Civic Space
Jibrin Ibrahim
Non-Governance and Nigeria’s Disappearing Civic Space
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy, Daily Trust, 2nd May 2025
Maybe the greatest problem in Nigeria today is the way in which the Nation has lost its moral campus, and with it, civic culture. When our youth look at our leaders, they see clearly that there is no good example to copy. Yes, they see what is today called success. The bad guys are very successful. Success is here reduced to its most crass elements, they have stolen massive amounts of money from the treasury and can drink the most expansive whiskies and champagnes, travel round the world and move in convoys of dozens of cars although sadly for that successful Nigerian, he or she can only travel in one car at a time. I read the society pages in the press and this week, there are stories of how a “big boy” has spent hundreds of millions of naira on a party for his latest girlfriend. And as my readers know, Nigeria is indeed the most “religious” country in the world in competition with no 2, Afghanistan. It is religion without God, values, love for the other and morality. They know not God because they are too deep into the worship of mammon. They have lacked the philosophical depth to understand the philosopher of our time: “Some people are so poor that all they have is money” Bob Marley.
Governance therefore has been turned in a mad rush to empty the treasury for private use. This means the core business of governance has disappeared for decades and the outcome has been a State that does not do its work. As I have repeated so many times in this column, the Nigerian state is undergoing a three-dimensional crisis. The first one affects the political economy and it is generated mainly by public corruption over the past four decades that has created a run on the treasury at the national and state levels, threatening to consume the goose that lays the golden egg. The second one is the crisis of citizenship symbolised by ethno-regional and ethno-religious crisis generating violent conflicts including the Boko Haram insurgency, farmer-herder killings, widespread bandit-terrorism, agitations for Biafra, militancy in the Niger Delta and indigene/settler conflicts. The third element relates to the frustration of the country’s democratic aspirations in a context in which the citizenry believes in “true democracy” but is confronted with a reckless political class that is corrupt, self-serving and manipulative to ensure electoral outcomes often do not reflect the choice of the people.
These challenges have largely broken the social pact between citizens and the state. That is why today, Nigerians find themselves in a moment of doubt about their nationhood. It is similar to the two earlier moments of doubt we have experienced, 1962-1970 when we went through a terrible civil war and the early 1990s when prolonged military rule created another round of challenges to the National Project. We survived those two moments but there is no guarantee that we shall survive the third. Nonetheless, there is a possibility that the current crisis as an opportunity to surge forward in fixing Nigeria.
Our national duty is to get our leaders to listen to Bob Marley: “The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.” This is one of the deepest insights on the purpose of leadership and governance. Will they listen, no, so engage plan b.
Every day, we discuss in homes, offices, bars, religious gatherings, the mass media, social media, professional associations and all other fora in Nigeria today that there is a real and imminent threat to the corporate existence of Nigeria. In addition, there is an on-going rapid slide into anarchy, precipitated by the most serious collapse in security provisioning in our country, which is confronted by an almost complete lack of leadership or governance response to a multipronged crisis. Maybe our leaders are too far gone to be saved as suggested by our leading poet while describing the judiciary which was once a pillar of justice and integrity. Some excerpts below:
Increasingly, scholars are describing the Nigerian State as a failed one. My position is that it is teleological to describe the state as having failed because it is never about the end game, it is always about on-going processes of construction and deconstruction and above all, the direction of movement. The same Ghana that was once described as the clearest example of a failed state in Africa is today being described as the opposite. I fall into the category of believers in the Nigeria project and I track the evolution of the Nigerian state to see how we can pull back from the brink. If you seek evidence of failure you find it and if you seek evidence about the resilient Nigerian state you will find it. The Bible says, “seek and you shall find”. Our evil ruling class remain in power and destroy our country because they have found ways to rig elections, increasingly through the judiciary and stay on. We can stop them if we plan and organise well. My message to Nigerians is that it is not too late to save the country. Concerted citizen action can create the basis for offering Nigeria a new lease of life, provided proactive measures are taken to redress the crisis. Democracies persist and grow because they have citizens who have agency and use it to exercise their power.
Our greatest fear today should therefore be that of a self-fulfilling prophesy. The major outcome of the crisis facing the country has been the erosion of public trust. A toxic atmosphere has developed in which different actors are suspected of developing plots to destroy others. Actions of whatever type, as well as non-action or late action by governments and institutions are no longer taken at face value but are re-interpreted within narratives of coordinated plots by some groups to destroy or eliminate others or to take their land. There is no effective counter-narrative to create hope. The other challenge is negative agency. With over half the country living in extreme poverty, a generation of young Nigerians has emerged with nothing to lose but their poverty. They are procuring arms and engaging in violence, banditry and insurrectional acts to mimic the rich ruling class, thereby precipitating the march towards anarchy.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Sir,
Please permit me. You feel morally obliged. You’re in good company. Please indulge me; Pan-African spirit; no harm meant. Somebody’s got to do it. I envy you not. Yours is not an easy task, taking the temperature, the pulse and the heartbeat of the country, nor is everybody going to be happy about your premonitions, your diagnoses, your predilections, your predictions.
