The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • PDP offering inept opposition to APC

    If the All Progressives Congress (APC) continues on its present political trajectory, and there is no seismic shift in the country’s fiery ethnic and religious templates, it will without doubt make a great showing in the 2023 elections far stronger than its mystifying administrative model deserves.

    The reason is not because the party is unbeatable or that it has made an indelible impression on the minds of their patient subjects; it is simply because the second largest party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has offered the most inept opposition to the ruling party anyone has ever encountered. No party is unbeatable, even at its apogee. But mercifully, the APC is neither at its apogee, notwithstanding its dominance in the National Assembly, nor does it run an empathetic and inclusive administration that commits the electorate to its fortunes and visions.

    Statistically, the PDP made undeserved gains in the 2019 elections, controlling some three or four more states than it did in 2015 when the young and daring APC drunk on the Muhammadu Buhari mystic humiliated it for the first time. But the gains were likely a consequence of the electorate’s revulsion with the APC’s sanctimonious politics and unfeeling and preachy administration than an endorsement of the opposition’s programmes and politics.

    That revulsion has strangely not diminished despite the fierce propaganda of the ruling party that equates the PDP, after four unconstrained APC years, with all that is wrong with Nigeria. The voters rightly threw off the yoke of the PDP in 2015, but they have begun to wonder whether the substitutive yoke of the APC has not punished them more unsparingly.

    The APC is not at its apogee; indeed, it is even doubtful whether it can ever reach that mark. Kingdoms and empires often reached their apogees before declining; but it now seems very clear that the APC has begun a steep decline without the corresponding and historical leap towards greatness. That is not, however, to say this scotched snake can still not win elections.

    Like the famous boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson who was credited with the fearsome ability to knock out his opponents while being forced back to the ropes, the APC continues to retain enough venom to outsmart and outbox the pusillanimous PDP. It is indeed strange that despite the weaknesses of the APC, the PDP has seemed completely devoid of arms and ammunition to demolish the ruling party or at least incapacitate it.

    When they were in office, the PDP had been in a quandary how to manage the constitution and the laws of the country: whether to mischievously abridge it, as many African countries do with their grundnorm, or to keep faith with it. In the end they chose to be irritatingly lukewarm, ending up neither winning praise nor attracting outright condemnation.

    The APC has chosen not to dither. Partly out of imbibing some lessons from PDP’s history, and partly because of its inherently dictatorial nature, the APC has opted from the word go to be ruthless with power, disdainful of the laws of the land, and has sneered at the constitution, conventions, traditions and principles and practice of democracy, either in Nigeria or globally. The APC was formed in 2013, won office in 2015, won reelection in 2019, and hopes to keep winning despite its failings. Inescapably, the party now feels invincible, even immortal, believing that its unconscionable use of power should be sufficient to help it retain office ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

    If the APC goes on to retain its dominance beyond 2023, it will be because the PDP is unable to seize the moment. Once it lost the diadem to the APC in 2015, the PDP simply culturally and ethically disintegrated. Before 2015 its culture had become brittle, and its ethical core was never really anything remarkable; but they were tangible enough to give it dominance for some 16 years, and attractive enough to lure everyone but the Young Turks in APC to drop their guard.

    It was necessary following their loss in 2015 to rethink their philosophy, at least such little as they had, rebuild their foundations, purge their ranks of those who had led them to disaster and finagled wealth from the country’s treasury or corrupted and bastardised their party’s and by extension the country’s, morals and standing.

    It was a delicate time that required them to soar very high to noble grounds; instead, they tended towards the bizarre and the unimaginable. They needed to find an unimpeachable politician and leader to galvanise them against a new and formidable enemy; instead, because of their brittleness and essential lack of character and direction, they found the intransigent Ali Modu Sheriff, a wealthy former Borno State governor and senator who never quite found the moral accoutrement and philosophy to lead a party and shake off the debilitating label of Boko Haram inspirer. Nearly 15 months of crazy scheming that traversed the courts and political boardrooms saw him battering the party to which he had defected barely two years earlier. By July 2017, the courts finally put paid to his buffoonery and sacked him from the leadership of the PDP, prompting him to slither back to the APC.

    The Modu Sheriff misadventure was, however, not enough to deter the PDP from embracing and lauding the subterfuges of the likes of Nyesom Wike, the PDP governor of Rivers State, and other nihilists within their ranks. In consequence, the party is now so dispirited and weakened by internal strife that it was a miracle they performed as well as they did in the 2019 polls. They may hope that once elections knocked at the door again, they would, like the biblical Samson, rouse themselves from sleep, put on their fighting robes, and either vanquish or rattle their enemies. It is hard to see that formula succeeding in the face of a hardened and formidable APC enemy.

    Every patriot knows that it is not in the interest of the country for the APC to retain its dominance of the political space, especially given their own contradictions, lack of cohesion, abhorrent desire to subjugate the country under the rule of man rather than under the rule of law, enthronement of a police state and institution of a climate of fear, brutal propaganda, and abuse of power, etc. The PDP must be encouraged, in spite of themselves, to present a counterpoise to the errant ruling party. Just as the world is discovering the calamity of a unipolar world controlled by the United States under Trump the Unjust (or Trump the Enraged, or even Trump the Unpredictable/Irrational), Nigeria may be starting to discover how perilous it is for national unity and stability to have APC unchecked by anybody or party simply because they have learnt to mouth the right platitudes and phrases.

    Since 2015, the PDP has never attempted to understand how opposition politics works. It has not even shown appetite to embark on that path of discovery, having become complacent due to 16 years of unbroken stay in office. If the country is to be saved and if they must also salvage their party, the PDP must begin to play a more assertive and intelligent opposition politics devoid of the usual histrionics and empty posturing their leaders have been enamoured of since 1999.

    It is not enough to issue wordy press releases that play on fine phrases and clichés. These are insufficient to counteract the ruthless and withering assault on the economic rights and political freedoms of Nigerians inspired by the Buhari presidency. The PDP must go back to basics, learn the ropes of opposition politics afresh, rely less on overhyped and mythical leaders like Modu Sheriff, Abubakar Atiku, and Bukola Saraki, check political aggrandisers like Nyesom Wike, and establish and fund a vast array of research units to produce position papers on difficult but germane issues of the day.

    There is no national issue that has not attracted the PDP’s press statement. But after the statement, the party had often become either indifferent or even somnolent. Surely that can’t be because they lack the resources. Opposition politics does not start and end with press releases. Having once flirted with the parliamentary system, political parties in Nigeria, despite operating presidentialism, must find the commonsense to borrow a few things from the Westminster model.

    There is no law against borrowing. The PDP must therefore breed champions on various aspects of national politics, champions who are knowledgeable enough to take on the ruling party, champions who would be the party’s spokesmen at short notice. The party may sometimes wish to publish position papers on some of these issues, but at all times, they must aggressively market their ideas on radio, national televisions, social media or any other newfangled media that will help them drive home their arguments.

    It is clear, for instance, that the Value Added Tax (VAT) increase proposed by the APC government is a topical and controversial issue. Beyond issuing a press release and drawing attention to the position taken by the APC years ago when the then opposition party also attacked the PDP’s plan to raise VAT, the PDP must press the argument by looking at the contribution of VAT in other polities, examine the basics of the Nigerian economy, adumbrate the taxes they groan under, and plot their standard of living with respect to other countries.

    They must find brilliant economists attuned to the PDP philosophy to champion their arguments before the public. Then they must consider also the opprobrious proposal to return tolling to the country’s highways. Apart from the fact that a PDP government abrogated it for a number of reasons, and it is incumbent on them to defend their legacy, the party must find arguments to counter the APC’s proposal, such as drawing attention to the gory accidents that bespattered some of those toll gates with blood, and let the public judge. Furthermore, the PDP should be able to enunciate other revenue sources for the maintenance of the highways.

    Despite the presence of Alhaji Atiku and other key figures like Dr Saraki, Uche Secondus and influential PDP governors in the opposition party, the PDP is clearly leaderless. Embroiled in a controversy in which he is accused of an unholy alliance with the litigious PDP presidential candidate, and of an even more surreptitious dalliance with unnamed persons and forces in the APC, Mr Secondus himself has become tight-lipped, uninspiring, inactive and perhaps overwhelmed.

