The Nation Newspaper

Category: Idowu Akinlotan

  • Bishop Kukah’s firestorm

    Bishop Kukah’s firestorm

    No matter how much gloss anyone would like to put on the recent views of Bishop Matthew Kukah, especially his opinion on former president Goodluck Jonathan, it is undeniable that he has not shown enough discretion in many of the interviews he has granted the media. Some of the views were indeed incendiary, going both the mood of the country and the horrifying tales of graft perpetrated by officials of the last government. Given all he has had to say on the matter, the Bishop of Sokoto Diocese seems to have sympathy for Dr Jonathan, and appears to prefer that the man be left alone. Unfortunately for the bishop, no one wants to leave the former president alone, a baying for blood that is exacerbated by the worsening state of the economy, the hunger in the land, and the continuing constriction of the political space due to stalled appointments and lack of opportunities.

    Press interviews, by nature, do not afford the interviewee the luxury of long pauses and reflections. Even the best of politicians and officials, lay and ecclesiastical, are prone to gaffes, hyperboles and incendiary statements. To survive and flourish, therefore, media workers, particularly the broadcast media, prefer direct, live interviews where the true man often manifests in all his volatile and ugly colours, without garnishments, and with all his faults, warts and demons. In such interviews, the real, prejudiced, intemperate and maudlin man is often coaxed out, to the entertainment of the public, the dismay of the interviewee’s supporters, and sometimes the grief and humiliation of his family.

    In the now widely quoted Channels Television interview, Bishop Kukah let off a firestorm that may affect his image for a while longer than he would hope. He was absolutely himself — no pretences, no dissembling, no fear. But was he wise in his answers? It is hard to judge, for, sometimes, it is not so much wisdom that makes a man, but courage. In the interview, the bishop was doubtless courageous and brilliant, and he managed to say what he wanted to say, even if it rubbed the public the wrong way. In parts, he struggled to give the impression he was a patriot with a sound and unquestionable view of crime and punishment; but in other parts, he also laboured to prove that patriotism must be without hysteria, especially mass hysteria, and be balanced with the long-term interest of the country.

    For speaking his mind courageously on Jonathan and corruption, Bishop Kukah will in the foreseeable future continue to draw the ire of the public. The Channels interview was not his first on Jonathan and the corruption investigations. But he apparently felt the need to explain himself, and, forsaking the admonition to let bad enough alone, as the wise always say, he managed to worsen the situation by revealing his innermost thoughts on the matter. He had initially responded to allegations that the National Peace Committee sought audience with President Buhari to plead for Dr Jonathan in regard to the ongoing frenzy over the anti-corruption war. The public felt uncomfortable with his answer. Now, Channels Television asked why he thought it was a distraction to emphasise the investigation of corruption cases. His answer this time was even more provocative.

    Predicating his intervention on his priestly duties, a responsibility he insinuates is apparently answerable to heaven rather than to public opinion, Bishop Kukah defended his right to intervene on anybody’s behalf. Then, out of the blue, the bishop exploded: “And please let us not lose sight of what has happened in this country. Jonathan said it and I am sure Nigerians have heard it, that when we met with the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party, they also made it very clear that not all of them were in support of the singular decision that Jonathan took (conceding electoral defeat) and I think that as Nigerians, we must become sufficiently serious and realise that that singular act is what has kept us as a nation. With all the billions and trillions in the world coming from the outer space, we would need to have a nation first. So, I think that even for that singular act alone, Nigerians must be appreciative of what President Jonathan did.”

    It was this response that infuriated many Nigerians. Their belief that Bishop Kukah and the peace committee had unpopular and unhealthy opinion of the hated Dr Jonathan was reinforced. They suggested it was perhaps true that the committee had soft spot for Dr Jonathan, a feeling that might have been caused by a deal reached between Candidate Jonathan and Candidate Buhari before the polls, a deal that was probably cemented shortly before Dr Jonathan’s famous concession. Whatever the case, it is no longer speculation that Bishop Kukah and the peace committee think exceedingly highly of Dr Jonathan’s magnanimity in conceding defeat, and in addition think that that singular act is unexampled and expiatory.  Said the bishop: “Even if you are going to go into a probe, it is not a substitute for governance and we are interested in the fact that every sane Nigerian must be conscious of the fact that it might be another person today and might be you tomorrow. And I think that we should not become so preoccupied with Jonathan to the extent that we forget the spectacular benefit that we gained under his presidency. Politics has ended, and now is the time for governance.”

    Bishop Kukah’s controversial but honest opinion is undoubtedly unpopular. While it is difficult for him and the peace committee to disguise their respect and possibly love for Dr Jonathan, a sentiment that may be unhelpful in fostering economic and political development of the country, not to say public morality, their view on the skewed focus of the government on ‘probes’, or what some have described as ‘public lynching of Dr Jonathan’, is no doubt a timely and critical observation. This incidentally is also the view of Anthony Olubunmi Cardinal Okogie, former Catholic Archbishop of Lagos. In the opinion of the cardinal, bishop and peace committee, while corruption investigations should go on in the background, the shape and structure of governance must come to the fore. The former must not be a substitute for the latter, they argue, and the latter must receive priority. Even if Bishop Kukah and the peace committee wrongly felt obliged to rescue Dr Jonathan from public lynching, their observations on the diminution of governance seems beyond cavil.

    Without saying it directly, perhaps because they feared it might be misinterpreted, the peace committee also tried to suggest that the peaceful change from one government and party to another is a salutary development that must be nurtured as much as the desire to recover looted state funds. Bishop Kukah advances two main reasons for this conclusion. One is that the committee fears that if the dynamics of calling to account a successor government is not well managed, the incentive for peaceful handover of power may be eroded, with all the deleterious consequences.  Two is that if the process of calling a preceding government to account is not handled with all the dignity and solemnity it requires, it may set a bad inquisitorial precedence for future governments, with no one sure who’ll be next. In other words, for Bishop Kukah, it is not everything that is right that is expedient. And when the bishop further suggested that the ruling party needed to be faithful over little things in order to deserve bigger responsibilities, he appeared to hint that a gentleman’s agreement was in place, and that that deal was probably being violated.

