The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

Nigeria yet to get it right

Last week, Nasiru Aliyu Dan Tsoho, Sokoto State commissioner in charge of lands, housing, survey and town planning, passed a curious and evocative judgement on the administration of former governor Aminu Tambuwal. In summary the commissioner considered the former governor unfit for leadership even at the lowest level. “Aminu Waziri Tambuwal shouldn’t have been a Local Government Chairman let alone a governor, talk less of being the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a futile ambition that consumed his time and attention,” he snorted angrily. “He was unfair to the people of Sokoto State. He ought to have left hand-over records which would guide the new government but did not…Those who want to see the true picture of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal should come to Sokoto state, we will take him or her round and also show them facts and figures, site and even sounds from the public of his disastrous eight years as governor. Whoever wants to see the footprint of the real Aminu Waziri Tambuwal should come to Sokoto State. We will take him round, even to his own hometown of Tambuwal, that he failed to keep his promise to dualize the roads within the town…So, if I say that Aminu Tambuwal took the state backwards by 20 years it’s not an overstatement.”

This column passed the same judgement on the Tambuwal governorship barely a few years into his eight years rule. It is reassuring that little by little, many analysts are beginning to turn their minds in the direction of the variables that qualify a person or politician for leadership. Mr Dan Tsoho’s summation may be scathing and coloured by the long-standing animosity between the current governor Ahmad Aliyu and his predecessor, Mr Tambuwal, to whom he was deputy for about three years before resigning in 2018, but the stridency of the commissioner’s conclusions are not diminished by the temperaments of Government House intrigues. Too little attention has been paid to the subject of succession in Nigeria, whether at the federal, state or local government level. But the matter deserves a lot of attention, and gradually, especially after the depredations of the Olusegun Obasanjo years, Nigerians may start to recognise that their fortunes are tied to their leaders. At his exit in 2007, a two-term limit he regretted bitterly, Chief Obasanjo gave the country the Umaru Yar’Adua/Goodluck Jonathan condominium. Apart from health and confidence challenges respectively, neither had demonstrated the qualities of great leadership. But they were foisted on Nigeria with disastrous consequences. Years later, in 2015, the country again bought a pig in a poke in the form of former military leader Muhammadu Buhari. The consequences were even more devastating, and would have been catastrophic had he got his wish of enthroning Ahmad Lawan, former senate president.

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Neither the federal governor nor Sokoto State is alone on the matter of botched succession politics. The crisis of development in many states, not to talk of in local governments, is connected with the quality of their leadership. Without a conscious effort to structure and systematise leadership recruitment, especially with the unhealthy reliance on the guesswork institutionalised by the constitution, national development will not only be stymied, the likelihood of total collapse may become frighteningly real. The Nigerian constitution has its limitations. It is unable, by its provisions concerning qualifications for office, to properly sift competent and incompetent candidates and leaders. Rivers State is a perfect example of the facile presumption that undergirds leadership recruitment. Apart from constitutional inadequacy, outgoing leaders must also be imbued with the sublime skill, the altruism and metaphysical depth, of determining which aspiring successor possesses great leadership skills. One of the many reasons Western countries are experiencing leadership crisis is their jaded leadership recruitment process, especially in countries where the process is not qualified by leadership training facilities and sturdy constitutional provisions and amendments.

Nigerians have heedlessly come to deplore the godfather concept as a sifting tool for mediating great leadership succession. That deploration is anchored on the fact that in many instances, both the outgoing leader and the incoming leader are incompetent in equal measure. Nevertheless, the Gordian knot must be cut. If a country or state manages to get it right by producing a sound leader with the right instincts for reproducing his kind, the crisis of development may be largely avoided. China has been able to get it right, despite running a unique one-party state that somewhat mimics democracy or replicates collegiate leadership. After Deng Xiaoping took the reins of office in 1978, China has deliberately nurtured succeeding generations of leaders, preferring not to leave the matter to chance, and ensuring that succeeding leaders were capable of producing their kind. Nigeria had the chance before 2007 to birth a great and enduring leadership recruitment process, but Chief Obasanjo, despite his unceasing rhetorical overkill, lacked the discipline and the depth to produce the next generation of great leaders. Instead, he nurtured dwarfs expected to fit into and execute his defective worldview. What ailed Chief Obasanjo in 2007 also ailed Nyesom Wike in 2023 in Rivers State. Unable to conjure the altruism he desperately needed, and not understanding the rubric of great leadership, Mr Wike reproduced a successor that has kept Nigerians truly numbed. For the foreseeable future, Rivers will remain knackered.

In short, two factors will enable Nigeria to overcome its leadership failings and developmental crisis: a scientific leadership recruitment process, and outgoing leaders with the depth and metaphysical grasp of identifying a great successor. As the United States experience is showing in its presidential campaign, a system that had for centuries managed to produce some great leaders, or at least incompetent leaders incapable of destroying constitutional and societal guardrails, even the most advanced of countries can be horrifyingly susceptible to a candidate like Donald Trump who would threaten the stability of his own country as well as trifle with the world order. So, even when a scientific or constitutional recruitment process does exist, it must be enabled by outgoing leaders with enough chutzpah to fish out a great successor and help him get elected. Great leaders also often possess the right instincts. German war hero and Chancellor Paul von Hindenburg doubted the bona fides of Adolf Hitler and was for a brief moment chary of the risks of asking him to form the government after the 1933 elections, but he overruled his doubts and endorsed him, with catastrophic consequences.

Catherine the Great of Russia (1762-1796) also doubted the competence of her son, Emperor Paul I (1796-1801) who was described as ‘idealistic, mercurial and vindictive’, and wanted him disinherited in favour of her grandson Alexander I (1801-1825), but she died of stroke before she could get her wish entrenched. As proof that Catherine’s instincts were sound, one of Emperor Paul’s teachers thought his student ‘was always in a hurry, acting and speaking without reflection’. Indeed, shortly after Emperor Paul I took the throne, he confirmed what many observers thought of him, and was soon assassinated. The doubts that assailed Catherine were akin to the suspicions that wracked the mind of the Ottoman Emperor Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566) regarding the leadership qualities of his potential successors. Together with his wife, they plotted to get rid of their children who were thought unfit for the throne, apart from small pox killing another potential successor. Even then, the presumptive heir, Selim II, believed to be far better than the other candidates, fared only partially better in the end. The empire only lasted for more than 300 years because of Emperor Suleyman’s stupendous work of empire building.

