By Else Hedegaard and Anders Egede Larsen
Who took the initiative to this Centre? When did the work begin?
It was my initial conception but I consulted with a few colleges at the University of Jos to start this centre in April 1994.
How many people are employed at the Centre?
At the moment we are 12 including myself as executive director, but we do have vacancy for two more people for the full capacity of the centre to be taken.
You rightly claim that democracy can not be given from above. But who is the target for the activities of The African Centre for Democratic Governance? Your material indicates a very high academic standard, so it can not be the common man. Are you trying to educate opinion leaders? If so, what happens to the grassroot movement? And what do you consider as grassroots?
You are right that the materials produced - especially the brochure and the news letter - sound highly academic and this is how we think it should be because first of all we want to deal with the opinion leaders in the country, because they are the critical mass, because it is these people that more or less shape the direction and the general pattern in the society so we must start with them, because it is not enough to have a university degree in order to understand the dynamics of the democratic process. We rather think that we need special articulation of what democracy is, even for the most educated in the society so we focus initially on the elite in society But we also have programs directed at the grassroots in the society because the elite is only a very small minority of society but even though they are a very significant minority in the sense they are opinion moulders, without the people there is no country and that is why the programs specifically address the grassroots which we define as people at the very lowest level of the social ladder of the society people: workers, the unemployed, the motorpark togs, the people who are not actually tied to state structures. They are the people we group together as grassroots. We have specific programs targeting them.
Can you give some examples of the programmes?
Yes, for instance we did a workshop called Welfare Association as Building Blocks of Democracy and this targeted - as I said - the very lower levels of the Jos metropolis like drivers, like people who do not occupy any executive position either in business or in government, who have formed welfare associations because that is the only way they see they would have some economic -- and even psychologically -- support in times of crises. As you know in most urban cities in Nigeria many people troupe to the urban centres in the colonial days and even in the post-colonial days thinking that there is a better live there very soon to discover that live there is not as rosy as they thought way back at home. When they come there they become disillusioned, they become kind of frustrated because neither economic opportunities nor politically opportunities open up for them. So the way out for them has been - right from the colonial days - has been to form associations based on either their village of origin or state of origin, so you have tribal unions, you have cultural associations and you have in the case as we just targeted workers unions such as associations of taxi drivers and so on and so forth. These groups form in order to help members meet economical crises, but we discovered that the conception of welfare was just limited to some economical and even social support like when somebody dies it is the responsibility of the association to which he belongs to provide for transport of the corpse for him or her home, because the tradition in Nigeria is that you are not buried in a strange place, you are taken back home. This is part of the conception of welfare of these groups. So we thought that we needed to let them know that they can expand the notion of welfare to include political demands on their local government chairman or the local government council. We visited the motorpark here and discovered that the authorities collected what they called development levies either monthly or every three months. But the motorpark is usually in a mess when it rains. People can hardly move inside it is so filthy and so messy. We asked them: "Can't you talk to your local government council to do something, what are they doing with your money". So as a result of this we prepared this workshop programme to kind of help them see that they have constitutional rights and that they can demand those rights that they have the right to demand the local government council for the use of their tax-money. The workshop brought them together to discuss the various areas where the governments, at local, state and national level have failed them in terms of providing basic necessities for which they pay taxes. And at the workshop many of them were excited that they can make a difference by exercising this right to demand this right, not only to vote for somebody, but also to hold that person accountable for what they promised to deliver, but did not deliver. So this is the origin of the programme for the welfare association on the ground which we are still running for cities. We are preparing to go to Kaduna if we can get fundings. And also Kano city.
Who calls you to do these workshops? Is it the divers union who asks you?
