Category: Saturday

The view in some quarters is that the ongoing disturbingly incendiary, even if low intensity warfare, between former two-term governor of Rivers State and now Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mr Nyesom Wike, and his personally and passionately anointed successor, Mr Siminalayi Fubara, is a function of perceived weaknesses and/or excesses of both men. While some have accused Wike of high-handedness, an overbearing disposition and intolerance in his relationship with his successor, others contend that Fubara has exhibited the highest degree of ingratitude and tactlessnesses towards his predecessor given the unprecedented exertions of the latter to ensure his emergence as governor.

Both men evidently have their faults and failings. But this kind of personalized reading of the often strained relationships between governors and their successors, which has been quite common in this dispensation as exemplified by the combustible crisis between two-term governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and his equally anointed successor and incumbent governor of the state, Mr Godwin Obaseki, may not be helpful in locating the institutional roots of the problem and preferring enduring solutions.

Just as was the case in Edo, the dimension of the problem in Rivers was assuming alarming proportions before the intervention of President Bola Tinubu with the anarchic incapacitation of the state legislature with dangerous implications for democratic practice in the state. It is the view of this column that the source of this recurrent problem in several states lies in the underdevelopment of the political party system in the country and the consequent emergence of many incumbent state governors as virtual sole administrators and veritable dictators in their states.

Despite the central role that the extant 1999 constitution accords political parties as the platforms for the emergence of occupants of both legislative and executive leadership at all levels, the parties have since 1999 not evolved the requisite quality of organizational structures, ideological clarity and philosophical disposition to effectively perform their constitutional functions in this regard.

Consequently, at the state level in particular, governors have emerged as strong men who have practically captured and immobilized the enfeebled party structures through which they ascended to power in their states. This has contributed to the debilitating leadership succession problems in many states with governors imposing their choices mostly through strong arm tactics only with the latter once in power seeking to become all powerful strong men in their own right.

It is not surprising that one of the most effective, impactful and result-oriented political leaders this country has ever produced, whose leadership as the first Premier of the Western Region in the First Republic has remained a landmark, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, had no illusions about the prime role of political parties in ensuring effective, accountable and focused governance. In a speech to the Oyo State Conference of the Unity Party of Nigeria in November, 1980, Awolowo was unequivocal in his articulation of the supremacy of the party over its members in both the executive and the legislature.

In his words, “The important point to stress here is that our Constitution clearly makes a Registered Political Party the cornerstone of the activities of all the members of that Party, including those of them in the Legislature and Executive, as well as those of them operating outside these two organs of government. Indeed, the Registered Political Party is the sole source from which candidates for election, and elected members of the Legislature and the Executive, derive life blood for acceptability, public status and legitimacy”.

The truth of the matter is that elected officers either in the legislature or executive are not expected to function independent of the political parties on the platform of which they were elected. And this does not exclude governors. In justifying and rationalizing Fubara’s rebellion and repudiation of Wike’s leadership and mentorship, some have made the untenable argument that once elected a governor should be allowed to be his own man, to independently choose his commissioners and other aides as well as chart his autonomous cause. But then, a governor was elected on the platform of a party. No governor wins election alone.

The party must thus necessarily have a say in the choice of appointment of officers by a governor and government elected on its platform. Indeed, in the Second Republic, key officers both of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the President Shehu Shagari administration including the National Chairman of the party, the President, the Senate President, Senate Leader and Speaker of the House of Representatives met regularly to take joint decisions on appointments, major contract awards and other issues. Indeed, elected officials are expected to implement the policy planks of their parties.

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In my view neither the parliamentary nor the presidential systems of government envisages that the head of the executive arm of government will govern alone. True, under the parliamentary system, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are more dependent on the legislature but even Nigeria’s presidential constitution mandates the Chief Executive to appoint a Council of Ministers which he must consult regularly in running the affairs of state. Unfortunately, in many states, the governors run their administrations like emperors with the State Executive Council no more than rubber stamps and robotic sounding boards for the governor’s often ill conceived and defective ideas.

