Category: Saturday

Segun Ayobolu

IT was in Mr. Emeka Obasi’s column in Vanguard newspaper that I read that the renowned political scientist, Professor Okwudiba Nnoli, recently clocked the ripe old age of 81. The distinguished academic stands at the very apex of the political science discipline in Nigeria, nay Africa ranking among such giants of the field as Claude Ake and Billy Dudley. I have been privileged to meet the respected scholar at some distance on at least two occasions that I can remember. First, was in 2004 or thereabouts when he was invited by the administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as then governor of Lagos State, to deliver a public lecture to commemorate the anniversary of the annulled June 12, 1993, presidential election. The second was in 2005 when I attended the 23rd annual conference of the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA) in Owerri, the Imo state capital.

On both occasions, I listened with awe and rapt attention to the always radical and progressive ideas of a man who made a profound impact on my intellectual development through his books even though I was not fortunate to be one of his students – at least not directly. From Emeka Obasi’s column, I gathered that when Professor Nnoli taught in Tanzania, the late Guyanese radical scholar and author of the monumental ‘How Europe underdeveloped Africa’ had been one of his colleagues and that Ugandan President, Yoweri Museveni was one of his students. At the defunct Daily Times in the mid to, late 1980s, Dr Emeka Nwosu, a brilliant former student of Professor Nnoli, had been my colleague on the vibrant political desk of the newspaper.

Professor Nnoli’s classic book, ‘Introduction to Politics’ is certainly a lasting legacy to students of politics and power in Nigeria and beyond. He gives a concise insight into the core of politics both as an activity and as a discipline that weaves together diverse perspectives on the subject. In his words, “Thus one may define politics today as: all activities that are directly or indirectly associated with the emergence, consolidation and use of state power. Therefore, whether defined in terms of man being a political animal; the art of the possible; who gets what, where and how; the struggle for power; or the authoritative allocation of resources and values, politics has the state as its centerpiece. The state forms the basis for distinguishing those activities that take place in various arenas of life, such as the church, family, classroom, social club and the market from those activities that we refer to as politics. For politics to exist, these activities must be directly or indirectly associated with the state”.

His magnum opus, ‘Ethnic Politics in Nigeria’, published in 1978, is an incisive and exhaustive study of the role, evolution and impact of ethnicity in Nigerian politics depicting in particular the socio-economic roots of the phenomenon and its linkage to the class dimensions of the country’s politics. However, of particular interest to me have been Professor Nnoli’s invaluable contributions to the discourse on underdevelopment in Nigeria and the path to its transcendence, a subject on which he has written extensively.

The collection of radical essays of which he was both a major contributor and editor, ‘Path to Nigerian development’ was published in 1981. Other contributors to the book were the late Professor Bade Onimode, Professor Uzodinma Nwala and Professor Inyang Ette. Although written within an essentially Marxist theoretical framework, the book offers profound and enduring insights into aspects of development and underdevelopment in Nigeria as well as reasons why the country remains in the mire of socio-economic and technological backwardness six decades after independence.

Two of Professor Nnoli’s chapters in the book in particular, ‘Development/Underdevelopment: Is Nigeria Developing?’ and ‘A Short History of Underdevelopment in Nigeria’ make compelling reading. Can we really pursue development without a very clear idea and definition of what it is that we desire? Is development synonymous with the mere acquisition of the artifacts of westernization and modernization? What are the sources, origins and trajectory of underdevelopment in Nigeria? Is there not a fundamental and qualitative difference between the country’s protracted economic crisis, which mainstream economists seem preoccupied with resolving with little success, and the more fundamental crisis of underdevelopment? These are the kinds of issues that Nnoli sheds light on his thought-provoking essays on the subject.

Over a decade after the publication of that book, Professor Nnoli was yet a contributor to and editor of another slimmer but no less seminal work in the political economy of poverty and underdevelopment in Nigeria. It was evocatively and perhaps apocalyptically titled ‘Deadend to Nigerian Development: Analysis of the Political Economy of Nigeria (1979-1989). Other contributors to that volume include Professors Samuel Egwu, Abdul Raufu Mustapaha, Okechukwu Ibeanu and Assisi Asobie.

In the preface to the book, Professor Nnoli vividly captures the country’s trajectory in the pursuit of economic policies that only resulted in what the authors rightly described as a developmental deadend. In his words, “This book is a follow-up to ‘Path to Nigerian Development’, published by CODESRIA in 1981, which covered the development of Nigeria from colonial times to 1977. That book described the path to development followed by the country’s leaders and in it we predicted that the inevitable direction of that path was to a dead end. Our prediction was based essentially on what we saw as a wrong conception of development which underlies that path – the divorce of popular needs, habits and consumption patterns from the dominant processes of production, the persistent absence of any link between indigenous science and technology in agriculture and the manufacturing industry, and the lack of discipline or work ethic by the ruling classes”.