    Two weeks ago, in this place, this column suggested it was urgent and crucial for President Buhari to unveil his economic blueprint in order to dispel the feeling of tentativeness and ad hocism enveloping the country and the economy. It suggested that the president’s American trip should have been delayed until that blueprint was published, scrutinised and fine-tuned, and a cabinet put in place. The column concluded by suggesting that the Buhari government seemed to have placed undue emphasis on winning office than on preparing for office. In some ways, both Bishop Kukah and Cardinal Okogie are also saying that the unending and almost titillating talk of probe is caviar to the general. It is important to call the last government to account, given the huge amount of stealing that went on under Dr Jonathan, but it is even more crucial for the Buhari presidency to manage the process with all the solemnity, gravity, order and brilliance it deserves.

    This column may not exactly agree with the peace committee and Bishop Kukah on why the previous government should be scrupulously investigated, or whether the investigations should be conducted in a way that does not reek of witch-hunting, but there is no dispute on why it is urgent for the Buhari government to enunciate its economic, political and social manifestos, and elevate governance above the frenzied blood sport that the probes are threatening to become. President Buhari must strive for balance in everything, learn to discriminate between various public opinions and the many publics, and have the good judgement to set the foundation for how the Nigerian presidency should be perceived and judged both locally and internationally.

  • Buhari faces dilemma in anti-corruption war

    Buhari faces dilemma in anti-corruption war

    President Muhammadu Buhari must be gradually facing up to the reality and complexity of ruling a country in a democracy, where things are not always what they seem. If he thought he had the liberty and exclusive right to circumscribe the boundaries of his war on corruption, he must by now be coming to terms with how grossly mistaken he is. It is no secret that Nigerians appear to be enjoying daily breaking news on the astounding sleaze that went on under the Goodluck Jonathan government. Indeed, already, some of the looted funds are being recovered or surrendered. In consequence too, reputations are being shredded, especially that of the opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and its backers and leaders.

    Those opposed to President Buhari’s anti-corruption war, or who oppose his methods, are beginning to fight back. They are presenting the president with a number of moral dilemmas. First, they suggest that the president has no moral, political or constitutional defence to limit the war to only his predecessor’s time in office, as he stated before assuming office and has reiterated since he assumed office. He should extend the probes farther down the line. Second, they also argue that those who financed his election did not use their personal funds but public funds, and must therefore be investigated as well.

    The president’s opponents are clearly not making these arguments from altruistic or patriotic points of view. They are simply determined to stymie the anti-corruption war, or failing that, to make the sky fall on everybody’s head. If the president should heed the call to expand the investigations, he risks making it unwieldy and impracticable. But whether he likes it or not, he will not be able to convince his opponents that no APC state government deserves to be investigated. And if he continues to shun the calls to expand the investigations, the campaign will only grow more deafening, if not even threatening.

    The president made a mistake from the beginning by inadvertently allowing his anti-corruption campaign to be conducted with fanfare and extravagant flourish. He of course had no choice but to call the last government to account, but he is president, and should have anticipated the reactions of his opponents, many of whom for sentimental reasons are still smarting badly from the humiliation they received at the last polls.

    But is the president really able to control or limit the manner and circumstances of the investigations? Could he order the EFCC to limit its investigations? Or could he persuade the media to de-emphasise selected reports? The president clearly faces a dilemma. One way out, probably the best way out, is for him to give better and bigger meat to the public and the media to chew. (See main article). While he continues his anti-corruption battles, perhaps on as many fronts as he wishes, let him more importantly refocus the attention of the country to his main blueprints for the radical make-over of Nigeria, away from corruption and EFCC/ICPC, and to governance and ideas for rebuilding Nigeria in the 21st century and beyond, along the change paradigm his party promised before the 2015 polls.

  • November deadline mystifies Boko Haram

    November deadline mystifies Boko Haram

    While decorating the new service chiefs on Thursday, President Muhammadu Buhari charged the nation’s armed forces to bring the Boko Haram menace to an end in three months. Militarily speaking, and given the rearmament begun under the Goodluck Jonathan presidency but now intensified, coupled with the coalition the president has deftly built with Nigeria’s neighbours to take the fight to the insurgents, both the task of defeating the sect and meeting the November deadline should be achievable. Under Dr Jonathan, many such optimistic deadlines were routinely given by the government and scornfully defied and broken by the insurgents. Notwithstanding this poor record, which shattered the credibility of the armed forces, particularly the army and the air force, it does appear that resolving the corruption conundrum in the anti-terror war and reorganising and motivating the military should knock Boko Haram into a cocked hat.

    But there is nothing the president has said thus far that gives the impression his understanding of the Boko Haram menace is much better than his predecessor’s. He of course recognises the socio-economic dimension of the problem, and has spoken blithely in support of recognising and tackling poverty, a causative agent of the revolt. He has also indicated the value of forming and inspiring a coalition to give muscle to the war effort. In addition, he appears sensibly to understand the place of education in the equation, and how wiping out ignorance among the populace could deny terror merchants the support base they have so casually and complacently relied on. Undoubtedly too, as the president has indicated, and in response to external pressures, he will intensify efforts to fight a clean and just war, as well as deliver justice to victims of the war, including members and leaders of the sect extra-judicially murdered by the police.

