I propose a new theory of state failure in this second part of the essay. It is that the Nigerian state has collapsed, but Nigerian society has not. And it is this incredible resilience of the nation’s organic social institutions,  even in the teeth of the most brutal assaults from state actors long taken leave of their senses, that is still holding up the empty shell of a deadstate from disintegrating into a thousand warring pieces.

Nigeria is not yet Liberia or Somalia in the sense of the country’s power nodes imploding in a paroxysm of warlord politics and laying waste everything on its path. But in terms of practical effectiveness and strategic position in   global geopolitics, there is no difference between Somalia and Nigeria today.   There is no formal organized economic sector in Somalia presently. Nor is there one in Nigeria, practically speaking. The Nigerian Labour Congress and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria are the two leading civil society  actors in matters economic in the country. Ordinarily, no meaningful government policy ought to be enacted without real input from these two actors, taking on-board their concerns and interests.

But policy-making in this sphere is largely President Obasanjo’s show even as Dr Okonjo-Iweala, the Finance Minister, is still battling to de-personalise and institutionalize the process of policy making. And Obasanjo, we must remind ourselves again and again, was not elected by the Nigerian people in
2003. His party, the PDP, rigged the presidential elections and forced Obasanjo on Nigerians against their will.

Policy-making in the nation’s economic sector is in the hands of election riggers. And this explains why, in spite of Obasanjo’s sundry exhortations to his key lieutenants to take the problems of the economy on hand and slay the  monster of poverty, Nigeria remains the most corrupt country in the world in which to do business six years after he took power. A corrupt election process can only sire a corrupt government. And corruption in government is the father of state failure.

State institutions charged with the task of providing Nigerians a modicum of social security have long collapsed. Old pensioners routinely die in long queues waiting for their monthly pensions. There is no social housing in our cities, which in turn have vegetated into sprawling slums breeding social misfits. The nation’s political ‘elites,’ acknowledging that our hospitals are still mortuary slabs two decades after Sani Abacha described them as such, now ferry themselves and their kin to European hospitals by special air ambulance when they fall ill. In our  universities, weed sprout where there should have
been libraries.

But it is in the domain of politics that my thesis of a failed state in a resilient civil society comes out in all its chilling truth. Political parties, properly understood, are constellations of interests and values in a given state. Those who establish them do so in order to form the government and thus advance their own political and economic interests, even as they proselytize on what they consider should be the proper social compass for the nation. The government thus formed, administers the institutions of the state on behalf of the people until the next round of elections.

If you remove banditry, what other interests and values coalesce the leading actors of the Peoples Democratic Party, the party of government in Nigeria? The ethics of the bandit is like the wind vane. It shifts with the wind as new  opportunities for looting make themselves manifest. The PDP is not a political party. It is actually a bizarre bazaar presided over by bandits whose latest loot is oil.  This explains why political assassinations in our country, most blatantly illustrated with the murder of Bola Ige, the nation’s chief law officer, is the weapon of choice in the political domain presently. This also explains the  rise of election rigging at all levels of Nigerian political society presently. Bandits do not participate in political debate. They enforce their interests through the barrel of the gun.

But even as the PDP ‘government’ is able to project bandit power within the country to overawe the political and civil opposition, its key functionaries are treated with a mix of derision and contempt in key international power  centers. Have you asked yourself how come it is only Dr Okonjo-Iweala that is wheeled out to battle on behalf of the nation in the international arena in moments of crisis? How come she is constantly on the wing, from London to Paris to Washington D.C., valiantly articulating and explaining and defending Nigeria’s position on such life and death matters as external debt cancellation and fair trade?

It is because there is no one else in Obasanjo’s merry crowd that international power players take seriously. Bandits, historically, have never been known to run efficient governments. Successive governmental failures, from Shehu Shagari to Obasanjo in 2005, invariably add up to state  collapse.  Which is what is now starring Nigerians in the face.  Yes, the Nigerian state has failed. But it is yet to collapse and  implode like  Somalia, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Please note my phrasing: ‘it is yet  to collapse…’ It is yet to collapse because ordinary Nigerians have shown themselves to be heroines and heroes several times over, propping up  the  tattered rafters of the decaying state on their bare shoulders.

Have you ever paused to think, as you leisurely stroll into Oyigbo Market in Lagos and buy a piece of yam from a market mammy, how come the piece of yam was able to make it to the market in the first place? And secondly, that the market woman is not charging you an arm and a leg for it in line with Obasanjo ’s new spirit of ‘price de-regulation?  Obasanjo’s government has refused, or even worse, has proved  spectacularly unable to provide the basic infrastructure – feeder roads, rural electricity, piped water, and community schools and heath centres – on which the Nigerian peasant should rely to produce the nation’s staples at maximum efficiency.   This farmer is still where he was when Frederick Lugard encountered him  at the  turn of the 20th century: hacking away with hoe and machete, at a time his counterparts in Europe and the United States are talking combine harvesters and genetically modified seeds.

And yet he is still soldiering on, and against all odds, putting  affordable yam pottage on our tables every morning. He is the epitome of Nigerian civil society. The Nigerian state, the latest manifestation of which is Obasanjo and his crowd of corrupt ministers, has failed him several times over, but he has refused to buckle. He is the only reason why Nigeria has not yet gone the way of Somalia.  The Obasanjo national dialogue is illegitimate as it is self-serving. But a nation in the grip of cholera cannot afford to be too choosy about elixirs. Be in no doubt about this: if Obasanjo’s latest comedy in Abuja, and after  it, Anthony Enahoro’s PRONACO, fails, the ghost of Somalia will become real in Nigeria. And sooner than you think.   This is not prophecy. It is a warning.

Ike Okonta