    The party’s national secretary, Ibrahim Tsauri, might very well hail from Mars, and the deputy chairman and all other officers are a different shade of black hole anonymity. Apart from Mr Secondus and publicity secretary Kola Ologbodiyan, few Nigerians know PDP leaders. They have done and said little anyone should take the trouble of remembering or commenting on.

    Yet, these colourless and inactive PDP leaders must ineluctably play in the same boisterous environment with the restless and cantankerous APC chairman Adams Oshiomhole, joust with the dour and gritty APC’s President Buhari whose idea of leadership harks back to the days of kingdoms and empires, and publicly contend with the diatribes and frenzies of governors like Nasir el-Rufai and Abdullahi Ganduje. It will require a huge amount of pluckiness and ingenuity to grapple with these APC diehards, not to talk of trump them in arguments and political battles.

    Yet, trump them the PDP must, for in that expected stalemate or even victory lies the possibility of the opposition claiming the prize four years down the line. The PDP has for more than four years blithely surrendered the space to the APC and yielded mile after mile in abject surrender. It is time for them to stand their ground and fight. If they do not stand now, if they do not abandon their inept style of opposition and contend for every mile, they risk being flattened in 2023 or they encounter a fate far worse than the implosion currently predicted for the fractious APC.

  • Sowore, Malami and the DSS/NJC angle

    After initially contemplating holding on to the convener of the #RevolutionNow protest, Omoyele Sowore for another 20 days after the expiration of the first 45-day detention order, the Department of State Service (DSS) has relented and withdrawn their request. Persuaded by the arguments of the detainee’s counsel, Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja consequently ordered the release of the former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) last Tuesday. By last weekend, however, Mr Sowore was yet to be released as feared by many commentators who had become used to the stalling tactics of Nigeria’s security agencies which often act above the constitution and laws of the land.

    But not only has the DSS spurned the order to release their detainee, and potentially stood in contempt of the court, they have taken the extraordinary step of contemplating, according to some reports, asking the National Judicial Council (NJC) to look into why the judge would grant bail to a suspect accused of treasonable felony. It is noteworthy that the DSS did not immediately appeal the decision to release Mr Sowore on bail. Instead, it has kept him locked up in defiance of the court and the laws of the land, and escalated the issue to the point of petitioning the NJC to examine the conduct of the judge and reprimand his abuse of power. Abuse of power? Between Justice Taiwo and DSS, who ought to be censured?

    Asked a few days ago by the BBC why Mr Sowore was yet to be released and whether it made moral or legal sense to haul him before a court for insulting the president, Abubakar Malami, the Justice minister and attorney general, equivocated so badly that it was hard to say exactly whether he himself knew what he was saying. He of course avoided saying anything about the insult part of the charges, preferring to stress the aspect of treason; but he was more assertive on giving the assurance that the judiciary was independent. The DSS, on its own, has no interest in any independence of the judiciary. Whether for the DSS or Mr Malami, therefore, the judiciary is not known by Nigerians to be independent. After many years of wars of attrition against the third arm of government, the executive has managed to wear down the resolve and independence of the judiciary and taken away their confidence. It takes a lot of contempt to defy the courts as the DSS has done, and as the executive did when they overthrew the former Chief Justice, Walter Onnoghen, while the Court of Appeal looked on impotently and the NJC watched in sterile indifference.

    It is not clear what reliefs the DSS hopes to get from their petition to the NJC, should the report prove to be true. They kept Mr Sowore for 45 days and had more than enough time to dock him. Indeed as their counsel said, and as the judge corroborated, charges had already been filed. Perhaps they simply wish to go through the routine of docking him. But they did not need another few days to dock him when they had weeks to do that. What is sadly obvious is that the security agencies are acting almost independent of the laws of the land, as many cases suggest, while the Justice minister is a willing accomplice. Worse, it is also obvious that the judiciary, not to say the NJC, has been castrated. If the petition against Justice Taiwo goes to the NJC and receives a hearing at all, judges, most of whom already feel intimidated, will look over their shoulders rather than the law and the merit of the cases before them to rule one way or the other. Democracy will be fortunate indeed to survive the next few years, especially seeing that it is neither growing stronger nor getting healthier under this government.

  • At 59, democracy more threatened than ever

    IT is an understatement to suggest that nearly six decades after its nominal independence, Nigeria is still faring very badly in its jousting with democracy.

    Perhaps the country has been constrained by the kind of democracy they have chosen to operate; perhaps their inimitable talent for exploring shortcuts and charting an undisciplined approach to managing institutional strictures are suited for a different kind of democracy, say the Chinese variant or even the Russian model. If so, all Nigerians require is to find a consensus among themselves to redefine and practice a new democratic variant of their choosing, one suited to their many cultures, fetishes and longings. But in the absence of that consensus, if they cannot muster the will to redraw the basis of their association or dissociation, they have an obligation to faithfully practice the weakened democracy they have gifted themselves and at least sensibly extemporise the constitution they have pompously imbued with the extravagant declaration of ‘We the people’.

    Perhaps the awkward implementation of the 1999 constitution, quite apart from the natural lack of discipline of Nigerian leaders, is simply because ‘We the people’ was a mere grandiose and otiose declaration absolutely lacking in foundation, conviction, coherence, philosophy and inspiration. It was both a constitution and declaration that monstrously sought to foist a political way of life on peoples with varying cultures emerging from different stages of civilisation. Nigeria’s founding fathers were fractious at the beginning, and largely never saw eye to eye when they drafted the principles of their association, a draft filled with despairing compromises. Worse was to come. With the constitution thus denied drive and conviction right from the beginning, it surprised few that it took only a little provocation to shoot it to pieces in 1966, overthrow the country’s initial dominant elite, foist an abominable military deal upon the country that worsened the provocation, and since 1966 subsequently constructed and operated grotesque and balkanised systems.

    Getting it right, like Nigeria’s contemporaries in the 1950s have done, means finding the right political and economic mix to situate the country’s existence and grow its fortunes. The independence constitution was the closest the country ever got to getting it right. The 1979 constitution and its spinoff, the 1999 constitution, are an abhorrent piece of theoretical posturing which Nigeria’s undisciplined elite could never hope to operate. It tasked their patience and cultures, taxed their education and judgement,  and demanded an exorbitant piece of their selflessness. They could not give any of these, obviously because they have nothing to give. Emptied of all sense and logic, and totally destitute of any sense of consideration for a national philosophy, Nigeria’s spendthrift elites have done their worst to worsen the situation.

    It is, therefore, not an accident that Nigeria has been left behind, and is now facing the worst existential crisis since its founding. The independence government of Tafawa Balewa and Nnamdi Azikwe simply tried to build the country upon largely unrealistic assumptions; the Aguiyi Ironsi military government exacerbated their predecessors’ folly by imposing a singularly opprobrious and treacherous unitary system; the Yakubu Gowon government, as benign and pacifist as it became, lacked depth and substance; the Murtala Mohammed government was more disruptively iconoclastic than engagingly revolutionary as it hoped and postured; and the first Olusegun Obasanjo government revelled too much in ad hocism and short-termism to be of any substantial use to the country in the near future.

    Saddled with the onerous task of laying a solid foundation for Nigeria’s democratic march forward, the succeeding Shehu Shagari government proved unequal to the task, partly because it was too pedantic to appreciate the complexities of the day and too short-sighted to spy the glories of tomorrow. Since the Shagari era, a government terminated ironically by the current president Muhammad Buhari, Nigeria has not seemed capable of putting the right foot forward. The first Buhari military government, which is neither philosophically nor even temperamentally different from his second coming in 2015, egregiously narrowed the country’s problem to both corruption and indiscipline, neither of which he attempted to understand nor provide the fundamental and multidimensional solutions needed to disentangle them and relieve the society of its malaise. That it was sacked less than two years into its reign was an indication of how unpopular and draconian it had become.

    Fourteen years down the line, and two military governments and an usurper civilian government later, Nigeria’s problems have appeared to metastasise. The Ibrahim Babangida government, imagining itself to be a deft exponent of Machiavellian politics, simply elevated the crassest form of deceit into an art and state policy; the Ernest Shonekan interregnum, a dismal hiatus of theatre and propaganda, was a mere forerunner for the disaster that was to come; the Sani Abacha government, which was as hedonistic as the basest government can ever get, brutalised the country’s psyche, purloined its wealth, murdered its children, and robbed it of its dignity until mercifully death and decay put him out of his own private misery; and the Abdulsalami Abubakar government, which deliberately embroiled itself in a feverish race to return Nigeria to civil rule, bequeathed a constitution that has ensnared successive governments and prepared the ground for chaos and mediocrity from which there now seems to be no way out.