    President Buhari will do many things different from his lethargic predecessor, Dr Jonathan. He will approach the war honestly, diligently and with all the integrity he can muster. Reassuringly too, he will handle the counterinsurgency exercise with all the methodicalness at his disposal. Indeed, the country will not be irrationally optimistic to expect that soon, all will be quiet on the war front, not excluding the bombing cauldrons. But irrespective of all the salutary changes he will bring to the war effort, and going by his statement when he decorated the new service chiefs, his understanding of Boko Haram has only gone a tad above that of his predecessor’s. He appears to perceive the problem as an existential issue, one of crime and punishment to ensure the survival of the country, and one in which he speaks effusively of misguided individuals as the bane of the country’s many headaches. The president seems painfully at odds with the historical significance of the Boko Haram insurgency.

    If effective and comprehensive strategies are to be developed to fight Boko Haram terror, the Buhari government must go beyond the usual explanations. The government is admittedly not wrong to identify economic, social and even political injustice as some of the factors that predisposed the Northeast to revolt. They are in fact right to single out religious fanaticism, poverty, ignorance, corruption in government and in the military, and general misrule. These factors, and many more, are important in understanding Boko Haram. And these factors may in fact explain why Dr Jonathan put too much premium on crushing and defeating the insurgency militarily. These factors may also be why President Buhari, having taken care to approach the problem methodically, also believes that he now possesses the military antitoxin to neutralise the sect in three months.

    Both President Buhari and Dr Jonathan, however, exaggerate their understanding of Boko Haram’s causative factors, and put misplaced confidence in what should be done to defeat the menace. Boko Haram’s foot soldiers may be poor, harassed, uneducated and exploited; yet, its leaders have a fair understanding of what they think of Nigeria and what must be done to tackle the problems that hobble it. It does not matter how contemptuously the rest of Nigeria and the outside world view the Boko Haram leaders’ worldview, all they care about is their vision of the revolutionary changes they seek to impose on a country they visualise as diseased and untenable. Without a deep understanding of the dynamics shaping, influencing and inspiring Boko Haram, whatever solutions are conceived may, therefore, be temporary and probably ineffective.

    A sizable number of the social and religious revolts that have convulsed the country took place in the Northeast. The Northeast is regarded as the poorest part of Nigeria. But apart from poverty, and perhaps misrule, which is not exclusive to that blighted region, religion and empire building (caliphate) greatly fascinate the people. Borno State, the epicenter of the current revolt, not only hosted the great Kanem-Bornu Empire, it was the first part of what later became Nigeria to introduce Islam. To Boko Haram leaders, the ongoing revolt is little more than a political clash between a secular order and a theocratic order, a clash, in their view, between the unwanted old and the desired new. Terror is merely a tool to bring about the utopia of their dreams. Events in other parts of the world, such as the fearsome exploits of al-Qaeda, and now ISIS, simply give fillip to the Boko Haram project and help refine and sharpen their ideology.

    President Buhari must bring into the Northeast equation an understanding of the historical dynamics that have shaped the world for centuries. Nigeria is not an island, and is thus not immune to these caliphal forces, whether they are cruel and brutal or gentle and modernising. Nothing however indicates that the Buhari government has a substantial understanding of these historical forces. If the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) is not guilty of exaggeration, its announcement that it barred nearly 5,000 Nigerians from travelling abroad between January and March this year probably to enlist in the bloody reign of terror masterminded by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is not just an indication of a passing fad, but a countervailing manifestation of powerful historical dynamics. Boko Haram, with its theocratic overtone, has become an ideology. It is unlikely to end until it is replaced in the esteem and fascination of the people of the Northeast by something bigger, better and more endearing.

    Empire builders are an integral part of human society and history. There will always be movements, religions and ideologies attempting, sometimes successfully and at other times unsuccessfully, to reshape the world and redraw borders. In contemporary times, Russian borders have been redrawn twice, and are still being redrawn. There is no proof the exercise will end soon, as Ukraine and Georgia are showing. The Mongoloid Empire of Genghis Khan is regarded as the most brutal ever, leaving approximately 40 million people dead in its wake, and wiping out or transplanting whole nations from Asia to Europe. Historians describe him as “a great ruler who was equal parts military genius, political statesman and bloodthirsty terror.” Under Stalin’s Soviet Union, it is estimated that more than 15 million people were killed to nurture the Soviet communist system and ideology. Suleyman the Magnificent’s Ottoman Empire also authored fierce displacement and destruction of peoples and cultures, without undermining the laudatory view of his rule. Like ISIS, Boko Haram is bitten by the same ambition bug as these other historical greats.

    The allure of ISIS will continue for some time to come, attracting fervent and adventurous youths from all parts of the world. ISIS can of course not be divorced from the terrible mistake committed by the United States when it overthrew Saddam Hussein’s Sunni/Baath rule, a mistake and regime change policy that has not only produced ISIS but also empowered and elevated Iran into a major regional power destined to shake and influence the Middle East and parts of Europe in the near future. Al-Qaeda in Iraq feasted on the disintegration of Iraq, then transformed into ISIS when the former’s ideology became constricting, and is now exploiting the Sunni-Shiite dichotomy to unleash a reign of terror on the region and carve out a contiguous, more or less Sunni, theocratic territory. Even if the US were to compound its mistake by putting boots on the ground sometime in the near future, it is difficult to see them extinguishing the ISIS flame.

    If the Nigerian Immigration Service actually barred about 5,000 Nigerians from travelling to Iraq and Syria to join ISIS, as it claims, then the question to ask is: how many others have successfully smuggled themselves into linking up with ISIS and al-Qaeda? Last week, two Kano youths were caught in India attempting to enter Pakistan from where they hoped to journey to Iraq. The fascination for ghoulish and grandiose adventures will not end even after Boko Haram has been militarily defeated. It is of course necessary to engage Boko Haram in the battlefield, but President Buhari must get his perspectives right. Military victory and economic empowerment will not be sufficient to end the fascination for Boko Haram ideology or similar extremist ideologies. The government must urgently seek to replace the passion for Boko Haram and other such ideologies with a unifying national essence or raison d’etre. This is the biggest challenge facing Nigeria today: how to instill a unifying and inspiring concept of Nigeria into the minds of Nigerians, how to infuse into them the powerful and overriding doctrine of Nigerian exceptionalism. But given the dynamics on the ground, it is hard to see President Buhari and the northern elite who are on the front lines of the terrible war embracing such radical measures.

