Category: Idowu Akinlotan

Just when it seemed the whole narrative about the opposition to the July 26 coup in Niger Republic revolved around Nigeria, presidency officials as well as Cote D’Ivoire president Alassane Ouattara have tried to redirect the focus to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The point in contention is not the issue of sanctions, some of which can be quietly taken off the table if necessary, but the issue of deploying force to compel the restoration of democracy. Closely leashed to that is the dispute over the propriety and lawfulness of using force against the coupists as indicated in the first seven-day ultimatum issued by the regional body on July 30, and, after the second extraordinary summit last Thursday, putting the regional intervention force on standby. War seems to perfuse the air, and until a few days ago, Nigeria was accused of warmongering. But with more than half of Niger Republic of Hausa descent, hardly any northern Nigerian favours military intervention.

Critics may wish to give Nigeria the benefit of the doubt regarding who is behind the threat to use force to restore democracy in Niger Republic. Legally speaking, the threat is the unanimous decision of the regional body. But when the issue of defending democracy in the region first reared its head, Nigeria had enthusiastically owned the decision, perhaps because the Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, just assumed the chairmanship of ECOWAS. As time went on and the proponents of force got the blessing of the United States, France, Germany and Italy, all of which have vested economic and political interests in the Uranium-rich country, many Nigerians and critics became less assured intervention would not lead to war, perhaps intractable war. At the moment, hardly any Nigerian supports the military option, whether it is led or inspired by Nigeria or not. By putting the intervention force on standby, and with the junta in Niger Republic promptly constituting their ministerial cabinet and digging in, Nigeria will have to determine whether to join or lead ECOWAS in a war Nigerians and their legislature detest. The option facing the presidency is indeed unpleasant.

Redirecting to ECOWAS the issue of who is championing military intervention instead of Nigeria is ingenious, however, the fact is that the use of force will be led and financed principally by Nigeria and, to a lesser extent, Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire. Yet all three countries are neck-deep in economic and financial troubles, while Nigeria faces an intractable insurgency to its north. If ECOWAS is inspiring the whole intervention option, so be it. What matters is how to determine whether the regional body has sensibly considered the Niger Republic affair beyond the noble action of defending democracy, or the nobler issue of preventing the spread of military takeover in the region. There is doubt that it has; and there is even more scepticism that Nigeria has helped the regional body to rationally examine all the issues involved, not to say the global context which West Africa cannot afford to gloss over.

Publicly, the US, France and Germany have advocated peaceful resolution of the crisis anchored on the restoration of the Mohamed Bazoum presidency. Behind closed doors, however, they have given the impression they might be willing to aid the deployment of force. ECOWAS may curiously be gambling on that help. But should military and financial help come from foreign countries, ECOWAS would become a tool in the hands of the ‘occupying’ powers. Before voting for the use of force, ECOWAS clearly failed to appreciate the deeper underlying reasons triggering the turmoil in Francophone West African countries, particularly the damage years of neocolonial control of the revolting countries and the deep and merciless expropriation of their resources have caused. Cote D’Ivoire is also a victim, despite siding with the majority against Niger. Having secured their own ‘liberation’, Guinea, Mali and Burkina Faso have promised to lend a helping hand to Niger Republic. France and the US, which both have bases in Niger Republic, are desperate to sustain the status quo, especially with Russia peering in.

ECOWAS is afraid that military takeovers could spread in the region. That fear is not irrational. But their angry perspective could lead to a far worse outcome: the spread of discontent and revolution throughout the region, whether Niger Republic coup leaders are ousted or not. Not only do West Africans loath the spectre of foreign involvement and control in Niger Republic and the region as a whole, the region is facing dire economic problems. As Nigeria has shown with the Senate refusal to endorse military intervention, ECOWAS parliaments are unlikely to go along with the resolutions of their presidents formulated at the second extraordinary and Defence chiefs summits. Support for the use of force hardly exists. ECOWAS will be risking too muchto go ahead with their threat of force. Who blinks first?

Niger Republic coup leader Abdourahamane Tchiani is cleverer than ECOWAS. The coup started as a power struggle between him and President Bazoum who was about to sack him. The coup was, therefore, first and foremost preemptive. And having learnt from his fellow aggrieved Francophone neighbours, he quickly draped his coup in altruistic and nationalistic colours, suggesting to a gullible public that his coup was carried out to reclaim Niger Republic’s sovereignty and financial independence. The country’s demographics favour him. The ousted President Bazoum belongs to a tiny minority ethnic group, and had ingratiated himself with France. He was consequently left with few supporters. To worsen matters, there was nothing spectacular about his presidency. Even if ECOWAS restores him, it is hard to see how he will govern. Risking their own presidencies to shore up a hated president does not appear the wisest move by ECOWAS. Ghana has an inflation rate that is surging, Nigeria is poised on the edge of nightmarish financial crisis, and Cote D’Ivoire is facing domestic turmoil as well as economic hassles. While the goal of restoring democracy is noble, ECOWAS leaders will be risking too much to engineer an unpopular intervention they are ill-equipped to handle. Hypothetically, what happens if Nigeria, instead of Niger Republic, had come under military rule? Who would plan military intervention if Nigeria called their bluff?

Since ECOWAS, rather than Nigeria, has owned up to the controversial plan to restore democracy in Niger Republic, the regional body must be advised to study the reasons predisposing Francophone West Africa to turmoil. Those reasons will not be dissipated with just one restoration. Regional leaders need to set up a committee to suggest ways to deal with the crisis and anticipate future occurrences. They allowed emotions to get the better of them at their first extraordinary summit in Abuja on July 30, while at the same time they worded their responses and ultimatums amateurishly, almost as if the region lacked experts in such matters. They will still face bitter challenges in the future: they must, therefore, put structures and measures in place to anticipate those complexities and deal with them in light of global economic and political events. Their chairman, President Tinubu, warned Africa not to let itself experience another scramble. But that is precisely what a military intervention in Niger Republic will be exposing them to. Nigeria and ECOWAS should do far better than the desultory approach with which they have responded to the Niger Republic coup.

Read Also; Ekpa raises the alarm over Kanu’s health

Wike and others: the anonymity crisis

If the nomination of former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai is finally withdrawn, eight ex-governors will remain on President Bola Tinubu’s ministerial list. The eight have been screened and passed fit for service. Given their stature in Nigerian politics, and barring the intrigues of increasingly powerful officials in the presidency, they will probably get top ministerial portfolios. The former governors may be controversial, and would have been even much more so with Mallam el-Rufai on the list, but they have contradistinctively grown in renown, have acquired varying degrees of competence, and will doubtless add electoral, if not image, value to the administration. With the possible exception of former Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, the other governors are not naturally or instinctively given to controversy. Even Mr Wike, a former junior Education minister, manifested his preference for controversy mainly after he became governor and needed to fight to retain his independence from the stranglehold of his one-time benefactor, former governor Rotimi Amaechi.

Having eight former governors scheming their way into a ministerial list, especially when some of them either lost elections to the Senate or lost the state all together to the opposition, indicates and reinforces politicians’ age-old proclivity for continuous and unbroken stay in the limelight. They abhor anonymity, and would do anything, including groveling, to avoid that fate. Nothing seems more loathsome to them than to be retired to the shelf, especially at a fairly good age, perhaps less than 70. They are not alone in that fear of anonymity. Civil servants, military generals, judges, and ordinary and unknown retirees, dread being consigned to the shelf. Everybody wants perpetual relevance, regardless of how difficult it is to get it.

