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The rise, rise and rise of capitalism (XIX)

In a State of the Union address to Congress in 1823, President Monroe laid out the future of American foreign policy in what is now described as the Monroe doctrine. In that speech Monroe declared the area encompassing the Western hemisphere as being an area of American influence from which all European influence was to be excluded for all time. In the same breath, he also announced American disinterest in the affairs of any country that was outside her stated area of interest. In this way she announced her isolation from European affairs as well as the affairs of countries all round the world. This status was more or less adhered to until she was dragged into the cauldron of WWI in 1917.

It is not clear why Monroe made that declaration when he did. After all, the infant republic such as she was at the time did not have the power to back up that grandiose claim of pre-eminence. After all, this was a time when both France and Spain, not to talk of Britain were actively pursuing their own separate sets of agenda in the Western hemisphere. The only thing in favour of the Americans at the time was that their ambitions could be backed up by Britain whose permanent interest was to range round the world cornering all possible markets in favour of her industrialists who were squeezing all those commodities out of their factories. And Britain could back up her ambitions in any part of the world because of the powerful Royal Navy which ranged the world at its pleasure.

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The Monroe doctrine came at a time of many interesting developments in Latin America. Simon Bolivar (El Libertador) had just succeeded in liberating six countries in that region; Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama and Bolivia from Spain after several wars of independence. It was important that Spain be not allowed to regain her colonial power status in the region even as France was sniffing around Mexico to replace Spain as the imperial overlord in that country. And to tell the truth, the USA was not in any position to influence the tide of events. At that point, the Monroe doctrine which did not even acquire that title until around 1850 was no more than a dream, a diplomatic wish waiting to come true sometime in the distant future.

Within the USA, matters were coming to a boil over the issue of slavery and all minds were turned inwards to deal with the fallouts from the confrontation between the Southern and Northern states. The South stood resolutely for the expansion of slavery into the new states of California, Texas, New Mexico and others which had just joined the Union. The Northern states were no less resolutely opposed to this proposal. The stage was set for the inevitable clash which loomed over the dark horizon. Finally, the Southern states banded themselves together to form the Confederate states which first seceded from the United States and then fired the first shots which marked the beginning of the American civil war in 1861. From that point on, the preoccupation of the American government was to keep out other countries especially Britain from what they labelled as their internal affair. Their fears in this respect were genuine because the economy of the Confederate states was based on the production of agricultural raw materials especially cotton which was in great demand from British industrialists. Any thoughts of foreign affairs had to be put on hold until the end of the war and the restoration of the status quo antebellum in 1865.

The American civil war was ostensibly fought over the issue of slavery but behind this stood the shadow of the economy. It was clear to the people in the North that slavery was no longer an option for sustainable economic development. Any movement on that front had to be towards the industrial production of utilisable goods, to be followed by relevant services. Even during the war, the Northern states were building up their industrial capacity. It can even be said that victory in that war was built on the foundation of the industrial might which was the power behind the Northern armies in the field. With the war out of the way the newly reunited states could now embark on the journey towards the rise and rise of capitalism.

The civil war ended in 1865 and signalled the beginning of an industrial production rush in the reunited country. The USA embarked on a spree of industrialisation such as the world had never seen up till then and it all began within the transportation sector. By 1869, the east coast had been joined to the west by the intercontinental railroad. The immediate consequence of this was that it became possible for a man to travel from New York to say, Los Angeles in six days instead of six months as was the case before. In addition, a large amount of freight could be sent virtually anywhere within the country very quickly and safely. The capital required to build the extensive railroad system which crisscrossed the continent poured in from Europe especially Britain whose industrialists were making money hand over fist. That British capitalists were ready to invest heavily in the USA shows the international nature of capitalism. That the primary area into which capital was directed also shows the pivotal nature of transportation systems to the creation of markets to the continued spread of capitalism. This phenomenon had been observed in Britain at the dawn of the industrial revolution. At that time, it was the building of canals that connected up many parts of the country and facilitated the distribution of factory made goods throughout the land. The lesson here is clear; without the creation of reliable and extensive distribution channels there can be no sustainable process of industrialisation.

Another aspect of industrialisation is the availability of power with which to drive the industrial production of goods. As with a lot of other raw materials, the USA had a generous supply of coal which was available to build an extensive railway system and supply steam power for the industrial production of goods. In addition to coal there was the availability of iron with which to produce steel, the foundation for heavy industry. Taken together all these conditions facilitated the rise and rise of capitalism within the country.

Standing aside from what can be described as natural attributes, there were men who were imbued with the character to exploit the conditions of the time. These were the men who have come to be known as the robber barons. Carnegie, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and Morgan. They straddled the emerging industrial landscape of the USA like the proverbial colossus turning everything they touched into pure gold. However, their collective touch had no magic in it and their place in history was cemented by their collective brutality in their exploitation of the emerging American market. Each of them were dyed in the wool monopoly capitalists who destroyed all their competitors and screwed their employees out of every last penny they could get out of them without actually killing them in large numbers. Like octopuses, their lethal tentacles were wrapped around the most important sectors of the economy. Rockefeller, the first American home-grown billionaire, by today’s value controlled every aspect of the oil sector from mining to refining and the sale of oil products. Carnegie built his monopoly in steel using the same methods that that Rockefeller used in the oil industry. In the case of Vanderbilt known to everyone as the Commodore, he tied up the transportation sector both by water and rail in unbreakable knots which ensured an unending stream of gold into his personal coffers. As for Morgan, he is still very much alive in J.P. Morgan, one of the biggest banks in the world even if it is now merged with the Chase-Manhattan Bank. He was the banker to the robber barons and helped to consolidate all the monetary gains of their ruthless enterprises. It is most intriguing that their economic descendants; Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, even Gates are still following faithfully in their monopolistic footsteps and as much employee abuse as they can get away with in the more enlightened business environment that is supposed to exist today. As a collective, the robber barons and their contemporaries ruled the American economy with an iron fist but managed to build it into a genuine colossus which ruled the world for more than a century. They built what has been described as the gilded age of American business and left many economic corpses in their way. It is therefore rather ironic that their philanthropic footsteps still look very large on the proverbial sands of time. Each of them has donated most of their stupendous wealth to institutions including world renowned universities and research centres which have made invaluable contribution to the development of life saving vaccines and improvements in public health all over the world. Their business practices, brutal as they were, have been recognised as having been pivotal to the rise and rise of global capitalism.

May 11, 2025
Utomi’s shadow cabinet

There is no length some Nigerians will not go in their absurd interpretation of democracy, including by those who ought to know better. Pat Utomi, a professor of political economy and Labour Party (LP) chieftain, last week announced the formation of a shadow cabinet that mimics the British parliamentary system of government. According to Prof. Utomi, the shadow cabinet would be called ‘The Big Coalition Shadow Government’. Here is the professor’s rationalisation : “The recent spate of defections to the All Progressives Congress provides further evidence that all is not well with democracy in Nigeria. The imperative is that if a genuine opposition does not courageously identify the performance failures of incumbents, offer options, and influence culture in a counter direction, it will be complicit in subverting the will of the people.”

