Category: Segun Ayobolu

Segun Ayobolu

The date was 19th May, 1962. The chief dramatis personae were the leader of the Action Group (AG), Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Premier of the Western Regional Government, Chief SLA Akintola and members of the party’s Federal Executive Council, its highest decision making organ. Awolowo as leader of the party and Akintola as Head of government had been at loggerheads. The latter was unwilling to accept the principle of party supremacy and loyalty to the party leadership. Had Awolowo achieved his ambition of becoming Prime Minister of Nigeria in the 1959 elections, the problem would probably not have risen. But in the event of the party’s poor performance in that election, he moved to the centre as Leader of opposition while Akintola assumed office as Chief Executive of the West and Deputy Leader of the party.

In his enthralling political memoirs, ‘People, Politics and Politicians of Nigeria’ Chief Bola Ige captured the events of that momentous period thus, “Matters came to a head about 19 May, 1962 when SLA was charged and tried before the Federal Executive Council of the AG. Awo presided over the meeting as the Constitution and rules of the Party prescribed. An SLA supporter suggested that Awo should not be Chairman; the proposal was debated, and the meeting overwhelmingly rejected the suggestion.    Awo made charges of anti-party activities Against SLA, and after SLA replied to the charges, the matter was debated for over six hours. At the end, SLA was found guilty of all charges”.

Continuing his narration, Bola Ige wrote, “In the end the proposal of Chief Anthony Enahoro was adopted: that SLA tender an apology and give an assurance that he would not fall foul of the party again and that if he did he would relinquish office.

Of course, the rest is now history. Akintola was soon out of the AG. He subsequently formed his own party and teamed up in an electoral alliance with the Northern Progressives Congress (NPC) at the centre and a rump of the Western Region chapter of the NCNC. But he was never able to upstage the AG or Awo’s leadership of the party. And this despite the immense powers of patronage that he possessed as head of government. Those were the golden days of party discipline through which party supremacy held elected governments accountable.

Incidentally, in the Second Republic, it was the turn of Chief Bola Ige as Oyo State governor to face the apex organ of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) to defend himself against charges of anti-party activities. Some chieftains of the party, particularly a strongman of the UPN in Ibadan politics, Alhaji Busari Adelakun, had accused Bola Ige and his Deputy, Chief Sunday Afolabi, of allowing a perceived arch foe of the UPN, General Olusegun Obasanjo, to meddle in the internal affairs of the party by purporting to mediate in a disagreement between both men.

Chief Olusegun Osoba recalls the tale of the famous ‘night of the long knives’ in his memoir, ‘Battlelines’. Ige’s accusers presented their case against him at the 13th meeting of the National Executive Committee of the UPN at the Murtala College of Education, Yola, Gongola State from 8th to 9th September, 1982. In Aremo Osoba’s words, “Ige spoke first…  He reaffirmed his loyalty to Chief Awolowo and his dedication to the party. He said he had done nothing in the past to raise doubts about his loyalty and did not plan to do otherwise in the future. He apologized for his indiscretion and in anticipation of the verdict of the leader said, “Blessed be thy judgment”.

Although the party condemned the meeting of both men with Obasanjo, they were nevertheless exonerated of charges of disloyalty to the UPN or the party leadership. Party discipline is certainly central to a political party worth its salt and this should involve fidelity to both the ideology and values of the party as well as its constitutional organs including its leadership. I recall that in the Second Republic, for instance, the National Chairman of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Chief Adisa Akinloye, was so highly respected within the party that even at party meetingss, President Shehu Shagari, was in the habit of rising up in deference to the former whenever the latter made his entry into a venue.

It is unfortunate that in this dispensation, party discipline and supremacy have been badly diminished as the party leadership has been subordinated to the whims and  caprices of the executive, which most times provides the funds for the running of the party. A major contributor to this dysfunctional anomaly was President Olusegun Obasanjo who treated the PDP as an appendage of his imperial presidency. He removed and imposed the party leadership at will and even pronounced magisterially on the eligibility of party candidates for public office at all levels showing utter disregard for internal party processes such as primaries.

Even the more mild- mannered and even tempered President Goodluck Jonathan could not resist presidential dictatorship over the party and this was a key factor in the PDP implosion that greatly aided the All Progressive Congress (APC) victory in the 2015 election. Although President Muhammed Buhari’s aloofness and political taciturnity helped to strengthen party autonomy at least in relation to the presidency, the governors moved in to fill the vacuum particularly during the largely rudderless tenure of the former APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun. A former two-term governor and feisty labour activist for a considerable part of the public career, his successor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has striven to restore a reasonable degree of independence and respect to the ruling party.

A major highlight of Oshiomhole’s tenure so far has been a courageous attempt to limit the influence and what amounted to virtual dictatorship of the governors in the affairs of the party. His insistence as much as possible on direct primaries involving all party members has reduced the undue influence of the governors’ heavy war chest in determining the outcome of indirect primaries, a mode of intraparty polls much beloved by state chief executives. Much of Oshiomhole’s travails within the APC are not due just to disgruntled governors but also to the machinations of aggrieved statutory delegates who, with the adoption of direct primaries, are deprived of the customary opportunity to harvest rich pecuniary dividends at each intra-party electoral cycle.

