By Segun Ayobolu

THERE are those who feel so utterly disappointed and outraged by the perceived hiatus between the actual performance of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the last six years and its soaring, hope-inspiring promises to the electorate to effect fundamental changes in diverse sectors, in the run up to the 2015 general elections. Those who are piqued by the administration’s alleged nepotism and skewed regional worldview in addition to its failures in governance thus advocate for restructuring, not as a simple tinkering with or amendments of aspects of the extant 1999 constitution to strengthen the country’s federal and democratic practice, but the total jettisoning of the current political system and the institution of an absolutely new constitution. At the very least, they call for a reversion to the 1963 parliamentary constitution of the first republic.

I have listened with consternation to some of the country’s brightest and best legal and academic minds advance this argument contending, misleadingly, that the current constitution is wholly a military imposition. They obviously do not pause to consider why the 1963 parliamentary constitution, were it to be the near perfect document it is now romanticized to be, did not prevent the ignominious collapse of the first republic on January 17, 1966. The transition in the second republic to the presidential system of government, which remains prevalent today, was as the result of the perceived shortcomings and failings of the constitutional and political structures of the first republic.

All the ills we complain about in the polity today including massive corruption, ethno-regional intolerance and conflict, election rigging, rampant political vagrancy of politicians jumping opportunistically from one party to another and mindless political violence, were all abundantly evident in the first republic under the 1963 constitution. The popular perception of the shift from the loose, largely decentralized, regional federal structure of the first republic to the current more centralized structure comprising significantly weakened states and a more powerful centre, as being the arbitrary decision of centralizing military regimes is erroneous and misplaced.

Rather, the change was reflective of the dominant climate of opinion at the time, which influenced the thinking and recommendations of majority of the all-civilian, expert and experienced members of the Constitution Drafting Committee ( CDC) and Constituent Assembly that debated and produced the 1979 Constitution under the superintendence of the Murtala/Obasanjo military administration. The current 1999 Constitution substantially mirrors that of 1979 with minor amendments. Were President Buhari to be so inclined, he could as well accept the demand to preside over the engineering of a new constitution before handing over to a new democratically elected administration. That would be a perfect strategy to elongate the tenure of his government. For, so fractured, divided and divisive are opinions on an appropriate constitution for the country that the debate could go on ad infinitum.

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Yet, just as the transition from a parliamentary to a presidential constitutional structure did not eliminate the socio-political evils that resulted in the collapse of the first, second and aborted third republics, and which still thrive in this dispensation, a wholly new constitution will not necessarily result in the envisaged positive transformation in political behavior both on the path of the leadership and followership. The problems we have to contend with are as much ones of political structure as they are of political culture. The President Buhari administration has approximately two years remaining till the end of its tenure. It certainly makes eminent sense to let it run out its constitutional life span and allow the electorate to decide on its successor in 2023 rather than venturing recklessly now into uncertain and uncharted waters of constitutional adventurism with unpredictable outcomes.

One strong reason to keep hope alive as regards the promise and future of democracy in Nigeria is the continuous strengthening of the credibility, transparency and integrity of successive elections in this dispensation since 1999. Elections are much more closely fought at the federal and state levels now and electoral outcomes far more difficult to predict or predetermine than was the case in the 2003 or 2007 elections for instance. In its role as electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has continued to improve both in terms of operational efficacy and organizational autonomy.

The increased correlation between the will of the electorate and the results of elections was reflected, for instance, in the outcome of the 2015 presidential election, which saw an opposition party displace the party in power at the centre for the first time in the country’s history. Those who want an abridgment or abortion mid-stream of the current political process to accommodate sweeping structural changes do not, it appears, reckon with the fact that the Buhari administration can be dislodged through the electoral process just as its predecessor was if that is the will of the electorate. What is paramount now is to mount pressure on the legislature for the necessary amendments to the Electoral Act to enhance the autonomy of INEC and the credibility of the electoral process.

Of course, this is not to imply that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) does not have a bright opportunity of continuing in power after Buhari. In spite of the disastrously worsened security situation under its watch, which is the ruling party’s most vulnerable point, a not insignificant number of the citizenry still believe that it offers a better alternative than the major opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). For instance, the price of crude oil in the international market shortly before the APC’s assumption of power in 2025 dropped substantially compared to the favorable prices of the commodity for much of the PDP years in power. Yet, even though this parlous economic situation was worsened by the unanticipated Coronavirus pandemic, the Buhari administration has made more developmental impact through its massive expenditures on critical infrastructure and poverty alleviation measures than the PDP did in 16 years although account must also be taken of the, perhaps inevitable, resort to massive borrowing by the APC government.

Even if the APC has, disappointingly, not been able to evolve meaningfully from a loose election winning coalition to a more cohesive organizational structure, the PDP does not appear to be in any better shape as evidenced by the continued defections of key members of the latter’s ranks to the APC. Given the glaring failings of both major parties in governance thus far, it remains to be seen if a viable third political force, largely ideologically anchored, can emerge to challenge plausibly for power.

Much of the frustration of aggrieved sections of the polity with the Buhari administration is the President’s little disguised personal antipathy to the increasingly vehement calls for restructuring across the country. Even significant opinion molders and key groups in the north, previously indifferent or lukewarm to the restructuring advocacy, have joined in the calls for urgent changes to a political status quo that has become dysfunctional and self-destructive. Yet, in his recent public utterances during two television interviews as well as at the launch of a Foundation in honour of the late Kudirat Abiola in Zaria, the President sounded rigid and unyielding on such issues as calls for the banning of open grazing of cattle across the country or the establishment of state police among other components of restructuring.  Even then, there is still reason to keep hope alive as regards the possibility of effecting necessary and widely demanded constitutional reforms under his leadership.

For instance, contrary to the President’s body language that some believe suggests contempt for and even hostility to the South-East, he recently despatched a high-level delegation led by the Ministers of Defence and Interior, Maj. Gen. Bashir Magaji and Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, respectively, to dialogue with the leaders of the region. The outcome has been positive as, in the aftermath, credible leaders of the zone have strongly dissociated themselves from any secessionist agitations reiterating  rather their commitment to the quest for justice and equity for the Igbo within the framework of a united Nigeria. Surely, Buhari may not be as rigid as he appears and he may still be persuaded to make more concrete, conciliatory gestures towards the South-East in the spirit of mature leadership and sportsmanship as well as in the best interest of healing and stability in the polity.

