The Nation Newspaper

Category: Segun Ayobolu

  • Imf and World Bank as patrons of poverty in Africa?

    Imf and World Bank as patrons of poverty in Africa?

    The straightforward thesis of the slim but powerful new book published last year by the Lagos State University (LASU) – based political economist, Dr Sylvester Odion Akhaine, is vividly captured by its graphic title – ‘Patrons of Poverty: IMF/World Bank and Africa’s Problems’. Published in Germany by LAMBERT Academic Publishing, the book runs into a little over a hundred pages divided into five simple and readable but tightly structured chapters. The thrust of his argument is that in our globalised world characterised by information technology revolutions and capital flows volatility, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, through their policies and activities, “have continuously relegated African economies to the backwaters”.

    He contends that Africa’s protracted crisis of perennial underdevelopment can only be properly explicated and understood within the historical purview of the tragic incidences of slavery, colonialism and contemporary neo-colonialism as represented particularly by the policies imposed on the continent by hegemonic International Financial Institutions (IFI) like the IMF and the World Bank.

    Many would contend that this is a tired and tortured argument that treads the worn path earlier charted by such radical scholars as Walter Rodney, Bade Onimode, Samir Amin, Claude Ake, Adebayo Olukoshi and scores of other radically inclined African intellectuals. Those who hold this view say that it only constitutes an attempt by Africans to evade responsibility for the plight of their blighted continent over five decades after the termination of formal colonial rule. Yet, the veracity of this position cannot be credibly refuted. It is impossible to comprehend Africa’s dire, desperate and dismal present without reference to her traumatic, disturbed and turbulent past.

    In a press statement issued at the Action Group Federal Headquarters, Lagos, on 28th June, 1961, the foremost Nigerian statesman and politician, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, made this point with characteristic pungency. “From the beginning of recorded history” he declared, “the black man has been the most conspicuous butt of all manner of inhuman treatment. In the palaces of the Arabian Potentates – both in the Middle East and in North Africa – he was degraded and enslaved. When the so-called ‘Dark Continent of Africa’ was discovered the European marauders hunted him down like a common beast, captured him, and sold him into slavery in the Americas and the West Indies. The era of trading in, and of enforcing the services of black slaves, terminated only to be replaced by the European Powers, which initiated it with a legalized form of political and economic enslavement of the entire peoples of the Continent of Africa…For more than sixty years thereafter, black Africa suffered under the grinding heels of alien conquerors and settlers”.

    Dr Akhaine has done Africans a great service by simplifying and making more accessible to a wider audience the ideas of earlier seminal scholars on the crisis of poverty and underdevelopment in Africa. As he puts it “The continent has no independent policies; it is continuously guided by transferred policies of leading global powers that are desirous of maintaining vertical relations of dominance between them and the dominant countries”.  In chapter two of his book, the author undertakes an overview of the current pathetic and dehumanising position of Africa in the global political economy. He traces the roots of underdevelopment in Africa to the brutal eras of slavery and colonialism as well as the continuation by conniving African leadership elite that pursue pro-imperialist policies, which only lead to further submergence of the continent in the miry clay of underdevelopment.

    In this regard, Akhaine disagrees vehemently with the school of thought, which states that the slave trade was actually of benefit to Africa. According to this school of thought, slavery resulted in increased prosperity of such pre-colonial states as Dahomey, Benin and Oyo and that slavery served as a form of population control to avoid famine. In addition to these, the pro-slave trade school of thought believes that apart from helping to introduce into Africa new crops such as maize and cassava, slavery rescued the slave victims from poverty in Africa to more affluent lives in European and American destinations.  Countering these racially jaundiced perspectives, Akhaine points out that the slave trade, which lasted approximately three centuries, actually had a negative and catastrophic effect on population growth in Africa, deprived the continent of the more productive and vigorous sections of their populations while also causing a severe dislocation of Africa’s local economies as a result of intra-African slavery wars.

    In the same vein, Akhaine contends, colonialism had a deleterious and retardation effect on African economies. The colonial administration forced Africans to produce so called cash crops as well as mine mineral resources for the benefit of the colonial economy. This led to a distortion and disarticulation of African economies, a distortion they are yet to recover from till date. Again, colonialism discouraged capital goods production such as equipment and machinery in the colonies thus inhibiting the capacity of these colonies for meaningful domestic capital formation.

    In this chapter, Akhaine asks why and at what stage Africa became synonymous with chronic dependency and pervasive underdevelopment. He points out that Africa was in reality economically self-sufficient before the continent’s encounter with the forces of slavery and colonialism. In his words “the present crop of African leaders need to know that the continent’s conditions were not always as it is; its people once dominated and tamed their environment; they never had unemployment; they produced what they consumed and had food surpluses and that in the context of the prevailing global constraints these feats are still possible”.

    Not only was Africa self-sufficient in food production in contrast to today’s dependency, the continent had taken impressive strides in industries such as cloth-making, iron smelting and soap making among others. These products, he says, had as far back as the 17th century, penetrated European markets especially the Iberian Peninsula.  It was thus the brutal encounter with slavery and colonial imperialism that effectively arrested the self-reliant economic and technological development of Africa.

    Of course, Dr Akhaine does not shy away from confronting the roles which corrupt and tyrannical post-colonial African leadership elite – Idi Amin, Mobutu Sese Soko, Marcia Nguema, Sani Abacha, Robert Mugabe etc – played in looting, exploiting and perpetrating the worst human rights atrocities in their countries. He, however, makes the point that the emergence and perpetuation in power of this perverse post-colonial leadership could not be divorced from the machinations of the colonial imperialists. This point is buttressed by the implication of the advanced imperial countries in the undermining and elimination of patriotic and progressive African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Samora Machel, Thomas Sankara or Murtala Muhammed who were genuinely committed to the liberation of the continent and the actualisation of her potentials.

  • The trials of brother king

    ‘The trials of brother Jero’ and ‘Jero’s metamorphosis’ are two of Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka’s most hilarious and delightful plays. Written over three decades ago, the plays depict the dexterity with which a devious man of God preys on the insecurities and vulnerabilities of members of his flock for his own pleasure and material benefit. The current trials of Reverend King, also known as Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, Overseer of the Christian Praying Assembly, who has been sentenced to death by hanging by the apex court of the land for murder, violence and sexual predation, reminded me of the Jero plays. But then, what type of socio-economic context allows the unscrupulous likes of Rev. King flourish?

    In his notable theory of the two publics, eminent political scientist, Professor Peter Ekeh, argued that one of the reason why corruption thrives so much in Africa is that the colonially imposed state exists in an amoral milieu in which officials of state suffer no pangs of conscience as they utilise their positions to loot public resources to benefit their ethno-regional groups. Of course, this is a rough rendering of Ekeh’s thesis but I think it offers us some insights into the relationship between religious institutions such as churches and mosques and public officers in contemporary Nigeria.

    Thus, the individual loots state resources. He or she makes huge financial contributions to their church or mosque. Religious leaders accept these ‘offerings’ and ‘tithes’ without question. The looting state officials are the most prominent and exalted members of church or mosque.  The state, largely because of industrial scale corruption, is unable to provide adequate healthcare for citizens. But no matter, the religious institutions flourish as more people run to them for miracle health cures.

    The state, as a result of massive corruption, cannot provide qualitative and affordable education for children. That only provides religious institutions that receive offerings from thieving officials the opportunity to establish thriving educational institutions at all levels. When highly respected and decent members of the religious establishment – Christian and Muslim –close their eyes to the massive looting of public resources thereby becoming complicit by their silence, they help in creating the conditions that enable the likes of Reverend King to successfully exploit the ignorant multitude for cynical ends. But then, should the death sentence on Rev. King be carried out as many are demanding? I think not. That would mean our collective descent to his level of beastly meanness. There should be a higher, more ennobling way. A life sentence is as good as a death sentence.

