Democracy And Human Security: The Nigerian Experience
Intervention By Mr. Oseloka H. Obaze, MD/CEO Selonnes Consult, Discussant of the Seminar Paper on “Democracy and Human Security: The Nigerian Experience” Delivered By Prof Nuhu O. Yaqub, OFR, FNIM, FNIM
At the National Defence College Nigeria, Abuja FCT Tuesday 12 October, 2021
Protocols
I thank the Commandant of this great institution, the National Defence College Rear Admiral Oladele Bamidele Daji, the Director of Coordination Brigadier-General E.F. Onyilola, the entire Directing Staff and my dear friend and colleague, Amb. Sola Enikonolaiye, for inviting me to participate in this seminar.
I thank Prof. Nuhu O. Yaqub, my President Emeritus at the Society for International Relations and Awareness (SIRA), for his very lucid and insightful paper and for the magisterial delivery. We expected nothing less.
It’s an honour to be here; at this High Military Citadel. There are some omitted aspects of my bio, which might be of interest to you. First, I always like to assert my respect for and rights, and affinity to the Nigerian military. I was privileged do my National Youth Service (NYSC) in Lagos State in 1981, briefly at the Defence Headquarters, Lagos, before being re-deployed on request to the Nigerian Institute Army Education, Ilupeju, Lagos where I served as a Research and Publication Officer under Col. Adedotun Gbadebo, (now, HRM Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, the Alake of Egbaland).
During my NYSC service, I was recommended to the Military Secretary (Army) for a Direct Short Service Commission (DSSC) into the Nigerian Army. I emerged as one of the top candidates for 1982 DSSC Course selected by the DSSC Board chaired by then Brigadier-General Solomon Omojokun, in Kaduna in February 1982, but opted to pursue diplomacy, my first career choice. As a young Foreign Service Officer I was also privileged to serve as Special Assistant to late General Joe Garba, Nigeria’s Ambassador to the United Nations. So, if I feel at home here at National Defence College, you will understand why.
Democracy and Human Security: the Nigerian Experience, the subject matter under discussion is topical. Its inclusion in the Seminar curriculum is most propitious. I believe our role here is to add value and lend our voices in buttressing the importance of human security in our nascent democracy. Before interrogating the core aspects of the seminar paper as it relates to the Nigerian Experience, let me state clearly that as student and practitioner of public policy, I have always stressed that “public policy needs not be too complex or oversimplified in its narratives to be credible. However, there must serve common interest.”1
I have also always postulated, that “There is no such thing as a bad public policy, since all public policies are supposedly well-intended. Often, what we confront are badly conceptualized policies, poorly articulated public policies and badly implemented public policies. When a desirable policy
does not come to fruition, it becomes a failed or bad policy. In reality, however, quite often good public policies are undermined due to poor work or moral ethics.”2
Prof. Nuhu Yaqub made several salient points of which I will highlight just a few, before offering my own perspective:
Definition
There’s broad variation in definition and actualization of democracy. Democracy as an adjunct to socialist/communist models; Democracy as antithesis of corruption ridden governance; Democracy as a mid-point idea between representative (liberal) democracy and socialist (communist) democracy; Democracies without popular empowerment that is fraught with abuse and can easily be used to mobilize ethnicity and religion.
Governance defining
There is no democracy in Nigeria; our situation cannot therefore allow us the “luxury” of labeling post-military “motley regimes especially since 1999, as democracies” or operating by democratic structures; more so since civilian rule since 1999 carried over vestiges of military rule; we experienced Twitter Ban; Suspension of Channels and AIT broadcasting licenses;
Human security
Human security is recognized by its universalism, its interdependence, its ease of management through early prevention and its people-centeredness; Nigeria’s human security currently is generally considered to be abysmally poor.
By every indication, Nigeria’s lucrative kidnapping industry is thriving - expanding into previously safe areas – and seemingly beyond the control of the country’s army. Govt Responsibility to protect is almost nonexistent.
