Lecture delivered on the occasion of the public presentation of The Nigerian Political Turf: Polity, Politics and Politicians written by Mobolade Omonijo on Tuesday, August 7, 2012 at The Muson Centre, Onikan-Lagos.

1. The Nigerian Polity, Politics and Politicians:
Moving from Transaction to Transformation
By
Dr ‘Kayode Fayemi,
Governor, Ekiti State.
Being Lecture delivered on the occasion of the public
presentation of The Nigerian Political Turf: Polity, Politics and
Politicians written by Mobolade Omonijo on Tuesday, August
7, 2012 at The Muson Centre, Onikan-Lagos.

2. PROTOCOLS
Let me express my deep gratitude for the privilege of addressing this special audience on the
occasion of the public presentation of Mobolade Omonijo’s book, The Nigerian Political Turf:
Polity, Politics, Politicians. When I first saw the title of the book, it reminded me so much of a
similarly titled book by the late James Ajibola Ige (aka Uncle Bola), progressive politician,
intellectual par excellence and former Attorney-General of post-military Nigeria. That
fascinating book entitled, People, Politics and Politicians of Nigeria: 1940 – 1979, chronicles
Uncle Bola’s reflections on the triumphs and travails of Nigerian politics and polity during the
period before independence to the resumption of democratic rule in 1979. Written almost twenty
years before Mobolade’s book, Uncle Bola’s inimitable and often irreverent style had presaged
many of the issues raised in this new book in a prescient manner leaving anyone reading
Mobolade’s book with a sense of déjà vu. While it is really not my task to review Bolade
Omonijo’s book - having been saddled with an altogether different task – that of reflecting on the
polity, politics and politicians from the perspective of an “active participant” as he put it in his
invitation letter, it would nevertheless be remiss of me not to comment on the timeliness and
timelessness of the book at a time that many continue to worry about the Nigeria project.
As a journalist of repute, experience and exposure, Mr Omonijo has done a brilliant job of
placing the people, citizens at the centre of this retrospective assessment of his last twenty five
years in journalism. He highlights important issues like democracy, constitutionalism, poverty
and development as well as regional integration. In his own view, fifty years after independence
and a century after amalgamation, politics and politicking have still not served the people well.
The country is far from being a nation and the polity is in need of thorough restructuring. He
underscores the importance of institutions much more than personalities. Especially, institutions
that can mediate the relationship between the leaders and the led; relationship between tiers of
government; and the electoral process through which leaders are recruited. He paints the polity in
the frightening image of the Hobbessian state of nature – nasty, brutish and about to be cut short!

3. Many groan that Nigeria is at another crossroads. For such people, the country only seems to go
from crisis to crisis. If truth be told, there seems to be a vibrant industry of ‘Niger-pessimism’.
Like most Nigerians, the author appears very cynical about the average Nigerian politician. He is
however hopeful about the possibilities the country holds for the future, certain things being in
place. The picture of the politician he paints is one of an unconscionable, venal, greedy, corrupt
leech feeding off society and one who would seize any opportunity to fleece the people. Whether
one agrees with this view of the Nigerian politician or not, very few in our country disagree that
the nation is experiencing a ‘leadership challenge.’ Nigerians mistrust and distrust their leaders –
whether they are politicians, captains of industry, faith based clerics, media watchdogs or civil
society activists. I suppose as an active participant who has been asked to reflect on current
challenges in the polity, my task is not to bemoan the fate of our troubled institutions in the
polity. It is to proffer, in so far as my experience can take me, what should be done about the
critical problems highlighted in Mr Omonijo’s book and outline how we must work
expeditiously towards their resolutions.
A progressive participant-observer in my view would want to call attention to what must be done
to increase the population of those who access power with a view to serving the people and
launching the country on an irreversible path of development. He would want to reflect, for
example, on what is the place of values in politics? How can transactional politics be replaced by
transformational leadership? How should institutions of state be strengthened to ensure effective
checks and balances? What should be done to promote internal democracy in political parties?
How should leaders and the led - work together? What systems and processes should be put in
place for genuine empowerment of the citizens towards the attainment of full rights? In short,
how can excellence become the habit in our beleaguered nation?
As for the polity, the question that many continue to pose will have to be answered with all its
attendant ramifications if we are to respond to Mr Omonijo’s thought provoking treatise. I agree