    How 59 years of chaos has not persuaded Nigerian leaders to pause and think their way out of the pit they have dug themselves into is hard to explain. Chief Obasanjo on his return to office in 1999 simply assumed the problem was one of dedication, believing that past rulers floundered because they were not committed to a better Nigeria. He failed to anticipate the future and was not disillusioned by the folly of his unhealthy admixture of tyranny and pragmatism. The late Umaru Yar’Adua was too enfeebled by disease to be of any use to anyone, not to talk of a country distressed and disoriented by authoritarian rule. Goodluck Jonathan presided over probably the most undisciplined government the country has ever had, and while he instinctively understood the concept of democracy and paid token gestures to it, he pushed the country to ruin and ridicule. And now, purporting itself to be a corrective government, in much the same refracted way he saw his military government 31 odd years ago, President Buhari has proved eminently that military decrees and civilian constitutions can be unwholesomely harnessed for the same autocratic use.

    President Buhari has not changed at all. Once his mind is made up, it is implacably made up. He may sit atop an elected government, but he is unable to fundamentally grasp the difference between a military ruler who brusquely presides over the affairs of  a state and an elected president who presides over the same state whose geographical lines have neither been altered by geomorphologic changes nor by age. It is not his fault that he can’t tell the difference. He lived all his life a soldier, and therefore thinks, acts, and loves like one. Those who should help him appreciate the changes have reclined into sycophantic posture at his feet, ennobling his vague and unwelcome ideas and pressing him to ignore the spirit of the constitution and deploying the letter of the constitution as whimsically as he can.

    Fortunately for the president, Nigerians, excepting a few, have been largely amenable to his dictations and are bowled over by his emotive and unrealistic interpretations of laws and democratic concepts. For the Buhari presidency, therefore, the rule of law is only for those who keep the law; while democracy can be deployed interchangeably with military rule, thus implying that a ruler must determine and embody the mores and values of the society. No one could dare insult that ruler without being dragged before a judge for treason. To this presidency, free speech and hate speech would depend on who is dishing them and who is receiving them. And since at independence a section of the country dominated top appointments and security offices, why, that anomaly can be replayed nearly six decades later, regardless of how much water has passed under the bridge or how deeply divisive and untenable such one-sidedness has become.

    Clearly, for the duration of the Buhari presidency, assuming it can be coaxed not to tip the country over the cliff, there will be no political innovations, no entrenchment of democratic principles and practice, no significant adherence to the rule of law or a partial and short-sighted adherence, no independent judiciary, for all judges must be cajoled into conformity and submission, and no liberties of any substantial kind. The Buhari presidency inherited a diseased political structure, it intends to sustain it by force, of course citing the constitution, yes, the same short-sighted and impracticable constitution. What does the future hold for democracy and the constitution? This is a superfluous question to the Buhari presidency. The presidency’s worldview is encapsulated in the same demeaning cultural insularity that drives the Donald Trump presidency, a perspective that dichotomises Nigeria between one favoured group and the rest, a perspective upon which is spread the disguised veneer of sectionalism and exceptionalism in the name of nationalism. From all indications, not only is democracy deliberately endangered by the Buhari presidency, even the 2023 succession is encased in thick fog as a result of the machinations and manoeuvres of presidential aides and teams.

    Nearly six decades so far, Nigeria has not made up its mind whether to embrace democracy or repudiate it, as their culture and instincts appear to dictate. If the county is to survive and flourish, however, it must make up its mind to be rigorously democratic. To this end, it needs a new constitution, whether the president likes it or not, for the current one is inadequate and untenable. It also implies that the country must wear a new structure, for upon it lies the kind of security systems Nigeria needs to prosper and stabilise, not forces of occupation which the present security agencies have become, and certainly not agencies that now seem to have acquired a life and negative momentum of their own and are increasingly posturing as if they are functioning in a diarchal role. President Buhari will of course be the last military general to rule Nigeria in a very long time; but notwithstanding this, the country must seek a president who has a large heart, sees the country as one, favours no section or religion whether by mistake or by design, understands how complex societies run, can appreciate economic issues no matter how complex, and has the far-sightedness to conceptualise political ideas and innovations, persuade the country to embrace his ideas and policies, and prepare them for a glorious future.

    For 59 years, Nigeria was undone by its rulers, nearly all of whom had either the wrong mindset or the wrong heads. Even if Nigerians were sadists, they should by now be tired of foisting upon themselves maniacal and egotistic rulers who love to torment them. But judging from present discourses on the subject of 2023, there is little hope that real change is around the corner.

     

     

  • If APC is to survive

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) cannot pretend not to know that its future and survival are on the line. Like their predecessors, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), they will continue to live in denial until it is perhaps too late. Having won the elections in 2015, obviously against the run of play and in a spectacular fashion, and repeated the feat a second time in 2019 rather very unscrupulously, the APC is throwing caution to the wind, and enacting probably the most undemocratic practices the country has seen since 1999. But somehow, and incredibly, they seem blissfully unaware of the dangers they face, not to talk of being troubled by the contradictions they themselves have managed to trigger when the democrats among them helped them win the elections only for the disbelieving antidemocratic forces waiting in the wings to seize the reins of government.

    No, it was not always clear that the APC had a critical mass of democrats in their midst, enough to project and sustain their ideals and philosophies, at least the ideals and philosophies they have noisily pretended to. But by some incredible display of political sorcery on their part, Nigerians in 2015 believed the lie that the then opposition party boasted enough democrats in their midst to propel Nigeria to great democratic heights and also possessed the capacity to neutralise and reform the Goodluck Jonathan government’s undisciplined approach to governance. APC leaders and their spokesmen were avid political salesmen, and Muhammadu Buhari, their champion at the time, had been recast as a repentant military autocrat and budding democrat. His natural reticence and his inability to frame his new status in persuasive logic surprisingly worried only a few people.

    But barely five years into their ironclad rule, the APC has begun to feel invincible, careless and conceited. Like their predecessor PDP, they imagine they will be in office for decades, or even for eons. They were never good at translating their manifestos into actions, and had even become expert at repudiating many of their promises, yet they think they have enthroned an unassailable lead to render the opposition party disoriented and discouraged. Projecting power viciously and remorselessly, they are blinded to their own weaknesses and can’t see how anyone or party or group can unseat them. For, in their view, even the very act of trying to unseat them democratically has now been equated with treason. Their first four years ought to be about reframing their core existential logic and redefining the identity and ambitions of their country. Instead, they have redefined their weaknesses as inconsequential and portrayed their strengths as insurmountable.

    More than 90 percent of their leaders are antidemocratic, and their followers have become indistinguishable from the rabble that flattered the PDP into self-destruction. Yet, they have remained unruffled by the chaos around them. In internecine battles and sycophantic dribbles, the party’s leaders and members have also turned intra-party and partisan politics into a needless re-enactment of cultural and sectarian wars and bitter struggles. Right before their eyes, their party, despite the best efforts of their flawed chairman and other patriots, is resembling less and less the party they idealised at their founding in February 2013. They planned to run a more cohesive and disciplined party, far better than the PDP ever contemplated. That ambition has remained unrealised, and may probably be unrealisable. They plotted to disgrace the Jonathan government’s democratic image, describing it as shameful and unbecoming of the country and the largest political party in Africa. Increasingly, they have instead become even more unrepentantly authoritarian.

    So, in effect, there is no adroitness evident in running the ruling party, little adherence to intra-party rules and regulations, no commitment to democratic principles, no idolisation of inspiring philosophies, and not even a scintilla of attachment to the kind of enduring reforms that would stand the country in better stead now and in the future. Apart from its sane early days, a higher degree of charlatanry appears to be taking over the party. Once in office, they have become intolerant of criticism, despise the constitution and the rule of law, and a few of their elected and appointed leaders have elevated themselves above the country and its laws. If the APC is to survive, however, they must imbibe the right values and do things properly and differently. They have ruled for less than five years, but the country has become tired of them because neither the economic lot of the people nor their democratic rights have improved in such a way as to endear them to the party. There is a chance of course that the economy might become less unstable and even more amenable to the laws of economics. In spite of them, however, especially given their sometimes contradictory and desultory policies, the standard of living of Nigerians may improve. But it will not be by the margins they have dreamt of or romanticised in their frequent statements to the media, regardless of the untidy and unprincipled reshuffle of their economic teams in a manner destined both to choke an already ponderous presidency and to mystify a president whose grasp of economic issues are at best rudimentary.

