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The problem of legitimacy in governance and the Ogwugwu Okija saga (2)
Foremost constitutional lawyer and member The Patriot Professor Ben Nwabueze (SAN), in this paper looks at the Ogwugwu Okija and its place in the socio-cultural life of the people.
THE fusion of government, religion and morality in indigenous African societies enable the stability and harmony of the community to be maintained by means of ritual action of a regular kind performed by the family, village or community head in his other capacity of chief priest of the family, village or community.
In indigenous African societies, it has been rightly said, "ritual" and "politics'... marched hand-in-hand, political action is also ritual action.
Erosion of the indigenous bases of authority
The indigenous African community, being a society governed by immutable rules of custom, is, in its essential nature, a static society whose continued existence excludes change caused or imposed by factors external to it. And change of the type and magnitude brought by, or under the impact of, European colonialism is well calculated to shake it to its very foundations, upturning or, at any rate, undermining pre-existing customs and traditions, social and political institution systems of values, morals and beliefs as well as the cults, rituals and sanctions associated with them. Profound dislocations of this sort in the foundation and structures of the society seemed an inevitable consequence, considering that the European state system, its accompanying social and cultural systems, its economic system, in particular, the cash economy, economy individualism and other elements of the capitalist system, urbanisation, etc, and the tenets of the Christian religion associated with it are so radically different from what had existed at the time of its advent in Africa. Thus, European colonialism in Africa necessarily involved a fundamental interference, whether intentioned or otherwise, with the culture and moral values of the colonised, with the object of replacing them by the radically different European ones supposed to be superior in both form and content. Little of pre-existing African culture and moral values was thought good enough to be retained.
The cultural foundations and politico-religious structures of the indigenous African societies were not of course the only things upturned or undermined by European colonialism. The very personality and mentality of the African too were blighted. He had lost his self-confidence, self-reliance and his capacity for independent thought and action-in short all the qualities that make a man, these were replaced by the mentality of dependence, of servility and mimicry.
The colonial situation, now operating more or less as an autonomous process with its own self-willed dynamics, sometimes even against the wishes of the colonial administration, had fallen with a devastating force upon the African and his traditional way of life, sweeping everything along with it. However, much colonial administrations "might try to prop traditional structures in place, by supporting chiefs or by appointing chief where none had previously existed, the very fact of colonial presence ate deeply into the structure and fabric of ancestral charters." In language at once eloquent and insightful, Basil Davidson has described for us this process of decay and dismantlement brought upon African traditional life by European colonialism.
"The very decay of village life, he writes, "proved a spur to getting out of it. Men tramped away to the white man's towns and mines, and there they glimpsed, if only from the gutters, a different world, dangerous but challenging, harsh yet immeasurably exciting when compared with the old slow life in the bush. Young men began making it a point of manhood to accept this difficult challenge, young women began to prefer young men who had passed their test" in these hostile and yet beckoning cities. Those who could began to take their families, or to form new families in the native townships swelled enormously after 1945, spawning huge conurbations of rootless folk, assaulting the old beliefs and patterns of social interdependence in a tide of frantic individualism ... In this vast welter of confusion the values of (traditional) life could no more survive than any ordinary man or woman who tried to live by them. No matter how much conscientious people might try to remember the rules they had learned at home, the new urban values of free enterprise' swept all before them. The gravitas of family life went by the board, old respectability thrown over the rail together with old servitudes."
However, in the rural villages where the vast majority of the population in Africa still lives, the stage has continued to be held, rather tenaciously, by custom and tradition, and by the kinship, chieftainship and kingship structures, but even here to the traditional bases of authority that gave them vitality- the value system, the moral code, the structures of beliefs, the associated cults, rituals and sanctions are being increasingly assailed by the forces of Western education. Christianity and Islam, by the gruelling hang-overs from the Second World War, destabilising influences from urban centres and the growing poverty of rural life; and by the actions of the colonially-instituted government such as the prohibition by the statute law of domestic slavery, certain types of secret societies, the persecution of witches and sorcerers, the use of traditional sanctions, e.g. trial by ordeal, against the incidence of evil, and by raiding and destroying some jujus and their shrines, as in the case of Chukwu in Arochukwu and Ogwugwu Okija.