No matter how or where the political ebullition within the ruling party tosses Oshiomhole, he has within a very short period contributed significantly to the restoration of party discipline and supremacy within the APC, without which governments elected on party platforms cannot be meaningfully held to account.

In discussing the fate of governor Godwen Obaseki, who was denied the party ticket for a second term, some people have questioned whether or not he had performed during his first term and thus deserving of another turn. Well, performance is in the eyes of the beholder. First, outstanding performance does not guarantee a governor automatic re-election. If it did, there would be no need for a second term election.

Again, if the governor was so sure of his performance, why did he go all out to disable the majority of members of the Edo State House of Assembly from taking their rightful place in the legislature after they had been duly elected? Surely, that seriously eroded his moral right to question the democratic methods and predilections of the party’s National Working Committee.

Furthermore, why did he appear so mortally scared of the defection of Pastor Eze Iyamu to the APC? Surely, his reported scores of laudable projects across the state would have stood him in good stead either in direct primaries or the general election. The queries raised as regards Obaseki’s certificates had driven any issue of performance to the background.

Empowering the rank and file members of the party through direct primaries is good for democratic development in Nigeria. The decency and respect with which incumbent governors treat the leadership and membership of their parties are as critical as posting a good record of performance in office.

Segun Ayobolu

 

MANY discerning analysts and contributors to public discourse have argued rightly that the Coronavirus pandemic offers Nigeria a critical opportunity to urgently press the reset button as regards her developmental goals, methodologies and trajectory. . There are indeed indications that an increasing number among the country’s political and socio-economic elite are increasingly more conscious, no thanks to the virus, of the need for the country to fundamentally change track, particularly in terms of governance style, structure and values, if Nigeria is to begin to meet her developmental aspirations and promote the wellbeing of the vast majority of her people over six decades after independence.

A number of elective and appointive public office holders at the federal and state levels, for instance, have had their salaries reduced, some by as much as 50 percent in response to the crisis. This is a noteworthy, tentative first step but does not even begin to scratch the surface of the problem. As this column has noted in the recent past, there is still, for instance, the issue of humongous and opaquely managed security votes of state governors to deal with. Happily the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has added its voice for the abrogation or considerable streamlining of security votes. The clamour should grow..

The drastic fall in global oil prices has badly decapitated the country’s single most important source of revenue earnings. Federal and state government finances are in a tailspin. Protracted lockdown, directly and indirectly, of huge swathes of the economy has not only affected negatively the tax revenue accruals to government but also compounded the already serious problems of unemployment and underemployment as most businesses have been forced either to shut down completely or to struggle on  at less than half throttle. The federal and many state governments have drastically scaled down their 2020 budgetary provisions. Does this suggest a realization by the country’s leaders that it can no longer be business as usual in the management of scarce fiscal resources? The answer is yes to some degree but no if a closer scrutiny is made of the budgetary reductions.

For instance, as a result of the pandemic, the federal government has decided to reduce its 2020 budget estimates by N318 billion. Thus, it’s new revised budget proposal of approximately N10.6 billion. But then, in the new proposed budgetary estimates, the federal government still retains N100 billion for execution of the legislature’s Constituency Projects in 469 Senatorial Districts and Federal Constituencies. Yet, last year, President Muhammadu Buhari publicly lamented that the Constituency Projects had negligible impact on the welfare of the people. In his words then, “It is on record that in the past 10 years, N1 trillion has been approved for Constituency Projects, yet the impact of such huge spending on the lives and welfare of ordinary Nigerians can hardly be seen”.

Even if it is true that less than 70 percent of funds budgeted for Constituency Projects were released, is the huge amount still allocated for this purpose not an avoidable luxury in the face of the current health pandemic? This is particularly so as the budget for the Universal Basic Education (UBEC) and Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF), respectively, have been substantially cut. Explaining the cut, the Director-General of the Budget Office, Mr. Ben Akabueze, said, “The statutory transfers to UBEC and BHCPF are set by law at two percent and one percent respectively of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF). Therefore, when the COVID-19 pandemic eroded the CRF, the budgetary provisions were automatically adjusted in accordance with the applicable laws”.

Sound as this rationale is, the truth is that laws are made for man and not man for laws. With the jolt to reality that the Coronavirus crisis has given us, the relevant laws should be expeditiously amended to allow for increased funding of the critical healthcare and education sectors. Provision for largely opaquely executed Constituency Projects is a luxury we cannot continue to sustain affordably. At a time like this, the health sector, education and infrastructure require all the resources that can be made available to them. There is no time more appropriate than now for more rigorous and disciplined prioritization of budgetary allocations.

Speaking on the allocation for the contentious renovation of the National Assembly complex, Mr Akabueze submitted, “The provision for renovation/retrofitting of the National Assembly complex in the revised budget is N9.25 billion , not N27 billion as being bandied around. The initial provision of N37 billion in the 2020 Appropriation Act for this was cut by 75 percent due to the impact of COVID-19 on government revenues”. Commendable as this cut is, the allocation to this project can still be eliminated completely at least for this year or substantially reduced further and whatever savings transferred to the health sector. Drastic times require no less drastic remedial measures.