The initial step was taken by us by interviewing a few of them asking a few questions asking if they would want to come together to discuss this with other groups. Of course there was very overwhelming response. They expressed very great desire to do that. And after the first workshop we have received many requests from them to even extend it to other cities within the state. So the initiative was from us in our interaction with them. But after this initial interaction the impetus has been from the various associations. In fact they are now asking us to help them form a Pan-cultural and welfare association which will bring all there welfare associations together as a kind of federation of welfare associations to further their knowledge about the governors of the country and their constitutional and social rights, so this is basically what we are trying to do. We believe that this is the very foundation of an enduring democracy, because without the people actively involved and keeping their leaders in check, then we would not have the benefits of democracy in the end as many other advanced democracies have shown.
You write that "One way to strengthen civil society is political education so that more people know their inalienable rights and claim them". How are you going to make this political education?
It is part of the idea that democracy is not given from the leadership. No leadership will want control from the people. Democracy is a struggle for an accountable government. Therefore we try to let various people know that - especially in a country like this where the military has been ruling for so long -- the military is not going to hand over, and, the experience has been clear, each time they come they promise heaven and earth we are going to do this for you and at the end of the day it is another military leadership that comes. We have heard this for over 28 years of our independence, so we try let people know that - through this workshop - that democracy is an idea that can only be put into practice if the people is actively involved. In fact a survey made be the United States Information Service recently showed that 97% of Nigerians are for democracy but only 12% want to work for democracy. This is one of the things we are trying to correct: you cannot want democracy and not work for it. Therefor we are educating people that there is a constitution that the constitution is law and we have to see to that the constitution - the basic law of the country - is applied by those who govern us. That is called the rule of law. In other words that the rule of governance that is laid down in the constitution is obeyed by those who lead us as well as by those that are led. This is what we see as critical political education, and until every Nigerian knows the content of the constitution, what the powers of the leaders are, what the limitations of those powers are, they need to know about this so they can put a check on the leaders. This is what we see as political education. This is what we are trying to do with various groups. For instance we have this women in governance programme which target women. First of all we try to target women who already are in various public offices like chairmen of local government, director general in various ministries or women politicians who are part of the party executives and so on. We bring them together to look at the various obstacles to women participation in public life especially in this part of Nigeria where Islam and tradition is so oppressive in relation to women. This is the beginning to reach out to grassroot women because we believe that these women leaders after our political education workshops will go back to their ruler folks begin to mobilise them also to see the need for them to be actively involved in the political process. so that as we try to tell them: the more women we have seen in public life the more sanity we have observed in public life. So the more of them that can come out to bring their managerial expertise in the home to public life the better for the country as a whole. We discovered that many of the areas in which women have served have been qualitatively better than where their male counterparts have served. We had a former secretary to the governments of one of the states in this country testified to that .He gave us vivid illustrations of women who had served the cabinet, women who had served as executive in the civil service who have, by and large, 90% have performed much better than their male counterparts. So we are arguing that the more women we have the better for this country. We will have less corruption. We will have less violation of the various norms that governs us. So these are the two programmes we are using as part of the political education process. It seems to be very popular. At the last workshop we had in Maiduguri the women requested that we should go beyond targeting them. They wanted us to also target men so that men will also be brought on board to see why women should actively be involved in public life. They also requested that we should also do workshops on the role of religion - religion and women in public life - because many Islamic scholars are using religion to cover what they have inherited as tradition. They are using religion to prevent them from participating in public life by saying that women who participates are prostitutes. This is a kind of blackmail. So they are asking us to come to hold workshops around the northern states and bring Islamic scholars to come and say where the Koran says that women cannot participate in public life. So we are now working on that proposal. We hope we will get financial support to run such seminars.
Is the Centre a Christian enterprise or are there also Muslims involved?