    Despite the complaints against the PDP, Nigerians were reluctant to see the former ruling party suffer the electoral tragedy that befell them. They brought the tragedy on themselves. Equally, it is in the interest of Nigerians that the APC should do well, help remould the country, and establish the solid foundations for democracy which the PDP failed to lay in its inglorious 16 years in office. The APC seems a little distracted by the politics of 2023, given the way the presidency and a few governors have been jostling for influence and power and positioning one another for the near future. If they are capable of eschewing the partisanship that is undermining both their resolve and the modicum of principles they still clutch to, they must find ways of returning themselves to the founding principles they clumsily projected at birth and which many Nigerians unconsciously but too trustingly embraced.

    They imagine that building roads and elongating rail networks, or even growing the economy by a healthy percentage, will help them reposition the party in the minds of the people. This is a futile assumption. Growth may attract accolades in the short run, but it will not entrench the party or even stabilise the country, let alone position it for lasting greatness. No party and no leader in history has achieved the milestones the APC dreams of without engaging the fundamental ideas that conduce to nation or empire building. Without a guiding philosophy, which takes into cognisance the country’s identity and ambitions, no country or empire can achieve greatness — not even the Roman Empire, Greek Empire, Babylonian Empire, Ottoman Empire, and a host of others. They simply must stand for something great, noble and inspiring. And they must possess the discipline to remain faithful to the ideas and philosophies that shape their founding and existence. That is the only way to make a lasting impression. The APC, however, wants to buck that trend despite history’s massive examples. Indeed, more and more, the party seems to be embracing the ignoble principles and distorted ideas that led to the collapse of empires than the noble principles and ideas that led to their rise.

    At the moment, there is nothing in the Buhari presidency and the APC that indicates any hunger for a great and ennobling idea or philosophy. There was a whiff of it when the party was founded; but there was no whiff of it when the Buhari presidency was inaugurated. Between 2015 and now, both the presidency and the ruling party have dealt with the issue of ideas and philosophies contemptuously. They will, however, need to deal with them not with the grossness that pollutes the air in the government and the party but with the finesse and enlightenment that energise and inspire a thinking and farsighted government. It is not clear whether they can; all that is known is that they must find a way to do it, to understand and respect the rule of law no matter how painful or injurious to their interest in the short run, and to obey the constitution unreservedly without the chicaneries and subterfuges that have become their lodestar.

    Indeed, their legacy and reputation are hinged on their ability to appreciate the factors that predispose a country to greatness and long-term stability. Here the structure of the country is paramount. It is hoped that the Buhari presidency possesses the education to know that a building could not stand if the foundation is weak or inappropriate, or if the structure of the building itself is flawed. Can the Buhari presidency boldly say Nigeria’s structure is sound, and that the problem is just the people’s attitude, as it has often argued? Even the Value Added Tax (VAT) controversy must tell a thinking government that it is misguided in its assumptions and destructive in its conclusions. Raising VAT at this point shows lack of depth and purpose. Much more, however, it also shows how iniquitous the country’s so-called federal structure is — that is assuming the APC and the Buhari presidency still believe in federalism — that they force states which produce and therefore pay VAT to underwrite the slothfulness and inefficiency of states which do not produce goods and indeed specialise in erecting strictures inimical to production.

    If the APC and the Buhari presidency can find the discipline and wisdom to get the country’s structure right and learn to obey the laws of the land, they must then find a way to turn their attention to restructuring their party to make it more responsive to the needs of members and the country, away from the grovelling before presidents and governors that shames Nigeria’s democracy. It is a fact that nearly all APC governors are not democrats, as amplified by the atrocious manner they interact with their Houses of Assembly and the judiciary. The president has little interest in democracy and probably can’t even conceptualise it. But they will need to define who they are, what they believe in, and how to find a connection between their identity and beliefs on the one hand and the aspirations and identity of the country on the other hand. The party has always made laws to regulate themselves. But they have often needlessly tinkered with those laws to serve short-term and sometimes nefarious goals. Altogether, increasingly, they have emptied their party of its soul and brutally subordinated its carcass at the federal and state levels to the president and the governors. The APC, like the PDP before it, is now proudly empty of soul and purpose.

    To therefore ask the APC to rediscover itself, assuming it ever had a personality that reflects purpose and ideology, may be asking for too much. But except it embarks on that noble search, it will also flounder like the PDP. Indeed, this is the time for the APC to carry out that exercise of self-examination and rediscovery, a time when antidemocratic politicians and officials have virtually swept the party and the presidency off their feet, a time when the constitution is now held in abeyance and tyranny is knocking at the nation’s door, a time when the sectionalists in government and party think only in terms of private, pecuniary and aggrandizing ideas, not national, altruistic ideas. The Buhari presidency will of course not last beyond its constitutional limits, even if it manages to achieve something. But the party will outlive him, just like the critics whom both the party and the presidency detest will outlive them.

    The tragedy enveloping the APC is the same tragedy that undid the PDP. When the PDP took office in 1999, it had the misfortune of antidemocratic politicians swiftly taking and occupying the commanding heights of government, and with time, swallowing the party too. Lightning has struck twice, alas, unconventionally in the same place. When President Buhari and his APC won the 2015 elections, they immediately turned over the reins of government to antidemocratic players who are doing horrendously with the country as they please, recriminating and criminalising critics who point out the folly of their ways. Neither Chief Olusegun Obasanjo nor Mallam Umaru Yar’Adua nor Goodluck Jonathan is writing the history of Nigeria under the PDP. Critics and historians are doing the writing. No matter how badly they are badmouthed and hauled before judges for treason and other silly crimes, critics and historians will also write the history of Nigeria under the APC. It is up to the APC to reform or die physically and figuratively.

    That death would be inevitable as long as they keep confusing the scaffolding for the building, reshuffling their economic teams in the false hope that brilliant technocrats could atone for the lack of depth and industry assailing the presidency, overlooking the timidity and complicity of the National Assembly as they impotently beg the president to mediate between them and intransigent presidential appointees, and tolerating and refusing to punish bureaucratic perverseness such as was experienced when the secret service invaded the legislature and the executive branch deployed judicial caricatures to overthrow the chief justice. Chief Obasanjo and Dr Jonathan ruled as if there was no future, or that when that future catches up with them they would not be hoist with their own petard. Now the APC and its leaders are displaying the same short-sightedness, believing that the fiefdom they have created will preclude them from paying for the laxity and anarchy they are engendering.

    If the country is too timid to ask the APC and the dispirited and distraught PDP what visions of the country they have, and though Nigerians think they voted their government into office but are too deferential to take the presidency to task on their imperious and angry approach to governance, the ruling party itself must try to assemble men and women who, after studying the histories of great empires and kingdoms, can help the party and country envision tomorrow. The party has less than two or three years to remedy the confusion they have enthroned. Few trust them to do anything imaginative, however, especially seeing the way its leading functionaries have talked about and begun to scheme for 2023; but the country has an obligation to hope that the immense damage they have caused the nation can still be addressed, especially considering the manner the PDP imploded after its deserved loss of the presidency.

  • Presidency, Finance ministry and gender sensitivity

    NIGERIA has the All Progressives Congress (APC) women leaders led by their chairperson, Salamatu Baiwa, to thank for helping to shed light on some of the guiding philosophies underpinning President Muhammadu Buhari’s appointments. Giddy with excitement, the president had disclosed to his guests why he sticks to appointing women to head the Ministry of Finance. When he appointed Kemi Adeosun as Finance minister, no one appeared to understand that it was deliberate. Everyone thought that, after all, another woman, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had headed the ministry, so it was not unusual. And when the current occupant of the post, Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed was appointed last year and reappointed this year, it was thought that it was a natural progression from her being Minister of State for Budget and Planning between 2015 and 2018.

