The Style and the Message
“Babangida, by the stroke of genius of asking Nigerians to breathe, I think and talk freely, has done the sort of magic that only a battery of communication experts can plot … It was too good to be true.”
Marshall McLuhan, see what you have done? Wish you were alive to see your theory in practice. McLuhan was the Canadian-born communication expert who said that the medium could be as important as the message. If McLuhan were alive, he would not believe his ears when tolf how a man called Ibrahim Babangida has brought life to that theory of his. Babangida has unleashed the magic of communication on the people of this land of wonders. Summer of silence? You must be kidding. That’s talk of yesterday, literally. One moment, Nigerians were forbidden from thinking and talking of tomorrow, and the next moment, Nigerians were beseeched to go on the streets and yell as the pleased. It was too good to be true, and those of us had called this season the summer of silence found ourselves eating our words. Nigeria is a confounding country. As though he heard a million whispers that this must be another tricking on unsuspecting Nigerians, Babangida, who removed the padlocks, gave Nigeria a tester: Go and talk about the IMF. And the true enough, Nigerians took him up on this promise. We all went out on the rooftops and balconies and street corners, some with microphones and loud-speakers, some with bagpipes and others with pens, to test the tester: We want IMF. We don’t want IMF.And then we found, true enough, that Babangida, the man for this season, wasn’t kidding, that this season is not a summer of silence. The padlocks hung on our lips talk and argue and feel very free. We are going to talk and talk until we are red in the eyes, and we have been talking.
The issue here, lest we miss it, is not that of the debate on the IMF, but the issue of the strategy adopted by Babangida. What is the strategy, what did he intend to achieve by it? As many as 100 million meanings have been ascribed to that strategy. Some people say that by asking Nigerians to go out and debate the merits and demerits of the IMF, Babangida showed that he couldn’t make up his mind on such a crucial question. Some say that the president has used the strategy to get Nigerians exercising their lungs and that while this is going on, he is busy doing other things. Others say that Babangida is confused, that it is a bad sign of leadership for him not to give leadership in such a crucial as in whether or not we should give part of our sovereignty to the IMF. Consequently, almost everyone in Nigeria has thought it fit to join the debate. When two or three people are gathered in whatever or for whatever reason, the topic of discussion is what Babangida had asked them to discuss.
Even pre-literate Nigerians, market women and other traders, have joined the debate and are won’t to ask: Are we taking the IMF loan? If you say you don’t know, they are wont to remark how they hope that we aon’t take the loan. And then they add invariably that they hope that he, meaning Babangida, will not take the loan, they will say may God bless him if he does’t. Imagine the corollary. If you then ask them why they think the loan is bad, they will tell you that native intelligence says that a man doesn’t borrow money to liquidate a debt. Babangida, by the stroke of genius of asking Nigerians to breathe, think and talk freely, has done the sort of magic that only a battery of communication experts can plot. What is the meaning of the Babangida strategy of turning the whole country into one big theatre of debate in which everyone has found himself an important and relevant part of the national discourse of such an important subject? Without probably meaning to, Babangida has succeeded in giving a new insight into the meaning of democracy. Hitherto, the conventional wisdom on democracy seemed to mean that it is the process of conducting elections through multi-party system in which the majority are said to have made their choice known through the secret ballot. If that were absent and if a government on seat were not elected by the so-called democratic means, then the government so chosen would be considered undemocratic.
Babangida has now proved that this is not necessarily so. He has said, as I understand it, that democracy, like the political process itself, is more complex than to be reduced to the slogan of a multi-party election or a free press that usually is not really free. It also means, as we now have in Nigeria, a process in which a military head of state adopts the humanism that Babangida has adopted. He quotes Shakespeare and turns the whole country into one big arena where all the citizens are invited to become participants. My reading of the president’s strategy, based on what he said in his maiden address, is that Nigeria will not accept the loan. Why? Babangida said that he would only do what Nigerians say they want. And the result of the on-going argument so far proves that those who oppose the loan are winning, and these include economists. Itt will be difficult for Babangida to announce to Nigerians that he will accept the loan, when he has heard most of those participating in the debate say no.
The master stroke in his strategy is that of getting Nigerians to say for him what he had always wanted to say. And it has also helped in defusing the tight atmosphere in the country, a tightness cuased by the absolute autocratic style of his predecessors. Of course, we all know that life will be tough in the next few months in the country, which is why he has declared a 15-month state of economic emergency. So when at last he stays Nigeria will not accept the IMF loan because of the largely punitive conditions aatached to it, he will emerge as perhaps the most popular leader in the history of this nation’s politics. And backed by that popularity, he will be able to announce to the country the hardship that every Nigerian will be asked to accept as a contribution to the effort to rebuild the nation’s economy. And if I should be proved wrong in my reading, please don’t blame me. Blame Muluhan.
©Newswatch, October 21, 1985
(Pp.279-281)
