My thoughts on the mystification of power, By Dan Agbese

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Pity our public officers – the president, the state governors and even the local government chairmen. They are products and victims of a pernicious social system that has hardened into a tradition, to wit, the almost criminal mystification of power.

If you mystify power, you make the power holder a demi-god or even god. It takes something away from the concept of democracy as a participatory form of government in which the leadership is as much driven by personal ambitions as by the sense of true public service inherent in the exercise of the enormous powers.

In case you have not given some thoughts to it, know ye that the mystification of power has become the bane of good governance in our country. It is positively deleterious to its health. It is at the root of the poor and mediocre governance in which we applaud motion because we mistake it for unquestionable movement by the gods. Governance becomes a product of a spur of the moment decisions propelled by flashes of inspiration and thus robs us of our collective right to thoughtful decisions undergirded by our national aspirations.

I put it to you (to sound a bit lawyerly) that governance at national and sub-national levels is characterised by crowds, noise, and the deification of men and women propelled into the stratosphere of public importance through the instrumentality of the power exercised by the poor with their ballot papers. Because we mystify power, we mystify governance, and we worship our public officers. And sycophancy has been turned into a lucrative national industry.

The president and the state governors must be attended by large crowds at every event. And every event must be a big celebration and an occasion for the display of uncommon wealth and social importance. None of them can move anywhere without the large retinue of other dignitaries whose presence reinforces the mystification of power and equates governance with the crowd effect. Favour seekers put their faces in the crowd to be noticed for the simple and logical reason that you must be noticed to be known and be remembered when the high priest dishes out the ambrosia to the faithful.

Governance, and good governance for that matter, is not birthed by crowds. It is a serious business that requires the leader to engage himself alone with thoughts away from the madding crowd. If almost every moment of a president’s time is taken up by crowds and the drumbeats of sycophants, how do we expect him to do what we put in power for, to wit, to think for us, to plan for us and execute his informed plans for us? In mystifying power, we hobble the beneficial exercise of power. We make governance a huge joke. One good reason, I think, why the system always throws up those who are never prepared for governance but are prepared for power. Power matters because it is cheaper to wield power than to govern. There is just too much wahala in governance.

When President Tinubu returned home last week, someone took his time to count the number of vehicles that followed him from the airport to his private residence in Lagos. They came to the tidy number of 124 – true or false. He did not invite the crowd. They did not need to be invited. They followed tradition that when a president or a governor travels and returns home, he must be accorded the status of a Roman general returning from war. The state governors, party men and men in search of their next level of political importance were there because welcoming a returning president that way is the time-honoured tradition of respect. Think of the waste in man hours; think of the cost to state treasuries – and then think of the price we pay as a nation for the time-honoured ego-tripping.

This time-honoured tradition is not sacred. It can be discouraged and free power from being fenced in and exercised by the few. We need to urgently demystify power because the mystification of power has poisoned every aspect of our national life. There are certain traditions that appear to be cast in marble and, therefore, no one can interfere with them. But we expect every administration to take some steps, radical or revolutionary, no matter how small, that may define its era. No nation can grow if things continue to be the same from one administration to another. Eternal sameness is anathema to the principles of human progress and societal development.

We cannot expect Tinubu to do the impossible, but it is not foolish or naïve to expect him to be found where angels fear to tread. The man who could take on the powerful fuel cartels can also change the face of government and of governance and restore a sense of proportion to the exercise of political power in our country, beginning with the simple but essential step of demystifying government and governance.

I believe he has the moral authority to arrest some of the excesses of our public officers given to extravagant celebrations of their children’s birthdays or naming ceremonies or weddings. The irony of a nation given to fighting corruption with bells and whistles and yet encourages its public officers to engage in such conspicuous and sickening display of wealth acquired in public office, must not be lost on us. The poor who pick up the crumbs know how some of them got there. It fuels insecurity and makes politics the most lucrative industry in our country. We have turned government from the means of service into the means of quick wealth, even as the 138 million country men and women who live below the line as poor watch the arrogant display of wealth in the midst of the crushing national poverty with mouths agape.

It is not impossible to demystify power and disrobe power holders are demi-gods or gods. I present three men who showed it could be done in some small ways. They climbed down from the high horse of the mystification of power. In the second republic, the late Aper Aku, governor of Benue State, refused to be addressed as your excellency. He chose to be addressed as Mr Governor.

Dr Babangida Aliyu, governor of Niger State from 2007-2011, chose to be addressed as the Chief Servant. They were minor decisions that might not have registered on the radar of our status-beloved nation and so, no one followed their footsteps then. The rest of us must have thought they beat a tin drum where the big drums were deafening. But attitudinal and social changes are quite often effected through a small step taken by one man.

Evidence that they made an impression on a younger man came from Babajide Sanwo-Olu, governor Lagos State, who announced on November 6, 2019, that he had renounced the honorific of excellency and chosen thenceforth to be addressed as Mr Governor. He described the title as “executive arrogance.” In a personally signed public statement, he said:

“In the last five months that I have been privileged to exercise the mandate freely given to me by the great and hardworking people of Lagos State, it has come to my consciousness to review certain features of citizen-government relations which impede genuine expression of the democratic spirit of our society and the meaningful exercise of the sovereignty of our people.

        “The office of the governor has been celebrated as the paragon of excellence, a temple of perfection and a throne of purity. This demi-god mystique spreads over the entire machinery of the executive arm of the government, symbolising an authoritarian disposition on the governed. It has deformed the orientation of elected and appointed persons who are paid from the taxes of the people to see themselves as oppressors who can do no wrong and must be served, rather than serve the people.

“Thenceforth I wish to be addressed simply as Mr Governor, a title that will constantly remind me that I have been chosen out of so many fellow compatriots to lead a collective salvage of our political economy.”

Think of what difference it would make to the demystification of power if Tinubu chooses to be addressed as Mr President; thins out the crowd in his office and at his official or private residence; shuns the extravagant celebrations and make our democracy truly participatory. It takes one man to effect radical or important changes in a society. Every government at every level has the opportunity to effect attitudinal changes that begin like isolated drops of rain but eventually create a flood that purifies the polluted waters in a society stuck in murk. The opportunity to do better is quite often a victim of the unimportant dressed up in the borrowed gowns of importance. Preachy? Pardon me.