  • Soyinka, Nietzsche and Odia Ofeimun’s quest for Ogun (2)

    Soyinka, Nietzsche and Odia Ofeimun’s quest for Ogun (2)

    In the first essay in Odia Ofeimun’s book, ‘In Search of Ogun: Soyinka in spite of Nietzsche’, discussed last week, the poet and essayist, Odia Ofeimun, undertook through a critical analysis of the works of Wole Soyinka his quest for Ogun. We interpreted this as part of a wider and deeper search to rediscover the indigenous spiritual, cultural and knowledge systems that had been largely eroded, discredited and distorted by the violent contact with foreign cultures, values and exploitative economic systems. His second essay in the book, ‘Wole Soyinka: The Writer as Cultural Hero’ was delivered at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, to commemorate Soyinka’s 70th birthday. Perhaps because he delivered the lecture at a foremost citadel of learning named after Awolowo, Ofeimun chose to compare and contrast the similarities and differences of the literary and artistic aesthetics of Soyinka with the political vision, values and ideas of Awolowo. A key factor that emerges from Ofeimun’s discourse is that Awolowo had as much impact on the literary, cultural and artistic terrain particularly of western Nigeria as Soyinka has had on the politics of Nigeria.

    Ironically, the wily ‘Maradona’ of Nigerian politics, General Ibrahim Babaginda, had shortly after coming to power in 1985 described Awolowo, some say patronisingly, as being the main issue in post-independence Nigerian politics. It is difficult to say how the relationship between Awolowo and Babangida would have evolved if the sage had lived longer to see how the military regime was turning out. Soyinka initially agreed to put his expertise at the service of the nation by helping to curb the horrendous loss of lives on our roads as head of a widely acclaimed Federal Roads Safety Corp (FRSC under Babangida). The radical playwright, however, soon became a fierce adversary of the General when his annulment of the June 12, 1993, presidential election made it obvious that he indeed had no plans to relinquish power to a democratically elected civilian-led administration. But then, as emerges from Ofeimun’s narrative, Soyinka as an impassioned fighter for justice with an instinctual understanding of the dynamics of power and politics, can also be rightly described as a central figure in Nigeria’s political evolution and one of the key shapers of the country’s political history.

    Justifying his decision to focus on these two iconic figures of Nigeria’s artistic and political terrains, respectively, Ofeimun argues that “My tack is simply to relate Soyinka’s performance to the politician who in my view has come closest to being the man of mind and action in Nigerian politics. Described by the journalist, Dan Agbese, of Newswatch and echoed by ex-Biafran leader Odumegwu Ojuwku, as the best President Nigeria never had, Awolowo has a centrality to the national argument which makes him the most consistent reference point for serious engagement with national questions. A lot, I insist, is to be gained by relating Soyinka’s artistic performance to what may be called Awolowo’s politic;l reason”.

    Ofeimun argues that while Soyinka has consistently and easily been the face of the moral opposition to tyranny in post-independence Nigeria, Awolowo has been both the de facto and de jure leader of the political opposition against Nigeria’s tyrannies. The sage’s influence still looms large on the country’s political stage long after his death. Both Awolowo and Soyinka both served unjust prison terms at different times because of their principled commitment to justice, good governance and the rule of law in the face of conscienceless and malevolent civilian and military despotisms. The two men have written copiously on Nigerian politics, society and economy within their respective spheres of the artistic and the political. As Ofeimun graphically puts it: “Soyinka’s two deathless aphorisms: that justice is the first condition of humanity; and that the man dies in all who keep quiet in the face of tyranny can serve as caption for their civic practices. The aphorisms square with Awolowo’s quote that it is not life that matters but the courage you bring into it”.

    Interestingly, Ofeimun takes on the Afrocentric polemicists like Chinweizu and his self-styled ‘Bolekaja’ collaborators who stridently accused writers like Soyinka, J.P.  Clark, Mike Echeruo and Chris Okigbo among others of exhibiting too much Euro modernist influences to the detriment of African culture in their works. According to Ofeimun, “What is African to the troika is not exactly clear from the nebula of representations that they project as a basis for the assault on Euro-modernists. Nor do they address the problem of how one should view those elements that are to be found in the European traditions and the pre-colonial traditions of many societies. Impliedly, they give these elements away as factors of European influence, thus leaving to Africa’s heritage a more constricted room for self-defence against the widening gyre of western hegemony”.

    Of course, it is difficult to disagree with Ofeimun’s critique in this regard. Several studies have demonstrated that Soyinka’s works are deeply influenced by his native Yoruba language and culture. Indeed, he translated Fagunwa’s novel, ‘Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Olodumare’ into English (A Forest of A Thosand Daemons) – a feat impossible without deep immersion in and familiarity with Yoruba cosmological universe and idioms. Even then, as Soyinka himself has argued, he does not have to deny other influences on him beyond his Yoruba milieu for the absolutely needless objective of proving his ‘negritude’. Interestingly, there is also, Ofeimun demonstrates, a nexus between Soyinka’s artistic and literary universalism that does not compromise his African cultural authenticity and Awolowo’s own ideas for language and development in the country’s educational policy.

    In Ofeimun’s words, “None of our languages has a proper conversation, through translation, with the European languages that dominate the world’s knowledge industries and airwaves. The consequence is that we are light years away from the dream of one of our founding fathers, Obafemi Awolowo, who set out believing that if education was given to all with speed, we could arrive at a plateau of development upon which all knowledge(s) of the English language would be domesticated in the indigenous languages and all the knowledge(s) in the indigenous languages would be transferred to the English language. What a rounded personality that could have placed at the centre of our national identity”!

    The author demonstrates this thesis when in the last essay on ‘Taking Naija-movies to the next level’, he decides to address his audience of the country’s leading lights in the film industry through the medium of Soyinka’s collection of poems – ‘SAMARKAND And Other Markets I Have Kno­wn’. Now, this is a collection I had mostly had problems deciphering the Nobel laureate’s rather obscure and dense imagery. Yet, in Ofeimun’s presentation, many of them actually became lucid, accessible and a joy to read. The author believes that such works and other classics would actually be more readable and accessible to a wider public only if we had a viable translation industry and critical publishing infrastructure that makes books available in our indigenous languages. Ofeimun certainly raises in this book issues critical to our quest for mental emancipation, cultural liberation and accelerated national development as a people.

  • Odua group, South West and regional integration

    Odua group, South West and regional integration

    At a meeting of the five governors of Oyo, Ondo, Ogun, Osdun and Ekkiti states in January, the historic decision was taken to admit Lagos State into the Odua Investment Group of companies as the sixth member state. The Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on overseas affairs and investment, Professor Abass Adewole, was spot on when he said “The admission of Lagos into the group is not just a promotion for the state but also the completion of Oodua itself. I am happy that Lagos has finally joined the Oodua group, which can now say it is complete. With a population of about 22 million people and N136 billion GDP and the fact that 95 per cent of Foreign Direct Investment comes to Lagos, the state is expected to be a hub. We are hoping that other Southwest states can start thinking of regional infrastructural development”. Incidentally, this column had made a case for strengthening the Oodua group and for Lagos to join the conglomerate on January 11, 2014. I reproduce the piece today to refresh our memories.

    This column makes a distinction between regional integration and regionalism. The former is a necessary condition for national economic revival and development. It refers to spatially contiguous states leveraging informally on their collective resources to elevate their economies and the well- being of their people. Dr Alex Ekueme has in this respect done us an invaluable service by coming up at the 2005 national conference with the six-zone concept- South-West, South-East, South-South, North-West, North-East and North-Central.

    Regionalism on the other hand is the illusory, even hallucinatory, notion that Nigeria can ever go back to the regional structure of the first republic. The present states have come to stay. In the South-West for instance the pressure for the creation of Ijebu and Ibadan states remain as intense as ever. It is the same story across the country. Anybody who believes that the current states will ever subsume their autonomy to some regional authority is utterly deluded. Rather there will be continued pressure for the creation of more states.

    In any case it makes absolutely no economic sense to seek to create an additional layer of government at the regional levelwith the attendant administrative and logistical costs. Nigeria is already one of the most over-administered territories in the world with much of the resources that ought to go to improving the well- being populace being gulped up by administrators at the varying levels of government.

    But geographically contiguous zones can plan and harness their resources to accelerate their development and elevate the country’s overall economic performance. It is not surprising in this respect that the governors of the South-West have been most vocal in articulating the imperative of regional economic integration. Yet it would appear to me that these governors have paid more of lip service to the concept and have not taken concrete action towards genuine regional economic integration.

