PRESIDENT Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s demonstrably unconstitutional suspension of the elected leaders of Rivers State and his illegal imposition of a retired military officer as sole administrator in the exercise of his otherwise constitutional privilege to declare a state of emergency in any part of the country is the latest addition in a long list of instances of his embrace of the very things he once resented and fought against when he was outside the reins of federal power.
For example, he was brutally censorious of Goodluck Jonathan’s withdrawal of fuel subsidies in 2012. He expressed sentiments in writing and in speeches that resonated with the angst of the masses. He even helped finance a nationwide mass protest that so convulsed the country that Jonathan was compelled to back off his plans.
Yet, one of the first acts Tinubu did as a president in May 2023 was to announce an economically and socially disruptive withdrawal of fuel subsidies that has deepened poverty, annihilated the middle class, and ruptured the very fabric of Nigerian society.
Again, when Olusegun Obasanjo unconstitutionally suspended Plateau State’s Governor Joshua Dariye—along with state legislators—in May 2004 and appointed General Chris Ali as the state’s sole administrator, then Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Lagos rightly called the act “illegal.”
“It is unfortunate and illegal,” he said. “This has to be discouraged. It is a bad precedent. What the president of the country has done, I pray it doesn’t stand.”
In fact, when Goodluck Jonathan declared states of emergency in the three northeastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa without suspending the elected leaders of the state, which I commended in a May 25, 2013, column titled “The Malcolm Xian Logic in Jonathan’s Praiseworthy Boko Haram Offensive,” Tinubu condemned it as unacceptable federal overreach.
“No governor of a state in Nigeria is the chief security officer,” he said. “Putting the blame on the governors, who have been effectively emasculated, for the abysmal performance of the government at the centre which controls all these security agencies, smacks of ignorance and mischief.”
He contended that Jonathan’s action “seeks to abridge or has the potential of totally scuttling the constitutional functions of governors and other elected representatives of the people” and that it would be “counterproductive in the long run.”
Given an opportunity to give materiality to the principles he espoused when he had no access to federal power, he has become indistinguishable from, and in many cases worse than, the objects of erstwhile censure.
Tinubu now implements the same policies he once condemned and has become the same personality he once reviled. He exemplifies the aphoristic wisdom (often attributed to historian Ariel Durant or her husband Will Durant) that says, “Today’s rebel is tomorrow’s tyrant.” In Tinubu’s case, he was yesterday’s rebel and today’s tyrant.
Why do most people who initially invested symbolic and political capital in fighting against authority or oppression eventually become the very oppressors they once resisted? Why do firebrands and idealists often morph into the very thing they once denounced after assuming power?
The evidence of history shows us that resistance to tyranny can, and often does, end in new tyrannies. Critics of war or corruption frequently adopt those same practices when they find themselves in the circles of power.
So, this is beyond Tinubu as a person, who probably never really had any principles to begin with, whose resistance to past oppressive policies was probably mere calculative opportunism.
But why do previously genuinely adversarial people become the very things they once opposed with such regularity? Observers from psychology, philosophy, and political theory have long studied this phenomenon.
A previous column I wrote (and republished twice) on the psychology of power pointed out that “people under the influence of power are neurologically similar to people who suffer traumatic brain injury” and posited that situational, power-induced brain damage may be responsible for this.
Philosophers have also grappled with the paradox of noble ideals curdling into oppression. Friedrich Nietzsche, for example, famously warned of the moral danger that comes with fighting evil too intensely. “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster,” Nietzsche wrote, adding, “If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Nietzsche’s metaphor speaks to how the struggle for power or justice can warp people’s souls. Revolutionaries and reformers, in attempting to vanquish a “monster” (e.g. a tyrant or an unjust system), may take on the very methods and mindset of that monster.
His concept of the “will to power” also suggests that the drive to attain power can override other moral constraints, so that once the will to power is unleashed, individuals rationalize actions that serve dominance.
French theorist Michel Foucault provides another lens through which we can make sense of the phenomenon of people taking on the very methods and mindset of the beasts of power they once fought.
He said, “Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.” By that, he means no one is ever truly outside power relations; even the most vicious critics of the most monstrous regimes operate within a field of power. Once the critics take control, he said, they often reproduce the very power dynamics they once criticized, even if their rhetoric changes.
The line between oppressor and liberator can blur: the roles may switch, but the play remains the same. Foucault’s insight is that systems of power tend to self-perpetuate, regardless of who is at the helm, unless conscious effort is made to dismantle those underlying structures.
In other words, a change in leadership without a change in what Foucault calls the “microphysics of power” is likely to yield similar repressive outcomes. The new boss becomes “same as the old boss,” because the circuitry of power channels them into that role.
That’s why the sadly familiar pattern of “condemning in opposition, then doing in government” is so widespread that it almost seems like a political law of gravity. It’s good to bear this in mind as we read and listen to the pronouncements of current “opposition” politicians who seem like they identify with popular causes and sentiments.
Like Tinubu, today’s opponents of executive overreach may extend their own executive powers once they have the opportunity.
Like Tinubu, they will have a story to tell themselves and the public to justify their U-turn: the situation is different, their actions are for the greater good, their previous stance was based on incomplete information, etc. And indeed, sometimes circumstances do legitimately change.
But when the dust settles, the outcome looks awfully familiar. Pro-democracy activists become a congress of tyrants and justifiers of tyranny; the fierce social critic and human rights activist who once decried abuses now defends them; the liberator who once raged against oppressors now only liberates his stomach. As the Roman philosopher-politician Cicero once wrote, “It is easier to criticize than to do better.”
Fortunately, this cycle is not inevitable. Many thinkers advocate checks and balances, institutional limits, and personal integrity as antidotes, although even those seem to be insufficient.
Nigeria’s National Assembly, as we have seen in the last few years, particularly in the last few days, can neither check nor balance the excesses of the executive. It’s a slavish extension of Aso Rock. The voices of the few honest, conscientious ones among them are drowned out by the cacophony that the rapacious, unprincipled, mercenary self-seekers among them, who constitute the majority, emit. The judiciary is even worse.
It is easy to be disillusioned and to surrender amid. To be frank, I have found myself in that state many times. But power must be continually guarded and checked. Philosopher Hannah Arendt observed that only constant vigilance and a commitment to plurality and law prevent rebels from calcifying into tyrants.
We must all do our part to hold people in power to account, even if we’re not sure we would do better ourselves. At this point, the only check and balance against creeping tyranny is the democratic rebellion of the people.
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