Last month, Defence minister, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, asked Nigerians to take their regnant political culture as an infallible given. There was no room for secession, he said curtly. But this is a political system without a definitive worldview or paradigm, a system superficially inspired by the letter of the deeply philosophical constitution of the United States without being affected by the spirit of that great constitution. The National Assembly is engaged in reviewing the constitution, but there are no indications they can burrow deep into its philosophical core to get gold, nor if they get there, appreciate its pertinent provisions and nuances. What is indisputable is that neither the Nigerian constitution nor the Nigerian political culture guarantees the right political recruitment culture. Without a philosophy to guide both national life and leadership or even a great recruitment process, where will the right successors be found, and if found, what constitution and idea would they implement?

Nigeria’s leadership crisis goes beyond looking warily in the direction of the opposition, for even here, only two aspirants come to mind in recent months: ex-vice president Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi. Unfortunately, both display contempt for the judiciary, have little understanding of what opposition politics entails, are destitute of any form of nobility, are obsessed with office, and have shown no inclination for visionary undertakings of any kind. Resolving the country’s leadership conundrum will, therefore, be a herculean task, let alone tackling the country’s myriad economic crises. And if, along the way, a great leader happens to Nigeria, there is no structure in place, in the midst of bitter ethnic and religious recriminations, to guide future leadership selections, either by way of constitutional changes or by dint of political culture.

November 3, 2024
LGs in more trouble than Nigerians think

Of all the local government elections held so far, none has recorded a close contest between leading political parties, whether the poll was a two-horse race, as is common in the country, or a three-horse race where a fringe party has managed to barge itself into the ‘dinner’ party. In most cases, the victorious parties, usually the ruling parties, have made a clean sweep of the polls, regardless of how ‘progressive’ the governors are thought to be or whether the 2023 National Assembly polls were keenly contested with very narrow margins and outcomes. All that is needed for a clean sweep is for a party to produce the governor of the state.

Yet, the philosophy behind the federal government’s laborious effort to secure financial autonomy – not administrative autonomy – for the LGs was to introduce accountability, efficiency, development and innovation at the grassroots level. State governments had consistently stifled the LGs, the so-called third tier, and reduced them to beggars. Arguing that the LGs were often irresponsible or incompetent, the states had defied the constitution and taken over everything about the councils, leaving them no elbow room to prove themselves in governance. In fact, in most states until the Supreme Court waded in last July, local government elections had not been held for years. And when the Supreme Court gave judgement in favour of freeing the finances of the LGs, the states ungraciously began to look for ways of sabotaging the freedom. Their reaction was predictable.

This column warned immediately after the judgement that given the disposition of the states, particularly governors unconvinced about the societal and economic value of fairly independent LGs, it was a matter of time before they caught their breath and began to look for ways to circumvent the ruling. Shockingly, the governors were even more spontaneous than this column feared. They simply enacted the cleanest sweep of LG polls ever, without scruples, without remorse. States like Rivers and Kano where the Federal High Court had issued orders barring the elections from holding, and where the electorate were split almost 50-50, simply brushed aside the judgements and conjured a clean sweep. No courts and no constitution were big enough to hold them down.

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Since 1999, the governors have always been very influential. President Olusegun Obasanjo tried to curb their mafia-like politics, but failed. And with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, nothing they imagined was impossible to them. No other president since has succeeded in taming them. One after another, the presidents simply relented and let the governors run riot over national affairs. President Bola Tinubu tried to reach for the stars by going through the courts to clip the governors’ wings, but from all indications, he has also come to grief. The governors won’t fight him openly, but they will make nonsense of his judicial overreach. Anambra has even tested the waters by railroading through the state legislature an insolent piece of legislation to rubbish the Supreme Court ruling on the matter. Whichever way the judgement is read, and whoever gets the LGs money first, the inventive Anambra law provides that a certain undetermined percentage would be shaved off the councils’ allocations.

The Supreme Court judgement may not be dead yet, but it is in intensive care already. The judges had claimed to deploy purposive and teleological arguments to underpin and give assent to the financial autonomy the constitution meant for the LGs. It was a beautiful piece of judicial innovation and imaginativeness, a judgement highly welcomed by the populace, and a shot in the arm to revivify somnolent or dying LGs. Seething governors waited only a moment to catch their breath before launching a fierce counterattack. Knocked insensate, the federal government, Supreme Court, and tremulous LGs have been put on the back foot by the counterattacks; and so far, they have been unable to inspire a riposte. Indeed, while the Tinubu administration and allied forces were left reeling, the governors, through the National Economic Council (NEC), attempted to deal a vicious uppercut to the Tax Bill before the National Assembly. The bill has about four of five parts, almost flawless and an ingenious piece of legislation, but the governors, seizing upon the Value Added Tax (VAT) component of an otherwise great and carefully worked bill, will have none of it.

If the Fourth Republic is failing to meet expectations, the practitioners, particularly the governors, are to blame. As defective as the 1999 Constitution is, it is not so irredeemable that it cannot produce the great leap forward its overly optimistic framers dreamt. It may not rise to the philosophical height of the American original from which it was plagiarised, nor take into cognisance the cultural and political milieux on which it has been clumsily grafted, but it provides a rudimentary enough structure to help Nigeria forge ahead, not briskly, but at least gingerly.

LGs are the first and primary victims of the constitutional and administrative anomalies of the Fourth Republic. If the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which promises to monitor council expenditures and take action against infractions, will approach the conflict with the tentativeness it has handled ex-governor Yahaya Bello’s intransigence, then nothing will come out of the political and constitutional subterfuge being masterminded by the governors. Lagos State legislature is finding a controversial way to get round the state’s inchoate local council development areas; but it has mercifully tamed its latent potential for radicalism by not trying to subvert the rule of law, nor egregiously bypass the Supreme Court judgement like a few other states. But few states can really do without the local government allocations; it is a juicy extra they are loth to wean themselves off.

