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Category: Segun Ayobolu

  • John S. Saul: Development after globalization (1)

    John S. Saul: Development after globalization (1)

    By Segun AYOBOLU

     

    Nothing helps prove better than the raging Coronavirus pandemic, the pathetic state of Africa on the global scale of development and the vulnerabilities of her peoples to the ravages of poverty, ignorance, avoidable disease and precarious death. True, the continent has been less affected than other parts of the globe in terms of the number of infected cases, hospitalizations and deaths as a result of the pandemic. But this is not due to any scientific ingenuity, superior healthcare facilities, organizational dexterity or leadership acumen. It is simply a function, perhaps, of a favourable climate or good fortune. For, if the pandemic had struck in Africa with as much fire and fury as it has in the more advanced countries of the world, the consequences both for Africa and the global community would have been horrendous. Most African countries have fragile and hardly functional health systems such that the rates of child, infant and maternal mortality as well as deaths from otherwise avoidable diseases rank easily among the highest in the world.

    Is it any wonder that virtually no African country is anywhere near the radar among countries that have made rapid advances in the ongoing fierce competition to develop vaccines and cures for the disease and offer humanity a ray of hope? Given the rich flora and fauna, the dense tropical forests of Africa, should the continent not be at the forefront of the world’s pharmaceutical industries producing effective herbal and medicinal solutions to the myriads of ailments that afflict humanity? But why is this not the case? Is it a question of the genetic and innate inferiority of the black man as some racist theorists would contend? For, Africa is indeed one of the most resource-endowed parts of the globe both in terms of natural and mineral resources yet her people remain the most poverty-stricken and pauperized. Indeed it is in helping to interrogate and proffer answers to the dilemmas of underdevelopment in Africa that the works of a political scientist like Professor John Saul, which is the focus of this piece, assume enduring significance.

    In his 2006 book, ‘Development After Globalization: Theory and Practice of the Embattled South in a New Imperial Age’, the Emeritus Professor, in six major essays, incisively examines the prospects for African emancipation and development in our contemporary world. Introducing himself to the specifically Indian audience at which the book is targeted, Professor Saul writes, “While I am a Canadian who resides and teaches in that country, my main “Third World” focus in both intellectual and political terms has been Africa, especially Southern Africa, where I have lived and worked off and on for a cumulative period of about ten years since the mid-sixties: in Tanzania, in Mozambique and in South Africa. I have published some fifteen volumes on Africa over the years, the most recent being my ‘Africa: The Next Liberation Struggle (2005)’, and I am currently working on a manuscript entitled “The Thirty Years War for Southern African Liberation (1960-1990). I was active for many decades in the anti-apartheid movement in Canada, discussing and publicizing the struggles for liberation in Southern Africa while also vigorously critiquing and resisting the often negative role played vi-a-vis these struggles by the Canadian state and by corporations based in my country”.

    I have quoted Professor Saul at this length to showcase the depth of the commitment of this extraordinary scholar to the liberation of a continent that is not even his. And yet we have African leaders and intellectuals who do not bat an eyelid in exploiting and perpetuating underdevelopment in their own land. It would appear that most scholars in Africa have given up on the possibility of liberating and transforming the continent outside the framework of the current neo-liberal intellectual and economic hegemony. Yet, the experience of the post-independence period of the last six decades, shows that the more she treads this path, the deeper the continent gets mired in a ‘developmental dead-end’ (apologies to Professor Okwudiba Nnoli). Despite the disappointing failure of many socialist experiments and other radical alternative paths to the neo-liberal developmental orthodoxy, Professor Saul remains steadfast in his commitment to revolutionary struggle as the ultimately realistic path to autochthonous African development and the realization of the trapped potentials of her people.

    As John Saul explains in this book, some of the influences on his intellectual development included the Latin American dependency school, Hamza Alavi’s theorization of the ‘Post-colonial state’ in India and Pakistan in the 1970s as well as such radical intellectual icons as Frantz Fanon, Clive Thomas, Issa Shivi and Walter Rodney who incidentally was his next door neighbor at the University of Dar es salam, Tanzania. If I am not mistaken, our own Claude Ake and Okwudiba Nnoli were also teaching at Dar es salam at about the same time. Ah! How tremendously blessed the students of that time and generation must have been.

    Professor Saul does not take the world as it exists at present at face value and as a rigid, static, pre-ordained reality that could not have been different. Rather, he notes that what he calls “the extraordinary gap” between the living standards of people living in the global North and those in the global South is the product of specific historic trajectories encompassing slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism, all facets of Western imperialism. It is impossible to adequately comprehend Africa’s current leadership and underdevelopment crisis without taking into account her disastrous contact with imperialism. Between the 15th and the 19th centuries, he notes, the rest of the world was subordinated to the economic requirements of expanding European economic and military might. “As a result, by the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most of the global South had been battered and pillaged, and then, ultimately, tied to Western economic centres by lead-strings of economic and political (including formally colonial) provenance. A global hierarchy was thus formed, in geographical, class and racial terms that would have a profound, even crippling, effect on the economic and social prospects of the vast majority of the world’s population”.

  • FF and the restructuring debate (3)

    FF and the restructuring debate (3)

    By Segun Ayobolu

    This columnist apologizes for our absence in the last two weeks. The spirit was indeed willing but the flesh was weak and weary. In the interlude, there were interesting developments. President Muhammadu Buhari appointed new Service Chiefs. State and non state actors rose up against criminal herdsmen in parts of the South-West. These have a bearing surely on our ongoing discourse on senior lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana’s take on the restructuring debate which we conclude today.    Many advocates of restructuring in Nigeria today appear to perceive and approach the issue essentially from an ethnic prism. Return to your ethnic camps O Nigerians, they seemingly intone, and all will be well with us. Those of them who were once adept and most adroit at explicating the dilemmas of Nigeria’s national question from a class and economic perspective have long since ‘gone off their Marx’! They now worship at the shrine of the gods of ethnic supremacy. From their new perspectives, Nigeria should be structurally reconfigured along ethnic and/or regional fault lines as class analyses have lost their saliency. The doctrinaire Marxists of yore may have unduly underplayed the critical dimensions of race, ethnicity, religion and gender in their analyses of society but that does not diminish the continued utility of class as a category of dissecting and understanding contemporary political structures.

    For, it becomes more obvious by the day that as Nigeria’s protracted economic crisis deepens and the size of the total social product to be shared among contending factions and fractions of the ruling class continually shrinks, the more the latter resort to the exploitation of ethno-regional sentiments to legitimize themselves politically among their assorted primordial constituencies. But Mr. Femi Falana argues forcefully that trying to reconfigure Nigeria along ethnic lines is not only a social engineering impossibility, it is a logical absurdity except we are no longer thinking in terms of a coherent and cohesive country.

    In the words of Mr. Falana, “There should be a greater clarity of purpose in the proposition of restructuring. The diversity and complexity of Nigeria should obviously make the idea of ethnic restructuring impractical in the Nigerian circumstance. When members of the major ethnic groups talk of restructuring in which maps of Biafra and Oduduwa Republics are neatly drawn, do they give a thought to some ethnic groups whose members are only a few thousands? Some languages are spoken each by fewer than a thousand persons while others are spoken each by tens of millions. How do you restructure on ethnic basis in such a complex terrain? That is why the focus should be devolution of powers and responsibilities along class lines. The competence and capacity of states and local governments to govern should be bolstered by awakening institutions of democracy including civil society”.

    Again, some advocates of restructuring create the impression that the notions, ideas or models of a reconfigured Nigeria which they have subjectively arrived at are somewhat superior to others and should be binding on all. They hardly give a thought to the roadmap of how to get from where we are today to the Nigerian Eldorado they have dreamt up for the rest of us. But is there a magic wand for bringing about the new Nigeria of their fancies without working through existing structures and processes? It is doubtful and Mr. Falana makes the point pungently. According to him, “Those who advocate restructuring hardly play the politics of restructuring very well. Like I indicated earlier, the problems of restructuring are to be approached strategically with negotiation and engagement. Since the issue will ultimately be resolved with constitutional amendment or if need be writing a new constitution, the various ethnic and regional champions should engage robustly with their people in the National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly. It is inexplicable that restructuring hardly features in parliamentary debates in Abuja or in any of the state capitals”.

    He continues, “Restructuring should not be an alibi for governance to go on vacation as we are beginning to see in some states of the federation. States do not have to wait for restructuring to fix primary schools without roofs or health centres without drugs and equipment. The absence of restructuring cannot be a justification for some states to fail to access funds from the Universal Basic Education (UBE) to remove 14 million children from the streets. State governments need not wait for restructuring before mobilizing the people to embark on food production and industrialization”.