4. with Mr Omonijo that many of the internal contradictions of the Nigerian state have been
sharpened to a point that the bare bones are now visible. The failure to address the national (ity)
question in an inclusive manner is evident in the varied responses across country to conflicts
over identity, nationality, self-determination and autonomy. These issues are, in turn, bound up
with such questions as what manner of federation do Nigerians want? Unlike in the past when
government has always decreed issues like religion, autonomy and resource control as
constitutional “no-go areas”, Nigerians are now forcing these issues in the open and the hitherto
authoritarian might of the federal centre is being put to test. What is this nation called Nigeria?
What does it mean to be Nigerian? How do we manage diversity and difference in a multi-
ethnic, multi-faith polity? These were some of the questions that we avoided in the events
leading up to May 29 1999 in the desperation for anything but the military.
As a participant-observer equally troubled and concerned by these untoward developments in the
polity, I have attempted to reflect on these questions as they affect the polity and its politicians.
Of course, as someone who was on the outside looking in and now an active participant on the
inside undertaking self-introspection, I know how tempting it is for those on the outside,
particularly my friends in the fourth estate to assume a moral high ground. They are irrepressible
in the belief that the politicians are the problem. I also know that politicians see themselves as
reflections of their milieu which often compel them to act in a Jekyll and Hyde dual mode – on
the one hand, charismatic, visionary, caring, fascinating and sophisticated, and on the other,
repulsive, cynical, calculating, corrupt, venal and opportunistic. My own interest is really not to
indulge in any deep philosophical or academic arguments about the distinctions between
transactional politics and transformational leadership - many of which you are familiar with but
to simply explore the necessity for citizens’ engagement in a democracy. I also want to
underscore the importance of accountability to the citizens by those elected to serve them. It is
my own conviction that where there is no active civil society engagement, there can be no
responsible and responsive political society. Such a State runs the risk of decay and illegitimacy.

5. I intend to argue based on my experience that politics – properly conducted - is a form of social
activism and another stage in the struggle to restore the dignity of humankind. It is an integrated
continuum rather than discretely compartmentalised oppositional phenomena, often complicated
and contradictory, but mostly in the quest to make a fundamental difference. This is perhaps
why the issue should not be one for politicians or non-politicians, but the extent to which we are
able to achieve citizen participation in our democracy. The issue of leadership – particularly
how we conceptualise leadership is central to the discourse. In my view, 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 leaders – be they politicians or non-politicians 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 in the country. Yet, this
lack of legitimacy cuts both ways. When we the people withdraw our trust in leaders or
discountenance politicians, we make our democratic institutions less effective and risk making
ourselves ungovernable.
For too long, our political culture has perpetuated the myth that strong leaders can bring about
change single-handedly – rather than convert the formal authority derived from legitimate
electoral mandate into a process of democratic renewal. The myth of the heroic and charismatic
leader dominates the literature on leadership. After all, to lead in Greek and Latin was originally
a military term meaning a “General of soldiers”. 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 citizens. It is to build as well as strengthen political
institutions that can mediate between individual and group interests, between human and
peoples’ rights. Joseph Nye, jr, the Dean of Harvard’s John Kennedy’s School of Government
who coined the term ‘soft power’, define leaders as ‘those who help a group create and achieve

6. shared goals.1 The authoritarian residues of politics continue to see leaders as magicians with all
the answers to societal problems – hence the immeasurable disappointment when they fail to
leave up to this exaggerated expectations.
The main challenge in my view therefore is both a psychological and a contextual one and it
centres on de-emphasising superficial and unearned notions of heroic leadership by reconnecting
democratic choices with people’s day-to-day experience and to extend democratic principles to
everyday situations in citizens’ communities and constituencies.
This is the reason why leadership must be mediated by the context of power and political
structure. What do I mean by this? Many will recall that at the commencement of the current
political dispensation in 1999, many were of the view that the path we were treading was one of
transition without transformation.2 We argued severally that it was wrong to suggest that any
opening after Nigeria’s prolonged authoritarian rule was inherently irreversible and would lead
to the deepening of democracy without interrogating the nature of the opening itself. We felt at
the time that we needed to think more carefully about the implications of what we considered to
be a staged-managed and guided democratic transition because even if Ali Baba was dead, the
forty thieves were still very much around, especially in a setting where the authoritarian ethos,
language, and character of command and control of public discourse remained in place.
Looking back, we may have been correct to be cautious about embracing the military transition
of 1999, but I now believe we were tactically wrong for completely eschewing participation in
politics. The fact that the military had not responded to a full-scale defeat by the democracy
movement could hardly be discounted in understanding the nature of post-military governance.
The eventual dominance of the party hierarchy by retired military generals and civilians closely
connected to them certainly set the tone for party formation and also resulted in authoritarian
1
Joseph S.Nye Jr, The Powers to Lead, (London: Oxford University Press, 2008), p.x.
2
For a discussion of my scepticism, see ‘Kayode Fayemi, “Military Hegemony and the Transition Program”, Issue:
Journal of Opinion – Special Edition on Nigeria, Vol.XXXXII, No.1, 1999., Journal of the African Studies
Association, Rutgers University, USA.