Absolutely! In fact the Board of the Centre comprises of both Muslims and Christians so does the staff of the Centre. It is a secularised establishment and therefore we have no commitment to any particular faith. We are not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ even though I am a Christian. I believe that principles of my faith are universal enough and that they have corresponding principles with Islam or even any traditional religion, that we have no problem bringing everybody so that we can pursue the fundamental human norms. Norms that may appear to be Christian, but actual are universal. Human rights are not just a Christian principle alone. It is a universal principle about the sanctity of human life. So it is not a Christian enterprise, it is a secular establishment. We had a workshop called The Church and the Crisis of Governance in Nigeria in 1996. We got some support from a Canadian NGO to run this workshop. After we ran it we proposed to run another workshop on Islam and the crisis of governance. We were trying to examine the Christianity as a body and the leadership of Christianity, what role they have played or failed to play in the crisis of governance in Nigeria. We also want to examine what role the mosque and the ulamahs have played. Whether they have been passive or active in order to solve the Nigerian crisis. We wanted to examine that, but didn't get funding. We are still looking for funding for this, because being a secular organisation we must be open to whatever contributions can come from various religious faiths to the resolution of our national crises. So it is a secular organisation and we intend to keep it so. The objectives are directed to resolve the crises of the country, and that crises has no religious faith, it has just one faith and that is good governance.
So your opinion is that there is nothing in Islam or Christianity that is against democracy?
Absolutely! I was once a Muslim and turned to Christianity so I have little inside knowledge of both faiths, so I can say quite categorically that democracy is not alien to Islam as you can see in the case of Iran. In spite that it declares itself a theocracy it is anchored on the institutions of democracy. In spite of the limitations and the attempts of the ulamahs to make it a theocracy. Democracy is not subject to that kind of limitations. We are talking about the people - demo - and the people includes Muslims and Christians and so on.
But couldn't you say that there might be more resistance from some religions against giving people their rights than from others?
I think that it is not a religious issue. It is more a cultural and traditional issue. No religion that I am familiar with discriminate against people. Each religion attempts to emancipate people from the oppressive superstitions that they have been subjected to even by their own tradition.
You will find that it is people who are afraid of being deprived of their illegitimate power that are afraid of democracy. The traditional rulers in Nigeria are afraid of democracy. Why? Because democracy will demand that they are accountable to the people. So they are usually on the side of the military, they always support military rule. They claim that they are custodians of our tradition. What has happened is that generally people with power are afraid of democracy, and they will always use any excuse - including religion - to prevent the peoples voice being heard. But as the Greeks told us: the voice of the people is the voice of God in a sense and therefor we must listen to the people. So I think that no religion I know of is fundamentally opposed to democracy. It is the peoples interpretation of the religious precepts that is now used to prevent democratic governance.
So you doesn't mean that religion in itself is an obstacle to democracy?
No.
But there is tradition that the Christians in Nigeria have not participated in the political process. Why is that then?
This is because of misinterpretations of the Scripture. Again, as I said, it is the way people have interpreted the scriptures that has kind of distorted their view of politics and governance. I think most Christians - including myself - were initially taught to believe that Christianity is not compatible with politics. In fact, I remember when going to university, I was discouraged by my missionary parents not to study law or politics, because those were disciplines that were against Christianity. But since I had no option I did politics in the end. And I did not find it incompatible with my faith. In fact one of the reasons that I began teaching at the university was to show that you can be a scholar and a Christian at the same time. And I am glad that was my experience. So it is a misquotation of what Christ said: "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's". And therefor the early missionaries - in their sincere desire not to see what happened in their own country where secularism was taken as a new religion - were trying to discourage their followers here from getting involved in the political process. Unfortunately it was a misunderstanding. But it was a genuine concern on their part. It wasn't that it was a deliberate effort to prevent Christians from participating. But later they realised that by doing that they left the political field to infidels, to non-Christians, and that accounts for the crises we are in today. In fact that was one of the reasons why we held that conference, the Church and the Crises of Governance, because we want them to know that Christ expects us to be ambassadors in every sphere. If you can go into business there is no reason why you shouldn't participate in politics, because politics is about power, and if Satanic forces control the power in the country - as we have seen in many instances - then the country will go in the way of the Devil. So many of them came to realise this, as that is why in the last ten years Christian denominations virtually everywhere, even the Catholics who are the most conservative in this area, now say that if for instance a priest should decide to go into politics he should resign his priesthood. It is understandable, but there is no longer any saying No, you are going to Hell if you go into politics. That initial misinterpretation of Christ's statement has led to the abandonment of the political field by the Christians, but that is changing gradually. In fact one of the leading lights of Nigerian politics is my namesake, Jerry Gana, is one of the finest Christians I have ever known in this country, and he is very actively involved and he is preaching that it is an area that needs Christians more than any other area in this country. So I think things are changing in that direction.