Again, President Buhari recently received elders from the Niger Delta as well as leaders of the Ijaw National Council (INC), at the Presidential Villa in Abuja and listened attentively to their 10-point agenda including their advocacy for a restructuring of the polity. On restructuring, Buhari told the group that “In addressing your call for immediate restructuring, the National Assembly, whose responsibility it is to ensure that our constitution responds to the call for a restructured Nigeria, has already concluded regional consultations and as soon as they finalize the process, necessary action would not be delayed on my part”. The President also said, “In the same vein, your call for the creation of two additional states and more local government areas for the Ijaw people is a legislative matter, which should naturally be handled by the National Assembly and seeking concurrence at the state levels”.

This offers a window of opportunity for aggrieved and other interest groups to pursue their causes through constitutional pressures holding the President to his word to keep faith with and implement whatever comes to him through due legal process. The greatest responsibility, however, lies on the eternally warring factions and tendencies within the APC to cast aside shortsighted and self-serving power tussles and come together to pressure President Buhari to abide by the party’s pact with the electorate particularly on constitutional restructuring. The party’s electoral fate after Buhari may largely depend on this.

By Segun Ayobolu

IN incisive and pungent critiques of the ongoing consideration in the National Assembly of Executive Bills seeking to amend the Nigerian Press Council Act and the National Broadcasting Commission Act, the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), have pointed out the fascistic inclination of the proposed legislation to regulate the media and the dangers an emasculated press poses to the evolution of a stable and accountable democracy in Nigeria. As has been noted by several analysts, the non invitation of these key media organizations to the public hearing on the Bill to allow for public input into the proposed law gives a hint of a suspicious lack of transparency in the management of the process possibly for underlying ulterior motives or hidden agenda.

However, the NGE, NPAN and NUJ are also to blame for seemingly treating the proposed law with levity as reflected in their absence at the public sitting of the Bill because they were unaware of the event. As the sponsor of the  Bills, Mr Odebunmi Olusegun, explained  to the media, his committee’s placement of newspaper adverts inviting members of the public to the hearing was sufficient notice to all stakeholders and other interested persons. These media organizations needed no special invitation to attend the public sitting and make their robust contributions.

Coming shortly after the indefinite suspension of the Twitter online platform in Nigeria, the attempt to give media regulatory agencies what the NGE describes as ‘draconian provisions’ to regulate the media industry through several new regulatory powers as well as more severe sanctions for infractions by media practitioners and organizations, this move reinforces the perception that the government has concluded that the media is its enemy. Criticism of government and public officers by the media is indeed critical to democratic sustainability and good governance. It does not imply hatred for a given government or deliberate attempts to destabilize and undermine it as Information Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, suggests in his public communications. Indeed, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, as opposition spokesman prior to 2015, used the media to devastating effect against the then ruling PDP federal government.

As Lord Acton’s immortal aphorism states, ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. This truth has been proven right across time and space wherever man is governed by mortals and not infallible Angels. A weakened, frightened and strangulated press, as these proposed amended legislations seemingly aim at achieving, leads to increasingly unrestrained, unaccountable and insensitive governments with the enhanced vulnerability to the possibility of power drunkenness on the part of public office holders and the attendant proneness to debilitating corruption. Nothing can, therefore, be more dangerous in an evolving and still fragile democracy like ours than the strangulation and weakening of the media.

Among other provisions, the proposed amended legislation seeks the establishment of a National Press and Ethical Code of Conduct for media houses and media practitioners, which shall come into effect and be disseminated after approval by the Minster of Information and that the code shall be binding on every media houses and journalist. The NGE laments that, “Again, apart from the fines for journalists or media houses that violate the Act, the Bill also says that in an extreme case, the council shall order the striking out of the name of the journalist from the register and suspend the person from practice by ordering him not to engage in practice for a period not exceeding six months; as may be provided for in the directive”.

No less worrisome is the inclusion in the proposed laws of a clause, which states that “…any person who carries news established to be fake thereafter, commits an offense and is liable on conviction to a fine of N5 million or a two-year jail term imprisonment or both, and a compensation of N2 million payable to the person(s), group(s), corporate bodies, government or any of its agencies whom the news was against”. The law also provides that any print media whose medium was used to carry such news is liable on conviction to a fine of N10 million or closure of such media house for a period of one year, or both, and compensation of N20 million to the person, corporate body, government or any of its agencies.

The problem here, which the NGE, NPAN. and NUJ point out, is who determines what is fake news? Can the government be the accuser and at the same time the judge on what constitutes fake news? Can successive illiberal governments in future not exploit the expansive regulatory and punitive provisions in the proposed law to emasculate, strangulate and render the media impotent to the detriment of democracy, the rule of law and good governance? Do we not have sufficient laws in our statutes to deal with these alleged ills of the media such as laws against sedition and libel?

As the NGE rightly submits, “This kind of media regulatory council will neither serve the interest of the media industry, strengthen its constitutional role – of holding public officers accountable to the people nor serves the general interest of the public – who are the original trustees of the media”. The association also stressed that it dies not need the approval of the Minister of Information to establish and disseminate a National Press Code and standards to guide the conduct of print media, related media houses and media practitioners and approve penalties and fines against violation of the press code, as provided for in the Bill. A pertinent question to ask, however, is if the media has engaged in rigorous self-scrutiny and regulation to check and punish media practitioners and organizations who publish or broadcast patently false, malicious or incendiary material capable of unjustly damaging personal and corporate reputations or societal peace, harmony and stability?

The answer to this question is, in my view, a sad no. The truth is that if the media does not check itself by engaging in constant peer review, maintaining the highest ethical and professional standards among its ranks and enforcing disciplinary measures on erring practitioners, governments will always be tempted to do so for them. And the result will always be to suffocate and enfeeble the media with negative implications for democracy and development. The media has so much power over minds that it cannot indulgently allow some of the errant, false and combustible information disseminated routinely by many media organizations. The privilege of exercising the immense powers of the media must be accompanied by a habitual demonstration of rigorous adherence to the highest ethical and professional standards by media practitioners.

In his autobiography, published in the 70s and titled ‘Timebends’ the playwright, Arthur Miller, wrote about how the publisher of the New York Times at the time invited 100 leading personalities in the city to a brainstorming session on what should be done to ensure that the newspaper did not wield its tremendous powers without the appropriate sense of responsibility and in anyway detrimental to the public good. It is this kind of deep appreciation of its powers and its critical role in helping to achieve a good, peaceful, stable and prosperous nation that the Nigerian media can be self-censoring and restrained as well as cautious in its handling and dissemination of information especially in the kind of troublous situation in which the country finds itself today.

