Criticising the criticism
A few days ago, Arbiterz Nigeria tagged me in this piece which is a response to this article by David Hundeyin. As I tend to do when I can’t read something immediately, I saved it. Now I have read it.
Unfortunately, what is meant to be a criticism of David’s piece falls flat in my view. It is not enough to render David’s warnings as “alarmist”, it is important to also properly scope the problem. This article limits its scope to the NURTW.
Let me start with his view (I assume it’s a ‘he’) on NURTW’s lack of ideological pitch, it is important to note that Nigeria lost the battle of ideological governance after the first coup. At such, no one has needed an ideology to govern this country. The 2019 presidential election was the first time in living memory that fundamental ideological cracks showed between the two main contenders. And the man with the outdated statist ideology won, not necessarily because he preached ideology. What this showed, amongst others is the fact that the less educated the populace is, the less ideology would matter to them. Nigeria has a badly educated populace, so ideology is for the gods.
The writer failed to acknowledge the fact that the Lagos chapter of the NURTW is actually a de facto arm of the state government itself. These are guys that successive governors have used to enforce tax collection. The recent harassment of Opay and other ride-sharing services by the current administration was done by this same NURTW the writer sought to dismiss as “big-muscled guys who are only critical for winning elections”. Truth is, while they are not in power per se, they are actually empowered. Even if it is a client or patronage politics, these guys are basically in charge already. How else can we explain the police protection that Mr Oluomo received after he was stabbed last year?
It appears to me that this writer has never been outside Lagos. The idea of an “Educated Agbero” rings more in the Niger Delta and maybe other parts of the country. And even where these people are not educated, they go on to either contest and win elections, or hold strategic positions that a normal government would need to thrive.
In Rivers, in 2003, a certain Asari Dokubo whom we all know and needs no introduction contested the 2007 gubernatorial elections from prison! What is more, Ateke Tom who equally made his mark in the Niger Delta struggle is currently the paramount ruler of Okochiri kingdom, a strategic position that relatively decides the political leadership of the state. Various members of the state House of Assembly who cut their teeth from street gangs contested and won elections in the same state. The chairman of Rivers APC, Ojukaiye Flag Amachree is one of such. Also, Victor Ihunwo, a member of the house representing one the PHALGA constituencies is another. In Delta State, Tompolo nominated Ifeanyi Okowa’s deputy.
These may seem like low offices, but they are influential, and it would be wrong to dismiss them to the very nadir of mere thuggery and cannon fodder for the much-vaunted “better-educated professionals”.
Heck, I’d suggest that the writer read up on such great names as Boss Tweed, so he’d realise that Nigeria is, at the moment, at pretty much the same developmental stage that the US was in the 19th century. Our politicians make use of thugs to enforce their will, and those thugs become men of society. With wealth and influence. That we are in the same anthropological region as 1840s America does not guarantee the same outcome. The elite class in 1840s America was at some point able to come together. The elite class in 2020 Nigeria does not understand enlightened self-interest.
At least not yet anyway.