The Centre is called "The African Centre for Democratic Governance". Does that mean that there are branches in other African countries? And in what sense is it "African" and not just Nigerian?
The entire continent of Africa is our focus. The initial idea was not just Nigeria, because at the time we founded the Centre almost 36 of the 52 countries in Africa were under military rule, so we just felt that this is not just a Nigerian problem, it is a continental problem. But we must start somewhere. So that is why we gave it the name The African Centre for Democratic Governance. Our hope is that we will link up with similar institutions in other countries. In fact we recently discovered that in Dakar there is an institute of democracy, there is in South Africa a centre with a name very similar to our own name. What we hope to do is not only establishing branches of our centre, but where there is similar institutions to network with them so that we can collaborate in various areas of our endeavour, so it is in that sense that it is African and not Nigerian. We just find it for logical reasons to start here because we are Nigerians. But we are beginning to link up with various establishments of this nature. Because the problems are almost identical. The problem of military disengagement is a continental problem. In fact we are also linking up with other Third World countries, for instance in Latin America which also has had prolonged military rule and the process of disengaging the military is in an advanced state in countries like Argentina and Brazil and so on. It is really in its most ambitious sense a global outlook, because we are also learning from more advanced democracies.
Is there any co-operation with other groups working for democracy in Nigeria?
Oh yes! Our first port of call was linking up with pro-democracy organisations, human rights organisations. For instance some members of our Board of Governors had similar NGOs like one of the members is the executive director of Women, Law and Development. She was the former vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos. Another leading member of the board heads what is called EMPAC, Empowerment and Social Research Action, which is an NGO focusing on women emancipation. It is based in Lagos. We have another lady who is a member of the board who is heading a NGO that deals with Muslim women. She is a Muslim herself and she is working with Muslim women in the north as part of the emancipation. So we are networking with these various organisations. In fact very soon we plan to host a conference of all NGOs in the pro-democracy and governance sector of the NGO -community to kind of ask ourselves basic questions what are we doing, how are we doing it, how can we work together to promote the overall objective of a strong civil society which can sustain democracy, this is the kind of plan we have. We just got a grant from the Ford foundation to do something more in that area and we are hoping other foundations will come to our assistance to try to kind of expand this kind of activities. So we are starting with the pro-democracy and governance NGOs in the country, linking up with them we are working together. So for instance the League of women Warders in the USA has just contacted us. They wanted us to send, to sponsor two women to their own program where they would understudy women groups and community based organisations and bring their experiences to share with us. So this kind of linkages we are trying to force.
Is the Centre supporting any political parties or trying to run for elections?
It is very independent. In fact, when we discovered that a member of the board is a very prominent member of NADECO, which is the leading opposition party group in the country, we decided to drop him, because we don't want to compromise our independence. We want not only to be known as independent, but also to be seen as independent. Once you begin to put people from political parties on your board then you compromise that, so we want to maintain neutrality because we would be freer to speak to any section of society any party any government. If it's representatives are not acting with us we will not be accused of taking a partisan position. In order to avoid that, we are not linked to any party , any organisation which have the intention of becoming a political party. We want to maintain that independence.
Have you had any difficulties with the authorities because of your work?
