SPEECHES

Democracy and Good Governance

Speech By U.S. Consul General Brian L. Browne

University of Lagos

Thursday
April 12, 2007

It is always nice to visit the campus of the University of Lagos.  UNILAG, you have a proud history.  You should insist on a proud future.  This school is situated in a city that is the commercial, financial and cultural and media hub of the nation; a city that holds much of the same prominence for the entire African continent.  Thus, you must do this educational center of excellence proud by continuing to forge forward in these and other fields of human endeavor. 

However, if we are frank we must admit the University is neither as well as it once was nor as good as it can be.  The fault for this condition lies not with any of you in this hall but rests squarely with the nation’s history of military government.  This sad chapter is one of leaders with whom higher education did not sit well because knowledge and reason are eternal threats to arbitrary rule and injustice. 

Thus, this university and others like it were starved of those things a university needs to run.  Yet, as with all things born of the best of human aspirations, it would not let itself die because as long as humanity exist, also shall exist the quest for greater knowledge and a better life.  Now, military rule is over and never to return.  Yet, your university still stands and faces the sun of a brighter future. 

Democracy, though imperfect and imperfectly practiced is here.  Under these more hopeful conditions must we now direct ourselves to perfecting this young democracy so that it can lead to greater knowledge and a better life for all.
 
That is why I am here today.  To talk about democracy and its cousin – elections.  Imagine you intended to go to a very nice dinner party but did not have directions to get there.  Someone you knew was already there, so you call him.  Unknown to you, there are two ways to get to the location.  One is a direct, easy route.  The other is a long, difficult and round-about way.  Because he is already here and wants as much of the food and drink to himself as possible, he directs you to take the long route instead of the one that would get you there quickly. 

I would say that such a person is a bad friend but a good fraud.  He continues to eat and drink while, you experience unnecessary hardship on your way to the appointed destination.  A good friend would have told you the quickest route so that you can swiftly join him and both of you enjoy the good things the party had to offer. 

Let us assume that what was being served at the party instead of food and drink, was democracy and good governance.  As a representative of the U.S. Government, I stand before you as a good friend.  The type of friend who wants Nigeria to understand and soberly accept its profound responsibilities to itself and its neighbors.  A friend who wants Nigeria to establish itself as a citadel of prosperity, justice, peace and hope for its citizens and the rest of Africa.  A friend who hopes for Nigeria to take its rightful place in the community of nations as a major voice and an exemplar of the goodness and greatness that can come from and be established on the African continent.

At this important juncture with historic elections peering just over the horizon, should Nigeria do what is right and become what it should be, Nigeria has the opportunity to not only advance but also to become a model from which other nations and future generations will take inspiration and guidance.  Yet should Nigeria fail in this democratic enterprise, succeeding generations will look back and be perplexed.  They will be baffled at how, given the corps of talented people and the store of resources Providence has given Nigeria, we let this nation run aground. 

To be found waiting at this moment would be akin to allowing your destiny to pass through your fingers as if it were the wind you are attempting to hold, but it is not the wind.  It is our very selves.  So hold fast.  We must act wisely and well to justify why we have been placed here in this special hour.  Nothing less than the future depends on it.

Before I go any further with this address, let me establish a ground rule.  My presence here should not be misinterpreted to be other than it is.  I have come to talk to you, about election and democracy.  I have not come to commend nor condemn any person, party, or organization.

You see, I am disinterested in who beats whom in the political contests.  What has my abiding interest is that Nigeria continue to improve its ability to look after those of its citizens who do not have the capacity to fully look after themselves.  Thus, if you want to know whom I support what you must do is leave the comfort of this hall.  If you want to see whom I support, go to the marketplace.  See the somber-eyed mother with too many needs to meet but too little money with which to meet them.

Go to the farms.  See people working and tilling the soil from sun up to sun down in order to scratch out a living, to feed their family and feed this nation.  Go to the bus stops.  See the men and women who wake up tired in the morning and come home weary from work late at night.  These are the people I support.  For these people are the backbone of this country and its democracy.

And what is this thing called democracy?  In its truest sense, democracy is the application of our collective wisdom to shape society so that it cultivates our best virtues while constraining our worst vices.  As such, it is a fragile yet strong thing.  Fragile in the sense that should you misuse or ignore it, it will begin to fade and may ultimately depart. 

 It is strong in the sense that if you nurture it, it will in turn, nurture you.  As it nurtures you and you begin to fully taste of its freedoms and their attendant benefits, you will be pulled even closer to it by the force of gravity. Thus, it shall be with such gravity that I speak today.  Elections are upon us.  Decisions of vast consequence must be made and can no longer be avoided.  During this election season we have had too many bullets fired, knives drawn, cars burned and homes invaded for this to be considered the way the politics should be conducted.

Politics is supposed to order society.  The political system is supposed to be a venue where problems get solved equitably so that society and all of its component parts can progress in some degree of harmony and reason.  However, it seems that politics here have been transmuted into its opposite.  Instead of a way of solving problems, politics has often become a problem itself.  Instead of improving people’s lives, it is claiming lives.