    To replace Boko Haram’s fervency and ideology in the hearts of Nigeria’s boisterous youths, and to supplant its irresistibly isolationist, exclusionist and parochial attractions, will involve subsuming the North’s main religions under a national ideology in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious pastiche. At the moment, the mind of the country is vacant, except for irritating cobwebs. If Boko Haram can’t fill that vacancy because of defeat, ethnic irredentists will try to; and if ethnic bigots fail, religious bigots will give it a shot. The Nigerian condition is so bad that except those who live in denial, everyone is apprehensive of the implications of Nigeria’s long-standing inability to shake off its label as a mere geographical expression.

    Boko Haram has not been intelligently led. Were it to have brilliant leaders, Nigeria would be in far worse trouble than its puny intellect can manage. Just as the world’s tectonic plates are shifting, the world’s political and behavioural plates are also moving, sometimes very radically. Indeed they have never stopped shifting. North Africa and the Middle East have witnessed great shifts. Rashidun, Abbasid, Umayyad and Ottoman Caliphates, and other ‘successor’ entities within Nigeria’s borders such as the Sokoto Caliphate and Kanem-Bornu made vast regions restive and fertile for revolt and adventure. Rather than set a November deadline to defeat Boko Haram, President Buhari and his government should be drawing lessons from the factors that made great societies and empires endure for a long time. Those lessons will help Nigeria fashion a way out of its present cul-de-sac and make victory in the Boko Haram war certain and enduring.

    If the right measures are not adopted, if the ‘nations’ in Nigeria’s South and the ‘nations’ in Nigeria’s North continue to hold on tightly to their prejudices and exclusionist ideologies, there is no amount of military power, local and international, that can defend the country when a powerful, intelligently-led movement comes along. Nigerian leaders have not been bright enough to learn from their country’s chequered history since independence. If the present political structure and behaviour are not reformed, the country would be sailing near the wind, courting disaster and disintegration. Boko Haram is the perfect example of why it is time to think outside the box.

  • Buhari’s superfluous ministers and national rebirth

    Buhari’s superfluous ministers and national rebirth

    The mild and sarcastic debate about what Nigeria and President Muhammadu Buhari gained from his July 19-22 visit to the United States will continue for a little longer. It is in the nature of politics for its combatants to plot hugely distractive talkfests to upstage one another. The president was ecstatic about the visit, and his aides have reeled out flattering figures of the economic, security and diplomatic gains the four-day trip afforded the president and the country. Presidential aides mention some N2.7trn investment funds, in addition to the considerable thaw in the tense relations between Nigeria and the US. Furthermore, said the aides, the US, notwithstanding the constrictive Leahy amendment, may be preparing to sell modern weapons to Nigeria to revitalise the intractable war against Boko Haram.

    For the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which President Buhari at least once mispronounced during his meeting with President Barack Obama, the gains of the visit are unquantifiable. The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), however, remains convinced the visit was virtually useless. But considered as a whole, there are elements of the visit that are quite salutary both to the prosecution of the war against terror and the badly battered image of Nigeria. Yet, it is difficult to resist the feeling that the visit, apart from being hasty and a little incoherent, glossed over many salient economic, political and diplomatic issues.

    The visit was not entirely worthless, as the PDP has sought to portray it, perhaps out of envy. But it probably suffers the problem of timing and content. On the day the visit really began on July 20, the president timed his justificatory Washington Post piece to announce his diplomatic intentions and economic and social reengineering hopes. It read like a summarised transcendental agenda. Not only was the Washington Post forum to advocate such germane state issues misplaced, it was indefensible that the core elements of the piece were not debated at home before they were presented to the international community.

    Among other issues raised, the article asserted quite definitively that the Buhari presidency’s reengineering programme would be anchored on three fundamental elements, to wit: “First, instill rules and good governance; second, install officials who are experienced and capable of managing state agencies and ministries; and third, seek to recover funds stolen under previous regimes so that this money can be invested in Nigeria for the benefit of all of our citizens.” In that case, the visit should have waited until at least the first two elements of the road map were tackled. Importantly too, it is curious that the president missed the import of his weighty statement, which gave the impression that either his ministers, who he says will be appointed in September, are superfluous, or that he already has a small caucus of super-thinkers conceiving infallible policies for him.

    The anti-terror war is important and urgent, and Nigeria needs all the help it can get. But to visit the cerebral nation of the US and its equally cerebral president without his policy team, and without having sieved and weighed his fundamental programmes, is nothing short of undue haste. He may have returned with trillions of investible funds, and spruced up the image of Nigeria from the cavalier level the Jonathan presidency consigned it, but it seems all but certain that so much more could have been achieved had President Buhari placed the cart and the horse in their proper order. The visit also came at a time when the president was yet to appoint most of his advisers. Had he the full complement of advisers, and probably ministers too, he would have recognised the great value of state visits as a diplomatic tactics by nations to assess the depth and vistas of visiting leaders, not merely as a means of presenting a shopping list.

    From President Buhari’s Washington Post article and all the reports of what transpired during his US visit, including his gaffes, it is doubtful whether the results he returned with met the huge expectations of the trip. But perhaps his expectations were limited to essentially what the president and his aides conceived and adumbrated. If that is the case, the president must be told he had no right to circumscribe his expectations, given the wider and ramifying needs of Nigeria, and the place and destiny of the country as an ambitious continental leader. In fact, now, the fear in many quarters is that the president’s inability to appoint advisers and ministers — for that is what it amounts to — constrains the quality of his policies, if not his ideas, as will be shown presently. It is not clear what the private feelings of his host were, but it may seem the US will be in a quandary just how to plug in to the needs of a visitor who has not quite enunciated his economic or social road maps with clarity and coherence.