    This piece is of course not a commentary on whether Shamsuna Ahmed, an accountant and MBA degree holder, is capable or not of heading the Ministry of Finance and Budget and National Planning. Nor is it also a commentary on whether she can or cannot play the part of Minister of Economy to which her appointment to the combined ministries signify. Rather, it is a commentary on a few of the principles that motivate the president into making some of his appointments, assuming he has told the country the whole truth. According to the president, he thinks women are great managers of the treasury. Really? Does this responsibility have any correlation with gender? Though he does not see it, the president’s viewpoint is clearly antiquated.

    Here his incredible logic: “I am happy that I can defend myself very effectively on this issue. The APC party leader is my witness. Since the coming into power of this administration I have handed over the treasury to women. Even at the household level, you hand over the money to women to manage. It can be taken to the level of managing the country’s treasury as well. I have consistently given it to women. It is strategic. I am conscious of the leadership roles of women in the society and by my action, I have justified my belief.”

    Not only is the president’s logic condescending to women, and very jaded too, it is also indicative of a presidency that is firing on the wrong cylinders and hoping that luck would sustain it and gift it with unplanned and perhaps undeserved success. It is remarkable that the president says he can defend himself effectively in making his gender-sensitive appointments. No, he can’t. His defence is both inappropriate and ineffective. There is no foundation to sustain it other than a hackneyed and discredited traditional cliché about women. Second, the president is clearly a traditionalist presiding over the affairs of a modern and complex nation in dire need of paradigm shifts and deep structural reengineering. It is, therefore, not surprising that the country groans under this strange mismatch and juxtaposition. A traditionalist can’t manage a modern system. And third, even if it is true that handing over family upkeep money can be equated with managing the family’s general investments — this equation is of course false, even for the president himself — it is certainly not true that that premise can be generalised for the nation. In any case, who tells the president that her Finance ministry appointees were successful in managing their family’s investments?

    It is truly shocking that the economy, which is at the core of Nigeria’s existential challenges, can be treated with so much levity by the president, to the annoying point of reducing it to gender inclusivity and parity, and to the horrendous diminution of equating household funds management with national financial management. Being Minister of the Economy has absolutely nothing to do with gender, let alone household upkeep money, and is a sexist stereotype that is both traditionally and modernistically insulting to women. It also speaks to the president’s incomplete understanding of what it takes to manage and inspire a modern economy, and of his even more limited knowledge of what kind of appointment justifies that all-important ministry. It should never be about gender or tribe or religion. It should be about profundity, depth of knowledge — both theory and practice — and boldness and initiative.

    How many more ministries have attracted the president’s traditionalist and simplistic approach to governance in this modern era? Just what other worldview does he bandy about that is exposing the country to danger and catastrophe? It may not be a crime to be a traditionalist, but to own up to it and flaunt it in a fast-changing world is, to put it mildly, a contortion of values and misplacement of priorities. It is hoped that in electing their next president, Nigerians will be more scrupulous in scrutinising and assessing them through debates and interviews. It is not enough that a candidate means well or is a prim and proper person; no, he must also be equipped and relevant. The tragedy of Nigeria is that none of its past presidents since 1999, nor even now, had been relevant to the country’s needs. It is time to break the mould and find innovative and far-sighted leaders who understand rather than fear democracy, and who revel in defending and promoting institutions rather than destroying them and promoting the worst forms of scaremongering.

  • Overrated Mugabe and lessons for Nigeria

    ZIMBABWE regards Robert Mugabe, their former prime minister and president who died at 95 in Singapore, a national icon. They are right. He helped extricate the country from white minority rule in 1980, made significant impact on education and healthcare, and authored great and colourful quotes. But his countervailing policies of repression and mismanagement, not to talk of his megalomania and repression, all combined to weaken his legacy and left the country bewildered, underdeveloped and struggling . He was enormously gifted, passably intelligent and doubtless passionate about Zimbabwe, but he was neither futuristic nor blessed with the kind of sound judgement needed to secure his legacy for all time.

    Mr Mugabe ruled for all of 37 years, seven of which he spent as prime minister until the constitution was amended to enable him assume the presidency. If Zimbabweans regard him as an icon, it is partly because they have no benchmark with which to compare him. This is understandable. He had led them to independence. Even though at bottom he was an African nationalist, he also became in the 1970s and 1980s a Marxist-Leninist, metamorphosed into a socialist in the 1990s, and ended up with an eclectic body of ideas and programmes improperly described as Mugabeism, a self-serving and incoherent tapestry into which was woven Eastern and African ideologies ranging from Maoism and Stalinism to Nkrumaism and Negritude among many others.

    His moulting over the years was, however, a mask for his impatience and  indiscipline. Starting out as a reflective leader intent on running an inclusive government, he gradually began hardening into a conceited ruler after he was repeatedly spurned by white Zimbabweans who resisted land redistribution, unhelpful former colonial masters who were suspicious of his intentions and socialist bent, and heckling local politicians some of whom opposed his power grab and dissonant policies. These problems may explain why he hardened himself, but they do not excuse him, for in the long run, his legacies would be determined by how strong he left the country rather than what motivated his repressive tendencies. Few would disagree that he left his country much poorer than he met it, more divided than necessary, and less promising looking into the future.

    An unsparing and scathing biographer, Martin Meredith, summed up Mr Mugabe’s leadership this way: “By the mid-1990s Mugabe had become an irascible and petulant dictator, brooking no opposition, contemptuous of the law and human rights, surrounded by sycophantic ministers and indifferent to the incompetence and corruption around him. His record of economic management was lamentable. He had failed to satisfy popular expectations in education, health, land reform, and employment. And he had alienated the entire white community. Yet all the while Mugabe continued to believe in his own greatness. Isolated and remote from ordinary reality, possessing no close friends and showing clear signs of paranoia, he listened only to an inner circle of conspiratorial aides and colleagues. Whatever difficulties occurred he attributed to old enemiesBritain, the West, the old Rhodesian networkall bent, he believed, on destroying his ‘revolution’.”

    Mr Meredith may be somewhat prejudiced, but he still managed to capture a part of the trajectory of Mr Mugabe’s leadership. Indeed, almost as if justifying naysayers’ view of his leadership, Mr Mugabe himself demeaned the subject of the rule of law by this explicatory statement on the issue of land seizures that buffeted his presidency: “The courts can do whatever they want, but no judicial decision will stand in our way … My own position is that we should not even be defending our position in the courts. This country is our country and this land is our land … They think because they are white they have a divine right to our resources. Not here. The white man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans, Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans.” Given the consequences of many of his policies and his serial subversion of institutions, not to say particularly his contempt for the rule of law, it is not surprising that his country has been left bewildered and unable to reach a consensus on what his leadership meant for Zimbabwe. He undoubtedly led his country to independence, but did it also confer on him the right to enslave it to himself and his family — to the point of scheming his wife as successor — and compromise its future?

    Even if Mr Mugabe had not overreached himself by attempting to foist his wife, Grace, as his successor, thus provoking his opponents to unite against him, and had managed to die in office, his controversial legacy would still not have been mitigated nor his leadership canonised. He was tremendously gifted, witty and courageous, and judging from some of his sayings, he was also a thoughtful leader; but it is remarkable just how little he learnt from the past and how arrogant he was about his hold on Zimbabwe and its future. If his 37 years in office had led to outstanding economic growth and technological development, his long reign would have been forgiven, his repression excused, and his massacre of opposition people and politicians become a footnote in a supposedly glorious reign. Unfortunately, the outcome was different.

    Nigeria and other African countries have a lot to learn from Mr Mugabe’s forced exit in 2017 and his questionable legacy. Many of them are now superficially democratic, and may therefore see themselves immune to the fate that befell the Zimbabwean leader; but they really must worry about what legacy they hope to bequeath their peoples, in terms of institutions, the economy, and democracy. Mr Mugabe tried in his early years in office to run an inclusive government, but because he lacked the depth, discipline and democratic perspective to anchor his efforts and guarantee stability for his country going into the future, he was unsuccessful. Many African countries still treat democracy with deep loathing and suspicion. Nigeria is not an exception. Its democratic credentials are deeply suspect and unreliable, and its leaders unconvinced about democracy’s many essential and complex elements. This is why since the advent of the Fourth Republic and four presidents later, democracy is yet to be entrenched, and institutions are still weak and subservient to the executive branch, thus enthroning a terrible and provocative culture of surrender and genuflection.