    How about the issue of lopsided appointments and especially the allegation of nepotism against President Muhammadu Buhari in filling key and sensitive positions particularly as regards the headship of components of the security architecture? Is this a problem for which the extant 1999 constitution should be blamed or is it, first and foremost, a challenge of leadership limitation? The answer is obvious. For instance, with a single decision and within the twinkle of an eye, President Muhammadu Buhari this week bowed to popular pressure and appointed new Service Chiefs more reflective of the country’s plurality no matter how imperfectly. This shows that the constitution was not the problem all along but rather the leadership will to abide by its letter and spirit.

    As Mr. Falana points out, “In order to command national loyalty, in recognition of the diversity of the people and the need to promote a sense of belonging among the people of Nigeria, Section 14(3) & (4) of the Constitution provides that the composition of the government of the federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria by ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies. It is submitted that lopsidedness in political appointments is prohibited by the constitution. Hence, the Federal Character Commission, a federal executive body, has been assigned the responsibility to deal with allegations of lopsided appointments in public and private sectors”.

    Many commentators blame the extant constitution for the pervasive insecurity that has made the length and breadth of Nigeria today a vast, Hobbesian wasteland and killing field. They contend that the constitution imposes a unitary policing system on the country and confers the vacuous title of Chief Security Officer on State Governors without giving them any powers of control over the police in their respective states. Mr. Falana disagrees submitting that “With profound respect, the constitution has empowered state governors to share police powers with the President but for reasons best known to them they have abdicated the responsibility to the Federal Government”. He points out that the Nigeria Police Council, which is constitutionally empowered to administer, organize and supervise the Nigeria Police Force, is composed of the President and the state governors.

    In a damning indictment of the state governors, Falana states that “About two years ago, my repeated calls on state governors to requisition the meetings of the Nigeria Police Council fell on deaf ears. Hence, I sued the President at the Federal High Court to convene the meetings of the Council to address the security challenge in the country. However, Section 6(4) of the Nigeria Police Act 2020 has made provision for at least two meetings of the council per year and emergency meetings when necessary. In spite of the worsening security situation in the country, governors have not requisitioned a single meeting of the National Police Council. But last week, the APC governors held an emergency meeting with President Buhari and persuaded him not to honour the invitation to address members of the House of Representatives on the security situation in the country. Apart from making a mockery of the basic tenet of accountability and separation of powers, the APC governors have brazenly subverted federalism”.

    In much of the restructuring debate, there is the reflexive assumption that the problem with governance and federal practice in Nigeria is an all too powerful centre and unfairly emasculated states. What comes out of Mr. Falana’s lecture, however, is that the totalitarianism of state chief executives is perhaps worse than what obtains at the centre. For instance, financial autonomy for the judiciary and legislature in accordance with constitutional stipulations is adhered to at the federal level but totally ignored by state governments. Again, even where the constitution confers joint responsibility on the federal and state governments such as in the management of the economy or fighting corruption, for instance, state governors have slept on their rights leaving the terrain to the dominion of the centre.

    As Mr. Falana submits, “Notwithstanding the shortcomings of the 1999 Constitution, there are some residual powers reserved for state governments which have not been explored to promote the economic development of the country. We have identified specific areas where state governments have refused to jointly exercise powers with the federal government as stipulated by the constitution. In view of the strident opposition of the ruling party to power devolution, the Nigerian people are not deceived by the campaign for restructuring which is being championed, in recent time, by politicians who are interested in the 2023 presidential race. Instead of dismissing the campaign, state governors who are genuinely interested in restructuring should democratize the powers that have devolved to state governments from the centre through litigation. They are also advised to insist on power sharing with the federal government with respect to the management of the economy and security of the nation as stipulated by the constitution”.

  • FF and the restructuring debate (2)

    FF and the restructuring debate (2)

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    IT is not surprising that Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s political thought and praxis continue to feature prominently in any debate on the appropriate constitutional arrangement and political structure as well as socio-economic system for Nigeria and Mr. Femi Falana’s lecture also dwelt at some length on the sage’s political ideas. Awolowo thought deeply and rigorously as well as wrote extensively on these matters. Unlike many of the most vocal advocates of restructuring today, however, who claim to derive their inspiration and model from the great man’s ideas, Falana  demonstrates that Awo’s ideas were not as narrow, restricted, static and rigid as often portrayed even by those who were his close associates.

    Thus, Falana traces the dynamism of Awo’s political thought noting a shift in the sage’s preoccupation and emphasis from his description of Nigeria as “a mere geographical expression” in his book, ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’ published in 1947, a book written in pursuit of the anti-colonial struggle for the political emancipation of Nigeria, to his views two decades later as expressed in ‘The Peoples Republic’ and ‘The Strategies and Tactics of the Peoples Republic of Nigeria’. As Falana put it, “At that stage of his remarkable political life, Awolowo was thinking of how to develop Nigeria and push the frontier of human progress in this part of the world. He was not on a mission to preside over any Oduduwa Republic or to lead the Yoruba alone to “develop at their own pace”, unmindful of the realities of the Nigerian political economy”.

    Falana continues, “Little surprise that 32 years after the publication of ‘Path to Nigerian Freedom’, Awolowo sought to be Nigerian President (not Aare of Oduduwa Republic!) His platform was the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). The word ‘unity’ in the party’s name was instructive and deliberate. More significant is that the cardinal programmes of the UPN were free education, free healthcare, full employment and rural development”.

    Here, Falana must not be misread. Federalism remained a cardinal feature of Awolowo’s political and constitutional thought. Yet, the centre of gravity of the sage’s universe of ideas if I may put it that way had shifted from a preoccupation with federalism to developing Nigeria’s immense human capital potential for the liberation of the country from the grip of underdevelopment as well as her rapid modernization and transformation. Thus, restructuring was not part of the four cardinal programmes of the UPN in the Second Republic.

    Awolowo vigorously pursued his ambition to be President of Nigeria in the Second Republic under the 1979 constitution. The meticulous and thorough sage would never have done so without having studied the constitution carefully and concluding that, whatever its shortcomings, it could not hinder a visionary, competent and determined leader from achieving the task of rapidly transforming Nigeria and actualizing her potentials. And the 1999 constitution is essentially a mirror image of that of 1979 with only minuscule differences.

    I agree entirely with Falana that at the time that he sought to lead the country as elected President in 1979 and 1983, “Federalism was no more Awolowo’s preoccupation. His position was to the effect that if every Nigerian child in Maiduguri, Yenagoa or Ado-Ekiti had access to quality education, Nigeria would be on the part to reducing inequality. Similarly, if every woman and her children in Kuje, Badagry or Akampa had access to quality healthcare services, maternal and infant mortality would be ended and thereby tackling an aspect of poverty at that level. In his later years, Awolowo was more concerned about the social democratic development of Nigeria rather than limiting himself to the struggle for the phantom “true federalism”…So let the advocates of restructuring quote Awolowo not only on federalism; they should also quote him on his programme of social democracy as a basis of Nigeria’s sustainable development”.

    There are those who advocate the devolution of more powers, resources and responsibilities from the centre to the sub-national units, particularly the states, as the key and essential element of the demand for restructuring in Nigeria. At a recent lecture in Kaduna in honour of the first Premier of Northern Nigeria, the late Ahmadu Bello, for instance, the Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who was the guest lecturer as well as governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, in his prefatory remarks, both made the case for greater devolution of substantial powers, responsibilities and resources to the states. Calling for an equitable revenue allocation formula for Nigeria that will give more resources to states and local governments, Fayemi specifically canvassed a review of the revenue sharing formula to 43 per cent for states, 35 percent to the federal and 23 percent to the local governments.

    But bringing a sharp ideological and class focus to the debate, Falana argues that “With respect, it is submitted that the adoption of the equitable allocation formula suggested by Governor Fayemi can never solve the crisis of poverty in the land. For instance, the 2020 budget of Nigeria, a country of 206 million people is $30 billion whereas the budget of Brazil, a nation of 208 million people is $650 billion. Instead of rushing to Abuja every month to share poverty by distributing the dwindling revenue from the sale of crude oil in the Federation Account, the people of Nigeria should be mobilized to create wealth. Apart from demanding a new revenue allocation formula, the fiscal and monetary policies of the nation ought to be challenged as its exclusive control by the federal government as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank has continued to undermine the national economy”.

