International law in Nigeria’s democratic gamble

Forum 1 year ago

International law in Nigeria’s democratic gamble

Search for:

• HOME

• NEWS

• 2023 ELECTIONS

• POLITICS

• METRO

• BUSINESS

• SPORTS

• EDITORIAL

• COLUMNS

• ALLURE

• E-EDITIONS

LAW & HUMAN RIGHTS

April 20, 2023

International law in Nigeria’s democratic gamble

By Simeon Igbinedion

In post-Westphalia modern state system, there is sovereign equality of states, implying that each state is a fountain of authority over its own territorial affairs notwithstanding the discomfiture of some foreign jurisdictions or entities.

However, the reality of our contemporary world order otherwise referred to as a global village reinforces the age-worn view that no state is an island. Therefore, states have learnt to permit some cracks in their fortified wall of sovereignty in the course of international engagements. 

Against the backdrop of Abraham Lincoln’s oft-recited but ambiguous definition of democracy as the government of the people, for the people and by the people, some mischief makers are wont to deceive the rest of us into believing that democracy is one or that there are no two democracies. But this is untrue because sociologically there are democracies and there are democracies. Nevertheless, within the context of the consensus as to the right of the citizens of a state to determine their political destiny or to choose their rulers, the right to democracy exists in both domestic and international legal orders.  

Democracy is about so many things including due process. However, the recently concluded general elections in Nigeria – especially the Presidential and Gubernatorial variety – evidently demonstrated blatant contempt for such process specifically in form of voters’ suppression or intimidation, sponsored thugs overrunning polling units a la bandits or terrorists overturning or invading a village, exclusion of persons of a certain ethnic group from voting in Lagos, snatching of ballot boxes, manipulating of election results, etc. Curiously, many of these abuses took place in the full glare of security agents or they were carried out with the security agents simply looking the other way. Yet beneficiaries of such flawed process, while keeping the trophies derived therefrom, have the shameless audacity to moralise on the necessity of fellow compatriots to keep the peace and to remind everyone that Rome was not built in a day, that Nigeria is a work in progress, that other countries passed through similar teething problems, etc. These beneficiaries are high profile hypocrites who ask the rest of us to give what they cannot give and subscribers to the Machiavellian ethos to whom the end justifies the means. 

Based on the foregoing perspectives, what role is there for international law in the matter? The utility of international law can be made manifest only where we play by the rules of the game. It is true that conducting elections is within the reserve domain of each country. But within the context of the existence of a cluster of domestic and international instruments on democratic entitlement and the need for credibility of elections, the international community has overtime been able to diplomatically push each country to admit or invite international observer missions to monitor aspects of its electoral or voting process and to report thereon. In the past there have been such reports, including scathing ones, from local and international observers as to the failure of due process. Unfortunately, such reports are often ignored. In other words, neither international law nor the international community takes serious steps to ensure the means justify the end. 

Rather, upon the declaration of a winner from a flawed electoral process, states including those which claim to be champions or pillars of democracy outdo one another to congratulate the declared winner. Marginally, a few critical states threaten to sanction a few individuals they deem to have breached the process. Ultimately, the states call on the political gladiators in the locus of the questionable process to keep the peace because experience has shown that, as acknowledged by Chimamanda Adichie in her recent open letter to US President Biden, they tend to prioritize “stability” over “democracy” in foreign countries (including Nigeria) except their national interests impel them to reverse such priority. For example, in 1991, the military overthrew Aristide, the first democratically elected President of Haiti. One of the consequences of such military action – Haitian citizens’ flooding the US territory for economic refuge – was hurtful and unacceptable to the US. Therefore, in 1994, the US with the cooperation of the UN created an environment that made the usurper’s retention of power suicidal. Eventually, Aristide was restored to power. This can be contrasted with what happened to MKO Abiola. In 1993, although Abiola won the presidential elections fair and square, military dictator IBB refused to hand over to him. No international assistance was forthcoming. Nigerians waited in vain for the masters of democracy to do the needful. To complicate matters, Abacha arrested and detained Abiola for treason, and the symbol of the people’s will ultimately breathed his last in controversial circumstances while in the custody of his captors.    

The morale in all these is that there is no international force that can salvage our democratic gamble; the salvation is within. In other words, only Nigerian citizens can genuinely sanitize their system for choosing their rulers. But though the harvest is plenty, the labourers are few! Nigeria is in dire need of genuine democrats who can adequately mobilize and permanently retire Machiavellian politicians who mask their inordinate personal ambitions in ethnic bigotry or religious fundamentalism. Instructively, many of these haters of due process double as citizens or permanent residents of foreign countries. These Machiavellians as power mongers realise the reluctance of the international community or international law to intervene (at least immediately) in such flawed process hence they abuse the process with reckless abandon and thereafter raise the bar of sovereignty in order to ward off any foreign state or entity that may dare to look more closely at how the process justified the end. They are quick to invoke article 2 of the UN Charter when the foundation of their conduct is perfidious. They cherry pick the rules of international law: seeking the benefit but rejecting the burden. In 1775, Samuel Johnson described patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel. He spoke to those who irresponsibly deployed “patriotism” to suit their personal whim. In contemporary times, I dare state that those who take refuge under the veil of sovereignty irrespective of their treacherous pedigree are no better that the patriots envisaged by Johnson.    

By the way, these refugees fail to realize that the sovereignty they proclaim to the height of heavens is not their personal property but the patrimony of Nigerians as a whole. As Prof. Reisman argued, state sovereignty has been transformed from the sovereign’s sovereignty to the people’s sovereignty. However, the utility in such sovereignty lies in Nigerian citizens resisting the temptation to fall cheaply for the propaganda of politicians who have learnt the art of weaponizing ethnicity and religion to oil their insatiable quest to obtain or retain power. 

*Dr. Igbinedion is an Associate Professor in the Department of Jurisprudence & International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos.