Democracy With Scanty Debate

Engagements by Chidi Amuta

Politics in a democracy is essentially a talkative business. The quest for power requires an unusual gift of the garb. Those who seek a life of dignified quiet had better find another occupation. In other words, a politician is a salesman that finds a merchandise everywhere there are people. And among the multitude of people everywhere, there will always be people who have not made up their minds about whose political disciple they want to be. That is the ready market of every serious politician.

If for any reason, a political culture fails to develop the art of debate, speech making and instantaneous salesmanship, Something may be awfully wrong somewhere. A politician who is reluctant to mount every podium and make a sales pitch must have some other insidious weapon in his hidden pocket if he keeps winning elections.

President Bola Tinubu may be that unusual political salesman. In the build up of the campaigns for the 2027 general elections, he has expressed a hesitation to embrace the current campaign season with full chest. He has indicated instead a campaign schedule that will not see him traverse the thirty six states and the FCT in a campaign blitz. On the contrary, the man insists he will only show up in twelve states, that is, two in each of the six geo political zones. The rest will be covered by political notables in his over populated APC Campaign Council. Previous experience may in fact prove the president right.

We have witnessed presidential candidates make whistle stops at state capitals in the past only just to have the crowded arena just repeatedly chorus the name of the party only to speed off shortly afterwards in the midst of the mayhem and cacophony they brought with them. The location is ticked off as mission accomplished.

Tinubu is perhaps right in his more selective approach to the campaign travelling talking road show this time around. There are too many other important jobs for the president than stopping at every state capital to greet people and remind fellow Nigerians that his name is still Bola Ahmed Tinubu at least. The main opposition megaphones have found fault with this abridged presidential campaign schedule. But there is nothing either in the constitution or the job description of the president that is so new for those who have become familiar with Tinubu’s leisurely approach to presidential duties. We only need to remind ourselves that Tinubu has had his bouts of speeches and campaign screaming both as Lagos Governor, as senatorial candidate and hands-on partisan of numerous parties.

Yet, of all the known features of the presidential system, open debates and informed policy discourse would be the least of Tinubu’s attractions. People still remember his 2022-23 campaign season performance. He hardly said anything to anyone. His most quotable quote is nothing. Many recall the “Ba la blu” muttering which many mistook for some form of speech defect. On a few other occasions, he uttered some incomprehensible gibberish about the nation not generating enough power to roast a corn cob. But in general, Tinubu neither said anything that anyone recalls or faced anyone in open debate. At best, he debated with himself in incomprehensible esoteric monologues that soon became his trademarks. Even when invited to London’s Chatham House for his definitive policy statement, Tinubu preferred to ‘democratize’ his presentation and responses by outsourcing his content to members of his powerful entourage including Mr. Nasir El-Rufai all of whom, of course, acquitted themselves creditably in a broad spectrum of responses that dressed up Mr. Tinubu as prepared for the policy challenges of his ambitious job.

Back then therefore, Tinubu left the talking and debates to Peter Obi, Atiku Abubakar and the other minor but learned loquacious candidates. But Tinubu was declared the winner of the 2023 elections with hardly any speeches, debates or policy interactions that anyone can remember. Perhaps the impression went out then that Nigeria’s democracy could do without debate, informed dialogue or conversations among key players and contestants. Tinubu became president in 2023 without making even one single speech that anyone remembers.

But in the post-1999 history of Nigerian democracy, Tinubu is not alone. We might as well rewind to the plight of debate and dialogue among contestants since the return of democracy in 1999. In the 27 years since the military was stampeded out of politics and democracy inched back, partisan democracy in Nigeria has featured a very Nigerian identity. Politicians have often adopted the intemperate language of their military predecessors while showing little respect for the people whose votes mandate them to rule mostly badly. Some state governors have chosen to don the toga of absolute emperors, dispersing the state assemblies that ought to empower and enable their actions. At other times, the actions of the executive branch have flagrantly transgressed the provisions of the constitution until some adventurous lawyers intervene.