But then, the internal intrigues and wrangling in the Senate, for instance, as regards the revised budgetary proposals from the executive, reveal that, despite the frightening reality of Coronavirus, not much has changed in the attitudes and values that undergird the budgetary process in Nigeria. This newspaper reported that during its executive session to debate the proposed revised budget, there was a row among Senators over perceived lopsidedness in allocation of the Constituency Projects funds with some Senators benefiting to the detriment of others.

According to the report, “The session became rowdy when Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed (Binani) observed that the allocation of N200 billion Constituency Projects in the budget was lopsided and unfair to most senators. She exposed how some senators took undue advantage of being in privileged committees, especially appropriation, to allocate projects worth between N10 billion and N12 billion to themselves while some senators got between N300 million to N500 million projects for their districts. Another senator, according to her, got N5 billion project for his district”.

The report continued, “The implication is that projects meant for many Senatorial Districts have been diverted by the said senator. This development has caused disquiet and we are suspecting the padding of the 2020 Budget by the same clique because some allocations to some MDAs are questionable. In some cases, the budget proposals of some MDAs were increased for no just cause”. So it is still the question of budget padding, diversion and arbitrary increases in Y2020 and despite the Coronavirus emergency? This certainly is not the way to activate Nigeria’s reset button for accelerated development.

No less interesting is the reported allocation in the revised budget of the sum of N2.2 billion for foreign and local travels of President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. While the President has an allocation of N1.7 billion for this purpose, the office of the Vice President has N548 million. This is said to be apart from the N124 million budgeted by the presidency for travels and another N2.8 billion stipulated for the overhead and travel costs of the presidential fleet. But were we not told during the campaigns for the 2015 elections that the presidential fleet would be drastically trimmed to cut governance costs? How come we still have an expansive presidential fleet on our hands that continues to constitute a needless drain on public resources?

Modest as the allocations to presidential travels may appear to be, it is still a substantial amount that can go into more productive use especially in this digital age when governmental leaders can do so much virtually thus reducing the cost and distraction of ceaseless travel. Many would consider the allocation to presidential travels as mere peanuts not worth worrying about because, as the late Professor Ayodele Awojobi put it in the Second Republic, most Nigerians have lost a sense of the magnitude and value of even one million Naira. Professor Chinua Achebe buttressed this fact in an essay published in 1983 when he pointed out that at the time he was writing, it was not yet up to one million days since Jesus Christ was on earth! Even now by my calculation, it is approximately, 737,300 days since Jesus walked our earth. We think now only in billions and trillions not even of Naira but of dollars. Well, Coronavirus is forcefully changing all that.

I am told that during his tenure as governor of Lagos State from 1979 to 1983, Alhaji Lateef Jakande never travelled out of the country even once. During his annual vacations, he would habitually retire to the Government Lodge at Badagry where he enjoyed his holiday in the company of scores of files. Yet, it was his administration that conceived and was well on the way to actualizing the path-breaking Lagos Metroline project, which was brutishly terminated by the military regime after the collapse of the second republic. We are not yet, unfortunately, on the path to pressing the reset button that the Coronavirus pandemic so compellingly demands of us.

By Segun Ayobolu

Decentralized despotism. The evocative, richly suggestive phrase is not my coinage. Rather, it is that of the renowned Ugandan political scientist, Professor Mahmood Mamdani. In his book, ‘Citizen and Subject’, he uses the term as a conceptual handle to depict the authoritarian reality and legacy of ‘Indirect Rule’ as an administrative mechanism of British colonialism in Africa. Purporting to rule through pre-existing or manufactured indigenous, traditional governance systems, the colonial power actually abolished the checks and balances inherent in traditional authority structures, inflated the powers of the traditional rulers and, as one author puts it, “created new powers for the chiefs who abdicated their traditional roles, thus a democratic traditional system became an autocratic one”.

The authoritarian colonial state was thus the precursor and progenitor of the despotic and tyrannical post-colonial state and the resultant democratic travails of Africa is partly a function of this legacy. In this piece, I use the term decentralized despotism with regard to the deformities and dysfunctions of federal practice in contemporary Nigeria. Federalism is generically designed to decentralize powers, responsibilities and resource allocation and utilization in such a way that constitutional authority and governmental functions are shared among levels of government roughly coterminous with the plural composition of a culturally federal society. This is to deepen democratic governance and functional autonomy at sub-national levels of administration.

Popular discourse and critique of federal practice in Nigeria has largely focused on the excessive centralization of power in the centre, the over-concentration of responsibilities in the federal executive and monopoly of resources of legally allocated resources by the federal government. Yet, the political and administrative reality is that governance gets more despotic, tyrannical and non-accountable, the lower you go down the hierarchy of governance structures in Nigeria.