    All too often, the restructuring debate is pursued as if it is a matter that should be addressed and effected only at the federal level thus ignoring the excessive concentration of powers in the person of state governors at the sub-national units of governance, the emasculation and crippling of local governments, state legislatures and even the judiciary by all powerful state executives. To devolve more powers, responsibilities and resources to the states without addressing this problem can only worsen the flaws and dysfunctions of federal practice in Nigeria. Hence Falana submits that “…the power devolution to the states from the centre without the democratization of the said powers will not promote the development of the country. In other words, restructuring without the equitable redistribution of the commonwealth will not engender unity as unity is not an abstract phenomenon”.

    In any case, are state governors doing as much as they can under the extant constitution to strengthen the sub-national units of government and deepen federal practice in Nigeria? Falana does not think so. In his words, “Advocates of restructuring should not only put pressure on Buhari to lead the process of restructuring. They should also push the state governors to take advantage of legal openings to deepen Nigerian federalism as Lagos State has done. Some Supreme Court decisions from which all states now benefit were as a result of cases pursued by the Lagos State government against the federal government. In other jurisdictions, court pronouncements have also helped to recast the structure and mechanisms of federations”.

    Nowhere does Mr. Femi Falana suggest that he is averse to the adoption of a new constitution if that is the will of the majority of the Nigerian people. But is the extant 1999 constitution utterly worthless and of no enduring value whatever? Falana clearly does not think so and he makes his case unequivocally. According to him, “Doubtless, there is a lot of critique to be made of the 1999 constitution. But it is strange when critics dismiss the whole document as “useless” because it does not give expression to “the will of the people”. The nucleus of the 1999 Constitution was taken from the 1979 Constitution. It is pertinent to ask: Is the Chapter 11 of the 1999 constitution not in the interest of the people? Should that chapter also be dismissed along with the problematic clauses in the constitution?”

    He continues: “As I said earlier, the 1979 constitution was a product of a vigorous debate, the Great Debate of 1977/78. One of the enduring products of that process was the Chapter 11 of the 1979 Constitution which has been replicated in the 1999 Constitution. It was the concession the majority of the report of the committee, headed by Chief Rotimi Willimas, SAN, made to the radical views of the two historians who were members – Bala Usman and Segun Osoba. It is the chapter entitled the “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy”.

    Noting that Chief Awolowo lauded the adoption of the fundamental objectives and made a strong case for their justiciability, Falana explains that “The chapter is the people’s content of the constitution. Enshrined in the chapter are basic elements of socio-economic justice in the areas of education, health, environment, social protection, mass transit, mass housing etc. They remain the national goals. It is noteworthy that some Nigerians including scholars crafted these social, economic and political goals four decades before the United Nations came up with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which look more like a copy of the chapter of the Nigerian constitution. If the provisions had been implemented, Nigeria could have been greater than some of the countries that some of our elite point to as models of development.”

     

    • To be concluded next week

     

  • FF and the restructuring debate (1)

    FF and the restructuring debate (1)

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    THE Coronavirus pandemic and its toll both on lives and the economy, the #endSARS protests, which were hijacked by murderous hoodlums, as well as the pervasive insecurity were the defining elements that made life ‘nasty, solitary, brutish and short’  across the country in 2020. Yet, there was a little noticed flicker of light towards the end of the year that portends hope for the future even as Nigeria continues to contend with severe, mostly manmade, existential challenges. That was the decision of the Ekiti State University to invite renowned human rights lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), to deliver its 2020 Convocation lecture on 16th December, 2020.

    This seemingly insignificant but important event offers signs of future hope because the resolution of any society’s problems, no matter how seemingly intractable, lies essentially in the realm of ideas and the intellect and the Ekiti State University has led the way in demonstrating that our universities can once again be the arenas for vigorous articulation and interrogation of ideas that can lay the basis for national transformation.

    Titled ‘Restructuring and the Liberation of Nigeria’, Mr. Femi Falana’s cerebral offering did not disappoint. It was pungent, incisive, ideologically informed and the lecturer, characteristically, took no prisoners in engaging a subject that has been at the forefront of public discourse in recent times often, unfortunately, from utterly ill-informed and misleading perspectives. Right from the opening lines of his lecture, Mr. Falana takes issues with and firmly opposes the manipulation/exploitation of ethno-regional sentiments and emotions by those he describes as ‘ethnic warlords, demagogues and clairvoyants from their declared “territories” with captive audiences”. Many of them can best be described as ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’.

    Falana does not disagree with the need to restructure Nigeria. But he contends that no less important, perhaps even more so, is the imperative to urgently liberate the country from the ‘shackles of poverty, inequality and gross socio-economic injustice’. He insists that at the top of our national agenda must be the determination to ‘banish hunger, disease and ignorance’ from these otherwise richly blessed shores. Thus, in his words “These vertical and horizontal steps are important ones to take simultaneously for the development and progress of Nigeria. The implication of the foregoing is that the debates on restructuring should be reframed in the interest of social justice, geo-political equity, genuine freedom and the unity of the people of Nigeria”.

    But what exactly is the radical lawyer talking about here some may ask? Is restructuring not a necessary condition for achieving the goals of banishing hunger, disease and ignorance? Unfortunately, the most vocal and ardent voices on the pro-restructuring  platform give the impression that restructuring is essentially about fundamental adjustments and rearrangements in the ethno-regional and administrative superstructure of the Nigerian polity while largely ignoring the no less important and critical inequities and injustices that define the country’s economic substructure.

    Indeed, it is the relentless deepening of poverty and the attendant ever escalating inequality between privileged and deprived socio-economic classes that has sharpened, ironically, the saliency of ethnicity as a tool of group manipulation by largely self-serving elites who mask the naked pursuit of power for socio-economic aggrandizement under the guise of protecting the interests of particular ethnic and/or regional groups. The fact of the co-existence within one geographical space of plural ethno-cultural groups is not the fundamental problem with Nigeria and the reason for the protracted non-realization of her immense potentials. Rather, Nigeria remains a ‘crippled giant’ six decades after nominal independence because of the persistence in power, through its various factions and fractions, military and civilian, of a mindlessly corrupt, inept, visionless and ideologically as well as intellectually vacuous political class.

    No ethno-regional faction or fraction of this political class along with its business wing has demonstrated any higher sense of patriotism or standard of ethical integrity than the others. Much of the loud clamour for restructuring by vocal sections of the political class in parts of the country is thus no evidence of a more elevated altruistic commitment to the best interests of the vast majority of the people either of Nigeria as a whole or the parts of it that they purport to be fighting for. In the same vein, those who contend that ‘Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable’ just to preserve wholesale an unjust and inequitable status quo that profits them are actuated by selfish, self-centered motives.

    The sense I get from Mr. Falana’s lecture is that restructuring is not a magic cure-all prescription, a once and for all exercise, that resolves a society’s contradictions and challenges for all time. Despite the indisputably radical ideological cast of his take on restructuring, Femi Falana adopts a far more practical, pragmatic and realistic approach to the issue that contrasts sharply with those who call for the total jettisoning of the extant 1999 constitution and the creation of a new one ex-nihilo. Yet, those who make such outlandish suggestions in the name of restructuring ignore the fact that there is no reasonable consensus on what a restructured Nigeria should look like or which of the contending ideas or models of restructuring should be adopted as well as why and how this will be legitimated.

    Falana’s approach entails building on the merits of what exists, identifying its weaknesses, failings and shortcomings and systemically working to eliminate these in such a way that a more efficient, effective, functional and democratic as well as federal polity ultimately emerges. I am sure his audience would have been more enthused if he had emotively and excitedly advocated the wholesale shredding of the extant constitution and the revolutionary adoption of a totally new document of constitutive and regulative rules governing relations in the Nigerian polity. Falana takes an eminently more sensible if not particularly populist position which adheres with what is perceived in some quarters as the correct conventional wisdom.

    His words: “Restructuring alone will not automatically answer the menacing question of rising youth joblessness and hopelessness plaguing Nigerian society. To reframe the question, some myths should be exploded. First, stripped of all obfuscation, restructuring is basically about making the Nigerian federation work better for the purpose of governance and development. That should be the objective of restructuring rather than the elusive pursuit of “true federalism”. There is nothing like a true federalism. Every federation is structured for the specific purpose of each country. That is why the Indian federation is not identical to that of Australia or America. The Swiss federation is operated differently from that of Canada or Brazil. The German federation is working not because it is “true” but because it meets the specific historical need of Germans. So we should stop mystifying the debate by calling for a “true federalism” instead of asking for a workable federation for Nigeria”.