The eight or nine former governors schemed for the ministerial appointments, and are among the dozen others who unsuccessfully angled for the job. Mallam el-Rufai is waspish and controversial, but he is bright and hardworking. He has reportedly nominated a replacement. He is fortunate to have an ongoing PhD programme that will shelter him from the cruel vagaries of anonymity. It is not clear that he would not have preferred a ministerial offer, especially given the fact that he seemed to have a prior arrangement with the president to lend electoral support in return for staying behind to manage the country’s convoluted and blighted power sector. Rivers’ Mr Wike is also voluble but hardworking, gregarious, candid, and an asset to anyone or group he lends support. His presence in the cabinet will not be without controversies and incidents; but he will lend colour and substance to the administration. Ebonyi’s David Umahi is a quiet performer, though sometimes eclectic and gaffe-prone. But he is studious, foresighted, and meticulous.

All eight or nine governors are united by their loathing for the black hole in which gubernatorial stars are buried, often alive. They gambled well by supporting the Tinubu presidential bid when it mattered, when it didn’t seem safe or realistic, and are now reaping the reward of their investments, plucked from the black hole and fated to be recycled for at least another four years. The appointments will not only salve their outsized egos, they will help them maintain relevance in their states. Their luckless colleagues, even if they enthroned new governors, will now face the ordeal of placating and massaging the egos of their successors with weakened hands. They will tiptoe around their successors’ policies and programmes, and must tread carefully on the state’s political minefields. Having a federal appointment does not completely insulate a minister from the arrows of his successor or the vagaries of politics; not having that appointment can, however, be a death sentence.

For some time to come, former governors will become notable inclusions in federal cabinets. They will never stop investing in incoming administrations, and except they turn down the appointments, nothing will stop them harvesting the fruits of their labour. The bigger crisis in cabinet composition is not which former governors are deserving of inclusion, but whether in trying to balance a ministerial list and rewarding those who helped a president procure victory, a new administration will itself not be trapped in its own chicaneries. A cabal is a spontaneous offshoot of new administrations. When a cabal holds an administration in a vice-like grip, all sorts of manoeuvres and intrigues take place. A kitchen cabinet on the other hand is a tamer, more refined, and often deliberate assembly of brain trust. Unlike a cabal, it is wholly and fanatically dedicated to the success of an administration. Former governors may occupy the commanding heights of the Tinubu administration, and may even remain controversial for a little while more, but how they are deployed and what successes the government achieves will indicate whether the country is dealing with a new cabal, as the Muhammadu Buhari administration discovered on assumption of office, or a great and farsighted kitchen cabinet.

Sabre rattling in Kano

The corrosive exchange between ex-governors Rabiu Kwankwaso and Abdullahi Ganduje is unlikely to end anytime soon. The animosity is about eight years deep, and it has created a gulf between the two top Kano State politicians. Both are PhD holders, with the latter serving twice in 2003 and 2011 as the deputy governor to the former, notwithstanding a four-year interregnum. This was a significant relationship that sadly went very sour, indeed very bitter, and is now very pronounced and probably irresoluble.

Yet, it is a totally needless quarrel. Worse, it is driven on the wings of pride: pride from Dr Kwankwaso who is peeved that his subaltern could look him in the face and spit on him; and pride from Dr Ganduje that in his dealings with his former mentor, he was not going to keep abnegating his views and personality. There are of course other grave issues poisoning their relationship, some of them bordering on how Kano was governed, the absence of consultations, and the issue of godfather and godson complexes.

Months ago, Dr Ganduje feigned readiness to smack his mentor across the face had he met him within the Aso Villa premises. Dr Kwankwaso repaid the compliment with his own Kano-made threats, not to say the demolition and erasure of some of Ganduje’s signature projects, while also taking legal steps to try, disgrace and jail the former governor. It is not certain how far Dr Kwankwaso and the new ‘loyal’ governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf, will go in rubbishing the former governor who is now the chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Nor can anyone guess whether somewhere along the line the newfound love between Dr Kwankwaso and Mr Yusuf, who is also his son-in-law, will not go sour.

For now, however, the ruling party in Kano, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), has waded in with its own special delivery brickbat. In the party’s reckoning, Dr Kwankwaso is not Dr Ganduje’s mate in politics, so the former governor’s effrontery in asking his mentor to return to the APC is an affront the party would not tolerate. More acerbic exchange should be expected in the weeks and months ahead.

If the nomination of former Kaduna State governor Nasir el-Rufai is finally withdrawn, eight ex-governors will remain on President Bola Tinubu’s ministerial list. The eight have been screened and passed fit for service. Given their stature in Nigerian politics, and barring the intrigues of increasingly powerful officials in the presidency, they will probably get top ministerial portfolios. The former governors may be controversial, and would have been even much more so with Mallam el-Rufai on the list, but they have contradistinctively grown in renown, have acquired varying degrees of competence, and will doubtless add electoral, if not image, value to the administration. With the possible exception of former Rivers State governor Nyesom Wike, the other governors are not naturally or instinctively given to controversy. Even Mr Wike, a former junior Education minister, manifested his preference for controversy mainly after he became governor and needed to fight to retain his independence from the stranglehold of his one-time benefactor, former governor Rotimi Amaechi.

Having eight former governors scheming their way into a ministerial list, especially when some of them either lost elections to the Senate or lost the state all together to the opposition, indicates and reinforces politicians’ age-old proclivity for continuous and unbroken stay in the limelight. They abhor anonymity, and would do anything, including groveling, to avoid that fate. Nothing seems more loathsome to them than to be retired to the shelf, especially at a fairly good age, perhaps less than 70. They are not alone in that fear of anonymity. Civil servants, military generals, judges, and ordinary and unknown retirees, dread being consigned to the shelf. Everybody wants perpetual relevance, regardless of how difficult it is to get it.

The eight or nine former governors schemed for the ministerial appointments, and are among the dozen others who unsuccessfully angled for the job. Mallam el-Rufai is waspish and controversial, but he is bright and hardworking. He has reportedly nominated a replacement. He is fortunate to have an ongoing PhD programme that will shelter him from the cruel vagaries of anonymity. It is not clear that he would not have preferred a ministerial offer, especially given the fact that he seemed to have a prior arrangement with the president to lend electoral support in return for staying behind to manage the country’s convoluted and blighted power sector. Rivers’ Mr Wike is also voluble but hardworking, gregarious, candid, and an asset to anyone or group he lends support. His presence in the cabinet will not be without controversies and incidents; but he will lend colour and substance to the administration. Ebonyi’s David Umahi is a quiet performer, though sometimes eclectic and gaffe-prone. But he is studious, foresighted, and meticulous.

Read Also: U.S., ECOWAS warn Niger junta over ousted President

All eight or nine governors are united by their loathing for the black hole in which gubernatorial stars are buried, often alive. They gambled well by supporting the Tinubu presidential bid when it mattered, when it didn’t seem safe or realistic, and are now reaping the reward of their investments, plucked from the black hole and fated to be recycled for at least another four years. The appointments will not only salve their outsized egos, they will help them maintain relevance in their states. Their luckless colleagues, even if they enthroned new governors, will now face the ordeal of placating and massaging the egos of their successors with weakened hands. They will tiptoe around their successors’ policies and programmes, and must tread carefully on the state’s political minefields. Having a federal appointment does not completely insulate a minister from the arrows of his successor or the vagaries of politics; not having that appointment can, however, be a death sentence.