Thus, the often excoriated, excessively centralized federal government in Nigeria actually has greater legislative, judicial and sometimes even bureaucratic restraints on the exercise of its admittedly expansive powers than the state and local governments. In reality, the least accountable, transparent and responsive level of government, and thus ironically and surreptitiously, most powerful are the Local Government Councils. Contrary to the constitutional provision that they should be democratic and fiscally autonomous, they are mere puppets in the hands of state governors. In the characteristically pungent words of Chief Bola Ige in the Second Republic, local governments in Nigeria remain neither local nor government.

But herein is the source of the ample powers and room for maneuver of local councils. Once Local Government authorities meekly accept the often substantial deductions from their statutory fiscal allocations from the Federation Account by state governors, as they have no choice but to do, they are left pretty free to utilize the not insubstantial crumbs that come to them much as they please with scant accountability and responsibility.

Hence the veritable emperors and worshipful majesties of Nigeria’s extant federal system are the state governors. They have the local governments in their grip. They are hardly incommoded by the necessary restraining influence that professional and competent civil service bureaucracies can offer. State Executive Councils mostly tend to be pliant and are often incapacitated to make qualitative and critical input to governance at that level.  Castrated and impotent legislatures tend to be rubber stamp assemblies for governors while state judiciaries are compelled to function with an eye on the governor’s body language since they are dependent on funding from the executive.

This unprecedented concentration of power in the executive at the state level is a perfect recipe for governance disaster as the iron law of the corruptive and inebriating influence of absolute power in the hands of fallible mortals can be no exception here. Thus, for instance, in the often erratic, illogical and utterly irrational responses of some state governors to the raging Coronavirus pandemic, we see how the inevitably poor decisions arising from unaccountable and unrestrained power can be no less an existential threat to citizens than the virus.

It is ostensibly to redress this unsavory situation that President Muhammadu Buhari recently issued his Executive Order 10 to compel state governors to comply with Section 121 (3) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which recognizes the financial autonomy of the state legislature and judiciary. The 8th National Assembly had effected this amendment to the Constitution, a provision which had since been signed into law by President Buhari. Yet, the governors who had rendered this requirement of the constitution nugatory for over a year by simply ignoring it are vehemently protesting that the Executive Order 10 violates sections of the Constitution that guarantee the federal autonomy of state governments.

If state governors brazenly disregard the Constitution’s guarantee of the principle of Separation of powers among the three arms of government in their states, do they have the moral right to question the President’s assumption of allegedly extra-constitutional powers to ensure constitutional compliance?

That the governors have the temerity to contest the legality of Executive Order 10, while not denying that they have left the amended Section 121 (3) of the Constitution unimplemented, shows their hubristic insensitivity to public opinion. No rational reasons can be averred for their unwillingness to respect the financial autonomy of the two other arms of government in accordance with the Constitution. The only signal it sends is that they are reluctant to subject themselves to the restraints which operational checks and balances arising from the more effective practice of the principle of Separation of Powers will ensure and compel. This is unacceptable.

Even then, it cannot be denied that the governors have a point. Nigeria’s democratic and constitutional evolution since 1999 has moved commendably far away from the imperious and suffocating federal centre we had under the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo imperial presidency. No longer do we have a presidency that withholds statutory allocations of states at will or engineers the Gestapo style removal of state governors by captured state legislatures. We must not support any measure, no matter how well motivated, that gives even the slightest hint of a possible regression to that misbegotten era. The cure for constitutional impunity on the part of the governors cannot be purportedly corrective presidential impunity.

The Presidential Implementation Committee empowered by the Executive Order to enforce compliance by state governors with the provisions of the Constitution that guarantee financial autonomy to state legislatures and executives has dangerous portents. In particular, the powers conferred on the Accountant General of the Federation as well as the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to deduct state statutory allocations from the Federation Account from source and transmit same to state legislatures and judiciaries directly is open to abuse.

An unscrupulous future presidency can exploit this provision to instigate and empower state legislatures and judiciaries to undermine perceived ‘recalcitrant’ state governors. The financial autonomy of the state legislatures and judiciaries must derive from the requisite constitutional provisions as well as adherence to the authority of state budgetary appropriation laws rather than potentially malicious presidential benevolence.

It is curious that state legislatures and judiciaries have made no effort to seek judicial remedy for state governors’ non-implementation of Section 121 (3) of the 1999 Constitution as amended. The state legislatures as well as critical stakeholders in the judiciary and legal profession must ensure compliance with the Constitution in this regard by state governors through the courts. Nothing also stops the Attorney-General of the Federation as the Chief Law Officer of the country from seeking authoritative judicial pronouncement on the matter at the apex court.

In any case, there is nothing that suggests that granting financial autonomy to the state legislature and judiciary will not only provide the opportunity for the two arms of government to join the executive in frivolous, wasteful and corrupt expenditure of public resources. At the centre, we have seen how the National Assembly has simply seized on its financial autonomy to become a huge drainpipe on scarce national resources. In the final analysis, there is no alternative to the emergence of a public that has zero tolerance for corruption and wastage in governance as well as a reinvigorated civil society that is mobilized and willing to fight for adherence to the highest standards of accountability, transparency and ethical rectitude by public officers.