    On the issue of regional integration, the South-West governors certainly do not need to re-invent the wheel. The great sage, Chief ObafemiAwolowo, had already laid a firm foundation for the region in this respect. For those who do not have the time or patience to read Awolowo’s major works (although it is a most worthwhile investment) I suggest OlufemiOgunsanwo’s racy and thrilling book ‘AWO: UNFINISHED GREATNESS’.

    As this book shows, the current Odu’a group of companies is a an agglomeration of several companies formed by the Awolowo administration in the western region including the Western Nigerian Development Corporation (WNDC), the Finance Corporation, the Western Nigeria Housing Corporation and the Western Nigeria Ministry of Industries.

    It is instructive that The Economist magazine, the unrepentant and ideologically bankrupt mouth piece of neo-liberal capitalism, on June 21 and October 13, 2012, published cover stories titled ‘The rise of state capitalism’ and ‘True progressivism’ respectively. Not even this bastion of journalistic conservatism can deny that neo-liberal capitalism is in deep trouble globally and the quest for material gratification by a few must be balanced by a humane consideration for the welfare of the majority if human society is to survive.

    Yet, Awolowo, an accomplished Keynesian economist, had realized as far back as the 1950s that aggressive state investment is a necessary condition for rapid economic development especially where you have a weak indigenous capital base. The neo-liberal notion that companies perform poorly because they are publicly owned is absolute nonsense. It is not a question of ownership but one of work culture and ethics. The tragic fate of Nigeria’s privately owned failed banks amply demonstrates this.

    Let me quote extensively from OlufemiOgunsanwo’s book to demonstrate my point: “WNDC spread its tentacles to manufacturing, banking, insurance, hotels and catering, property development and real estate. It floated a large number of companies and industries wholly owned by government or held in partnership with several foreign investors. To give a few examples, it set up the National Bank of Nigeria, Wema Bank, the Nigeria General Insurance Company, Great Nigeria Insurance Company, GravilEnthoven and Company, Lagos Airport Hotel, Vegetables oil, Cocoa Industries, Odu’a textiles, Wrought Iron Ltd, Union Beverages Ltd, Sungas Company, Wemabod Estates, Western Livestock, Fisheries Services Ltd, Caxton Press, Epe Plywood, Askar Paints, Nigerian Crafts and Bags Ltd, Nipol Plastics, Phoenix Motors and several others. More than half of these companies are still viable today and have been consolidated in the Odu’a Group of companies, the largest conglomerate in the history of Nigeria with total assets in excess of 10 trillion Naira in 2004”.

    What have succeeding generations made of this illustrious legacy? It is a tragedy that it has been largely squandered particularly during the military era and the PDP years of the locustsin the South West. Yes, the immediate past Chairman of Odu’a Group, AlhajiSharafadeen and the Group Managing Director, Alhaji Adebayo Jimoh, deserve commendation for consolidating on the strength of the Group especially in the area of property development. However, it would appear to me that the current South West Governors are not paying sufficient attention to the Odu’a Group as a principal medium for regional economic integration and development.

    Let me take the Lagos Airport Hotel (LAHL) as just one example. Established in 1942, it is easily the oldest hotel in the country. My investigations reveal that it is one of the major revenue earners of the Odu’a Group. It occupies a space that would be the envy of any other hotel. The LAHL has the only Olympic size swimming pool in Lagos apart from the National Stadium. One of Nigeria’s leading public intellectuals, for instance, said a few years ago in an interview that “When my wife visits from England she wakes up at six o’clock and starts bothering me about going for breakfast., because she loves the indigenous food and so she will rather stay in LAHL than any other hotel”. The hotel has a peculiar brand of its own.

      Yet, the truth is that the J.K. Adenigba- led management team of the hotel is only striving to squeeze water out of stone or turn stone to bread. That the LAHL is able to hold its own in the face of fierce competition from foreign competition in the industry is a testimony to the acumen of its management and the dedication of its staff. But the South-West Governors must take decisive action in investing adequately to upgrade facilities in the hotel and boost staff morale. The same goes for the Premier as well as Lafia Hotels both members of the Odu’a Group based in Ibadan. Minimal investment in such ‘low hanging fruits’ will yield maximum revenue for the benefit of the region.

    The Odu’a Group in my view already provides a solid base for economic integration and development in the South-West. But the region’s governors must be more determined to revitalise the group, realize the vision of its founding fathers and transform it into a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for regional transformation. And why for God’s sake is Lagos State not part of the Odu’a Group?

  • Pdp, APC and the party decay thesis

    Pdp, APC and the party decay thesis

    A school of political analysis adumbrates the interesting thesis of party decay. As Professors Rod Hague et al put it in their book on comparative politics, “This theory suggests that parties will eventually outlive their usefulness. They arise in response to important problems – integrating the mass electorate into politics, say, or hastening the departure of colonial rulers. Once successful in overcoming the problem, the party loses its purpose”.

    The scholars cite the example of defunct communist parties of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which successfully industrialized and modernized the countries under their jurisdiction. However, “with this mission largely accomplished, ruling communist parties lost heart and drive. Instead of leading society, they became a brake on its further development. Once the prop of support from the Soviet military was removed, they fell down dead”.

    Does the party decay thesis offer us some insight into the trajectory of political parties in Nigeria’s post-colonial political evolution and particularly the pathetic position in which the hitherto invincible People’s Democratic Party (PDP) currently finds itself?

    The mass parties of the First Republic, the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC), Action Group (AG) and Northern People’s Congress (NPC) in particular, were key constituent elements of the anti-colonial nationalist movement. They succeeded splendidly in achieving nominal ‘flag independence’ for the country in 1960. In the first six years of independence, these parties were at the vanguard of impressive developmental strides under a genuine federal arrangement that fostered competitive transformational dynamism.

    However, the primordial ethno-regional fissures masked by the pro-independence euphoric illusions of a common nationhood soon bubbled to the surface and incrementally undermined both stability and development. The party system began to decay rapidly with corrosive implications for democracy and political order. The first republic parties had apparently fulfilled their historic purpose as they became too organisationally and ethically exhausted to stem the country’s slide to anarchy.

    In January 1996, the military intervened. It was the historic mission of the military to keep Nigeria one and seek to engineer her transformation from a mere ‘geographical expression’ to genuine nationhood. In pursuit of this objective, the military fashioned Nigeria’s federal structure in the mirror image of its unitary, hierarchical organisational configuration.

    After over three decades in power, it was obvious that the military had largely failed in its self-imposed historic mission of the socio-political and economic modernisation of Nigeria. The assumption that it possessed the organisational attributes of discipline, efficiency, focus and patriotism that could foster unity and rapid national development proved illusory. National cohesion and progress cannot be decreed ‘with military alacrity’.

    The military had become horrendously infected with the corruption virus it had promised to extinguish. Its organisational cohesion had been badly fragmented by divisive intra-organisational politics as well as primal ethno-regional, religious and partisan influences. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the military had become too morally, psychologically and professionally famished to effectively and sustainably resist protracted civil society agitations for its return to the barracks. Organisational decay had set in. it had fulfilled its historic purpose on the political terrain and withdrew in disarray in 1999.

    Enter the PDP. Its historic mission was to provide a transition from military dictatorship to democratic governance in Nigeria. Fashioned in the organisational image of the military, the PDP established an emphatic dominance of the polity by winning not just the presidential election but 21 of the 36 state governorship elections in 1999.

    It was certainly not fortuitous that a retired General and former military Head of State, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, emerged as President in 1999 on the platform of the PDP. But then, in the bowels of the PDP’s electoral supremacy lay the seeds of the incipient and insidious decay that culminated in its electoral implosion in last year’s general elections and its continuing organisational, moral and psychological unravelling today.

    First, the PDP had a unitary organisational structure, which was quite incongruous within the context of a complex plural and federal society like Nigeria. Just like the deformed Nigerian federal polity, the PDP had an excessively centralist structure that stultified its internal flexibility and dynamism. Second, the PDP was subsumed under the asphyxiating grip of the Obasanjo imperial presidency. Intra-party democratic structures and processes were thus undermined resulting in enervating organisational sclerosis.

