Professor Bolaji Akinyemi talks on the need for governments to demonstrate the governed are an essential part of the polity. He also explains why the governed should not be docile in taking up the challenge to force governments to deliver good governance as the Guest Speaker at the Second Convocation Lecture of Igbinedion University, Okada, Nigeria, last week.
The problem of governance all over the world has been not only how best to define the relationship between government and the governed, but also how best to practicalise the definition of the relationship and who does the definition and the practicalisation. Under a democratic dispensation, analysts often make the mistake of confusing periodic elections with the day-to-day dictatorship of government. Governance has become so vast and complex that the government of the people, for the people and by the people, has become the government of the people, by the government and for the people.
Once the elections, held after every fixed period, are free and transparent, people are prepared to subject themselves to vast exercise of powers over vast areas by a small circle of people governing on their behalf. And this is not just a cosmetic arrangement. In the United Kingdom, for example, a governing party with an absolute parliamentary majority can do anything unchecked. The threat of dissolution of parliament is sufficient to keep rebellious and unruly backbenchers from frivolous exercise of the right to no confidence motions.
The powers, prestige and status of the executive in the United States are enormous. The manipulation of intelligence, the war powers of the President and the automatic response of Congress to voting funds once troops are deployed, probably makes the United States President the most powerful man in the world. The system has sought to address the issue of an incipient dictatorship by balancing the powers between the executive, the congress and the judiciary. But that did not, and could not address the issue of the growing divergence between the theory of government by the people and the reality of power in the hands of the few as society became more complex and the size of the state became more widespread.
What is fundamental and critical, and which we must grasp without mistake, is the fact that there are very fixed parameters of values and behaviour irrespective of whether the system has written or unwritten constitutions, outside which political behaviour is not tolerated. This constitutes the second line of defence against undiluted dictatorship. In the last twenty years, two United States Presidents have gone through the impeachment process. In the case of President Richard Nixon, a Congressional committee voted to recommend his impeachment and he resigned.
President Bill Clinton was actually impeached, put on trial before the Senate but found not guilty. But, it is necessary to understand that both of these Presidents were not tried for murder or financial corruption. They were tried for lying either to Congress or the courts and in the case of Nixon, also for interfering with police investigation of a burglary. In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party got rid of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for reasons which are still too obscure for me to grasp, except that there was a feeling within her own party that she had stayed in office for too long. Mark you, staying in office for too long was neither a criminal nor a constitutional offence.
I am sure that a lot of people in the Third World must feel that the citizens of advanced democracies must be out of their minds if they seek to crucify or actually crucify their leaders for such flimsy reasons, when their own leaders actually get away with incredible crimes such as kleptomania, accessory to murder, accessory to kidnapping, subversion of institutions of state etc. It just goes to show how far we still have to go or to put it more accurately, how far we have fallen behind in the human race towards an actualisation of a government of the people, for the people and by the people.
Why do I use that strange phraseology "to put it more accurately, how far we have fallen behind in the human race"? In the pre-colonial period, there were traditional checks and balances against traditional authority. Recently, during the commemoration of the founding of the Othman Dan Fodio Empire, one of the values highlighted was the control by the religious leaders of Sultans on behalf of the people. In Yoruba history, there was evidence of Obas being forced to commit suicide or being forced to go into exile after their behaviour had been deemed inimical to the interest of the body polity. These sanctions were pretty severe and effective. Where are these sanctions now when in most Third World countries, instruments of checks and balances are under the effective control of the executive?
One thing which is evident irrespective of the functioning or non-functioning of the system is the existence of a symbiotic relationship between government and the governed. I have already drawn your attention to the enormous powers which governments exercise on behalf of the people, and some might even add, that some of these powers are exercised against the people. A few examples will serve as adequate illustrations. The government, acting on behalf of the state, can take the life of a human being, through legal execution; the government can take the money of a human being through taxation; the government can even remove the individual’s right to vote or be voted for by law. The greatest manifestation of this unique status of government is the right and the power of the government tp send citizens to their death in war by deploying the armed forces.
In fact, everyone associates President Abraham Lincoln with the most simple and evocative definition of democracy as government of the people, for the people and by the people, even though as far back as 1384 (about five hundred years before Lincoln), the same phraseology has been used in the General Prologue of the Wycliffe Translation of the Holy Bible. There, it was written "This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People’. I am rather intrigued by this dedication which posits democracy firmly on divine sanction when 400 years later, Alexander Pope was still writing about the divine right of kings. But an exposition of that would have to await another lecture when my thoughts have fully developed on the issue.
To return to Abraham Lincoln. What is often forgotten is the occasion on which the rendition took place. Lincoln did not render this definition at a state banquet, or a political rally or at a sanitised meeting of Congress. It was delivered on a cold winter day, on a battle field, littered with broken dead bodies of soldiers and with the stench of blood and death in the air. Abraham Lincoln who himself as President had ordered these men to their death in the United States' civil war, was mystified as to why men would make such supreme sacrifice since once life is sacrificed, there is nothing left to be sacrificed. Lincoln could only conclude that this was because the men who fought and died there were not fighting for some abstract form of government but that government in some ways meant themselves.