Now, with two days until the first round of elections, we all have some important choices to make.  Shall we put our shoulder to the wheel and help push this nation forward?  Shall we work to ensure that this election is one that propels this nation with a certain velocity so that it will begin to overtake many of the outstanding challenges that stand or stood in its way, that impede Nigeria from narrowing the gulf between its current reality and its greatest potential?

The quality of the election and the quality of the government that you elect will go for in delivering whether we, in fact, reduce this gap or whether we increase its depth and distance.  Look at how we view the Nigerian elections.  All of us are guilty of focusing on the top candidates and parties.  But is the election solely about these famous personalities?  If so, we have all already lost the election regardless of our partisan or nonpartisan stripes.

For Nigeria to move forward the election cannot be about the well-known, the famous, and even the infamous.  Instead, it is about whether the mass of the population can wake up and work more productively for their families.  It is about whether parents can look at their sons and daughters in the evening and tell them that tomorrow will be better and mean it as the truth and not just something one says just so their children can go to bed without tears.  The election is about no longer forgetting those who have been forgotten.

This nation is an enormous storehouse of energy resources.  We all know that Nigeria is a leading producer of oil.  What many of us do not realize is that Nigeria is also a gas producing nation, with some of the largest resources in the world.  In fact, Nigeria may have more gas than oil.  Nigeria has large coal deposits.  It may have more coal than gas.  In the 1980’s and 90’s, oil revenues could have been the catalyst to an impressive span of economic growth and development.  However, Nigeria’s first windfall has been wasted.  Now Nigeria’s oil resources can only keep the country on life support, to help it survive.  In and of itself, oil revenue cannot be the fulcrum of development it promised to be two decades ago.

Now, gas revenues will begin to come on line in the next several years.  Whosoever you elect in 2007, likely will be in office to oversee the use of the gas revenues.  A question then lurks.  Will what happens to the gas revenues be an unfortunate replica of what happened with the oil money?  Will Nigeria squander its second windfall?  Or will Nigeria use this second chance to fuel an economic revival that could catapult Nigeria into the ranks of the middle income nations if these revenues are wisely employed over a sustained period.

Look back to over two decades ago.  Nigeria exported agricultural produce.  Now it imports many of those same items.  The country needs to begin to grow more food again.  Look at what has happened to your standard of living.  A person with a 50,000 naira salary in 1980 commanded the equivalent of 80,000 dollars purchasing power.  Now if a person has a salary of 500,000 naira he has the purchase power of only 4,000 dollars. 

These are some of the key issues these elections should be about.

With regard to the elections, I have heard many people say that Nigeria is at a crossroads.  If only it were that easy.  If at a crossroads, a traveler only has to decide which split in the road to take, then resume his journey.  Yet, the questions facing Nigeria are much more existential.  Nigeria is battling to define itself.  Nigeria is fighting itself for its very soul. 

Will Nigeria continue to emerge from the mire and fog of military rule and its attendant ills which benefited a small few, but which also failed to redeem the many promises made to the rest of the populace?  Will Nigeria stand as a better, healthier nation of expanding political and economic freedom for all, regardless of ethnicity, religion, and region?  Or will its progress be throttled so that it slides back into the costly ways of an unproductive past?  This is nothing short of a contest for the collective spirit of the nation.

One should turn to face reality squarely when it has tapped you on the shoulder. So let’s face it.  There are some people who have benefited from the way things were.  They are not eager to see Nigeria as it should be.  Having taken full advantage of the imbalances of the past, they seek to resurrect that past.  Fortunately, there seems to be a growing number of people who realize that a system which provides the opportunity of freedom, prosperity and fulfillment for all is the best insurance for securing these things for themselves.  Although the number grows, the collective voice is still feint and uncertain. 

Thus, if we are not careful, they could still be drowned out or muted by the heralds of yesterday who do not want to see Nigeria develop into a more economically and politically just society.

Now let me talk about what happens the next few days.  Things will get intense, people will be anxious.  In such a situation it will be easy to lose one’s sense of proportion and engage in behavior you would otherwise not contemplate, let alone do.  What I just said has particular resonance with regard to youth who are interested in politics and the specter of electoral violence. 

You, as youth represent a new day so do not let yourself get tangled in the web of the past.  Some political operatives will come to you and seek to use your energy to canvas your neighborhood and get out the word about their campaign.  Such activity is the fair province of politics and should you decide to join in such an enterprise, no one can fault you.  However, other politicians will beckon you into the shadows or come to you in the still of the night to entice you into a conspiracy to undermine democracy by ostensibly engaging in it.  These are the people who will ask you not to persuade people but to intimidate them.  They will ask you to fight, claw, hector and literally chase their opponents out of the race if not out of town.  For your services rendered, they will give you a fist full of Naira and a bottle of drink.  Yet, what manner of payment is this? Again I ask, what manner of payment is this?  By engaging in this regrettable vocation, your only gain is the loss of your future for you would have helped to pull democracy to the brink. 