7. presidential governance particularly under President Obasanjo. Essentially, the outcome of that
particular phase of the transition ensured a mere reconfiguration of the political space, rather
than guarantee transformative leadership.
Yet, even with all of this, we could have started the process of organising along political lines,
rather than agonising about the militarised nature of power and leadership. After all, we
(journalists and activists alike) 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.
So, we ended up with a democracy with pseudo-democrats and yet we are worried about the low
quality of our democracy and deficits in governance. For the majority 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 the
federal, state and local institutions or even in civil society ones. They hoped for real and
immediate dividends in employment, clean water, affordable shelter, accessible health care,
improved education, reliable and consistent power supply, rehabilitated roads and food on the
table. While we generally enjoy a qualitative air of freedom in the last decade, there is still
despair, despondency and disillusionment about material dividends of this democracy.
Democracy is not an abstract concept to the ordinary people. Indeed, they do not value
democracy any less than their elite compatriots. But they want democracy to be relevant to their
lives in a concrete and fundamental manner. If democracy is not capable of wiping out poverty,
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 to many. Poverty and despair, oppression and
humiliation, economic and social insecurities are breeding grounds – even if not the only reasons
– for violence and conflict. As much as Nigerians want democracy, they also want to see
concrete evidence of democracy making a difference in their lives and not just in an
instrumentalist sense of embracing freedom.

8. These are, however, not challenges charismatic politicians or heroic leaders are able to resolve
on their own without a careful consideration of the context of the issues. It is for this reason that
those who want to re-draw the map of Nigeria’s future for the better must return to more solid
grounds rather than tie themselves to the apron strings of power-holders. Power wielders who
neither have a track record nor demonstrate a vision that can inspire our people and offer them
hope about tangible transformation. This solid ground must be within a larger movement though,
one that accommodates the place of political institutions. It should not simply be 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 Nigeria as a
permanent enterprise that has to be fought over and restructured in order to provide cover for all
Nigerians.
Understandably, if you make political discourse more negative as some do – you deliberately
turn ordinary people off politics; more people grow cynical and stop paying any serious attention
to politics. This experience is not unique to us in Nigeria; in fact it is the crisis that democracy is
experiencing all over the world, with low turn out at the polls and scant regard for political
leaders. Yet, if we as citizens choose not to play a 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, religious bigots and ethnic jingoists only keen in the
promotion of their narrow agendas. So, being political is being patriotic and we all must be ready
to leave our comfort zones to embrace active engagement.

9. The State of the Polity
Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, this is why I see the extended focus of the
book on the polity quite useful. Important as politicians are, they 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. Operating in the practical field of politics, I have come to realise
how detached many citizens are from the institutions and structures that should ordinarily
empower them to engage the State. To enable the citizens to engage, they must feel and actually
be empowered to have oversight of their own state agencies and functions. They should be given
local input and control in a genuine and open, not tokenistic and patronage-based, manner.
Giving communities a role in their own development is the essential part of dismantling the
command mentality which plagues our country today.
This is why I am not sure that the solution to the current deficit that our polity is experiencing
can be solved with this either - or approaches of politicians and non-politicians. 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 yearnings of the people.
Alternatively, one can stop agonising about missed policy opportunities and organise in a manner
that places citizens as drivers of change. Especially in our quest to restore communitarian values
and create a future of hope and possibilities for our people.
This is why I am in politics. It is my belief that committed social activism must help provide the
road map that people can employ to help undertake various empowerment projects that will give
them control over their own destinies and lives. It is the belief that public office is too serious to
be entrusted in the hands of charlatans and that when serious people turn away from politics, the
field is left to those who have nothing to offer than crass opportunism and damage to our