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The Bola Tinubu administration has predictably responded to the anomalous shadow cabinet declaration. They denounced and dismissed it as sharply antithetical to the presidential system of government, insisting that “Our bicameral legislature amply features members of the opposition, and it should be the right place to contest meaningful ideas for nation-building.” It is doubtless necessary for the administration to ridicule the LP’s and Prof. Utomi’s attempt to transpose systems, but given the eminent professor’s track record, not to talk of the LP’s mediocre methods, the shadow cabinet idea will flounder as usual and ultimately expire without any effort. It is risible and unworkable.

May 11, 2025
Meaningless, misguided and procured rallies

Last Monday, two rallies by civil society groups and youths caught the attention of the Nigerian media. A coalition of activists organised one of the rallies in Benin City, Edo State, to protest the arrest and detention of some activists, one of whom was Kola Edokpayi, Marxist activist and leader of the Talakawa Parliament. Mr Edokpayi and his comrades had planned to hold a solidarity rally in support of Burkina Faso junta leader, Captain Ibrahim Traore, who took power in a coup d’etat in 2022. It is astonishing that the activists were unperturbed by the irony of using their democratic rights to serve the interest of a military leader who overthrew democracy in Burkina Faso. Perhaps the security services were more adept at recognising ironies.

To show their adeptness, the Department of State Service (DSS) and the police, which had initially pressured Mr Edokpayi to drop the protest idea, stormed his office and took him and five other activists into detention. Four were later released, leaving, at least as at Monday when the activists staged their protest, the Marxist and one other comrade in detention. To many African leaders dismayed by coups and rampant antidemocratic movements, Capt Traore has clearly become an undesirable element. But to activists, some of them Nigerians looking for a cause célèbre, the Burkinabe leader exemplifies their detestation of neocolonialism. But there is a catch in all this. France, the so-called neocolonial object of the protests, had been kicked out of Burkina Faso since 2023. Vestiges of its influence may still remain, but they are nothing the agitated Burkinabe leader cannot exterminate, if he is savvy enough.

Instead of putting measures in place and displaying the wisdom and administrative acumen needed to disentangle Burkina Faso from French influence, something that can obviously not be done overnight, Capt. Traore, with Russian help, has unleashed one of the most effective propaganda efforts the continent has ever seen. In late April, protesters, mostly diaspora Africans, bamboozled the world by staging global protests in support of what they described as the anti-colonial Burkinabe revolution to free the continent from the grip of neocolonial and imperialistic influences. It is not clear how they came to that conclusion, or why they could not see through the Burkinabe propaganda.

Looking for a cause, and eager to stir things up a bit, Nigerian civil society organisations, starting from Benin City, attempted to replicate that global show of idiocy to shore up support for a Burkinabe leader who had begun to fish out those he alleged were counterrevolutionaries in his country, jailing protesters, and detaining journalists who question his clearly exaggerated claims of economic progress or denounce his brutal anti-democratic methods. Comrade Edokpayi’s rally did not take off. Instead, unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt, the Nigerian security services moved in and picked up the organisers. It is remarkable that the detained comrade as well as the coalition of activists who rallied in his support last Monday denounced their arrests as unlawful and repressive. Do they really know what oppression looks like? Perhaps they should visit Burkina Faso.

In Nigeria, indeed, rallies have become a whimsical pastime of sundry agitators. Last Monday, in Abuja, youths also reportedly staged a protest demanding the release of 31-year-old Martins Vincent Ose, alias VeryDarkMan, from the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). He had been arrested over money laundering allegations, but claimed to be broke. A social media influencer and activist, he had been embroiled in a number of controversies, sometimes uploading videos of hastily investigated but controversial stories and issues. The law was already taking its course, and the EFCC had so far acted lawfully, including admitting him to bail terms that he could not immediately meet. So, why the rallies? It has become a cultural thing for those who sense that the federal and state governments are allergic to rallies and protests to organise protests over issues that do not defy legal interventions and mediations. The rally crowds are often available for hire. But they also indicate how tentative and fragile Nigerian democracy is, and why few are really committed to making the sacrifices needed to uphold or defend the freedoms the country currently enjoys.

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Everyone has, as a matter of fact, become an activist in order to pressure the law enforcement agencies from making arrests or embarking on investigations deemed hostile to the interests of politically or socially exposed persons, particularly opposition politicians and celebrities. And they are honing their skills. Two Tuesdays ago, immediately the EFCC took her into custody over money laundering and criminal conspiracy allegations, socialite and business executive Aisha Achimugu also embarked on hunger strike to pressure the anti-graft agency to release her. Her lawyers implausibly declared she was a prisoner of conscience because her arrest, according to them, ran contrary to the rule of law. Of course, it all seemed choreographed, for hardly had she been arraigned the following day than she was enthusiastically ordered to be released ‘within 24 hours’. She had earlier been arrested in February and given administrative bail, but the EFCC claimed she jumped bail.

So, apart from misguided rallies and meaningless protests, the next best thing seems to be to deploy the instrument of hunger strike to pressure the government against enforcing the law. For a government that is allergic, and in fact has a natural aversion, to rallies and protests, perhaps because of the fragility of Nigeria’s democratic experience, those untoward rallies appear effective but dangerous and counterproductive.

May 11, 2025
Jonathan quibbles over one-party system

Public engagements are sometimes the best chance for former presidents to declaim against public policies they dislike. Former president Goodluck Jonathan seized the occasion of the tribute night and memorial lecture in honour of the late elder statesman Edwin Clark to chafe at what he believed was probably a subtle effort to impose a one-party state on Nigeria. He seemed angrier than he let out on the night, but it was enough that he at least got an opportunity to exhale. He appeared to have thought about the subject, though it is not clear just how deeply. Reading between the lines, he actually sounded like he believed there were subterranean efforts to railroad Nigeria into a one-party state. By self-effacingly suggesting that a one-party goal might not necessarily be nefarious, especially if it was planned, he left room for diverse interpretations of what his personal opinion was or what he thought the country should really embrace.