    Third was the PDP’s active attempt to transform the party system from a one party-dominant to an absolute one party state in which it exercised a totalising control of the polity. The resultant destabilization and decimation of the opposition compounded the complacency and lethargy within the former ruling party engendered by the lack of internal intra-party opposition. It also accelerated the process of the party’s organizational desensitization that worsened steadily climaxing in the electoral rout of April 28 last year.

    Today, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) sits atop the country’s political structure. Its historic mission is to preside over the transition from mere civilian rule of the last 16 years to a genuine democracy. Ironically, to achieve the feat of ousting an incumbent government from power at the centre, key opposition parties – ACN, CPC, ANPP and a faction of APGA – had to come together to fashion themselves in the centralist organizational image of the PDP!

    Thus, the APC’s essentially unitary organizing ethos is not reflective enough of the country’s federal diversity. Furthermore, the new ruling party seems to be following the PDP pattern of subordinating party to government in a way that immobilises and incapacitates the latter. Again, the National Assembly leadership election fiasco, the on-going Kogi governorship election debacle and its unimpressive management of the economy thus far suggest a paralyzing policy ambivalence as well as philosophical and ideological dissonance capable of hobbling the APC’s change agenda.

    Has the APC begun the process of decay even before settling down to govern effectively? Will the APC, like the monstrous child in the novelist, Ayi Kwei Armah’s ‘The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born?”, vault straight from childhood to old age without experiencing the invigorating and exhilarating intervention of youth? We are watching.

    HURRICANE OBY EZEKWESILI

    She is fiery. She is feisty. She takes no prisoners. Former Federal Minister and Vice President of the World Bank, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, this week in a widely published article, aimed missiles against the economic policies of President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC. As far as she is concerned, Buhari is trapped in a time warp dating back to his first coming as military Head of State when he resolutely but wrongly (in her view) refused to devalue the Naira or throw the economy to the invisible hands of the market.

    Ezekwesili does not consider that it was the succeeding Babangida regime that adopted the IMF/World Bank imposed Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), massively devalued the Naira and enthusiastically embraced free market doctrines that did incalculable and enduring harm to the economy. The Naira has ever since never regained its pre-SAP vibrancy and the economy has remained inextricably prostrate.

    For some strange reason, Mrs Ezekwesili believes that a so obviously conservative President Buhari is a socialist or communist ideologue of sorts! She is also under the illusion that the received neo-liberal economic nostrums she espouses are not ideological after all but embody what she characterises as ‘economic pragmatism’. Nothing can be more untrue. It does not occur to her that the communist parties of China, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, which she so contemptuously deride, laid the industrial and infrastructural foundation that facilitated their countries’ latter transition to market economies on a viable and sustainable basis.

    Ezekwesili wants Buhari to devalue the Naira and subordinate the economy to market forces. But as Professor Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)   has noted, “At least since the work of Alexander Gerschenkron in the 1950s, it has been widely recognised by economic historians that “late development” has been critically dependent on state intervention. Japan and the Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) on its periphery are standard contemporary examples”.

    Commenting on the role that strong state intervention played in the “early development” of the United States, Chomsky writes “High tariffs and other forms of state intervention may have raised costs to American consumers, but they allowed domestic industry to develop, from textiles to steel to computers, barring cheaper British products in earlier years, providing a state-guaranteed market and public subsidy for research and development in advanced sectors, creating and maintaining capital-intensive agribusiness, and so on”.

    It is certainly not for nothing, for instance, that Donald Trump, the leading American Republican presidential candidate promises if elected to compel Apple to produce its computers in America rather than China to safeguard American jobs. As far as he is concerned, national interest must take precedence over market forces. That should tell Mrs Ezekwesili something.

     

    Ambode silent as Lagos pupils abducted?

    Was Governor Akinwunmi Ambode ‘silent’ and by implication insensitive to the news of the abduction on Monday of three girls from Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary (BMJS) in Ikorodu as reported by a national newspaper? Luckily, a media colleague (name withheld) is a Minister of the Anglican Communion and his child attends BMJS. He told me: “When I got wind of the incident, I naturally rushed down to the school. I got in touch with my Bishop and I am aware he called Governor Ambode. The governor immediately called the Commissioner of Police and security agents were swiftly deployed to the school”. Well, governance is not showbiz. It would have been most cynical for Ambode to seek media mileage out of the sad and unfortunate occurrence. Let us pray that the girls return safely to their families.

  • Averting another caged presidency

    Averting another caged presidency

    Following his shock and clearly unanticipated defeat in the April 28, 2015, presidential election, especially in the light of the unbroken electoral invincibility of presidential incumbency in the country’s political history, former President Goodluck Jonathan was ushered back from the dizzying heights of intoxicating glory to the sobering realms of reality. In perhaps the most reflective and philosophical mood of his 16-yearsojourn in public office, Jonathan told members of the Christian community in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, who paid him a post-election Easter homage at the presidential Villa, that he had actually been in a cage during his adventures in power at various levels from Deputy Governor to Governor, Vice President and ultimately the country’s apex office since 1999.

    In his words: “From 1999 I have been in the hands of government. I am yet to see somebody luckier than I was in the hands of government for 16 years, not in government as a parliamentarian, because if you are in the National Assembly or House of Assembly, you take care of yourself in your house. I was in a cage being taken care of by the government. But I think it is enough and I am happy. Help me to thank God for that”.

    Of course, Dr Jonathan could not have been more mistaken as regards the true nature and essence of the cage. I am reminded of the gripping autobiographical novel, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’, by the late African American writer, Maya Angelou. She writes with a combination of zest, verve and pathos about how, growing up in segregated America in the 1930s and 40s, she was ‘imprisoned’, her self-esteem entrapped in the limiting cages of racial discrimination, gender repression and class deprivation.

    The song of the caged bird is not a rousing, thrilling, joyous Hallelujah chorus. It is a dirge, a pitiful, mournful monotone. For, the cage is not a space of liberty and dignity. It is a humiliating place of confinement. It is a restrictive prison. It is a suffocating cell. Feed the caged bird as much as you want. It will always thirst for the freedom to flap its wings, hop from tree to tree and soar freely in the skies. By its very nature, the cage constricts, distorts and devalues the true nature of its trapped occupant.

    The defining essence of the quintessential occupant of public office particularly in a democracy is to pursue the Benthamite ideal of the greatest happiness of the greatest number of the people. He is fulfilled only by a passionate commitment to fulfilling his social contract with the public and promoting the general good. To do this, more so in a presidential system where governmental effectiveness depends largely on the energy of the executive arm, the Chief Executive must be free to soar in what Eugene Peterson would describe as the ‘wide open spaces’ of respect for the majesty of the law, dogged commitment to truth, unimpeachable transparency and fierce fidelity to the public trust. But the Nigerian presidency is deliberately designed to negate these values; to effectively cage the occupant of the office, imbue him with an exaggerated sense of his own infallibility, while crafty minders of the presidential zoo feather their nests to their heart’s content.

    You must give it to Jonathan. Yes, he has his own faults like all of us. But he is at heart a good natured man who can be sometimes amazingly naive in his utter simplicity. This is why he at least honestly admitted he was in a cage even if he himself betrayed a manifest misunderstanding of the nature of his confinement.  The Nigerian presidency is tailor made to take maximum advantage of the weaknesses of a man like Jonathan. Thus, while he theorized leisurely about the very intricate differences between stealing and corruption, the delighted minders of the presidential zoo kept him endlessly distracted while, as is becoming ever more glaring by the day, they engaged in a looting spree of epidemic proportions. But then, the problem is not with Jonathan. It is with the Nigerian presidency, which transformed an ordinarily humble school teacher into a most unwilling Nebuchadnezzar.

    It is my humble submission that every President in this dispensation has been effectively caged by the excessive and intoxicating powers of the Nigerian presidency. General Olusegun Obasanjo is an able man. It is not for nothing that he has played historical roles at key moments of Nigeria’s political evolution. His patriotism and nationalism are beyond dispute.He was really passionate about fighting corruption. Towards this end, he takes the credit for ensuring the creation and strengthening of such anti-corruption agencies as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other offences Commission (ICPC).