In Concluding Prof. Yaqub States that, There is a positive correlation between democracy (due diligently established and not micro-managed) and human security.
What is even so bad about the contemporary state of governance and its human security component in the country, is the fact that a culture of impunity, lack of empathy, pervasive corruption, and the inability of serial governments since 1966 to foster unity, integration, and national cohesion, etc., have combined to render the country incapable of assuming its role in the comity of nations.
These points are germane to Nigeria and her human security challenges. As members of Nigeria’s attentive public, we have encountered or queried them. We have, more often than not, wondered why they are efficaciously deployed in other democracies and less so, in our country.
Let me engage in a cursory analysis of my own understanding of human security as a component of global public policy, and how it pertains to Nigeria. By way of definition, I am inclined to approach definitions of Democracy from two perspectives, as it pertains to Nigeria:
Aristotlesaid:“Democracyiswhentheindigentandnotthemenofpropertyaretherulers.” And John F. Kennedy, admonished us that “Life in freedom is not easy, and democracy is not perfect.”
Governance And Human Security Overview
Governance and human security, though standalone, are of high utility when interlinked. This is more so, when states operators charged with democratic governance adhere to the core but expansive responsibility to protect (R2P) of the national population.
While democracy as a concept and reality is quite old, human security emerged as a theoretical concept and policy in 1994.3 It followed “Human rights” and “human development”. The initial authors of the new exploratory concept defined human security as “concerned with safeguarding and expanding people's vital freedoms. It requires both protecting people from critical and pervasive threats and empowering people to take charge of their lives.”4
Because the definition of human security was new and applied to disparate regimes, for which there were no concrete benchmarks for measuring their efficacy and acceptability, the definitions for human security has been broad, if not amorphous. Yet there is a common thrust.
By definition, human security is defined “as access to a minimum threshold of food, water, health care, shelter, education, and work.”5 This falls squarely within the realm of what psychologists refer to as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. As Maslow insists, “five categories of human needs dictate an individual's behavior.” 6 These include, physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.
The only difference is that while the individual is innately responsible for meeting these needs, the State, Government and their operators are largely responsible for meeting human security needs of the population.
Accordingly, U.N. General Assembly in resolution 66/2907 defined “human security is an approach to assist Member States in identifying and addressing widespread and cross- cutting challenges to the survival, livelihood and dignity of their people.” It calls for “people- centred, comprehensive, context-specific and prevention-oriented” approach to governance.
Some schools of thought have put a far more positive spin on the definition and consider human security as effort to “safeguard the vital core of all human lives from critical pervasive threats.” A rather negative definition is the “absence of threats to various core human values, including the basic human value, and individual physical safety.”8
More broadly, human security, as we are told, shifts away from “traditional notions of national security by placing the primary focus on the individual rather than the state, and expanding security to encompass both an individual’s freedom from want and freedom from fear.”9
What then is it that makes democratic governance and human security efficacious? The differences are found in the operational systems in place. This is to suggest that the combined
dual-tracked governance modalities, works best in one form of governance model and less so or with mixed results, in the other models.
Furthermore, experts inform us that while “bureaucratic democracies are strongly associated with high levels of human security,”10 autocracies steeped in patronage proffer low levels of human securities.
Hence, strong democracies are recognized for being aligned and possessing human security, while strong autocracies are identified as promoting human insecurity. Researchers looking at regime types have suggested that there is “no correlation between democracy and human insecurity for weak autocracies and weak democracies.”11 Indeed, some experts and “democracy-promoters argue that deepening democratic processes and institutions, through increased popular participation and government accountability, leads to greater human security.”
The Nigerian Experience/Case
So what has been the Nigerian experience, which is the subject of our interrogation today? As officers, commander and leaders of men and women, in regimented formations, you are already or need to be conversant with these values, more so in your interactions with the national civilian population.