    Is Falana then not defending the status quo and thus by his position making the fundamental structural changes advocated by many exceedingly difficult or impossible to attain? The answer most certainly is no, in my view. Rather, he approaches the question of restructuring not from a fixed, rigid position of an ideologue but from the prism of the pragmatic and methodical constitutionalist. Let me quote him at some length again, “As a matter of fact, making a federation to work, building a nation or promoting national integration is never a finished business. As the experiences of countries defined by diversity and complexity have shown, the business of a functional federation is actually a work in progress. After all, what’s federalism if not a system of continuous negotiation and compromises? That’s why it is a gross misnomer when some people pronounce arrogantly that “Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable”. That’s wrong. Federations are, of course, subject to negotiations when the need arises in any generation. What is to be is to accept the reality of negotiation and compromises so as to give everyone a sense of belonging. This will invariably spur a sense of commitment to the nation.”

    After exhaustively situating the advocacy for restructuring in Nigeria in historical context right from the colonial intrusion through the first, second and aborted third republics, including the various military dispensations, to the present, Falana concludes that there now appears to be a reasonable consensus around the implementation of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference “as a way of addressing the lingering questions of Nigerian federalism”. This is against the background, which he notes, of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s inexplicable reticence in taking any positive action on restructuring or federalism despite the provisions of the All Progressives Congress (APC) manifesto as well as the total neglect of the recommendations of the governor Nasir el-Rufai panel on modalties for giving effect to the party’s manifesto in this regard.

    Since the el-Rufai panel’s recommendations reportedly was submitted complete with draft bills to be forwarded for processing into law by the National Assembly to effect necessary constitutional changes to strengthen federal practice, is the fundamental problem then not that of lack of the leadership with the requisite will to act rather than any inherently irremediable defects in the 1999 constitution?

  • An inspiring example

    An inspiring example

    By Segun Ayobolu

     

    All too easily most of us are wont to blame our persistent and protracted travails as a nation solely at the feet of an inept, visionless, venal and grasping leadership. Thus, Buhari, governors, local government Chairmen, national and state legislators – those in the public eye – are the objects of our unrelentingly scathing criticisms and deservingly so. The leadership no doubt shares the greater proportion of the blame for the ills that hobble any society particularly an underdeveloped entity like Nigeria whose potentials are perennially trapped. But is the leadership too not to some extent a reflection of the values that actuate the larger number of the followership?

    The great political scientist, the late Professor Claude Ake, in an opinion piece published in The Guardian newspaper once admonished Nigerians to stop seeking political Messiahs to deliver them but that each should strive to find and manifest the political Messiah within the individual for the benefit of the collectivity. I do not know now if I accurately portray the point Ake was trying to make. But I think the import of his logic was that each of us must strive to be and reflect the change we so passionately advocate to others and the larger society.

    Private leadership is as important, if not more crucial, than public leadership. The higher the number of individuals that are able to lead themselves to reflect the ennobling values of citizenship, integrity, civility and humaneness, in the private realm, the greater the possibility of the emergence of leaders of character, honesty and elevating compassion in the public sphere.

    Given the perverse value system prevalent in our society, the preeminent preoccupation with the acquisition of material wealth by all and any means and at any cost, the dearth of empathy, the disdain for genuine and honest industry, the death of compassion and civility, those who guide and govern their lives by a higher moral compass cannot but elicit our admiration and inspire us to rise above the base and banal as well as seek and release the higher angels of our own nature.

    The parent of means who refuses to procure leaked examination papers to enable his or her child to flaunt deceptive brilliance. The worker who refuses to dupe his organization and goes beyond the call of duty to achieve excellence in discharging his duties whether the boss is around or not. The taxi driver who returns valuable property that was forgotten in his vehicle by a passenger to the owner. The spiritual leader who insists on speaking truth both to members of his congregation as well as to power regardless of the financial implications for his ministry.

    These gems of integrity exist in larger numbers in our society than we presume and the matter is worsened by the torrents of bad news that routinely drown the good in contemporary Nigeria. I think it was late in October this year that I received a short video recording on WhatsApp which showed a woman, Mrs. Harriet Joe-Imhana and her 19-year old daughter, Iziehi, paying glowing tribute to the cardiology team at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH). The daughter had just undergone a successful open heart surgery at the tertiary institution and mother and child thought it fitting to give a public testimony of their experience, which in itself is remarkable and usual in these climes.

    •Harriet Joe-Imhanwa and her daughter, Iziehi
    •Harriet Joe-Imhanwa and her daughter, Iziehi

    In the words of Mrs. Harriet Joe-Imhanwa, a retired school principal from Edo State, who runs an NGO in Lagos in memory of her late husband, in the video, “This is my daughter, she was diagnosed with a hole in the heart; that was in October, November 2019. And that was at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). We did a trial test and it was confirmed there was a hole in the heart and she needed surgery. That was huge for us; in a country like Nigeria it was huge. We were referred to LASUTH and I was not particularly comfortable with government hospitals because I had my experience more than two decades ago with government hospitals whether it is federal, whether it is state and I didn’t want to have anything to do with them. I did my investigations among the private hospitals and the price was skyrocketing, inhibitive for us at that time in our financial situation. Finally, I decided to go along with LASUTH not by choice but because of the consultant cardiologist, Dr. Falase.”

    Mrs Harriet Joe-Imhanwa continues: “We were referred to Dr. Falase and even when we did not have the money to come forth, he kept chatting my daughter up, encouraging her, checking up on her and I was amazed. Do we still have people like this in Nigeria? He called me up one day after the COVID-19 lockdown and he said: “Ah madam, why don’t you come up, we want to start surgery.” In fact, it was my daughter he called and I told my daughter, “please tell him we are not ready.” The next thing, he tried raising funds for us. When I saw his encouragement, I was encouraged. I said, is this happening in Nigeria? Then God opened a door for me and before we knew we got the money and I was surprised when they gave me the price. It was a little above half of what the best private cardiologist gave to me in Lagos so I decided to try Dr Falase. The surgery was scheduled for 12th October, 2020, and it was done and, lo and behold, it was very successful.”

    It was at this point that the WhatsApp video recording came to an end. Luckily, The Nation newspaper of Wednesday, October 30, 2020, published the story and I was able to read the continuation of Mrs. Joe-Imhanwa’s story. She said: “My daughter woke up even before the time they thought she would wake up. I was asked to come into the Intensive Care Unit. I opened the door, and boom! It was like I had entered a hospital abroad. Is this in Nigeria? It was well equipped and neat that I was in awe. How come that people did not know about a place like this?”she queried.

    The story continued, “She appealed to the Lagos State Government to keep the cardiology team in the country and maintain the facilities at the hospital. Harriet also asked Nigerians not to travel abroad for heart surgeries, saying they could be done at LASUTH and at cheaper rates. Her daughter, Iziehi, said…”Even when I was moved to the general ward, the treatment did not reduce; they were still encouraging me. Even when I did not feel like waking up on some days, they would tell me, ‘Looking at you alone, you are a miracle,” she added.

    In the course of researching this story, I stumbled on another news item by Temitayo Ayetoto in the on-line edition of Business Day on November 4, 2020. It was about a 22 year old graduate of International Relations from Oduduwa University, Ile-Ife, Abiodun Omotayo, who was diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease, a condition in which the heart valves have been permanently damaged by Rheumatic fever. Although he was told that he would require N50 million for a successful surgery outside the country, the Kanu Heart Foundation referred him to LASUTH where, on September 28th 2020, a team led by Dr Bode Falase treated and replaced his damaged valve at a much cheaper cost. “I thank Dr Falase and his team for a job well done. LASUTH is a better place to be,” Omotayo said in a video where his thankful mother appeared.”

    From his online bio-data, Dr. Bode Falase has been a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at LASUTH since 2006. He obtained his MBBS from the University of Ibadan in 1987 and obtained higher specialist qualifications in cardiothoracic surgery as well as Healthcare Informatics from the Royal College of Surgeons as well as the University of Bath. The President of the Association of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Nigeria (ACTSON), he has a passion to help make cardiac surgery more readily available and affordable in Nigeria.

    On the video by Mrs Harriet Joe-Imhanwa, the Chief Medical Director of LASUTH, Professor Adetokunbo Fabamwo, told The Nation it was done without prompting from the hospital saying, “This is not the first time that we are doing open heart surgery with local staff. It’s only that she is the first person to give testimony. In the last one year, LASUTH has been doing open heart surgery with local staff without inviting expatriates or anybody and at rock bottom prices. We have the best cardiothoracic unit in Nigeria now”.

    The evolution of LASUTH itself is a fascinating tale. Established as a model cottage hospital by the old Western Region Government on 25th June, 1955 to cater for the people of Ikeja and its environs, it grew into a full-fledged General Hospital serving as a secondary level facility. Under the administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it was upgraded into a well equipped tertiary hospital for the training of doctors and other allied health care professionals with state of the art equipment in July 2001. The hospital has continued to expand and make systematic progress under the succeeding Babatunde Raji Fashola, Akinwunmi Ambode   and now Babajide Sanwo-Olu administrations. This is an inspiring example of how democracy can be the handmaiden of meaningful development.