Even as the raging Coronavirus crisis exposes more than ever before the vulnerable underbelly of Nigeria’s parlous economy as well as draws attention to the structural deformities that are at the root of the country’s persistent underdevelopment, Professor Nnoli was remarkably prescient in a paper he presented at a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence at the University of Lagos in 2010.

In the paper titled ‘Nigerian Politics: The Tyranny of Petty Bourgeois Political Discourse’, he advocated an alternative, radical political and developmental discourse in Nigeria arguing that “In such a discourse, priority must be given to production. The demands of production must define the character of Nigerian politics. This means that the state must formulate and implement concrete incentives to increase creatively the productivity of the vast majority of the people. Priority must go to the organization of increasingly creative and modernized jobs and the provision of social welfare services in education and health to enable the people produce more as well as better. The state must ensure that economic enterprises, public or private, maintain a viable R and D activity with a view to creating new products related to the needs and traditional consumption habits of the vast majority of the people, using local resources. It may be necessary also to subsidize various aspects of production in order to encourage its stability or growth. Without increasing production, distribution soon reaches a dead end”. These are surely pertinent words for Coronavirus times.

Segun Ayobolu

Right from the day they were sworn into office on October 1, 1979, the five governors of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) in the Second Republic announced the introduction of free education at all levels as well as free universal healthcare for all in Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Ogun and Bendel states.

This was in fulfillment of their pledge to the electorate as enshrined in their party’s manifesto. As a young UPN enthusiast at the time, I was apprehensive that the UPN governors had taken a rather reckless risk in announcing such a sweeping welfarist programme without first ascertaining the state of the finances they were inheriting. How were they sure they would find the funds to implement the programme?

The campaigns for the 1979 elections that ushered them into power had been particularly intense and bitter. In contention especially in the campaigns were the UPN’s promises of free education at all levels and free health services for all.

The National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which had the green revolution in agriculture and mass provision of housing on top its own policy agenda, dismissed the UPN’s promises as mere election winning gimmicks.

But the UPN touted its leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s track record of exemplary performance as Premier of the Western Region in the First Republic, his well known knack for detailed and meticulous planning as well as the first class intellectuals that constituted the party’s think tank.

The UPN went on to successfully implement these programmes in the states under its control. Indeed, in Lagos State, Alhaji Lateef Jakande even went further to outperform the NPN hands down in the area of mass housing provision.

Across the five UPN states, school enrolment increased substantially as a result of the free education policy, which showed that a need was indeed being met and its purpose served.

Earlier, as Premier of the Western Region, Awolowo’s Action Group (AG) had scaled great odds to rigorously and exemplarily implement its programme of free universal primary education for all children of school going age, free medical treatment for all children up to the age of 18, one hospital for each of the twenty-four Administrative Divisions in the Region which did not already possess one and better wages for the working class among others.

In his enthralling autobiography, Awolowo graphically spelt out the iron will and extraordinary discipline responsible for the Western Region government’s policy audaciousness and its high level of success in implementing them. Let me quote him at some length: “Apart from administrative impediments, we did recognize that there were also financial hurdles of a mountainous height to be overcome.

But we were determined to blast our way through them all, and compel the force of any adverse circumstance to serve our will.

We had put in long and hard preparation to meet the challenge of the new constitution; we had evolved elaborate plans which, with such modification as inside knowledge of governmental facts and figures might dictate, were ready to be launched at a moment’s notice; and what is more, we had an abiding, flaming faith in the soundness and reasonableness of our plans”.

As a result of the very ambitious social welfare programmes for the masses, which they had committed themselves to actualize if elected, Chief Awolowo in the First Republic and the UPN governors in the Second Republic had to impose on themselves the highest standards of self discipline and fiscal prudence in office.

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With such far reaching goals to be met, there was no room for frivolous expenditure of government funds. In announcing and committing to implementing the comprehensive welfare programmes of their party, these visionary leaders burned the bridges behind them after crossing the river.

They had no choice but to swim or sink. For them, there was just no alternative to success. Is it not said that if you aim for the stars, you will at the very least reach the moon?

What has been glaringly missing in governance in the over two decades of this democratic dispensation is the setting of goals of a sufficiently ambitious nature that will task the ingenuity, intellect, will and capacity for discipline of leaders at all levels of government.

More than ever before, the raging Coronavirus pandemic presents to us an opportunity to take very seriously the lone voice of renowned human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), who has relentlessly canvassed the concrete actualization at all levels of the comprehensive socio-economic rights enshrined in the 1999 constitution.

There are those who have made the largely analytically valueless argument that the 1999 constitution is a document predicated on falsehood because it claims to be a product of “We the people”, which it purportedly is not.