It’s J for Jeremiah the prophet and J for Jibrin Ibrahim. It’s also N for Nazareth and N for Nigeria. Back then in Jesus’ day when the people - including the Pharisees and Sadducees were suffering under Roman colonization and oppression, some of them yearning for a redeemer / liberator, the unbeliever’s question was “What good can come out of Nazareth ?” There was no Nigeria to speak of back then, some 2,000 years ago, but the same question can be posed today and tossed to the sceptics : What good can come out of Nigeria ?
Of course, the answer is , plenty of loving kindness has come, is coming, and with a population of 237,527,782 souls, such enormous human capital and potential, InshAllah much more good will be coming out of Nigeria!
You who love the country and take your task so seriously, all that remains for you to do is to is to don yourself some sackcloth as you take on the Biblical mantle of a warner prophet cum town crier - and hopefully the authorities won’t mete out to you what they did to Jeremiah: they put him in stocks . Worst case scenario could be your crucifixion - if indeed they are as bad as you say, in which case PEN, Amnesty International and the Human Rights section of the United Nations wouldn’t be of much use. With that kind of awareness, I guess one has to be circumspect about what one says when speaking truth to power even if, lucky you, there’s freedom of speech in Nigeria. Thank your lucky stars. In some other countries, at this point North Korea comes to mind, just imagine yourself as a foreign correspondent sitting in your armchair over there in Pyongyang and having the gumption to write “the Nation has lost its moral campus” : you could find yourself in plenty of trouble and begging Brer Tinubu to please help you. Consider too, what happened to Ebrahim Rasool, South Africa's Ambassador to the United States
For you, and I guess for the shuffering and shmiling too, when it’s not lamentations and wringing of hands and a doomsday prophecy about the sky falling down, or a state of anarchy looming on the horizon , or a certain morbid fear that goes against your democratic instincts when you ask “ Is Nigeria Headed for a One-Party State?” - as if that is a sign of the times certifying that we are now living in the end days, your very latest, this time is about “Nigeria’s Disappearing Civic Space!”
As per the description, USA Africa Dialogue Series “is a Pan-African listserve that reaches the entire world, and focuses on issues of importance to Africa and its diaspora.” This means that what you say, the picture that you paint, is certainly the way that you want the world to see us - and us in this case is our hope, the Naija Nation !
You are not talking about the abomination that was once Sodom and Gomorrah, or the Third Reich , or some other rebel, Godforsaken, genocidal son of Beelzebub. If indeed you are speaking of Dearest Nigeria then your exaggerated claim that “the Nation has lost its moral campus” is definitely too hard a charge to bear. So, soften your words please! Consider Hon Minister Louis Farrakhan’s remarks when those who don’t know any better, bad-mouth Nigeria on American TV. By “the nation” I suppose you mean everybody in Nigeria or the leadership. And, kudos, conveniently and incontrovertibly you are one of the good men implied in the statement “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
I thank God that writing in desperation, your heartfelt article is not guilty of any of the faults ( Orwell's despair) expressed in Politics and the English Language
This general moral collapse and the ongoing decay is true, but not only of Nigeria. Apart from Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah ( the Catholic conscience of the nation), I wonder how the other moral custodians, Nigeria’s Pentecostal pastors and Nigeria’s Muslim leaders are addressing these problems from the pulpit and the minbar…
Yesterday, I read and liked the latest message on Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Facebook page, and I’m sure that you too share the sentiments expressed therein by Nigeria’s President.
In my view, what's most needed in the rule of law. Easier said than done !
True, Nigeria faces myriad challenges from all corners, but these are not insurmountable, for InshAllah, where there’s a will, there’s a way
Emmanuel Udogu
AN OPINION ON THIS MATTER
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”
President John F. Kennedy
The constitutional crisis that is bedeviling the country, and the political instability engineered by political parties that is reigning in the current political environment in Nigeria is unsettling to many–if not most–Nigerians at home and abroad . This is a time for patriotic Nigerians– especially those of our generation who celebrated Nigeria’s independence on October 1, 1960, and who lived through the political upheavals in the West, and the civil war of 1967-1970–to act decisively. And, this is not to mention the fact that we have had four republics during our lifetime. It is critical that we continue to speak out and write to caution this “breed” of politicians whose performance in office, in my view, is worse than that of the 1960s.
This is so, regrettably, because the judicial and legislative branches of government are so “dysfunctional.” This situation now makes the executive branch to act as if it owns the state, and therefore could do whatever it wants with it. We saw an “ex-military actor,” with little or no political experience, unconstitutionally appointed sole administrator of Rivers State by the executive with “little or no immediate challenge” to the unconstitutionality of the act from the legislature and judiciary.
However, it was quite refreshing to see some patriotic Nigerians condemning the act. Indeed, one of them on Arise News pleaded with the appointed former naval officer to demonstrate a sense of nationalism by denouncing the appointment. Unfortunately, his call and those of others fell on deaf ears for “obvious” reasons. He could not, arguably, give up a golden opportunity to join other forces in the quest to milk the national cow.