    At the end of the day, however, Obasanjo’s legacy was indelibly stained by the aborted Third Term Agenda, aimed at illegal and immoral tenure elongation. This ranks among the worst forms of political corruption perpetrated in this dispensation. The excessive and intoxicating powers of the Nigerian presidency fed the Messianic streak in an otherwise well- meaning President making him vulnerable to the antics of  essentially self-seeking sycophants.

    The late President UmaruYar’Adua was a man of impeccable integrity as well as uncommon dignity and honour. But for the ill health that dogged his brief tenure, there were indications that he would most likely have easily ranked among the greatest Presidents of our time. Not only did he frankly admit the flawed nature of the polls that brought him to power, he took concrete steps to initiate fundamental electoral reforms. He set the precedent of publicly declaring his assets without prompting. Yet, a vicious and rapacious cabal, capitalising on Yar’Adua’s ill health marginalized the legal and legitimate institutions of state and practically hijacked the reigns of presidential power until death mercifully intervened.

    Now, President MuhammaduBuhari has his work cut out for him. His integrity is legendary. His zero tolerance for corruption makes him an iconic moral avatar. The Daura General’s austere lifestyle stands him out in the putrescent crowd of the country’s indulgent and hedonistic political and economic elite. Buhari cuts the enigmatic figure of the conservative General as radical reformer. In a short span of time in office, he has demonstrated convincingly that his redemptive zeal has not flagged. Yet, it is unlikely that the change agenda of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which Buhari embodies, can transmute into the enduring transformation desired even if he spends two terms of eight years in office. The rot and decay have set in too deeply for an instant cure to be effected within such a short time frame.

    The change Buhari and the APC promise should, in my view, begin with the presidency itself. The President must curb the monstrous powers of an institution that perverts and taints virtually all who sit at the apex of presidential authority. Within the context of a demobilized civil society, an inchoate party system, a deformed federal structure that is essentially unitary, an ineffectual and morally incapacitated legislature and an economically famished and ethically challenged media, the Nigerian presidency is institutionally ‘overdeveloped’ and a veritable source of systemic dysfunction.

    Buhari must thus strive to enhance and institutionalize the relative autonomy of critical institutions of state – the police, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), anti-corruption agencies and Directorate of State Security (DSS) in particular – from the suffocating grip of the presidency. This is to ensure that if less restrained, decent and principled persons occupy the office in future after him,  they will be less able to wield presidential powers in the kind of politically detrimentaland disruptive ways we have witnessed in the last 16 years.

    Two other critical ingredients necessary to avert the possibility of another caged presidency under Buhari are first, decoupling the ruling party from the unhealthy dominion of the presidency. Luckily, President Buhari has shown a commendable reluctance to immerse his presidency unduly in internal partisan party matters. As the sobering experience of the PDP shows, when a ruling party at the centre becomes no better than just another parastatal of the presidency, its vital energies are sapped, its internal structures and processes begin to atrophy and it is only a matter of time before it collapses under its own dead weight. It is up to President Buhari and the APC to choose another path.

    Secondly, the APC must pursue a fundamental de-concentration of power from the centre to the states and local governments in a process of systematic re-federalization of the polity. The Buhari administration deserves commendation for its dogged prosecution of its anti-graft war. However, theover-concentration of power, responsibilities and resources at the centre, must also be a cardinal part of the APC’s change agenda in order to tackle the menace at the no less important structural level. As it is, the Nigerian presidency still remains very prone to being caged by ethno-regional cabals, unprincipled power cliques and shadowy cartels of graft with negative consequences for the polity.

  • Liberating our local government councils

    Liberating our local government councils

    This column rarely agrees with former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s often trenchant, truculent, intemperate and superficial views on issues, events and personalities. It is my view that Chief Obasanjo is too preoccupied with diligently seeking to remove the speck in the eyes of others while steadfastly ignoring the monstrous log sticking out of his face, believing perhaps that it is an adornment of great attraction. His readiness to maul people he believes are his adversaries and to strip them naked in the market place, for me, symbolises an irritating and annoying sense of hubris. It also betrays a desperate bid to hide some deep-seated psychological disorientation beneath the garb of brashness and an unwarranted sense of self-importance.

    But there are times when you must be intellectually honest enough to admit that the man is right even while fundamentally disagreeing with his methods as well as his delusion that he is not also culpable for Nigeria’s post-colonial woes. He was given the rare and unprecedented opportunity to preside over the affairs of Nigeria, first as a military Head of State then an elected President for two terms. On the two occasions he left the country worse off. But then, I digress. Obasanjo certainly got it right, for instance, when he recently wrote an excoriating letter to the National Assembly leadership vehemently condemning the humongous, opaque and immoral amounts of public resources the legislators appropriate to themselves annually for the most frivolous reasons. His stance resonated, well with large swathes of the public because of the grim economic crisis under which millions of Nigerians are suffering in agony.

    The defensive response of some of the legislators was to the effect that as President, Obasanjo tried to induce the National Assembly to give a stamp of legality to his aborted Third Term agenda designed to perpetuate himself in office. In other words, he has no business moralising to the National Assembly because corruption was rife in the system even when Obasanjo was Head of State. This surely cannot be a credible defence. The import of this reasoning is that the legislators are conceding that they are criminally enriching themselves to the detriment of the welfare of the vast majority of Nigerians because there was corruption in the system before their election as national legislators. The reasoning is untenable.

    Obasanjo’s remarks at the inaugural conference of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (IGPP) at the University of Ibadan, on Monday, February 1, were also largely true and thought provoking although he opened himself to charges of hypocrisy, which may not be entirely untenable. On that occasion, Obasanjo attributed Nigeria’s stunted growth to state governors who, in his view, allegedly divert huge revenue allocations meant for the Local Government Councils to other purposes. The governors, according to Obasanjo had rendered public institutions in their domains irrelevant for all practical purposes.

    In Obasanjo’s searing words – “Is there good governance in the 36 states of the federation where some governors have become sole administrators acting like Emperors? These governors have rendered public institutions irrelevant and useless. Is there development going on in the 774 constitutionally recognised local governments which are known to have been appropriated by governors? And, of course, when governors take their money, the chairmen of the councils take the balance of the money, put it on the table and share among council members”.

    Lamenting that Nigeria has not internalised the necessary values imperative for the sustenance of presidentialism and federalism Obasanjo said: “When are we going to able to practice federalism in a way that promotes healthy competition among the states for the benefit of the citizens? When are we going to subordinate partisanship to collective goals and deploy the full potential of our diversity to advance public causes that serve the aspirations of the teeming masses of our people crying out under the cringe of poverty, disease, unemployment and neglect’”.

    Of course, many will dismiss Obasanjo’s lamentations here as nothing but deceptive and sanctimonious posturing. And they surely have a point. Obasanjo has no right to claim that any governor is behaving like an emperor and undermine public institutions. He is the least qualified person to lecture any one on the virtues of federalism. As President of Nigeria for eight years – 1999 and 2007, Obasanjo behaved like an imperial President. He was the ultimate President as Emperor. He manipulated the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to impeach governors through ways that flagrantly breached the constitution.

    He forcefully and illegally withheld the allocation of funds meant for Local Government Councils in Lagos just because the state exercised her constitutional right to create 37 new councils. Up till the end of his tenure, Obasanjo refused to obey the Supreme Court judgement affirming that the Federal Government had no right or powers to withhold any funds statutorily allocated to any tier of government.

    Beyond this, in his sweeping generalization of the governors as being responsible for the country’s stunted development, Obasanjo does not take into account the skewed fiscal allocation formula that allocates over 57% of the country’s revenues to the Federal Government while the 36 states and 774 Local Government Councils share approximately 43%. Where then can the funds be to fuel development in a meaningful manner especially when the constitution constricts many states, especially the states rich in mineral and other natural resources, from exploiting such endowment for the greatest happiness of the greatest number of their people. Obasanjo had the opportunity as two-term President for eight years to bequeath to the nation a viable revenue allocation formula that reflects genuine fiscal federalism and enables all tiers of government to serve as engines of development in their respective zones. He failed abysmally and woefully in this regard.

