by Richard Joseph
The interweaving of crime and politics is a staple of political studies.[1] Recently, the “Panama Papers” of the law firm Mossack Fonseca revealed the global networks of tax-evasion, fraud, and money-laundering. In the case of Nigeria, criminality and predation have thwarted political and economic progress.[2] A year after the election of Muhammadu Buhari, and the historic transfer of power among political parties, the glow of political renewal has dimmed.
After huge expenditures, and structural reforms by successive governments, the provision of electricity has dropped. Queuing for petrol by motorists has returned, and businesses, hospitals, and universities are hobbled by fuel scarcity. How, it may be asked, can petroleum be scarce in a leading producer of the commodity, and during a global glut in oil supplies and collapsed prices? Deepening the distress is an attempt to stem inflation through currency control. The maintenance of an official price for the Nigerian currency, while the parallel rate soars, facilitates profiteering. The broader economic consequences of this policy are sadly predictable.[3]
Conversations with Nigerians eventually turn to the webs of criminality in which they are mired.[4] Everyone must look after self and family thereby justifying survivalist and institutionally corrosive behaviors. As in other world regions, a toxic mix of jihadism, cultism, and banditry is transforming citizens into suicidal murderers. Boko Haram is an outgrowth of socio-economic decline in the country’s northeast, a deliberately seeded extremist ideology, and decades-long disrespect for lawful governance.
Can Nigeria be extricated from this swamp? Can the Buhari government nurture a developmental rather than dysfunctional state? Answers to these questions have wide implications. As Egypt descends into an authoritarian sinkhole, Brazil succumbs to a quagmire of corrupt governance, and the ANC in South Africa’s drifts from liberation politics to predation, Nigeria’s performance as a federal democracy has global significance. In an April 5 interview with Jerome McDonnell of the NPR/WBEZ program, Worldview, Richard Joseph discussed the acute challenges posed by corruption, cultist jihadism, and dysfunctional institutions.
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