To make matters worse, the state legislatures are also at the beck and call of state governors while the local government councils are denied any meaningful financial or other forms of autonomy. And the civil servants too are too cowed to give honest and objective professional counsel. In many cases even the judiciary is largely emasculated by the governors’ suffocating monopoly of power. In such a situation, the governor is most likely to be dangerously divorced from reality and prone to make avoidable and costly policy errors.

Ironically, in derisively referring to President Bola Tinubu as ‘The Godfather’ of Lagos during and after his tenure as governor of the country’s commercial nerve center, many of such critics are blissfully ignorant of his modus operandi in governing the state that was largely responsible for his widely acclaimed success in laying the foundation for today’s viable and rapidly growing mega city. For instance, the State Executive Council under his leadership was a rigorous and vibrant debating forum where proposed policies were exhaustively considered before being adopted, rejected or modified on merit. Just like governor Babatunde Raji Fashola immediately after him and governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu today, Tinubu enjoyed being debated and challenged on the basis and soundness of his ideas and did not despise losing arguments to better alternatives. Lagos has been the better for this liberal disposition of her successive governors over the last two and half decades.

Apart from carrying party leaders along in the governance process, Tinubu instituted the novelty of a Governors Advisory Council (GAC) comprising seasoned administrators, politicians and statesmen to contribute to deepening the quality of governance. Furthermore, he deployed greater tact and wisdom in his relationship with his successors such that even when there was crisis, it never snowballed into the uncontrollable scenario witnessed in many states. He was able to exercise considerable influence in the choices of those who emerged as governor after him not through strong arm tactics but through extensive informal consultations with party and other stakeholders as well as the soundness and competence of his choices.

The only way to effectively address and curtail the frequent distracting and destructive conflicts and tensions between governors and their successors is to replace the current tradition of the supremacy of the governor with the healthier and less dysfunctional supremacy of the party. When Chief Awolowo was leaving the Western Region as Premier to contest for election at the centre, he involved party leaders at various levels in the process that led to the emergence of Chief Ladoke Akintola as his successor in the West even though he had other preferred candidates for the job such as Chief Rotimi Williams or Chief Anthony Enahoro.

That was why when he faced rebellion from Akintola against his leadership of the Action Group (AG), critical stakeholders in the West and the rank and file of the party stood by Awo despite the immense powers and resources of the Premier. That is a lesson to governors to encourage the functioning of viable party structures and involve the latter fully in the determination of their successors so that they can have solid support bases when the new emperors they single-handedly imposed bare their fangs.

All too often, governors want to be lone super stars and to claim all the glory and accolades for the perceived successes of their administrations. That is most unwise. No leader in reality succeeds alone. Here again, appropriate lessons can be learnt from the inimitable Awolowo. In his valedictory speech to the Western Region House of Assembly after his superlative performance as Premier of the region, he declared “The undoubted, outstanding and epoch-making successes which have characterized my regime have not been achieved single-handed. I have owed these successes to God’s abiding grace and mercy, and to the cooperation of all my colleagues without exception. I take this opportunity to pay public tribute to my cabinet and Parliamentary colleagues for their patriotism, public-spiritedness and devotion to duty; and for their unwavering loyalty to the noble cause of our great party and to my leadership”.

Awo even had a word of appreciation to the opposition in the Region: “However much one may dislike the methods of some individual opposition members, the fact remains, and I hereby publicly and gratefully acknowledge it, that under the leadership of the Honorable Dennis Osadebey, the opposition has made worthy contributions to the healthy growth of parliamentary democracy in this Region”. Today, in how many states of the country do we have thriving and vibrant oppositions which are indispensable to good governance? It is this anomaly of state governors as tyrants that must be addressed to prevent or at least drastically minimize the ongoing debilitating crisis in Rivers State.