This viewpoint would dismiss wholesale the extant constitution as if the good governance we desire is a function of semantics and legal technicalities.

Yet the constitution, despite its undeniable defects, contains many strong points and does not in any way impede productive and effective governance if the requisite visionary, committed and goal oriented leadership is available.

Can anyone even for an instance imagine that an Obafemi Awolowo, Lateef Jakande, Michael Okpara, Ahmadu Bello, Bola Ige or Balarabe Musa, to name a few, would not make an outstanding success of governance at any level if operating under this constitution?

Chapter 11 of this constitution, which makes a comprehensive provision for the socio-economic welfare of the Nigerian people from the cradle to the grave, is one of the most progressive, humanist, even revolutionary, insertions in any constitution in the world across time and space. It is a document of which all Nigerians should justifiably be very period.

Expounding on this portion of the constitution in his book, ‘Nigerian Law of Socio-Economic Rights’, Falana writes, “However, in response to the popular demand for the establishment of a welfare state when the country witnessed oil boom in the 1970s, the Constitution Drafting Committee set up by the federal government in 1975 recommended the inclusion of Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy in the Constitution.

The recommendation was accepted by the federal government which incorporated them in chapter 11 of the 1979 Constitution. Similar provisions have been enshrined in the 1999 Constitution”.

Now, what exactly does this pivotal section of the constitution enshrine as the purpose of government? In the words of Falana in his book, “The provisions of the fundamental objectives cover socioeconomic rights such as the right to security and welfare, right to political participation, right to education, right to health, right to environment, right to secure adequate means of livelihood including suitable and adequate shelter, suitable and adequate food, reasonable minimum living wage, old-age care and pensions, unemployment or sick benefits and welfare of the disabled and other vulnerable people”.

But why have such ennobling principles and goals not driven governance in Nigeria especially in this dispensation? Falana hits the nail on the head, “However, the ruling class has ensured that while civil and political rights guaranteed in chapter 4 of the Constitution are justiciable, the jurisdiction of the courts is completely ousted with respect to the enforcement of socioeconomic rights.

This idea of non-justiciability has limited the access of victims of socioeconomic rights abuse to effective remedies”.

There are those who will argue that it is impossible for government to find the resources to fund such expansive welfare programmes. No thanks to Coronavirus, such postulations have been rendered obsolete.

Governments across the world, not excluding the most ideologically conservative ones, are suddenly finding humongous amounts of resources to stimulate their economies, support failing sectors as well as providing financial succor to the poor and vulnerable.

Virtually all countries now realize that having large numbers of people who are poor, jobless; homeless or living in slums and overcrowded shanties; hungry and malnourished or sick and unable to afford healthcare; constitutes a grave danger to the very existence of entire societies.

Making Chapter 11 of the Nigerian Constitution justiciable will help redefine and rediscover the essential purpose of government. It will help ensure that aspirants to public office are no longer motivated by the desire for pleasure and the easy life.

Rather, they will be compelled to task and discipline themselves to the uttermost to actualize the high purpose for which government exists. It is the sure way to curbing wastage in governance and rampant corruption in high office as all resources will have to be channeled to meet the constitutionally enforceable obligations of government to the people. Above all, it will compel the elimination of those structural impediments to every component part of the federation being economically viable and productive entities.

Segun Ayobolu

Several world leaders and analysts have likened the raging Coronavirus pandemic to the equivalent of a war waged by an invisible organism against humanity.

Virtually all nations of the world are on a war footing and Nigeria is no exception. Indeed, with the onslaught of the virus, the country is in an emergency situation akin to the civil war of 1967 – 1970.

The onset of the civil war caught the Federal Government as unprepared as the current insidious Coronavirus blitzkrieg has found both the federal and state governments, like rich and poor nations alike, napping.

In a public lecture delivered at the University of Ibadan in May 1970, the then Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council, Federal Commissioner for Finance and mastermind of the country’s public finance management during the conflict, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, made the point that “Consequently, at the outbreak of the civil war on 6th July, 1967, apart from lack of adequate military preparedness on our part, the finances of the federation were neither mobilized nor deployed on proper war footing, let alone for the long, protracted and expensive military campaign we had to conduct.”

Thus, the army had to be expanded considerably in response to the emergency; military expenditures ballooned phenomenally while the federal government still had to strive to meet its other obligations to the citizenry.

The pressure was no less severe on the part of Biafra, which faced great odds in funding its military, innovating admirably particularly in the areas of science and technology while also having to mitigate the effects of a punishing federal blockade.

Although in his Ibadan lecture, Awolowo expounded extensively on the various strategies through which the finances of the country were managed during the period such that the war was prosecuted without any external borrowing, our concern here is his emphasis on the federal government’s fiscal discipline and prudent management of resources.

