TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
1.0
Machiavellianism:
An Exposition………………….…1
1.1
The
Life History of Niccolo Machiavelli……………..2
1.2
His
Political Ideology………………………..…..7
1.3 Background to His Political
Theory………….12
CHAPTER TWO
2.0 Literature
Review…………………….…17
2.1 Immorality: An
Essential feature of Machiavelli’s Politics……….17
2.2 Some
Philosophers’ Views on Morality and Politics………..22
2.2.1 Aristotle……………………………………………………………23
2.2.2 Augustine………………………………………………………….25
2.2.3 Aquinas……………………………………………………………28
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 The Nigerian
Situation……………………….…32
3.1 The Political
History of Nigeria…………………33
3.2 Machiavelli’s
Influence on the Nigerian Society.………………….37
3.2.1 Politics……………………………………………………………...37
3.2.2 Economy………………………………………….....40
3.2.3 Religion………………………………………………..…43
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 Machiavellianism
and Nigerian Government……47
4.1 Critical Analysis of Machiavellianism
and Nigerian Government….47
4.2 Effects of Machiavellianism in Nigeria………………..54
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Evaluation and
Conclusion…………………….57
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………63
INTRODUCTION
Niccolo Machiavelli appears to have
generated more controversy than any of his contemporaries. So much notoriety
has gathered around his name that the charge of being a Machiavellian still
remains a serious accusation in current political debate. Political thinkers
from time immemorial had propounded one theory after another, all geared toward
the betterment and upliftment of humanity. One salient feature of all these
theories is that the propounders have the same objective mentally but their
ideological and methodological approaches are what alienated one from the
other.
In the case of Machiavelli, he
posited a complex relationship between morality and politics, and associated
the office of a ruler with the ability to know and act within the political
world as it is and with the beastly abilities to dispense violence and practice
deception. Besides, the hallmark of Machiavellianism lies in the fact that evil
means can be used to achieve good end. Hence, when one has a good intention
personal to him, what matters is not the process through which this goal is
achieved but the emphasis lies on the fact of being able to attain the selfish
interest. However, my concern is to x-ray philosophically the principle of
Machiavelli and how its influences have held the contemporary Nigerian society
to ransom.
PURPOSE OF STUDY
The high level of moral decadence
that has permeated every facet of Nigerian society has instigated me toward
embarking on this topic. The dangers of Machiavellianism constitute one of the
most problematic threats to the moral basis of political life of every nation
in general and Nigeria
in particular.
My primary purpose is to x-ray how
Machiavellian principle has penetrated our political and other dimensions of
life right from the moment Nigeria got her independence to this present time.
Thus, by x-raying this principle, I intend to place it side by side with
Nigerian situation and how it has permeated the political, economic and the
religious scenario of our country. In addition, I shall critically appraise
Machiavellian principle and how reliable it has been in solving human
precarious political predicament and whether his ideology has any hope for
Nigerian society.
METHODOLOGY
The entire work is arranged into five
chapters. It employs the following methods: expository, analytical,
comparative, review, critical and evaluative methods. However, the method that
appears to dominate the work is the critical method. Chapter one deals with the
explanation and analysis of Machiavellianism, the political ideology and
background to the political theory of Machiavelli. In chapter two, the views of
some philosophers are discussed together with Machiavelli’s idea of morality.
Chapter three exposes Nigerian situation and Machiavelli’s influence on her.
Chapter four analyzes critically Machiavellianism and Nigerian government
together with the effects of Machiavellianism in Nigeria. While chapter five, which
is the last chapter, contains the evaluation and conclusion.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0
MACHIAVELLIANISM: AN EXPOSITION
Machiavelli’s
views have been frequently interpreted as meaning that wickedness is more
effective than goodness. This distortion of his views has been regarded as the
essence of Machiavelli’s teaching, as identical with what later centuries
called Machiavellianism.
Historically, Machiavelli’s philosophy came to be identified with
Machiavellianism (also spelt Machiavellism), the doctrine that the reason of
the state recognizes no moral superior and that, in its pursuit, everything is
permitted. Although, Machiavelli himself did not use the phrase “reason of
State”,
his principles have been and continue to be invoked in its defence.