A small quote from his remarks on that day of tributes should open a window into his noncommittal view on a subject made needlessly controversial by social media commentators. He said: “When you listen to the news or go through the social media, that is one thing (one-party) that on an occasion like this, one needs to talk about. Yes, countries have practiced a one-party system. It may not be evil after all. But Julius Nyerere of Tanzania used one-party state to stabilise the country in their early days of independence. His country, just like Nigeria, has many tribes and tongues and two principal religions, Christianity and Islam. If he had not done that, some parties would toe the line of region, some on the basis of tribes, and unity would be difficult. But it was properly planned. It was not by accident. If we must as a nation go the one-party route, it must be designed. It must be planned by experts and we must know what we are going into. But if we go through the backdoor by political manipulations, then we will be going into a crisis. So, I will advise that probably in a country like Nigeria, we allow the system to stay as it is, which is a multi-party system. But if we for some reason must go one-party, it should not be an accident.”

Put simply, Dr Jonathan was saying that if a one-party state was achieved for Nigeria by design, it might be okay. If it was done by accident, or the country stumbles into it, it could be counterproductive. Of course everyone knows that. It was, however, expected of the former president to let his opinion on the subject of a one-party state to be known without any ambiguity. Does he think a one-party state would advance the cause of democracy, however it is interpreted, narrowly or expansively, or does he think it would eventually destabilise the country and enthrone a tyrant? He left that puzzle unresolved, indeed unattended. Instead, he perched on the fence and declared that the problematic part was whether the policy was accidental or designed. But that can hardly suffice. He needed to first resolve whether a one-party state could promote unity and stability in a multi-religious and multi-ethnic country, and then secondarily determine how to conjure that magic. Had the unhappy former president availed us his thoughtful opinion rather than walk a tightrope, it would have been debated whether he made sense or not. More, it would have been obvious whether he gave the matter any deep thought as expected of a former president, or whether he glossed over the subject as was his custom when a controversial matter challenged his convictions.

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It becomes of course a different ball game whether the country was really being heedlessly coerced into a one-party cauldron, as the former president and many others in the opposition sneered. There have been defections to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at state and national levels, beginning most remarkably from Delta State, and those defections are still continuing apace. Yes, a few defectors have also developed cold feet, in Delta State and elsewhere, but they are more than countermanded by other even more aromatic defections in different parts of the country, notably in Edo State, to the ruling leviathan. Now, the northern reaches of the country have caught the bug and are exploding in a paroxysm of defections, with no sight of when it would end, or what the country’s political map would look like after the earthquakes have subsided. Yet, these defections are not unprecedented. They are typical of Nigerians politics, from the First Republic till date. Will laws be passed to explicitly forbid defections? It is unlikely. Existing laws appear adequate, regardless of the conundrums those laws have become to jurists. In any case, more relevantly, regarding the current Fourth Republic begun in 1999, there have been times when the country seemed headed either by design or accidental, as Dr Jonathan mused, to a one-party state. In the end the fears proved exaggerated.

Having ruled Nigeria for about five years, and had he been capable of the introspection many ascribed to him, Dr Jonathan ought to know that Nigeria is too complex and too far gone in multiparty politics to detour to a one-party system. He admittedly indicated preference for the political status quo, but he also seemed open to a different system, if necessary. He, however, should have spent time in his lecture reassuring the country that despite ongoing defections, not to say their dangerous connotations, the country would not go down the one-party chute. More, it was expected that he would spend quality time giving a disquisition on the merits and demerits of a one-party state, probably ending with a suggestion to the country to renew and sustain its multiparty system. But if he had to contend with a country veering towards a one-party system, it is not enough to be indifferent; he should have proceeded to explain the consequences of choosing a one-party system, and do it with everything he has got in his political and intellectual armamentarium. He was right to cite the foundational one-party system of Tanzania, but since that country abolished the one-party system in 1992, it would not be a bad idea for the former president to avail us his study of the lessons Tanzania has learnt since adopting multiparty democracy, particularly within the context of ethnic and regional politics. Might the fact that Julius Nyerere (ruled between 1962 and 1985 as the first president and founding father) came from the smallest ethnic group, the Zanaki, have influenced the adoption of a one-party state? And what role did the two-thirds Christian population and one-third Muslim population play in the adoption of the foundational party system?

Dr Jonathan continues to be presented with sterling opportunities to shed light on some of the existential conundrums of Nigeria, having ruled for about five years and as the first PhD degree holder. Yes, he might be a zoologist, but his views and the ratiocinations that undergird them have sometimes reflected badly on his scholarship. Even without a proper and systematic education at the highest level, such as Dr Jonathan had the privilege of acquiring, he should still be capable of deep, sobering, and inspiring reflections on the country on account of his experience as a national leader controlling not only the entire country but also the biggest political party in Africa at the time. No, it is not expected that he should do the hard work of researching the building blocks of his speeches, but he is expected to direct the research as well as define the tone and direction of his discourses. He was too overwhelmed to do all that during his presidency, seeing that he was surrounded by too many jobholders and sycophants; but out of office, he now has the time, money and resources to engage in deeper and more productive thinking, finding solutions to the country’s multifarious challenges. His qualifications and presidency should tell him something significant, that much more than his successor in office, the languid and phlegmatic Muhammadu Buhari, he is the reflexive first choice of conference organisers who seek appeal to the cortex rather than the midriff. (Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo is the favourite of noisemakers and headline grabbers).

It is too late to draw any water from the well of President Buhari. The well is dry and unproductive. And whatever water is drawn from the well of Chief Obasanjo is bound to be muddy and contaminated, brimful with detritus and all sorts of insidious diseases and harmful organisms. Dr Jonathan could summon the capacity, with a little more effort, patience and thinking to serve the country as its pathfinder. If he has so far not risen to that level, if he has quibbled endlessly on issues, and if he inexplicably identifies with the most whimsical choices, it is simply because his character fails him, as it did repeatedly when he was president. Now, out of office, he appears to be finding it even more difficult to locate the meaning of character, a deficiency that caused him last Wednesday in Abuja to speak from both sides of the mouth on a subject that a properly schooled councillor should explicate with passable profundity.

May 11, 2025
Contested sovereignty and the postcolonial state

In a significant pushback by the forces of civil and political society against a brutal and obdurate postcolonial military state, Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, General Babangida’s deputy and Vice-Chairman of the Armed Forces Ruling Council, once famously rued that nothing the government did seem to impress the adamant opposition that appeared so cohesive and unrelenting in its criticism and adversarial postures. “Honestly, one just has to continue doing what one feels is right and good for the nation without minding what they feel or say”, thus mournfully concluded the gruff elderly sailor from the old Edo Division. This was after opposition forces had made a short shrift of his attempts to confuse the nation by making a dubious distinction between “misapplication of funds” and “misappropriation of national resources” in a case of crass corruption and abuse of office involving a state governor.