We take it all in as perhaps the learning curve of democratic becoming. Or, better still, the emergence of appropriate democracy. After all, no democracy was built overnight. Even the well established and deeply entrenched ones are still stumbling over the minefields of democratic acculturation.

In the last two and half decades of Nigeria’s return to democracy however, it is in the behavior of politicians during elections and the ritual of transitions that Nigerian politicians have been most wanting. Specifically, our leading politicians and party flag carriers do not seem to like the democratic culture of open unfettered debates. In 1999, Mr. Obasanjo did everything to avoid an open policy debate with Mr. Olu Falae, his technocrat rival. Of course partisans of the opposing camps argued at minor platforms. But when it was time for an encounter of the two main masquerades, the system failed us. Both men told Nigerians whatever they felt like. Their disparate perspectives, ideas and policy differences never clashed frontally. Throughout his eight years in power as elected president, Obasanjo debated mostly with himself and literally had his way on most policy issues. He did whatever his desired since there was hardly an alternative voice.

Obasanjo was of course succeeded by Yar’Adua who was literally shoe-horned into office with little or no opposing argument. Between the distant and quiescent Mr. Yar’Adua and his equally incomprehensible Fulani cousin, rival Mr. Muhammadu Buhari, there was little to choose in terms of political eloquence. Yar’Adua came and went with scanty debate with anyone.

Terminal ill-health and a strange legislative contraption called “the Doctrine of Necessity” produced a half-hearted Goodluck Jonathan presidency. Jonathan contested against himself only to be challenged by the famously incoherent and hardly audible Muhammadu Buhari. Again, Jonathan’s and Buhari’s handlers were largely in agreement that it was pointless inflicting the verbal incoherence and policy illiteracy of both men on our hapless citizenry. On one significant debate-like occasion between Jonathan and Buhari, the Buhari campaign had the common sense to call in the fire power of the erudite and fluent Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to rescue Buhari from the verbal assaults of the Jonathan group. So the 2014 presidential contest passed without debate or major policy confrontation at the level of the spoken word.

There is something awkward about a brand of democracy that has opted by default to cultivate a culture of noisy campaigns without any debate among key contestants especially at the presidential level. There is no formal Presidential Campaign body entrusted with organizing and controlling a formal presidential debate. There is also nothing in the electoral law that mandates a presidential debate. Failing to participate in a presidential debate does not affect the electoral chances of any candidate in a contest. It is only the public hunger for enlightenment and entertainment that is starved when anticipated debates fail to happen.

Nigeria badly needs a formalized presidential debate format. Nigerians deserve to hear out those who want to rule them. We are a large and diverse populace. Our needs are varied but we are bound by common aspirations, haunted by common existential nightmares and desirous of common goals. Those who aspire to rule over us must therefore air their views and differences to us on common platforms in order for us to decide which way to cast our ballots. We are tired of ‘electing’ strangers to preside over this vast land. We have in the past three decades given presidential mandates to leaders who hardly knew us or understood our most common desires.

Beyond the tradition of open public debates and robust exchanges which are part of the US-type presidential system, most other types of democracy feature constant open debates and exchanges during election seasons and even at normal times. Democracy thrives on a free flow of conversations, it feeds on a diet of dialogue fed by freedom of expression. The voting public is reassured by these exchanges to renew their confidence in the currency of ideas and perspectives on the part of those who rule over the people.

The leaders of all democracies are drawn from among the people. They are part of us. Republic democracies draws its leading lights from among people who should be common folk. They are from among us. They draw from the same common pool of common experiences. It is through their frequent utterances, debates, dialogue and speeches that we renew our fellowship with them. It is only in autocracies and absolutist regimes that leaders can afford to rule in silence and from a distance. A popularly elected leader who chooses to rule in distant silence is either an autocrat in disguise or an aspiring authoritarian emperor.

The 2027 presidential election is yet another opportunity for Nigeria’s democracy to shake off its disdain for debate and dialogue and open up the flow of conversations. The open society is the other name for a democratic society. Freedom and openness are other names for every democracy.