Even so, it is impressive that besides the Nigerian Bar Association’s condemnation of the declaration of the state of emergence and suspension of the elected governor and members of the Rivers House of Assembly, we have not heard a resounding reprimand on these crucial matters from the Supreme Court. Sadly, this development reminds us of Professor Kperogi’s poignant opinion on some members of the Nigerian Judiciary in this network a few years ago.
At this stage when many, if not most, Nigerians at home and in the diaspora lack confidence in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, it is urgent for the political elite to rise up to the occasion and tackle the current political, economic, and social malaise in the republic. And, may I suggest that the time for our politicians, political parties, and godfathers to rely on Babalawos, Eze-umos, marabouts, prophets, and prophetesses to rescue them and the country is fast running out.
It is heartening, however, to see a group of committed Nigerians from across the country deliberating on how to rescue Nigeria from its contemporary political quagmire. This group has promised to release its recommendations before the end of this month. Our problems, though, are not splendid recommendations. They are implementations especially when such recommendations work against the interests of the leader and political party.
Finally, it behooves every folk of our generation to speak out, write and act on ways that we can make Nigeria the “China of Africa” or at least Sub-Saharan Africa–no matter whose ox is gored as our patriotic duty. Nigeria is blessed with natural resources and human capital to accomplish this objective. Our problem in Nigeria and Africa today is the lack of patriotic leaders with the political will to do so due in part to the “law of self-interest.” My appeal at this stage of our lives is that we have very little to lose, but a lot to gain for creating a united and great republic governed by “the rule of law and free and fair elections.” In this way, we might be able to promote good governance, peaceful coexistence, and national cohesion for our future generations.
Aluta Continua!
Ike Udogu
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Cornelius Hamelberg
I just checked out Professor Niyi Osundare’s poem of some memorable lines, “My Lord, Tell me Where to Keep your Bribe.” In fact I had quite missed the inherent satire and sarcasm of the title and in my docile innocence (another Freudian slip of the imagination) I had misread and therefore Googled “My Lord, Tell me Where to Keep Your Bible” (of course, not “where moths and rust destroy, and burglars break in and steal.”
I suppose that in Nigeria, that’s perhaps the only item that the 419 bandits don’t steal: The Lord’s holy words, His Holy Bible. Elsewhere, including over here in Sweden, when the criminals strike they don’t even spare the church silver, echoing Judas betraying Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.
We’ve got to consider that these days some senators can betray their conscience (if they have one) and the Holy Constitution for much less, and speak less of any threat of impeachment looming like the sword of Damocles over Mr President's head, when the cronies would have so much to lose - much more than thirty pieces of silver - so perish any hope or thought of impeachment (for incompetence) when those who should do the impeaching want to continue to suck to their heart’s content - what Professor Ike Udogu in a flight of poetic fancy has described as “the quest to milk the national cow.”
JFK’s ominous warning that ”Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable” is the kind of dire ultimatum - mostly a toothless threat that can come from the usually divided and therefore effete opposition - fractured along the well-known fault lines, and with regard to Nigeria, the fault lines are ethnic , regional, religious, class, even if at the core , when it comes to the simple bread and butter issues, roof over your head, employment, a minimum daily wage man, woman and family can live on comfortably, the opposition's lower strata of society -the vast majority of the electorate is - whether they like it or not, at base, united in poverty.
This national moment - another national emergency calls for some concerted efforts by Nigerians, united by the same sense of purpose. Mere talking, complaining, singing and dancing won’t be enough to ensure the integrity of the judiciary, the separation of powers ,the incentives necessary for the making of a meritocracy, establishing the rule of law, delivering JUSTICE, accountability, and bringing an end to impunity.
I would like to redirect our attention to our very non-violent Baba Kadir’s exhortation: ARISE O NIGERIANS parts 1 -VII and emphasize that it was not specifically a call-to-arms in the militaristic or terrorist sense…
Hugh Masekela: Ghana
Cornelius Hamelberg
Corrections: And that’s how it can come to pass that someone mistakes “Bribe” for “Bible”
“In some other countries, at this point North Korea comes to mind, just imagine yourself as a foreign correspondent sitting in your armchair over there in Pyongyang and having the gumption to write “the Nation has lost its moral campus” : you could find yourself in plenty of trouble and begging Brer Tinubu to please help you.”
Should read: “In some other countries, at this point North Korea comes to mind, just imagine yourself as a foreign correspondent sitting in your armchair over there in Pyongyang and having the gumption to write “the Nation has lost its moral campus” : you could find yourself in plenty of trouble and begging Brer Tinubu to please help you.”
“If indeed you are speaking of Dearest Nigeria then your exaggerated claim that “the Nation has lost its moral campus” is definitely too hard a charge to bear.”
Should read,” If indeed you are speaking of Dearest Nigeria then your exaggerated claim that “the Nation has lost its moral compass ” is definitely too hard a charge to bear.”
Natasha Akpoti must be feeling happy and to some extent vindicated. As common sense waits for the law to run its logical course and seal the fate of the once powerful Godswill Akpabio the most pressing question is who is going to replace him as the next Senate President…
Something lighter : The Owl and the Pussy-Cat by Edward Lear