As far back as around 5th Century BC, perhaps the noblest words ever uttered by men according to Ruskin were in the epitaph at Thermopylae "Go tell the Spartans, thou that passeth by, that here, obedient to their laws we lie." This beautiful and wonderful tribute to the ultimate of human sacrifice is not unique to any society. It is pretty universal. For example, in a cemetery in Namibia, there is also the same epitaph, "Tell England, ye who pass this monument, that we who rest here, die content". I am sure that in the proverbs of the Zulus, the Benin, the Yoruba or any African nationality, there will be telling tributes to dead warriors. In ancient Rome, it was "Ave Caesar. Morituri te salutamus".
In fact, the best evidence for the universality of this salute to the nobility of sacrifice is the universality of wars and the universality of soldiers from time immemorial. As the dead urge not to be forgotten, so the living also pay tribute as shown by this moving tribute by the living to the fallen in the words of Laurence Binyon "they shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them."
The most treasured of all human attributes is life. The next most treasured attribute is freedom. Under what circumstances would man have given up these two attributes? The first circumstance would be involuntary through conquest by an external force. It is precisely to avoid this first circumstance that men voluntarily enter into an arrangement that would guarantee collective life and freedom even at the expense of individual life and freedom. It was Aristotle who put it as far back as 4th Century BC. that "misfortune unites men, when the same thing is harmful to both".
On a purely theoretical plane, we have to assume that once upon a time, at the beginning of creation, the human race was made up of individual men and women who enjoyed absolute freedom.
But as we know from the case of Cain and Abel, it takes only a society of two people to create the crime of murder. Not only murder, but every other crime such as theft, assault, battery etc.
In fact, about the only crime that cannot be committed in a society of two is rioting. Well, in our hypothetical society, it would not take long before the issue of security reared its head. Whoever was then strong enough to provide internal and external security, laid successful claim to leadership. People accepted his leadership, based on his ability to provide security. But the security comes with a price. In 1 Samuel 8, vs 11-18: God warned the Israelis as follows:
"This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and captains over fifties; and will set them to clear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers and to his servants. And he will take your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodest young men, and your asses and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep and ye shall be his servants."
Those who live in the Third World will recognise in their leaders, th attributes of the king that God warned the Israelis against.
But in exchange, the leader was supposed to provide security, It would then come as no surprise that the earliest leaders in human habitation were warrior kings. Once security had been guaranteed, the focus of the needs shifted to social and welfare issues. It was basically, a covenantal relationship. We make you our leader; we tolerate and endure your idiosyncrasies, we endure tolerable hardships, we surrender some of our freedoms but in exchange, you guarantee our domestic and external security, including our basic freedom and you guarantee our social and welfare security, and you provide against poverty.
This is not a theoretical philosophical postulation. Those who watch such educational channels as Discovery and National Geographic will also notice that even in the animal kingdom, animals like lions, apes, giraffes which operate as communities, opt to be led by the one who can provide security and know the most fertile feeding ground.
In other words, it is a natural attribute. All religions that have been associated with man, have been based on a covenantal or contractual relationship. The most expressive illustration can be found in Deuteronomy, Chapter 28. This is not a religious sermon. I am going however, to dwell extensive1y on this chapter for two reasons. Firstly, it would establish the ancient pedigree of the concept of social contract or social covenant. Secondly, it would establish the contents of the contract between the governed and the governor.
The contractual basis of the relationship was established right from the beginning by the choice of the terms of the language. "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord will set thee on high above all nations of the earth; and all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee.. But it shall come to pass, if thou will not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee." The contractual nature is so clear. If you do this, I will do that. You owe me this in exchange for that which I owe you.
In exchange for this obedience, the following is guaranteed:
1) Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.
2) Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle and the flocks of thy sheep.
3) Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.
In summary, it is security and life more abundant that are guaranteed.
I have drawn liberally from only one religious tradition. But I do not want to leave you with the impression that we owe social and economic rights to only one religious tradition or to any religious tradition for that matter. For as far back as about 2100 B. C., Hammurabi, king of Babylon, proclaimed: "I established law and justice in the land." I interpret law as that which the citizen owes the state while justice is that which the state owes the citizen. It is an apt encapsulation of the concept of obligations vs rights.
From this religious beginning, we have moved to grounding these guarantees into secular rights enshrined in constitutions and international conventions and treaties. By drawing attention to international conventions, we draw attention to the universality of these rights and use that fact to counter any specious argument that some rights can only be enjoined in some states and not in other states. The most comprehensive international document is the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In that covenant, some of the rights are as follows:
1) Article 7 recognises "the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work, which ensure....remuneration which provides all workers.. .with fair wages and equal remuneration for work of equal value; a decent living for themselves and their families; safe and healthy working conditions.
2) Article 9 recognises "the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance"
3) Article 11 recognises "the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. It also recognises the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger.
4) Article 12 recognises the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
5) Article 13 recognises the right of everyone to education.
