If President Donald Trump had his way, he would have turned the United States of America to Nigeria within months of his presidential inauguration – a vast enclave of lawlessness where weak and corrupt institutions express only the perverse will and desires of the richest members of society while permanently punishing, marginalizing, or excluding the poor and the weak. As a wrecking ball, President Trump would have had help from a massively corrupt Republican Party establishment.
If the ideas and ideals of the American Republic are still holding on despite the sustained assault on them by President Trump and his enablers, it is because institutions built by the founders of that Republic, and sustained for the past two centuries by the people’s collective self-perception and will, have been very resilient and have resisted the assault on them by President Trump.
Try as they have for instance, President Trump and his enablers – his cabinet and the entire Republican machine playing to the worst instincts of an inchoate base – have not been able to stop the wheels of justice from grinding as they were designed to grind. The Mueller investigation grinds on; multiple lawsuits against President Trump for sharp practices and ethical violations grind on; multiple investigations into members of President Trump’s cabinet grind on.
In essence, President Trump and his enablers are being taught a lesson in fundamental civics: in any national experiment, institutions are destiny. Institutions may suffer assaults and may even be injured because they are never perfect, they must continuously endure, resist, and retain their fundamental identity as custodians of the fundamental principles, values, ideas, and ideals of the Republic. Abstract and philosophical notions such as the equality of all citizens before the law, crime and punishment, law and order, actions and consequences have meaning only insofar as institutions of the body politic are there to actuate and translate them into the daily lifeworld of the citizen.
ALSO READ: PDP takes Osinbajo to task over alleged N33bn corruption allegation
President Trump’s rude introduction to civics may yet be the greatest gift of this American moment to the Nigerian elite and people. The performance of American institutions in the face of the wrecking ball that are the incumbent American president and his enablers is the only thing that is preventing the world’s most advanced democracy from regressing to the Dark Ages. We copied and pasted the American presidential system without thinking too much about its attendant responsibilities the most significant of which is the necessity of institutions built and sustained by the will and vigilance of the people. Without institutions, all national experiments are doomed.
Nigerians love to believe that our institutions are weak. However, the truth is much uglier: they are non-existent. Consider the following scenarios. In the build-up to the 2015 election, President Buhari campaigned on two core philosophies: integrity and change. He was going to inject integrity into the body politic by changing the way we do business. Against the backdrop of the gargantuan corruption of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, and the even sorrier history of the PDP, integrity and change seemed an attractive proposition.
Change and integrity were going to start with the man who rode to Aso Rock Villa on those two horses. So the nation believed. He was going to start by making himself an example of those ideals. So the nation believed. Where better to start than retiring his campaign funds and making a comprehensive audit available to show transparency as is done in saner climes? Apart from reinforcing his integrity creds, such a move would have given meaning and currency to the philosophy of change for it has never been part of Nigeria’s institutional culture and history for political candidates to retire and audit their campaign funds. Nothing was ever heard of President Buhari’s 2015 campaign funds because he never set an example of change by retiring them. Alas, there are no institutions of the Nigerian body politic strong enough to trigger an investigation into the campaign finances of a presidential incumbent.
President Buhari has a vast national cult followership. Many in the cult are following the American scenario of Donald Trump being investigated for Russia, Trump University, misuse of Trump Foundation charity funds, campaign violations through payments of hush money to prostitutes and porn stars. I have seen many Buhari cultists praise and admire the resilience of American institutions vis-à-vis of the transgressions of Donald Trump.
They do this without a tinge of irony for irony is not a Nigerian citizen. Tell these Buhari cultists that you would love a situation where Nigerian institutions would be able to trigger and open an inquiry into how President Buhari funded his campaign in 2015 and you could trigger a civil war for in the hearts and minds of Nigerians, the persona and the mythology of the individual political actor are superior to our institutions.
The tragedy of Nigeria, therefore, is that the political elite has not only destroyed our institutions, they are able to enlist a vast army of under-educated, poorly educated, and wrongly educated citizens to serve as undertakers of the institutions they have killed. When American institutions look in the direction of corrupt members of President Trump’s cabinet, Nigerians hail such moves. Apply the same principles to Nigeria and you run into troubled waters.
This explains why President Buhari moves with considerable reluctance against any member of his entourage accused of corruption and, even when he moves, he has to be dragged kicking and screaming, from Babachir Lawal to Kemi Adeosun. And where he can get away with reinstating the indicted, he wastes no time. He can get away with these things because they only genuine democracy that is practised in Nigeria is one in which every citizen is democratically welcome to help subvert our institutions in the service of political gods and heroes.
Our path to institutional restoration ironically has everything to do with one of the institutions we have destroyed: education. I have advocated – and it bears repeating – that irrespective of their field of study, all Nigerian University students must be made to take at least four credits of courses in requisite areas of the social sciences and the humanities where the idea and ideals of institutions can be rooted in their minds. Education is where the culture of institutions begins. If we can teach the Nigerian mind about institutions, we stand a good chance of national rebirth.
Pius Adesanmi is Director of the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Follow me on Twitter: @pius_adesanmi