     

  • NAFEST: Why culture matters

    NAFEST: Why culture matters

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    IT is ironical that on the very day that the nation was, once again, shocked and numbed by the massacre by Boko Haram of 43 rice farmers in ZabarMari, Borno State, the one week long 33rd edition of the National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFEST) organized by the National Council of Arts and Culture (NCAC) was coming to a rousing end at the Rwang Pam township stadium in Jos, Plateau State. Once upon a time the dominant news from Plateau State was of communal strife and mindless blood- letting. It is thus remarkable that the Y2020 NAFEST with the theme, ‘COVID-19 and Cultural Dynamism’ and which had 23 state contingents including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) participating took place in an ambience of peace, serenity and harmony. The Plateau State governor, Simon Lalong and Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen, were understandably enthused at the positive effects of successfully hosting NAFEST 2020 on the image of Plateau State.

    NAFEST, which was once a major event on the country’s cultural calendar, had been moribund for years until it was resurrected with the assumption of office of its current Director-General, Otunba Segun Runsewe. Previous editions of the festival had since 2017 been held with tremendous success in Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Benin City. The event enables the various state contingents to showcase different aspects of the rich culture and values of their diverse peoples and is made more exciting with such competitive events as traditional cuisine, arts and crafts, essay writing, quiz, traditional board game, indigenous fabrics, fashion parade, indigenous music, archery and choral contest. In a keen competition among the participating state contingents, Bayelsa state, once again, emerged tops just as it had done in the three preceding editions of the NAFEST.

    But then, is it not a waste of time and resources to expend funds on showcasing Nigeria’s rich cultural endowment particularly at a time when the economy lies prostrate from the ravages of the Coronavirus pandemic, the lingering effects of the #endSARS protests and the continuing fragility of the petroleum sector with the attendant sharp drop in petroleum revenues? To reason this way will be to underestimate the cultural sources of Nigeria’s multi-pronged challenges particularly the erosion of positive and wholesome values, which fuels such prevalent vices as rampant corruption, religious intolerance, youth gangsterism and cultism, kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery and drug abuse among others.

    We tend to emphasize and focus solely on economic or military solutions as well as punitive judicial sanctions in containing such national challenges as the protracted economic crisis, insecurity and corruption. True, all of these have their place. However, we can only ignore to our peril, the important role that the cultural factor can play in resolving the country’s challenges and returning her to the path of progress and accelerated transformation. After all, those who perpetrate such evils as engaging in grand or petty corruption as well as mindless slaughter of their fellow human beings were born in and grew up in specific communities.

    Had they been grounded in the wholesome communal ethos and ethical values characteristic of indigenous African culture, it is not unlikely that many of them may have chosen a more humane, decent and dignified course for their lives. This is, of course, not to underestimate the contribution of pervasive poverty, massive gross societal inequality and governance dysfunction to fuelling the crises of morals and values that impede the country’s developmental journey and her capacity to actualize her trapped potentials. But a lot of the perverse values responsible for the economic crisis in the first place can be effectively addressed through a thorough going cultural rejuvenation and re-orientation.

    In his contribution to the very important book, ‘Culture Matters’ published in 2000, the eminent political scientist, Samuel Huntington, writes, “To what extent do cultural factors shape political and economic development? If they do, how can cultural obstacles to economic and political development be moved or changed so as to facilitate progress?” These are the kind of questions that we must interrogate in a country like ours through such agencies as NCAC working closely with the various cultural institutes in our institutions of higher learning. Luckily, as he has demonstrated in previous public assignments he has been saddled with particularly as Director General of the NTDC, Otunba Segun Runsewe has the drive, energy, vision and dynamism to lead the NCAC in this direction.

    In the book, ‘Culture Matters’, another contributor, Lawrence E. Harrison, makes the critical point that “The role of cultural values and attitudes as obstacles to or facilitators of progress has been largely ignored by governments and aid agencies. Integrating value and attitude change into development policies, planning and programming is, I believe, a promising way to assure that, in the next fifty years, the world does not relive the poverty and injustice that most poor countries, and underachieving ethnic groups, have been mired in during the past half century”. This observation is particularly true of Nigeria.

    Most of us live today in what can be described as a cultural wasteland. Jettisoning the cultural values and moral restraints that once undergirded our pristine indigenous societies, we have embraced headlong the enervating consumerism, unrelenting greed and moral laxity that characterizes western culture and civilization.

    This is quite unlike countries like China or India, for instance, which have adopted and imbibed the many good points of western culture in the areas of economy, science and technology as well as innovation but maintained the centuries- old religious, moral and cultural values of their societies. In a lecture delivered at Harvard University’s annual commencement ceremony on 8th June, 1978, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, denounced in strong terms the western way of life. Even though he was on exile from his country, Russia, at the time because of his opposition to the authoritarianism of the communist regime, Solzhenitsyn stressed that he could not recommend the western way of life for his country.

    In his words, “No, I could not recommend your society as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through deep suffering, people in our country have now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive”. He continued, “Of course, a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for it to stay on such a soulless and smooth plane of legalism as is the case in yours. After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today’s mass living habits introduced as by a calling card by the revolting invasion of commercial advertising, by TV stupor and by intolerable music”.

    In his book, ‘Standing for Something’, published in 2000, the religious leader, Gordon B. Hinckley makes the point even more plainly and pungently with specific regard to America.  As he put it, “Our spiritual power is sapped by a floodtide of pornography, by a debilitating epidemic of the use of narcotics and drugs that destroy both body and mind, and by a declining moral standard that is alarming and devastating to relationships, families and the integrity of our nation as a whole…I am more deeply concerned about the growing moral deficit than I am about the monetary deficit”.

    To his credit, Otunba Runsewe has expanded the scope of NAFEST to include free skills acquisition with the beneficiaries being women, youth, physically challenged and vulnerable members of society. His stated vision is to help change the status of beneficiaries from dependency to economic self-reliance. At the last Jos edition of NAFEST, 1,600 Plateau state indigenes benefitted from the free skills acquisition programme in such areas as tailoring, soap making, cosmetology and the art of head gear (gele). Since the resuscitation of NAFEST in 2017, over 10,000 Nigerians have benefitted from the programme.

    As laudable as this innovation is, the greatest task for the NCAC DG is to strengthen the intellectual content of the agency’s programmes particularly by developing working relationships with Faculties and Institutes of Arts and Culture in our various higher institutions with a view to utilizing culture and the arts as tools for rapid national transformation. This surely is not beyond Otunba Runsewe’s capacity given his antecedent at the NTDC. As DG of that agency, he was the brain behind the much acclaimed Abuja Carnival. His dynamism significantly helped to market Nigeria on the tourism map of the world with the country participating actively in activities such as the World Travel Market, UK, Dubai Trade Fair as well as the World Trade Market, Africa, at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, where the NTDC showcased the memorable Nigeria Tourism Village. Not less is expected of him in his current assignment especially given the critical role of culture in the quest for national redemption and transformation.

  • APC: Another stalled coup

    APC: Another stalled coup

    By Segun Ayobolu

    Political parties are clearly the most critical structures on which constitutional governance revolves in Nigeria’s current political dispensation. Members of the legislature and executive that make and implement laws hold their positions and are able to discharge their functions by virtue of being members of political parties. The extant constitution has no place for independent candidature. It therefore stands to reason that the organizational cohesiveness, administrative efficiency, ideological clarity and leadership acumen of political party structures will impact significantly on the efficacy and productivity of governance. Much of the failings in the delivery of democracy dividends to the people by both the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the centre over the last two decades can be attributed to the weak institutionalization of these dominant parties.

    To its credit, the PDP held relatively effective sway over the polity and maintained a reasonable degree of stability for much of its 16 years of control at the centre. Yet, its performance was grossly disappointing relative to the resources available to it especially during the Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration. The PDP’s expressed desire to be in power for at least six decades was aborted among others by steadily increasing internal fractiousness, leadership arrogance, ideological barrenness, utter disregard for its internal rules and the capture of the party by the governments that were supposed to be its offspring.