    Mr Mugabe, like Nigerian leaders, paid no attention to what the future held for his country. He was particularly remiss in this area. Yet, thousands of years before him, Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar wondered about what would happen after his reign, leading him to seek clarification and insight, an indication of his conviction, thoughtfulness and depth. The insight he got, though of no immediate value to him or his reign, at least gave him the reassurance of knowing and reconciling himself with what he found out. Mr Mugabe had no inkling what would happen to Zimbabwe after him, as he was unable to think beyond himself and foisting his wife on a country that had been pushed into distress and retrogression. Nelson Mandela at least thought long and hard about the future, wisely stepped aside after his first term, and tried to nurture and mentor future South African leaders. He met with qualified success, a success sadly unable to transcend even one generation before the country began its alarming descent into suicidal mediocrity and violence. Zimbabwe is not gifted with the right leadership, and will continue to grope in the dark.

    If Nigeria is to learn any lesson from Zimbabwe and from Mr Mugabe in particular, its presidents must eschew the indiscipline and superficiality that almost completely destroyed the Zimbabwean leader’s legacy. Ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, despite his exposure, learnt little from other great statesmen and leaders, and thus embarked on disastrous succession adventures. President Muhammadu Buhari does not show a complete comprehension of what leadership entails, preferring the sycophancy of parochial aides and the destruction or subjugation of institutions. Unable to summon the depth, discipline and coherence needed to enthrone the appropriate and inclusive policies and appointments, it is feared that his succession policy, not to say his second term, may also be fraught with adverse ideas and programmes. Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire and a host of other African countries have also by a combination of poor leadership and disastrous programmes exposed their countries to ridicule and poverty, and wrapped every succession period in violence and instability.

    Mr Mugabe may be the archetype of promising leadership gone hopeless berserk; but his example is not necessarily inevitable for all African countries. Nigeria and others can avoid that horrible example. But they will need the right leadership to escape the Zimbabwean pitfalls, the kind of leadership they sadly don’t have at the moment. Ghana has fared much better, and even Benin Republic has shown a lot of promise. The tragedy is that Nigeria, which by its size and endowments should lead the way, has become the continent’s perennial laggard, almost completely destitute of sound judgement and deep and disciplined leaders. Zimbabwe must contend with a dangerouslu unstable future, and that contention will be led by leaders like Emmerson Mnangagwa who are ill-equipped for the long and arduous task. Other countries like Nigeria must on their own contend with a precarious present, a task few of their leaders have shown the education and temperament to intelligently grapple with.

  • Afrophobia, Nigeria and bloody South African riddle

    THE horror playing out in South Africa leading to the killing of Nigerians and citizens of neighbouring Southern African countries is, strictly speaking, not xenophobic. With nearly all the victims Africans, except in a few cases, the message is clear how the minds of South Africans work. It is pointless analysing their psychology; they are who they are, a people perhaps scarred by their history and their encounters with apartheid, oppression and poverty. Unable to respond properly to their nemesis, they have taken out their anger on outsiders, mainly blacks, as a form of catharsis. Will that resolve the underlying schisms and fault lines in their society? It is unlikely. But Nigeria and other victims of the needless slaying and looting perpetrated by South Africans against black foreigners reserve the right to find ways to curb the menace.

    Much has been written about how the South African mind works, and why they have turned against Nigerians and others Africans. Analysts have placed the blame on their history, particularly the apartheid era policies that disenfranchised and humiliated them. It is also of little importance now to begin to find fault with how the Nigerian government lethargically and clumsily responded to the challenge. Nigeria was at first slow in reacting, then when it jerked awake, its people and government are now probably overreacting. Consider for instance the fact that South African policemen stood idly by as their countrymen perpetrated Afrophobic attacks, and the abhorrent countervailing fact that Nigerian security agencies, in their effort to combat the attack and looting of businesses related to South Africa, managed to kill a Nigerian in Lagos. The irony neither strikes nor worries them.

    There is very little that can be done now to reorient the police in Nigeria and the security agencies. They will probably get far worse. And there is little anyone can do to energise a Nigerian foreign policy that exists only on paper. No matter how badly behaved a president is, and no matter how undemocratic he has become, it is important for him to develop the foreign policy he has conceived in his private studies and moments. There will be no such attempt in Nigeria in the foreseeable future, for not only has the country’s foreign policy shown no spark, the president also does not have a foreign policy conviction of any kind.

    In terms of the foreign policy weakness that afflicts and puzzles Nigeria, South Africa has become the other side of the bad coin. Given the inexpert way President Cyril Ramaphosa has tackled the Afrophobic rage on South African streets, it is suspected that though he is ideological, he is in fact as incompetent, malicious and anti-democratic as Nigerian leaders. Indeed, President Ramaphosa has seemed to connive at the violence against fellow Africans, believing that the victims are a significant part of the causes of the country’s national malaise. He has condemned the violence, but that condemnation has come late and is devoid of conviction and vigour, just like the Nigerian response to the killings opened up the presidency to allegations of being flatfooted on the matter because a section of Nigeria seems disproportionately the victims of the rage.

    With each succeeding generation, Africa is becoming more destitute of sound leaders. Gone are the Mandelas, the Kaundas, the Nyereres, the Nkurumahs and the Lumumbas. Sure they were not first rate leaders, but compared with the current crop of African leaders, including blighted Nigeria, they were really incomparable. Don’t expect the South African conundrum to be adequately resolved; Since Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, they don’t produce disciplined and philosophical leaders anymore in their country, and their crises will probably worsen in the coming years. And don’t expect Nigeria to have the back of their citizens anywhere, for the leadership crisis plaguing the country is even far worse than South Africa’s, and seems set to become more complicated. The killings in South Africa will taper off in the coming days, until another flare-up sometime in the future. Nothing will come out of the present crisis. Black Africans have given themselves a bad name; let them wear it like a badge, if you forgive the pessimism.

  • Oshiomhole’s Kogi panegyrics

    ADAMS Oshiomhole, the All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman, said a lot of provocative stuff last Thursday when he and the ruling party’s National Working Committee (NWC) met with Kogi State governorship aspirants. Governor Yahaya Bello won the primary. He took a hefty 3,127 of the possible 3,596 votes, thus rendering the exercise a no-contest. The other contestants should not have bothered. For a governor roundly condemned by nearly all sections of the Kogi society, including lawmakers whose signal cowardice leads them to sneering at the governor privately, it is strange that the party’s delegates displayed a paradoxical sense of measurement and ethics in their controversial endorsement of a governor they agreed neither performed well nor showed any capacity to perform now and in the future.

    Mr Bello will face Musa Wada, an engineer, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored a more believable 748 votes to his immediate rival’s 710 out of a delegate population of 2,388. The spread of votes and the margin of defeat and victory in the PDP primary appear more realistic than the APC’s. In fact, the immediate past PDP governor of the state, Idris Wada, and brother to the winner, took a notable but embarrassing vote of 345. It is interesting that the runner-up, Abubakar Ibrahim Idris, is the son of former governor Ibrahim Idris. Obviously, PDP has seemed more dynastic and unable to fully democratise their political base.

    But whatever the problems of the PDP are, they are nothing compared to the contradictions playing out in the APC, contradictions accentuated by the serial misspeak from the APC. It may be too early to say who will win the November governorship poll, considering that the PDP and APC primaries are either still being questioned by aspirants or litigated. It may indeed be difficult to say at the moment who would win, but it is not too difficult to say who should win. However, no analyst is so clairvoyant in the matter as to be capable of hazarding a guess concerning how the winner would rule the state in the next four years or whether he would have any degree of success. But, if the past is anything to go by, it is far easier to side with the unknown PDP candidate, hoping faintly that his engineering qualification would have imbued him with some sense of civility and moderation in contrast to the brutishness and chaotic disposition of the incumbent, Mr Bello.

    Today is not the time to determine who would or should win. The election is still more than two months away, happily enough time to weaken the sorcery of Mr Bello and counteract the vapid panegyrics of the APC chairman. Mr Oshiomhole is a candid politician, sometimes flighty, and at other times querulous, but he is often endearingly frank about those he likes and those he hates. His courage sometimes fails him, and logic has never been his forte, seeing that he relies heavily on his eloquence more than anything else, but he has been fortunate over the years that whatever failures he exhibits have never managed to attenuate both his rambunctious unionist career and his chequered political life. He bravely took on some of the president’s governor friends in the last election, foiling their clumsy and undemocratic efforts to anoint successors. President Muhammadu Buhari  showed his irritation by badly equivocating over the APC chairman’s stand, but he managed to keep his peace. And surprise of all surprises, Mr Oshiomhole triumphed. Is it that this time, having known just what he is capable of, Mr Bello’s Abuja backers have put their foot down?