In his words, “Throughout the war we did our best to economize. Ministries, other than those of Defence and Internal Affairs, were enjoined to make 1 per cent savings in their approved estimates of expenditure for 1967/68; and to their credit, they made genuine efforts to comply.

For the succeeding years, we endeavoured to keep all the Ministries concerned to the level of their 1967/68 appropriations minus 1 per cent thereof.

At the same time, all capital projects, in respect of which the Federal Military Government had not irrevocably committed itself, were postponed indefinitely.”

The country’s situation is no less dire with respect to the current pandemic. International crude oil prices have dropped abysmally following a virtual shut down of the global economy with deleterious effects for the finances of the federal and state governments.

All levels of government have been compelled to make drastic downward adjustments in their 2020 budgetary revenue and expenditure projections.

Yet, unanticipated colossal sums of money have to be expended on the health sector to contain the rampaging virus, critical sectors of the national economy have been practically paralyzed while government has also had to commit substantial resources to providing palliatives to vulnerable sections of the citizenry most hard hit by the crisis.

But are leaders at all levels of government approaching this crisis as if the country is indeed at war or is it still largely business as usual especially with regard to cutting avoidable wastage in governance? Some governors have taken tentative commendable steps in this direction.

Governors Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, for instance, have cut the salaries and emoluments of political appointees in their states by at least half.

But is this enough? Many analysts do not think so. The real source of wastage in governance is not the official salaries of the affected officials and this remains largely unaddressed.

In the same vein, not many are impressed by the gesture of national legislators in donating part of their salaries for specified periods to the war against the pandemic.

The members of the 9th National Assembly have been criticized for not addressing the issue of drastically cutting their age-long over bloated and opaque allowances even in the face of severe pressure on public finances as a result of the pandemic.

It has been pointed out that they did not hesitate to take delivery of their imported exotic official vehicles in spite of the health emergency when even a resort to locally assembled vehicles to substantially cut costs would have shown some degree of patriotic empathy with the people in these trying times. Surely, it cannot continue to be business as usual in a season of virtual warfare.

As for the state governors, it is inexcusable that they have not seized the moment to address the issue of the humongous security votes that they reportedly expend with little or no accountability.

This issue assumes greater poignancy in the light of a news report in this newspaper last Sunday that a former governor of Abia State, Senator Theordore Orji, admitted to spending the sum of N38.8 billion as security votes during his tenure between 2007 and 2015.

In an astonishing statement to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the former governor who now represents Abia Central Senatorial District in the Senate, claimed that he shared much of the money with members of the State House of Assembly, security informants and agencies as well as traditional rulers.

According to the report, “In a tell-it-all statement to his interrogators, the former governor said he gave successive members of the State House of Assembly N5.7billion, at N60 million per month, in the eight years.

He also claimed to have paid N75 million monthly to security informants in 15 of 17 local government areas of the state within the period. The yet-to-be identified informants allegedly pocketed a total of N7.200 billion between 2007 and 2015.

Some of the security agencies, according to him, received N2 million per month. However, he told the interrogators that he does not have a comprehensive list of all the beneficiaries of the largesse because the Government House staff who used to disburse the cash is no more.

He gave the man’s name as Felix. Orji said he did not ask for the list from Felix at the expiration of his tenure as governor”.

Senator Orji will surely have his day in court. But certainly no country where humongous public funds are allegedly routinely expended in such an opaque and cavalier manner can have the quality of health care infrastructure that can effectively respond to attacks of guerrilla-type viruses.

Neither will such countries be able to elevate the vast majority of their people above the level of poverty that has made it existentially impossible for large numbers of Nigerians to abide by hygienic and social distancing guidelines necessary to curtail the spread of the Coronavirus.

How much do state governors receive as security votes and how is this fund expended? Is there any legislative oversight over this expenditure? How can this source of stupendous wastage in governance be eliminated or drastically curtailed? This is of course only one example of waste that the Coronavirus experience must compel us to address decisively.

The virus of corruption, avarice and waste continues to rampage across the length and breadth of the country’s public service defying the Buhari administration’s valiant efforts.

Let me end this piece with another quote from the inimitable Awo in a wide- ranging interview he had with the late academic philosopher, Professor Akin Makinde, in Lagos on Saturday, April 4th, 1987.

According to the sage: “What you may not know is that government makes money every day, probably more than it can spend on each day.

In this sense, government is never broke unless some funny things happen. What a good government like that of the Western Region under my leadership should do is to keep an eagle’s eye on the nation’s treasury, its incomes and expenditures”.

He continued: “You must see government as big business where the shareholders are happy at the end of the year when good profit is declared and good dividends are paid.

A business that indulges in frivolous and unproductive spending is not likely to satisfy its shareholders at the end of the year…I think government should not be run as if it is nobody’s business, where everybody will like to steal and steal public money to no end. It is abominable, it is wicked”!