For now, the LGs are hanging by their toes. They are in far more trouble than anyone thought. The governors resent any whiff of independence coming from that obstreperous tier. They will fight the court’s effrontery to the bitter end. Whether they will get away with it or not is unclear, and whether the federal government will rally to take the battle to the governors is also not certain. But instead of the judicial and political rigmarole being deployed to solve a rather simple problem made complex by a unitary constitution pretending to be federalist, economic federalism in which states and LGs independently generate their own revenue would be the smartest and lasting solution to obliterate any clamour for monthly allocations.

November 3, 2024
Badaru and the secessionist scarecrow

After many months of inscrutable silence as Defence minister, Mohammed Abubakar Badaru has stirred the hornets’ nest by his peremptory decree against secessionist movements. “The Federal Government will not entertain (such) demand capable of causing division and disaffection among Nigerians,” he bellowed. “Therefore, living together is not an option but an obligation. This is evident in Mr President’s firm resolve to fight any secessionist agenda in any part of the country.” It is understandable why every president seems dead set against balkanisation, for none of them wants to be seen, in the mould of Mikhail Gorbachev of the former Soviet Union, as the last president or ruler of a united Nigeria. But to denounce self-determination as giddily as Mr Badaru has done and offhandedly characterise every call for secession as evil is to sweep the problem under the carpet.

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It is good that the minister has just woken up and is now stirring himself to his duties, but he needs to bridle his tongue and put his best foot forward. On the surface, there is nothing wrong advocating unity, but it is unclear whether this can be done by fiat or by suffusing it with propaganda. Without a workable political structure anchored on federalism agreed to by the people, and without a sound economic structure that enables the federating units to develop at their own pace, it is hard to convince them that staying together is an obligation. No, for now, whether the government likes to hear it or not, and irrespective of the instruments of coercion at its disposal, staying together is in fact optional. Until the government can inspire a solution to the national question and make unity attractive, it is insulting and uninformed to describe living together as an obligation.

October 27, 2024
Military and Nigeria’s coup advocates

No one has thought it proper to determine how old the videos were, but last week, the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) reacted to a viral video of some protesters calling for a military overthrow of Nigeria’s elected governments. The protesters had said: “We want the army to take over Nigeria. We want the military to take over Nigeria.” In some of the videos, commentators who appeared pleased with the video even looked forward to a January/February 2025 date for the coup. It mattered little to the commentators that the protesters were so ignorant that they confusedly used the army and military interchangeably. The protesters hinged their anger on the twin policies of fuel subsidy removal and naira floatation, which they blamed for Nigeria’s socio-economic malaise. Neither the commentators nor the protesters indicated whether they hoped elected state and local government officials should be spared, or whether President Bola Tinubu was their primary target.

What is certain is that there has been no closure to the last elections, particularly the presidential poll. Nor, from all indications, will there ever be a closure. Many analysts, and perhaps, too, the Tinubu administration, are now looking beyond the issue of closure. They are forging ahead despite all misgivings and policy hiccups. Indeed, in recent weeks, administration spokesmen have begun to ignore the campaign for a forcible overthrow of the government. They know a thing or two about the enormous complications that would bring, and appear certain that Nigeria has moved beyond the tactics of the 1960s, 1980s and 1990s. They leave the job of dealing with treason and insurrection to the relevant security agencies. But rather than just warning protesters to mind their language, the DHQ has appropriately called on the relevant security agencies to take action on the coup advocates. The DHQ may have the Department of State Service (DSS) and the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) in mind.

Two things, however, mitigate the DHQ request to get the generally reactive law enforcement agencies to act against the coup advocates. One, as the last three major protests that convulsed the country in the past few years show, Nigeria has an appalling track record of prosecuting protesters and offenders who go beyond their constitutional freedom of protesting against unwanted or unpopular policies. During the massive 2020 EndSARS protests, violence was visited upon public infrastructure on a scale seldom seen, and deaths, complete with video evidence, were recorded. Prosecution was not only few, it was slow, desultory and prolonged. The August 2024 protests, though violent in many states, also attracted the same lethargic official response. Worse, incitement, manipulation and twisted accounts of the protests, including the promotion of deliberate falsehoods about casualty figures, have neither been sanctioned nor even deprecated.

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Two, law enforcement agencies have little appetite to diligently track or investigate destabilising acts, let alone serious offences like treason. And with a justice system generally but perhaps indirectly complicit in perverting the cause of justice, it is unsurprising that offenders, many of them repeat and even career offenders, get away with murder. Unwilling to be described as intolerant or dictatorial, the government also shies away from firmly applying the law. It is thus browbeaten by civil society organisations, the media, and opposition figures who all appeal to the international community, chorusing what they allege are the administration’s deplorable human rights records. Shortly after the 2023 elections, some protesters, undoubtedly instigated by vested interests, advocated for a military takeover even without alleging polling irregularities. Since the government of the day failed to act on the treasonable campaign, other protesters, particularly last August, again called for a coup, this time flying foreign flags. It was obvious some powerful individuals were behind the plot. The call for a military takeover is unlikely to stop anytime soon.

The DHQ appears to have had enough. But what of the DSS and the Police which are directly mandated by law to deal with such outrage? Could they by any chance see the calls for coup as exercising free speech, unsure whether the constitution permits advocacy for its own overthrow? It remains to be seen whether the two law enforcement agencies will take up the gauntlet, damn the consequences, and do their job. History indicates they might again pull their punches, but until they act in support of the constitution, even in the defence of an unpopular government, they may be disposing the entire country to instability. The constitution has provisions for the sacking of an unpopular government. Adopting extra-constitutional measures to achieve desired political ends may prove dangerous and its consequences irreversible. The country must be disciplined enough to allow constitutional provisions work, regardless of the enormity of the economic challenges, if protesters and their puppeteers are not to expose the country to violent and unmanageable outcomes.

It is difficult to understand why any Nigerian would campaign for a coup d’etat, given decades of inept, violent and dictatorial military rule, and regardless of the enormous progress made in many states. It is a reflection of the shallowness of Nigeria’s democratic rule and experience that at the first hint of a major economic crisis, protesters are calling for the abortion of civil rule. The freedom they are exercising today which enables them to call for the overthrow of the constitution will be the first casualty under military rule. Assuming they can guarantee that a forcible change of government would not careen out of control, it is almost impossible to predict who would be consumed by the forcible change. It is also a sign of massive ignorance, if not illiteracy, that so many Nigerians still fail to appreciate the enormity of Nigeria’s economic crisis, its origins, and the difficult panaceas needed to retool the system. Coup is the easy, shortsighted and impracticable way to redeem years of profligacy, indulgence, and misshapen economic and political structures. It is time the law enforcement agencies, as the DHQ has said, made coup advocacy unattractive.