And still on social media regulation, the General Overseer of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, Bishop David Oyedepo, has thrown his weight behind plans by government to regulate social media. Of course, the respected man of God is not a fan of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. He has, from his pulpit, launched vehement salvos against some of the administration’s policies and actions. In fact, his continuous usage of Twitter just like many other religious leaders, suggests that the fiery cleric is not in support of the current Twitter ban by the federal government. His views on the planned regulation of social media by the federal government is thus important and cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand.

In his address last week on the occasion of the seventh convocation of Landmark university, Omu-Aran in Kwara State, the Bishop was of the view that urgent steps be taken to check unrestricted access to social media arguing that mindless and ceaseless chatting on several online platforms is robbing millions of youth of their future. In his words, excessive preoccupation with social media “unconsciously robs people of their future – no time to think; no time to plan; no time to programme… This generation may lose her heroes to social media disaster. Here is one creeping serpent that is eating up the destinies of many individuals. The social media saga has eroded the substance of destiny of most youths today. What is supposed to be a plus has suddenly become a major minus, because everything delivers through investment of time”.

Bishop Oyedepo noted further that “We must wake up fast from our slumber to deal with this monster. Young people beware! Addiction to social media is like addiction to drugs. It can render a whole destiny useless…Many youths spend less than 10 to 20 percent of their time on their tasks per day. They can never match a generation that spends 70 percent to 80 percent on their tasks. We must devise means to put a check on social media, particularly those that are not adding values. Life is a race. Everyone should get on the track, ready for the run of their lives”.

Here, the Bishop is taking the debate beyond the ban on Twitter to questioning the role that social media plays in fostering waste of valuable time through an addiction to its usage that is detrimental to the future success particularly of the youth. There is thus the need for self-censorship on the part of individuals and deliberate and conscious decision to be made not to be ensnared by social media. In the final analysis, self-regulation by media organizations to ensure adherence to professional ethics in the industry as well as self-restriction by individuals on their usage of the social media, are much more critical and advantageous than government intervention and high-handed regulatory measures that can be abused to violate the individual’s right to free dissemination and receipt of information, which is a vital necessity in any open, liberal democratic polity that we are still striving to be.

By Segun Ayobolu

In commemoration of the first anniversary of the second term of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration on May 29, the President’s Special Adviser on Media, Mr Femi Adesina, published a detailed report on the accomplishments of the administration in the last six years. Perusing the list, it would be the height of intellectual dishonesty to deny that the administration has indeed made impressive and impactful strides in critical areas of our national life particularly infrastructure renewal and modernization, revitalization of agriculture, poverty alleviation and to some extent the war against corruption.

Unfortunately, the achievements highlighted by the presidential spokesman went hardly unheralded in the media as the headlines continue to be dominated, understandably, by the deteriorating security situation in the country with bandits, kidnappers and criminal herdsmen on the rampage in the North West, North Central, South West and South East even though the Boko Haram insurgency is being effectively checkmated in the North East. As many commentators have noted, you must first be alive before you can enjoy infrastructure or benefit from poverty alleviation measures.

Even though the gap between the promise of change that ushered in the Buhari administration in 2015 and the actual delivery on its electoral promises has led to considerable disenchantment even among some of the most ardent ‘Buharists’, Nigerians surely did not make a mistake in ousting the preceding Dr Goodluck  Jonathan administration with their votes. It is so easy now to forget the sheer ineptness and venality of that government, which was part of the largely squandered 16 years of the locusts that was the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) era between 1999 and 2015.

Whatever may be its limitations as well as its inexplicable several unforced errors, the All Progressives Congress (APC) government at the centre has been able to achieve more in terms of delivery of critical infrastructure projects, diversification of the economy away from oil dependency and massive injection of funds into its Social Investment Programmes to ameliorate poverty in the last six years than the PDP did in 16 years even though it had access to far more resources.

The performance of the Buhari administration so far relative to its predecessors must also be evaluated within the context of the unanticipated COVID-19 pandemic that dealt a decisive blow on the economies of rich and poor nations alike. This week, the President was in Lagos to inaugurate two critical and strategic projects. One is the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) popularly known as the Deep Blue Project. This massive undertaking is designed to enhance the country’s maritime security by more effectively tackling piracy and other forms of maritime criminality in her waterways with salutary implications for the national economy. The second is the Lagos-Ibadan rail line, which will accelerate smooth flow of goods and services in the corridor as well as facilitate smooth movement of goods and services from the ports complexes in Lagos to a depot based inland in Ibadan for onward distribution to other destinations across the country. These are huge projects for which the government deserves commendation.

Prior to this, the Buhari administration had completed and commissioned three key rail projects inherited from preceding administrations namely the Abuja Metro Rail, Abuja-Kaduna Rail and the 327km Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri Rail started in 1987 and completed in 2020. The story is no less impressive on roads construction and rehabilitation with the accelerated pace of work on several critical road projects across the country including the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge, projects on which negligible progress was made during the 16 preceding years of the PDP in power.

Why in spite of these landmark completed and ongoing accomplishments does the Buhari administration not rate higher in the minds of many who not only see but are benefitting from its infrastructure renewal and poverty alleviation initiatives? One reason, which I have mentioned, is the pervasive insecurity with rampant kidnappings, assassinations, armed robberies, rape, arson and herdsmen criminality claiming lives on a daily basis across the country. Another is the negative impact of insecurity on agriculture thereby negating the administration’s massive investment and creative initiatives in this sector to boost food production. With farmers unable to access their farms for fear of being kidnapped or killed in large swathes of the country’s food producing belt, food prices have risen astronomically and hungry people cannot appreciate infrastructural projects.

Again, the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a severe blow on the country’s revenue earnings from oil, and hit commerce, manufacturing and industry badly thus worsening the problem of unemployment. Indeed, many state governments are unable to pay the national minimum wage, many are defaulting on monthly salary payments while others have either started to lay off workers or are planning to do so. These can certainly not endear the government in power to a not insubstantial number of its citizenry even if some of the causal factors are beyond its control. Even then, it would appear that a major problem with the Buhari administration is that it has not taken the perception question as seriously as it should. In the presidential system of government, the person and office of the President constitute the centre of gravity, the pivot around which governance largely revolves. This necessitates ceaseless communication between the President and his administration and the citizenry.

Perhaps as a matter of style, President Buhari has chosen to communicate with the people largely through press statements and interviews by his media aides and spokesmen thus relapsing into prolonged silence from him even in the face of pressing national emergencies. This style breeds alienation between the government and the governed creating the impression that the former is deaf and insensitive to the voice of the people, which is anomalous in a democracy. Unfortunately, under pressure most of the time, the president’s spokesmen tend to be hubristic, impatient and short tempered in their public communications thus doing further damage to the image and perception of their principal and his administration.