    But then, it will be most irresponsible and unproductive to throw the baby away with the bathwater. We must distinguish between the messenger and the message. The critical point Obasanjo raises centres on how the 774 Local Government areas can be made viable and development-driven.  It is a genuine concern we must all share. Local governments across the country are widely perceived as citadels of corruption and sordid emblems of inefficiency and manifest unproductivity. Obasanjo’s claim that state governors divert monies accruing to Local Government Councils is only part of the story.  The truth is that even with the funds available to them, the various councils could still do much more than they are presently.

    Some have recommended that the States/Local Government Joint Account to which all monies accruing to the Local Government from the Federation Account are paid before being distributed to the Local Governments should be scrapped. They believe this will enhance the autonomy of Local Governments    by enabling them to receive their allocations directly from the Federation Account. This arrangement could be fraught with danger of tying the Local Governments to the apron string of the Federal Government and strengthening the centralist impulses in the federation at the expense of the greater decentralisation we desire.

    Others have suggested that the idea of elected Local Governments under the control of the states should be done away with and replaced with that of administrative local units under the total control of the state government. Yet others contend that the presidential system obtainable at the local government should be discarded and the local councils resort to the parliamentary system that was the practice before the various local government reforms of the military era.  These suggestions are simply ways of running away from rather than solving the problem. To do away with elected local government councils will rob grassroots communities the opportunity to participate in deciding who governs them at the tier of government closest to the ordinary man.  In the same vein, a reversion to the parliamentary system at the local government level cannot solve any problem. The values that sabotage and make a presidential system of government unworkable will also have the same effect on a parliamentary style of government.

    Although there are no easy solutions to the emergence of a viable, vigorous, transparent and effective Local Government system, I offer one suggestion as a starting point. And that is to ensure free, fair and credible elections at the grassroots where votes are not just counted but they actually count. This will entail either scrapping the State Independent Electoral Commissions (SIEC) and transferring their functions to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) or strengthening the autonomy of SIEC and transform them  from the cruel mockery of democracy and integrity they are today. A vibrant electoral process at the grass roots that lets people have a genuine say in who  or which party governs them at any point in time will begin to create the real revolutionary ferment at the grassroots that will also strengthen democracy at other levels of government.

  • Regionalism as ‘decentralized despotism’

    It was with a grand flourish and spectacular élan that the brand new Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (IGPP) held its inaugural conference in Ibadan on Monday, February 1. If the morning is an indication of what the future will look like, then one can confidently say that the IGPP is set to become one of the country’s foremost Think Tanks with great potential of contributing productively to the quality of public policy conceptualisation and implementation in Nigeria through rigorous research and advocacy. The quality of attendance at the conference was no doubt a function, largely, of the high esteem in which the Executive  Vice Chairman of the school, Dr Tunji Olaopa until recently a federal Permanent Secretary, who is also the brain behind the project, is held in diverse quarters.

    In his thought-provoking keynote address at the event, former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, made a valiant case for a retreat from the current 36 states structure of the federation to one in which the existing six geo-political zones will become the federating units of the policy. Arguing that the current 36 states are mostly economically unviable, he believes that six strong regions will be more feasible and sustainable. In Chief Anyaoku’s words: “Instead of the present structure of 36 economically unviable states with concentrated power at the centre, the National Assembly should convert the existing six geo-political zones, which are being used for a number of political decisions and actions, into the more viable federating units of a truly Federal Republic of Nigeria. The 36 states can be retained as development zones within the region but without full administrative paraphernalia. And it would be up to the six federating units to consider and meet any demands for the creation of new development zones within them”.

    Chief Anyaoku is of the view that the six zones as the country’s federating units will be more viable for planning, attracting investments for large scale projects as well as shifting emphasis from sharing of the national cake to production based on the Internally Generated Revenues of the six proposed zones. He also proposes a revenue allocation formula of 40% to the Federal Government with the balance of 60% to be shared by the six geo-political zones. This is in contrast to the existing arrangement in which the Federal Government receives 56% of national revenues while the states and local governments receive 24 and 20 per cent respectively. Underpinning Anyaoku’s advocacy for a polity of six federating units is the belief that the regional governments of the First Republic promoted accelerated development in their respective spheres of jurisdiction especially because there was a healthy competition among the regions in this regard.

    Of course, much of what Chief Anyaoku says is true. However, it appears to me that his argument is largely non sequitor. The conclusions he reaches do not flow necessarily and logically from his premises. Yes, the current arrangement, as he rightly says, cannot be regarded as genuinely federal. At best, it is a unitary-federal structure if there is any such thing. The centre is too powerful. The states are too weak and their potentials suffocated by an over centralized and overbearing federal government. But the solution to this problem cannot, as is implicit in Chief Anyaoku’s submission, be the creation at regional level of the kind of choking centralism that subsists under the current admittedly defective federal arrangement. This advocacy for the replacement of the current Abuja-dominated centralism with another form of centralism based on the six geopolitical regions is what I call ‘decentralized despotism’ to borrow the evocative phrase of Professor Mahmood Mamdani in his book ‘Citizen and Subject’.

    It appears that Chief Anyaoku and other advocates of a regression to regionalism do not take into proper account the historical reasons for the country’s evolution from a federation of four regions to the current polity of 36 states. Professor Eghosa Osaghae’s classic, ‘Nigeria since Independence: Crippled Giant’ gives useful information and informed analysis in this regard.  In the aftermath of the January and July 1966 coup and counter coup, respectively, the Eastern and Western delegations to the Ad Hoc Constitutional Conference convened by General Yakubu Gowon in September 1966 supported a confederal constitutional arrangement in which the regions would for all practical purposes be autonomous with the centre absolutely dependent on the federating units. The Western and Lagos delegations proposed an 18-state federal structure with the states controlling the armed forces. In the alternative, the West and Lagos wanted a commonwealth of Nigeria based on the then existing regions, with each region being ‘completely sovereign in all matters except the few delegated to the central authority’.

    Contrary to these proposals of the majority ethnic group’s delegations to the conference, which would most probably have culminated in the break-up of the country, the Mid-West delegation advocated the creation of more states and a federation in which the centre would be strong, injustices of the past corrected and one in which no state would be allowed to secede. As Professor Osaghae explains “As the only minorities’ region and representatives at the conference, the Mid-West was influenced in its position by the historical experience which continually led minorities in Nigeria to favour a strong centre as a guarantee against majority oppression in the regions. Such preferences provided the middle ground which saved the country from breaking up as the majority groups demanded (it probably also helped that Gowon himself was a minority Angas and not from one of the major groups”.

    Having tasted autonomy, it is unlikely that any of the existing states will ever allow themselves to be subordinated to the authority of any regional government. It is inconceivable, for instance, that Lagos will be willing to subject itself to some mythical western regional entity with its headquarters in Ibadan. Indeed, the trend is more likely to be in the direction of demand for the creation of more states rather than the fusion of existing states into six geo-political regions. It is an impractical and romantic proposition. In any case, there is absolutely no reason why the decentralization of powers, resources and responsibilities advocated by Chief Anyaoku cannot be carried out within the framework of the existing 36 states structure. Again, the introduction of a regional level of administration will only needlessly increase the cost of governance in a country already widely perceived as being excessively administered. This is particularly so as Chief Anyaoku is silent on what will be the fate of the existing 774 local government areas in his proposed new arrangement.

    Chief Anyaoku assumes that the four regional structure of the First Republic was responsible for the impressive developmental strides taken by the regions in that dispensation. This is not entirely true. The existence of a genuine federal arrangement, particularly adherence to the principles of fiscal federalism, as well as competent and visionary leadership in the regions was responsible for accelerated development in the regions. In the same way, it is not particularly accurate to assume that the current 36 states are inherently unviable because of their sizes. The states can be made more viable if greater powers, responsibilities and resources are devolved to them as advocated by Anyaoku for the regions. There is indeed absolutely no reason why there can be no healthy developmental competition among the states as was the case between the regions in the First Republic. Indeed, we already have such healthy competition at work in the South West with Ogun, Oyo and Osun states, for example, doing their utmost best within the limits of available resources to rival Lagos in the sphere particularly of infrastructure renewal, expansion and modernization.