Twenty-five years of practicing democracy, despite many imperfections and counterproductive cultural infusions, should have dampened any unhealthy fascination with coups. That it has not, and the even more worrisome fact that the call finds glib expression among the cognoscenti, should bother everyone. Yet, there are no indications that the fascination with destroying democracy is limited to a younger generation which had no recollection of the far-reaching evils military rule brought upon the country, including a civil war. Much more tragic is the fact that a few former Nigerian leaders appear to hint that there could indeed be justifications for a military takeover. This worrying dimension to the country’s economic crisis, which is being ventilated in the call for coup, indicates the lack of depth of those former leaders as well as the massive ignorance that permeates the younger generation.

It is hard to understand why about twenty-eight turbulent, bloody, and corruption-ridden years under the military should not be enough to dissuade the cheap talk about a military coup because of barely two years of hardship and economic turmoil. The coup call is not altruism. It is clearly an insane and sinister political agenda by a few individuals exploiting the gullibility and sufferings of Nigerians. Many countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, India and many others, did not seize upon the excuse of years of great economic depression, societal chaos, and deepening fissures and alienation to call for the overthrow of their constitution. The reason this tragic campaign has lasted for months in Nigeria is simply because the government has been lax in prosecuting those who advocate military coup. Hopefully, the relevant agencies will heed the DHQ call and take the necessary steps to rein in the madness. No sensible person who has lived under military rule by soldiers not trained to govern complex societies will advocate a military takeover. Except of course he is a glutton for punishment or he has lost his mind.

October 27, 2024
Lessons from the cabinet reshuffle

Finally, after months of hesitation, President Bola Tinubu has reshuffled his cabinet. Five ministers are out, and seven, including two unfilled ministerial positions by Plateau and Cross River, are in. The reshuffle gratifies the ‘bloodfest’ some Nigerians have come to expect, the restless yearning for brutal change of personnel. Quantitatively, there has been little change from the previous cabinet: there are still nearly as many ministers as there were before the change. Indeed, with the Livestock ministry added, a fact interpreted as a placatory gesture towards the North, analysts appear convinced that cost cutting was not part of the agenda for the reshuffle. And with the scrapping of the Niger Delta ministry, the oil rivers are likely to become more incensed despite the argument that the development aspiration of the region would assume better and more rational management.

To a vast majority of Nigerians, the reshuffle was not far-reaching enough, notwithstanding the morbid excitement it elicited. They had expected a quantitative reduction in the number of ministries, in tandem with a reduction in the number of ministers and ministers of state. President Tinubu’s puristic approach to governance, which has seen him elevate efficiency and projected and calculated results above public perceptions and emotions, may continue to be controversial. He may in fact continue to be constrained by the political exigencies of appointing and keeping as many ministers as will satisfy his political base, while avoiding the ghastly cuts capable of alienating the powerful interests that propelled his election and might still drive it in the next two years should he indicate interest in a second term. Quite clearly, the kind of cuts analysts suggest are a rarity in any president’s first term, not to talk of a government yet to clock two years in office.

There are suggestions President Tinubu has an unwieldy cabinet at a time of scarcity and economic adversity. The only way to respond to such concerns, however, will be if the cabinet somehow manages to drive the most incredible feat of economic growth rarely seen in these parts. The president appears convinced that he now has in place a ministerial council that can deliver on his promise for a better life for Nigerians. He seems sure that in the months ahead, his administration will spur growth on a level that would see the economy raising productivity, reining in inflation, strengthening and stabilising the naira, and substantially reducing insecurity. It is unlikely Nigeria will return to its previous culture of largesse and entitlement, where freeloaders needlessly burden the system and compromise the wellbeing of future generations, but it will take a lot of convincing to sensitise the public against reliving the folly of the past.

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Whether the president likes it or not, the public perception about his reshuffle has not been ecstatic. He is to blame. Months into his administration, and apart from the initial bloating of the cabinet, it was clear he had burdened himself with a few ministerial misfits. Prompt remedial action to restore sanity would have obviated the need for last week’s ‘bloodfest’. Constant tinkering and substitutions are often necessary to renew and strengthen an administration. The president, however, waited until calls grew louder for a reshuffle. And by publicly emplacing a system that monitors and rates his cabinet members, it was unavoidable that speculations would be rife about impending movements in the cabinet. Since cabinet reshuffle has over the decades assumed a larger-than-life status in Nigeria, with many people looking forward to it, whether it makes sense or not, it is incumbent on the president to diminish its influence and role in governance.

President Tinubu has made a noteworthy attempt to restructure his administration. It is the right thing to do, for his previous cabinet did not quite give the impression that it was scientifically constituted to achieve great purposes beyond satisfying the political interests which enabled his election. The establishment of Regional Development ministry is probably the most impactful of the changes, with the minister formerly heading the Niger Delta ministry assigned that new omnibus portfolio. How the Niger Delta people misread the enlargement of this ministry is hard to fathom. All six regional development commissions are now grouped under one heading, obviously for administrative and efficiency reasons.

Cabinet reshuffle has become an entrenched culture. President Tinubu should, however, make it fairly routine, for no matter what he does with his cabinet, the public will either think the reshuffle has not gone far enough or gone too far. It is important to minimise expectations from a reshuffle because it is not a magic bullet to fix all administrative weaknesses or create utopia. Sometimes, as the confused reactions from the public often suggest, reshuffles even compound the crisis of governance. Nevertheless, the president now has a cabinet he appears to have some confidence in, and despite initial misgivings, he has managed to communicate his enthusiasm to many Nigerians. Let him run with it, for now, there will be no excuses, at least not in the next two years. But if he must reshuffle, future changes need to be undertaken fairly unobtrusively.

October 27, 2024
Soludo’s LG subterfuge

Anambra State governor Chukwuma Soludo last Tuesday signed into law the contrapuntal Anambra Local Government Administration Bill 2024. He rests his assent on Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution, insisting that it complements or ‘operationalises’ rather than undermines the Supreme Court judgement on local government financial autonomy. Last July the top court had severed the LGs finances from the state’s umbilical cord. But judging by the prevarications of Prof. Soludo, the LGs could not be trusted with full autonomy. It is not clear where he read that the Supreme Court ordered the full autonomy of the LGs.