The far reaching decentralization of powers, responsibilities and resources that advocates of restructuring rightly clamor for will result in no more than decentralized despotism if the people are not empowered at this level to hold their governing authorities in check.

Segun Ayobolu

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Segun Ayobolu

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Segun Ayobolu

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Segun Ayobolu

 

DOES the renowned poet, playwright and scholar, Professor J.P. Clark’s latest and characteristically enthralling collection of poems have anything to do with the raging coronavirus pandemic? Not directly. But then, does the ongoing rage of this invisible but mighty viral enemy that has virtually grounded the world and humbled man’s fabled genius not give us cause to relate virtually everything to the ephemeral and fragile quality of human existence?

Published in 2018, this slim but powerful collection of 70 pages reveal once again why the great playwright and dramatist, Professor Femi Osofisan unequivocally declares that “…of all his contemporaries, JP Clark has arguably been the most protean, the most self-regenerating, and the most continuously experimental as much in terms of form and technique as theme”.

Although Clark, an octogenarian, offers this collection in the winter of a long, epic, productive and fulfilled life, his artistic talent and spirit remain as vigorous as ever. His style remains fascinatingly economical and enchanting even as there is a haunting sense of sadness that most of the poems evoke in the reader. Let us take his dedication of the collection to his wife, the no less illustrious Professor Ebun Clark, for instance. The poet simply and movingly writes:

“For

My wife

To the end”

Ah! Just six words. But what feelings they convey. Of lifelong love and partnership. Loyalty. Commitment. Fidelity. Of enduring love till death do us part. It is all too tempting to read this delightful offering by JP Clark titled ‘Remains of a tide’ as some sort of last testament even if he still surprises his admirers with another collection after this. It is perhaps not surprising that most of the poems have to do with death, dying and the anticipation of inevitable human transition.

 

In ‘This Place My Own’, for instance, Clark recounts a serious almost life-threatening accident he had in his home, presumably in his birthplace. In his graphic style, the poet writes:

“Alone, in this place, early one morning,

I slipped and fell on the top balcony,

Gone slimy from rain through days of disuse.

After three attempts, leaving blood spots

On the floor, I woke up to find a gash

On my forehead, just a hair short of

My left eye, and a left wrist, broken in two,

My staff, with no keys to come in, acting lost

Outside…”

 

The poet goes on to depict in vivid, gripping detail his feelings of pain, nausea, numbness, descent to unconsciousness and gradual  return of sensation as a result of this accident. Obviously referring to his home where the accident occurred, Clark wonders,

 

“Why then do I still insist I have nowhere

Else to rest but this place of lore, which twice

Has given me a preview of my end?

Not one to follow guides blindfold, I was

Not surprised that, silent and dark beyond

Belief, the show held out for me no torch”.

 

Trees form a recurring motif in this collection with the poet depicting many of the departed friends and associates he pays tribute to as fallen timber reminding him poignantly of his own mortality. In ‘A Tree in a Grove’ dedicated to Dele Kasumu, Clark confesses that,

 

‘…I shake

To my roots, whenever I hear

A tree has fallen in one row,

Always wanting to know the time

And the way earth let go for it…’

 

Ruminating on this death and envisaging his own inevitable ultimate date with the grim reaper, the poet writes,

 

“…one day, no signs

And comets seen blazing above,

Nor quakes below, news too will spread:

J P Clark, poet, dramatist and mascot

For old masters at home, is dead”.

 

Yet beyond the themes of death and mortality, Clark also uses the symbol of the tree to reflect philosophically on the intricacies of life. For instance, in ‘A Tree Standing’, he writes of the mystery of

 

“A tree, though standing

Still, fixed for life to one place,

Sends out roots in a ring

Round its world; and with face

Not seen, silent and unknown,

Some actually move stone”.

 

No less philosophical and intriguing is the poem, ‘The Rings of a Tree’ in which the writer observes perceptively that:

 

“Roots countless, spread well underground,

One tapping the centre of the earth,

The wonder would be, if a tree,

With such ties, did not bear the print

Of the earth, spinning round the sun,

As both absorb the beams of light for life”.

 

In the poems ‘Anniversary 2012’ and ‘Devotion’, Clark expresses his undying love for his wife on the couple’s 48th and 52nd wedding commemorations respectively. The former is another philosophical introspection on the riddle of life and its paradoxes. In this poem, the wife asks:

 

“Why is it time strolls with the young

They only hear the laugh and song,

But goes at such a pace with the old

They creak and curse all the way?”

 

And the poet’s answer to the question;

 

“That’s because” her man replied,

“As it leads one into light,

It takes the other into night

With no view of a new day”.

 

Is there something that smacks of despair, haunting hopelessness in the poet’s depiction of creeping old age in these lines or is it just my imagination? Over all, it appears to me that the poet simply states the sometimes unpleasant facts of old age and the transience of life as an inescapable matter of fact and indeed with considerable courage and equanimity in coming to terms with the inevitable.