For some time to come, former governors will become notable inclusions in federal cabinets. They will never stop investing in incoming administrations, and except they turn down the appointments, nothing will stop them harvesting the fruits of their labour. The bigger crisis in cabinet composition is not which former governors are deserving of inclusion, but whether in trying to balance a ministerial list and rewarding those who helped a president procure victory, a new administration will itself not be trapped in its own chicaneries. A cabal is a spontaneous offshoot of new administrations. When a cabal holds an administration in a vice-like grip, all sorts of manoeuvres and intrigues take place. A kitchen cabinet on the other hand is a tamer, more refined, and often deliberate assembly of brain trust. Unlike a cabal, it is wholly and fanatically dedicated to the success of an administration. Former governors may occupy the commanding heights of the Tinubu administration, and may even remain controversial for a little while more, but how they are deployed and what successes the government achieves will indicate whether the country is dealing with a new cabal, as the Muhammadu Buhari administration discovered on assumption of office, or a great and farsighted kitchen cabinet.

The corrosive exchange between ex-governors Rabiu Kwankwaso and Abdullahi Ganduje is unlikely to end anytime soon. The animosity is about eight years deep, and it has created a gulf between the two top Kano State politicians. Both are PhD holders, with the latter serving twice in 2003 and 2011 as the deputy governor to the former, notwithstanding a four-year interregnum. This was a significant relationship that sadly went very sour, indeed very bitter, and is now very pronounced and probably irresoluble.

Yet, it is a totally needless quarrel. Worse, it is driven on the wings of pride: pride from Dr Kwankwaso who is peeved that his subaltern could look him in the face and spit on him; and pride from Dr Ganduje that in his dealings with his former mentor, he was not going to keep abnegating his views and personality. There are of course other grave issues poisoning their relationship, some of them bordering on how Kano was governed, the absence of consultations, and the issue of godfather and godson complexes.

Read Also; Ekpa raises the alarm over Kanu’s health

Months ago, Dr Ganduje feigned readiness to smack his mentor across the face had he met him within the Aso Villa premises. Dr Kwankwaso repaid the compliment with his own Kano-made threats, not to say the demolition and erasure of some of Ganduje’s signature projects, while also taking legal steps to try, disgrace and jail the former governor. It is not certain how far Dr Kwankwaso and the new ‘loyal’ governor, Abba Kabir Yusuf, will go in rubbishing the former governor who is now the chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Nor can anyone guess whether somewhere along the line the newfound love between Dr Kwankwaso and Mr Yusuf, who is also his son-in-law, will not go sour.

For now, however, the ruling party in Kano, the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), has waded in with its own special delivery brickbat. In the party’s reckoning, Dr Kwankwaso is not Dr Ganduje’s mate in politics, so the former governor’s effrontery in asking his mentor to return to the APC is an affront the party would not tolerate. More acerbic exchange should be expected in the weeks and months ahead.

Both the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) are constitutional bodies established under the Third Schedule Part A and Fifth Schedule Part 1 Paragraph 15 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. There is also the Code of Conduct Bureau and Code of Conduct Tribunal Act No 1 of 1989 (c) Cap. 59.  The basic objective for the establishment of the CCB is to maintain a high standard of morality in the conduct of government business. It is also to ensure that the actions and behaviour of public officers conform to the highest standards of public morality and accountability. Its functions include: (a) receiving assets declarations by public officers; (b) examining the assets declarations and ensuring that they comply with the requirements of the Act setting it up or of any law for the time being in force; (c) taking and retaining custody of such assets declarations; and (d) receiving complaints about non-compliance with or breach of the Act. Where the Bureau considers it necessary to do so, it is empowered to refer complaints to the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

Read Also: Increase funding for Code of Conduct Bureau

The Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) is the second leg of the bureaucracy of the Nigerian Assets and Liabilities Declaration framework, created to strengthen integrity in public service. It is the enforcement arm with judicial powers to sanction persons who breach the constitutional Code of Conduct. It has the exclusive powers and authority to punish breaches of the Code of Conduct Act. If both the CCB and CCT focused on the objectives for which they were established, they would, by today, have become great pillars in the fight against corruption and gone a long way towards sanitising the public service. It is doubtful if both bodies have lived up to their mandates. Indeed, little is heard of their activities except the frequent bickering among the chairmen of the two bodies and their board members that make newspapers and social media headlines.

Long before the establishment of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as anti-corruption agencies, the establishment of the CCB and CCT had ignited hope that corruption would be tackled head-on to restore faith in the system. Unfortunately, the two agencies’ journey has been marred by controversies and internal dissension. Over time, the agencies became defanged. This institutionalised weakening rendered the agencies incapable of carrying out their core mandate and has eroded public trust to unprecedented levels.

Transparency and accountability are vital pillars of any anti-corruption agency, ensuring that the public has faith in its work. Unfortunately, both the CCB and CCT have not inspired confidence. The consequences of an ineffective anti-corruption agency extend far beyond its own walls. As public trust crumbles, cynicism spreads, and the belief that fighting corruption is an unattainable goal takes root. This erosion of trust not only affects citizens’ faith in the two bodies, it is also capable of tarnishing the reputation of the entire governance system. An anti-corruption agency should operate autonomously, free from political interference, in order to fulfill its objectives effectively. However, the agencies have been distracted by political influence. Instead of being a shield against corruption, they have evoked distrust.

The experience of the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, before the CCT leaves much to be desired. It remains one of the darkest moments of abuse of judicial power in the country and the extent to which the agency rendered itself vulnerable to political control. The existence of the CCB and CCT as anti-corruption agencies that have lost their ways is a wake-up call to demand immediate action. The fight against corruption necessitates a comprehensive overhaul of the agencies’ leadership, structure, and operational mechanisms. The process should be guided by integrity, transparency, and the inclusion of independent voices to ensure effectiveness. Rebuilding public trust in them is paramount.

The weakening of an anti-corruption agency due to internal contradictions should be a grave concern. This betrayal of public trust undermines the fight against corruption and poses significant challenges to the integrity of the entire governance system. By acknowledging the extent of the problem, demanding reform, and working towards renewed integrity, society can strive to rebuild a robust and effective anti-corruption agency that truly upholds the principles of justice, accountability, and transparency. Only through collective efforts can Nigeria triumph over corruption and pave the way for a brighter future.

Russia’s fate under President Vladimir Putin was bound to come to this miserable pass. For a once mighty empire and glorious Soviet Republics, the world was stunned on June 23 watching eerily as the mercenary Wagner private military company led by Yevgeny Prigozhin marched on Moscow to prevent the dismantlement of the group and to demand the resignation of the Russian Defence minister, Sergey Shoigu. Unseating Mr Putin was probably too ambitious, especially when Mr Prigozhin himself had no coherent political motives, and no manifesto as to what to do with power if snatched. So it makes more sense that it was probably to force the Russian military to perish their plan to absorb the more than 30,000-strong mercenary group operating under the name Wagner Group, and under the company name Concord.