It has been stated that Nigeria has a penchant for approaching the brink, then pulling back at the last instance.  Believe me, I am a fan of survival.  Thus, whenever one finds himself on the brink, it is a good and proper thing to pull back lest he fall into a pit and be destroyed.  Yet, this turn of events does not warrant applause but a sigh of relief for it is not a sign of progress but only of preservation.  For I tell you nothing that stands on the brink can prosper.  The extent that Nigeria plays brinkmanship is also the extent that Nigeria will fail to fulfill its mission to develop itself and lead Africa. 

Therefore, whosoever seeks to engage you in a violent endeavor has not your or the public’s best interest in mind.  Whosoever uses dirty tricks to get into office will use them once in office.  While they may get you into office, dirty tricks cannot be the foundation for good governance.  Putting a wolf in charge of a flock of sheep does not make of him a shepherd, it only makes for an unfortunate flock of sheep.   

As youth, you cannot allow yourself to be tools of the cynical.  As youth, you are supposed to be the voice of ideas, the voice of tomorrow.  So lend your voice and ideas to politics but never lend your fists to it. 

To those people who are candidates for public office, you have a most solemn duty during this period.  You aspire to leadership and thus as leaders you should set an example for those who seek to lead.  If you seek to serve the public you should never encourage any members of the public to do anything that would hurt themselves or others.  This means you must publicly eschew violence and keep your followers from it.  Instead of letting your followers be attracted by the rush of violence, you should be attracting them to the possibility of a better day by spending these last days before the election containing the extremes of partisan ambition and in telling the populace how you will handle the issues that affect their lives.  If you do this, you would help make the elections what they should be.  Elections should be a confirmation of democracy and a celebration of good governance.  They should not be an invitation to confusion and violence.

It is important that the candidates enter the elections with the proper attitude.  You are running for an office of public trust not private gain.  Thus, you must be conditioning yourselves to understand that if elected, you have been elected to serve the public interest and not for the public to serve your interest.

No matter how many candidates there are for a race, only one can win.  The rest will not.  But both winner and loser have profound but different duties in this regard.  The winner must understand that once he is elected, he must serve all, not just those who supported him.  Thus, he must extend the hand of reconciliation to those who did not win – to his former adversaries.  To govern wisely, one should listen to the full spectrum of reasonable opinion, to even those who did not prefer you.  Accept their constructive ideas and meaningful criticism.  By doing so, you will not be exhibiting weakness, you will be showing wisdom.  Seek not to humiliate or oppress your rival.  Give them ample political and economic space so that your community can live in harmony and peace.

To the loser, you must act responsible and not let your electoral defeat diminish your capacity to think clearly. 

Yes, if you have a legitimate complain about the election and vote count, pursue that, but only peacefully through legal channels.  Once it has been legitimately established that you lost, you must be graceful in defeat.  You have only lost a race, not your place in mankind.

If the winner extends a hand toward you, you must reach out halfway to accept it.  You must seek an appropriate avenue where you can channel your thoughts and ideas into government for the better of the people.  You have a duty to criticize constructively when government does wrong but also acknowledge its efforts when it had done right.  If you act in this manner not only will you help bring better governance, the people will remember your sacrifice and that will put you in a better position for the next election than if you spent all of your time trying to undermine and tear down your rival.

Both winner and loser must realize that although they need not be best friends, if they both really have the common good at heart, there should also be common ground upon which they can build a decent productive relationship.

Although the election is a riveting drama, we all must realize that the election will end.  The day after the exercise, we will be faced with the result.  But more importantly, we will be faced by our very selves.  We will have to live together no matter the electoral outcome.  To live together better, we will have to make government better.  This means that all of the energy and organizing for elections should be carried over after the elections.  Civic groups, NGOs and committed individuals do a much better job serving as public watchdogs and as issue-oriented advocates.  Only when you watch and monitor will you begin to get the government you want and not just the government some people want to give you.

In conclusion, the sands of the hourglass are dwindling.  This means Nigeria’s encounter with destiny approaches.  The day is ending and the shadows cast are long and some are disturbing.  You can try to run and hide but these shadows will follow.

Some of the shadows are those of ghosts of an unregenerate past that must be exorcised.  They are apparitions of what was done that should not have been done.  Greed, abuse, inequality lurk among them.  These are the ghosts of the hoarding of opportunity and of privilege for so long for so few people that both justice and opportunity were turned into something they are not.  These ghosts must be excised from Nigeria’s pathway.

Yet some of these shadows are not cast by the past or its ghosts.  Some are cast by our very selves and our conduct in the present.  These shadows are the things we do to ourselves that should not be done – violence, corruption, religious, ethnic and regional prejudice darken what should be an otherwise hopeful political landscape. 

Indifference, inequality and poverty and too many closed doors do not let the sun shine into the hopes and aspirations of too many of your countrymen.  These challenges are not ghosts to exorcise but are extant traits that must be cured.  What you do in the next few weeks will determine if you are moving toward a cure or toward greater complication.  Much hangs in the balance.  Hold strong to the better part of yourselves.  Don’t let the shadows frighten you into becoming one of them.

Thank you.