 

In its succinctness and cryptic quality, the poem, ‘Old Age’ reminds one of Clark’s magical early poem- ‘Ibadan’. He writes:

 

“Old age

At the top of the tree

Memories

And aches

Going to the root”.

 

And in ‘Note to my Publisher’, the poet encapsulates his philosophical view of life:

“Death

Alone, outside of faith,

Is final; all our acts on earth

Being, from birth,

By trial and error till that last breadth”.

 

Even when he seems to view human existence and its fragility and transience with despair, there is also often a glimmer of hope in many of these poems. In ‘Old Trees’, for instance, dedicated ‘to my older brother, on hearing the news of the death of a relation at home’, Clark writes:

 

“Old trees

Ourselves, it is of interest,

Personal, when another one

Falls, although, in silence, a million

Shoots spring up daily in the forest

Around us, swaying trees”.

Segun Ayobolu

 

Could the outpouring of encomiums and approval from diverse publics across the country following his appointment indicate that the entry of Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari (IAG) into President Muhammadu Buhari’s government as Chief of Staff (COS) potentially heralds a qualitative concrete and stylistic break with the past since 1999? I am unaware of any appointment of the President that has elicited so much positive response and huge expectations.

The emergence of his predecessor, the late Mallam Abba Kyari, as COS in 1999 hardly attracted a whimper.

In Professor Gambari’s choice for the much coveted position, Buhari broke with a rather predictable style. There was hardly any indication that the distinguished political scientist, diplomat, administrator, author and international civil servant would emerge as the number one functionary in Nigeria’s powerful presidency after Kyari’s demise.

All sorts of names were widely peddled, all believed to be privileged members to different degrees of the fabled cabal.

The royal prince from Ilorin, who incidentally was then Major-General Buhari’s External Affairs Minister in his first incarnation as military Head of State between 1984 and 1985, was not one of them to the best of my knowledge.

Following his surprise emergence, however, some have said that Gambari had all along been a member of the cabal and closet operative in the informal inner recesses of the Buhari presidency thus explaining his choice.

If so, he was a sober, unobtrusive, subtle and wise member of that much envied club who did not flaunt his alleged ‘cabal-hood’ with the often irritating hubris of some others much to the discredit of the administration.

It is said that one thing that gave him an edge was that Gambari did not indicate any interest in what turned out to be a fierce contest for who would step into Kyari’s shoes.

This diffidence, self effacement and aversion to the public klieg lights may be a pointer to a soberer, less imperial deployment of the powerful office.

Kyari brought high academic attainments in sociology and law as well as valuable experience in banking, journalism, administration and legal practice to the office.

Gambari hauls surpassingly high scholastic laurels, teaching experience in some of the best institutions in the world and a record of accomplished service at national and international levels spanning over four decades to the table. It is no wonder that his choice has hardly been faulted – credibly.

Yes, some lone voices advert to his Fulani ethnic affinity with Buhari. That line of argument has gained no traction. Not too many people consider it relevant.

A few point to his record of service under the General Sani Abacha regime and what they see as his opposition to the struggle to actualize the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential mandate of the late Chief M.K.O. Abiola.

That has drawn scant attention in the contemporary complex politics of a plural society like Nigeria and for an event which, though of historic importance, has with the effluxion  of time been drained of considerable emotional resonance in huge swathes of the country.

There have been one or two references to his age – 75 – insinuating this as a liability. But accomplished ‘old’ men and women have done remarkably well in public office across space and time while there are innumerable youths who have been remarkable failures.

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Writing of the great English jurist and legal reformer, Sir Edward Coke, the great Lord Denning wrote “He advocated the liberty of the subject with an energy which was surprising in a man of his age for he was seventy-six when he succeeded in carrying the famous Petition of Right in 1628”. Age is of no moment here.

Analysts will be eagerly waiting and watching to compare and contrast Gambari’s performance in office with his predecessor. There is great expectation in the air.

Professor Gambari has his work cut out for him. The change of baton in the office of the COS offers an opportunity to reflect once again on the performance of the Buhari administration so afr and its prospects for the remainder of its tenure.

Today the unanticipated Coronavirus crisis rocks the country just as it does the globe. Fear grips hearts both of the low and mighty. Economies lie prostrate and Nigeria is no exception. Governments are desperately striving to salvage lives without savaging livelihoods.

Governments in Nigeria have had to divert huge resources into erecting and equipping emergency medical facilities, procuring large stocks of vital medical equipment, boosting the hazard allowances of health workers on the frontlines of the Coronavirus war while also providing palliatives for millions of people rendered most vulnerable to the ravages of the pandemic.

Yes, the private sector is playing a yeoman’s role in helping government to meet its responsibilities in this regard. But there is no doubt that the Buhari administration has been able to respond reasonably effectively to the crisis partly because of its anti-corruption war that has led, according to Professor Itsay Sagay over a year ago, to recoveries of over N1 trillion of looted funds in the last 5 years and this excludes physical assets within and outside the country. The figure must be much higher now.

Only recently the US government released the sum of over $300 million of recovered Abacha loot to the country, obviously another big gain of the anti-graft war.