In
the mid 15th and early 16th centuries the Italian city
was besieged with corruption of different kinds- bribery, nepotism,
embezzlement, squander mania and so on. There seemed no end to the ever
increasing travails that engulfed the whole Italian city. So systematically
corrupt was the nation that nothing seemed to be working, hence there was
stalemate everywhere both politically and otherwise. The economy was paralysed
and the ruling party was ill prepared to ameliorate the situation. Even the
elite class was egoistically inclined to the detriment of the country. In fact,
suffice it to say that nobody was altruistic enough to salvage the situation.
Thus Omoregbe clearly articulated this Italian condition when he noted that:
Italy was not only politically
weak and divided country but a very corrupt society as well
It
was in such a decadent society that Niccolo Machiavelli was born.
THE LIFE HISTORY OF NICCOLO
MACHIAVELLI
Nccolo
Machiavelli was born in Florence in 1469 of an old citizen family. It was in
that year that Lorenzo the magnificent came into power through subversion of
the traditional civil liberty of Florence. The Machiavellis have for
generations held public office, his father being a jurist and a minor official.
Hence, through his family, Machiavelli was closer to most events occurring in
Florence than most of his contemporaries. No wonder then that at the early age
of twenty-five, he became secretary of the second chancery through which he
became so popular that he came to be known among his contemporaries as the
Florentine secretary.
By
virtue of this position, Machiavelli was placed in charge of diplomatic correspondence
of his bureau and served as a Florentine’s representative on nearly thirty
foreign missions. Consequently, in his capacity as a diplomat, he dealt mostly
with the various principalities into which Italy was divided which gave him an
insight into the politics of Europe and of Italy in particular. This exposition
no doubt precipitated and galvanized his political instinct through his
meditations on them and therein derived inspiration for his future thought.
Expressing this view in New Catholic Encyclopedia, F. Scaccia has it that:
He establishes his
sciences… according to historico empirical observation of political phenomena…
integrated scientifically by deriving useful practical application from it…
This
phenomenal observation had a tremendous influence in his two most significant
books- The Discourses and The Prince.
These
two works laid bare Machiavelli’s apparent inconsistency due to their opposing
views regarding system of governance. Thus in The Discourses, he extolled free republic and maintained that in
respect of prudence and constancy, the people have the advantage and are more
steady and judge better as opposed to The
Prince. Being modelled against the footprints of the Roman Republics, free
republic according to Machiavelli is superior to the absolute monarchy of the
prince. This is so because in the free republic there is freedom of expression
devoid of oppression, conformity to law and order with conviction as opposed to
coercion and people are equally represented in the government. Moreso, they
have freedom to rule themselves and are less influenced by external forces of
corrupt judgement with the common good duly respected as against the prince.
Hence from all indications, Machiavelli desired free and democratic state.
Omoregbe held the same view when he insisted that:
…It is clear that Machiavelli is
actually a democrat at heart
who believes that the best form of government under
normal
circumstances is democracy
Nevertheless
in The Prince, Machiavelli completely
deviated from the above thesis by embracing its antithesis and it is to this
antithesis that this paper shall concentrate. Therein, he reiterated upon the
need for an absolute monarch- the Prince. He holds that although in human history,
men acknowledge and praise honest princes who keep their power by law, but that
the successful princes are really the crafty ones who adopt force.
Consequently, he recognized no higher laws as Aquinas had propounded but urged
a thoroughly circular approach to politics and values acting in cunning rather
than moral conviction. To further buttress this notion, he cited that:
The success of
Alexander VI was because he was the greatest deceiver ever
It
is not surprising therefore to note that the evolution of the term
“Machiavellianism” came as a result of the notoriety of Machiavelli’s political
thought as succinctly expressed in The
Prince. Thus, of the two books, it was The
Prince that brought him into limelight and as a radical political thinker.
In line with this Omoregbe vehemently noted that:
…The Prince…made Machiavelli famous (or
rather notorious) because it was in this book that he boldly expressed his
immoral views which have come to be known as Machiavellianism
In
a similar perspective, Copleston minced no words in affirming of Machiavelli
that:
He is chiefly known
of course for his amoral advice to the prince, for his Machiavellianism
Machiavelli
therefore strongly believed that men ought either to be well treated or crushed
and because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, they cannot, of
more serious injuries. Therefore, the injury that is to be done to a man should
be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge. His political
ideology culminated into a matrix which many politicians, especially
contemporary ones are pragmatically pursuing with unrestrained alacrity.