    Like most advocates of restructuring of the polity, Chief Anyaoku is preoccupied with formal structures. Yet, equally pertinent and perhaps even more crucial is the question of the values, which under-gird and ought to support the viable functioning of any political structure. Without a fundamental transformation in our political and social values, not even the adoption of a six regional federal structure will result in any meaningful development. I think former President Olusegun Obasanjo was quite on target when in his speech on the occasion, he posed a number of critical questions: “Have we embraced the principles and values of the presidential system of government such as to enable us to realize our vision of a great country?…When are we going to be able to practice federalism in a way that promotes healthy competition among the states for the benefit of citizens?…Why is it that every model that has worked elsewhere never seem to work sustainably in Nigeria?”. I congratulate Dr Olaopa and all those associated with the IGPP on its successful debut on the terrain of academic research and public intellectual discourse in Nigeria. I pray that the institution will fulfil its purpose of contributing productively towards enriching the public policy process in the country.

  • APC and the moral high ground

    APC and the moral high ground

    It is beyond dispute. President Muhammadu Buhari is a man of rock solid integrity. His sense of honour and high moral values are great assets to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) today. But ironically, it was not integrity that won Buhari the 2015 presidential election. He had that virtue aplenty when he lost his bid for the presidency on three previous occasions despite his massive grassroots support in the far North. There were at least four key reasons for his victory at last year’s presidential polls.

    Firstly, was the emergence of the APC as a pan-Nigerian political party that could match the spread and depth of the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Secondly, were the sophisticated and creative political marketing strategies that radically transformed the Buhari persona and made him for the first time sellable to the Middle- Belt and South-West political zones. Thirdly, was better funding and logistics support that enabled him campaign more effectively across the length and breadth of Nigeria. And fourthly was the abysmally poor governance of former President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP that led to a steep appreciation in value of APC’s change slogan.

    Today, however, Buhari is clearly the most adored and admired politician and leader in Nigeria across a large swathe of the country’s political landscape. His stock has risen largely because of his single minded and unflagging commitment to fighting corruption as he promised during the campaigns. Most Nigerians are impressed that the anti-graft fire still blazes in his belly at 73 as much as it did when he was a young military Head of State over three decades ago. Buhari is quite unlike some of his very loquacious, annoyingly hypocritical, perennially letter-writing predecessors who endlessly mouthed anti-corruption slogans in office while feathering their nests with ferocious glee. The sheer lunatic scale of the looting frenzy engaged in by the PDP, as is being revealed daily, has also sensitised many Nigerians to the clear and present danger that this menace poses to the very existence of Nigeria and helped to galvanise more support for Buhari.

    Yet, the APC and President Buhari must tread very carefully. When you promise radical change from a decadent and fetid past as well as an all- out war against corruption, you must yourself stand on the highest moral pedestal possible. Let us not forget the piercing words of the fiery St Paul in the book of Romans: “Well then, if you teach others, why don’t you teach yourself? You tell others not to steal, but do you steal? You say it is wrong to commit adultery, but do you do it? You condemn idolatry, but do you steal from pagan temples? You are so proud of knowing the law but you dishonour God by breaking it”.

    What really is the defining essence of corruption, which for our purposes can be characterised simply as the criminal and illegal privatisation of collective resources by individuals and groups in positions of public trust? Yes, it is a violation of moral norms and values but that is not it. Yes, it is a negation of lofty philosophical and ethical principles but that is not it. Yes, it is an assault on elevated religious sensibilities but that is not it. Yes, it manifests as a denudation of the integrity of the human conscience but that is not it. Yes, it can lead to human suffering on an industrial scale but that is not it. Yes, it can result in harmful social inequality on an epochal dimension but that is not it.

    What then, I ask again, is at the very core, the centre, the quintessence of corruption? I think the answer is simple. It is, first and foremost, a brutal rape of stipulated rules and regulations. It is a calculated assault on the rule of law. It is a veritable coup against due process. It is a wilful, if insidious. snapping at the binding chords that prevent a descent from society to anarchy. In one word, corruption is but just another variant of impunity.

    This is why I am astounded that there is even any debate at all as to whether Buhari’s anti-corruption war must be conducted within the bounds of the rule of law or not. There is simply no alternative. You cannot fight impunity with impunity. The rule of law exists to protect us all from the tendency of power to corrupt and absolute power to corrupt absolutely. Let no mistake be made about it. No occupant of public office, no matter how saintly or well-intentioned, can be immune from the corrosive moral effects of exercising powers without restraint.

    Impunity is not a copyright of the PDP. Even the APC must be inoculated against this virus by strict adherence to constitutionalism and the rule of law whatever the circumstances. Thus, the boundaries of separation of powers must be respected. Court orders must be obeyed and the integrity of the courts protected. Nobody, no matter how much you hate his face, can be pronounced guilty in the media without following the due process of law no matter how laborious. Impunity is the common factor that binds the thieving public official, the Boko Haram terrorist, the armed robber and the elected office holder who defies court orders in one sinister brotherhood of evil.

    Yes, ‘Dasukigate’ involves the criminal diversion of $2.1 billion of funds meant for the purchase of arms for our military into private pockets purportedly for political purposes. But then, ‘Kogigate’ involves the felonious conversion of votes from the duly elected AbubakarAudu/James Falake ticket to the illegal Yahaya Bello sole candidacy, which is completely unknown to the constitution. Yes, ‘Dasukigate’ involves the stealing of humongous amounts of money. But ‘Kogigate’ involves the stealing of an entire state! Pray, which of these atrocious crimes is better? No sir, one form of impunity is not better than another.

    In ‘Ekitigate’, leading PDP politicians are accused of illegally colluding with security agencies to manipulate the 2014 governorship election that brought the feisty Ayo Fayose to power. But in ‘Kogigate’, can leading APC politicians swear that they did not collude with INEC officials to contrive a so-called inconclusive election that enabled them to foist a candidate of their choice on the state against all rhyme and reason? So it is only when PDP elements pervert state institutions that it is a crime? I tire o!

    There are two emerging trends in the APC administration that I find worrisome. First, is the creeping cheap campaign of blackmail against journalists and media houses who question the administration’s methods in prosecuting its war against corruption. Columnists are routinely described as ‘hack writers’ or agents of corruption fighting back. This is unwarranted. The administration must not cultivate the image of intolerance. The intelligent, experienced and resourceful Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has a duty to guide the administration on a better path in this regard. Incidentally, the minister is highly regarded in media circles.

    Secondly, is the frequency with which the integrity of judicial officers is being attacked without the slightest scintilla of proof as being cogs in the wheel of the anti-corruption war. It is my view that if any judicial officer is alleged to have engaged in corrupt practices or abused his or her office in any way, such a person should be reported to the anti-corruption agencies which can investigate and prosecute in accordance with the law. But nobody should expect court judgements to be based on public opinion or media reports. Otherwise, we could as well abolish the courts and set up popular tribunals to summarily execute anybody accused of corruption in the media.

     

    Neither Ayo Fayose nor Temitope Aluko

    In the simmering controversy over the alleged rigging of the 2014 Ekiti State governorship election, popularly christened ‘Ekitigate’, I vote neither for Governor Ayo Fayose nor Dr Temitope Aluko, ex-Ekiti State Secretary of the PDP. Both men have no scruples. They lack character even though Fayose appears the more decent. Aluko testified before the Ekiti State Election Petition Tribunal that the election was free and fair. Now, he is singing a different tune because he says Fayose demurred on his earlier promise to make him Chief of Staff. There is absolutely nothing new that Aluko said which was not already in the public domain. Yes, money was voted for the elections. But which elections are fought without money? Yes, Security was illegally deployed to intimidate APC leaders and members. But does that explain Fayose’s victory in all Local Government Areas of the state including that of the incumbent governor? Does that explain why there was not a whimper of protest anywhere in Ekiti State at such alleged massive rigging? How did the PDP, despite Hurricane Buhari, convincingly win the 2015 Presidential, National Assembly and House of Assembly Seats in Ekiti? The Ekiti APC should simply stop chasing shadows, look inwards and begin rebuilding itself for the future.