I will digress for one moment to say that in my writings and public speaking engagements, I have vehemently spoken against the use of military personnel for purely civilian police duties. You will agree with me that such approach has its setback, not the least of all, is the politicization of the role of the military in a democracy. We have argued in favour of “effective regulation of non-state security providers; and use of civilian police for civilian police duties and exclusion of the military in such roles.” 12
Meanwhile, in striving to couple democratic governance with human security, there are mixed results from “institutionally weak or patronage democracies and bureaucratic autocracies.”13 Our country Nigeria falls into this latter category. Some may wonder why.
Nigeria presents a paradox. It is a democracy, but one that has been unable to divest itself of the vestiges of many years of military rule. The impact of military anti-politics on Nigeria remains rather high and continues to affect our collective understanding, adherence and promotion of human security. I might also add, without any apology, that our elected civilian collogues more than the military, are responsible for this anomaly, if one may call it that.
Nigeria is a democracy, but one that exhibits enormous weaknesses in the separation of between the three arms of government. Nigeria is a democracy in which the three tiers of government - the so-called federating units- are not functioning or relating optimally. Nigeria is a democracy, in which the rule of law is not rigidly enforced and ordered liberties are continuously eroded by executive fiats. Finally, Nigeria is a democracy, but certainly not sufficiently egalitarian to guarantee national population’s confidence in the extant power and resource sharing formulas and broad provisions of human security. This is why, every section of the nation feels somewhat, disenfranchised and marginalized.
Is Nigeria meeting her human security needs?
In Nigeria, weak and dysfunctional institutions exist, thus creating “lack the robustness required for addressing power asymmetries, citizen participation, and ensuring the rule of law.” Such absence of robustness also impact negatively on the conceptualization, formulation and implementation of human development policies. These, in turn, impact adversely on inclusivity and related democratization processes. In all, where the parameters, building blocks and confidence building measures (CBMs) for promoting human security are in short supply, human security is lagging or totally absent.
Some have linked the presence of these factors, to leadership hubris, which presupposes that those in leadership understand and know better than the population, what the priority needs of the society are.
When there are limitations in the efficacious deployment of twined concepts of democratic governance and human security, the end result, often dismal and often associated with weak institutions, is the absence, unwillingness or inability to strengthen “transparent and accountable institutions capable of meeting basic human needs.”14 We can identify such lapses in Nigeria.
It goes without saying, therefore, that challenges in human security pose a security threat to Nigeria. Today we are confronted with insurgencies, ungoverned spaces, banditry, displaced populations, and herdsmen-farmers conflicts that have raised existential questions for both farmers and herdsmen. What is not widely discussed is how these challenges are linked to limited or absence of human security.
Often what is also not discussed as adversely affecting human security is the pervasive trust deficit between the leaders and the governed. There are also other areas where good governance deficit continue to impact on democratic governance. Despite many National Development and Vision Plans, and despite Nigeria being sixty-one years and in its Fourth Republic, it showcases glaring deficits on the parameters required for measuring human security. These elements of human security as mentioned earlier, include access to a minimum threshold of food, water, health care, shelter, education, and work.
The point has been made that “With average daily subsistent level at less than $2 dollars a day (N1,000), personal and individual savings becomes extremely difficult. This challenge of limited elasticity of income for individuals is compounded, by absence of subsidized housing, affordable healthcare and qualitative education. Most Nigeria states have been unable to save, because they never engage in zero-based budgeting, hardly prioritize and are eternally dependent on allocation from federation accounts.”15 We are in an era when Nigeria was listed among the 59 nations or 28.6% of the world’s low-income countries (LICs), and majority of Nigeria’s population were “ill- fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed and ill-educated”16 It is his reality that has in part, made Nigeria the poverty capital of the world.