1.2 HIS
POLITICAL IDEOLOGY
Machiavelli,
no doubt will be regarded politically as a maverick of his epoch because he
absolutely deviated from the trends of political thought prevalent then. He
thus became the first political theorist to portray the state as a complete
political structure analyzable on its own merits. His concept of politics can
be termed power politics and hence for him, the power of the supreme control of
the people is the basic element in politics, every other aspect of needs must
conform accordingly to this basis. Politics for him is something pragmatic and
experimentative and therefore he can be referred to as a political empiricist
since for him what matters is reality and not ideal. Towing his line of
thought, Omoregbe vividly believes that Machiavelli:
… Is not interested
in abstraction about what we ought to do or how we ought to act. He is
interested in how men actually act and get things done, how great and
successful men in history achieve their aims.
He
conveniently admired strength of character and power to achieve one’s end and
the ability to win power and keep it. He considered the prince entitled to
consolidate and preserve power at all cost. Through his empirical observation
of political sequences in history, he concluded that human nature is fundamentally
egoistic, fickle and wicked. Man is ruthless in seeking what he regards as
useful to him but he is never satisfied and as such what matters in politics is
success no matter the means. He held that such good qualities as being honest,
faithful, religious and showing integrity are not necessary for the ruler to
acquire them in actual fact but it is very necessary that he should appear to
have them. He therefore stated in The
Prince that:
A prince therefore
who desires to maintain himself must learn not to be always good, but to be so
or not as necessity may require… It is well that when the act accuses him, the
result should excuse him; and when the result is good… it will always absolve
him from blame…
By
this stance, Machiavelli inevitably upholds the principle that the end
justifies the means. A successful ruler then, is one who is able to maintain
himself in power by any means, fair or foul. He outlined the ultimate goal of
politics as the grabbing and retaining of political power. Any means used to bring
this about is okay but the crux of the matter is that one must be sure to
succeed. Once you succeed in seizing and retaining power, all men will hail you
and any means employed will be justified. Besides, a ruler should be very
prudent and swift, shrewd, practical in his actions. If occasion warrants the
use of brutality, he should not hesitate to apply it. By this position, he
incontestably dabbed into the Thrasymachusan theory of might is right which, as
Omoregbe portrays it, holds that:
In every state, the
stronger establish themselves in power and their interests become justice. They
make laws to protect their interests which automatically become what is just and what is right within the state as
long as they are in power.
Sequel
to this, Nietzsche sounds the same opinion in his book, A Geneology of Morals. Hence, writing of Nietzsche, Omoregbe
further insisted that:
It is not
surprising that for Nietzsche, the superman, the ideal man, is a strong man who ruthlessly
seeks power, since the world… a manifestation of the will to power.
However,
Machiavelli’s chief point was that the ruler chooses only those means that
could guarantee that the end be in fact achieved. The ruler should therefore
extricate anything that would make him despicable so as to win the favour of
the people. Such things as greediness, infringement on others’ rights,
appearing fickle, frivolous, cowardly irresolute and so on, should be avoided.
He should rather evince courage, fortitude and greatness. He believes that the
prince;
When settling
disputes between his subjects, he should be so regarded that no one ever dreams
of trying to deceive or trick him.
This,
Machiavelli believes, assures the prince of his place and power. For him, it is
praiseworthy to be feared as regards the ruler than respected and therefore the
ruler must strive to make his position clear. In order to realize his objective
Nwoke surmised that the ruler:
…has to adopt the
way of the beast and better still has to adopt the fox to know the snare and
the lion to frighten the wolves.
This
hanky panky disposition would propel the subjects to fear the ruler’s
reputation since his mind cannot easily be read at any given moment. Thus, his
intentions should not be publicized always. It is his interest that counts and
whatever he considered good is good and vice versa. No other power can counter
him as far as he is in power. He promulgates laws for the citizens but is not
bound by it since the ruler is above the morality and the law of the land from
his own perspective. The only standard for measuring the ruler’s action is
success in maintaining himself and ensuring the stability of the state. He
consequently insisted in The Prince that:
…where the very
safety of the country depends upon the
resolution to be taken, no consideration of justice or injustice,
humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or shame, should be allowed to prevail. But
putting other considerations aside, the question should be, what course will
save the life and liberty of the country.