This is why it is a welcome development that in his two interviews with Arise Television and the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), last week, President Muhammadu Buhari spoke for himself. You may not agree with his views but he spoke his mind sincerely and without guile. More importantly, knowing where he stands on burning national issues and the reasons for his position, it is possible for citizens with differing views to offer the President alternative perceptions that may enrich the decision making process of his administration.

For instance, the President expressed the view that governors should not run to him for assistance against herdsmen attacks on farming communities. Rather, he argued, they should take charge of the security of their states and safeguard the lives and properties of their people. But then, the President is the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces and has constitutional control over the police and all other security agencies. When the governors of the South-West established the Amotekun Corp in response to herdsmen’ murderous atrocities in the region, the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami, denounced the initiative as illegal and unconstitutional. The Oyo State Governor, Mr Seyi Makinde, has said that he will immediately arm the Amotekun Corp in his state with AK47 machine guns if the Federal Government issues his government with the requisite license. The question is how can local hunters and Amotekun Corp members armed with Dane and double barrel guns effectively confront and contain herdsmen armed with sophisticated assault weapons?

Again, it is commendable that the President respects and is committed to abiding by the advice of his Attorney General on legal issues. That is as it should be. But he also has a responsibility to ensure that the legal advice he receives from the chief law officer is correct and on sound constitutional footing. Many knowledgeable and respected senior legal practitioners have said that the first republic gazette on grazing routes, which the President talked about reviving, does not apply to the whole country even if it exists at all. Furthermore, they argue that the Land Use Act, incorporated in the 1999 Constitution vests control of all land except in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the state governors thereby precluding the possibility of carving out grazing routes in states without the consent of governors.

In a democracy, it should surely matter to the President that the Northern Governors Forum (NGF), Southern Governors Forum (SGF), Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and diverse ethnno-cultural groups transcending all geo-political zones have all supported the introduction of modern cattle ranching to replace the current disruptive and destructive practice of open grazing that breeds murderous conflicts between cattle herdsmen and farming communities across the country.

Dismissing the widespread condemnation of the concentration of appointments into the leadership of virtually all military, para military and security agencies from a particular part of the country by his administration, President Buhari said such appointments are based on merit and qualified candidates must meet the requisite length of service in the agencies. Surely, it cannot logically be that only officers from one part of the country meet the stipulated criteria for such appointments.

Both on his official visits to Lagos and then Borno state, President Buhari personally and forcefully directed security agents to shoot at sight unauthorized persons carrying AK-47 and other assault weapons as well as calling for an all out offensive against banditry, kidnaping and all forms of criminality. Consequently, in recent weeks, bandits, for instance, have reportedly been under heavy aerial bombardment in their forest redoubts in the North Central and North West. If this is sustained and President Buhari begins to show that he is a President for all and not for a select groups, the perception problem that occludes the otherwise notable achievements of his administration would be largely dispelled.

Happily, the two interviews show that Buhari is reasonably mentally alert and in charge of his administration contrary to prevalent popular perception engendered by his excessive reticence hitherto.

In his scores of lectures, speeches and books, Chief Obafemi Awolowo identified the root cause of Nigeria’s protracted crises of political instability, fragile nation hood and fractured nation building as well as social anomie as being essentially economic. He did not share the then prevalent conventional wisdom of the ‘modernization theorists’ of the time that sought to blame the country’s post-independence crises on her ethno-cultural pluralism or such divisive primordial variables as faith or regionalism. Neither did he at any time locate the source of the country’s post-colonial crises in any defects in subsisting constitutional documents. Although he paid a great deal of attention to the question of an appropriate, workable and effective constitution for Nigeria, Awolowo placed as much premium on the quality and character of leadership as being critical to the country’s rapid socio-economic and political transformation.

This was why he was confident that, under the 1979 presidential constitution of the second republic, he could still perform as exemplarily as he did as Premier of Western Nigeria under the parliamentary constitution of the first republic, and deliver on his party, the Unity Party of Nigeria’s four cardinal welfarist programmes for the benefit of the teeming masses of Nigeria. The vices of stupendous corruption by occupants of public office, ostentatious living, election rigging, religious extremism, ethno-regional conflicts and political violence for which many lampoon the extant presidential constitution were no less prevalent under the parliamentary constitution of the first republic and indeed led to its collapse in 1966.

No novel constitutional contrivance, no matter how exquisitely fashioned, can instantly eliminate the defects in personal or national character that have impeded the country’s positive development since independence. In a lecture he delivered at the then University of Ife on 9th April, 1970, in the immediate aftermath of the civil war, Awo declared emphatically that, “I have said it before, and I want to say it again that the causes of our national maladies are essentially economic. It is important, therefore, for us to bear in mind that if we failed to find the right solutions to our economic problems, we would not succeed in solving our political and social problems”.

There is no doubt that these words remain as true today as when they were uttered decades ago. At the root of today’s endemic evils of Boko Haram insurgency, terrorism, herdsmen-farmer’s clashes, kidnapping, secessionist agitations and militancy are the mass poverty arising from mass economic deprivation and the gross inequality between a microscopic minority of exceedingly wealthy Nigerians and the vast majority of our long suffering citizenry.

As Awo again forceful put it, “My case then is that, in order to keep Nigeria harmoniously united, and at the same time, fulfill the natural, ultimate, supreme, and inalienable purpose of that unity, the present and future rulers of this country, must place the most crucial emphasis on, and attach the most importance to, the advancement of the economic prosperity and social well-being of the entire people of Nigeria without exception or discrimination”. If successive military regimes, being wielders of unaccountable power, were more preoccupied with personal enrichment than the socio-economic uplifting of the country, what excuse do those who have occupied public office since 1999 in this supposedly democratic dispensation, have for deepening rather than relieving the economic immiseration of the vast majority of the citizenry?

In the latter phase of the evolution of his political thought, Awo placed considerable emphasis on the socio-economic liberation of Nigeria. He drew up, with the aid of his able lieutenants, far reaching and meticulously detailed programs and policies to transform every sector of the country’s economy including agriculture, transportation, industrialization, education, health as well as provision of qualitative shelter and full employment for the populace. Unfortunately, when during his arduous campaign tours across the country before both the 1979 and 1983 presidential elections, he put his plans before the Nigerian people there was an elaborate elite conspiracy that prevented him from achieving his goal.