    Given the dismal state in which the APC inherited the country from the preceding PDP administration, it has recorded a number of achievements in terms of accelerated infrastructural renewal and modernization as well as the continuing diversification of the economy in the direction of reduced dependency and enhanced self-reliance. Yet, the APC remains its own greatest enemy as the perennial and protracted crises within its ranks continues to impede its capacity to perform optimally. From all indications, the APC, which has been in power for the last six years, has learnt little or nothing from the experience of the PDP. Like the weird child in the novelist, Ayi Kwei Armah’s ‘The beautiful ones are not yet born’, the APC appears to have transmogrified from infancy to old age without the invigorating experience of youthfulness. Some exceedingly ambitious members of the party who are lucky to hold key positions particularly as state governors see the party simply as a vehicle for the pursuit and realization of personal ambitions.

    Forging an ideological direction for the country or implementing a progressive programmatic agenda for their government is furthest from their minds. Thus, the gap continues to widen between the great expectations roused among Nigerians by the APC in 2015 and the ever increasing frustrations of the large number of citizens whose hopes for more purposeful and productive governance remain dashed.  The sordid revelations at the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the National Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF), for example, indicate that corruption is alive, well and thriving. Economic recovery and sustainable growth could, despite unforeseen occurrences like the Coronavirus pandemic and #endSARS protests, be more vigorous with better managerial competence. Much more tragically, the insecurity situation across the country has worsened with the routine slaughtering of Nigerians becoming the norm in the face of the inexplicable paralysis of the security architecture.

    With their 2023 political ambitions squarely in focus rather than enabling the APC to deliver on its mandate to the people, these ambitious elements successfully manipulated the presidency and engineered the dissolution of the comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) of the party that had been striving against great odds to restore internal party discipline, strengthen internal democracy and enhance its institutional autonomy. A few governors plotted the patently unconstitutional dissolution of the 21-member NWC in which only three members had grievances against the leadership. It was a coup. Was Oshiomhole’s leadership without flaws? Certainly not. But it was a marked improvement from the Chief John Odigie Oyegun era that simply handed over the party to the control of governors empowered by their custody of state resources.

    Emboldened by their putsch against Oshiomhole’s NWC, these elements with about five or six governors at their vanguard decided to push through a thoroughgoing and complete takeover of the APC at the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting this week. Or what could have informed the resolution to arbitrarily dissolve all party executive councils at polling unit, ward, local government, state and zonal levels while also asking old members to re-register alongside the registration of new members into the party. The recruitment and registration of new members is a routine exercise in any serious political party and need not be accompanied by distracting histrionics and dramatics. It will be recalled that at the height of its hubris under the Obasanjo presidency, the PDP de-registered all its members and asked anyone willing to be members to register afresh. This was one of the party’s missteps on its way to its 2015 electoral waterloo.

    Luckily, the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s wise counsel prevailed and the APC NEC decided to reconstitute the dissolved executive councils at all levels into caretaker committees to steer the affairs of the party until the next intra-party congresses and convention. Even then, has the legitimate four-year tenure of these dissolved executive councils been arbitrarily truncated in conformity with the party’s constitution? Can an organization infringe the rights of its members in blatant violation of its own rules and yet also ban such members from seeking judicial redress? Interesting times indeed lie ahead for the APC.

    For its lethargy and incompetence in carrying out its assignment of resolving intra-party crises and conducting party congresses and convention to elect new party executives within six months, the Yobe State governor, Mai Mala Bunu-led Caretaker and Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC) has been rewarded with tenure extension for another six months. Governor Bunu will thus continue to be distracted from his primary assignment of governing his state. It is astonishing that even as the country’s security and economic conditions have worsened considerably since 2015, the ambitious governors are more concerned about seizing control of the APC structure to actualize their future ambitions than helping the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to more effectively tackle the multi-pronged challenges threatening the country’s very existence.

    Let us even imagine that that the ambitious governors achieve their aim and gain control of the party structure to realize their personal aspirations, do they think that the APC can mount any credible and effective campaign to retain power in 2023 if there is no significant improvement on its current performance? And how many of these governors have demonstrated at the level of their states any quality of governance that indicates that they can be transformational, developmental leaders at the national level? While some are exceedingly power drunk and overbearing, some are permanently distracted and perennially absent from their states for flimsy and inexcusable reasons while others have proven to be grossly incompetent in securing lives and property within their jurisdictions or achieving harmony and cohesiveness among components of their complex, plural societies.

    Blinded and thoroughly deceived by the seemingly invincible powers they wield today, the masterminds feverishly trying to hijack the APC for personal ends forget that the party’s emphatic victory in 2015 had become embarrassingly fragile and feeble at the 2019 polls. If the APC continues along its present trajectory, inflicting deadly bodily wounds on itself, the electoral portents for the party come 2023 are ominous indeed especially as the steadily increasing application of technology makes elections more and more difficult to manipulate.

    Interestingly, in his address to the NEC meeting, President Muhammadu Buhari preached the gospel of harmony, party discipline and adherence to the originating protocols that informed the emergence of the APC. But the presidency’s role in the entire affair is baffling. Is Buhari still the leader of the whole of the APC as we know it or has he decided to lend the weight of his office to the attempt by a clique to capture the party and refashion it in its own image? The answer to that question will be critical to the future fate of the APC.  Buhari seemed to measure what he considered to be the success of the CECPC by the number of returnees or newly decamped members from other parties to the APC. He is gravely mistaken. A cardinal feature of Nigeria’s vagrant political culture is that politicians tend to flock to the party in control of the honey pot at the centre. Should the APC gift the PDP victory at the centre in 2023, the alacrity with which many of today’s avowed ‘Buharists’ and APC die-hards will scamper onto the new bandwagon at the centre will be astounding.

     

     

  • #EndSARS protests – Any lessons learnt?

    #EndSARS protests – Any lessons learnt?

    By Segun Ayobolu

    Have members of the Nigerian political class transcending, in particular, the two dominant parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) learnt any appropriate lessons from the over two-week #EndSARS protests that rocked large swathes of the country bringing the economy in many major cities virtually to a standstill? On the surface, the answer seems to be in the affirmative. For instance, in his well written and delivered speech to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Historical Documentation and Research Centre, also known as the Arewa House, the Ekiti State governor and Chairman of the National Governors Forum (NGF), Dr Kayode Fayemi, on Saturday, October 31st, gave a characteristically brilliant account of himself even  if there was really nothing new in his observations and adumbrations that had not been rehashed, in different words, by analysts of the Nigerian political terrain.

    Fayemi’s speech was titled, ‘Unfinished Greatness…Towards a More Perfect Union’. Its historical sweep was impressive and its philosophical depths at times enthralling. The central contention of the NGF‘s Chairman’s address is that, as far as Nigeria is concerned, “There was  ‘greatness’ or at  least a journey towards greatness which has remained unfinished”. He equally asserts that “it is only by building a more perfect union that we can accomplish the task of greatness for which we have demonstrated so much potential for the better part of our history”. This idea of striving for a ‘more perfect union’ is obviously borrowed from the imagination of the American federalist fathers and the ‘imperfect’ constitution they produced, which constantly inspires and motivates the citizenry in every generation to fight for a polity, that is ever in quest of  a non-attainable ‘perfection’.

    The NGF Chairman reiterates the right phrases, alludes to the elegant theories of democracy and federalism and emphasizes the need to steer Nigeria in the direction of continuously deepening her federal practice in the interest of enhanced political stability and economic progress. Referring to the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in his October 1st, 2009, speech to commemorate Nigeria’s 49th anniversary, Fayemi quotes him thus, “Today should be a forceful reminder of our unfinished greatness, of the promise yet to be fulfilled, of dreams deferred for too long and of the work that is still outstanding”. Elaborating on the late President’s thought, Fayemi writes, “You cannot develop what you don’t have. When the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, asked “When is a nation?’, he was attempting to draw our attention to those questions of nation-building that remained unanswered till this day”.

    Still speaking on an upbeat, optimistic note, Fayemi compares Nigeria with such formerly supposedly federal polities – Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union etc – that have broken up into diverse, separate countries, and contends that with our over 250 ethno-national groups, “Yet we were managing our diversity very well until we lost the values of tolerance, equity, fairness and justice which we inherited from our founding fathers”. Of course, this kind of idealistic and romantic portraiture of politics and governance in the First Republic has become all too fashionable among our scholars and sundry analysts. But let’ read our history. The political violence, crude and criminal manipulation of census figures, outright rigging of elections, diversion of public resources for private use and every other imaginary evil manifest between 1960 and 1966, leading to the collapse of the First Republic, were only a foreshadowing of the socio-political and economic vices that have plagued successive republics since then.