    In any case, even before the Kogi APC governorship primary was held, the usually boisterous Mr Oshiomhole had been strangely both quiescent and inaudible. Being unearthly silent or reduced to whispers in the face of anticipated evil is, however, one thing, but being silent or conniving when evil has manifested is another thing. Once the Kogi APC primary had been decided in the party’s and states’ inimitably malevolent manner, the APC chairman simply endorsed Mr Bello and composed a panegyric in his honour. His predecessor, John Odigie-Oyegun, was consistent in his conservative and almost reactionary endorsement of political nitwits and acolytes, and was never known to have been incommoded by either conscience or any remonstrance. Mr Oshiomhole on the other hand has been known, perhaps with some exaggeration, as a disciplined and conscientious politician, one who abjures the obnoxious practice of ingratiation.

    It was, therefore, a surprise that the APC chairman not only endorsed and embraced Mr Bello and the flawed primary that foisted him upon the party as standard-bearer, he in fact also welcomed him enthusiastically last Thursday to the party’s headquarter with a doxology composed by the party’s top hierarchy. Determined to compare the governor’s performance, not against the benchmark of the APC, but against the obnoxious performance of past PDP administrations, Mr Oshiomhole proceeded to award the Kogi governor a pass mark. Said he: “…You will score the current governor higher if we must tell ourselves the truth.” What does Mr Oshiomhole know about the truth? Even for so forthright and unsparing a politician, one whom this column has sometimes praised, the APC chairman handles the truth as if it were a bosomy and curvaceous maiden whose provocative strutting must compel God to excuse or forgive every sinner for their lewd gaze and secret longing. Knowing him for who he is, the party chairman was not really speaking about the truth, especially given his own famed Machiavellian ways, but about the reality and inescapability imposed upon him by the shadowy supporters of the governor safely ensconced in Abuja, far away from the depredations caused by the fumbling governor in Kogi State.

    The APC crowd may hate the PDP and belittle the modest contributions its past governors had made to the development of Kogi State. But those former governors acted, spoke, related and lived far more moderately and decently than Mr Bello can ever attempt. Mr Oshiomhole should have limited himself to comparing the Kogi governor with the APC’s amorphous general benchmark. The public may mistrust the comparison, but they will be hard put to controvert it, for after all, the ruling party in many of the APC-led states, not to talk of at the federal level, has chased chimera, complained offensively loudly, confused scaffolding for the building, and has been inflated by an egregious sense of self-importance in a way that the PDP, in all their sixteen crazy years in office, must find even excessive and unbearable.

    But Mr Oshiomhole was not done with his embroideries. As is his practice, once he begins his soliloquies, once the spirit seizes him, there is no restraining him, as his eloquence takes wing and soars in direct and impudent defiance of the truth. Said he again of Mr Bello’s record: “Bello did not only inherit salary arrears from his predecessors, which he had defrayed, but also inherited burdens of infrastructure, projects approved and money paid but were not executed, and the governor is doing all such projects today.” It is hard to know who is lying the more between the chairman and the standard-bearer about salaries and pensions owed Kogi State workers. Mr Oshiomhole is full of exaggerations; and Mr Bello is full of mendacity. Between them, they are betraying the state and irreparably injuring the psyche of long-suffering workers and indigenes of the state.

    The APC chairman is perhaps too busy to find out just how the governor paid the salary arrears. If he tried, he would have discovered that not all the arrears were paid, and the part which was paid was paid in fractions, fractions that humiliate the people and bastardise governance. Much worse, Mr Oshiomhole talks of inherited abandoned projects, and that the governor was doing all of them. No lie can be so offensive. Mr Bello has no idea better than a primary schoolboy’s about projects and development. He has not done anything new which anyone should take the trouble of remembering, and every old thing he has touched has been to either destroy it or sell it. The governor whom Mr Oshiomhole praises so fulsomely has no conception of the past, of the present, or of the future, let alone appreciate the correlation between his vaunted youthfulness and governance. And how can he do any project when most of the time he is in Abuja perfecting what it means to be a spendthrift, and lobbying anyone he can find in the national legislature, federal executive and the judiciary to pander to his whims.

    To finally insult Kogites and lovers of democracy in Nigeria, Mr Oshiomhole offers the country this atrocity: ”Even our party’s enemies will agree with us that Yahaya Bello has done well in the area of security. If the people are not secured, no meaningful development can take place.” The APC chairman assumes the public can be hoodwinked with the triteness about peace and development. Shocking. Not only is the APC as a whole unconvincingly democratic, not to talk of the enforcer, Mr Bello himself, it is an infernal lie to suggest Kogi is secure. It is not. If many of the state’s criminals have migrated to other places, it is simply because the people have been so impoverished by the government that there is little or nothing left on them for anyone to steal. And as for enemies agreeing that Mr Bello had done well in security, not even the friends of the Kogi government agree that the governor has done anything well, or that he possesses any redeeming virtue.

    Mr Oshiomhole and the APC are at liberty to impose anyone they wish and support their imposition with all the resources at their disposal, but they must still retain the capacity to wince at the  disreputable panegyrics they compose and the brazen lies they tell. They may not care what becomes of the state, and may even attempt to force the poll in November, but surely those who are reflective among them should beware of immutable spiritual laws certain to ensnare them. The APC, having taken the measure of the state’s rancorous politics and ignorant ethnic permutations, may also secretly hope that their candidate will profit from the confusion and darkness enveloping the state. Indeed, the state’s futile politics is such that commentators may, in exasperation, abandon indigenes of the state to their own foolish devices. But they must all know, regardless of whichever party they belong to, that four more years of Mr Bello would be sufficient to ruin the state and scar the people’s psyche so deeply as to be irredeemable.

  • Borno deplores military’s counterinsurgency tactics

    Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States have borne the brunt of the Boko Haram insurgency. But Borno is the epicentre of the revolt. During the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, they state’s elite complained that the military was tackling the revolt incompetently and insensitively. At the time, the insurgents were numbered approximately 5,000, and the military made heavy weather of defeating them. Dr Jonathan, however, gave short shrift to the murmuring Borno elite, a response that met with derision among top northern politicians and elders.

    More than four years down the line, and with Boko Haram fighters degraded to approximately two thousand, the battle has still not been won despite the semantic gymnastics of the government; and Borno elite are still grumbling. President Muhammadu Buhari, who had once complained under the Dr Jonathan presidency that the then government was tackling the revolt incompetently, is now president, and has been in office for more than four years. Last week, a group of Borno residents loudly complained that Boko Haram had not been defeated, and worse, that the military’s tactics was incompetent and abominable.

    As expected, the residents got short shrift. Their governor, Babagana Zulum, had earlier also deplored the military’s tactics, describing it as ineffective. Both the governor and the grumbling residents have made suggestions that appear sensible. The military may want to give them a hearing. Sometime ago, the government had announced that Boko Haram was degraded as a fighting force, which was probably true; had been technically defeated, which left room for diverse interpretations; and had been defeated with not an inch of Nigerian territory under the control of the insurgents, which was an exaggeration. Now, residents of the state have given the country an alternative account of the state of the war, insisting that the president was being misinformed and the public hoodwinked. It is difficult to fault them.

    If the government can be persuaded to eschew language misapplication, it should forthrightly address the apprehensions of the people of Borno. Boko Haram was inspired by irresponsible north-eastern elite, misjudged and mismanaged by the government, and may now, according to some Borno residents, be exploited by the military. The military cannot persuade Nigerians that they were unable to defeat a rag-tag guerrilla force of about five thousand men, not to talk of convince anyone that today some remnant two thousand insurgents can effectively procure a stalemate against them.

    Borno is bleeding, and with them the country too. It is a cruel tactics to hope to outlast Boko Haram. What if they refuse to be exhausted? What if they are enjoying the macabre game? The cost to the country in human toll and financial resources is gargantuan and unbearable. It is time to end this insurgency in the hope that the country can deploy financial and ideological resources to combat the other ‘insurgencies’ overtaking the country. It is also time the Nigerian military tried to regain some of their prestige lost in the war, stanch the flow of blood among their troops, and restore the country to some normality. Surely the Buhari presidency is capable of rethinking the insurgency.