Earnings:Forstarters,abroadswathof200millionNigeriansubsistsonlessthan$2aday. (N1,000) which by the way surpasses the daily wage average of N500 that represents the still contested national monthly minimum wage of N18,000. Parlous personal earnings contribute to poverty. “Over the years, the drivers of poverty in Nigeria have multiplied. Conflicts have emerged as one of such factors. Conflicts are always and everywhere a cause of poverty.”17
Employment: The greatest asset and wealth of nations are measured in terms of their human capital. For our nation the bulk of our human capital, roughly 70% consist of youths. Of this number, 54% are unemployed. Because we have a broad swath of the national population that has been technically disenfranchised, we find enormous frustration, rise in crime, vagrancy, violence, cultism, militancy, banditry and other forms of criminality rampant within the youth circle. As has been suggested rise in Nigeria’s unemployment are also traceable “to governmental actions include policies of government, forces of distressed markets, regulatory policies, competitive trade, globalization, a weak economy abetted by recession.”18
Food: Of Nigeria’s 200 million people, the number of undernourished people more than doubled to 21 million, between 2010 and 2017.19 Despite unending policies aimed at promoting agriculture through three measures –subsidies, finance and protectionism- Nigeria is confronted with problem of food self-sufficiency that begets food insecurity.
Water:NigeriaisapartytotheUnitedNationsDeclarationoftheRighttoWater,which entitles every one living in Nigeria to sufficient, affordable, safe and acceptable water for personal and domestic uses. MDG Goal 6 and SDG Goal 17 relate to supply of portable water. Yet, “An estimated 100 million Nigerians still lack basic sanitation facilities and 63 million do not have access to improved source of drinking-water.”20 Although President Buhari confirmed recently “that the water projects his administration had completed between 2015 to 2020 had improved Nigerian’s access to potable water to 71%,” to the effect that “12.5 million additional Nigerians now have direct access to potable water,”21 in most of the 36 State and FCT government attempt to provide waters is primarily to resort to borehole projects.
For instance, in 2018, rather than address the human security needs relative to potable water, Lagos State institutes an illiberal water abstraction policy, where it charged Lagosians for drilling private boreholes.22 The upshot is that in Nigeria, “clean water is in short, sporadic supply, and untreated water run the risk of waterborne parasites, with cholera, polio and typhoid outbreaks regularly reported.”23
Healthcare:Asnation,wearestillfarremovedfrommeetingSustainableDevelopmentGoal 3 (SDG-3); which requires us to “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” Our primary healthcare centres, general hospitals and teaching or referral hospitals are underequipped ad underfunded to meet our national healthcare needs.
FGN’s expenditure on the health sector for the last two years (2019 and 2020) indicates funding well below one-third of the target of 15 percent agreed in the Abuja Declaration adopted by African leaders in April 2001.
Our national doctor-patient ratio is paltry and “stands at 1: 2753, which translates, to 36.6 medical doctors per 100,000 persons”24 and well below the World Health Organization (WHO) desirable doctor–population ratio as 1:1,000.
Shelter:Nigeriastillsuffersfromgrosshousingdeficitdespitehavingembarkedonseveral housing policies aimed at providing adequate housing for its expanding population. Starting from the 1st and 4th National Development Plans (NDP1, 1962 to NDP4 1985)
through the adoption of the National Housing Policy in 1991 to date, Nigeria has failed to meet its human security needs in the area of housing.
Presently, Nigeria has a housing deficit estimated at 18.0 million. The World Bank estimates that Nigeria “requires about 700,000 housing units annually, spanning through a 20-year period to accommodate the rising population.”25
Beyond the high costs of property development and difficult access to mortgage finance, factors such as - Bribery and Corruption, Naira Devaluation, Land Tenure System - High cost of and paucity of infrastructure and bureaucratic bottlenecks, combine to inhibit meeting human security needs in the housing and shelter sector.
Conclusion:
Prof. Yaqub presented in a seamless manner our glaring national human security realities, without varnish and without any pretenses. That is gratifying. Often, when policy experts speak about Nigeria’s democracy is not working optimally, they are labeled traducers, partisans or anti- establishment. Yet, it will not be trite to declaim that in Nigeria, Democracy and Human Security are at the opposite ends of the spectrum; and the challenges and threats persist.