    President Buhari appears fixated on his honesty and integrity, two of his many virtues evidently beyond dispute, as indeed his host, President Obama, testified and amplified. But before visiting anywhere, President Buhari needed time and required diligence to enunciate his economic blueprint and a concise and expansive programme for societal regeneration and reengineering. Neither at home in Nigeria, nor anywhere he has visited, including the US, had the president given indication of what his great programmes would be. Perhaps work is ongoing on these two matters. Again, if that is the case, let him add a third item — a political manifesto for Nigeria, on which he has said absolutely nothing.

    Except this columnist is greatly mistaken, no one has heard President Buhari declaim on any of these germane national issues with the expansiveness and comprehensiveness they demand. The suspicion is that, as many have argued, citing the examples of improved electricity supply, some stability in fuel supply, and renewed vigour in the anti-corruption war, the president may be relying on his body language to whip the country into line, just as former president Jonathan’s body language gave fillip to corruption and impunity. In addition, he is believed to be hoping that once a sizable fraction of the about $150bn he said was stolen from the Nigerian treasury was recovered, the country would naturally bounce back, the economy would get back on the right tracks, quality of life would improve, crime and terrorism would decline, and Nigeria would be well again.

    It is not clear what proportion of Nigeria’s problems which that automated exercise would resolve, or whether the government’s grandiose hopes of an effortless future are not largely utopian. In any case, there is no precedence anywhere to show that given the gravity of the country’s problems, not to talk of the depth and breadth of the challenges it is facing, superficial measures are incapable of cutting the skein of crises in which Nigeria is entangled.  The president may have doubtless read about a few recent economic miracles in some parts of the world, particularly Asia. He may wish to take a cue from any of them, particularly China. The more than 10 percent growth rate sustained by China since the 1980s was not by accident. It was largely a product of the conviction, passion and relentless commitment to radical, if not revolutionary, reformist economic policies by Deng Xiaoping.

    For Mr Deng to stake everything to enunciate his state capitalism idea, an idea that earned him terrible and costly rejection twice during the 1966 Cultural Revolution and shortly before its end, he undoubtedly possessed depth of economic thought, far beyond what Chairman Mao Zedong boasted, and also way beyond what Mr Deng’s friends in the Chinese leadership, Zhou Enlai and Hua Guofeng, displayed. It is remarkable how the courage and depth of one man impacted the lives of hundreds of millions of Chinese and Asians, and astounded and gripped the attention of the rest of the world for the past three decades and more.

    It may be unfair to suggest that President Buhari does not possess some of the attributes displayed by Mr Deng, but so far, he has not shown those attributes as reassuringly as would persuade the country that a pair of steady hands and a very reflective mind is presiding over Nigeria. He postpones the appointment of advisers and ministers until sometime in September. Yet he says he will recruit the best to help him govern the country. Does he not have faith in these ministers and aides to contribute meaningfully and substantially in setting the foundation for Nigeria’s greatness, a foundation none of his predecessors, including the opinionated Olusegun Obasanjo, had been able to set? His reliance on a shadowy coterie of aides and permanent secretaries to formulate the rules, reforms and guidelines he talked about is seen by some of his critics, many of whom benefited financially from the Jonathan presidency, as a cover for his inability to come up with the critical and core ideas by which he hopes to run the country. He had 12 years to run for office, and enjoyed the luxury of nearly five months after he won the presidency, but he has been unable to articulate his economic ideas as clearly as Mr Deng, who was inspired by Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, enunciated his own economic model. Not only has President Buhari’s economic ideas remained vague — at least nothing more transcendental than the practicalness he is famous for — there has also been no concise political idea and no uplifting notion of a great nation and society. It was General Douglas McArthur’s illuminating concept and vision of a modern Japanese society and its future in the murky waters of Asian geopolitics that led to his formulation of a unique Japanese post-war constitution, which was fleshed out by Japanese bureaucrats, including Shigeru Yoshida.

    It is possible President Buhari’s aides are hard at work to formulate these needed ideas, and perhaps at the proper time, he will articulate them. When he does, the country will understand the direction he hopes to lead them. In his Washington Post article, he told the world he would be presenting before President Obama how he hoped to proceed. He needed to have made the presentation first to those who voted him into office, secure their assent, and give them direction. The scale of the rot is huge, as he has said repeatedly. But he must not expect that the fundamentals of that rot will respond to his talisman on the scale the country requires simply because his idiosyncratic rule is factored into the equation. Citing President Obama’s slow progress in assembling his first cabinet is hardly an inspiring example. The APC may defend President Buhari as much as they can, but the job of healing Nigeria and setting her on the path to greatness is too urgent to subject to the methodicalness the ruling party boasts of.

    What the country wants to see in September, the arbitrary date President Buhari has set for his cabinet’s composition, are both a fine set of ministers and, more importantly, a coherent vision of his economic, political and social ideas. He must not disappoint, even if there is nothing he has said or done so far to indicate these great and ennobling ideas will come on the soaring scale expected by Nigerians. What he has done so far may be noteworthy, and his personal attributes inspiring. But what sets a glider apart from a rocket is the propulsion system. As Mr Deng proved in China, and Charles de Gaulle showed in France after World War II, and Joseph Stalin illustrated in the former Soviet Union, and as a host of other ancient and modern empire builders showed poignantly, nothing moves a nation, stabilises it, and entrenches it in greatness as the force of idea. It is President Buhari’s ideas or their lack that will determine what kind of ministers and advisers he will appoint, what rebirth the country will experience, and whether his legacies will endure, unlike the questionable and short-sighted legacies of his predecessors.