For instance, on agriculture, Awolowo envisaged, in a lecture he delivered in Kano in February 1970, as Federal Commissioner of Finance, that by 1985, if properly planned and managed, the sector “should be able to contribute as much as £1, 784 million to our GDP; that is, £179.4 million more than our total GDP in 1966”. But to achieve this objective, he submitted, “Nigeria’s agriculture must be modernized and mechanized in a bold and massive manner. We shall need to invest heavily in tractors, mechanical plows and ridgers, fertilizers, pest control, irrigation, research into high-yielding grains and seeds, cattle pastures and ranches, fishing trawlers etc. It is only in the pursuit and attainment of these targets that our oft-repeated desire to increase the productivity, and so raise the standard of living, of our peasantry, throughout the Federation can be achieved”.

Neither in the North nor the South has that admonition been heeded. Thus, even as occupants of public office across the country have amassed immense personal wealth since 1999, peasant farming in the South remains as underdeveloped and impoverishing as cattle business in the North. Lamenting the state of agriculture in the country in a 1980 lecture in Akure, Awo submitted, “From all that has been said, it is crystal clear that, whichever way you look at it, the present system of farming condemns the average Nigerian farmer to grinding poverty, to degradation and abjectness. This is a situation that must be terminated with the utmost sense of energy and unabating vigor. Its existence is already leading to visible disasters”.

He continued: “Within three years – 1976-1978- farmers in Nigeria abandoned the cultivation of more than 8 million hectares of farmland. There is a stampede among young dwellers of rural areas to the cities and urban areas…The social and economic consequences of these trends are already manifesting and will continue to manifest themselves in increasing lawlessness of various kinds, and in secular decline in the local production of foods for domestic consumption, and of certain classes of agricultural commodities for foreign markets”.

Could anyone have been more prescient given what is happening in the country today?  But then Awo was not content to only point out the problems, he was always adroit in preferring well thought out solutions. Thus, his admonition that “If it is our determination, as we often profess to lift the farmers from the prevailing morass of social degradation and economic miseries, at the same time help raise and improve their standards of life, the immediate introduction of certain programmes is absolutely imperative. Firstly, the state governments should take immediate steps to mobilize and organize our farmers into cooperative societies throughout the country. A cooperative unit of between 100 and 200 practicing farmers, all depending on the type of crops to be cultivated, could be the optimum. In this regard, it must be constantly borne in mind that the individual farmer, except a rich landowner, is not a viable proposition”. Of course, he goes on to adumbrate several ways that these nationwide cooperatives could be financed and managed as thriving businesses.

While it is true that governors in the South may have generally been more committed to the developmental demands of their states relative to those of the North, both categories of governors must significantly scale up their performance to meet the strenuous governance standards set by Awolowo. Unfortunately, when some governors in the North misguidedly argue that herdsmen have the divine right to migrate anywhere across the country seeking pasture and water for their cattle even to the detriment of host farming communities, they create the impression that they are too mentally indolent to rise up to the governance challenges of the terrains under their jurisdiction.

No governor, ordinarily, should take pride in the fact that his inability to provide conditions and facilities for modernized cattle ranching within his territory compels his people to traverse the length and breadth of the country in the process of rearing their cattle and thus becoming a danger to lives and property of people in far flung places.

Here again, Awo’s perspicacity is quite useful and relevant. In a lecture he delivered at the University of Lagos in 1968, he stated that “Firstly, it has been assumed that every underdeveloped country has enough of natural and human resources for its purposes. It is true that some countries are richer in these things than others. But it is also true that, granting a rational exploitation, mobilization and deployment of these resources, each country has enough of them to make it carry on a happy and economically free existence”.

He continued: “Instances are not wanting. Israel has shown that any kind of land or natural resources can be made productive, as long as other productive agents are sufficiently qualitative and optimally quantitative. What the Israeli experience has proved beyond dispute is this: the only difference between a country which is rich and one which is poor in natural resources, is that the same dose of the other productive agents will produce better results, when applied to the one than when applied to the other”

True, the charge of leadership bankruptcy arguably applies as much to the South as to the North even though the latter faces a more serious challenge of poverty and inequality. In the final analysis, the solution to the problems that bedevil the North lie in the resoluteness of the leadership of the region, particularly its elected governors, to seize the bull by the horns and creatively tap the resources of the region for the development of her people. With determination and audacity, even Sambisa forest can be transformed into the Dubai of Nigeria.

The immense touristic and agricultural as well as mineral resources of the North await productive exploitation for regional transformation. That I think is the point to be gained from Awo’s reference to Israel. The North stands to gain as much as the South from restructuring, perhaps even much more.

By Segun Ayobolu

As far as the Senate President, Dr Ahmed Lawan, and the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami are concerned, the recent call by the southern governors for restructuring of the country as part of the resolutions reached at their meeting in Asaba is wholly unjustified.  Both men have forcefully expressed the view that the restructuring advocacy by the southern governors can only be worth a hearing if they initiate the restructuring process from their respective states by guaranteeing the financial and functional autonomy of their legislative and judicial arms of government as well as allowing their local government councils to operate genuinely as the third tier of government as prescribed by the constitution.

This perspective cannot be said to be without some merit. This column once advocated what I called ‘restructuring from below’ arguing that most governors are veritable emperors in their domains with the legislature, judiciary, civil service and local governments under their unquestionable suzerainty.

It is impossible to wield the kind of powers that governors enjoy and deploy in their states without getting imperiously inebriated. The truth of the matter is that since 1999, the principle of checks and balances has been more operational and effective at the centre than in the states. Although the National Assembly has been consistently perfunctory and tardy in carrying out its duty of screening stipulated categories of appointees to public office, it has been relatively more rigorous in debating and scrutinizing federal budgets, performing its oversight role over Ministries, Departments and Agencies and in debating critical national issues.

Both the legislature and judiciary at the federal level are financially autonomous of the executive and any subservient disposition of either the law –making or law-adjudicating branches to the presidency is a matter of voluntary self-abasement rather than due to any compulsive stranglehold of the latter. This is clearly not the case at the level of the states where what we have in most cases is effectively one man, not even one party, rule.

But does this justify the rather abrasive dismissal of the southern governors meeting and resolutions by the duo of Malami and Lawan? I don’t think so. For one, the 17 governors who attended or were represented at the Asaba meeting are elected representatives of their people speaking on behalf of roughly half the population of the country. The mandate the governors wield as elected leaders of their states is as sacrosanct and inviolable as that held by President Muhammadu Buhari in a federal polity. A substantial number of the votes that enable Buhari to hold office today are from the south, which the governors spoke for in Asaba.

Again, Lawan is a senator elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) while Malami is presumably a sympathizer of or even a card carrying member of the ruling party. On the other hand, the southern governors who met in Asaba were from the APC, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Their position, therefore, transcends partisan political divides and this should certainly be taken into account by Lawan and Malami.