Could all this have been possible if the looting of the national patrimony had continued with the same rapaciousness witnessed pre-2015? It is unlikely. Presidential spokesman, Shehu Garba, cannot be faulted in this respect.

Again, following Coronavirus’s ruinous visitation, the country’s already badly faltering oil revenues dropped even more appallingly. The 2020 budget has been severely cut by N71.5 billion to N10.523 trillion.

Years of irresponsible oil dependency particularly since 1999 have come to haunt us. In all of this, Nigeria’s domestic agriculture sector has been able to respond as it has so far largely because of the painful but courageous measures that the Buhari administration has taken to diversify the economy, drastically reduce oil dependency and boost domestic agricultural productivity in key stable crops.

Even if these were the only accomplishments of the administration, it would be an exemplary legacy given where we are coming from.

Yet, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had to struggle hard to win a scrappy victory against a badly morally discredited Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general elections. Here, the administration has been its own greatest enemy.

The exceedingly powerful and influential Abba Kyari as COS certainly deserves a lot of plaudits for the positives recorded by the administration and must thus also take the bulk of the flak for its all too avoidable failings. Just one example.

Its massive Social Intervention Programmes (SIP) – Tradermoni, Farmermoni, Conditional Cash Transfers, School Feeding Programmes, N-power etc – all formerly under the auspices of the office of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is undoubtedly one of the most massive transfer of resources to the underprivileged in Nigeria’s post-colonial history.

Although not perfect, it is a monumental initiative to the credit of the administration. Yet, the Buhari presidency allowed avoidable ego clashes allegedly revolving round the person and office of Abba KYrai to distract attention from this achievement.

Thus, even the APC controlled Leadership of the National Assembly has impugned the credibility and integrity of the SIP creating the impression that it has been only an avenue for fraudulent funds diversion.

Yet, the Special Adviser formerly in charge of the project, Mrs. Maryam Uwais, with concrete facts and figures has demonstrated that the Social Welfare Register, the basis for distributing the palliatives, was carefully, systematically and scrupulously drawn up with the input and support of credible international development agencies. Why should any administration do this to itself?

Again, some human rights lawyers have pointed out that in his first coming as a military dictator, the Buhari regime did not disobey any court orders.

Furthermore, even some of its admittedly draconian measures were taken only after requisite enabling decrees had been enacted.

How come that as elected President a government headed by Buhari detained persons for unduly long periods despite clear court orders for their release and vehement public outcry? It was an entirely avoidable self-inflicted injury.

Also between 1984 and 1985 as military Head of State, Buhari’s Federal Executive Council made up of 18 ministers was reasonably evenly balanced between different zones of the country as well as the two major faiths.

How come that as elected President, the laudable achievements of his administration is unfortunately overshadowed by its perceived skewed and one-sided appointments that negate the country’s federal character especially as regards the key security services and agencies? These are totally avoidable unforced errors.

Professor Gambari has his job cut out for him. Can his immense intellect, experience, patience, tact, humility, diplomatic skills, cosmopolitan outlook and more help the administration finish with a flourish and bequeath a worthy legacy to posterity? May God help him.

By Segun Ayobolu

For several weeks since the gory visitation of the dreaded Coronavirus to the shores of Nigeria, it was all silent on the Edo State sector of the ever turbulent and tempestuous battlefield of the country’s political terrain. Before the truce necessitated by the need to confront a vicious but invisible common enemy with a capacity to wipe out lives in multiples, his adversaries expended considerable time, energy and material resources towards removing the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), comrade Adams Oshiomhole, from office.

For the Edo State governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, the removal of Oshiomhiole from office was a task that had to be done to help Smoothen his path to a much cherished second term in office.  The bitter falling out between the governor and his erstwhile benefactor and predecessor in office resulted in the National Chairman being perceived as a major obstacle to the realization of Obaseki’s desire in this regard. And from his colleagues in Kaduna and Ekiti states in particular, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai and Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Obaseki reportedly received support in the bid to dislodge Oshiomhole all as part of calculations with the 2023 presidential ticket of the APC in sight.

The anti-Oshiomhole forces however failed to convince key stakeholders in the party that, despite his shortcomings, the National Chairman had committed any offence warranting a sanction as severe as removal from office.

Before Oshiomhole’s adversaries could regroup to launch a fresh salvo, the Coronavirus struck paralyzing activities across the country not excluding the political terrain. The restriction on movement imposed across the country in response to the pandemic forced many previously ever gallivanting governors to stay in their states and face the often abandoned task of governance in their jurisdictions.

One would have thought that the Coronavirus pandemic and the grave threat it poses both to lives and livelihoods would have forced key political actors to reflect profoundly on and rethink the character and quality of politics in the country. For those governors with their minds fixated on the 2023 presidential contest even when the Buhari administration is still in the first year of its second term, for instance, the Coronavirus offers a poignant reminder of the fragility of life and the unreliability of human plans and projections.