Shortly thereafter as the battle between democratic forces shaped up into an epic showdown which would culminate in the annulment of the freest and fairest election in the history of the nation and its tragic aftermath, General Ibrahim Babangida, the old Minna fox and master of dribbling incursions into enemy eighteen, showed up on national television after a meeting of the ruling council to brief the nation about the outcome of the council’s deliberations. Wearing a gloomy visage of contrived frustration, Babangida informed his compatriots that a pressing item on the agenda was to discuss whether to hand over the government to civil society forces who thought they knew how to govern the country better. It was a tense and testy moment for the nation. When pressed further, Babangida retorted ruefully and adamantly that it was the truth. It was a military blackmail from the pit of hell. Whoever heard of a military cabal suddenly hand over power to its civilian adversaries without some bloody encounters? The military would later hand over power, but no longer in circumstances of their choice or in condition of their provenance.

Almost four decades and a spate of communal upheavals , abortive military putsch, religion-based insurrections and nation-wide protests against the economic distress of the nation, the battle of will and wits between voices and forces of democratic pluralism and the Nigerian post-military state continues in several guises. It is to the credit of the prodemocracy forces that despite heavy casualties, the military finally retreated to the barracks. But as it is to be expected of a society transiting to political modernity, vestiges of military-inspired political autocracy and traditional authoritarianism remain. In postcolonial societies, the reorientation of political consciousness is always the hardest task, requiring deliberate cultivation and acculturation. Swelling the ranks of the ruling dominant party with stragglers and defectors and other political destitute does not lead to a new political culture. It is like working to answer; a reenactment of the old feudalist ethos in modern politics which always leads a nation to peril as it has happened twice in Nigeria’s history. This is why the debate about whether Nigeria is about to become a one-party state is a non-event; a non sequitur, the reverse gear of genuine and authentic elite consensus.

Unfortunately, punditry and informed commentary in Nigeria is often taken over by those who seem to lack fundamental capacity for rigorous thinking and the scholastic training for formal argumentation and systematized thought-processing which you found in intellectuals and politicians of an earlier epoch many of who did not even attend universities as well as in their tested well-trained bureaucrats. Instead of marshaling their points and laying out their argument in a sober and polished manner all you find is arid emoting and political incivilities which grate on the well-bred but which may sound to them like poetic eureka. While we are all at it, what is more unfortunate is that history and events do not wait for any society to solve its national problems or resolve its crippling contradictions.

Otherwise, why has contested sovereignty become the norm in several African countries despite the drive towards further democratization in the last three decades? In these postcolonial countries, overwhelmed sovereignty, partial sovereignty, negotiated sovereignty, partial territoriality and contested state identity have been the order of day with asymmetrical warfare and occasional symmetrical set-pieces that have brought the postcolonial state in Africa to utter ruin and disrepute. In many of these countries, ungoverned and ungovernable spaces surpass the writ of formal governance. In South Sudan, the protagonists are on the verge of returning to the killing fields of equatorial torpor despite a subsisting power-sharing arrangement.

Sudan is effectively partitioned as the RUF establishes formal state presence in Western Darfur after two years of horrific bloodletting. An armed critique of the befuddled gerontocracy that has ruled Cameroon since 1981 is ongoing in the English-speaking Western region of the country. The state in the Democratic Republic of Congo is effectively defunct. In Nigeria despite the advent of democracy, particularly after the summary execution of the Boko Haram sect leader in 2009, the group mutated into several murderous factions and armed affiliates that have put the fear of the Lord into everybody, particularly along the Katsina-Zamfara corridor. The Benue-Plateau axis is on the boil again while the east erupts periodically in sectarian violence.

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One can imagine the ruinous impact of these multiple and multi-dimensional conflicts on the nation’s food security which is critical to the mood of any nation and the government’s drive to reset the economy which is critical to national wellbeing. Nobody will come to our aid. The Americans who came in the early days of the Boko Haram left in a huff, citing the possibility of compromised intelligence and security concerns. As it has turned out, there were too many rogue elements in the field including Americans themselves. This is what happens when a nation’s internal demons lead it to become a prey for international gaming. In retrospect, the global shenanigans surrounding the emergence of these shadowy and virulent sects might have signposted the decaying of the old international order and the drastic reset America is currently undergoing in the hands of Donald Trump.

Apocalypse now, or the Pope of Good Hope?

May we all live in interesting times, the wily and eternally inscrutable Chinese people admonish. We surely live in interesting and unpredictable times. The world is passing through a period of strife and stress in which there is a radical discontinuity between the certainties of the past and the wild implausibility of the present, or between the events of the past and the eventualities of the present. The current epoch is marked by a convergence of conflicts and conflagrations which leaves no part of the globe untouched. With its fulcrum unhinged, the world thrashes about in different directions like a beached behemoth that has reached the end of the road, spreading fear and panic everywhere. Meanwhile, as Israel pounds everything in sight into submission, the old map of the Middle East is being forcibly redrawn before our very eyes with the old powers too tired and enfeebled to do anything about it.

The 1948 conflict over the establishment of a Jewish State, the 1956 Suez Canal conflagration, the 1967 war and the 1973 Yom Kippur confrontation, though of a savage and brutal nature was over in a matter of days. But the current Gaza expedition which was triggered by Hamas’ palpable indiscretion has lasted almost two years with an inch by inch high-tech annihilation of Gaza Strip by Israel. Before our very eyes, Israel has transformed from a war-prone nation to the first modern war state and colonizing imperium. The old western power masters in their wisdom must be wondering if they didn’t lower the Israeli cat too early among the Arab and Persian pigeons. That is if they do not have their own internal demons to contend with.

For a long time, attention has been focused on the Westphalia nation-states and the struggling paradigm of nations they have spawned particularly in the Third World and in the so called Second World. But with the continuing chaos in post-colonial Africa, the fiasco in the western world and the horrendous melee in the Middle East, attention is now shifting back to the State Question, that is the nature of the institutions and the quality of the manpower assembled to preside over the affairs of humanity and the equitable distribution of its resources. The reaction to this epochal crisis of the state has been as intriguing as it is interesting.

While Africa in the main remains trapped by the institutional paralysis and structural disequilibrium that have made it impossible for its talented First Eleven to come to power and governance, many nations in Europe and Asia have gone back to the drawing board to rediscover its most gifted elite-class. While a “colonial” nation like Canada has set formal politics aside to hand over the reins of power to an Harvard and Oxford-trained, intellectually gifted economist and technocrat, America, the founding nation of liberal democracy, has allowed the ball to slip from its sight and with that the American political mob has finally elected its own leader. With Donald Trump famously and sacrilegiously donning the episcopal mantle of the pope after the burial of the globally revered pontiff, we may be witnessing the final funeral rites of liberal democracy as we know it. Now that we have an American-born pope, Donald Trump will soon realize that the joke is on him.