In the Anambra LG law, the joint state and LG account bypassed by the Supreme Court in granting financial autonomy to the local governments has been reinstated in Sections 13 and 14 of the new law, and deductions of a certain percentage in favour of the state is also authorised. It is a complete return to status quo. How Prof. Soludo creatively interpreted the defiant Anambra LG law to be complementary to the Supreme Court judgement is hard to understand. However, the Anambra LGs are unlikely to challenge their re-enslavement. They are as impotent as the House of Assembly which railroaded the bill into law in a matter of days.

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Prof. Soludo also hinges his action on sustaining the financial sanity he had managed to reintroduce into LG finances. If states could not be trusted over the years to maintain integrity in handling their joint accounts with LGs as provided for in the constitution, why do governors expect LGs to operate above suspicion? The Anambra LG law does not indicate the percentage to be deducted, and just in case in the future the state receives the allocation on behalf of the LGs, the undetermined percentage would be deducted at source. This amounts to a contemptuous dismissal of the court judgement.

Prof. Soludo has drawn a line in the sand with his subterfuge, and dares any LG to cross it. If half of Anambra LGs had been won by opposition parties, would he be as eager to challenge the Supreme Court judgement? And if instead of the abominable revenue allocations from the centre the LGs had generated their own revenue, would the governor impound their money? The Anambra governor is seen as one of the promising faces of democracy, but like his fellow governors, he is squabbling needlessly over free LG revenue rather than agitating for truly beneficial and lasting financial federalism. Clearly the emancipation of LGs is still a long way off, particularly in the face of the continuing controversy over how many tiers of government should actually federate in Nigeria.

October 20, 2024
PDP crisis comes to a head

By now, after another foiled plot to unseat Acting Chairman Umar Iliya Damagum, the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) must be sick and tired of its fratricidal war. Ambassador Damagum is former Rivers governor Nyesom Wike’s ally, in fact his point man in the party, his main battering ram. Mr Wike himself must be having nightmares over the party’s relentless battles and plots mostly targeted at him and his allies. He may already be keenly aware that his perspective in the party has become jaded and untenable. Nevertheless, he obviously wants the ambassador to remain as national chairman until the end of next year in order to help checkmate the presidential ambition of former vice president Atiku Abubakar. He also wants to be acknowledged as one of the party’s main influencers, while hoping that most of the PDP governors would appreciate and probably be sympathetic to his point of view.

Both Alhaji Atiku and Mr Wike are at the centre of the PDP crisis. Others, including PDP governors, Board of Trustees (BoT) members, and party leaders and executives, are a supporting cast. Given how the political dynamics in the party is playing out, the former vice president may seem to party elders to be the lesser of the two evils. He may exhibit poor judgement and his calculations remain almost permanently off-key, but party stakeholders probably consider him dangerous only when presidential politics come into view. Way before election, he is mostly absent or detached, while he is also never too keen on the contentious process of building or rebuilding structures, preferring to reap where he did not sow. He will not be too fussy about what the governors do or say, and will seldom take umbrage when they taunt his position or when they go at each other’s throats. More, he is not averse to alliances, and will as soon sell the party down the river as pulverise dissenting party leaders not awed by his wealth or smitten by his controversial reputation. Once presidential election politics begin, however, he will end his hibernation, shake the party up, demolish and dilute alliances and platforms, and hope that approximately one year of active and frenzied campaign can yield him the great prize. Indeed, his unwillingness to breathe down the necks of the governors makes him more tolerable than his fearsome rival.

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Mr Wike is a tectonic force in the party. The party needed him years ago at its lowest point, and he stepped in, manned the ramparts, nursed the orphan back to health, showered her with love and attention as she grew in stature and comeliness, and finally thought of having her all to himself. It was, therefore, galling to him that someone else sauntered in before the presidential poll, plied her and her uncles and nephews with money and gifts, and tried to elope with her. The party was for a time naturally divided between Mr Wike’s politics of entitlement and Alhaji Atiku’s fecklessness and betrayal. For more than a year, the party was in a quandary, wondering how to respond to the former vice president’s amoral politics and the former Rivers governor’s sense of entitlement. They were indebted to Mr Wike, and had no illusion about Alhaji Atiku’s realpolitik, but they were also torn between repaying the kindness and constancy of the former and standing up to the exploitation, self-centredness and short-termism of the latter.

What has worsened their dilemma is the increasing untenability of Mr Wike’s position. He is a federal minister under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, he was also instrumental to President Bola Tinubu’s electoral victory, but he has intensified his fight to retain the Rivers State PDP structure. The party naturally wonders what he needs the structure for: to deny Alhaji Atiku the Rivers vote again should the former vice president clinch the presidential primary, or lend it once again to the APC? Either would be counterproductive to the PDP, party elders reasoned. So, reluctantly, they have also begun to fight Mr Wike and his proxies, and have uncharacteristically started to support Rivers governor Siminalayi Fubara notwithstanding his appalling and amateurish politics. It is unclear too whether Mr Wike is not baffled by his own politics, by the choices he has made, and by the cruel and unforgiving options facing him from which he must chose sooner rather than later. He has been a revelation as minister, and is probably the best performer in the Tinubu cabinet. A practical man rather than an ideologue, he has won the president’s confidence by his unshakeable loyalty, far better than most APC ideologues, and has shown his dependability as a fighter and armour bearer. His politics in Rivers, not to say his judgement regarding the selection of his successor, might have been gross and outlandish, but he remains charismatic and a force to reckon with. Yet, there is a limit to how even a genius can manage politics riddled with contradictions.