Yes, naturally. We are perceived of as enemies of the military, we have been outspoken against military. The most serious encounter we had was in 1996, March when we hosted a conference on the dilemmas in Democracy in Nigeria. And just before the conference they came to arrest me and the director of research and said that the conference should not be held, because it is embarrassing to the government. We had brought the USA. the director of UCs Lagos who was to give the key note address and everybody was gathered, they came and disbanded us. That was the worst experience we had, but apart from that we have a man from the secret service visiting our premises almost every day to see who is coming in and who is going out, and they are looking at our account to see whether we are receiving money from external sources which they are not happy about. And they even made attempt to stop Ford Foundation from giving us grant, but Ford of cause resisted that. So we continue to have problems. In fact my name is on the government computer the security computer. Each time I am travelling I am usually delayed for about half an hour to see their new charges against me before I am allowed to go, or when I come back they scrutinise all my documents to see where I went and so, so it's a daily experience. But it is part of the occupational hazard. We regard it as part of the hazard of our mission. And we continue. We will not do anything against the law, but we know that as long as there is the military or even civilian dictatorships, they will not like the kind of thing we are doing, educating people about their rights. So we are prepared for it and we continue to struggle against it.
So now hopefully the conditions for your work will become easier?
Oh you mean with the new dispensations. At least for the next 6 month I am sure it will be easier. We do not know, may be in another six month a new group may try to catch the man and turn it, because that is how Abacha started too, He started, you know, with this liberal thing, we are going to stay for six month and so on and so on.., but within the six month he started their manipulations, so as we are trying to say to Nigerians in our press release on this statement, that it is not this promises that will deliver us, it is the people being vigilant about making sure that Abubakar does not deviate from this promise. It is only the people that can do it, and that is why our work is so critical, that we get the people mobilised ready to defend democracy. So we have no illusions. The liberal atmosphere now may not remain liberal unless Nigerians are really prepared to defend this democratic culture.
So it is a long run work you are doing ?
Absolutely, we are looking forward 25 years from now getting the real results from what we are doing to day.
But it is in order to put democracy on a sound foundation?
Exactly, it is to really establish it on the grassroots.
Another question is about the "inalienable rights"? What rights are they? Some people claim that the human rights as they are stated in the UN resolutions etc. are a Western invention that is not compatible with African and Asian culture where the family or the clan is the cornerstone of the society and not the individual. What is your comment to that?
I think that by and large I would agree that the notion of human rights - especially in its individualistic application is a western invention. In fact, I would argue that it is a Christian invention because it is derived from the notion of individual responsibility for your sin. My Fathers or my family's confession of Christ will not take me to heaven, It is my own personal confession. This is the origin of the notion of individual rights as we read it in western political philosophy. But the notion of rights is a universal notion, because it is not, I mean human life and human dignity is not something that is strange to communities across the world. It is an evolutionary process. There was a state when in the more advanced societies today that the individual does not feature very much it was the family, the community and so on, but with the coming of science and technology, with the discoveries about life and so on and more importantly with the coming of Christianity - especially the Protestant Christianity - the notion that the individual has primacy in God's creation became dominant and that is what is gradually penetrating our own culture. We started , like all other societies, with communal sense of belongings, we belong to the family, we belong to the community, but that is breaking down all over the place, because of the process of modernisation. So it is now a universal property - the human rights as articulated in the United Nations is now becoming a universal norm to which every government is held accountable and even though there are still pockets of communal identities which is very prevalent in such countries as ours - the African and Asian countries - but the trend is towards the dissolving of this communal identities to hold individuals as the basic units of life, individual responsibility for his life, even within the family context. It is a part of the struggle we are seeing in trying to encourage women to be themselves, within the Nigerian society to kind of get them out of that cultural frame which make them property to men rather than individuals. So I agree with that. We have more of that communal identity in Africa, Asia and Latin America because these are third world countries that are still in the process of moving away from this. And this is why you see that in urban centres in these countries they are more individualistic. One of the complaints we have now is that we don't have those communal identities any more, family identities any more, everybody is on his own. So those communal and family identities are breaking down. People are taking their individualistic character and that is why human rights have become a much more universal concept than it was before.
And that is why there are needed some group solidarities that are established on individual bases as for instance your drivers.