Consequences of the state's lack of legitimacy
The state brought to Africa by European colonialism lacks legitimacy primarily because it is alien to the continent. It is alien not only in the sense that it originated outside Africa and was brought to the continent by European colonialism but also because, owing to its foreign origin, it has no roots in the life and culture of Africans. Furthermore, as a territorial entity, it has equally no roots or existence in pre-colonial African social or political organisation, with the result that it has not been able to derive authority from the cultures, systems of belief, moral values and other spiritual sanctions in operation in the territories of the various social groups of which it is composed.
Coming from different communities within the state, the post-colonial African rulers of the state cannot draw authority from any common traditional cultural heritage. The cleavage between the different component social groups, with its attendant instability, hampers greatly the evolving of common traditional bases of authority by which the powers of the state may be sanctioned. Regrettably, before power was handed over to African rulers at independence, the colonial masters who, as neutral outsiders, were better placed to have attempted some form of marriage between the imported and indigenous systems of authority, did nothing to bring about such accommodation or marriage between the two.
They had failed to apply examples from their own history and examples in Africa of small warrior groups conquering and imposing their rule of much larger populations. Using the English example to illustrate the point. Basil Davidson has made the following pertinent observations.
"Having seized the Anglo-Saxon throne, William the Bastard (more familiarly known as William the Conqueror) had to be careful to show himself the legitimate successor of Edward the Confessor: at least in the 'true line' of God-protected ancestors and accepted as such by the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the English priesthood... If Anglo-Saxon England accepted conquest by four thousand Norman Knights, it was less for their military strength than for their careful accommodation with the Anglo-Saxon moral order. African conquerors behaved no differently in the kingdoms they took or founded. Only from this standpoint can one hope to understand how small groups of migrant warriors were able to impose their rule upon much larger numbers of residents. For what they actually imposed was not their rule, but a rule modified by accommodation with the customs of the people among whom they settled. We have seen this in the case of the Kongo; the parallels are legion... In every case the traditions tell a story that is parallel with that of the Norman conquest of England or the Kongo conquest of the lands to the south of the great river. Superior military power at a crucial point had always to be reinforced by ritual acts of compromise which secured, for the newcomers, the legitimisation of an existing order."
The European conquerors of Africa failed to do this. And so the imported state has remained divorced from the moral values, the traditions and religious beliefs by which power has sanctioned as well as sanctified in the pre-colonial societies in Africa.
The sad consequences of this divorce are that the institutions, processes and laws of the imported state command little respect and obedience among the African peoples. The sanction of law and of an organised force behind it has proved inadequate to secure for the institutions and processes of the state the respect and obedience of the people. Liberty, democracy, justice, the Rule of Law and order are not just concepts or principles that may be secured by prescriptions in supreme law, the constitution, sanctioned by organised coercive force; they are more a matter of the spirit resting not only on the existence of a supreme law in a constitution that enshrines them, but more on attitude, temper, disposition or a moral sense inculcated by habit, tradition and religious beliefs, a moral sense and tradition that regard the constitution as something inviolable, something so fundamental in the life of the nation that respect for it should be observed as almost a kind of religion, and violation of it as a sacrilege. More than human failing on the part of African leaders, it is the absence of tradition based on habit and religious beliefs inculcating respect for the institutions and laws of the state that largely accounts for the non-observance, violations, perversions and desecration of the injunctions, prohibitions and limitations embodied in the law of the constitution and other laws in Africa, with all their fearful coercive sanctions.