In many ways, the crisis in the PDP has come to a head. Mr Wike and his group, including the party’s acting chairman, now know where they stand. The PDP governors are also beginning to show their hands, indicating that they may be closer than ever to taking the bull by the horns, especially seeing that some of them harbour presidential ambitions. Alhaji Atiku is also beginning to be frantic, and has come out clearly to side with Mr Fubara, regardless of the abysmal politics of the governor. In fact, he has not forgiven Mr Wike for costing him the presidency, a blow he is adamant on avenging with his characteristic brutishness. Somnolent PDP elders who waited to see which way the cat jumps now appear sure, and are thus more eager than anyone to damn the consequences. They are tired of being beholden to Mr Wike and they want Amabassador Damagum out. They want their party back, though they may not be clear how to fund and sustain it. In short, all parties to the PDP crisis are readying themselves for a final showdown from which they may either emerge stronger or weaker. Given their current mood, they don’t seem to mind any outcome whatsoever. For them, it is anything but the inertia and indecision that had plagued them for years.

October 20, 2024
NNPP will not be outdone

No one thinks that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) state chapters are free of bickering and rancour. If the rancour appears subdued, or if party elders still command respect and exert tremendous influence on quarrelsome rank and file, it is because the party controls the national levers of power and distributes patronage. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), and the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) are not so lucky. Since they lost the presidential election last year, both the PDP and LP have been at once strident in opposition and wracked by guilt and rage. Last week, this column explored the tangential issue of electoral cooperation between the NNPP and LP, wondering why instead of tackling their identity crises and internal conflict, they chose to focus on the more ambitious project of taking the presidency in 2027. The PDP, as nearly everyone knows, had lain in crisis since 2015. It is now the turn of the two other opposition parties to confront their fates.

While the cancer gnawing at the liver of the PDP has festered for nearly a decade, some three weeks ago, the tremor coursing through the body politic of the LP assumed monumental dimension. Now, the NNPP, an otherwise fringe party controlling only Kano State, will not be outdone. Party leaders, led by the pugnacious and vengeful Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, have managed against the run of play to furnish themselves not only an internal crisis but also a war. No party has a monopoly of internal crisis, not even the APC, let alone the naturally fractious PDP, but the NNPP is determined not to be a laggard. The Young Turks in the party, though still scheming in the shadows, and working in concert with a smattering of old and calloused hands, have signaled the start of a rebellion. Their goal is to either dissipate the influence of Dr Kwankwaso or overthrow his suzerainty altogether. They feel his overbearing presence too constraining, and his diktats, not to say his malice, bilious and anachronistic. They also empathise with the ‘helpless’ Kano governor Abba Kabir Yusuf whom they are secretly nudging to extricate himself from the stranglehold of the party leader. But they do not yet have the courage to challenge their mentor in open fight. They know a thing or two about the unappeasable Dr Kwankwaso, with a few of them having at one time or the other been scorched by his fury; and they know quite well that he does not take prisoners. For now, however, they will fight him secretly, and even hide behind the thin flak jacket of the governor.

This is of course not the first time the NNPP, which was founded in 2002 by the Anambrarian Boniface Aniebonam, will be engaged in fratricidal conflict. Since its takeover by the Kwankwasiyya crowd in 2022, the party has been ill at ease. Last April, Mr Aniebonam accused Dr kwankwaso, who is now informally described as NNPP party leader, of hijacking the party, changing its logo and flag, and mutilating its constitution. But that initial fight was half-hearted and stalemated. A new chapter in the fight has now

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been opened. Unsettled by how the party leader has been riding roughshod over everyone in the party, particularly Gov Yusuf, a few party top shots reportedly schemed to throw off Dr Kwankwaso’s yoke. The alleged rebels refused to confirm the existence of any plot, but the state chairman of the party, Hashim Sulaiman Dungurawa, zeroed in on a few of the alleged masterminds and suspended them from the party ostensibly for disrespecting the party, disloyalty, and abuse of power. They are the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Abdullahi Baffa Bichi, and the Commissioner of Transportation, Muhammad Diggol.

The story of the brewing revolt in Kano is, however, not the usual kind. Sources suggest that the so-called rebellion tagged ‘Abba Tsaya da Kafarka’ meaning, Abba stand on your feet, was plotted to put an end to the dominance and dictations of Dr Kwankwaso. The suspension of the two officials has since been rescinded, and both of them have disowned the plot, but the feeling persists around the seat of power in Kano that the party leader is unsparing and megalomaniacal. The party leader himself refused to comment on the matter, especially on the suspension of the two government officials, preferring instead that all inquiries be directed to the party chairman, but no one is deceived that his reticence means absolution. The plotters may have shriveled like worms on a hot plate, but everyone knows that it is a question of time before the silent war breaks into the open. The excesses of Dr Kwankwaso will make an open confrontation certain.

Gov Yusuf is unlikely to join any rebellion now, regardless of how much Dr Kwankwaso needles him. Though it is clear to many Kanawa that the governor does not enjoy as much freedom as he would like, he would, however, continue to walk the tightrope for as long as is humanly tolerable. He has been made to inherit the party leader’s enemies, chief among whom is former governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje. But he has probably seen why his predecessor fell out with the party leader. Whether his education is complete on this issue or not, he will nevertheless be wary of fighting his benefactor openly. Two reasons will account for his restraint. Firstly, he won the Kano governorship poll by a wafer-thin margin, scoring only 52 percent controversially upheld by the Supreme Court. If he is keen on reelection, he will try his utmost to accommodate the eccentricities of his mentor and party leader.

Secondly, Kano has an unenviable history of godsons fighting with and alienating their godfathers, as exampled by the late Governor Abubakar Rimi versus the statesman and NEPU legend, Aminu Kano. The end result of that open warfare did not bode well for the former governor’s political career. Dr Kwankwaso probably exaggerates his influence and power in Kano, and by overreaching himself too many times, he may already have compromised the reverence in which he is held. But Gov Yusuf will not want to find out whether he would be undone by an open warfare with his party leader. More, seeing how the SSG and Transportation commissioner ate crow last week, no one in public office in Kano will be eager to flex his muscles anytime soon. Discretion, they say, is the better part of valour. Borno, Katsina and Niger States are some of the very few states where godfathers enthroned godsons without acrimony or subsequent interferences. Kano and Rivers States could borrow a leaf from any of those three states had godfathers Kwankwaso and Nyesom Wike been made of subtler and more nuanced stuff.