Exactly! And that is why, as I said, the welfare associations come together realising that individually they may not be able to achieve such and such thing, but together they can use their individuality to gain what they cannot by individual effort, because as an individual you can be ignored, but a group is difficult to ignore. So it is forming these associations to further enhance the individuality of the person making it easier for them to work together.
In your folder you say that "the warf and woof of civil society is the interlocking formal and informal associations of individuals pursuing common interests". It seems that the keyword here is common interests. As far as we can see much of the problem is that everybody here are pursuing their own interests, and own might be their personal interests, their family's, their extended family's, their tribe's, or their brothers in faith's interests, and don't give a damn about the rest. How are you going to change that?
Well, basically to help people realise that the common interest is, after all, the individual interest. If you don't start with the common interest… The French philosopher Rousseau tried to articulate the idea that it is in the pursuit of the common good that the individual interest gets attended to. And even Adam Smith in his economic philosophy made the point that when people pursue collective interest in the process the individual interest gets attended to. I think this is the line we are taken that people need to be educated to see their interests are optimally served by the public interest. If they concentrate on their own interest, if you concentrate on yours, I concentrate on my, my group concentrates on its own interest, your group does so, in the end we will end up fighting each other for the little space that is available. Whereas if we sit down together to understand that by pursuing the common interest we stand the chance of making better use of our resources. Just like taking the whole nation. The nation working together is able to provide the welfare that members enjoy today. And if each individual had to do it … I cannot build a road from here to town, but the collective effort as seen in the nation made it possible for roads to be build across so that everybody can reach wherever it is going. So that same logic is what we are trying get people to know. It is true that people think - and that is the unfortunate thing about it, that there is false conscienceness - that by pursuing their own interest they are better off , but the universal law teaches us that it is by pooling our resources together and identify priorities so that we can pursue it. Today the priority might be schools tomorrow it might be roads and at the end of the day our lives will be richer. This is the kind of message we are trying to give that people should learn to work together to pursue common goods which ultimately will enable us to fulfil ourselves rather than putting ourselves in narrow parochial groups like tribes, states and so on. This is part of the thing that we are trying to educate people about. Even our university colleagues here think that because they are in their state they should promote their states interests. We say no, let us promote the national interest because it is in this that we will be better off because we will able to produce more. This is the great task we have, trying to get people to think more of the collective good rather than of the individual or communal good.
But won't people need to have some experiences that they will not be let down if they put their trust in a common body? I think that is the background for this tribalism because when people have put their trust in a government or other collective body?
It is true. This is part of the obstacles to realising the common good that the experiences so far suggests that it is better to go with your tribe, with your state and so on, but it is a misunderstanding of reality because if there were not the federal Nigeria there would not have been Plateau State in order to be able to do what they are doing. So if people would be educated to realise that the tribe is just one component of a larger family and therefor if the interest of the larger family is not protected the smaller family will disintegrate as well. I think it is a question of education. This is what the Welfare Association project is trying to say: your cultural organisation is only able to provide the coffin and take the body home, but suppose you unite and prevent the decease that killed your brother you will find that you will not have to carry corpses home. So it is this kind of education we are trying to do. It is always better to pursue the common good, because ultimately everybody will get a better deal than if you pursued your own interest.
Can you give examples of the formal and informal associations of individuals?
The formal associations include the ones you find in the urban areas such as the union of railway workers, the taxi drivers association, these are formal associations. Informal associations are such as bring womenfolks together to contribute money in what we call a dashi, like ten of us agree to come together to contribute money every month 10-10 naira. At the end of that month we give it to you because you have some major thing to do. If we are 10 for the next 10 months you will be contributing 10-10 naira and it goes to everybody around. These are informal associations which are specifically geared to deal with specific problems of the group. They are not formal in the sense that they don't have structures: president, office and so on. You meet by just passing words around. These are not formal organisations because they don't have structures. There are many of them.
Especially among women?