This
follows therefore that Machiavelli’s political thought especially as manifested
in The Prince is tyrannical both in
its structure and execution.
1.3 BACKGROUND
TO HIS POLITICAL THEORY
It
is popularly said that there is no smoke without fire. Similarly, every effect
has a cause. These two dicta clearly point to the fact that something must have
prompted Machiavelli into propounding his amoral thoughts. To begin with, the
Italy of Machiavelli’s time was a corrupt and chaotic nation. Consequently,
Stumpf opined that:
This fact of human
corruption was therefore the starting point of Machiavelli’s political thought.
Equally
Omoregbe in his own contribution opined that:
…Machiavelli does
not believe that tyranny or despotism is the best form of government. But he
believes it is the best form of government in a corrupt society such as the
Italian society of his time.
He
was therefore particularly struck by the conventional social decadence of Italy
in his days and as a nationalist, he was deeply concerned about the political
situation of the nation. His priority should never be seen as a channel to self
glorification but is deeply rooted in the best possible way to liberate the
Italian city from the dungeon of anarchy spreading its ugly tentacle in all
governmental parastatals. As a patriotic citizen, he saw his country
retrogressively being trampled upon by other surrounding nations and
immediately concluded that a redeemer of no mean status is a ‘conditio sine qua
non’ to salvage the nation from such unfathomable pit. Machiavelli, as Huchins
puts it, believes however, that it was necessary that Italy should be reduced
to such extremities:
…so that left as
without life waits for him who shall heal her wounds and put an end to the
ravaging and plundering of Lombardy, to the swindling and taxing of the kingdom
and Tuscany and cleanse those sores that have for long festered
However,
it is appalling to note that Machiavelli deemed it fit for Italy to be reduced
to such extremity, to such a deplorable condition she was in, so as to
necessitate a revolution and most importantly, to discover the virtue of an
Italian spirit having endured every kind of desolation. Therefore, since the
leaders have endeavoured to make change impossible by subjecting Italy to such
a despotic situation, they have ipso facto made revolution inevitable. From
Machiavelli’s viewpoint, only a monarchic legislator- i.e. the prince, is
efficacious enough to shoulder this onerous task of masterminding that
revolution. He had this deep and ingrained conviction that to resurrect the
already degenerated Italy, only a ruthless tyrant is eligible for the task,
ruthless in all ramifications. In this dispensation, Stumpf notifies that as
for Machiavelli:
A basically corrupt
society requires a strong government. Preferably in the hands of a single
person since it happens rarely or not at all that a republic or kingdom is well
ordered or reformed ‘if this is not done by one man…. there should be one man
alone who settles the method and on whose mind any such organization depends.’
In short, there is need for an absolute legislator.
Copleston
made the same recommendation when he pointedly noted that:
In a corrupt and
decadent society in which man’s natural badness and egoism have more or less free
scope, where uprightness, devotion to the common good, and the religious spirit
is either dead or submerged by license, lawlessness and faithlessness, it is
only an absolute legislator who is able to hold together the centrifugal forces
and create a strong and unified society.
An
absolute legislator is therefore indispensable in the reformation of a state.
By this opinion, Machiavelli was harbouring fundamentally, the contemporary
Italian state cum political imbroglio plaguing the nation during his time.
Thus, the offshoot of his politics lies primarily in the peculiarity of the
Italian nation as that submerged in immense atrocities of every kind. Hence,
given such a condition of decay in Italy when he was writing The Prince in 1513, the kind of popular
government exemplified in the Roman Republic could not successfully be
established and that implies the impracticability of democracy. Consequently
for him, as Omoregbe unmistakingly reiterated:
To rule such a
society successfully, a ruler has to be ruthless, sometimes brutal and cruel
and at the same time crafty as portrayed in The
Prince.
Perhaps,
that was why Sciacca insisted that:
It was necessary to
keep in mind the Italy of Machiavelli’s time; it was a country divided and
overrun by foreign armies and on the point of loosing its freedom.
Therefore,
there is no doubt then that such a situation helped to augment Machiavelli’s
vaulting conviction that only the shrewdest and most crafty individuals could
survive in the precarious act of governing such a beleaguered society and it
was against this backdrop that his political theory, and indeed The Prince was modelled.
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