  • APC lucky to face crises early

    APC lucky to face crises early

    Last Friday’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) merely attempted to paper over the cracks in the party. But Nigerians want the ruling party and their leaders to concretely resolve their differences and move forward more sure-footedly to provide or inspire solutions to the country’s multifarious problems. It is doubtful, however, whether they have the courage and wisdom to do this. Notwithstanding this deficiencies, they must consider themselves lucky to be facing grave, life-threatening intra-party crises early in the day. There is still a chance they may overcome the main crisis tearing the party apart; but the resolution is unlikely to come through the disingenuous compromises some party leaders are proposing, or through living in denial of the true nature and dimensions of the problem, as the presidency appears to be doing.

    Given the tempo and direction of the said NEC meeting, it seems the solutions being proposed by party leaders are unlikely to tackle the fundamental grounds of the disagreement. These grounds pertain to the principles, ideology,  character and identity of the party. Attention is disproportionately placed on securing peace and moving on. Attention should, however, more appropriately be put on what kind of foundations are being laid for the party, and how the edifice would be built, an edifice whose silhouette won the last polls. The solution the party leaders devise will flow from how they frame the problem. From all indications so far, they have framed the problem as a twin issue of securing the independence of the legislature, and checkmating the influence of one or two leaders of the party. But the problem really is how to ensure the party has an identity, character, inspiring principles; and then to identify and promote to prominence the men and women upon whose strong will, philosophy and moral grandeur an enduring party can be built.

    By framing the problem simplistically along the lines of engendering legislative independence and of also curbing a few influential or domineering party leaders, it was not surprising that the crises confronting the party had coalesced around personalities and the conjuration of ogres. It led to and brought into bold relief the machinations of Bukola Saraki, the Senate President, whose election, once it was concluded, determined the outcome of the elections in the House of Representatives. The senate leadership election is a great opportunity for the party to look itself in the mirror and determine whether it likes what it sees. So far, a majority of party leaders appear to like the image they see in the mirror. But because the problems that accompanied that election are disturbingly visible and have accentuated the ugly cracks in the party, party leaders may wish to pause and take a second and closer look.

    If they are competent to frame the party’s problems correctly, they may, in the light of that deeper understanding, want to examine the processes that led to the election of Senator Saraki on June 9 and ask themselves a number of questions. It was obvious the election proceeded from a clear Machiavellian exertion of plots and schemes. While the election has been legitimised, senators and the public must wonder whether those who wished to reform the country, those who wished to offer the country role models, those who wish to set standards for public morality and behaviour, should embrace the tactics of rushing an election among 108 senators when 51 of them were yet to arrive at the senate chamber. Instead of framing the problem as one in which the party was yet to accommodate certain tendencies and legacy parties in the APC, the country must wonder what other disturbing moral monstrosities inhere or are incubating in the minds of those who emerged from such amoral and controversial legislative electoral processes. The country must wonder how competently and morally those who embrace such tactics can make great laws for the country. Winning anything is not everything; how victories are procured go a long way in determining what kind of peace will be enjoyed, and to what noble end that victory would be put.

    If the APC summons the wisdom to see their crises in far wider and deeper ramifications than are apparent to a majority of Nigerians and analysts, they will recognise the onerous responsibility confronting them and the huge courage they will require to boldly reset their party’s foundations. Admittedly, this task will be left to a few within the party, for the majority often neither sees any complexities nor understands the nuances that shape the moral and existential fibres of a political organisation. To reset a party’s foundations will therefore be a long, brutal, and agonising enterprise, a task that is, in the case of the APC, compounded by President Muhammadu Buhari’s seeming timidity and lack of perspective. It was hoped that before the crucial APC NEC meeting of last Friday, the president would have recognised where the problems actually lie. His statements do not give hope that he did. However, it is still an advantage to the party that early in its life as a ruling party, the president is embroiled in the crisis, either as a self-professed onlooker, or as a victim of collateral damage. Here is why.

    President Buhari has not suggested he has any misunderstanding with any APC leader, or whether frictions are being promoted between him and a few party leaders. But, given the rancour in the party, he must face the great challenge of correctly identifying the roots of the problems confronting the APC. How he carries out that identification will determine what kind of solutions he inspires, and what measure of success he will have as president. The seemingly interminable acrimony in the party is an opportunity for him to now begin reexamining his ideas and political behaviour, and assessing party leaders, principles and values. If he had done that early in the day, perhaps before assuming office, he would have seen the hollowness of staying aloof from the leadership elections in the National Assembly. What the public disdain is not for a president to show his preferences, but for that president to acknowledge and accept the outcome, even if his candidates were defeated.

    President Buhari missed a great opportunity to inaugurate the National Assembly. He had no reason in the world to be absent, not only for its rich symbolism had he done so, but also for its denotative and connotative meanings to his presidency. Now, except he wins reelection, he will never get that chance again. More importantly, this early APC crises should afford the president the opportunity to reflect on what his political beliefs really are, what he stands for, who he is in the scheme of things, and, beyond the clichéd stories of his personal life, what his presidency should represent to present and future generations. He does not have the luxury of time to acquire and imbibe these ideals, for he is already in office. All he can do now is to provide remedies and engage in deeper reflections, if he is capable of either task.

    He stood virtually aloof from the NASS leadership elections, as he himself had said and every Nigerian knows. But it is also known that his candidate was actually Senator Ahmed Lawan, whose candidacy he failed to back with presidential wherewithal. As a result of the APC crises, the president must now take very seriously the task of erecting a defensive perimeter around himself and coming to an understanding of the philosophy upon which his presidency must be built. In terms of a defensive perimeter, a concept he is perfectly familiar with, he must by now have understood that by failing to get his own men into key positions, he actually stands the risk of being encircled and even held hostage by politicians whose political behaviour may grate on his nerves, weaken his mandate and programmes, or, worse, castrate him and make him pliable. Proceeding from this, he also needs to avoid being encircled by northern politicians and caucuses, as he seems to be gravitating towards, a predilection his current appointments inadvertently indicate.

