This has been the bane of seeking solutions in Africa—with even the western world making same mistakes in their analysis of our problems.
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinsons assert in their book, “Why Nations Fail”, that there has to be people revolutions, of the kind witnessed in France and England here in Africa–and not sponsored stake-holder revolutions like Lauren Kabilla’s against Mobuto Sesseseko—that has seen Kabilla’s son—17years in power—seek to find out the dynamics that have made these nations fail—mere human ill willl?
Consider too, the the Marxist-driven Major Mengistu ouster of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia—what did Mengistu and his men become?
If you did not know, they grew worse than Salassie.
Imagine the murderers of JTU Aguiyi Ironsi (Johnny Ironside), on account of Federalism among other grouses. They, led by Colonel Yakubu Gowon, promised Federalism, but what did they subsequently bring forth to date on Federalism, nothing but fiscal state centralization which has been the main bane to Nigeria’s federalism to date?
You may as well consider the revolution of so-called progressives in Guatamalia—who said it was bad for government to continue to own land as it created an underutilization of the land—and then proceeded to overthrow the government, making laws that reduced the whole order to a land-grab system thereby disenfranchising the real land owners to the favor of the coteries of agents who had money to buy up all productive lands and reduce Guatamelans to wage slaves—so bad they citizens were coerced to work for land owners—for almost nothing in terms of remuneration.
The country, for that period made bumper profits from coffee, but the people remained poor (Compare with the craze for foreign direct investements in Nigeria as espoused by Bretton Woods economists versus the entrenchement of extractive institutions in Nigeria).
You may as well consider the Zimbabwean situation where Mugabe and his liberation party took over power from the whites—who originally stubbornly declared independence from the British for their need to transform Zimbabwe into a huge farm land.
Robert Mugabe, a pro-black revolutionary at the time established the ZANU party and fought the whites, and took over the politics of the country with his ZANU party.
By 1980, he had become the head governance and head of his ZANU party. He proceeded to coerce fellow citizens–completely taking over power by force of arms, and rendering the opposition party leader, Joshua Nkomo of the ZAPU party who in fact collaborated with the ZANU in warding off white rule.
Mugabe achieved this by force of arms against fellow blacks and joined the ZAPU party to his own to become the ZANU-PF. Mugabe continued in his acquisition of land from white farmers from 1980 to the late 2000s, redistributing same to his fellow blacks and had the economy so crashed in the process.
Today, Zimbabwe is a caricature state.
In Sierra Leone, the British-built rail lines that connected Siaka Stevens’ north with the vibrant south of the country, but this was quickly truncated by Siaka Stevens who had taken over power from Albert Magari from the south after narrowly winning him in a tightly-contested elections where each section of the country voted their dominant party of their sections.
Albert Magari, it was who won elections to take over power from the British. Upon taking over after defeating Albert Magari at the subsequent elections, Siaka Stevens completely made impossible the rail lines to the south which constituted the mainstay of the south impossible to exist because he wanted to tighten his power base over the southern party which he had defeated in the elections by asphyxiating the economy of the south. In this bid of his, the economy of the country mattered nothing—only a consolidation of his power base.
Siaka Stevens succeeded.
Again, Siaka Stevens took over the marketing boards with which the British had exploited Sierra Leoneans and exacerbated their exploitation so that Sierra Leoneans simply worked for the state by their own individual enterprises–and who was the state? Siaka Stevens!
On Same Siaka Stevens, diamond in Sierra Leone occurred as “Democratic diamond”—it was so-called because it was so widespread that anyone could exploit it, it ran through the people’s lands, streams, etc—and before the advent of British rule, had been freely mined without rancor by local Sierra Leoneans.
But the British promulgated a law making it illegal for Sierra Leoneans to mine this diamond anymore—and since it was widespread and the people could not but mine it—with even the British colonial government being unable to keep control given the laws they had made, the original owners of the diamond, being the people, became deemed illegal miners and punishable by law.
When Siaka Stevens took over governance, he intensified the laws on illegal mining of diamond as promulgated by the British—and used the state apparatus to ensure that diamond-mining belonged exclusively to the Sierra Leonean state—again, who was the Sierra Leonean states–Siaka Stevens—and his men in power of course!
There was a similar situation in Australia—where this time, democratic gold was involved, some elements in power wanted an exclusive ownership of this widespread gold by the government, but some free citizens protested and wanted the ability to mine gold liberalized for all citizens who were interested.
The trend created a wide-spreading of gold millionaires’ in the area—with the government having minimal influence like permits and regulations. A group of free millionaires was therefore generated who were able to fight for universal suffrage in Australia.
There are countless cases of extractive economic institutions which are the reason “Why Nations Fail”.
In our Nigeria, we have countless extractive economic institutions:
(I) Land Use Act
(II) The Petroleum Act
(III) The structure of the polity—with the numerous contents of the Exclusive List of the FG, etc.
The pretense of establishing these extractive institutions are that liberalizing them would create anarchy; that people would go to war among themselves vying for resources, that the state need be strong enough to stem such.
The question is: What is the state–outside of people; why must the people who preceded the state be chaperoned by the people; where the state has all powers and wealth of the peoples vested in it, is it not yet humans that would preside over those powers of the state–how do you regulate such overpowerful humans–made so by the extractive insitutions of state.
These governing individuals constitute a group, as in the case of Nigeria—with whom they rob the people blind whereas much patronage and prebendalism sets in as people try to make benefits of the Exclusive wealth.
Countless groups contend for control of this juicy exclusive wealth profiteering from the Nigerian state and other Africans states at all costs—so that it becomes a war between those in power and their ulterior opposition—with the people completely schemed out.
What is the way out of this opportunistic and rent seeking bunch of pretenders?
The solution is simple, as “Why Nations Fail” puts it: the people must stop hoping that these leaders would repent and grant them liberty or that regime change–even that their ability to exercise their voting franchise could create the desired change—so long as those extractive economic and political institutions remain in place.
They must rather realize that they own their countries, the land and resources therein.
They must realize that of the state must be vested in them and not the state so that they can define the state and reduce governments to rule keepers and not dictators.
The people must know that they are the states’—and not some opportunistic custodians of state who personify the state, and become their chaperons.
That is why the “Search-for-messiah” syndrome is a ruse—and why peoples must build systems that condition their leader—no matter the disposition of such leaders—leadership disposition is so fluid and subjective to build states upon: peoples would need systems that set a level play ground and that protect their liberties. .
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