The march ended a fiasco, halted some 200km from Moscow, after initially showing much promise and tantalising the world, especially Ukraine, with the prospect of overthrowing the dictatorship of Mr Putin and putting an end to the unpopular and costly Russo-Ukrainian war. Western countries were wary of Wagner’s chances, and kept their fingers crossed. Russians themselves were skeptical, but probably more amused and comically relieved. But for Mr Prigozhin, his statements, dilatoriness and complicated relationship with the Putin presidency in Moscow all appeared to indicate that he did not nurse the ambition to overthrow the government. The Wagner group has helped Mr Putin and Russia fight many proxy wars and retain influence in some parts of the world. They are in Sudan helping the anti-government Rapid Support Forces of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, alias Hemedti; they are in Ukraine doing the dirty job to sate Mr Putin’s empire thirst; they are in Mali propping up the government against jihadi insurgency; they are also in Syria, have a toehold in Libya, once operated in Mozambique, could soon move to Burkina Faso, and are at the moment the backbone of the Central African Republic (CAR) government in curtailing the overreach of militants.

But on June 23, Mr Prigozhin put his hands to the plough and looked back. Many analysts fear that the embarrassed Mr Putin might go all out to destroy the charismatic but intemperate Wagner boss who is now in exile in neighbouring pro-Russia Belarus. In fact, already, Mr Putin is attempting to take over the global operations of the mercenary group by sending emissaries and reassurances to countries where Wagner is fighting wars for a fee and on behalf of Russia. But as head of Wagner, Mr Prigozhin lends Mr Putin the alibi to distance himself from the allegations of officially sponsoring mercenaries or becoming vicariously liable for the atrocities committed by Wagner. The question no one can confidently answer is how Russia hopes to run Wagner as flamboyantly and efficiently as Mr Prigozhin. In addition, who will now be held liable for the laundered money trail, the atrocities committed by the mercenaries; and given the tardiness in the Russian military, could Mr Putin hope to replicate the style of the disgraced Wagner boss?

There are too many unknowns. Undoubtedly, Mr Putin himself will be in a quandary what to do with the Wagner boss, for clearly there is no replacement. Absorbing the mercenaries into the Russian military is for now difficult, if not impracticable, and was in fact one of the reasons for the short-lived rebellion. Mr Putin funds and profits from Wagner’s foreign wars, and uses the mercenaries to retain influence in Africa and the Middle East. Fighting these wars openly, instead of through proxies like Wagner, will open Mr Putin to embarrassing scrutiny.

Mr Putin is clearly playing Russian roulette. No possible outcome is pleasant. Whether Mr Prigozhin is disposed off or not, or whether Wagner mercenaries are successfully absorbed or not, the Russian leader could lose his hold on power, if not lose his life to the bargain. Yet, there was nothing inevitable about the whole affair, for the problem of Russia, not to talk of its long-standing internal contradictions, predates Mr Putin’s ascendancy. Tsarist Russia, despite intervening triumphs and rapid economic development, was inept at defining and executing great imperial policies. They encountered great difficulties during World War I, and were on the verge of losing World War II after greedy annexations of weak neighbours, if Josef Stalin had not recovered from his disastrous domestic policies to lead the war against Germany. But despite lofty imperial ambitions, Russian leaders have not always understood or had the capacity to implement commensurate policies to undergird their ambitions. It is as if there is a permanent chink in their armour.

Read Also: Putin opposes African peace plan

At great cost, Russia won World War II on the eastern front, established Warsaw Pact, exported their brand of Marxism, trumped China, and became the countervailing force in a bipolar world to the United States and Nato. Less than 50 years later, however, the whole house of cards came down, unraveling in a humiliating way that uncannily imitated both Germany’s defeat at the end of World War I and the ascendancy of Adolf Hitler as a result of the humiliation of Germany at Versailles. In short, it took less than 50 years to discard Stalinism. Unlike China which produced brilliant leaders who expertly managed the post-Mao era, Russia was incapable of producing statesmen and profound leaders capable of managing the post-Gorbachev era. First came the considerably distracted and enervated Boris Yeltsin, and then came the shallow, pedantic and megalomaniacal Mr Putin. Unable to read correctly the contradictions that weakened the Russian empire, and incapable of summoning the depth and virtuoso needed to offer a powerful and sensible challenge to the troubled West, Mr Putin unwisely embraced nostalgia and a strict and unadulterated return to its Warsaw Pact past. With China as the third leg of what seemed like a tripod a few years back, it was startling that Mr Putin could not summon the needed imaginativeness.

Yes, Russia might have failed to modernise its conventional capability, as the Ukrainian war is showing; but what Russia really needs to challenge the West is not proof of its invincibility from clash of arms or acquisition of territories in a replica of Hitler’s lebensraum, but a sensible analysis of the continuing and ongoing unraveling of the West as exemplified by their social and economic contradictions. In the next decade or so, the West could not be defeated in a clash of arms; they will be undone partly by internal contradictions, and partly by other powers like Russia offering the world better social and political templates through the introduction of stable and visionary governing paradigms. Had Russia respected its neighbours, produced and enthroned a stable democratic culture, no matter how ingeniously homegrown like China’s, and matched these with inclusive culture of race and religion, all the while cleverly shining the torch on the West’s Achilles heel, Russia would have made a huge impression on Finland, the Baltic states, Ukraine, Russia Republics, and Georgia, particularly the disputed Abkhazia and South Ossetia. There would have been less inclination for these neighbours to think or look West, and there would probably have been no annexation of Crimea, no war with Ukraine or Georgia, or the manipulation of Belarus.

It is a peculiarly Russian tragedy that at this critical juncture, the country has the shallow Mr Putin at its head. There are indications he might not last in power, having been demystified by Mr Prigozhin and the Wagner group. But it is useless putting a timeline on issues like regime survivability. How many people correctly predicted the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact anyway? China may be taking notes already and having a second look at its conventional warfare capability. But as world history shows through the lens of the European wars, global power dynamics are so fluid and uncertain that no nation can afford to rely only on hard or even soft power to project its dominance. Mr Putin may be learning that lesson the hard way.

Aregbesola fights back in Osun

After his rhetorical misadventure in Osun State before the July 2022 governorship election, former Internal Affairs minister and ex-governor of the state, Rauf Aregbesola, has found his voice and begun to fight back to regain the dominance he enjoyed in the state in his years as governor. He wishes to rule the roost in Osun, secure the state as his political base, especially having been displaced from his perch in Alimosho local government of Lagos State. The fight takes on added significance since he is now no longer a minister of the Federal Republic, nor does he have any other position or significant status and qualification to keep him in the limelight. He enjoys some renown in the estimation of the state’s governor, Ademola Adeleke, whom he covertly aided to win the governorship poll, probably on account of the war of attrition he conducted against the immediate past governor of the state, Gboyega Oyetola. But there is little else left of his former prominence.

Mr Aregbesola deploys two or three strategies to recover lost ground. The first measure was his inexpiable tactic of dining with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) enemy to hurt his friends in the All Progressives Congress (APC) before last year’s governorship poll. His efforts were subterranean and he made it seem that his contribution to Mr Adeleke’s victory was nothing more egregious than his indifference to the APC effort to re-elect Mr Oyetola. His argument was that since he and his men had been given the cold shoulder in the APC, it was self-punishment helping the party to win. He complained that the APC in the state had spent nearly all of Mr Oyetola’s first term fighting and isolating him. Helping them to a second term would be counterproductive. What he was unprepared to answer at the time was whether he had done his calculations well in terms of whether his tactic satisfied his long-term or short-term interest.