How did humanity come to this sorry pass? Is humankind not a victim of its own amazing successes as it evolved away from the Hobbesian state of nature to acquire the trappings of a modern society? Our species has chalked up amazing successes on the road to the modern society, making it to surpass anything that has been before or is likely to come after even with the discovery of “life” in outer spaces. But we must always bear in mind that this ascendancy was achieved at the cost of momentous brutality and utmost cruel exertion. To secure a breathing space, our species had to hunt down and drive into extinction lesser and weaker hominids until the world was made safe for primitive humanity to roam about freely about in search of its own destiny. As Charles Darwin brilliantly demonstrated, survival of the fittest is the first principle of evolution of the human organism. Every ascendant civilization is built on the ashes and massive destruction of earlier civilizations. Every preeminent nation and its people have put other eminent nations and their people to sword. There is a Viking in every one of us. This is unfortunately what is playing out between Israel and its neighbors with the world looking askance in spite of the horrific carnage.

May 11, 2025
Reinventing the postcolonial state

What is now imperative for humankind is to find a way to further civilize itself and humanize the historical process through a benevolent State that drives the human propensity for plunder and predatory carnage underground into the abject cellars of wild hominids from which it evolved. Based on the massive evidence before us, religion and pious worship can no longer do the magic. We hesitate to say that religion has become part of the problem.

The discovery of the state in the evolution of humankind and society is a startling innovation of political genius which laid the foundation for the emergence of the post-hunter-gatherer society and a more orderly and standardized commune with division of labour taking deep roots. This was the embryonic origins of modern civilization as we know it. But over succeeding millennia and centuries as human society grew more complex as a result of human genius for innovation, the state grew more powerful and overarching , often attempting to invade and regularize all aspects of human behavior. This has led to powerful pushbacks from forces of civil and political societies often eventuating in massacres, pogroms, epic slave revolts such as we had in the old Roman Empire and revolutions such as have occurred in the US, France, Russia, China, Cuba etc. These epochal events which led to the overthrow and extirpation of the old ruling classes and ancien regime and the inauguration of new ruling classes often lead to deep changes in state and the nation. But in almost all of them the deep foundations of authoritarian tyranny and repressive severity remain with the state. The traditional family structure with its autocratic patriarch and implacable law-giver projects onto the state the subliminal anxieties of humanity.

The human organism with its complex motivations and impulses so countervailing even in the same person that it is beyond belief is not an easy person to rule or to suborn. Even the illiterate masses have ideas of their own and rightly so. In some quarters, it is asserted that if humankind were to be angels, there would be no need for government. In its efforts to stay one foot ahead of the masses and to put the gilded throne beyond the reach of the furious mob and mutinous multitude, the state develops exotic and quixotic ideas of its own. In the early twentieth century, in their response to the global economic crisis, some western countries adopted an ideology which seeks a total control of politics, the economy and society through relentless mobilization and appeal to crude nationalism. It all ended in a historic fiasco with Spain still managing the politically ruinous consequences up till this moment while the Italians personally accounted for their leader, Benito Mussolini and his mistress. Hitler committed suicide.

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In post-independence Africa, many of the leaders and founding fathers of their nations sought to impose a one-party state on their nations as a way of containing the centrifugal forces in the seething, multi-ethnic and multi-religious furnaces they inherited from the colonial rule. But it was to no avail as the experiment dissolved into ugly ethnic confrontation and violent military upheavals. In the few African countries that survived the blitz, such as Senegal and Tanzania, it was because their founding fathers were wise enough to leave behind a structure open enough for countervailing succession. In Nigeria, the political tension, military coups and an eventual confrontation between forces of civil and political society and brutal military rule which ended with the soldiers retreating to the barracks.

Unfortunately and despite the euphoria, it would appear that the vestigial structure of a repressive military state which blitzed the Nigerian landscape and sent the whole nation into a terroristic tremor remains undisturbed. Despite the advent of open and competitive democracy and the ongoing reset of the economic categories of the nation, the unresolved questions have led to contested sovereignty on many fronts and open challenges to the authority and legitimacy of the state in multiple theatres of conflicts across the nation.

The solution lies in a reinvention of the postcolonial state in Nigeria which will strengthen the capacity of the armed forces to deal with local and international emergences, push for a more inclusive governance and a structured egalitarian distribution of national resources across board, address the problem of corruption which has pushed the nation and its armed forces to the edge of the abyss and lay the foundation of a new beginning. In doing this, it must also attempt to dredge and drain the deep well of national resentments against the state. This is no doubt a huge task but the earlier we began to face the real issues the better.

May 11, 2025
Foreigners planting grass

Whatever hasn’t happened in Nigeria’s sports doesn’t exist. The latest of such bizarre incidents in sports here is the laughable sight of foreigners planting grass on playing turfs in our Federal Government-owned stadia around the country. We have seen video clips of a top sports official in Nigeria watching how a pitch in one of the European country’s football pitches was being re-grassed. It was quite preposterous watching this dangling government official stepping on portions of the re-grassed pitch while nodding in approval. I ask again, who cursed Nigeria like this?

Of course, we would be told soonest that these foreigners would be importing special specie of grass into the country. Which, sadly means the grass would also come from Europe, with special soil after several failed soil tests in the country. Manure, which is commonplace in the country from animals’ dung, would be jettisoned in preference for imported fertiliser. That is what it is here – personal agenda towering over national interests, even if it means bleeding the establishment to its financial death.

It is only in Nigeria that governance isn’t a continuum, otherwise during Chief Sunday Dare’s tenure, the immediate past Sports Minister, he brought a Nigerian who resides in Owerri to re-grass the National Stadium’s pitch in Abuja and the big players commended the quality of the pitch when they came to country for an international assignment. Again I ask, where is that Nigerian from Owerri who did that magic? Shouldn’t he be given another chance to prove his mettle?

What has this government official done to ensure that all our stadia have functional boreholes where water can be used to wet the grass? Not forgetting the presence of an uninterrupted supply of electricity in the premises? What all stadia with good playing pitches have going for them is the presence of a large land mass, which has grass being nurtured as nurseries, which they use to patch up balding areas on the main pitch. At half time and immediately after games, sprinklers underground throw water to give life to the grass. Need I repeat what these pitches enjoy for countries that have a prevalent maintenance culture? Cars, trucks and all manner of heavy containers are not allowed on these playing turfs. Of course these grounds aren’t used for political rallies or/and musical carnivals like ours. Playing turfs are handled and nurtured as kids by proven horticulturists, not just any person serving as gardeners as we have in Nigeria.

In fact, shouldn’t this government official have come back to Nigerians to think for him instead of the illiterate option of bringing foreigners to plant grass in pitches around the country? Is this government official saying that there are no lush green turfs in Nigeria? How about the golf grounds? A religious outfit in Nigeria, located in Igieduma in Edo State, has lush green lawns which help beautify the place whilst you drive past Igieduma throughout the year.