    Speaking specifically about the #EndSARS protests, Fayemi asserts that “From the demand of the #End SARS, we have seen vigorous demands for greater accountability and greater efficiency in government. What I understand the youths to be saying is that we, the older generation, have failed them by our inability to create a system that supports their dreams and accommodates their aspirations”. But   then, Fayemi is a proud and flaunting poster boy of the Buhari administration to the extent that he once publicly declared that he is not ashamed to be called a ‘Buhari boy’. If he has all these beautiful ideas in his head, pray what kind of advice does he offer a man he purportedly loves and admires so much? For, I believe that, especially as the Chairman of the NGF, Fayemi must be one governor who has the President’s ears.

    In his opening remarks at the event, the host governor, Mallam Nasir’el Rufai, also vigorously advocated for the restructuring of the country towards a deepened federal system lamenting that the report of the APC Committee on true federalism, which he headed, had been submitted to the appropriate quarters since January, 2018, with nothing, inexplicably, done about it. El-Rufai stressed the imperative of moving fast within the context of the times “with a sense of purpose to remove the structural impediments that hobble our country”. However, like Pontius Pilate, can the Kaduna State governor simply wash his hands clean from any guilt as regards the non- implementation of the APC Committee on True Federalism? Like Fayemi, el-Rufai publicly and proudly proclaims himself a ‘Buharist’. Why then can’t people like this duo that are fiercely loyal to the President and have easy access to the inner recesses of power influence PMB to carry out the lofty ideas they peddle at public lectures and media interviews.

    Detracting somewhat from the seriousness of the Arewa House event, the Kaduna State governor’s prefatory remarks were clearly not helpful. In his tempestuous manner, he posited that Fayemi was invited to deliver the lecture for a purpose because the North has a way of pursuing whatever goals it chooses to pursue. That purpose he said would be known in the course of time. Can analysts be blamed then if they concluded from el-Rufai’s insinuations and innuendoes that he has 2023 on his mind? More measured and restrained, the Sultan of Sokoto, Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar, speaking on the occasion described Fayemi as an adopted son of the late Sardauna of Sokoto, without explicating what he means.

    Any members of the two major parties who are still focused on their petty 2023 ambitions without imbibing the lessons to be derived from the massive #endSARS protests are living in an utterly deluded world. If the protesting young and women can mobilize the same kind of energy, resources, enthusiasm, focus, discipline and sense of purpose towards achieving specific political goals in 2023, then let our politicians quickly wake up to the reality that it can no longer be business as usual. At the very least, there seems to be a tectonic shift on Nigeria’s political terrain thanks to the #endSARS protests. It is astonishing that a party like the APC does not realize that, given the direction it is currently headed, its victory in future elections, especially the 2023 elections, cannot be guaranteed.

    The APC shot itself in the foot when it peremptorily and unwarrantedly dissolved the party’s National Working Committee headed by Comrade Adams Oshiomhole when only a minority of two or three aggrieved members was against the former Edo State governor in a NWC comprising no less than 40 members. Now, it appears that the tenure of the Extraordinary Caretaker and Convention Planning Committee will inevitably be extended. The governor Mai Mala Buni –led Committee even appears poised to commence registration of new members, which will have further implications for the holding of its intraparty primaries and convention as originally scheduled. In such circumstances, there will be little meaningful governance in most states controlled by the party until the most likely acrimonious intra-party polls are over.

    Of course, this problem of being preoccupied with 2023 to the detriment of productive governance in the short term is not that of the APC alone. We have all just witnessed the defection of the Ebonyi State governor, Mr David Umahi, to the ruling APC. It is all said to be about 2023 and particularly the question of an Igbo presidency. Other big shots in the party are reportedly preparing to defect to the ruling party if the Prince Uche Secondus-led NWC of the party does not give a firm commitment now on which zone will hoist the PDP presidential flag in 2023.  Just like the APC, the PDP is putting its cart before its horse. Rather than rediscovering its philosophy of existence, re-orienting itself ideologically, rejuvenating its organizational machinery to guarantee greater efficiency, transparency, effectiveness and inclusiveness, the PDP is unhelpfully obsessed with coming back to power in 2023. Given the organizational potency and vibrancy of the restive youths behind the #endSARS protests, the two parties may in future pay heavy prices for complacency and near total alienation from reality.

  • Trump and democracy in America

    Trump and democracy in America

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    HE is perhaps one of the best things to have happened to American politics and democratic culture in recent years. In the four years since his assumption of office in 2016, President Donald Trump has dominated that country’s political space like a colossus. And this is not simply because of the power and influence of the presidency but rather due to Trump’s abrasive style, cantankerous personality and amoral worldview. By his victory and conduct in office, Trump has offered Americans a mirror through which they can really see themselves as they are – warts and all. Before the election of Trump, most Americans surely had an unrealistic faith in the solidity of their institutions as well as the ethical sanctity of their political values. But now Trump has shown that a president with a pugnacious disposition and scant respect for the truth can undermine any institution no matter how firmly they are anchored.

    Which critical institution of American political life and society did Trump not try at every point to corrupt, pervert and undermine? Was it the courts, the Department of Justice, the intelligence services, the health authorities, the Congress or even the courts? But then, this is good for America. For, it is unlikely that any future President of that country will act with such brazen impunity and reckless audacity as Trump did. Americans should surely now take steps to strengthen their institutions and make sure that never again will an American President abuse the power of the office as the whole world witnessed in the last four years under Trump.

    Indeed, the massive turn out of voters to perform their civic duty despite the raging coronavirus pandemic was suggestive of a new stirring among Americans; a desire to take back their country and subordinate the state once more to the control of civil society. The massive early voting mostly by mail no doubt played an important role in the outcome of the election. Media analysts in the US had pointed out that it was democrats who cast most of the early voting by mail. When this mail- in ballots began to be counted, they shifted the pattern of the election heavily in favour of Joe Biden. Can this large number of mail in ballots be a basis for Trump to successfully challenge Biden’s victory in court? It is becoming more unlikely by the day. That would be the judicial equivalent of a coup. And Trump has not hidden his determination to win the elections at all costs and by all means even rushing through the appointment a new Supreme Court judge with conservative bias to further skew the apex court in favour of the Republicans.

    It is, however, significant that Trump recorded more than 72 million votes. That by any standard is a massive turn out of voters who supported Trump despite the numerous controversies that had swirled around his presidency seriously eroding the prestige and dignity of the office. It seems that for those who voted for Trump, his handling of the coronavirus pandemic was of secondary concern contrary to the claim by the mainstream media that this would be the main issue in the election. Trump’s management of the economy, which reportedly helped to generate massive jobs till the coronavirus struck to erode all the gains in the economy, also apparently weighed in his favour among many Americans.

    However, if he eventually concedes defeat and does not disrupt Biden’s swearing into office, Trump will still, in my view, be enormously influential especially with his fanatical base comprising mostly white Christian evangelicals. But that is if he does not destroy himself by continuing to challenge Biden’s victory and thus verging dangerously on the borders of treason. I personally cannot understand the preoccupation of Democrats and liberals with enforcing gay rights, abortion rights as well as taking the Bible and, prayer and even God’s name away from public schools. These values alienated most evangelical Christians from the Democrats for it would appear that America is still a hugely conservative society.

    Indeed, Trump had come to embody a significant section of Americans that had been alienated both from that country’s capitalist system and the perverse values I mentioned with which the Democrats are obsessed. I remember that under the Obama presidency, America tried to tie foreign aid to poor countries to the latter’s backing of legislation that supported gay rights. Of course, this reprehensible demand was rejected outright by most African countries

    The demagogic political forerunners of Trump in the quest to rule America were Ross Perot and Patrick Buchanan, who decried the United State’ persistent economic crisis, wanted to stem the flow of immigration, wanted to put America first and blamed vulnerable Americans for everything wrong with America. They wanted social services cut, they were against old age pensions, and wanted a strong military. They advocated strong borders including building strong fences to keep unwanted immigrants out of America. When he ran for the President in 1996, Buchannan proposed US withdrawal from the UN and expelling the UN from New York, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Housing and Urban Development, taxes on inheritance and capital gains and affirmative action programs”.

    In 1992, when he contested the US presidency, Ross Perot “got nearly 20 percent of the vote – 4 to 5% more than predicted on the basis of those who said they would vote for him”.  “The Perot vote, according to Jack Barnes, a prominent member of the socialist movement in America, “registers the growing view that no established Democratic or Republican party candidates will ever be any different. It registers the glorification of the armed forces and their special elite units that gains momentum at times of social crisis – no corruption there! It reflects the elevation of the so-called self-made businessman (Like Perot) who knows how to cut through red tape. “I’m Ross. Your’re the boss” – that became Perot’s populist watchword as the campaign progressed. Together, we will cut through the pretense of democracy in Washington, the grid lock of elected institutions and get things done!”

