that zoning should be retained in their party. It is left for Goodlock Jonathan and those who are instigating him to take the decision of whether to appear on the ballot or not.
I am aware that the development which has very prominent citizens who have benefitted from the alliance as a result of political compromises are now encouraging divide along majority/ minority divides. If such considerations were not at work in the North and if truly there is massive marginalization of the minority groups in the North as some of these opportunists are claiming, then, people like Senator Ameh Ebute wouldn’t have become the senate president in 1993. Equally Senator David Mark wouldn’t have become the senate president in 2007.
I am not worried when people like Jerry Gana take the position that they are taking. I am however worried when people like Senator Jonathan Zwingina, a thorough-bred intellectual are taking shelter under the umbrella of pseudo sentiments and obscurantism. There are people who live and feed fat in emphasizing and capitalizing on peoples’ differences. There are those who are known to be above board.
I hope it is not age that is the problem. But it must be made known very clear to all and sundry that without compromises in form of zoning and rotation, certain groups would never have made it to top public offices in a plural society like Nigeria. A ready example is President Goodluck Jonathan himself. A personification of the benefit of zoning and rotation. If some people around him are instigating him into disrespecting a noble arrangement that catapulted him to the top of national political landscape, then, he is at liberty to either get drowned in this ocean of political confusion or open honest dialogue with Nigerians for the sake of the system.