What those who run our sports should routinely do is to throw open bids for things like this, and pick the best. Planting grass isn’t rock science. It is most unwise to do, given the calibre of trained horticulturists in the country.

Curiously, one is tempted to ask those who refurbished these stadia the type of agreement they reached with those who refurbished them. Most times, these stadium builders insist on agreements where their workmen groom people who can handle any emergencies within and inside the place to avoid wanton destruction of sensitive gadgets within the stadium.

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Where are all the agreements reached after refurbishing the stadia in the past? That way we would know whose fault it was to have abandoned the stadia to their present deplorable conditions, such that we would be talking about a rebuilding of the entire structures.

The ruination experienced at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos; Liberty Stadium, Ibadan; Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, and Ahmadu Bello Stadium in Kaduna is largely due to the dearth of competitions at the domestic scene. The four stadia used to host great sporting events. But our junketing officials watched the gradual destruction of these edifices and used their disused condition to buttress why they must take Nigerian athletes overseas to train. Sadly, it didn’t occur to them that the government would save cash from their jamborees by fixing these facilities.

Piecemeal repair works of parts of the edifice called the stadium aren’t what we need. What is desirable now is the urgent need to rebuild two brand new stadia fitted with modern-day technologies and gadgets. The government alone can’t provide all the funds without collaborating with the private sector.

If we must achieve excellence and meet the objective requirement for the rapid development of our sports industry, then we must broaden the financial base of the industry and create the right conditions for private sector funding and investment in sports.

We must accept that there is a need for us to have the political will to make sports a big business, which inevitably will create the platforms for unemployment. We need to cultivate business concerns to embrace sports, but with a caveat: transparency and accountability. There was a need to create an enabling environment for business concerns to key into sports patronage, first to change the way it is run in Nigeria and then to get Nigerians to know that sports help increase the country’s G.D.P as seen in other climes.

Sport is a big deal. It unites nations and enchants people. Besides, it has a global appeal, pulling fans and sponsors in a unique force that impacts businesses and health. These positives can best be evaluated when the government has a template that makes it possible for businesses and philanthropists to key into the nation’s vision for sports.

Governments of sports-loving nations entice the businesses with relief packages, such as tax rebates on their investments in sports. Given sports’ global appeal, governments effectively utilise the platform as their public relations tool to change people’s perception of their entities.

Grassroots development can be actualised through the hosting of international and continental sporting events. Most countries use these big competitions to woo the blue-chip industries to identify with sports. Besides, these competitions open up the hinterland with the facilities constructed, creating jobs in the locality. The facilities would attract the villagers to learn the games and, inadvertently, improve their health.

Big sports competitions generate revenue, create jobs, improve financial bases and provide the best opportunity for foreigners to have first-hand interaction with Nigerians. Such competitions improve tourism, a sure money spinner. Need I state the benefit that business concerns will gain from the volume of foreign exchange during such competitions?

Is sports all about funding and administration? Not exactly. Without the athletes and the coaches, no sports events can be held. Athletes and coaches form the fulcrum on which sports thrive.

May 10, 2025
What future for APC, PDP, LP?

Under the extant 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended), political parties form the pivot around which the machinery of governance revolves. Members of the legislature who make the laws and the head of the executive which implements the laws are elected on the platform of political parties, as independent candidacy is not recognized by law. Even appointments in the judiciary, which constitutes the third arm of government, are made by the executive, sanctioned by the national or state judicial service commissions and confirmed by the legislature. Despite the central role of the political party in the governance process, the party system under the constitution is largely amorphous, loose and unstructured.

As things are currently, the vibrancy, vigour, vitality and efficacy of political parties will have to depend on the quality of party leadership, the strength of the relationship between parties and their grassroots bases, the degree of internal party discipline, respect for the regulatory laws of the parties and the effective functioning of various party organs. The reality is that none of the political parties today, at least the three major ones, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), which performed beyond its own expectation in the last presidential election, live up to the ideal of capably led, efficiently organized, party machines with intimate organic linkages with their grassroots membership.

While the PDP and LP are bogged down by protracted and debilitating internal crises, the daily haemorrhaging of elected and other prominent members of the two parties to the APC has engendered a sense of triumphalism and self-satisfaction in the latter and alarm bells of panic among the former. The beleaguered opposition parties raise hysterical cries that President Bola Tinubu is deliberately destabilizing their ranks through alleged inducement or intimidation, and blackmail by anti-corruption agencies. The aim, they say, is to foist a one-party dictatorship on the country, shrink the democratic space and make the President’s reelection for a second term a fait accompli.

But then, the large-scale defections of opposition party members to the party in control of the state and thus the power of patronage at the centre or in the states has become an entrenched feature of our political culture that predates the assumption of office of President Tinubu in May 2023. For instance, in 2021, Alhaji Bello Matawalle, who was elected as governor of Zamfara State in 2019 on the platform of the PDP, dumped the party and joined the APC. Earlier, Engineer David Umahi, governor of Ebonyi State and Professor Ben Ayade, governor of Cross River State, had equally defected to the ruling APC. And as noted last week, as at May 30, 2007, the PDP controlled 31 of the country’s 36 States although this was later reduced to 30 states when the courts sacked Andy Uba as governor of Anambra State and Mr Peter Obi of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) was sworn in as chief Executive of the state.

Although the major political parties in focus here have been dismissed by many as essentially opportunistic vehicles which exist for the sole purpose of winning elections and accessing power for largely extractive, exploitative purposes as well as lacking in ideological distinctiveness that undermine their capacity to promote development, they are the most viable party structures we have for now. As our electoral structures and processes continue to improve and elections more and more reflect the will of the people, they will incrementally be compelled to improve their organizational structures, respect internal rules, uphold intra-party democracy and put governments elected on their platforms on their toes to seriously implement party manifestoes and thus be concrete developmental agents.

And this may be the only option until youths who actively advocate change through social media militancy as well as radical intellectuals who wax rhetorically revolutionary only in theory learn to engage personally on the political terrain and get down to the hard, back-breaking work of forming and nurturing viable political organizations capable of winning elections and charting alternative trajectories for the country. But any tendency towards a one-party system will not be in the interest ultimately of the ruling party, the opposition, democracy or the country. But it is up to the opposition parties to put their houses in order. Neither President Tinubu nor the APC can do this for them.

The greatest challenge confronting the PDP right now is to resolve the current crisis that pitches the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mr. Nyesom Wike, against the party’s presidential candidate in the 2023 elections, Waziri Atiku Abubakar. A member of the party’s Board of Trustees, Chief Olabode George, has canvassed the expulsion of both chieftains from the party for anti-party activities. It is impracticable and unworkable. Despite his frequent abandonment of the party in his desperate quest for the presidency of Nigeria, expelling Atiku from the PDP will have serious negative implications for the party. As for Wike, it is well known that he almost single-handedly sustained the party and ensured its survival during an earlier crisis that nearly spelt its irretrievable implosion.