  • Kogi and history

    Kogi and history

    History is irrepressible. She is impossible to cage. Bury history a million times. She springs back to life each time ever more vibrant and resilient. With the collapse of communism in the late 1980s, Eurocentric intellectuals like the brilliant political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, in his book, ‘The End of History and the Last Man’ imperiously pronounced the end of history. History laughed derisorily at such palpable ignorance. She has since resurrected with a fury in the form of civilizational, culture and religious clashes, particularly the horrendous spectre of extreme Islamic terrorism, that have since replaced the comparatively tamer and far saner super-power ideological clashes of the cold war years.

    For inexplicable reasons, the mysterious masters of the Nigerian universe decided to banish history from primary and secondary school curricula in the country. Were they afraid of their own shadows? Was this a subliminal fear of the power of history to record their atrocities in indelible ink on the unalterable pages of time for the perusal and contemplation of generations yet unborn? No matter. History like the genie last Friday, January 15, escaped from the bottle and has been on rampage. That day marked the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Nigeria’s political space by Professor Samuel Finer’s fabled ‘men on horseback’ signalling the loss of the country’s political innocence.

    Barred from schools, history erupted in beer parlours, pepper soup joints, newsrooms, board rooms, commercial buses, newspaper vendor stands and sundry other places. Many columnists and analysts lampooned the hot headed masterminds of the January 15, 1966 coup – Majors Kaduna Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, D. Okafor, C.I. Anuforo and Wale Ademoyega. They have been variously described pejoratively as unrealistically idealistic and naïve. Some deride them as simplistic. Others assail them as inept in the execution of the coup. Some excoriate the seeming bloodthirstiness that saw the savage slaughtering of key political and military leaders principally from the North and the West. They have been blamed for rupturing the country’s democracy and setting the stage for the country’s descent to anarchy and civil war.

    I think this is entirely wrong- headed. What happened on January 15, 1966, was only the whirlwind. Those who sowed the wind were the rabidly anti-democratic elements that raped the country’s constitution with impunity, violated the rule of law and enthroned a reign of impunity. Yes, democracy in the first republic was buried on January 15, 1966. However, it had died much earlier. The first republic and constitutional rule were effectively guillotined on May 29, 1962, when the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) coalition government at the centre unwarrantedly and illegally declared a state of emergency in Western Nigeria and effectively took over the Action Group (AG)-controlled government of the region. This was in reality the first coup in the history of Nigeria executed, ironically, by civilians who were apparently following the due process of law to perpetrate blatant illegalities.

    Capitalising on the intra- party crisis within the Action Group, the leaders of the NPC and NCNC in collaboration with the treacherous Premier of the Western region, Chief S. Ladoke Akintola, saw it as a golden opportunity to break the hold of a supposedly rigid and stubborn Awolowo and his party in the west. It did not matter to them that Awolowo remained the hero of the masses of the west. No, Awo was not born great. He did not have greatness thrust upon him on a platter of gold. Indeed, Azikiwe and his NCNC enjoyed considerable popularity and electoral support in many parts of a liberal western Nigeria including Lagos giving the AG stiff competition in the area. It was Awolowo’s superlative performance, first as Leader of Government Business and then Premier of Western Nigeria between 1952 and 1959 that decisively changed the political tide in his favour in the region.

    The crisis between Akintola and the leader of his party, Awolowo, degenerated irreparably. Chief Bola Ige gives a vivid account of the crisis in his book, ‘People, Politics and Politicians of Nigeria (1940-1979)’. On 19 May, 1962, Akintola was charged and tried for anti-party activities by the Federal Executive Council of his party. The trial lasted six hours. At the end of the day, he tendered an apology and gave an assurance to relinquish his office if there was a recurrence. That evening, however, he quit the AG with his supporters and announced the formation of a new party – the United People’s Party (UPP). He was consequently expelled from the party.

    Satisfied that a majority of the members of the region’s House of Assembly had lost confidence in Akintola, the governor of the West, Sir Adesoji Aderemi, the Ooni of Ife, exercised his constitutional powers by removing him from office as Premier and appointing Alhaji D.S. Adegbenro as his replacement. Akintola was recalcitrant. He rejected his removal from office arguing that this could only be done by a vote of no confidence in parliament. Yet, knowing that he did not have the requisite support to survive as Premier, he refused to convene a meeting of the House.

    Alhaji Adegbenro thus convened a meeting of the House for May 29, 1962. The task before the House was simple: affirm support either for Akintola or Adegbenro as Premier. Akintola and his minority of supporters attended the sitting but with an agenda to disrupt the proceedings. They broke the mace, jumped on tables and caused pandemonium. Rather, than restore order so that the House could sit peacefully, men of the Nigeria Police, acting on the instruction of Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, shot tear gas into the chamber, dispersed members and locked up the House.

    Claiming that law and order had broken down in the region, Balewa thereafter declared a state of emergency in the West, removed the constitutional government and appointed his Minister of Health, Dr Koye Majekodunmi, as Administrator. This was despite the fact that there was peace and calm throughout the region. It was a swift and ruthless takeover of the west – the first successful coup in Nigeria. Of course, one act of impunity needs a succession of even more brazen acts of lawlessness to be sustained. In the course of time, Awolowo and his key supporters would be serving prison terms for farcical and comical allegations of treasonable felony and Akintola was back in power as Premier of the West – courtesy of his federal friends and supposed ‘conquerors’ of Yorubaland.

    Matters came to a head in 1965 when the regional elections in the West were blatantly rigged to keep Akintola and his Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP) in power at all cost despite being deeply detested by the vast majority of the people. Akintola’s deputy, Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, openly boasted that the NNDP would win the elections whether or not the people voted for them and that is exactly what happened. Of course, the proud people of the West would have none of such barefaced injustice. The region descended into anarchy.  Amazingly, when Balewa was told that the West was burning, he calmly replied that he could see no flames! That is the kind of arrogance and impunity that set the stage for the tragic events of January 15, 1966. Serve impunity diligently all your life and your pension is death!

    Recounting history just to excite and titillate is nothing but a futile exercise in intellectual masturbation. The crucial thing is to learn the appropriate lessons at the feet of erudite ‘Professor History’ so that past disasters do not mutate into even more devastating future catastrophes. On Wednesday, January 27, the tenure of the incumbent governor of Kogi State, Captain Idris Wada, expires. What should ordinarily be a smooth transition to a new democratically elected government in the state is being turned into a veritable fiasco with dire implications for our democracy by an Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with increasingly blighted professional and moral integrity since the exit of its immediate past chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega.

    The good people of Kogi State went to the polls on November 21, 2015, to elect a new governor to pilot their affairs for another four years. They cast 240,867 votes for the APC TICKET of Prince Audu Abubakar and Honourable James Abiodun Falake and 199,415 votes for the PDP TICKET of Captain Idris Wada and Architect Yomi Awoniyi. It was a decisive and CONCLUSIVE victory for the APC ticket. They won the highest number of votes and had the requisite Local Government spread as stipulated by the constitution and the Electoral Act.

    Before the results were announced, the APC candidate, Prince Abubakar Audu, died. It is precisely for unforeseen occurrences like this that presidential and governorship candidates are constitutionally mandated to have running mates. For some inexplicable reason, INEC declared the election inconclusive and on December 5, 2015, held so called ‘supplementary elections’in 91 polling units across the states.

    Curiously, on the advice of the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Abubakar Malami (SAN), an interested partisan party, INEC allowed the APC to substitute the late Audu with Alhaji Yahaya Bello who came second in the APC primaries. Unlike James Faleke, Audu’s running mate, Bello is completely alien to the election of November 21, 2015, on which the supplementary election stands. The Electoral Act, legal pundits point out, does not give room for substitution of candidates AFTER elections have been held – this can be done only before the polls.

    Bello went into the supplementary election without a running mate since Faleke openly declined to play that role contending that he should rightly be declared duly elected as governor of the state. This is another patent illegality. Unless Faleke changes his mind and accepts to be his deputy, Bello cannot come up with a constitutionally valid deputy unless further acts of impunity are perpetrated.

    As it were, Yahaya Bello has added absolutely no value to the APC in the election. Remove the 13,000 votes recorded in the supplementary election in which he participated and the result of the November 21, 2015, polls still stands clear, conclusive and inviolate. That election needs no crutches. We may need more impunity to consolidate the present impunity in Kogi. But let us be wary of impunity. It will always demand its wages in full and democracy is always the ultimate casualty.