Erudite Professor from Kenya, Prof. Lumumba has said that we cannot afford the luxury of the Democracy of the West that it is theirs, and we have ours.
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Prof. Lumumba made this statement while speaking on the theme: “Theme: Strong Men Vs Strong Institutions – Strengthening Democracy In Nigeria”, at the AELEX 2019 Lecture, Muson Center, Lagos, on the 3rd July, 2019
Professor Lumumba as the guest speaker made a wonderful presentation, analyzing the theme for this year’s lecture. According to him, the colonial masters did whatever they had in mind to do, not minding if it had a negative effect on those the colonized; that as a result of this, our founding fathers inherited alien institutions, not harmonized with the peculiarity of the people and as a result, led to the existence of Strong Men. He added that the typical African leader during the post-colonial era was strong because he had the backing of the British Empire or the French.
“The colonial masters did whatever they had in mind to do, not minding if it had a negative effect on those the colonized. As a result of this, our founding fathers inherited alien institutions, not harmonized with the peculiarity of the people and as a result, led to the existence of Strong Men.
“The typical African leader during the post-colonial era was strong because he had the backing of the British Empire or the French. Our founding Fathers understood that Nigeria was a country comprising of different countries, this is our reality and our democracy should accommodate this fact,” he said.
He also said that the danger with strong men is that they forget themselves, they eventually become rouge. They start well; have a clear vision, clarity of purpose, which is why a strong institution is important to checkmate them when they go rouge. There may be tendencies of dictatorship but the strong man is what we need. He further said that the strong man that has become too strong will likely prevents the establishment of strong institutions because they will check his excesses. Even the ones with strong institutions have made them weak or subordinate.
He also said that African Society has not defined democracy to suit its own way. According to him, there is no One-Size-Fits-All meaning of democracy for the African continent.
“We define democracy the way Abraham Lincoln defined it but in the African society, where is the people? The people are nowhere to be found because we have not defined democracy to suit our own way. Democracy meaning a Multi-party politics was defined this way for us by the West and they made us accept this meaning.
“There is no One-Size-Fits-All meaning of democracy for the African continent. It should be practiced in a manner that suits the people of that region so each country must define theirs. When we have strong men and weak or no institutions, it eventually leads to a collapse just like the Soviet Union,” he added.
Furthermore, he emphasized that the African continent needs strong men and women as they are useful, including strong institutions; that the constitution of a nation is very important because our institutions must be strengthened by it. These strong men and women must be subject to the law so the need for strong institutions to put them in check, stressing that we should know that the westerners still threat us as inferiors.
Other discussants at the event shared their view on the theme of the program. One of the discussants, Hon. Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, noted that her concern is the fact that only very few strong men in Africa were subject to the rule of law; that a great number of them are not. Like the current President of Cameroun.
Dr. Joe Abah on the other hand is of the opinion that we should not continue referring to the colonial masters as the reason for our failures in the continent, stressing that they are not the cause of corruption or looting of treasury. He stated that South East Asia was also colonized by the British and they have moved on since then. He also believes the Federal Character System is causing more harm than good.
Mr. Fola Arthur agrees with Professor Lulumba that we need Strong men and Strong Institutions to enable them perform their duties within the ambits of the law. But we still have serious issues to deal with. Crisis of Trust on the men and the institutions because some institutions have also gone rouge as a result of how powerful they are; Crisis of the fact that democracy as we have it today since 1999, has not delivered its dividends to the people as expected.
On the Federal Character System, Hon, Justice Mariam believes it has its own good side even though it may lead to having incompetent persons as head. We cannot do anything on that at the moment until we have that section of the law in our constitution amended.
During the Question and Answer session, a participant, Adebayo said that our case is such that if we elect a strong man who then appoints other strong men that head institutions and reports to the head, how will the strong man elected be checked? Another participant wondered what Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore did to take his country to where it is today even after the British colonized them?
Responding, Professor Lumumba pointed out that Singapore’s situation is different from ours because we are so different in culture, beliefs and so on. He stressed that they had a unified belief system, which was why Lee Kuan Yew succeeded. He noted that in Africa, there have been success stories like Botswana, Tanzania, and Rwanda also as a result of them playing the game according to their uniqueness.
Hon. Justice Mariam also added that we have a serious ethic problem and it makes us shy away from reporting bad deeds because the person committing it is from my tribe. She advised that we need to move passed this stage if we must move forward as a nation.
On the other hand, Dr. Joe said that the common thing amongst all the dictators in Africa has been that they were all mad men, unlike other continents that had “Benevolent Dictators”, we in Africa never had one. For Mr. Arthur, the key to change today is connection and technology has made it possible. Twitter is a great place to leverage in letting our voices to be heard as we speak against the ills in the society to see the change we need.
Vote of thanks was given by Mrs. Adekoya SAN, a Partner at AELEX. She encouraged everyone to check their website “www.aelex.com” for those interested in downloading Professor Lumumba’s Paper.
Since 2005, AELEX has been organizing a lecture as part of their commitment to raise the awareness of Africans, dissecting the various challenges we face in governance, in leadership, in politics, and other pertinent areas while proffering solutions to these challenges.
This year’s event was braced with the presence of Hon. Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar CON, CFR, FNIALS, GCON, former Chief Justice of Nigeria and Chairperson of the occasion; Professor Patrick L.O. Lumumba, Former Director of Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission Kenya, Dr. Joe Abah, former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms in the Presidency, Nigeria. And Mr. Fola Arthur-Worrey, Former CEO of the Lagos State Security Trust Fund.
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