An amicable solution must be found with Wike and Atiku remaining in the PDP but ready to struggle for control of its structures through the party’s internal democratic processes at its next elective national convention. The party’s stakeholders – governors, states’ party executives, national Assembly caucuses, BOT members and those who belong neither to the Wike nor Atiku factions should summon the will and resourcefulness to get the party out of its current bog and enable it to regain its squandered glory. As for the LP, the way forward lies neither with the Julius Abure nor the Nenadi Usman-led factions.

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It would be wise for the sponsor of the LP, the NLC, to extricate the party from the grip of both sides and begin to nudge the LP to reclaim its original mission and identity as an organization of the toiling Nigerian masses committed to charting an alternative developmental path for the country rather than an opportunistic Special Purpose Vehicle hired by all manner of unprincipled politicians to contest elections for a price. It is instructive that neither the voluble Peter Obi nor the incurably academic Pat Utomi has been able to proffer practical solutions to the LP conundrum.

The defectors to the ruling APC have cited President Tinubu’s policies, the near tripling of the fiscal receipts by the sub-national units under his administration, as well as the protracted crisis in their parties, as reasons for their joining the party in control of the centre. These defections cannot be attributed to the organizational efficiency of the party in galvanising grassroots support and winning over new members, and here lies the great challenge confronting the APC. It must urgently ensure that its various organs begin to function seamlessly. It must reinvigorate its grassroots machinery by ensuring that the party executives are active, especially at the ward and local government levels.

Significant as the current defections to the party by opposition politicians are, no less critical to the party’s performance at forthcoming polls will be the impact of its policies in achieving evident objectives and improving lives. The party should thus have a ready pool of experts and progressive intellectuals to pay attention to the policy of governments elected on its platform with a view to contributing to making qualitative inputs to the policy process, which is one of the key functions of a serious and purposeful political party. It should prioritize winning and mobilizing new grassroots membership over receiving decampees from other parties, even if it will understandably readily welcome the latter.

May 10, 2025
BAO, wisdom and governance

Even without meeting him personally and just observing him from a distance, one cannot help but be impressed by the aura of humility and simplicity that the governor of Ekiti State, Mr Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji (BAO), exudes. It is not an easy feat to wield the immense executive powers of a governor in our system, where there is an imperial air to the position, and retain one’s consciousness of the frailty and fallibility that is the inalienable portion of mere mortals. But the impression I and not a few other observers of governance under Oyebanji’s leadership in Ekiti have is that of the cultured restraint and elevated moral breeding characteristic of the true Omoluabi in Yoruba culture.

This was amply confirmed when the governor featured in an interview on TVC’s programme, Journalist’s Hangout, during the week. Of course, he spoke at length on his achievements in diverse sectors, including agriculture, health, education, road infrastructure and security, among others. Not given to propaganda, this interview with Oyebanji is the only one I am aware of since his assumption of office. Yet, there were believable visuals to back up the claims made by the governor on the programme. For instance, I was impressed by the extent of work done on the Airport project in Ado Ekiti. When this project was conceived and commenced by his predecessor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, I was inclined to believe its critics who argued that it was superfluous and wasteful, with an airport already cited in nearby Akure in Ondo State.

But Oyebanji explained convincingly why the project will add significant value to Ekiti State and the extent his administration has gone to engage professionals with the requisite expertise to make Ekiti a vibrant aviation hub in the zone. Once again, this demonstrates the beauty, especially of policy continuity despite inevitable changes in government personnel. But beyond the undeniable developmental impact his government is making, is the wisdom and maturity that BAO brings to governance. For instance, he sees his leader, Dr Fayemi, not as an imperious godfather, but a mentor from whose experience he can benefit for the good of the state.

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In the same way, he has cultivated close relationships with all of his predecessors – Chief Niyi Adebayo, Mr Ayo Fayose and Engineer Segun Oni. He says he strives to benefit from their strengths and experiences but also to learn from their mistakes. He reaches to leaders and stakeholders across Ekiti irrespective of their party affiliations, which explains the unprecedented air of peace and harmony that pervades the state today. BAO served as Secretary of the Committee that was at the vanguard of the struggle for the creation of the state when he was in his twenties. He held several critical positions in the administrations of both Niyi Adebayo and Kayode Fayemi and was thus eminently prepared for the job of governor, which is a great credit to Fayemi.

But is there a cultural factor to the kind of wisdom and modesty deployed by BAO in the governance of a highly enlightened state like Ekiti? Could the crisis that has resulted in a shipwreck of governance in Rivers State have been avoided if the suspended governor, Similaiyi Fubara, imbibed just a little bit of these attributes? Would he have been able to manage his predecessor, the tempestuous Nyesom Wike, better? But in Rivers, Rotimi Amaechi as governor fought his predecessor and mentor, Dr Peter Odili, to a standstill in a no-holds-barred Titanic battle. Wike, as governor, engaged in unending brutal political warfare with Amaechi, his predecessor and mentor. And Fubara and his estranged godfather and predecessor, Wike, who did everything to ensure the former ‘s emergence as governor, are currently engaged in a seeming battle unto death for the soul of Rivers. It is inexplicable.

May 10, 2025
The scramble for grassroots power in Lagos

Since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was governor of Lagos State, the state government has always conducted periodic local government elections without fail.

Thus, the Centre of Excellence has been a good example of complying with the constitutional provision stipulating the importance of having democratically elected councils in place.

Three political parties – All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) – will slug it out in July for the grassroots popularity test in the state.

The battle will take place across 57 councils, comprising the pre-existing 20 local government areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs).

In APC, the intra-party competition for the chairmanship and councillorship tickets is stiff. The race has thrown up antagonism among the contenders. Participants have returned to the drawing board to scheme, plot, evolve winning strategies and pull the rug off the feet of their rivals.

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Party elders can hardly rest in their domains. They host visitors seeking endorsements, signatures, guidance and gerontocratic assurance, real or imaginary goodwill and solidarity.

Electioneering demands the allocation of men, money, and materials (Three Ms) to conduct. It stretches these resources, sometimes elastically, depending on how far a contestant wishes to go. The more you push through, the more resources you expend to succeed. It is very stressful.

In an economic sense, some people perceive politicking as an investment from which they hope to garner returns. Structures have to be erected, maintained, and reinforced. Contestants have to reach out to ‘stakeholders’: party delegates, youths and women, traditional rulers, religious leaders, community development associations and key ethnic nationalities. Politics is like mucky waters.

In the ruling party, almost 500 chairmanship contenders took the nomination forms. The number of councillorship aspirants is better imagined. Their posters adorn and litter the streets. At this level, there is no apathy at all.