Secondly, and this may be more philosophical than real, the former minister appears to believe that should Mr Adeleke win the governorship, his lack of depth and the manner he trifles with the grave issues of governance would make him easily beatable in four years time when Osun heads for the poll in 2026. It is incontestable that Mr Adeleke is incapable of soaring in style and governance, let alone in leadership gravitas, and would be unable to provide the kind of leadership the state desperately needs to forge ahead. But to assume that he, Mr Aregbesola, would still be relevant in four years, especially out of office, and with nothing substantial to do or hang on to, may be pushing his luck too far. Osun State has a reputation for biting its nose to spite its face; they are, therefore, unpredictable, obdurate  

and resistant to the kind of logic that corroborates electoral punditry. They humiliated the genial and frugal ex-governor Bisi Akande, and have replicated the same appalling measure against the equally frugal and parsimonious Mr Oyetola. At any election, Osun will unfrock anyone that catches their otherworldly whims.

But a third facility recommends itself to the feisty Mr Aregbesola. He and his men wish to fight their way back into the APC, yes the same APC they pilloried, subverted and denounced in terms that are unexampled even in the accommodative Southwest. The former minister is incredibly flush with optimism. How he hopes to engineer that return without supplanting those embittered by his betrayal is impossible to guess. To return to the APC after first factionalising it would mean that his faction, in due time, would overwhelm the party and take its reins. No matter how temperately he postures, and regardless of whatever promises and undertakings he gives, the disaffected APC members and leaders will not trust him. It is true that reconciliation is profitable; but so too is wisdom. The current Oyetola-led APC, as naïve and awkward as its leaders appeared and acted during the last governorship poll, is not capable of committing class and group suicide. They believe Mr Aregbesola betrayed them. The former minister’s jousting with the APC may not fully explain the July 2022 APC loss, for there is much to be condemned about the state’s electoral behavior and Mr Oyetola’s finicky accounting and lack of generosity, but the Osun APC would be loth to reward betrayal.

In a bid to reignite his waning effort to regain fame, the former minister has spoken out about some of his achievements as governor; particularly regarding his education policy which he insisted was poised to produce world-class scholars. “By the time we left in 2018, 11 state-of-the-art, 3,000-capacity model secondary schools were fully operational,” he boasted in Akure where he had gone to receive an award. “With each school graduating 1,000 students every year, and a combined output of 11,000, we should have not less than 44,000 world beaters now, if the programme had been sustained. These schools were designed to produce world beaters and the fruits were already coming out. A student from our school topped the Senior Secondary School Examination while another topped JAMB examination shortly after we left. But our successor regrettably couldn’t continue with the tempo.” One of Mr Oyetola’s advisers, Jamiu Olawumi, promptly replied that the schools had already become dilapidated, and the project itself a terrible financial blunder. Only one of the 11 schools is fit for purpose, the adviser sneered.

Mr Aregbesola’s attempt to burnish his image is unlikely to succeed. Administration is not his forte, and he is also fond of hyperbole. His leadership style is largely instinctive, regimented and meddlesome. As governor, he did not endear himself to Osun, despite imagining himself a leader after the order of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. His ideological persuasion is only skin deep, and it is common knowledge among the Osun intelligentsia that he brought the standard of administration in the state abysmally low with his unguarded experimentations. His attempt to reintegrate himself is almost certain to come to grief due to his inability to subordinate himself to party discipline, even if it would cost the APC another election. He has fashioned himself an iconoclast, as his outburst against party leaders at the national level showed before the Osun poll. It is hard for someone unamenable to discipline and order to elicit cooperation and respect. He is undoubtedly a boisterous party organiser and enforcer, but such qualities have bred in him arrogance and cocksureness that make it difficult for him to receive and respect opposing perspectives. Returning to the party, let alone leading it, especially when the same APC is the national ruling party, is unfathomable.  

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s first term was almost entirely devoted to completing and initiating impactful and gigantic projects in line with the state’s master plan. His fidelity to plan and project execution successes were significant enough to fetch him a second term, despite the acrimonious infusion and interplay of ethnic politics. Thrown into the poisonous ethnic mix were a welter of religious politics and sprinklings of Lagos-for-Lagos campaigns. Mr Sanwo-Olu won the election on the strength of his projects and other achievements, relieved that after the shocking outcome of the Lagos presidential vote, which favoured the Labour Party (LP), he did not come to electoral grief. In his first term, he had governed cautiously, wary of offending diverse interest groups, whether ethnic, religious or elite. And it did not also matter whether the groups were upcoming or established celebrities and entertainers, or the youth class to which he, by orientation, age and probably background, belongs. His approach was not quite the model by which great leadership manifests; but at least he got a second term, despite his inability to develop, manage and empower his party into a great army of believers and activists.

Now, he must abandon his wary and excessively cautious leadership style, and must provide the sublime leadership that Lagos, a beguiling smorgasbord and melting pot, really needs. The state is religiously and ethnically complex, with the rich and poor traversing the city-state cheek by jowl. The state needs a different template of governance that is deep, decisive, firm, almost brutal but yet humane, and futuristic. The last presidential and governorship polls exposed the deep fissures underlying the state’s substructure and the molten magma of social and ethnic disharmony seething below the surface. In his inauguration address, Mr Sanwo-Olu, a naturally equanimous man, did not give any indication he was aware of those seething fractures, let alone be troubled by them. Just as his response to the EndSARS protest showed, he seems more inclined to ‘heal’ divisions than grapple with them in a way that shows his awareness of looming danger.

He has a second term now. He must quit the wariness that characterised his first term and the previous Akinwumi Ambode governorship. Lagos’ problems will not be assuaged by cautious and mellifluous words and displays, considering that migration to the state has picked up in inverse proportion to the mediocrity and retrogression of national leadership in the past 14 or 15 years. And since Lagos is not just a melting pot, but also a honey pot, migration into the state may not decline immediately; instead it may heighten, thereby diminishing or even neutralising the state’s best efforts. Mr Sanwo-Olu must, therefore, first recognise that fine words will not attenuate the state’s problems, nor would those who have laid constitutional and unfettered claims to Lagos be mollified by anything other than having their way as well as sustaining their pampered privileges. He must recognise that Lagos’ status as a megacity and aspiring multicultural state have been deployed in the past few decades as a tool of blackmail to compel the state to accommodate cultural, ethnic and political differences, regardless of their harmful effect on the state’s heritage.

Reassuringly, however, the state has, however, begun to rouse itself to confront the contradictions undermining its progress. Whether this awareness has anything to do with the governor is not entirely certain. But the state has begun to take the fight to celebrities who, despite failing in their civic duties, have tried to bend the state to their leprous worldview. After years of flaunting their wealth on social media, buying land and building houses, not to say insulting and ridiculing the state and its people and government, they are now being compelled to take up their responsibilities as taxpayers. The state should not relent. It is scandalous that for many years the state had failed to detect and expose drug barons living big in multiple houses in many choice estates, and it has taken the unsparing sleuthing of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to expose and apprehend them. How could anyone buy a house or land in the state and not enter the state’s tax and security database so as to query his financial bona fides? Indeed, it should be impossible to even rent or lease property without being captured in the state’s tax and security databases. The laxity of years past needs to end.