    APC’s early crises should also have the positive effect of concentrating the president’s mind wonderfully in terms of which idea(s) would dominate and propel his presidency. So far, there is absolutely no indication what that idea is. For had it been obvious from the outset, it would have helped him approach the NASS leadership elections much more philosophically, futuristically and forcefully. Every presidency, whether in the United States or elsewhere, or any other great government or leadership for that matter, is always balanced on a fulcrum of great and noble idea(s), whether conservative, traditional or progressive. A government must have a philosophical raison d’etre. Let President Buhari study the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, if he needs recent examples, and other great statesmen in general. If he does not construct his own fulcrum, others less competent and less principled than he, and without a point of view, will design one for him, as now seems very likely. Or they will design something much worse, perhaps a pell-mell of contradictory and ineffective ideas, as many waiting in the wings are getting set to do. Surely, he will remember that atrocious cabals hijacked the presidencies of Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan. President Obasanjo built his own fulcrum but lacked the depth, knowledge and wisdom to make his presidency a roaring success.

    The tragedy of the APC NASS leadership and structural crises is that it is a manifestation, if not an outright exemplification, of the decline in quality of leadership. The decline is obvious everywhere, whether at the state or national level. For all their faults, First Republic leaders were far more intellectual and altruistic than the present generation of leaders, many of whom have been thrust into national consciousness by their association with former coup leaders and military regimes. President Buhari must urgently appreciate these delicate nuances and trends in order to reorder his presidency away from where it seems tragically headed. He made mistakes in the first few weeks of his presidency, some of them showing in his initial appointments, a pointer to the fact that he seems to be associating with the wrong crowd and taking inappropriate advice.

    But the presidency is neither a joke nor a garish display of ephemeral splendour. It is a tough, introspective and exceedingly deep business. President Buhari may not have all the attributes to match the gravitas of the presidency, but he can get help from the right people. So far, neither at the NASS, where a torrid display of political exhibitionism and atrocious and amoral politics are afoot, nor at the presidency, where so far no one of great consequence has shown any intellectual wizardry and principles, can the president find that much-needed help. All Nigerians ask of him is that he get the right help from whichever quarter. If all the problems engulfing the APC lead the party and the president to reform and rebuild, then the crises would have been worth the troubles.

  • APC’s unsteady gait

    APC’s unsteady gait

    Of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is honest enough to admit it, the party will confess it is reeling under the weight of two major problems, the resolution of which will determine its future and staying power. There are indications it has a future, one way or the other; but whether it will hang in there for much longer than its enemies wish it, is not quite as clear. The first problem is a bundle involving the unresolved and convoluted mess that accompanied the June 9 National Assembly leadership elections, the intrigues by some prominent party leaders to position themselves well for future battles they know are inevitable, and the deathly struggle between the party and its legislators over the elections of top NASS leaders. This bundle will test the nerves, patience and wits of party leaders. There are no guarantees the party will resolve all these problems amicably, or build and administer enough safeguards to ensure that whatever crises are evident at the top levels of the party will not course through the less disciplined, less philosophical ranks.

    The second major problem is a rather straightforward one. The refusal or timidity of President Muhammadu Buhari to assert himself as party leader has created a vacuum that is being exploited by many party leaders who view his reluctance as an opportunity to foist their own agenda and loyalists on the party. The NASS leadership elections, which produced Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon Yakubu Dogara, showed clearly how different agenda are competing for supremacy in the party, and how loyalists of party leaders are already fiercely positioning themselves for the coming battles and the spoils of war. The APC is an amalgam of three or four parties with different orientations and worldviews. None of the constituent parties had been completely assimilated before APC’s momentous poll victory in March and April was achieved. Nor had the party, before the crisis broke out, built and propagated an ideology as its lodestar, by which party leaders and members were expected to plot their directions in national affairs.

    The first problem is truly fundamental, and it goes deep into the foundation of the party’s seemingly intractable crisis. Given the intensity of the struggle to achieve dominance in the party, ambitious party leaders will fight bitterly to position themselves in vantage positions in the coming months, if not years. The struggle is at the moment manifesting in the effort by future presidential aspirants to secure top legislative positions or begin the process of knitting watertight alliances to make their ambitions feasible. However, what is really at play in the APC today is much more than securing top posts and cobbling alliances. Looking at the continuing and increasingly fierce fight for the remaining legislative positions, it is evident that a struggle to control or hijack the party itself has begun. Groups and party leaders are engaged in a fight with current executives of the party to fill legislative positions. The objective seems to be to weaken the party, render it incompetent in exerting influence on the party’s elected members, turn it into a toothless advisory body, and perhaps eventually take it over.

    At the moment, the APC is being isolated from its elected members and future presidential aspirants, not by choice, but apparently because powerful elements within the party have begun to defy and countermand the party’s decisions. Previously, it could bark and bite, as it showed when it conducted its first presidential primary last year. The party was in control of the processes, and no one was left in doubt who wielded more influence, the party or individuals. There are arguments that the party has not been clever enough in striking a balance between its enormous power and the needs and desires of its members. The current rebellions in the legislature and among other powerful party members are said to be a reaction to that lack of balance.

    The possible overthrow of the current leadership of the APC is, however, a worst-case scenario. It is indeed hypothetically possible for the ongoing struggles within the party to lead to a better balance in the relationship between the party and its members. Current battles may therefore be considered as a teething problem until a consensus on party structure, operations and power relations have been achieved. But it is also possible that, like the PDP, the struggle for party control may tip over into unrestrained instability if no clear winners emerge. One way or the other, the volcanic APC, which is still in the process of formation, must cool down into a shape. It became active barely two years ago before it had time to acquire definite properties. Now, as the ruling party, it has been thrust into the thick of a national economic crisis, and must find ways to grapple with that crisis of monumental proportions, as well as define its own essence and properties in a way that joins party members and leaders in a stable and mutually beneficial relationship.