October 20, 2024
Kwankwaso-Obi flight of fancy

While Rivers State governor Siminalayi Fubara was busy fulminating against his opponents in the midst of the supremacy battle between former vice president Atiku Abubakar and FCT minister Nyesom Wike, ex-Kano State governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and ex-Anambra State governor Peter Obi were forging ahead uproariously in their anticipated political marriage of convenience. Speaking in Hausa in a video clip hosted on X (Twitter), the former Kano governor surprised Nigerians when he indicated his willingness to be Mr Obi’s running mate in the 2027 presidential poll should certain conditions be met. That possibility was briefly explored in 2023, but it was discarded as both unfeasible and farcical. Dr Kwankwaso, who was New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) presidential candidate in the last poll, is mercurial and opinionated, while Mr Obi is superficial and bigoted. It would be hard for the two points of view to meet; but given their desperation for power, they have not stopped tantalising the electorate with the prospect of a joint ticket.

It is not known why the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) felt compelled to respond to the rumour of a Kwankwaso-Obi ticket, seeing how absolutely tenuous it is, but they poured scorn on the idea and argued its unworkability. Indeed, perusing Dr Kwankwaso’s Twitter statement, and given the many direct and indirect caveats he alluded to, the idea of the two governors running on a single ticket seems terribly far-fetched. According to the former Kano governor, “I’m bigger than Peter Obi politically, I’m his elder brother, I’m a PhD holder, I performed better than him when I was a governor of my state. I’ve no problem with deputising Peter Obi, but only if certain conditions are met. We are willing to engage in discussions, provided that trust is established.” Having stacked the deck against Mr Obi, it appears non sequitur for him to offer to play a subordinate role to someone he indirectly denigrates. He did not of course indicate what conditions must be met for him to deputise Mr Obi, but two explanations emerge from his statement: either he never meant a word he said about running on a single ticket with the former Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, or he knew that his unstated conditions could never be met, with the onus for failure resting squarely on the narrow shoulders of Mr Obi.

Dr Kwankwaso of course exaggerates his worth. He may have a PhD, and is thus a little better ideologically moored than the former Anambra governor, but in terms of political size, it is hard to see the former Kano governor commanding anything more than a sizeable fraction of Kano. It is incontestable that as governor he performed better than his Anambra counterpart, especially seeing how indistinguishable and platitudinous Mr Obi was and has remained, but Dr Kwankwaso did not also leave Kano a considerably changed state than he met it, at least not on the ‘unforgettable’, howbeit illusory, scale of Caesar Augustus who “…found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble”. When the two former governors differently campaigned for the presidency in 2023, neither made any serious reference to their legacies, nor spoke grandly to visionary ideas and projects. All the things they said and did were fairly humdrum and commonplace.

By speaking to a possible joint ticket with Mr Obi, Dr Kwankwaso underscores the point everyone knows already, that an Atiku candidacy would be a tough sell in 2027, not only on account of his age and the attendant lethargy it brings, but also because of political equity. Rotational presidency may be an informal and fortuitous formula for national peace and stability, but it has seemed to serve the country fairly well as well as appeared to lower tension. Whether the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders manage to heal the fractures in their party or not, it is unlikely Alhaji Atiku will be adopted as presidential candidate by any serious party. And if he is selected, it is unlikely he will command votes on the scale he managed in 2023. Dr Kwankwaso knows this, and even suspects that the country will be in no mood to break that North-South rotational formula. He is of course himself not a principled man, and he may be fishing for a coalition that will project him into higher office, but it is hard to see the joint ticket he waffled about with Mr Obi amounting to anything.

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After regaining control of Kano, Dr Kwankwaso is predictably seeking other adventures, probably at a much higher political level than the governorship. Like Alhaji Atiku, everything about the former Kano governor is ambition and higher office, or at any rate, public office. He and his cohorts hijacked the NNPP, but they have neither turned it into an exemplar nor fine-tuned its platform or ideology to make it irresistible to the electorate. It will remain a special purpose vehicle for winning elections and maintaining relevance. Worse, he has not worked on himself. He is as truculent as he was years ago, and his ideology more amorphous than it is practical. His ad hocism and vengefulness bloomed during and after the Kano governorship campaign. And even though he is book intelligent, there is little else about him. He prides himself on his charisma, but that appeal finds fulfillment only in Kano State for reasons that should worry him. Yet he seems unaware of his many limitations, not to talk of his many illusions. Like many other politicians, he snickers at the fickleness of the electorate, believing that if the circumstances are right they could be led by the nose to vote for a ticket as implausible as the one he flirts with.

Beyond the religion and ethnic factors, the distinctly unideological Mr Obi has no other issue to campaign with. Yes, he is a perfect fault-finder and an incurable idealist, but in 2027, he will have no grounds upon which to campaign. Like Alhaji Atiku in the PDP, his identification with LP is based on exploitation, not symbiosis. He neither shares affinity with the party nor does he have sympathy for it, whether it dies or lives, whether it grows or is stunted. It is significant that Mr Obi is not any less opportunistic than either Alhaji Atiku or Dr Kwankwaso, but this inconvenient fact will not discourage him from the grand posturing and grandiloquence that hallmarked his campaigns and public life. The former Kano governor gibed at him about his unremarkable time as Anambra governor, but he doesn’t care. After all, like his university certificate, he did not use his governorship legacy to campaign in 2023, preferring to stick to the inflammable issues of ethnicity and religion. In 2027, he will still not use his eight years in Anambra to campaign given the chance to be on any presidential ticket, notwithstanding whether the LP survives its ongoing war of attrition. And having not developed the interest in improving himself beyond the frenzied and unnatural manner he is seeking friends and contacts all over the country, and lacking in intellectual and analytical depth on all counts, he will be hard put to find and sustain issues on which to anchor his campaign.

The LP foot soldiers have welcomed Dr Kwankwaso’s offer, with supporters of both politicians jousting over who between the two leaders possesses the higher market value. They are all tilting at windmills. Not only is an assessment of the two men too early, it is also unclear whether two years down the line, both of them would still possess any market value at all. They are not the best their states can produce or offer, and it is not even certain that regardless of their flaws they will have anything to recommend them.

October 13, 2024
Jonathan and Atiku on Rivers LG poll

The ongoing crisis in Rivers State is the perfect definition of imbroglio. The state’s political leaders, without exception, have managed to turn a perfectly simple political misunderstanding into a perfectly convoluted crisis. The problem is not helped by the state’s stakeholders’ lack of principles and elementary understanding of the issues they claim to be fighting over, including the democracy and the rule of law they have spoken relentlessly about. Two courts gave judgements on the local government elections before October 5 polling day, the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, and a Rivers State High Court. The Rivers government and the state electoral commission headed by a retired judge chose which one to obey and speak about, while impugning the integrity of the Abuja judge.