It is not yet known where the initiative to make legislations to protect Lagos indigenes is coming from, whether from the executive or the legislature. Re-elected Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, referenced that legislative responsibility to indigenes when he won another term to preside over the legislature. So far, it is difficult to impeach his reasons. He should not downgrade that responsibility. Lagos-for Lagos was a potent campaign slogan directed against the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last elections, and clearly Lagosians have felt undone by waves of migrations into Lagos, not to say the convoluted politics of the past two decades or so. They have nowhere to go, unlike many of the vocal and entitled nouveau riche who hide behind the country’s unitary constitution to commit excesses. It is one thing to settle in Lagos, it is another thing to imbibe, respect and protect the state’s cultural and political worldview. Sadly, the ‘Lagos is no man’s land campaign’, a campaign that recrudesces at nearly every election cycle, has done grave injury to the Lagos psyche and continues to engender difficult and intractable problems between ethnic groups.

Already, critics, fearing where the indigene campaign could lead, including perhaps as far as the disenfranchisement witnessed in the last poll, have warned that the Assembly’s pro-indigene legislation would be unable to stand legal and constitutional tests. It is true that Lagos is unusual, with its development often attributed to the influx of diverse people who brought with them ingenuity, investments and large absorptive capacity. It is, however, unlikely that Speaker Obasa or any other Lagosian, assuming such a person can be inclusively and accurately defined, is proposing an insular and exclusionary regimen for the city-state. The Speaker made it clear they were talking of protecting the culture and heritage of Lagos as well as its indigenes. It does not necessarily imply a zero-sum game. The gain of one does not inescapably mean loss for the other. There is hardly any other state in Nigeria that has not retained its distinct identity, whether in the East, North, Middle Belt or South. And there is no state whose political, ethnic and even religious identity is not shielded in large measure. It is dismaying that even before the essentials of the proposed legislations are known, threats are being issued, shockingly but unsurprisingly by the superficial former LP candidate in the last Lagos governorship poll, Chinedu Rhodes-Vivour.

Mr Sanwo-Olu will have to contend with the proposed legislations. They will be drafted. And they will probably not match or take cognisance of his usual cautious approach to politics. He could have lost the elections had those whose umbilical cords were tied to Lagos not risen in his and Lagos’ defence. He must engage with the lawmakers in order to manage the legislations in line with the inclusiveness and progressive ideology of his party. He must be futuristic in his expectations, enough to coax whatever legislations are proposed to remain relevant for all time even if the APC should lose office. And the laws, while they must be clear in their objectives and unapologetic about what they set out to defend, must neither be poisonous to witch-hunt nor distasteful to exclude others who have enriched the state culturally and economically. But they must clearly serve for Lagosians as ramparts against domination and acrimonious miscegenation. The state must not bear the burden of a tedious and contradictory federal constitution that runs as a unitary system and still fails to protect regions and peoples, including their civilisations.

In opening its doors to all and sundry, and despite the gigantic and laudatory building projects all over the state, Lagos is now struggling with its identity. Teenagers operate Okada and keke business without regard to state laws, and are thus not captured in the tax net. The problem is only now being redressed. Meanwhile, transport unions have become a law unto themselves. In addition, months before elections, anyone from anywhere can on account of the country’s dysfunctional constitution register as a voter in the state, any state. The constitution allows it, but it ignores the fact that such a practice sows distrust and seeds of future conflict. The last polls nearly exploded into a paroxysm of ethnic rage in Lagos. It is, therefore, not an option not to do something. The objective conditions on the ground, sometimes falsely and inaccurately attributed to President Bola Tinubu’s alleged implacable hold on Lagos, predisposes the state to a future convulsion. Clearly, the constitution must be reworked to make it truly federal, and for peoples and states to have a sense of connection and exclusivity within a united Nigeria. The goals are not mutually exclusive. More importantly, it can be done.

If White Americans still nurse a nostalgic attachment to a time when their country was nearly lily-white, and many European countries have veered ultra-right to protect their identities, and the Chinese want Taiwan at all cost, and Russia wants Ukraine at any price, and Canada is temporarily banning non-Canadians (read Chinese) from buying properties, etc, it is important to understand why Lagos lawmakers may be seeking legal means to protect their people and heritage, regardless of the factors that made Lagos a megapolis, and notwithstanding the fact that Lagos is a state within Nigeria. The United States constitution is not a fitting role model. The US was founded on the ashes of the indigenous Red Indians. Australia and New Zealand were also built on the diminution and degradation of the aborigines. The Romans practiced the cataclysmic art of transplanting whole peoples as punishment. And the Assyrians transplanted foreigners into northern Israel thus creating half-Jew and half-gentile people called the Samaritans who were subsequently loathed by Jews. Identities are an irrevocable part of politics. They cannot be ignored; they need to be recognised and managed within the context of a reworked constitution that protects and guarantees rights of peoples as well as serves the cause of justice. Nigeria has not always had the capacity to anticipate future crises. The Lagos legislative plan serves as a reminder to everyone that the time to begin anticipating future interethnic and interreligious conflicts and doing something about them is now.  

Tinubu, NASS elections and sceptics

The steadiness with which President Bola Tinubu has been assembling his team gives hope that Nigeria can in fact be redeemed. Eight advisers have just been announced, and their resumes show men and women of first-rate technocracy. Tangentially, too, the states have, almost by uncanny coincidence, elected into office first-rate men who, except in one or two impulsive cases, can be trusted to offer their states surefooted and competitive leadership. On the whole, after decades of national misadventure into predatory military rule, democracy appears in the long run to be capable of producing promising politicians and leaders far exceeding the best the military could ever give. Last week, the 10^th National Assembly also elected its presiding officers, four gentlemen who are products of ingenious compromises and consensuses initially thought to be difficult to engender.

It is not certain why that feeling of hope and possibility lingers in the air; but somehow, Nigeria is being dragged away from the precipice which decades of misrule and entitlement had tethered it. Some critics wait for the other shoe to drop as far as the Tinubu administration is concerned, expecting that he would make egregious blunders costing him his reputation. Instead, he has given the public and the media enough bones to chew, enough policies to instigate their angst. Rather than basking in the euphoria of the moment, especially because of the generally lowered tension in the country and the pragmatic retreat from Sudan-like chaos and the nihilistic orgy of social media deviants imprecating everything noble and sensible and possible about Nigeria, a few critics have grumbled about how the administration was getting away with murder, so to speak. President Tinubu has sustained his innovations and political seductions, and has strangely also made the unusual and even emblematic NASS elections seem chic.

The Tinubu administration, despite being led by a consummate politician, must begin to reconcile itself with public deprecations of some of its dashing policies and programmes. However, such public deprecations will probably give way to optimism if the policies take on redemptive value: lower inflation, realistic and market-led foreign exchange rates, significant capital inflow, and quality education and health infrastructure, among other things. The president has had a knack for taking bold decisions in and out of office as Lagos governor, and he has shown a great predilection for tempting fate. He will hope that none of his major policies miscarry with telling consequences. He showed his hands early in the day by backing the quartet of presiding officers of the National Assembly, and they won handily after weeks of rigmarole and permutations. Yes, that support was bold and unflinching; but it could easily have crystallised the opposition against his administration and helped his enemies train their guns with precision on his position, even if that position was mounted on lofty ethical peaks.

