While growing up I had the daily task of making a trip to a nearby bakery to get bread for my grandfather. There was a small neighborhood bakery a short walk from our home. Every morning or evening, before or after school, I went to the bakery with a basket, greeted the person at the counter, collected the loaves, and came back home, where I proceeded to tie up the loaves. There was no receipt and no invoice. Prices change slightly depending on supply, familiarity, or even the baker’s personal reason (we got discounts when their family was celebrating something). Sometimes I paid immediately; other times payment was settled later. Everyone involved understood this arrangement.
As a child I never thought about how the system worked; it simply worked. The baker trusted my grandfather; my grandfather trusted the baker. Customers trusted that bread would be available at a very fair price. When mistakes occurred, like defects on loaves, conversation resolved them. Enforcement was social, not bureaucratic. The system was imperfect, but it was understandable. It rested on shared expectations rather than written rules imposed from somewhere else.
Only later did I recognize how much that small routine revealed about the way societies actually function. The rules overseeing the exchange had nothing to do with neutrality. They were a testament to values such as trust, reputation, reciprocity, and responsibility. Situations and history shaped those rules. They worked accurately because they were realistic in daily life, not abstracted from it or forced from top down.
As I grow older and am being exposed to public policy, I notice a big gap in understanding between how people organize their lives and how governments claim society is supposed to be governed. Policy language emphasizes neutrality, objectivity, and standardization. Everyday life relies on relationships, judgement, and adaptation. The version of neutral governance presented by modern states often feels distant from lived reality.
Modern politics rests on a powerful illusion: that government can be neutral, that law can be value-free, and that public policy can be designed as a purely technical exercise rather than a moral one. In theory, neutrality promises fairness; in practice, it frequently disrupts power.
This mirage, as I call it, becomes particularly visible in diverse societies. Across much of Africa, states preside over populations composed of many languages, economic systems, and social traditions. When governments claim neutrality in such contexts, they do not rise above society. Certain ways of living stand at an advantage while others are marginalized. What is presented as impartial governance often reflects the preferences of political elites, bureaucratic norms, or distant international standards (foreign influence).
“Neutral” governance does not mean the absence of values. It means favoring particular values while denying that any values are present at all. Policymakers impose rules on everyone while hiding the moral judgments added in those rules. The language of neutrality becomes a way to dodge accountability for those judgments they make.
Every law and regulation carries a vision of social order. Decisions about land ownership, market regulation, education standards, policing, and welfare all carry assumptions about responsibility, authority, risk, trust, and human behavior. Pretending otherwise is not wisdom; it is evasion.
African political history makes this dynamic especially clear. Colonial administrations often claimed neutrality to justify degrading legal changes. Customary institutions and structures were disbanded not really because they were unjust but because they were informal, decentralized, or incompatible with imported legal structures. Law was used as an instrument of control rather than a social practice rooted and developed in lived experience.
After independence, many postcolonial states retained this stance. Political leaders took over from colonial administrators, but the belief that order requires uniformity remained. National unity became identical with centralized authority. Diversity was treated as a problem to be managed rather than a reality to be respected.
The result has frequently been law without legitimacy.
Land policy illustrates this clearly. In many African communities, like in mine known as Ikwuano, land ownership has long been driven through communal arrangements shaped by lineage, custom, and local authority. These systems were not rigid. They developed through negotiation and everyday use, balancing access, obligation, and continuity through generations.
Modern states, seeking clarity and efficiency, have imposed formal and official property systems. Titles are issued, registries are created, and transactions are standardized. These reforms are presented as neutral improvements, but their effects are anything but neutral.
Formal property systems favor those with access to bureaucracy, legal knowledge, and capital. Smallholders and rural communities often lose land not because they violated the law but because the law was written without regard for how land actually functions within their societies. Where relationships once governed access, paperwork now dominates. Where negotiation once allowed flexibility, rigid procedures prevail.
The state insists it is acting fairly. The outcomes tell a different story.
Market regulation follows a similar pattern. Informal markets dominate economic life across much of the continent. These markets rely on trust, reputation, and personal accountability rather than extensive documentation. Governments frequently treat them as problems to be corrected rather than institutions to be understood.
Licensing requirements multiply, and compliance costs rise. Enforcement becomes selective on a case-by-case basis. Street vendors are displaced while politically connected firms or individuals receive exemptions and preferential treatment. Neutral rules generate unequal outcomes because they ignore unequal starting points. Once again, neutrality conceals hierarchy.
Policing reveals the same logic. Uniform rules are enforced without regard for local context. Enforcement varies according to political pressure or institutional distance; trust erodes. Citizens experience the law not as a shared framework but as an external force that is unpredictable, unreliable, and arbitrary. As trust declines, compliance weakens, and coercion expands to enforce it.
These failures strike at the heart of liberty. Liberty does not depend solely on constitutional language or formal rights. It depends on whether people regard the rules governing them as fair, understandable, and connected to their lived realities. When governance becomes distant and vague, liberty grows fragile. Obedience perseveres not because of consent but because of fear, exhaustion, or necessity.
The claim of neutrality frequently serves to expand and extend state power. By presenting itself as a neutral administrator, the state casts dissent as irrational or selfish. Objections are dismissed as inefficiencies rather than moral disagreements. Neutrality narrows debate and shields authority from scrutiny.
Plural societies require a different posture. Not every difference demands uniform resolution. Not every problem requires centralized intervention. Governance requires humility so that knowledge is dispersed and norms become contextual. Authority functions best when it remains close to the people it governs.
African societies have practiced this insight for generations, even when formal political theory ignored it. Informal institutions persist because they coordinate behavior, resolve disputes, and sustain cooperation. They do not pretend to be neutral. They are explicit about their values, and that transparency builds trust.
Informal systems are not flawless. They can exclude outsiders, entrench power, and resist change. Yet their failures are visible and contestable. Formal systems that claim neutrality often conceal bias behind procedure.
Responsible governance does not deny the moral content of law. It acknowledges it. Responsible governance recognizes tradeoffs, invites debate, and respects variation rather than treating it as an obstacle. It favors judgment over mechanical rule following.
Neutral government is not possible; responsible government is.
Responsible governance understands that liberty rests on legitimacy, not abstraction. Rules gain authority when they align with shared norms and practical realities. Governance falters when it substitutes procedure for understanding.
I still think about that bakery. Nothing about it was neutral. Relationships shaped every transaction. Expectations and shared ideas of fairness sustained cooperation. The system worked because everyone involved understood the rules and felt bound by them.
Liberty does not require neutrality. It requires honesty, restraint, and respect for the social fabric that law is meant to serve.