An institution, seemingly insignificant but one that bears out strongly the point under consideration is the oath of office required of the functionaries of government before they can commence to exercise the functions of their office. It is notorious fact that the oath commands no respect for those swearing it in spite of the solemn and formidable form of words in which it is couched. The functionary concerned swears to discharge the duties of his office to the best of his ability, faithfully and in accordance with the constitution and the laws, and always in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity, solidarity, well-being and prosperity of the state; to preserve, protect and defend the constitution; not to allow his personal interest to influence his official conduct or decisions; in all circumstances to do right to all manner of people, according to law, without fear or favour, affection or ill-will.
In spite of its wide sweep, the oath of office has proved in Africa utterly meaningless and without effect to secure adherence to the constitution and the laws. Those who take it regard it as but a mere formality, of which no account should be taken as soon as the ceremony is over. The basis reason for this must lie in the state's lack of legitimacy as well as in the objects used in swearing it, namely the Bible In contrast, a traditional oath, sworn on a juju or other fetish, is respected because the society believes it to be sanctioned by supernatural forces, with power to harm, as by causing sickness or death, and which, for the reason, strikes almost mortal fear into anyone swearing by it that none is ever willing to disrespect it or to break their oath. Some of these jujus are known to hold sway over many communities. They have remained the objects used for oath-taking not only in traditional affairs and relationships, but sometimes even in political relationships of the modern state. We can readily recall the notorious case of the Etu-Edo, a political party operating in the Mid-Western Region of Nigeria (now Edo State) in the early 1960s, whose political dominance in Benin Division rested mainly on a traditional oath, sworn on a juju, the owegbe juju, by which members undertook to vote at elections for only candidates sponsored by the party; to denounce parties opposed to the Etu-Edo; to obey all orders of the party without question and may Owegbe kill them should they fail to observe their oath. While the injunctions of the oath are clearly undesirable as constituting a danger to peace, order and good government (numerous illegal acts were, in fact, committed in the name of the juju), evidence showed that members unwaveringly observed their oaths because of their strong belief in the power of the Owegbe juju to kill defaulters. This enabled the Etu-Edo to capture all 13 seats in Benin Division in the regional parliamentary election in 1964. The evidence also revealed that the Owegbe cult had permeated the Executive Council, the House of Assembly and House of Chiefs, certain customary courts and local government bodies. We certainly share the view of the Commission of Inquiry, which reported on the cult in 1966 that "the idea of using juju for the purpose of achieving political ascendancy is retrograde, and contrary to the tenets of true democracy and abhorrent to its ideals." The case is mentioned here only to underline the difference in efficacy between the oath prescribed by the laws of the imported state and the traditional oath sworn on some juju believed to be sanctioned by supernatural forces. Such, then, is the enormity of the problem in Africa arising from the imported state's lack of legitimacy. It is one, which cannot be remedied by the device of participation by all classes of the people in the election of the functionaries of government without the aid of tradition and religious beliefs. Crucial though it is, the role of participatory democracy, no matter what the actual mechanisms may be found to be." That the problem is not one that can be remedied by participatory democracy alone without the aid of tradition and religion is borne out by the experience of some of the advanced Western democracies which are still beset by it in spite of the effective mechanisms of popular participation they have developed. On the other hand, those countries not beset by the problem to any significantly worrisome extent possessed whatever legitimacy they enjoy today long before the attainment of popular participation. After all, it was only in 1918 that universal adult suffrage was attained in Britain through a gradual process of piecemeal extension of the franchise in 1832, 1867, 1885 and 1918. In the United States, universal white male suffrage was attained in most, though not in all, the states only in the first quarter of the 19th century, and universal adult suffrage for all only in the 20th century. In France, "the ideal of universal suffrage proclaimed by the Revolution of 1789 was not to be realised for more than brief intervals until 1875. The French bourgeoisie, rejecting the democratic aspirations of 1789 and 1830, opposed lowering property qualifications for voting so that, during the reign of the 'Citizen King,' Louis Phillipe, the electorate numbered only some 20,000 in a population of about 30 million. Tradition is rightly accounted the main sources of governmental legitimacy in Britain as is attested by the dominance in its political culture, of ancient institutions and traditional habits, only gradually and sparingly modernised when changing times dictate.`
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