It is remarkable that the president got away with that chutzpah of supporting and projecting candidates in the NASS election. It had seemed, curiously, that since the APC has a commanding lead in the Senate with 59 seats, the party would easily get Senators Godswill Akpabio and Barau Jibrin elected. And if they got bipartisan assent to swell that plurality to put the election soundly beyond doubt, that would indeed be a powerful statement. In the end, they got 63, with the other contender Sen. Abdulaziz Yari nearly pulling an upset with 46 votes. The race in the House of Representatives, where the ruling party did not fare too well in terms of numbers, seemed less certain, and pundits had predicted a herculean task before the APC. Surprisingly, despite the president showing his preference, and was indeed accused of trying to impose the Reps’ leadership, Hon Tajudeen Abbas secured an overwhelming victory with 353 votes. His opponents are apoplectic.

However, the Senate race should give the APC reason to ponder on the catastrophe it escaped by a whisker. Sen Akpabio, a Christian, needed to be elected to indicate clearly that the party did not harbour an Islamic agenda, especially in view of its Muslim-Muslim presidency. Why that altruistic and elementary fact failed to persuade those who voted for Sen Yari is hard to fathom. Had Sen Yari been elected as senate president, it would have created a lasting, destabilising and debilitating problem for the ruling party. It seemed Sen Yari’s supporters were more persuaded by the desire of the North to secure political visibility at a time, according to their argument, when the South dominated the three arms of government, to wit, executive, legislative and judicial branches. But under President Muhammadu Buhari, the North also for a long stretch of time dominated the three arms.

Reassuringly, overall, politics in Nigeria has become sophisticated, and the quality of the presidency, state houses, and legislature at all levels has risen significantly. Nothing will henceforth be taken for granted, and even the president, with all his depth and courage, will have to be on his toes to stay ahead of competition, both at the policy and politics levels. His initial successes have been entrancing; however, those early successes make his job and his future all the more precarious but infinitely more enthralling.

Many Nigerians are in a fix what to make of the fuel subsidy removal controversy with which President Bola Tinubu kick-started his presidency. On the one hand, they agree that paying trillions in subsidy was economically wasteful, and it needed to be stopped; but on the other hand, they fear that ending the binge abruptly could also prove disruptive, if not obstructive. Even presidential candidates who were caught on tape suggesting that they would stop subsidy immediately they were elected have, sensing the drift of public discontent and the stirrings by labour unions, quibbled that ameliorative measures needed to be put in place first before the policy was halted. Irrespective of the back and forth over the policy, the subject of subsidy and its complex undertones as well as the acrimonious debates that have suffused the country in the past two weeks indicate the chasmic gap between theory and practice in politics, and between electioneering and governance.

President Tinubu, perhaps contrary to his expectations, managed to baptize his presidency in the furnace of controversy right from his inauguration. Barely a day after the inauguration and unsure which way the pendulum of the controversy swung, he dithered briefly; and in the similitude of Napoleon Bonaparte’s hesitation during the Coup of 18 Brumaire, even gingerly walked back his brusque statement on subsidy. But as the days wore on, and as a favourable consensus seemed to develop over the subject to the stupefaction of the labour unions, the president has found his voice, and has put more resonance in his voice and convictions. It is not certain how those tumultuous early beginnings could be taken to signpost the early period of the Tinubu presidency, especially whether making intuitive interjections in policies would not sometimes endanger his administrations’ carefully choreographed measures. But all considered, his daring fuel subsidy policy has proved a success; it even met with curious acclamation to the dismay of his opponents and those who swore he was incapable of providing strong leadership.

In great leadership, there is always a place for intuition. This time, President Tinubu’s intuitionism won. But that is the mystery about intuition; a great leader must always have the intuition to rein in his intuition, to know when, or how often, to indulge it and when not to. Intuition cannot always stand in the place of carefully crafted and orchestrated policies. The president may have started on a roaring and even uproarious note, but it will take months, if not years, to determine the measure of his presidency: his style, his depth, his intellect, his vision, his work experience, and the durability of his administration. Without a visible kitchen cabinet to advise him, his steps so far, including meetings with security chiefs, traditional chiefs, intelligence chiefs, political titans and parties across all divides, and a few one-on-one parleys, have been unimpeachable. He has seemed to imbue his presidency with a sense of urgency, and surprise of all surprises, has increasingly and quickly appeared surefooted and knowledgeable such that critics who had dismissed him as phlegmatic are left flummoxed. He garbled a few words during his inauguration address; but now he is even elocuting far better than expected.

Nevertheless, the great tests of his presidency are still many months away. Yes, he may have cleverly dealt with the Godwin Emefiele conundrum, and with one throw of the stone may be restoring stability and credibility to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), but initial house-cleaning, as adroitly as President Tinubu’s has so far undertaken, neither emblematises nor defines the coherence and brilliance of an administration. He has signed a few landmark bills passed by the Ninth Assembly, but the direction of his presidency, far beyond the theoretical indications of his manifesto, is yet to emerge. It remains to be seen whether in the face of public, legislative, and perhaps judicial resistance he will yield supinely to the flip-flops that scandalised and enervated the Goodluck Jonathan administration or the rigidity and centrifugation that undermined and dissipated the Muhammadu Buhari presidency.

In his address to the council of traditional chiefs few days ago, President Tinubu admitted that no leader could hope to get it right 100 percent of the time. He hoped, he said modestly to a round of applause, that his administration would get it right at least 90 percent of the time. For a presidency inaugurated amidst contrived opposition by powers and forces of the old order masquerading as harbingers of the new order, the president must really hope he can score the mark he has wished for himself. As every historian knows, decades of leadership can be compressed into one or two books, with much of the mundaneness of daily and hourly administrative details edited out. Often too, the brevity of such books masks years of pains, indecisions, agonies, and failures. President Tinubu’s success will, therefore, be judged not by the facile measures he takes, including signing some nondescript bills into law, but by great and defining policies as well as unerring appointments. Before he took office in the opening months of World War II, Winston Churchill was more known for his policy failures than the great acclaim which followed his leadership of Britain throughout the war. President Tinubu will be judged by how bravely and knowledgeably he stands for great ideas and how well he remains true to impactful but sometimes complex and unpopular policies. Renowned for doggedness of the most punishing and self-flagellating kind, he will hope that throughout his stay in office, he will neither flag in enthusiasm nor drop the ball.

In the short term, however, he will be assessed in terms of the integrity and solidity of the cabinet he assembles, both at the kitchen cabinet level and general cabinet level. Weeks into his presidency, and in addition to his inexplicable denigration of ministers as a component of government, ex-president Buhari managed to assemble the most insular kitchen cabinet ever. And after he got round to appointing a general cabinet, he virtually outsourced the responsibility. The predictable result was an amalgam of men and women of differing and counteracting temperaments, ministers and security chiefs who sauntered off blithely at different tangents.  Unlike President Buhari, President Tinubu has built a wide circle of friends and associates around the country, bridges that connect brilliant politicians and technocrats from one end of the country to the other. He probably understands that the style and tactics that made Lagos responsive to his sculpting and enabled him offer sound leadership are different from the style and tactics capable of sculpting Nigeria. His kitchen cabinet is, therefore, expected to reflect the ennobling essence of his cosmopolitan politics, as against the provincialism of his predecessors.