    Trump resurrected the kind of demagogic oratory pioneered by Ross Perot and Patrick Buchanan. The only difference was that after he had engineered the ‘hostile takeover’ of the Republican party, as his son in law Jared Kushner put it, Trump was able to achieve the feat of actually being elected as President in 2016. However, as it turned out, Trump was more bluff and bluster and very little of substance. Perhaps being a billionaire or running a big business empire is not a sufficient condition for being a competent and successful political leader after all.

    But then, Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, must not rejoice too soon. For that country’s political system is too broken, its  economy  too crisis ridden’ and its society so fractured that after another  possibly ineffectual four years of the Democrats, larger numbers of Americans will believe that ultimately the fate of their country lies neither with the Democrats nor the Republicans.      

  • Facts and fantasies of the ‘Lekki massacre’

    Facts and fantasies of the ‘Lekki massacre’

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    Massacre. This is a weighty word that surely ought not to be used lightly or frivolously. When I checked, synonyms for the word, massacre, include bloodbath, butchery, carnage, death, holocaust, or slaughter. It refers to a large scale, coldblooded murder of human beings. One dictionary defines massacre as ‘an act of complete destruction’. Did such an event involving deaths on an industrial scale occur at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos on the night of Tuesday, October 20? Repeated reports in the local and international media indicate that this was the case. What are the facts of the matter? The Lekki Toll Gate was one of the two major sites in Lagos of the massive #endSARS youth protests which had gripped the national and global imagination for two weeks till the night of October 20.

    Exceedingly well organized, focused and disciplined, the protesters had conducted themselves with remarkable decorum, decency and dignity in pursuit of their demand that the dreaded police Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) should be disbanded and fundamental police reforms instituted. Within days, an ordinarily obdurate Federal Government had acceded to their requests. SARS was disbanded and the other demands of the protesters accepted in principle.

    But then, the protesters introduced new demands. They were defiant and remained on the streets even though as peaceful and restrained as ever. The longer the protests lasted however, the more extraneous forces intervened and systematically hijacked the protests on a steadily expanding scale across the country. By October 20th, law and order had broken down in large swathes of Lagos. So bad did things get that Police stations were torched, policemen killed and police armories looted with criminals carting away arms and ammunition. Obviously alarmed, the state government declared a curfew. With the police under attack, it apparently had no choice but to request the help of the military in enforcing the curfew.

    The curfew was imposed to stem the descent to anarchy, which certainly was not the aim of the protests. Why, then, didn’t the protesters, in line with their law abiding stance, disperse in obedience to the curfew? Had they not at that point crossed the dividing line between legality and illegality? I think so. Even then, was the frenetic shooting by the soldiers to forcibly dislodge the protesters justifiable? The answer is an emphatic no. Were water cannons, tear gas canisters or, at worst, rubber bullets not available even if the protesters were to be forcibly dislodged?

    Condemnable as the shooting incident was, did it result in the mass murder of a large number of the Lekki protesters as the dominant narrative claims? A national newspaper claimed in its lead story that 49 persons were killed. Amnesty International reports, magisterially, that 12 persons died in the Lekki incident. The visuals that went viral, which I watched, showed men in the uniform of the Nigerian Army shooting into the air to disperse the protesters. Purported eyewitnesses offer dramatic accounts of soldiers shooting directly at the protesters reportedly with heavy casualties. I asked someone if undeniable large number of corpses would not be seen at the scene if a band of soldiers trained AK 47 machine guns directly on a large number of protesters and shooting them point blank at close range? He claimed that the soldiers evacuated the dead bodies away from the scene. In this social media age, would the same sophisticated mobile equipment that vividly captured the soldiers shooting, despite the lights being allegedly switched off, not also have recorded them evacuating dead bodies?

    The Lagos State governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who visited the injured in various hospitals as well as visited mortuaries in Lagos that night, stated in his broadcast the number of persons who were injured and treated at various hospitals which he named, saying that two were successfully operated on while two died subsequently. Many continue to dispute his account preferring alternative narratives utterly lacking in credibility. Happily, even as social media technology has grown in leaps and bounds enabling the medium to more effectively check impunity on the part of public and private authorities, there has also been tremendous advancement in the techniques and facilities for validating the authenticity of material emanating from the social media. PRNigeria, one outfit that has been doing a great job in this regard in Nigeria, has been exhaustively and clinically interrogating diverse claims on the purported Lekki Massacre. Its findings have been revealing.

    PRNigeria’s Editorial Team, according to the media outfit’s Assistant Editor, Mahmood Abdulsalam, found that “So far, most of the footages we have collected, over 100 in all, showing dead protesters and several others wounded, when we subject them to our reverse imagery testing tools, indicated they were not recent while others are manipulated images and doctored videos. We also observe circulation of old pictures of victims injured and killed during violent skirmishes, unrelated to the #endSARS demonstrations across the country”.

    For instance, PRNigeria found out that a Nollywood movie star, Eniola Badmus, who was allegedly shot in the stomach and died at the Lekki Toll Gate, had denied the social media reports. She wrote on her Instagram page that “Against all speculations about me being shot dead at the unspeakable event that happened at the toll gate a few hours ago, I would like to inform you guys that I Eniola Badmus is hale and hearty. I couldn’t make it there today to lend my voice on the #endSARS movement”. In another case, a young man, Iraoye Godwin, a native of Otu-Auchi in Edo state who was reported to have been killed also at the Lekki Toll Gate posted a video on twitter denying the report. Again, a photo of a man carrying a dead lady wrapped in Nigerian flag as posted by Yemi Alade was an image from a movie acted with the theme, “Heal our land, OH LORD”.

    According to the PRNigeria report, “There was also a video of one Lucia Adu who was celebrated as a martyr at Lekki Massacre after dancing in the clip. Some of the social media posts celebrating her ‘Martyrdom’ read: “She was dancing an hour before she was murdered by the Nigerian armed forces…a bullet hit her in the face and ripped half her face off”. Latest investigation shows that Lucia Adu died from an accident with a stationary truck on 20th October, 2020. This is also confirmed by a new fact checking twitter handle on #endSARS – http:/twitter.com/end SARSFctcheck”.

    The Executive Director of PRNigeria, Mr. Yushua A. Shuaib, a humanitarian worker and crisis management communicator who has worked extensively with the media, the security and response agencies over the last decade, reached out to media executives in various traditional and online mediums, whom he specifically named, to help in facilitating the gathering of evidence on the alleged massacre. In his words, “In fairness to the media and civil society groups, they all spoke about relying on eyewitness accounts mostly from celebrities and social media influencers without subjecting the information received to rigorous verification. There was also the admission that there was no authenticated footage of the said “massacre” at Lekki Toll Gate so far”.

    Continuing, Shuaib writes, “In the aftermath of this confusion, the largest social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, have continued to flag several contents containing the alleged images of the Lekki Massacre as false information, after these were subjected to scrutiny by independent fact checkers”.

    It was interesting watching Osai Ojigho, Country Director of Amnesty International in Nigeria, when she appeared on The Arise Interview television programme to speak about the organization’s claim that at least 12 people were killed at the Lekki Toll Plaza. As she rambled on extensively, the anchor of the programme, Charles Aniagolu, interjected saying “I think the point here Osai is that you’ve made some very good points there about the expectations of the people from the army and the government but people also want to be absolutely 100% sure about the evidence Amnesty International is putting forward with regard to these killings. Have you actually seen evidence of dead bodies? Can we understand how Amnesty International came to the conclusion that 12 people were shot?”

    Again, Osai Ojigho spoke at length on authenticated accounts of eyewitnesses, the claim that the soldiers reportedly prevented ambulances from accessing the site and also the fact that the Nigerian army had a record of such killings previously such as the shooting of hundreds of Shiite Muslims in Kaduna in 2015. Again, Charles Aniagolu was probing and insistent. He said. “Osai, I am sorry that I have to interrupt you but you are a lawyer and a lot of what you’ve said in the last few minutes sounds like circumstantial evidence but there’s got to be prima facie evidence when allegations are made against the Nigerian army and police. A lot of people will agree anecdotally with what you’re saying but they’ll still want to see concrete evidence either of dead bodies or families of dead ones coming out to claim their loved ones have been killed or the names of people who have been killed”.

    Osai responded that Amnesty International indeed has some names but will need the consent of their families to release such names! Can you imagine such utter nonsense, mischief and lack of seriousness?  In the words of PRNigeria’s Yushau Shuab, “Equally disturbing was the fact that despite the increasingly widespread usage of the word massacre to describe the Lekki incident, no single family had stepped forward (even till date) to report the loss of a relative during the Lekki shooting”. So much for facts, fantasies and the Lekki Massacre.