So, for Plato, the question is really simple: How can we build a city on the foundation of justice? This question derives from Plato’s belief that justice is a virtue that appropriates the common good from which all citizens can benefit. Justice in this sense, in both Plato and Solon, translates into fairness—giving what is due and what is proportionate to those who deserve them by merit. The socioeconomic reality of Plato’s Athens is comparatively similar to that of postcolonial Nigeria. Plato was confronted with the danger of conflicts and strife arising from conflicting differences, diversity and interests. While the social reality in his time was the conflict between the social classes of the rich and the poor, the reality in Nigeria is a mixture of social classes and ethnicity. And from ancient Athens to modern Nigeria, it is the case that those who wielded power maintain the status quo that sustains their interests and class preferences. This is where Plato’s blueprint for a Republic founded on justice becomes a reform dynamics that holds immense lessons for Nigeria.

There is no state that needs the fundamental question of how to achieve the best political order conducive to democracy and development than Nigeria. It is this realization that fired my imagination after reading Plato’s Republic at first. At that time, the book only resonated lightly with my emerging understanding of the sorry state Nigeria was, especially in the Second Republic. By the time I would be engaging with Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s The People’s Republic, it was easy for me to translate Plato’s reflection on the ideal Athens to Awolowo’s reflections on the concrete Nigeria. Like Plato, Awolowo conceived of Nigeria as a republic that has the capacity to unite its divisive diversity while building a well-ordered, united and politically stable polity. Unlike Plato’s aversion to democracy, Awolowo had a vision of Nigeria as a democratic, economically self-reliant, welfarist and politically united nation. Awolowo’s People’s Republic was also conceived from Awolowo’s terrible political experience in the immediate post-independence period.

Permit me to deploy a few of the Platonic ideas that appeals to the task of nation building in post-independence Nigeria. Indeed, this is what has made Plato and his Republic a continuous source of reform insights since I began to understand its dynamics. Take first the ultimate moment of revulsion when Plato turned away from politics.

He simply could not wrap his head round the fact that Athens would judicially murder someone like Socrates, a philosophical hero that the ancient city ought to revere as a gadfly necessary to keep the government on its toes. Plato would equally have been appalled at the way post-independence Nigeria maltreats her own heroes and heroines, hound them to death and neglect those whose heart desires long for a strong and democratic Nigeria. The figure of Plato’s Socrates inspired my search for the Nigerian equivalents; those who have decided to fight for the soul of the Nigerian nation even if it means losing their lives and reputation in the process—Claude Ake, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Billy Dudley, Oritshejolomi Thomas, Adekunle Fajuyi, Aminu Kano, Obafemi Awolowo, Eni Njoku, Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji, Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Dele Giwa, Gambo Sawaba, Kudirat Abiola, Stella Adadevoh, Gani Fawehinmi, Ayodele Awojobi, the list is endless. All these—scholars, intellectuals, writers, administrators, educationists, philosophers, judges, etc.—represent the societal gadfly that continue to sting Nigeria into national order.

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Indeed, my connection between Plato’s Republic, Nigeria’s national predicament, and the struggles of these national heroes and heroines was very fundamental in making the critical decision to shift from development policy research to a deep and nuanced research of the Nigerian public service. Almost simultaneous with my confrontation with the dysfunction of the public service, political theory had allowed me sufficient insight into the deep frustration that Nigeria itself represents, and how these heroic personalities have engaged with Nigeria’s predicament, and often without result. Can anyone imagine the deep-seated frustration that people like Udoji, Awolowo and Saro-Wiwa felt about Nigeria—a country that defies reason? These are national figures who made frantic efforts to translate their development visions into deep institutional dynamics on behalf of Nigeria. Anyone who has read Mabogunje’s autobiography A Measure of Grace will understand their anxieties and struggles.

Only very few states in the world have survived a civil war, and have gone on to integrate their diverse constituents into a unified citizenry able to achieve outstanding development. The Justice Oputa Reconciliation Panel appealed to my understanding of restorative justice, gleaned from Athenian sociology reinterpreted by Plato. In a deeply divisive state where the ills and the animosities of the civil war is still lingering, the idea of national healing plays a significant role in opening the door for the injection of new national values, around the ideal of justice as a virtue. It takes a little reflection to see the critical significance of education as a means to the emergence of a new mental model. In The Joy of Learning (2010), I was given a huge opportunity to detail the Platonic understanding of an educational paradigm that speaks to the deep advantages of diversity, and how it could be harnessed to transform the development of Nigeria. In the final analysis, it has been possible for me to see the trajectory of institutional reform from Plato’s insistence on justice to the urgency of restructuring Nigeria’s lopsided federalism in ways that respect our diversity and harnesses its latent strength.

I am not sure I have even begun to plumb the depth of philosophical and reform insights from Plato and his famous dialogue, the Republic. However, if Plato had been given the opportunity of seeing his Republic replicated into institutional frameworks and dynamics, he would have appreciated the great challenges involved in translating ideas and insights into reform transformation. This is what stands between Nigeria and her manifest national greatness in democracy and development.