Politics
By Anthony Isibor
PROF. Adebayo Olukoshi says that character and dignity are factors that are needed in nation building and transformation and that while character builds a nation, dignity transforms it.
Delivering Convocation Lecture at the Ahmadu Bello University on Tuesday, January 24, 2023, Olukoshi noted that greatness is open to all peoples and nations, and is not a special attribute of any one region or exclusive preserve of any one people.
He said that with the right mix of actors, factors and foresight, any nation can achieve, sustain and reproduce all the elements required for transformation and greatness.
According to him, the first of these factor places a preponderance of weight on the role and place of culture and religion in the making of greatness.
In his summation, this view is based on their culture and religion, “Some people are more disposed to build and sustain a transformative work ethic than others. For Protestants, for example, work is allegedly considered a religious duty, which must be embraced based on the idea that earthly success is a part of the trajectory to the heavenly perfection that is anticipated. Most of the developed countries of today passed through the Protestant Reformation that set them on the path of transformation.
“To be clear, the competing perspectives that have recently gained in popularity in seeking to explain what makes for the greatness or failure of nations have their place with regard to the thoughts they provoke in us about aspects of the performance of nations in realising their potential and marching forward to greatness. But on their own, even setting aside their weaknesses, including the fact that they too Eurocentric, ahistorical, unidirectional, and unidimensional, they do not individually tell a full story or adequately capture the historical context of the making of national greatness. In fact, they mostly read as ex-post facto explanatory variables that aim to understand the drivers of success by using highly stylised case examples or experiences that are then generalised into prescriptions for global application. The result is a massive industry in mimicry and copycat policies that have been the bane of international development cooperation.
“I want to suggest today to this august assembly of leaders and citizens that across history, especially in reference to our contemporary world, the moment of transformation arrived when as a people, based on a critical stock-taking and self-introspection, the winning and defence of national dignity and honour became the fundamental order of the day, providing the directive principle by which leaders and citizens functioned, policies formulated, and politics played. Historically, the immediate trigger for that moment of national reset has either come from below in the form of revolution or from above by way of an elite awakening borne out of enlightened self-interest. The period of determined national reset is also the season for the forging and popularisation of the values that serve as the bedrock for renewing citizenship and foregrounding character in the forward march of national progress.
“On the basis of the foregoing, cutting through much of the ex-post facto mystification that were developed and which continue to be propounded as explanatory narratives for the success of some nations in achieving greatness, I want to propose to us that while character is important for building a nation, dignity transforms it. No nation has achieved greatness, which has not discovered the public purpose around which politics and policy can be organised. The commitment to and diligent pursuit of the public purpose as the overarching framework for the national interest requires that citizens, whether as governors or the governed, are imbued with the sense of character on the basis of which a system of reciprocal accountability can be established. Beyond this, to take the nation on to the path of greatness, character must produce a thirst for collective dignity. Let us take a few examples to illustrate this point.
“The first case of national transformation in recent history which I would like to cite is the example of England when it was under an absolute monarch like much of Europe. The feudal monarchy thrived on levying of taxes, the control of land, trade, and territory, and the waging wars through which booties were accumulated.
“To make the leap into the industrial capitalist era, major reforms of the monarchical system were called for. The organising principle for the reforms were captured under the slogan: No taxation without representation. It was a campaign driven from above but which had a broad-based popular appeal for rights of citizenship. It was also a call for accountability. It was a demand for participation. Out of the campaign, the present system of a constitutional monarchy was established and core political powers of legislation and decision-making transferee to the House of Commons.
“The path to the greatness of contemporary France began with a popular claim for dignity that played out on the streets of the country in a revolutionary fervour that saw the transformation of the plea of the masses for bread into a generalised political claim for liberty, equality, and fraternity. The slogan of the revolution spoke directly to the demands that had built up from below for a life of dignity that encompassed the right to bread, but was not limited just to the politics of the below. The right to life was expanded by the revolutionaries to encompass individual liberty and collective dignity in an environment of equality, justice, and solidarity. It marked the turning point in the making of modern France and its transformation into one of the great actors in the international system.
“The making of the United States of America cannot be understood outside of the a strong desire by a swathe of the population in Europe to escape monarchical tyranny and the grinding poverty that underpinned the feudal-aristocratic order in order to envision a new world of equal opportunities bereft of privilege by birth and based on merit and work. It is little wonder that the framers of the constitution, determined to avoid reproducing the monarchical excesses that characterised absolutist Europe, ensured that a system of separation of powers was erected, placed considerable power and authority in Congress, and affirmed the self-evident truth that all are born equal.
“The quest for collective dignity in the history of the United States after the American Revolution became the trigger for one of the most interesting experiments in modern constitutional engineering. It was a quest for which it was deemed worthwhile to fight a civil war. That war itself became an important turning point in the capitalist transformation of the country.
“Let it be assumed that the decisive role of dignity in the transformation of nations is a Euro-American story, it will be useful to also examine the cases of some of the successful countries of Asia. To begin with Japan, its success in decisively turning the corner occurred within the framework of the Meiji Restoration of 1868 which dissolved the feudal system embodied by the Tokugawa Shogunate that had started in 1603 and unleashed the reforms that brought about the country’s transformation.
“It was a movement that was underpinned with a national agenda that had been underwritten by members of the Samurai class determined to unite the country under a central government and transform it based on a home-made and home-led strategy that would preserve its national independence- and pride – in the face of increasing imperialist forays from Europe. Japan never looked back since then. Japan’s emergence as an international power cannot be understood without a close study of the Meiji Restoration.
“The second factor, most recently represented and popularised by Acemoglu and Robinson, places emphasis on the quality of institutions and the decisions that emanate from them. Rich countries are founded around inclusive and uncorrupted institutions, while poor countries are saddled with extractive institutions that hold them back and keep them down. It is not the ignorance of leaders that make institutions not to work, but rather the domination of those institutions by strong leaders exercising discretionary personal rule that enriches them individually, while impoverishing their nations. The more inclusive the institutions of a nation, the richer and greater it will be.
“The third factor, championed by management gurus and business schools argues the case for the centrality of the leadership factor in making a difference among nations. Building on organisational theory, the exponents of this position place emphasis on the emergence of coherent and visionary leadership that is technically skilled and politically adept in making and sustaining transformation. The approach gained in intellectual currency beyond the walls of MBA schools in the United States and Europe in the context of the “pacted transitions” of the 1990s in Latin America and the role played by Ivy-League educated technopols in pushing agendas of structural transformation based on the market-liberalising precepts of the Washington Consensus. Described by Guillermo O’Donnell as “the technopols”, people who combined high technical abilities and competence with political commitments and projects of societal transformation, they became in certain quarters the elite crust that were expected to drive and sustain reforms.
“The fourth factor speaks to the place of geographical environment and climate as playing a game-changing role. Jared Diamond, a leading exponent of this position, in his book Guns, Germs, and Steel argues that nations that formed countries in geographical locations with pleasant temperate climates turn out to be far more successful than those that are located in inclement tropical zones where disease is rife and average productivity is impossibly low to drive and sustain transformation. A variant of this argument was propounded by Jeffrey Sachs in his assessment of what he considered to be the impossible circumstances of landlocked countries that call for special dispensations to salvage them, including investments in infrastructure, social policy, and human resources.” he said.
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Tags: Ahmadu Bello University Anthony Isibor
