Is Nigeria a nation of collaborators?

By Gwynne Dyer

LONDON (JP): The Pope is visiting Nigeria, Africa's biggest country -- and the global media's treatment of the story is a measure of how low the world's expectations are for Africa.

When the Pope visited Cuba in January, we had an orgy of media speculation about when the dictator Fidel Castro would finally release his grip on ten million Cubans. John Paul II sent Cuba a list of 300 political prisoners whom he wanted released, and Castro actually did free 299 (though not all the same ones).

These days the Pope is visiting Nigeria, where a military regime not only oppresses a nation ten times as populous as Cuba, but also robs it blind. Those who object too loudly are often just killed, either in 'accidents' and 'crimes' arranged by hit teams, or by judicial murder on trumped-up charges (like writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight companions who protested the environmental devastation of their native Ogoniland by foreign oil companies).

Most Nigerians lead impoverished lives while small, interlocking circles of soldiers, politicians and businessmen grow rich. A cynical 'election process' is underway to transform the current military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, into a civilian president. So are the world's media using the occasion of the Pope's visit to examine the dreadful state of affairs in Nigeria? Nah, why bother? It's only Africa -- what did you expect?

We shouldn't get too excited about all this. It's only the media -- what did you expect? If they took the story seriously, most of them still wouldn't get it right, because they only dimly realize that in many African countries a new generation of leaders is bringing a new seriousness to the business of government.

They don't even know the real question: why isn't Nigeria one of those countries? Why have Nigerians become (in the words of Adewale Maja-Pearce) "a nation of collaborators, always and everywhere prepared to sell their consciences (we don't even talk about principles) for the sake of money." Maja-Pearce is too harsh: from Nobel Prize-winner Wole Soyinka (now in exile) to Ken Saro-Wiwa, there are plenty of Nigerians who are not willing to sell their consciences. They even include military men like former president Olusegun Obasanjo (who came to power after Brigadier Murtala Muhammed was killed in 1975 in a failed coup attempt, and presided over the one successful hand-over from a military regime to an elected democratic government). The fact that Olusegun Obasanjo now languishes in jail on a fabricated charge of conspiring in a coup plot says much about the nature of the current regime. So does the fact that his last job before being jailed was chairman of the advisory council of Transparency International, the anti-corruption organization that last year declared Nigeria the most corrupt country in the world. Nigeria is not the victim of some single, brutal dictator like the late Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire; it is a corrupt system, as complex and pervasive in its way as the communist system in Cuba. And it is far harder to overthrow a system than an individual.

Why is Nigeria so complex? Partly because this is the original home of the Bantu peoples who now populate most of the African continent. West Africa in general, and Nigeria in particular, are places where many ethnic groups with hugely different histories, cultures, languages and religions are crammed together in a relatively small space: they are to the rest of black Africa as Europe is to the Americas and Australasia (though the time-scale of Bantu geographical expansion is longer).

Such places are traditionally held together by deals, and the deal that has dominated Nigerian politics for the past four decades (of which all but 10 years have been spent under military rule) is particularly pernicious. The old feudal aristocracy from the Moslem north has managed to preserve its wealth and power -- and extend its influence across the country -- by ensuring that northerners, especially from the Fulani and Hausa groups, dominate the army.

In the 1960s this strategy alienated the mostly Christian south (home to most business, industry, and the oil reserves), and there were coups, counter-coups, and even a civil war. Latterly it has evolved into a sophisticated carrot-and-stick system where most opponents are co-opted or bought off, and only the most obstinate are jailed or killed. But it has turned Nigeria into a moral and economic wreck.

There is little outside pressure for change, mainly because the United States, which buys eight percent of its oil from Nigeria, will not hear of an oil embargo. "There is no appetite for that," as former Secretary of State Warren Christopher put it. And Sani Abacha's plan to extend his five years of military rule by a fake process of democratization meets little serious resistance.

While Abacha ponders whether he should sacrifice himself further for the nation -- he has asked Nigerians to pray to God to help him decide -- four of the five tame 'political parties' he registered last year have asked him to become their candidate in the promised August presidential election. Opposition groups are splintered and despondent. So is there any hope for Nigeria?

Only a little. Many Nigerians are ashamed that their country has failed itself and Africa so badly, and the rapid emergence of post-apartheid South Africa as the continent's greatest power has exacerbated this discontent. The collapse in world oil prices (now back to 1960 levels, allowing for inflation) is cutting into the regime's ability to buy its opponents up. And though Abacha is a Moslem northerner, he is not from the right ethnic group.

When a mere Kanuri arrests a Fulani hero and lets him die in jail, as Abacha did recently with former vice-president Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, he is asking for trouble. The problem is that change, when it comes, is only likely to replace the present military ruler with another one; the system will continue. Nigeria may be the last big African state to break with the failures of the past.

Window: Nigeria is not the victim of some single, brutal dictator like the late Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire; it is a corrupt system, as complex and pervasive in its way as the communist system in Cuba. And it is far harder to overthrow a system than an individual.