Should President Tinubu succeed in assembling a great kitchen cabinet, with most of them as advisers, he will logically be expected to follow suit with a great general cabinet, many of whom he will have had personal contacts and relationships with. States and their parties may nominate candidates for the statutory ministerial positions, but despite being a consensus builder unwilling to ignore those nominations, he is nonetheless expected to be able to vouch for his appointees. In Lagos, some of his protégés, indeed an uncomfortable many, ended up parting ways with him acrimoniously, some of them unable to manage their ambitions, and some lacking in sobriety, character and the right values that conduce to loyalty and succession. His task of assembling the right men and women will, however, be complicated by the political debts he owes many of those who helped him secure the scintillating victory he is savouring today.

Take for instance, former Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai, who, despite hedging his bets wildly in the last presidential elections, finally settled for President Tinubu. There is little anyone can do to restrain the gadfly from imprudently baiting Christians and political opponents. He is a relentless volcano of trenchant words calculated to always skewer and scald but seldom to build, a Niagara of dismissive characterisations of opponents, all dressed in probably the most opportunistic politics any Nigerian seems capable of. Yet, there is no denying the role he played in the last elections. That role may have been exaggerated; but it was still pivotal. Rewarding such a man in the face of a seething Christian population still nursing the wounds inflicted by APC’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket will be tricky. Then there is the ferocious battle between two Kano State ex-governors, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, both strategic and influential friends of the president. Given the bitterness between the two Kanawa politicians, it will take the skillfulness of angels to reconcile them. At the moment, the two seem permanently to be at daggers drawn; yet both were and still are crucial to President Tinubu’s success. How would the president walk the tightrope?

In the midst of resetting Nigeria’s foundations, a task the president is probably the most equipped of all Nigerian leaders to carry out, he must enunciate great and defining economic and social policies, and then top them sometime in the future with some tolerable political reengineering of the country. Ex-president Buhari signed some 15 bills or so in the twilight of his presidency, and President Tinubu has given assent to two more. These and perhaps a few more in the medium term could help reset Nigeria and deliver a great approximation to the federalism Nigerians crave. Structures are as important as policies, hardware as important as software. The president, it is expected, will not lose sight of the goals of building a great, powerful and stable nation, let alone allow the ball to drop. As he gets down to brass tacks, he will need all the savvy nature has fashioned in him in his years in office and in the wilderness. He is gifted and resilient, and had hankered after the job for decades. Now he has the job; but vengeful opponents scarified by eight years of President Buhari will use him as their battering ram for the next few years, whether he succeeds or not. He must not let the distractions weaken his resolve.

Those who assigned themselves the task of crafting post-mortems on the Muhammadu Buhari presidency are embarking on a thankless, cathartic exercise. Other than exhaling well, and perhaps regaling themselves in the robust use of phrases and insults, any post-mortem now will achieve nothing meaningful. Everything that should be said about the Buhari presidency had been said while he was in office. Anything extra will be superfluous. During the Buhari years, critics had a field day, untrammeled by constitutional constrictions and other legal conjurations. Critics were so vile and unsparing that presidential spokesman Femi Adesina coined a label for them. Unfazed, critics in turn deployed his pejorative phrases against him to maximum effect. The exchanges were hearty, full-throated and riveting. For the entire duration of the Buhari administration, everyone who had something bad to say about him, including cartoonist who drew him spectrally thin and curved with oversize caps, had the leeway to unleash deprecatory fusillades.

What else is there to say? You may not like the former president’s sense of humour, but he was so self-deprecating that he anticipated the loathsomeness of his compatriots who might wish to trouble him. Niger Republic would defend him, he croaked. That is apart from relocating entirely to Nigeria’s northern neighbor if the bother becomes heightened. The critic may wish to point at his failed economic, social and political policies; but even these the ex-president had washed his hands of any responsibility. The failures were the responsibilities of idiot or prehensile appointees. Are you eager to point at illicit accumulations? Why, here again, the former president stole your thunder. Tee hee. As he put it elegantly, unable to mind his private business, his herd of cattle depleted considerably. And as for houses, he could not care less before he assumed the presidency, during the presidency, and after. He had only two houses in Daura and Kaduna. He had taken frugality, if not parsimoniousness, to a level never seen before. Indeed, he insinuated that public officials should learn a thing or two from him. But, alas, he is preaching to reprobates who don’t see him as capable of teaching anything.

There are usually strong reasons for post-mortems: to find out what went wrong, how it went wrong, when it went wrong, and who was responsible. Flush with purpose, and driven by messianic duty to country and maybe, too, West Africa, eulogists gratuitously take upon themselves the dismal task of dissecting a past administration. When the First Republic failed, eulogists were summoned to concoct panegyrics on those assassinated by the January 15, 1966 coupists. Their compositions still endure till today. When Gen Yakubu Gowon reneged on his handover date and came an appalling cropper, the eulogists were also on hand. And on and on and on until ex-president Buhari’s first term, a post-mortem this columnist also assigned himself, being averse to eulogies. It is true most post-mortems are often curated as eulogies, but connoisseurs know better when and why not to mix the two. Having erred badly in composing a post-mortem on President Buhari’s first term, in the false hope it would affect the outcome of the former president’s reelection chances, this column has sensibly tiptoed around committing himself to dissecting the eight years of the Buhari administration too quickly.

But overall, the post-mortems on the Buhari presidency have been less fierce than anticipated. Yes, there has been the occasional play on words and phrases, a few dismissive and brutal putdowns, and some swear words and puns; but beyond these, most essays have been tame and off-key. There won’t be eulogies of course; but even the post-mortems themselves will lack amperage. As the former president strutted away from the inauguration ground on May 29, he probably chuckled at how expertly he had anticipated the biliousness of his unrelenting critic. His sixth sense predicted all they might wish to say about him, and he had in some three interviews before his exit tackled their surliness with his customary disdain and abrasiveness. In any case, he summed up, no one should come and ask him questions, for he would be far away in Daura, Katsina State. And if he deigned to travel to Kaduna, not too far from Abuja, it would not be for the purpose of indulging their questioning and mortifying inquisitions.

But here is a final proposal for aspiring eulogists of the Buhari presidency. Forget the economy in a tailspin; forget the colouring of some naira notes and the cruelty and indifference of Mr Emefiele; and forget the skewness of the former president’s appointments. Instead, recognise that his presidency demonstrated that his predecessors merely papered over Nigeria’s existential cracks while he indirectly issued an invitation to his successor to do something major about those cracks. Recognise also just how down in the doldrums the economy has plunged, thereby necessitating not the amenities of a presidential candidate skilled in delivering Chinese and Singaporean homilies, or the faculty of a presidential candidate adept at cloning Dubai and making implausible promises about rotational presidency. Whether the country knew it or not, and notwithstanding their bellicose approach to presidential politics last February, eight thunderous and unforgettable years of President Buhari instilled in Nigerians the urgency of putting someone in office who knew his onions. It is not yet understood how that miracle occurred, but at least, and despite chafing Nigerians and a meddlesome presidency, a miracle did take place on February 25. There is indeed so much to be said for the Buhari presidency rather than belching hostile, unforgiving and premature post-mortems. At least for now.