Yes, especially among women, but even among men of certain professions. They get together to look at their profession, what they are doing, and address some problems without any formal structure about it. There are many of them that supplement the formal structures. You find many people in the informal structures that also are in the formal associations with similar vows and therefor the push will benefit the informal organisations. The informal ones are more in number and they do provide more psychological support than the formal ones. But they do it side by side.
So there are lots of cells you can build on?
Exactly!
You insist that democracy is not an alien concept in Africa. Our experience is that most people we have met in Nigeria are not at all democratic in their way of thinking and in their attitudes. For instance:
So as far as we can see the whole culture is very undemocratic on all levels. So how can you claim that democracy is not an alien concept in Africa? Do you do any research in this field?
Let me start with the doctors side of it. I will first say that the basic problem is illiteracy and again the predominance of superstition. Both religions have made people a little dozy, Islam in particular, on questioning attitudes to authorities because authority is associated with God. This is part of the problem, and this is why you find in many traditional settings that there is hardly any separation between the king and the priest. Where you combines the two it becomes it becomes almost impossible to question what he says. But these are just exceptions. It is true that there is an appearance of uncritical submission to authority, but I emphasise that it is just an appearance. If you ever visited the Emir's court at night and see him sit with his counsellors you will know that there is no absolutism in governance even in the most autocratic systems we find. It is the military that has introduced absolutism to governance in the African context. If you ever had the opportunity to intermingle with families at their most relaxed environment, you will discover that children do ask critical questions of their parents to the point that even irritates the parents. I recall my own experience as child, yes you were taught to respect elders, but it is not like you are silenced from asking questions. And I remember occasions in my own childhood when I asked questions that were considered too radical and I got beaten for it. I still tell my children that my uncle slapped me. We were taught not to give people things with the left hand and I don't know if I was left-handed initially, but the culture discourage left-handedness, so I gave something to my uncle with my left hand and the next thing I saw was a ball of fire in my eyes. Of cause since then I never did that again, I never repeated it. But then in the evening I asked my uncle why he was so angry with me that he did what he did and then he sat me down and explained why. I cannot remember the details now, but what i am saying here is that in the public because we put emphasis on good behaviour you have the appearance of docility. Even the husband - wife relationship is not as it appears in the public. In other words one has the impression as if the woman is treated as a property she cannot talk to the husband, she dares not challenge him, but my childhood experience with my parents completely contradicts that to the point that it leads to quarrels and to the point of exchanging blows. It suggests that the wife refuses to accept certain things and when the man feels threatened because of the belief that he is the head of the family - both religions emphasise and we talk about this the leadership of the family and to a large extend I do share that, because, it has not to be a man, but somebody must be in charge in order that the boat can sail smoothly - so the summary of this is that African society by and large had democratic norms. In fact there is no king in African society that is absolute what you find is a rulership of elders and of cause you have age groups also with its own norms and within that structure, unless the people is happy with their leaders the leadership cannot stay.. And we have records of kings and … we had a grant from the Ford Foundation to research into traditional values and democracy. We are trying to trace various different political systems and what values kind of support them and what we are trying to do is to see which of those political systems are authoritarian which are more prone to democratic values as we know it today. So the summery of this is basically that there is an element of truth in your observations, there is an appearance of worship of authority, which has been informed by the inception of the leadership of every organisation whether it is the family the school , the university or the nation at large It mean they believe that authority need to be respected to be obeyed, but within the context of a transitional society I think this is really the basic problem here that , because we have been so much under military rule in the last 35 years, even the basic democratic tendencies in our society have been suppressed . We discovered that even in the second Republic before the military came back again in 1983, civilian governors were behaving like military governors. Governors would rather give orders rather than remember that this was a constitutional government. Even in our universities. As I said to someone, I had to remind my vice chancellor, the university is not a military cantonment it is an institution with democratic structures, with committees, so you do not take decisions and implement with vivid effect, this is a military culture, so that has compounded the problem of democracy for us that we are battling with