Good Governance and Economic Bliss

Oh Yes, We Have Made Progress, can’t you see?
It is true that we can point at new local governments, new states, new infrastructure, a new national anthem, new federal capital, wider, but not necessarily stronger economy, deeper involvement in the global market due mainly to oil exports, and new discourses on politics and economy.  But they have, in large measure, and in spite of the civil war, several military juntas, and transitions, been no more than motion in a barber’s chair: a lot of motion but very little movement or progress.  Countless opportunities to move forward, give our people hope, restructure and reposition the political economy and improve the living conditions of the people have been carelessly squandered without apologies by the governing elite.  Can we truly say that Nigerians are happier? Inflation is lower? Poverty and unemployment are lower?  In the Niger Delta, the Creeks remain as they were in 1958 when the Willinks Commission warned that they could become bastions of protest and resistance.  Where are we today?
The Nigerian state on the other hand remains non-hegemonic.  Yet, a degree of hegemony is required to maintain the sovereignty of a country, keep the bourgeois classes under control, maintain an environment that promotes accumulation and define a nation’s location and role in the global divisions of labour and power.  To be sure, part of the reasons for this, aside from the limited hegemony of the state is the lack of cohesion amongst the ruling or power elite, the distortions in the economy, the vulnerability of the political economy to external interests, and the general condition of poverty in which the majority of Nigerians live.  The way the Nigerian elite breaks into factions and fractions, ethnic and religious enclaves, and engage in very dangerous and irrational fights is simply amazing.
To read the entire speech, you may download the PDF

Scroll to Top