Following his close brush with the Coronvirus, a naturally brash, brusque and intemperate Governor Nasir el- Rufai of Kaduna State appears more sober and reflective in his public utterances and disposition. He avers that he would not wish his worst enemy to experience an infection by the virus. The el-Rufai we used to know would readily and unrepentantly feed his perceived enemies to the sharks of deadly viruses.

But not anymore it appears- reluctant thanks to almighty Coronavirus. If this pandemic will have a sobering, humbling effect on Nigeria’s men and women of power thus fundamentally changing their attitudes to the contestation for and utilization of public office, it would be an unintended fallout of an otherwise tragic situation.

It would however appear that hardly any lessons are being learnt by most of the country’s political actors from a Coronavirus pandemic that has exposed more than ever before the fragility of the country’s public healthcare system which, for practical purposes, is virtually non-existent.  In the same vein, the pervasive poverty in which the majority of Nigerians live, which makes them readily vulnerable to easily curable diseases not to talk of incurable ones like the present pandemic, is inexcusable given the huge revenues reaped from crude oil sales for prolonged periods of post-independence history in Nigeria.

Yet, the level of Nigeria’s underdevelopment relative to the country’s resource endowment is largely a function of the nature of her politics and the consequent abysmal and dysfunctional quality of governance it throws up. The fierce and unstructured contestation for political power in Nigeria is invariably motivated by a desire to utilize public office as means of primitive accumulation through the criminal ‘privatization’ of public resources. Thus, there is a direct correlation between the asymmetrical accumulation of wealth by those who have had access to state power at various times in post-colonial Nigeria and the paucity of resources to provide qualitative infrastructure, viable employment, adequate security and critical social services for the vast majority of the Nigerian people.

This is how and why ‘politics underdevelops Nigeria’ to borrow the evocative phraseology of the late Claude Ake. Is there any indication that our politicians are utilizing this period of reduced activity due to the Coronavirus pandemic to press the reset button for politics in Nigeria and redirect the quest for power from self glorification and pecuniary acquisition to that of promoting the greatest good of the greatest number of Nigerians? The resumption of fierce partisan hostilities in Edo State with the forthcoming September governorship election in view does not suggest that this is so.

Firing the first salvo, the state government during the week accused members of the Edo Peoples Movement (EPM), a political pressure group, of having held mock primaries to pick a consensus candidate to contest the APC primaries against Obaseki. The meeting, which allegedly held at a private residence in Benin at the behest of Oshiomhole and in utter disregard for the social distancing guidelines issued by the state to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, could not reach a consensus. If true, this portrays the organizers of the event as placing premium on their quest to dislodge Obaseki from office above the safety of lives in the state.

Of course, those accused of organizing the mock primaries have vehemently denied the allegation and challenged Obaseki “to prove his allegation of a crowded “meeting of more than 50 persons” by releasing a video of such event”. Condemning what they saw as Obaseki’s continued unwarranted demonization of Oshiomhole, the governor’s adversaries went on to make the damaging allegation that “Even in the current fight against COVID-19, he does not care about the sufferings of the people but is busy converting the opportunity for embezzlement, embarking on political campaign in the 192 wards under the guise of personal sensitization campaign against Coronavirus. The state was shocked when he announced they had already spent over One billion Naira on the pandemic within two weeks. Till today there is no lockdown in Edo State in order to avoid spending on palliatives”.

The sad thing is that rather than unite to fight a common enemy that poses a grave danger to lives and livelihoods across partisan, religious, class and ethno-cultural lines, the political class remains bitterly divided in Edo State as the battle for the September governorship election has resumed in earnest Coronavirus be damned. This is why Lagos State offers a refreshing example again when a number of political parties issued a statement last week thanking the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration for carrying opposition party members along in the distribution of palliatives to vulnerable sections of the public.

It would appear to me that Obaseki is unduly fixated on Oshiomhole and he apparently still desires that his predecessor as governor be removed from office as National Chairman. But beyond Oshiomhole, the 19 prominent indigenes of Edo State that signed the public statement denouncing Obaseki and supporting Oshiomhole are definitely not non-entities. They include successful professionals in diverse fields, former members of the federal and state executive councils, former governorship aspirants in the state as well as former and current members of the National Assembly. How could an incumbent governor with the resources and immense influence at his disposal have amassed such a formidable field of opponents if there is not something fundamentally wrong with his politics?

But then, the situation is not peculiar to Edo State. In Ondo State, there is allegedly no love lost between Governor Rotimi Akeredolu and his Deputy while members of the Unity Forum within the APC opposed to Akeredolu’s second term are engaged in stiff intra-group struggle to pick a consensus candidate to face the governor in the primaries. And in Ekiti state, the former Governor Ayo Fayose and Senator Abiodun Olujimi’s factions are embroiled in a bitter struggle to control the PDP structures in the state.

This is also most likely to be the situation across the country. Yes, politics essentially will always be about the contestation of competing individuals and groups for the acquisition and utilization of political power. But if the primary motivation for this all important activity does not shift fundamentally from the quest for power for its own sake or for wealth accumulation to the promotion of rapid development for the benefit of the majority of the citizenry, no lessons would have been learnt from the Coronavirus crisis.