attitudes that are derived from this prolonged subjection to military rule. You go through the streets and you see people with guns, who is subjective to this harassment. They come to the petrol station in stead of lining up because they have the gun or they are big men that must have their will, and that has - because Nigerians have been subjected to these brutalities, it seems as if -- even the military men are now complaining , some retired military officers are saying, Nigerians are too docile, they tolerate injustice too much, so they are not saying anything and this is part of the agenda for the Centre that we are facing a thoroughly militarised society and it is not going to be easy to get people out of this mould, but it is something that we have to address. There is no doubt, traditionally, I mean pre-colonial Nigeria - most historical research shows that there is no leader who can survive - you know - without addressing the democratic content of society. No king ever before the colonial time - in fact we now argue that the colonial part of our history has strengthened the authoritarian tendencies in our society because the colonial state and their administrator treated the natives with authority . They instituted structures that were basically authoritarian which drove away these democratic tendencies in our society. This is part of the problems we have inherited. So when you see school children or even children trying to load it over their younger brother it is part of this tradition, they grew up in it . Many , I mean Nigeria is more than 100 million people they say, about fifty millions of that grew up under military rule. They never knew any civilian rule. And so - by an large - that attitude is transmitted in our behaviour. It is a major problem that the Centre confronts as we try to inculcate democratic values.
That makes me ask: what about the schools as a target for your work?
We have it on the drawing board that in fact it is a very fundamental sector that we must reach with the democratic message is the schools. Not only in relation to teachers and students, you are right when you say that there is this culture where students don't think they can challenge their teachers. You see students who read much wider than their teachers, and do have information that their teachers don't have. But it is also true that students by the law have been encouraged to ask questions to challenge teachers - I remember my daughter when we came back from the States, she started secondary school was reporting how the teacher gave some wrong information. One of her classmates corrected it and of cause the teacher felt embarrassed. It is out of this kind of embarrassment that teachers try to discourage students from talking, but the law requires that students should be given - after all the educational system derives from the British and it has this liberal component - encouraging students to ask questions, critical questions, and in the university what you find is that because the teachers are not themselves well prepared they do not encourage students. But in spite of that our students are the most aggressive in terms of challenging the authoritarian character of the university system. This is why we had crisis over crises even as recently as Jos had a few weeks back, because the vice-chancellor and his team decided that the students must move, and the students said "Why should we move" and that led to riots. So you can see the remnant of that democratic spirit in almost every sector so our target is to move into the secondary schools in particular and even primary schools to encourage democratic processes so that leaders in their various groups, even students in their classrooms should be encouraged to challenge decisions that do not address their interests. Because ultimately they must be made to be aware that they have responsibility to ensure democracy. Nobody will give it to them. The teachers will not give it to them, even their leaders will not give it to them until they demand it. That is what we are trying to preach. So we see the schools as a major target of our activities. Again all of this depends on what support we have from both private and public resources. Of cause we do not try to solicits support from the government because we don't want to compromise our independence.
The work for a democratic society is -- as you indicate in your leaflet -- a long process which includes the changing of society right from the bottom, what is your comment to the actual political situation in Nigeria?
It is basically that we have a huge task ahead of us because as I said the Nigerian democratic spirit has been demobilised in the last 30 years of military rule. So much as one foreign observer commented recently: If you drive a Nigerian against a wall he would rather break the wall than face his oppressor. He will prefer to break this wall to get away rather than stand up to his oppressor. This is how far military rule has taken us and so it is a very huge task before us. We have no illusion about it. But as a Chinese proverb says: a journey of one thousand miles begins with one step. If we can successively install democracy in Nigeria then we can begin to its neighbours and gradually conquer authorianism on the continent. So we do hope that with the support of both local democrats and international sympathisers that even though this job is really Herculean … as I said Nigerians are all committed to democracy but only 12% said they have ever worked for democracy. We want to see congruence between that commitment and readiness to work for democracy, to make people realise that democracy cannot be given it has to be worked for persistently, defended persistently. That is what the mission of the Centre is.
Thank you!