By Bishop Matthew Kukah
Simply defined, Power means the (moral) ability to use one’s influence to get things done either in one’s favour or for the sake of a larger group. The word moral is used because merely getting things done is not enough. Getting even the same things done at particular moments, in particular environment, in a particular situation might elicit completely different reactions and responses. For example, a person might actually be guilty of a serious crime of murder or theft, should he die in the hands of a mob or after the order of a competent court?
Although the word Legitimacy does not appear in the title of the paper, still, it is the central hub that confers respectability and acceptance to power when it is exercised. Legitimacy is the unwritten agreement which arises from the fact that the one who exercises power and the one who conferred power to him or her have done so by some tacit or active form of agreement or understanding. An elected public official for example has power transferred to him or her by virtue of the votes that were cast in an election or the process that brought them to power. He or she can act on behalf of those he or she represents. The legitimacy of the holder of trust depends on the amount of satisfaction that those who delegated power to him or her enjoy. Closely related to legitimacy is the concept of Authority.
Authority relates to the actual exercise of power. For some, it is tied to legitimacy and is more a relationship than an action. There has to be a relationship of mutual trust for a party to obey another, even if the first party is not happy, because they believe that the superior is acting for a higher good. Both parties would have, over time hopefully earned the respect and trust of each other.
Consequences of the wrong use of power and authority
Power and authority can be squandered if carelessly or arbitrarily used by the one who to whom they have been entrusted. For example, an official elected through the most transparent process could end up losing authority depending on how they use the power they have acquired. The sympathy which the President of the United States of America, Mr. George W. Bush enjoyed after the September 11 2001 attacks, was squandered after he went on a wild goose chase for nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and ended up with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So, although the President of the United States of America had the power to go war, he lost the moral authority required to exercise that power once he was perceived as acting arbitrarily and thus, abusing the power that he had.
Legitimacy and succession
One of the major setbacks in dealing with the leadership question in Nigeria has been the issue of legitimacy and succession and how they have impacted on power and authority. The climate has not been favourable for the erection of a structure/platform (Political Parties) and the development of a process and culture for leadership recruitment and discipleship. There has been no continuity in Party formation or membership. There have been no ideologies to draw from and so the political space has been thrown open to all kinds of species of humanity.
We have had some really fine gentlemen and professionals, but they were men who were trained for other things and not for political leadership. Thus, we have produced through different processes, men and women who have come to power and office largely unprepared. Most were clearly caught unawares by the offer to lead Nigeria and others were often shanghaied to power.
There is the questionable process of ascent to power in Nigeria. There is also the issue of godfatherism and its attendant distraction and focus on corruption and looting of state resources.
Revisiting the past to avoid mistakes of the future
We owe ourselves an explanation, we owe ourselves a proper reading of our history, we owe ourselves a narrative that can help the young men and women who, through the Nigerian Leadership Initiative of which I am a proud founding father, could and should aspire to lead Nigeria to begin to put the check out the facts about our country. In that way, we can avoid the mistakes of the past.
Power, authority and legitimacy: indicators for good governance
Sometimes, acquiring political power could be through an unconventional method (coup or flawed election), mitigating circumstances might arise for the power to be deployed for the good of the people. Measuring legitimacy is a function of how power, once acquired, affects the lifestyles of ordinary people.
The lists of indicators for measuring performance are many and rather elastic. Each of them are ranked by using certain composite scores, depending on what is measured. Countries are measured by howclose or far away they stand from the weighting methodology applied. These indicators are: Security, rule of law, leadership, political rights, economic rights, human rights, infrastructure, freedom of speech and corruption.
Critical thinking and discipline
For a country notorious for lacking the capacity and discipline to think deeply, it is not a surprise that Nigerians have dredged up the idea of a Sovereign National Conference to cover up their shallowness of their thinking about how to solve the problems of their country. We have no time for the discipline of originality. We wait till others have sweated and then we are anxious to see if we can reap the benefits by thinking so we can replicate the scenarios. No sooner do we start a debate about a major national issue than we fall head long into the laager of ethno-regional bigotry, dredging and rehashing the same tired prejudices and stereotypes with everyone throwing stones from their corner. Notorious for never concluding a debate, we soon return to the same issues we fought over yesterday. Look back and ask if you remember any serious debate that we have concluded well in Nigeria. We did not conclude the debate about the status of Minorities as canvassed by the Willink Commission. We did not conclude the No Winner, Vanquished philosophy. We did not conclude on the issue of creation of states. We have not concluded the debate over the status of our Constitution. We did not conclude the series of debates over the status of Islamic law which was begun in 1957. We have not concluded on the best formula for revenue sharing. We do not know whether marrying a minor is a matter of religion or state law. Everything is left hanging until someone provokes or wakes it up when it makes political sense to do so.
Democracy as a tool for conferment of authority and legitimacy
Democracy was meant to be a conveyor belt, conferring legitimacy and authority on our elected officials while bringing back to us, the good things that help in our pursuit of happiness and the good life. The President and his team must wake up to the fact that without authority conferred on them by the people who appreciate them, the nobility of politics will be lost and Democracy will simply be the banditry that we had in uniform.
Truth and the Nigerian elite
I am convinced that what is missing in our lives is the failure to seek Truth. Similarly, our relationship with Truth will depend on how close we are to it, how faithfully we seek it and how committed we are to finding it and having found it, our commitment to living it. It does help us to understand and appreciate that truth is not limited to those who openly state their beliefs in God as Christians and Muslims. The history of the last century, the forces that shaped the end of history and dictatorship cannot be complete without drawing attention to seekers of Truth who did not necessarily profess their faith as Muslims or Christians. Nelson Mandela, Andrei Sakharov, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Williem de Klerk, Aung San Su Kyi, Vaclav Havel, Gandhi.
In an environment where truth has become a prisoner held hostage by negative forces who believe that an open show of religiosity are evidence of faith and religious expression. The result is that our society is visibly religious but has a distorted sense of what is right and wrong. We are living with the consequences of stolen elections, weak law enforcement as we can see from the rise in social vices, kidnapping, assassinations, ritual killings, and now, Boko Haram. All these young men and women are our children, they are children conceived in fraud and deceit, children born into a society where corruption is now part of our DNA. Boko Haram is not the cause of our instability and volatility. It is not the reason why the investors refuse to come. Insecurity, volatility, insincerity, elite irresponsibility, carelessness, greed, imperviousness to common sense, fraud have become associated with us. We have watched as the bureaucracy has abandoned its call to service and duty to the nation and turned itself into a den of thieves and outright criminality. That environment is now hostile to men and women of integrity.
All hope is not lost on our country, but we cannot continue on this path without crashing sooner than later. It is not too late to reverse the tide and reclaim the moral high ground. We have a choice to either dream new dreams or wake up to a nightmare.
The presentation was made at the Guest Speaker Forum on April 26, 2012 at theTranscorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja. It was powered by the FirstBank of Nigeria