10. people’s well being. We must – politicians and journalists alike - be determined to ensure that
the State empowers rather than dictate, enables rather than control, pushes power down to the
people and shares the responsibility of governing with them rather than turn them to supplicants
at the table of power wielders.
Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, there is no doubt that the democracy we are
enjoying today continues to be threatened by severe internal contradictions. Nowhere are the
limits of the democratic project in Nigeria more apparent than in the question of creating
appropriate institutional arrangements for the political accommodation and management of social
diversities and difference. By its very nature, democratic politics has radically altered the
existing social boundaries and divisions, accentuating hitherto dormant identities and conflicts.
The consequences of the relationship between the two have not only posed a challenge to those
who seek to understand these dynamics, it has also placed a question mark on the very viability
of Nigeria’s democratic enterprise. The lethality of many of these conflicts has been transformed
in scope and intensity with the unrestricted availability of small arms and unemployed youths. At
the core of the crisis either in the Niger Delta or in the North is the failure of politics to allocate
authority, legitimise it, and use it to achieve the social as well as economic ends that conduce to
communal wellbeing. The ordinary people, expelled to the margins of politics and economics for
so long appear now to be knocking insistently on the gate, demanding to be let in - in the
renewed context of democratisation and freedom.
Sadly, successive Nigerian governments have seen these communal crises as purely a security
matter.3 Given Nigeria’s experience of prolonged authoritarian rule, a very narrow and
traditional definition of security persists as the psyche of militarism remains pervasive in the
system. There is therefore the need to re-conceptualise ‘security’ in a more responsive direction
3
Save in the context of the Amnesty programme adopted by the late President Yar’adua to tackle the lingering crisis
of militancy in the Delta, security response has been the norm rather than the exception since President Obasanjo’s
invasion of Odi and the pacification of Zaki Biam.

11. with a move away from the traditional emphasis on national/state/regime security to a focus on
‘human security’, with an expansion, concomitantly in the scope of the concept from its
minimalist meaning (as in physical security) to include access to the means of life, the provision
of essential goods, a clean and sustainable environment, as well as to human rights and
democratic freedoms. It may well be that as Nigeria purges itself of its military, authoritarian
past, the chance of embracing a more humane perspective of security becomes increasingly
realistic. In this respect, a complement to massive security and law and order response and
containment of conflict ought to be a new political and economic framework, guaranteed by a
new federal constitution, that would transfer power, and with it the control of economic
resources, to local people allowing them in turn to pay appropriate taxes to federal coffers. This
would entail the democratisation of politics in such a way that the ordinary people would become
the object and subject of development.
In a country where stupendous wealth often lies astride abject poverty, the seeds of conflict are
easily sown and understandably germinate faster. Set against the inability of the State to
provide basic services for its citizens, new conflicts have manifested through politicised agents
who appear to be using the conditions of the poor to address the responses or non-responses of
the State to the legitimate yearnings of the people. This comes into clear relief in the context of a
democratic transition, in which, conflict becomes an integral, and often inevitable result of power
shift. In fact this is because democratisation or at least democratic transition represents in the
large part restoration of agency to some actors, but also loss of power by others accustomed to its
unaccountable use. There can be no doubt that the transformation and utilisation of objective
factors in the exacerbation of conflicts in Nigeria is not unconnected to this fact.
Given the above, the key to understanding and explaining conflict in Nigeria, it seems to us, lies
primarily (though not exclusively) in specific local dynamics and responses, on the part of the
communities and states, to the crisis conditions created by the existing economic and political
conditions. It is also in the lack of institutional mechanisms to mediate conflict when they occur.

12. The above, in our view returns our search to the patterns, texture and quality of politics that
emerged with political liberalisation and transitions, which in Nigeria’s case reflected a
reconfiguration and reassertion of pre-existing (though temporarily submerged) structures of
national and local power bases, rather than a fundamental transformation. It also involved, in
other cases, the activation of alienated new strata – especially amongst the youths, reflecting the
dangerous ideological transformations wrought by the combined forces of authoritarianism,
economic decline and social marginalisation in Nigeria.
Yet, as argued earlier, democracy is much more than just achieving material benefits. But
without economic improvement, especially the broadening of the basis of wealth creation and
possession, the conditions which threaten democracy and civil peace will continue to worsen.
Poverty in Nigeria has not bred radical politics, but radical religious, ethnic and opportunistic
agendas. Those who in the last decade would have eked out a living in the informal economy,
are beginning to turn to the criminal economy to effect direct redistribution of wealth through the
rising tide of terrorism, armed robbery, assassinations and kidnappings which form the backdrop
to an increasingly brutalised society. Unemployed youths, when they do not become criminals,
join vigilante organisations which supplant the job of the security forces by dealing out direct
justice – at which point this threatens the state's supposed monopoly on the legitimate use of
force? Also, beyond this, they become thugs-for-hire, abused in their vulnerability by their
scheming elders, who expend them in gang fights over electoral wards, or dispose of them for a
few hundred Naira in order to destabilise towns and cities for sectarian advantage. Nigeria's
youth needs gainful employment. And so do its rural and urban poor, its old, its women, and
anyone who does not happen to be lucky enough to have connections to persons of influence.
It is in this sense that the current debate on the insurgency known as Boko Haram is itself a
debate about the status and quality of democracy in Nigeria; a debate about the future of the
country as a united, federal entity. With bombs going off incessantly in the Northern part of the

