‘Leave no one behind’ is the catchphrase of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As development challenges become multifaceted and complex, societies get increasingly fractured with the continuous widening of the gap between the privileged and the rest. Inequality constitutes a threat to eradicating poverty, promotes elite capture, prevents building peaceful and prosperous societies, and hinders social mobilisation.
Elite power concerns a group of people in a society who has captured economic and political power, thereby widening the societal gap in such a way that undermines poverty eradication and shared prosperity. Nigeria, like other countries of the world, have elites who hold levers of power and use them to influence, whether intentionally or by design, the country’s development pathway and extent of public participation.
Social mobilisation is a process of motivating and getting individuals, groups and communities to organise and address common development problems facing them. These levels of mobilisation operate together and exacerbate one another in profound ways, thus compounding experiences of inequality and the power leverage elites hold. Stereotypes and normative assumptions of elites often shape layers of discrimination embedded in social mobilisation.
What is the nature of elite power in Nigeria and the institutional factors that perpetuate them?
Nigeria experiences elite power in uniquely different ways but is not insulated from forces at the global scene. Neoliberalism has created and helped perpetuate various forms of avenues for elites to avoid the rules they set but impose on other groups of the society. This condition promotes a battleground where not what is best for the society is the bounty but having captured more losers than winners.
Since where you stand influences where you sit, identity, economic and religious politics have been distinctive features of the country’s power relations. Nigeria’s elite makeup is a formidable relationship between the politicians, religious leaders and the business class. Politicians have amassed enormous wealth and influence since the country returned to democratic rule in 1999. This mix of wealth and power manifests in changes to people’s agency, social structures, policies, and laws. Through various means, including electoral malpractices, selective application of the constitution, arrogating ridiculous salaries to themselves, promoting oppressive regulations, and denial of basic rights, the political class has effectively made itself the most powerful force in the country.
The role religious leaders play in the country is a complex and unmissable one. In the northern part of the country where they tend to also double as traditional leaders, they wield enormous power in matters of culture, commerce, morality, and jurisprudence. Leaders of key religions in the country have played some roles in supporting or criticising the political establishment. They share close relations with the political class, who often use them as a vehicle to reach their grassroots supporters or opposition.
Those who occupy primarily traditional positions bear no role in Nigerian governance structure. As a consequence, this situation has significantly whittled down their sway. Most of them are unwilling to speak truth to power about the social consequences of political decisions. While some of those who get outspoken may get punished, most are ignored. A recent illustration is the case of the former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi. He was dethroned for being too critical of political and traditional elites regarding their callous indifference on issues of development and poverty. In the BBC’s article announcing his dethronement, it says, “Mr Sanusi was seen as a reformist and had been critical of some government policies.”
Economic rules of the game are set by political officeholders. Since businesses sometimes pursue interests beyond legal structures, they seek to win over the political to achieve their goals. Nigeria has produced businessmen, particularly since the birth of the fourth republic in 1999 and the sweeping neoliberal economic policies that followed. These policies benefited, to a large extent, those with close links with the political elites. Some are rewarded with bewildering incentives that propelled their profits. This can permit monopolies which they often exploit to the maximum. Businessmen have expanded their empires and wealth by continually cementing their ties with the Nigerian political elites.
Numerous institutional factors perpetuating this gap between the elites and the rest of the society. They are multifaceted, covering social, political, electoral and legislative dimensions. Those occupying the political realm, most profoundly, provide a structure to the citizen’s everyday life. Corruption, elite capture, nepotism and rent-seeking are pervasive in the Nigerian institutional landscape. Proofs of these have been sufficiently documented elsewhere and will not be detailed here. The scale of inequality between the haves and the have-nots soared significantly in the last decade and concerns about social justice and equity reached unprecedented levels. The machinery of government is source of self-enrichment to the political elites and is shared with vested interests in religious and business circles.
What are the consequences for social mobilisation at local and national levels?
Elites play a key role in the deepening of social and economic cleavages in the country. These are most demonstrated by rising poverty levels, gagging of the informal sector, and poor state of public services. Today, the country houses the highest number of poor people in the world at 100 million. Unemployment and underemployment have simultaneously increased alongside poverty levels coupled with an explosion of the youth population. The elites, particularly those belonging to the political class, stifle opportunities for equitable prosperity distribution and wield their influence in perpetuating a lopsided society.
Productivity in the country’s sensitive informal sector is undermined by the elites and institutions meant to ensure their growth. Economic and social welfare policies have been expressly deployed by the political class to garner patronage and consolidate power. Misallocation of resources, misappropriation of opportunities and biased policymaking became the norm. To illustrate an example, OXFAM published a report in 2017 that captured the state of inequality in the country and explored its drivers.
The absence of adequate public services and access to them is deleterious to social mobilisation. An often overlooked feature of public services aside from the utility for positive human development indices is their ability to stimulate the economy. With the economy not generating enough jobs, a difficult business environment and weakening domestic investment become the order of the day. A climate like this cannot produce active citizenship or effective social mobilisation.
Most sobering is the country’s teeming youth population who are unspared from continuous and stubborn disregard by elites. A dangerously near snobbery that fuels poverty, insecurity, and crime. However, many remain dogged and diffuse beneficent results beyond all expectations. As institutions are increasingly co-opted, the diversity of their skills, novelty, and brilliance is at risk of being doomed to lethargy and embitterment. The tech hub, which is perceived as an outlier, can be of immense resource to social mobilisation in the country but is being mugged by the elites.
What needs to be done to overcome these challenges?
The country can consider different strategies to mobilise citizens, diverse political actors and social groups for transformative change. These approaches implemented together would go a long way in driving progressive change and push forward the vision of the 2030 Agenda. However, it is crucial that these are pursued in a conducive and well-concerted policy space.
- Access to information: The Nigerian government should prioritise disclosure and freedom of information. Much details about policies, legislations, contracts, tax systems and appointments are shrouded in secrecy. Recent developments have shown that the state is increasingly becoming intolerant of free speech as demonstrated principally by restrictions on social media.
- Inclusion and participation: Voices calling for a restructuring of governance modalities have gotten louder in recent times. Arguments that the current political arrangements don’t sufficiently encourage equity are well-founded. To heed this call would promote the pursuit of measures to safeguard the policymaking and implementation processes from elite capture although only this is insufficient.
- Accountability: Impunity is a defining illness among Nigerian elites. Strong institutions must be in place to serve the public in fairness and equality following the rule of law. Responsibilities of different levers in governance must be stipulated as well as the linkages between them. Not only will this enable citizens better manage their expectations, but it will also foster engagement between both parties in the pursuit of development outcomes.
- Local organisational capacity: A successful level of accountability and trust breeds the ability of the people to organise. Through various civil society organisations, associations, and community groups, they can collaborate to address common development issues or present their demands to the right authorities.
- Address poverty: Soaring poverty levels continue to force people who want to stay above the basic threshold of subsistence to align with any of the three elite groups in the country. The Nigerian system is fiercely centred around power explotation which would demand collaborative social mobilisation to upset. The current elite structure is known to further entrench the mass of the people in biting poverty, but efforts at improving their standards of living can strengthen their resolve to mobilise.
Agenda 2030 is ultimately a partnership project. Inequalities are structural and systemic. They have steadily grown and progress towards wellbeing for all peoples is depressingly low in the country. On this point, levelling out social stratification and devolving power to non-elites remains fed by many currents from the long stream of development reform.
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