  • A predictable cabinet

    It took more than a month to reappoint President Muhammadu Buhari’s kitchen cabinet, though they continued to function in their offices after the election; nearly three months to put the general cabinet in place, with all the ministers-designate screened without the Senate knowing their portfolios; and about three months to reappoint his other aides, with hardly any change. Apart from the ministers, most of the aides and kitchen cabinet staff had their appointments backdated to May 29, partly because they never ceased to function. So, why the delay? It is one of the mysteries that will continue to dog the Buhari presidency. Most other governments in the world, not to talk of democracies, take far shorter time to make all these appointments. In his first term, the president spent much longer time putting a cabinet together, even at a point questioning their relevance, but the country sighed and bore the consequences of his unfathomable approach to governance with imperfect equanimity.

    Once the president finally but more quickly got round to making his second term appointments, particularly constituting his cabinet, opinions became sharply divided on what ideas and preferences drove and still drives him. Is his mind as snarled as his appointments? Or is he just boyishly spontaneous and unhurried about everything, regardless of the gravity and urgency of that everything? Does he at all have any conception of Nigeria, and if so, in his mind, is it a conception of a unified whole or a parochial, fragmented and eclectically assembled entity? No answer fits all. The country must, therefore, continue to cavort among many answers and puzzles. On some occasions, the president seems capable of rousing passion for certain national causes; and on some other occasions, he seems also perfectly capable of promoting so much discord that it is difficult to tell who he is, when he is himself, and when he is not himself.

    Historians, and perhaps too posterity, will face an arduous task of passing a fair judgement on the Buhari presidency, particularly making sense of his motives, examining his bona fides, and assessing his vaunted claims as a patriot, nationalist and governmental ethicist. To those who intensely dislike his style and policies — he is not really a politician, and can’t be accused of playing politics — that judgement is crystal clear. But to others who are more patient and introspective, they will have to wait until the next two or more years to pass a judgement. Whether for or against, assessors must establish their methodology and follow it scrupulously and consistently. To, therefore, say a few things about his cabinet and his laborious method of assembling his ministers and kitchen cabinet is not to entirely dismiss his government or damn him. It is, however, necessary periodically to examine his style, policies and appointments, nearly all of which have been baffling, agitating and controversial. In the end, it will probably be found that while he has impacted the country in some significant ways, he has paid little attention to both the long run and the need to lay a solid foundation for democracy.

    President Buhari is in fact one of Nigeria’s greatest apostles of the short run. He is instinctive and spontaneous, regardless of whether his instinctiveness and spontaneity are harnessed for the right causes or not. More curiously, once his mind is made up, it is usually unbendable. Hence his service chiefs have stood the test of time, not necessarily of efficiency. This may also explain why his first term cabinet suffered little or no change, notwithstanding the buffeting by critics, or what the country felt. His second term cabinet which was inaugurated some 11 days ago now seems set to become another test of the essential Buhari, a clue to his controversial simplicity, lack of adventurousness, and lack of attention to detail. Many critics have perused his cabinet list and remarked his inattentiveness to both the big and the little things that matter. Does he recognise the signals his cabinet list has triggered? It is hard to say.

    But when President Buhari remarked to an audience that by appointing two ministers each from Kano and Kaduna States he had paid his debts to the two states for voting massively for him in the last presidential poll, he gives the frightening impression that he neither understands the deeper meaning of democracy nor appreciates the weighty significance of the presidency, indeed his presidency on which rests the fate of a country harried by doubts, low self-esteem, confusion and insecurity. By drawing elemental correlations between votes and appointments in the face of a national security emergency typified by what is clearly a failing economy and a failing state, the president seems unable to rise to the higher ideals of leadership and statecraft. Here indeed are opportunities for a leader to rise to the occasion, someone to redefine who Nigeria should be and what it should represent in the world; someone to inspire hope and self-belief; someone to take the country’s contentious ethnic swords and fashion them into a wholesome and gigantic ploughshare; someone who, at the end of his presidency, would leave Nigeria changed for the better for all time.

    One important signal the cabinet list emits is that it gives a glimpse of the values and principles that drive President Buhari as a person and leader. He has on the surface rewarded states which voted massively for him, but in reality the cabinet appointments showed a skewness that is at once limiting and indulgent, including the superfluous Humanitarian and Disaster Management ministry. Rather than serve as a reward indicator, the list exudes the ardour of insularity and dogmatism. It further indicates that there will really be no philosophical, ideological and even practical foundations to sustain and prod the cabinet into loftiness. The president obviously sees the list as nothing more than a testament to his inchoate understanding of nationhood. But by loading his native Northwest with nine senior ministerial appointees and justifying that unusual generosity on the grounds of electoral harvest, and by imbuing some key ministries with an ethnic hue and backbone, the president appears to have finally made up his mind just what conclusions he wants Nigerians to draw about his presidency.

    As many critics have volunteered, President Buhari’s second term cabinet is not exceptional for anything. In soul and identity, it is indistinguishable from his first cabinet. In ideology, it remains virtually conservative, and in composition only to a little extent eclectic. The president has neither changed nor shown any significant indication that the country he has been privileged to lead thrice deserves a total and revolutionary makeover. Consequently, he didn’t seem capable of producing a cabinet that would commit itself to that putative revolutionary assignment. There are of course a few exceptions — of ministers with an eye on history, who know full well that despite the uninspiring nature of the government they serve, much is expected of them. But they are too few to inspire a major change in direction and depth. Given the way they were assembled, not to say the needless delay in putting together the president’s aides and kitchen staff, it is all but clear that something deep and central, perhaps an inner steely core that should be the fulcrum of this government and presidency, is missing.

    There is no one to look up to in the team assembled by the president to help him deliver on his promises, someone who can inspire hope for Nigeria’s great leap forward into the future — no one in the cabinet, and none among his close and kitchen cabinet staff. To mould a great country starts with getting the philosophical underpinnings right. But no such lofty ideas are in sight, and there won’t be any in the next four years. Nigeria is, therefore, in danger of continuing to function on suspended animation, as it struggles to implement a bastardised form of federalism and presidentialism. The economy is acutely hamstrung by wrong formulae and principles, and the political environment has become deeply carcinogenic and illiberal to the point of endangering democracy altogether. Rule of law has been dismembered, with only token gestures waved casually in the market place, while basic and fundamental rights are dangerously abridged.

    Even in the best of environments, the new cabinet will struggle to deliver a lasting impact. Now shackled by the insistence of the president that they route their affairs through the Chief of Staff (CoS) and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), it is hard to envision the mobility and flexibility the country’s dire situation calls for in order to help resolve existential challenges. The president and his spokesmen cite presidentialism as the reason to impose the kind of order and decorum needed by his government to function smoothly. They are right. But not only is the president generally aloof and distant, the office of the CoS through which the ministers must navigate their Panama canal has also not demonstrated the promptness and efficiency required to both lubricate and aerate the system. Even if a president decides to be sectional, he still has an obligation to make the system work. But this system could not function to full capacity in the past four years because the president did little to reduce the chokehold militating against its smooth operation.

    Many critics see the shape of the cabinet as signalling the first shots for the 2023 elections. This is perhaps exaggerated. The cabinet is in fact more a reflection of the dichotomic worldview of both the president and his aides than an indication of political coherence, a worldview that is only theoretically committed to Nigerian unity but practically and distinctly unfavourable to progress. Though the Buhari presidency has acted as if it was empowered by a sectional consensus to proceed the way he has done, given the high incidence of insecurity in the country, however, and the increasingly bold challenge offered by many non-state actors’ to law and order, initial calculations and permutations will be proved to be grossly overrated, and every trace of sectionalism and provincialism will be put to dire test in the coming years.

    A few weeks ago, the president remarked that he would not groom any successor. His ascent to power had little to do with his person or accomplishments. His successor will profit little from his controversial record in office or his commitment to any person. His judgements have not been unimpeachable; it would be out of character to now trust his judgement of a successor. Luckily, his cabinet shows no indication whatsoever of any impending grooming. If anything, the cabinet is the clearest reflection of a president whose obsession is to burnish his own image, sate his passion for leadership, and achieve full personal restoration that puts the lie to the opinion of him propagated by the coup of 1985.