Today, across the 57 councils, party officers who constitute the electoral colleges are selecting candidates for the polls from the multitudes. If consensus fails, indirect primaries, carefully guided, come to the party’s rescue.

The nomination process is being anchored by the Election Committee, led by Tunde Ogala (SAN). It began with the expression of interest, the purchase of forms, and screening. The process then moves to shadow polls, which are expected to be transparent and peaceful, although already, there are some allegations of imposition of candidates by those who appear to be losing out.

It is the tradition of the political family to opt for consensus. Those who see the option as a threat believe that it favours some aspirants more than others. There is a growing feeling among political orphans that the Lagos polity and its corridor of power are designed, partly, for the projection of the children of legends.

But the loss of equality can be mitigated, more or less, by the gains of equity, which may foster a feeling of substantial fairness and justice.

By now, wiser politicians would have understood that power is not served on a platter of gold. There is always an effort to make to get the trophy.

Faced with this reality, the contenders are working hard, consulting widely, intensifying mobilisation and praying hard. It is particularly burdensome to purists that politics and morality also exist in clear-cut antithetical relationships. Politics is the murky water where politicians throw their nets in the hope of a big catch.

Young politicians bidding for political control, therefore, need to learn the ropes. The tickets, above all, belong to the party. Internal democracy, which is often misinterpreted and misunderstood by new entrants, encapsulates obedience to the procedure by old and experienced progressive politicians who are permanently disposed to consensus building, procedural articulation and guided process which the youths ignorantly question because they are in a hurry.

Another problem among the youth is that many of them lack ‘Plan B,’ which is vital to adjustment and survival in politics.

Aggrieved candidates, who failed the screening or were disqualified, either subjectively or objectively, are given an opportunity for redress or ventilation of grievances by the Screening Appeal Committee, chaired by another lawyer, Adeniji Kazeem (SAN). Also, aspirants who would miss the selection process as candidates today still have a chance to present their complaints to the party leadership, if they are not satisfied with the outcome of the exercise. The final say resides with the party.

Frivolous petitions are submitted to the party leadership for adjudication over disputes. Some people are calling for religious balance in some councils as if faith has ever determined the direction of Southwest politics. Others are raising eyebrows over the third term for some chairmen. So far, there is no allegation of ethnic bias. Lagos APC is for all Nigerians.

It is gratifying that the party is considering some concessions for women aspirants in the spirit of the Beijing Declaration. How the details would be worked out and the choice of the beneficiaries in some of the wards and councils is left to the party leadership.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears to be lagging a little. But to encourage dispirited party members, party forms are likely to be distributed free to aspirants. If a free and fair council poll is conducted by the Lagos State Independent Electoral Commission (LASIEC), the main opposition party is likely to produce two or three councillors in two or three local governments. However, PDP is always assailed by the fear of domination by the ruling party during council elections.

The Labour Party (LP) is far behind, unmindful of the chance to bark and bite, at least, in some wards. It appears that Obedients, the fanatical supporters of Peter Obi, are only gazing at 2027.

Local government administration is important in a democracy. It is an essential pillar in the development of the grassroots. It is the closest unit of administration to the people. Therefore, those who steer the affairs of the councils should be men and women, not only of the parties but also of the communities. They should be willing to serve as drivers of development and not merely potential looters and embezzlers of the local treasury.

The verification by Lagos APC was an eye-opener. Some aspirants performed poorly during the screening. Some of them did not know why they wanted to be chairmen and councillors, the nature and challenges of the councils they wanted to serve and the sociology and even demography of the environment. Their motive was suspect.

The motivation for participation ought to be service to the community. But not all politicians subscribe to this idea. Some just want to be relevant. Others see politics, not as a vocation but as a career that attracts economic gains. Others merely seek relevance in their community settings.

Besides the tyros, some bigwigs are also in the race. Among them are former members of the Houses of Assembly and Representatives. There is a growing feeling that the councils would soon be bubbling because chairmen would have access to more funds because of local government autonomy.

The desire to corner the money, a very rampant malaise in many councils, conflicts with the vision of Asiwaju Tinubu, whose government expanded the administrative units to foster development at the grassroots by creating additional 37 LCDAs.

In the constitution, the functions of local government are outlined. The very conception of local councils underscores the peculiarities of the environment and makes the discharge of certain residual responsibilities, such as local works, markets, primary education and health, refuse disposal and intelligence gathering for security more compelling.

Local governments should serve as breeding places for future leaders at the state and federal levels. Early leaders, including Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, and Tafawa Balewa, honed their administrative skills when they served as councillors in their respective local governments. The incoming chairmen should learn from these political ancestors.

The essence of a democratically elected council is to provide an opportunity for grassroots participation, inclusivity and a sense of belonging. Councils have the mandate to raise and spend funds to meet local needs in the areas of education, health and infrastructure development. These services are vital to public welfare. Residents of local councils deserve transparency and accountability from their elected representatives who must also live with them in the wards.

Today’s primary should produce competent candidates who will resume duties in July. On their shoulders rests the responsibility of mobilising for the party ahead of the 2027 general election. They need to work very hard to erase the memory of the 2023 embarrassing defeat against the party. A stitch in time saves nine.

The July local election is not likely to be competitive. Opposition parties are timid, uncoordinated, unprepared and bogged down by protracted crises.

But the APC chairmen and councillors coming on board should not take things for granted. They need to understand that governance at the grassroots is not leisurely. The greatest threat to democracy is to see public offices as avenues for self-aggrandisements.

The target of the incoming council leaders should be how to reinvent the vibrant eras of Adeyemi Lawson, Ganiyu Dawodu, Adeyinka Opeifa, Ademola Adenji-Adele, Kayode Olowu, Tayo Oyemade, Tunde Braimoh, Ganiyu Solomon, Jide Jimoh, Muniru Muse, Abiodun Mafe, Adewale Ayodele, James Faleke, and Dele Osinnowo.

Much is expected of Lagos councils. Many local government roads are in bad shape and primary health centres cry for resuscitation. Professionals should be attracted to strengthen the personnel gap at the councils. Regular staff training on project implementation and other local developmental priorities is crucial.

The councils need regular peer reviews and continual assessment of the chairmen. There is a need for effective supervision of the councils by the state government through the Ministry of Local Government and the House of Assembly, beyond the occasional verification or assessment visit by members of the Governance Advisory Council (GAC).

The national and state levels of governance will be better impacted when the councils perform their tasks honestly and diligently. For too long, there has been too much of putting the wrong foot forward among those at the helm of affairs in the councils. There must be a return to effective leadership and governance at this highly important but often overlooked stratum of political administration.

Lagos State has remained a model in governance. Its local councils must also be torchbearers for other parts of the country by achieving what even many other states cannot achieve. It is the quality of elected council chairmen and councillors that will make this happen.

May 10, 2025