13. country in particular and an increasing level of panic in other parts of the country, thinking of
innovative ways of accommodating social diversity in a democratic frame is a challenge that is at
once intellectual and political and it is perhaps the greatest challenge to democratic transition and
security in our country today. Consequently, it is my view that we must at least see what is
happening in Nigeria today as an outcome of the nature of the country’s democratic transition. It
is an argument for treating Nigeria’s democratisation project as a work in progress, not as a
condition for hopelessness.
Road Map to Democratic Consolidation: Next Stage of the Collective Struggle
Having spent the last seven years in partisan politics and participating in grassroots organising,
my belief in the need to take politics beyond political parties is more reinforced. The immediate
challenge for all of us is to concentrate on how to rescue our people from bad governance.
Unless the critical mass of our people cutting across age, gender, zones and party political
affiliations adopt the same positions, with a more clearly defined collective agenda, the current
approach to solving our problem will not suffice. There is an urgent need to build coalitions and
permanent platform in the public sphere that is beyond party and personalities, but all embracing
enough to those who subscribe to the core values of integrity, honesty and dedication to
transformation in Nigeria.
This all-embracing platform could address a variety of issues, but none is more urgent today than
the question of the structure of the Nigerian state. However, the task of such an all-embracing
platform must not be limited to reforming the institutional framework of the State alone. It must
also focus on Leadership and Conduct in Public Life; The Constitution and the Legal Framework
of the Federal State; Human Rights, Militarism and Civil Violence; Public Sector Management,
Transparency and Accountability as well as visible economic progress and wealth creation for
the ordinary citizens. This is not an exhaustive list, but it certainly provides civil rights activists,
journalists and progressive politicians with a template for democratic renewal.

14. Based on my own trajectory and experience from direct anti-establishment confrontation at the
barricades through civic engagement with political actors and public officials to partisan political
involvement, I am convinced that the ordinary people in Nigeria are committed to democracy
and genuinely want to see it work. Herein lies my hope about the future. This hope is certainly
not bleary eyed optimism. It is not even the optimism that the crisis of governance in our land
will simply disappear or that journalists will stop being cynical; it is not the hope that political
impunity would stop being the name of the game, overnight. I am talking about the hope of our
founding fathers in the struggle for independence and freedom. I am talking about their unshaken
belief in our inalienable right to rule ourselves. It is the hope that led us to resist military
dictatorship in our land because of our 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 help is on the way.
This hope is alive. I believe we can revive the Nigerian State in a qualitative manner and make
democracy more meaningful to our people, provide jobs for the jobless, improve healthcare,
modernise agriculture and reclaim our young people from a future of violence, decadence and
despair by linking social enterprise, civil society activism to politics and not draw artificial
divisions in our promotion of values-driven leadership. Renewing our democracy through the
strengthening of institutions and public participation increases our collective capacity to tackle
the major problems facing our society – with a corresponding achievement of individual
contentment even as we pursue the common good. We need leaders who have a clear vision of
the future, who see character as destiny, who advocate values-driven reorientation, who don’t
just mouth transformation, who are compassionate about changing the decrepit plight of our
people, who act with integrity and ethics, who create an entrepreneurial mindset and capabilities
in followers, who see leadership as service and responsibility and who are not content with
mediocrity. We must move away from transactional politics to transformative leadership.

15. Genuine representatives of our people, not retail traders of the Commonwealth. This is our
modest agenda for a collective rescue mission in Ekiti State, and indeed Nigeria. Our effort to
change the orientation of our youth and the designs to transform our local economies are already
bearing fruits. We are framing a future of virtue couched in values education and embedded in
everyday competencies for a generation whose challenges are in a world where they not only are
competing at the national level, but puts them against the best prepared of all nations at all times.
But we do not claim to have all the answers to the numerous challenges faced by the people.
What we do have is an unshaken faith in our people, the determination to restore integrity to
politics and the commitment to turn Ekiti into a model for the polity. This is where we are
headed and we are convinced we will get there but we must do it within the larger context of
transformation in Nigeria. It is the only way to consolidate this democracy and not suffer dire
reversals as we perch on this dangerous precipice.
Thank you very much for listening.