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Is Nigeria a failed state?

Asks Mike Ikhariale 

Mike Ikhariale
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The recent declaration by Nigeria’s foremost constitutional law theorist, Prof Ben Nwabueze, that the Nigerian State is manifesting symptoms of failure which then drew the ire and unnecessary verbal tirade of the Special Assistant to the President on publicity, Dr. Doyin Okupe,  are  actually tell-tale signs that all is not well with the polity.

Rather than take the old man’s warning as a wake-up call and respond positively, it became an opportunity for hauling abuses, thus unwittingly confirming his apparently loathed postulation.

As someone who has undertaken a serious intellectual study of the phenomenon of state failure, I can say without fear of any rational contradiction that, while Nigeria may not yet be properly classified as a “failed state,” there are however so many signs within the polity that ought to put us on notice with a view to averting the looming disaster because, given the right mix of factors and circumstances, no nation on earth is immune from the scourge of failure as it is simply a matter of causes and effects.

In one of the chapters in my forthcoming book touching on the subject, it is quite clearly demonstrated that Nigeria is unusually resilient to have continued to endure as a single political entity. Using our tools of analysis, it seems that the country has not crossed the irreversible line between life and death, a reality which raises the hope of the possibility of eventual revival and restoration, if we have the right mix of responsive leadership and determined following.

States elsewhere with far less debilitation and institutional abuses have already gone under. For this, we have the abundant petrol-dollars still flowing from the Niger Delta to thank. Without the free oil money, I doubt if the story would have been the same.

Everywhere, there are glaring symptoms indicating that all is not well within the polity. It does not require rocket science to tell that anarchy has enveloped Nigeria. Just as it is possible for a physician to tell that a patient has malaria or cancer, judging by the symptoms being manifested, it is equally possible for experts on state management and constitutionalists to tell when a particular state has failed.

There are degrees of state failure, ranging from the partial to the total. That explains why long-term foreign investors have been scared away from the country and those who dared to come want returns on their investment and super profits to happen within the shortest possible time because “the future is abnormally unsure” or the “country’s risk factor” is too high.

According to the analytical work of Messrs’ Herman and Hart, published in the influential Journal of Foreign Policy (1992), “Once a nation descends into violence, its people focus on immediate survival rather than on the longer term. Saving, investment, and wealth creation taper off; government officials seek spoils for their cronies rather than designing policies that might build long-term prosperity. A cycle of poverty, instability, and violence emerges.”

To the extent that Nigeria has not yet become “utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a member of the international community” (as was the case in Somalia, Liberia, etc,), and has not yet become an “international charge” depending wholly “on steady streams of foreign assistance” to sustain herself, our best conclusion, for now, is that Nigeria could still be salvaged even if it is presently ailing badly.

It should not be too difficult for us to see these signs. As far back as 1956, the America Society of International Law, drawing from the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of State, identified certain barometers for accessing the viability or likely failure of nation states. Specifically, John Foster Dulles identified six characteristics of the viable nation-state as follows:

a. Laws which “reflect the moral judgment of the community;

b. Political machinery to revise these laws as needed;

c. An executive body able to administer the laws;

d. Judicial machinery to settle disputes in accord with the laws;

e. Superior force to deter violence by enforcing the law upon those who defy it; and

f. Sufficient well-being so that people are not driven by desperation to ways of violence.

A careful look at the above listed indicators/symptoms would suggest that Nigeria is in deep trouble. For example, our laws hardly reflect any moral judgment but the whims of those in charge; the notion of separation of powers which would have been helpful in checking some of these negative tendencies is being flagrantly undermined; the executive is not able or is unwilling to faithfully administer the laws of the land without fear or favour as we have seen in the cases of the wicked pension scammer, Abdulrasheed Maina and others; the judiciary cannot be trusted to fairly interpret the laws in the crucial areas of official corruption; self-help and protective ethnic militias are becoming more credible than the official police force; a general sense of insecurity as created by Boko Haram, rampaging kidnappers and others; and finally, people have lost faith in the ability of the state to protect their lives and property.  The result?  Impunity: one-man municipalities and the proliferation of sacred cows.

The state and its institutions came into being with the understanding that they would fulfil certain obligations in favour of the citizens – a political bargain or what is generally known as “Social Contract”. Whenever they default in these fundamental obligations they are expected to die within the dialectics of decadence and regeneration.

Today, corruption is endemic; the state is seemingly helpless and the population is naturally despondent. Ethnic loyalty has supplanted national sentiments while anarchy has displaced law and order: Things have fallen apart.

Can Nigeria be saved? The simple answer is yes, but it ultimately depends on whether or not those who lead the Republic accept the imperatives of its continuation. It is certainly not beyond Mr. President to initiate the process of national revival that is deeper than his present transformation agenda. He can, in the circumstance, re-dedicate himself to the cause of probity and transparency; promote the Rule of Law and social justice, open up decent and robust debates and adhere to the immutable principle that posits that sovereignty belongs to the people by boldly divesting himself of the strictures of petty partisan politics and make himself available to the populace who are calling for a change of the decadent social order. I think it is possible.