As mentioned afore, the components of human security have not and are not faring well in our democracy.Whetherthisisareflectionofthenascentstatusofourdemocracy,isdebatable. The blame could be systemic – it could also be part of our human frailties. One thing is certain, democracy is hard work, and we must all work hard to make it a reality and make it work for us. Thank you.
Notes
1 Oseloka H. Obaze, Prime Witness: Change and Policy Challenges in Buhari’s Nigeria, (Ibadan, Safari Books Ltd. 2017), p. 137
2 Oseloka H. Obaze, Here To Serve -Op-Eds, Essays, and Advocacy for Good Governance [(New Albany, Ohio: Ben Bosah Books) 2015, p. 18
4 See “Human Security What and Why,” https://www.gdrc.org/sustdev/husec/z-whatis.html
5 Ted Piccone, “Democracy and Human Security,” https://www.brookings.edu/research/democracy-and-human-security/
7 Resolution “66/290. Follow-up to paragraph 143 on human security of the 2005 World Summit Outcome,”
https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N11/476/22/PDF/N1147622.pdf?OpenElement
8 Sabina Alkire, “A Conceptual Framework for Human Security,”
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08cf740f0b652dd001694/wp2.pdf
9 See “Democracy and human security in developing countries,” https://www.brookings.edu/research/democracy-and- human-security-in-developing-countries/
10 Ibid
11 Ibid
12 Ejeviome Eloho Otobo and Oseloka H. Obaze “Reflections On Police Reform.” https://businessday.ng/opinion/article/reflections-on-police-reform/
13 Ted Piccone, “Democracy and Human Security,” Op. Cit.
14 Ibid
15Ejeviome Eloho Otobo and Oseloka H. Obaze, Nigeria: Caught in The Whirlwind, due out in the latter part of 2021.
16 Cyprian Eneh Onyenekenwa, “Nigeria’s Vision 20:2020-Issues, Challenges and Implications for Development Management,” Asian Journal of Rural Development, Vol. 1 (1): 21-40 2011. https://scialert.net/fulltextmobile/?doi=ajrd.2011.21.40
17 Ejeviome Eloho Otobo and Oseloka H. Obaze, Nigeria: Caught in The Whirlwind, due out in the latter part of 2021.
18 Ibid
19 See “Nigeria needs food security, not food self-sufficiency,” https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/monitoring/investments/nigeria-10-nov.pdf?ua=1
20 Ibid
21 VincentUfuoma“Again,Buhariblamesmiddlemenforhigherincreaseinfoodprices,”https://www.icirnigeria.org/again- buhari-blames-middlemen-for-higher-increase-in-food-prices/
22 Oseloka H. Obaze, Waning Strength Of Government, (Lagos: Parresia Publishers), 2020, p.67-71
23 See “waterfall of Opportunities,” The Report, Nigeria 2012, Oxford Business Group, 2012, p.163
24 24Godsgift Onyedinefu, “Ratio of Nigerian doctors to population is 1: 2753 – FG,” https://businessday.ng/uncategorized/article/ratio-of-nigerian-doctors-to-population-is-1-2753- fg/#:~:text=Nigeria%20is%20still%20far%20from,translates%20to%2036.6%20medical%20doctors
25 Prof. Akpan Ekpo, “ Housing Deficit in Nigeria: Issues, Challenges and Prospects.”https://www.cbn.gov.ng/out/2020/rsd/efr%20vol%2057%20no%204%20december%202019%20housing%20deficit%20in% 20nigeria%20issues,challenges%20and%20prospects.pdf
3 Human Development Report 1994: New Dimensions of Human Security, http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-
development-report-1994
6 Dr. Saul McLeod “Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs,”
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html#:~:text=From%20the%20bottom%20of%20the,attend%20to%20need
s%20higher%20up.