Beyond this, one of the resolutions reached at the Asaba summit was the call for an urgent national dialogue to deliberate on the state of the nation and the way forward. Surely, such a forum will offer an opportunity for interested participants to raise the questions posed by Lawan and Malami such as the need to guarantee autonomy of the legislative and executive arms of government in the states as well as the structural and functional viability of local governments.

Indeed, the Senate President and AGF must be commended for pointing out the patent lack of equity, balance and fairness in the way in which power is distributed among the arms and levels of government at the sub-national units of governance. Since they advocate the de-concentration of powers from the person and office of the governor at the sub-national level, however, they cannot logically be opposed to the demand for the decentralization of more powers, resources and responsibilities from the centre to the lower levels of governance in accordance with the dictates of federal practice.

Surely, Lawan and Malami cannot be indifferent to the fact that the entire country is fast collapsing all around us with many parts daily degenerating into veritable theatres of anarchy and mindless blood- letting? No part of the country is spared the menace of one or the other of the atrocities of insurgency, banditry, rape and kidnapping that claim valuable lives on a daily basis. It is thus obvious, for instance, that the present security architecture in the country is outdated, dysfunctional and ineffective. The centralized policing structure put in place by the extant constitution for a plural, complex polity is unsustainable and the time is long overdue for the decentralization of the policing structure as stated by the governors. Of course, in doing this, Lawan and Malami will rightly be concerned that appropriate checks against misuse of state police to harass, oppress and victimize opponents by temperamental, volatile and emotionally unstable governors must be put in place.

The view has been expressed in some quarters that the southern governors could more appropriately have sought audience with the President to make their views known to him. But there is absolutely nothing wrong in the southern governors putting their position in the public space for all to see and appraise. In any case, there is hardly anything new in the resolutions passed by the governors. The same positions have been advocated at various times by diverse stakeholders from both the north and the south. Given the critical positions they occupy, the governors of the south joining hands across intra-regional and partisan divides to publicly articulate and advocate these demands will help impress on President Buhari and his kitchen cabinet the need for urgent action to stem the country’s current dangerous slide.

In his reaction to the resolutions of the southern governors, Kogi state governor, Yahaya Bello, admonished that “when it appears as if you are fighting President Muhamadu Buhari, our father and our President, we are all getting it wrong because we get (sic) to where we are today as a result of maladministration of successive administrations”. In my view, it is precisely because of diffidence towards and respect for the President that the southern governors and other stakeholders have not publicly staked this kind of position before now. The language of their communique was neither provocative nor insulting and they strongly reiterated their firm commitment to the continued cohesion of the nation.

Some of the most influential members of the President’s kitchen cabinet stood by him loyally and steadfastly during his long years in the political wilderness as he sought in futility three successive times to be President of Nigeria. It is only human and natural for Buhari to appoint such people into sensitive positions in his government and to repose implicit trust and confidence in their good faith and commitment to the best interest of his administration. These beneficiaries of his benevolence in this regard must be concerned about the President’s reputation or the legacy he will bequeath to posterity. Because they enjoy the trust of the President, these members of his kitchen cabinet have a responsibility and duty to utilize their influence to help steer the administration in a direction that unites rather than divides the country thus distracting attention from much of the good work being done in key sectors including agriculture, social intervention initiatives and infrastructure upgrade.

For instance, in passing a resolution banning open grazing across their states, the southern governors are obviously motivated by the need to take drastic action to halt the ceaseless flow of blood in large swathes of the south as a result of invasion of farmlands and host communities by herdsmen. This has become a source of danger not only to lives but to livelihoods in the south. As the Chief Security Officers of their states, the southern governors can certainly not be indifferent to this. And a broad consensus has emerged across both the southern and northern governors’ forums and even including Miyetti Allah that open grazing has become anachronistic and must give way to modern ranching across the country.

In disagreeing with the southern governors on this point, the AGF is concerned with the constitutional right of citizens to live and pursue a legitimate livelihood anywhere in the country and this is an important right that must be protected. However, open grazing of cattle has become so hazardous to peaceful co-existence across the length and breadth of the country that there should be no legal squabbles on whether or not the practice should be scrapped. It belongs to a bygone era. If vehicle spare parts sellers pursue their business in such a way as to pose danger to lives in the north or anywhere else, a poser raised by the AGF, they should be banned and deported to their states of origin.

Malami and Lawan want restructuring at the sub-national levels. The governors want restructuring from the centre, devolving more powers and serious to the states. The two positions are not mutually exclusive. The governors must immediately heed Lawan and Malami’s advice that they should take the initiative and begin the restructuring process from below. It is up to the governors to urgently begin to work with their lawmakers in the National Assembly to actualize the restructuring of Nigeria in line with their demands.

By Segun Ayobolu

It is an incontestable fact that Chief Obafemi Awolowo was one leader who, more than any of his contemporaries and even up till now, has thought most articulately, rigorously, comprehensively and exhaustively about the problems of Nigeria and their most effective solutions. He was clearly not being immodest when he declared that, when many of his opponents and adversaries were wasting their time in unproductive activities, he was busy burning the midnight oil engaging in intellectual toil on the most appropriate path to Nigeria’s future stability, unity, development and greatness. There is a veritable library of speeches, articles, lectures and books in which Awolowo expressed his methodical, deeply researched views and ideas on practically every sphere of Nigeria’s polity, economy and society. His leadership as Premier of Western Region in the First Republic, when that territory was, perhaps, the fastest growing area of Africa is still a reference point in excellent and unimpeachable governance anywhere in the world.

After the 1959 general elections that ushered in the country’s first post-independence government in 1960, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Action Group (AG) had more seats combined in the federal legislature than Alhaji Ahmadu Bello’s Northern People’s Congress (NPC) even though the latter with its majority of seats in the North had the single largest number of elected legislators. To enable a coalition of the NCNC and the AG to form the government at the centre in accordance with the practice under the parliamentary system, Awolowo offered Dr Azikiwe the position of Prime Minister while he would serve as Finance Minister in the first post-colonial Nigerian administration. While the NCNC in coalition with the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) won 89 seats, the AG had 73 seats while the NPC won 142 seats out of the total of 312 seats in the federal parliament. This means that a coalition government of the AG and NCNC, as proposed by Awo, would have a combined total of 162 seats and would have formed the government.

