Babalola, Farotimi And The Spectacle Of State Capture 

The public drama going on between Dele Farotimi and Afe Babalola has dominated the local news space in the last two weeks. At the centre of it all is the book written by Farotimi, NIGERIA AND ITS CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, where he accused the eminent lawyer, Babalola, of conniving with elements within the judiciary to subvert justice. Following Babalola’s petition, the police had arrested Farotimi and detained him. He was thereafter whisked to Ekiti State where he was arraigned before a magistrate’s court and was subsequently remanded by the court.

The allegations levelled against Babalola are indeed grave. Given the Olympian height he has attained in the Nigerian legal profession, such accusation against him of using bribery to influence court decisions would be fatal to his professional and social standing. Hence, Babalola’s rage is quite understandable. However, unfortunately for him, public sympathy is with his accuser, Farotimi, and not with him the accused. And it has turned out to be this way simply because of Babalola’s petition to the police and the subsequent gestapo manner with which the latter acted against Farotimi, leading the public to believe that Babalola is acting in cohort with the state to persecute a truth teller and to suppress free expression.

This sort of public reaction is indeed inevitable in view of a number of factors. One, Farotimi’s role in the last presidential election where he pitched his tent with the popular Labour Party candidate, Peter Obi, and his continued criticism of the current government have projected him as a voice of conscience in the eyes of many. Two, the manner in which the police has pursued the case against the activist resonates with recent experiences where the state acts with vigour and apparent rage in cases of alleged defamation of character of politically connected individuals – more so in the present case where the purported defamatory book was published in a state, Lagos, where defamation is no longer a crime. Add all this to the perennial distrust of the state by the citizens and it becomes very clear why public opinion is heavily on the side of Farotimi.

The ongoing saga has all over it the signature of state capture; a phrase that has now become popular among Nigerians as they repeatedly lament the depraved influence of power and money on state institutions. State capture refers to a situation where individuals have taken hold of the state machinery and are appropriating it towards realization of personal interests. The state machinery (or institutions) are ideally to function objectively in line with the rule of law and for common interest. But when state capture is the case, these institutions become emasculated by individuals who use them as tools for pursuing personal goals. For instance, in the case of Babalola and Farotimi, the belief is that state institutions – the police and the court – are being manipulated by agents of state capture to suppress dissent and persecute perceived enemies of the state.

The manifestation of state capture in our clime is too obvious to require emphasis. Hence, my intention here is not to rehash the obvious but to point out that our appreciation of this problem is so narrow that we often overlook or see as normal certain dimensions of state capture. Whenever we think of state capture, the picture in our head is usually that of powerful individuals, often politicians, manipulating the electoral process, influencing court judgments, using the security agencies for pursuit of personal goals, and influencing award of public contracts among other acts.

However, manifestation of state capture goes much beyond these high-profile anomalies. Just as certain individuals are so powerful as to influence the police at the level of the inspector general or the commissioner of police, some other individuals of lower social influence do same at the level of the area commander or the DPO. I knew a wealthy woman in Lagos years ago who was said to have literarily bought over the police station in charge of her area. The popular belief was that once the complaint you were taking to the station was against her, consider it a lost cause as she was untouchable. On the contrary, once she was the one bringing a complaint against you, consider yourself already in big trouble.

Similarly, just like we have high-profile politicians and state officials manipulating public procurement processes in order to secure contracts for themselves and their cronies, there are also many personnel in the civil service, government agencies, higher institutions of learning etc. that do the same at their own lower levels. Again, just the same way politicians and government officials manipulate the process of selecting occupiers of certain high-profile offices, many officials of public institutions and those connected to them do the same when they skew recruitment process to give job to their relatives, friends, and other cronies.

So, contrary to popular sentiments, the spectacle of state capture does not manifest only at the highest level of political power and influence, but indeed exists at all levels of exercise of power. It is a pervading decay that spans the entire spectrum of our institutional set-up – from the Aso Rock to the least office in the local government civil service.

State capture has become so normalized that most of us seek to benefit from its dubious privileges without knowing exactly what we are doing. When we seek to leverage the influence of well positioned relatives and friends to get public job, school admission and other privileges as against following the due process, we are seeking to benefit from state capture.

In fact, when it comes to employment and government contracts, those who have captured the state machinery has been so ruthless and relentless that no space is left for those who have no connection. If there are 1, 000 job vacancies in the federal civil service, for example, you can be almost certain that from the first to the 1, 000th vacancy will be filled via connection. Merit has no place. Some years ago, I told a colleague how I got my present job as a federal government employee without having to use the connection of anybody. Weeks after, I was discussing with this colleague alongside a mutual friend, and this young man started telling us about how someone told “a big lie” that he got his job without connection. (He had forgotten I was the one that told him this.) “It is impossible,” he continued, “you must know someone to get job here.” There is absolutely no basis to blame such a doubting Thomas given the reality of how favouritism has occupied every inch of our public recruitment space. And I saw no need trying to convince him of the truth of what was indeed a rare exception. I was given the job after I attended an interview alongside many others, and I’m convinced this happened by a stroke of luck, or that someone who knows me had decided to do me a favour upon seeing my name during the final selection, or that my interview performance had impressed the panel. I have deliberately mentioned interview performance last based on my suspicion that it was the least likely of the three possibilities in a clime where merit is given the least regard.

The above scenario reflects how much state capture has become dominant across all levels of our social space. It is for this reason that too many congratulatory messages pour in once you are given an important public office in our clime. People are convinced, and rightly so, that you now occupy a position where you can get everything you want for yourself as well as for your kith and kin. People would be falling over themselves to pay you a courtesy visit and to express how convinced they are that you are the right person for the job. They are not doing all this because of the work you have been hired to do, but because of all the legitimate and illegitimate privileges they know your new office entails in a lawless clime like ours – and from which they want to benefit.

I made this point in my last article in this column where I commented on the allegations that some personnel of Nnamdi Azikiwe University had, in a shameless display of sycophancy, chased after each of the three individuals that occupied the office of the Vice Chancellor during the chaotic four months that saw the office change hands four times. I wrote: “Public officers [in Nigeria] are rarely able to live above personal sentiments and personal affiliations in discharging their duties. So, why wouldn’t individuals seek to be in good books of occupiers of important offices in a country where what takes you higher is not your character and competence but whom you know? In a university system where privileges like appointments and access to grants are not by what you can do but by whom you know, why wouldn’t staff members – both junior and senior – be chasing after Vice Chancellors and others that matter in order to be considered for such privileges?”

It is also for this reason that individuals often show desperation to attain public offices. They do everything possible, honourable and dishonourable, to make this a reality. Such offices do not just give them the powers to act within the law, but also the leverage to break rules in order to obtain privileges for themselves and others. Thus, state capture emerges as a key motive for seeking positions of authority – or at least, holding a public office almost inevitably implies acquiescence (on the part of the holder) in being an agent of state capture.

So, the drama playing out between Afe Babalola and Dele Farotimi is nothing strange to our eyes. If truly Farotimi is a victim of state persecution, then he is merely a victim of a monster that has always lived with us and rears its ugly head from time to time to torment any person unfortunate to be within reach. We see it manifest at every level of public service where people are witch-hunted for refusing to acquiesce in corruption and for challenging abuse of power. It is the case everywhere including at unexpected places such as our universities and other citadels of learning.

It is our collective duty to speak against state capture at whatever level and in whatever form it manifests. Once such anomaly thrives among us, anyone, just anyone, can be a victim. It may be you or I tomorrow.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.