If the Rivers imbroglio was replicated in any other state, it would be potent enough to give them migraine. But not Rivers. Gluttons for punishment, they conducted the election while defying all rules of elections, got and announced results whose statistical details did not form part of the results declaration, swore in the ‘winners’ while deprecating them with bucolic ‘monkey proverbs’, reframed the LG election narrative as indicative of courage, and, together with their kept media, described the poll as affording the state a new beginning. The perfect miasma? Not quite. In Rivers, it does not just rain, it pours. For a state that now specialises in abusing judges and police top brass as corrupt and incompetent, it must now contend with the Court of Appeal which last week declared in a judgement that Martins Amaewhule and his 26 state lawmakers, all said to belong to former governor Nyesom Wike’s camp, constitute the legitimate legislature before whom the 2024 budget should be represented. Governor Siminalayi Fubara, who is adept at boxing himself into a corner, had the option to comply and leave bad enough alone. He has opted to appeal the judgement, hoping to save the three lawmakers he has used to legitimise all his actions. What if the Supreme Court should endorse the judgement of the lower courts, would the governor go ahead and declare a republic?

The problem with Rivers is not the Wike versus Fubara jousting. That is small matter in the hands of brave and wise elders and counselors, regardless of the famed impetuousness of the former governor and the lack of depth of the governor. The real problem with Rivers is that it is destitute of leaders, while outsiders with national recognition have simply immersed themselves in the fray by taking sides and making snide remarks and baleful statements. The Rivers Elders and Leadership Forum led by former governor Rufus Ada-George encapsulated the problem as one of courage or a lack of resolve, especially in the face of Mr Wike’s obtruding politics. “We commend Fubara for his courage and determination in standing firm and resolute in defending the interests of the people of Rivers state,” they said jauntily. In no part of their statement did they attempt to deconstruct the events convulsing the state, or even make a cursory examination of the legal principles hamstringing the state’s politics and denying it resolution.

Might some other top Nigerians have a different counsel for the increasingly hysterical Mr Wike and the apoplectic Mr Fubara? Former president Goodluck Jonathan who long ago perfected the art of fence sitting weighed in with his customary equivocation. On the day of the Rivers LG poll, he posted on X (Twitter) this considerably defanged statement: “I am calling on the National Judicial Commission (NJC) to take action that will curb the proliferation of court orders and judgements, especially those of concurrent jurisdiction giving conflicting orders. This, if not checked, will ridicule the institution of the judiciary and derail our democracy. The political situation in Rivers State mirrors our past, especially the crisis of the Old Western Region. I, therefore, warn that Rivers should not be used as crystal that will form the block that will collapse our democracy. State institutions especially the police and the judiciary and all other stakeholders must always work for public interest and promote common good such as peace, justice and equality.” Incredible? Why not. Dr Jonathan had the opportunity, as a former president, to call on some of Nigeria’s best lawyers and judges, serving or retired, to give him an impeccable opinion on what he chose to describe as conflicting judgements and on his fear about the collapse of democracy. Instead, he offered Nigerians a rudimentary opinion on the Rivers conflict, an opinion lacking in depth or breadth, an opinion coloured by the usual partisan prejudices popular with Nigerians and their media.

Dr Jonathan did not really have an exceptional political career, having been elevated far above his acumen by the capricious former president Olusegun Obasanjo. It was unsurprising that the eminent zoologist saw little in the Rivers imbroglio beyond the Wike-Fubara contest. Perhaps former vice president Atiku Abubakar would see the wood for the trees, especially having traversed politics at a much higher level than nearly everyone in the Rivers crisis. Alas, his opinion also did little to explicate the crisis or offer a thoughtful perspective. In a statement he released a day before the LG poll, he said loftily: “The local government elections in Rivers State tomorrow stand as a beacon of hope, offering renewed vigour to constitutional democracy at the very core of governance. Undoubtedly, this election resounds as a powerful affirmation of constitutionalism and the rule of law, a cause that should rally the support of all true champions of democracy. It is a call to every believer in the democratic process to stand firm in defence of the people’s right to choose their leaders freely and fairly…I commend Governor Siminalayi Fubara for his courageous leadership.” The devil is of course in the detail.

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Masked behind the beguiling rhetoric on democracy are two salient but uncomfortable issues which Alhaji Atiku simply glossed over. One, he believed the LG poll, even before it was held, affirmed constitutionalism and the rule of law. The former vice president is not worried about the dissonance between his wishes and the reality in Rivers, between the governor’s vaunted claims about the rule of law and his deliberate and consistent denunciation and usurpation of court judgements. The former vice president of course expects that by supporting Mr Fubara without recourse to caution, he could reclaim the state’s PDP structure for his next presidential race. It is evidently a ruse. Neither Alhaji Atiku nor the governor gives a damn about democracy or the rule of law. Two, the former vice president described the governor’s leadership as courageous. He naturally assumes that what the governor is providing for the state, despite the blather and scurrility, is leadership. And, courageous? Neither Alhaji Atiku nor Mr Fubara knows the meaning of the word. Superficiality and defiance do not in any way approximate courage. Watch the video of the governor’s recantation over the role of the police in the state after some hoodlums burnt a few LG headquarters. There was not an iota of courage in him, let alone leadership.

Rivers politicians may have begun jostling for control of PDP structure, while at the same time both Mr Fubara and his mentor, Mr Wike, are not only at the centre of the crisis but also lack the patience and restraint needed to put the state on an even keel. The two combatants can even be excused for defying any move towards a resolution. But to have a former president and another former vice president unable to appreciate the ideals of democracy and the rule of law is damning and bewildering. It reflects why Nigeria is in dire straits, why a small matter like the Rivers crisis brings out the worst in Nigerian leaders, why fairly straightforward economic issues addle everybody’s wit, and why political leaders in the Rivers imbroglio could not even pretend to be discomfited by the conflation of personal political gains and public altruism, and why ungifted political mentors can only produce their kind instead of producing the next generation of competent and visionary leaders.

October 13, 2024