Unable to transcend petty rivalries and Igbo-Yoruba conflicts during the nationalist struggles that led to independence, Zik inexplicably led the NCNC into an alliance with the NPC accepting to be the powerless and constitutionally impotent ‘ceremonial president’ of Nigeria while Alhaji Tafawa Balewa became Prime Minister with the powerful leader of the NPC, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, opting to remain in Kaduna as Premier of Northern Nigeria. But for the fateful decision of Azikiwe, it is possible that Nigeria’s post-independence trajectory would be radically different from the tragedy we are witnessing today with the country’s immense potentials trapped by successive governments striving to outdo each other in sheer venality, indolence, incompetence, nepotism and irresponsibility.

When Awolowo passed on in 1987, members of Nigeria’s political class from across the country fell over themselves to shower encomiums on him even though they had done everything to obstruct and frustrate his attempt to put his enormous mental, spiritual and moral energies at the disposal of Nigeria’s development during his lifetime. The South-East, where today some of the most vehement and virulent voices for secession can be heard, were the first to acquiesce to northern leadership of the country when, as noted above, Azikwe rejected Awolowo’s offer to be Prime Minister under whom the latter would serve as Finance Minister in 1959. In 1979, when Awolowo aspired to lead the country as President on the platform of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), he sought in vain to find a candidate from the North to be his running mate.

In fact, I remember that when Awolowo formed the UPN in 1978 in preparation for the return to civilian rule, the late Alhaji Abubakar Rimi launched a largely baseless, vitriolic tirade against his aspiration. He thus picked Chief Phillip Umeadi, a lawyer of Igbo extraction, to be his Vice-Presidential candidate. Understandably, because the civil war was still fresh in their minds and the Igbo elite perceived him as the prime architect of the failure of the Biafran secession attempt, the South-East again decided to reject Awo at the polls and opted to split their votes between the Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) led by Zik and the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) with Alhaji Shehu Shagari as President and the cerebral Dr Alex Ekwueme as his Vice –President. Again, Awolowo’s attempt to forge a handshake across the Niger between the East and the West was rebuffed by the Igbo as Dr Azikiwe led the NPP into an alliance with the NPN and nominated leading members of his party into the Shagari administration.

Read Also: Nigeria’ll escape over-dependence on oil in 10 years – Awolowo

More than any part of the country, it is however the northern elite who, deep within them, must have the deepest regrets that they frustrated Awo’s attempts to lead Nigeria and replicate for the entire country, particularly the North, the spectacular feats of leadership genius he exhibited as Premier of Western Nigeria. For, today the Northern leadership are reaping the bitter fruits of years of the most corrupt, undisciplined, visionless and irresponsible leadership that has made the region of otherwise hardworking people and abundant resources the sprawling, lawless terrain of rampant banditry, kidnapping, religious extremism, insurgency, abject poverty and mass illiteracy.  Yet, this was what Awo incessantly warned against for the better part of his political career.

For instance, in his book, ‘The Strategy and Tactics of the Peoples Republic of Nigeria’, first published in 1970, the sage had warned that “It is now generally accepted that if we want to keep Nigeria united, and harmoniously so, the yawning gap in education between the north and the south must be closed with the least possible delay, and immediate steps must be taken to this end”. In a speech he delivered in Kano on 23rd April, 1970, Awolowo once again admonished that if the nation, latest by 1974, embarked on aggressive implementation of free education and free health services at all levels, “I am convinced that in  a matter of fifteen years from now illiteracy and mass ignorance, as well as preventable diseases, would have become a thing of the past; and in twenty years from now, the present yawning, dangerous and explosive gap between one part of the country and another would have been totally closed, putting all ethnic groups in Nigeria on equal footing with another in educational and intellectual attainments”.

At the launching of ‘The Strategy and Tactics of the People’s Republic’ in Lagos on Friday, 31st July, 1970, Awo spoke further on his vision to close the educational gap between the North and the South. Let me quickly state that this book contains 7 extensive tables abstracted from 158 tables with 1,587 columns, which set out in his words “the estimated school population at all levels for the Northern and Southern states, from 1970 to 1980, taking into account a compound growth rate of two and a half percent per annum in our population”. What were Awolowo’s startling conclusions from this immense research work?

According to him, “Granting then that God bestows on us the wisdom, vision and grace to embark on free and compulsory education by January 1974, it is clear from tables 1 and 2 that we would end this decade in 1979 with a primary school population of seven and a half million people in the northern states as compared and contrasted with 6 million primary school pupils in the Southern states. By 1980, the Northern states would have 1.17 million general secondary school pupils as compared with 1.2 million in the Southern states. Also, by 1980, 270,000 students of Northern states origin would be pursuing post-secondary education as contrasted with 262,000 students from the Southern states. By 1985, the process, which would have begun much earlier, of each constituent state having at least one university, would be completed”. Mark you, Awo was writing these words in 1970!

Again, in a broadcast to the nation as Nigeria’s Commissioner for Finance and Vice-Chairman of the Federal Executive Council on 1st October, 1967, Awolowo again addressed the question of educational imbalance between the North and the South in vivid detail. According to him, “It may not be generally known that, in the current year, there are only approximately 18,000 pupils in secondary grammar schools in the six Northern states, as against 170,000 in the six Southern states, and roughly 12,000 teachers in training in the Northern states, as against 24,000 teachers in training in the Southern states. If we are to keep Nigeria one – and harmoniously so, and if all sections of the national groups in Nigeria are to have equal opportunity for contributing to our high-level manpower needs, this yawning gap must be closed without further delay. It is for this reason that the Federal Military Government has decided to stimulate, vigorously, the rapid expansion of secondary education and teacher training in the Northern states, by the award of scholarships in large numbers, and the grant of free financial assistance – not loans, to qualified pupils in the Northern States”.

Had Awo’s voice of wisdom and foresight been heeded, would the North today harbor the largest number of out of school children in the country? Would the educational imbalance between the North and South not have been eradicated? It is unlikely that we would have the Boko Haram insurgency, banditry, herdsmen violence, kidnapping and other crimes crippling most parts of the North today especially, as we will see in the second part of this piece, Awolowo had well researched, detailed proposals for tackling unemployment, modernizing agriculture and cattle rearing and promoting rapid industrialization across the country.

By Segun Ayobolu

Rising from an emergency meeting of its National Executive Committee (NEC) On Thursday, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately convene a national conference to deliberate on and proffer solutions to the country’s current grave security crisis. One would expect the PDP to go further and offer its own concrete proposals on how to more effectively secure lives and property across the country. For, the crisis we confront transcends partisan, ethnic, religious or other sectional colorations. In the final analysis, all of us are potential victims and there is no way we can play politics, worship, work, play or do any worthwhile thing without a safe, secure and stable country in the first place.

But the PDP at least deserves commendation for addressing its mind to the security challenges and adding its voice to the calls for urgent action. Pray, where is the voice of the national leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in all of this? It is all funereal silence on the APC front even as President Muhammadu Buhari is under fire from all sides including APC lawmakers for his perceived failure to rise to the occasion and stem the daily regression to anarchy.

Will the few overly ambitious elements in the APC, who exploited their closeness to and professed affection for President Buhari to manipulate the presidency into agreeing with the plot not only to destabilize but to illegally sack the comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, agree that they did not just the incumbent administration but the entire country a great disservice? It is unlikely. For them, it does not matter that the attendant intra-party instability is a key contributory factor to distracting the Buhari administration from focusing on decisively addressing the grave security crisis that, consuming scores of innocent lives across the country on a daily basis, casts a heavy pall over the otherwise impressive achievements of the government in the areas of infrastructure renewal, diversification of the economy and poverty alleviation for the most vulnerable segments of the populace.

At a time like this when the country is to all practical purposes on a war footing, the National Executive of the ruling party must be at the vanguard of mobilizing and coordinating its members in both the executive and legislative arms of government to respond coherently and productively to the crisis at hand. Alas, the APC has at its helm at this critical moment an unelected, unconstitutional and illegitimate Extraordinary Caretaker and National Convention Planning Committee that has, in the last few months, dissolved elected party structures at all levels and embarked on re-registration of old members and admission of new ones.

Of course, going by the party constitution, membership registration is not rocket science. It is a routine affair that goes on continuously at ward levels as new members are registered and exiting members are delisted. This should surely not consume the enormous time, money and energy that the APC interim national executive has expended on the exercise at a time when all hands should be on deck to effectively tackle challenges that threaten the country’s very existence.

Since the forthcoming utterly unplanned, unanticipated and unscheduled ward, local government and state congresses as well as National Convention of the party are part of deliberate machinations by particular fractions and caucuses to seize control of its structures to place their members in prime position to fly the APC’s flag for various electoral positions in future, the next few months will predictably be further distracting and enervating for the party at a time of grave national emergency. This is particularly so as the intra-party crises in some of the states have indeed deepened since the new developments in the party.

Just how costly is the ongoing focus on politicking rather than governance by a ruthless caucus bent on seizing control of the APC to further their future political aspirations? A good answer to this question can be found in the invasion and capture by fighters of Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) of Geidam, a town in Yobe state, on Friday, 23 April. The terrorists reportedly attacked and took control of the town in eight trucks, cut down masts of communication companies, murdered several residents and caused over 2000 people to flee the community. Some may wonder what exactly is strange about this kind of incident that, after all, has become routine across the length and breadth of the north. The point is that the governor of Yobe State, Mr. Mai Mala Buni, no matter how much he denies it, has been distracted from focusing on his job and the single-minded implementation of his electoral mandate by his tasking appointment as Chairman of the APC’s interim national caretaker committee.

The unsavory situation in which the APC finds itself today is needless. Forging the legacy parties that merged to wrest power from the PDP into a cohesive and coherent whole is no easy task. It will require all the mental energy, focus, organizational and strategic ability of the party leadership particularly at the early phases of the party’s existence as is the case with the APC now. Mistakes will naturally be made and feathers ruffled as coalition partners strive to understand each other and evolve better organizational coherence and philosophical resonance. Rough edges of programmatic as well as ideological platforms must be continually strengthened and harmonized. The difficulties and hiccups that arise cannot be resolved through unconstitutional power grabs as currently being attempted, but by allowing the continuous exercise and institutionalization of intra-party democratic structures and processes.

No governor in any part of Nigeria today, no matter how peaceful and stable his state may be, must be saddled with the additional burden of performing the role of leading his party as interim national chairman – not even for a minute. The masterminds of the present contrived crisis within the ruling party clearly did not rigorously think their action through. If they had, they would not have picked a governor from the North-East, the epicenter of the current terror and insurgency, to preside over the affairs of the party for what is turning out to be an indeterminate period. Governors particularly in that region must be alert on their duty posts round the clock.

In addition to the security challenges that have taken a heavy toll on the economy particularly the fertile, agricultural food basket regions of the north, the coronavirus pandemic has severely affected the country’s major revenue source, crude oil exports. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has given notice to states that, as a result of the crippling burden of the oil subsidy it bears, its humongous contribution to the Federation Account may drop to zero for some months. Every governor must thus be fully preoccupied with making his state financially viable in order to continue to enhance the wellbeing of the people. At a time of national security and economic emergency as we have now, the ruling party cannot afford to allow petty politicking, driven by selfish ambition, to override serious and purposeful governance. Despite Yobe state’s immense agricultural and natural endowments, she is one of the poorest states in Nigeria and the ruling party should ensure that Mai Mala Buni can speedily begin to concentrate fully on the job he was elected to do.

After two decades of unbroken electoral governance since 1999, it cannot be confidently asserted that Nigerians are materially better off today than they were in the preceding military dispensation even though it remains true that the worst democratic rule will always be better than the best despotic governance. One of the reasons why democracy is so far not being the handmaiden of development we expect it to be is the continued prevalence of what the late Professor Claude Ake described as “the overpoliticisation of social life” even though he used this term within the context of despotic rule in post-colonial Africa.

As Ake put it with characteristic vividness, “Because of their insecurity, the political class placed a high premium on power. They accumulated power by all means, did everything to secure it and to prevent others from gaining it. As rulership became permanent, politics became Hobbesian: power was pursued by all means and kept by all means and the struggle for power became the overriding concern”. This attitude and disposition to power has not changed even within the framework of the democratization of politics and it is the fundamental reason for the current ongoing attempted hostile takeover of the APC by a faction of the party. Incidentally, it was the crisis engendered by this kind of attempted ‘totalizing’ control by a hegemonic faction of the PDP that ultimately led to the end, in 2015, of its 16-year hold on power at the centre.

Thus, intra and inter party electoral contests are difficult to distinguish from warfare. Hardly does one election end before politicking for the next one begins leaving scant room for governance. Whether they are bandits, terrorists, insurgents or secessionists, those committed to the ruination of Nigeria have a common purpose and work in, admittedly unintended, concert. Ironically, those who have the most to gain by the continued existence of the country, as the elected custodians of state power, do everything to undercut, undermine and repress one other in the quest for power dominance with scant respect for the constitutive and regulative rules of the game thus greatly aiding the destructionists in achieving their objective. Until ceaseless and lawless power mongering ceases to be a distraction from and an obstacle to focused, productive and purposeful governance, politics will continue to underdevelop rather than develop Nigeria.