    The second major problem confronting the APC is also huge, but not as complex as the spillover crisis from the NASS elections and the inflammable relationship between the party, its leaders and regicidal legislators. If President Buhari is chary of involving himself both in running the APC and showing his hand in the legislature, it is suggested that the unsavoury effects of former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s meddlesomeness in the legislature could be responsible. Under President Obasanjo, the legislature was cajoled into becoming an arm of the ruling party and a spineless appendage, like most other national institutions of the day. Consequently, the party became a superfluous institution, and the National Assembly a weak, confused and ineffective arm of government incapable of checking the excesses of the executive.

    President Buhari is believed to be concerned that both the APC and NASS could be disemboweled by undue interference from the executive branch. Pursuant to this, he has tried to stay aloof from the party as much as possible, and refused to signal openly where his preferences lie in terms of the leadership of the legislature. His aloofness, it is however argued, has led to a few powerful individuals in the party attempting to force their way into special positions in the legislature, and perhaps soon into the party’s leadership. It is, therefore, agreed that a vacuum exists in the party, which a number of individuals are attempting to fill. One of the best ways to resolve the problem, some say, may be for the president to exercise his powers and authority over the party in cleverer and less destabilising ways than Chief Obasanjo executed over the PDP.

    Until President Buhari gets involved in APC affairs, the struggle for dominance will certainly continue. Nigeria is not yet a developed democracy. And though the president has reechoed United States President Barack Obama’s declamation on the evils done to democracy and governance in Africa by strongmen, he must appreciate that the current state of Nigerian democracy calls for intelligent interventions. But for President Buhari to intervene sensibly in the APC and stabilise its affairs, he must demonstrate deeper and uncommon understanding of democracy as a concept and Nigerian politics in practice, and reflect in his actions and ideas a vision of where he hopes to take Nigeria, and if possible, also Africa. It is not certain that the president has such perspectives. If he does not, his aides and advisers should help him conceive a brilliant and workable perspective on Nigerian politics and democracy.

    Above all, he must demonstrate the push and will to get involved. If he does not, the party that brought him to power will eventually be hijacked by forces whose ways and manners may be inimical to his presidency, while those individuals whose ways and manners he is accustomed to and approves may be replaced by people of suspect altruism and self-centered goals. It is not an option for him to avoid dirtying his hands with party problems and affairs. If he does not, his party could become destabilised. It will clearly not be in the interest of his presidency for his party to engage in interminable battles that will distract, confuse and debilitate him.

  • Time for Buhari to inspire and set the tone

    Time for Buhari to inspire and set the tone

    While addressing Nigerians in South Africa during his last African Union (AU) trip, President Buhari wondered why Nigerians were so anxious to see him appoint his ministers. He would do so eventually, he promised, without making mistakes. He attributed the slow pace of appointing ministers to the Goodluck Jonathan’s transition committee’s non-cooperation with his own transition committee. President Buhari appears unable to understand Nigerians who worry about his pace. While they may be wrong to stampede his government, they are not wrong to want some inspiration and tone-setting from him after more than a decade of appalling governance by the PDP.

    Apart from learning to listen to his countrymen, President Buhari must also find efficient ways to address their fears. They may sometimes be wrong; but they know the president won’t always be right. More importantly, given the antecedents of the president himself, and what the country knows of him, they know he is not infallible and is advanced in age. They knew who he was and what he was capable of doing before they voted him into office. It is pointless of him to excuse his weaknesses, such as his age, or justify his pace on account of extenuating circumstances. What in fact he should worry about is living up to the image which his supporters and admirers have of him. They see him as firm, courageous, intolerant of slothfulness and corruption, and patriotic.

    So far, however, while he may have embarked on a methodical approach to tackling the crises bequeathed him by the last government, the people are yet to see the Buhari they knew more than three decades ago, and the Buhari who had stuck stubbornly to the principles that have ennobled his life and politics. They want him to begin to set the tone for change in every area of national life, starting from any part of the decayed national system. They know he does not even need to appoint ministers before he sets the needed tone. If only he will bark, they reason.

    If his supporters are worried, it is because they fear they may be seeing a president who appears petrified by the constitution. They need him to respect the constitution and the laws of the land, and not be tempted to indulge in the self-help and impetuousness of many decades ago. But they more keenly want him, within the ambits of that same constitution, to thunder through the land almost like a lawgiver, the palladium of moral, political and judicial rectitude. If they feel nothing significant has changed since he assumed office, he must understand their perspectives and fears, and give them the substantial change they ask for and deserve. All they ask of him is that while he is assembling the first-rate team he promised, let him set a mighty, incontrovertible and magnificent tone for how Nigeria should be ordered, governed and viewed.

  • Saraki’s consolidation trips

    Among the few trips Senate President Bukola Saraki has undertaken since he emerged president of the senate, his visits to former military head of state, Abdulsalami Abubakar, and former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, stand out for what they signify. Senator Saraki has been under some strain concerning the manner he emerged Senate President. With 51 All Progressives Congress (APC) absent from the senate on June 9 on account of a meeting they were to hold with President Muhammadu Buhari, the senate leadership election was conspiratorially held by affirmation in a matter of minutes. The snap ‘election’ was held perhaps because Senator Saraki had defied his party which preferred other candidates for the senate’s leadership positions. Since then, neither Senator Saraki nor his party had known peace.

    To mitigate the doubtful legitimacy of his position, Senator Saraki has embarked on panic trips to the nation’s opinion moulders and respected former leaders, especially the vociferous ones among them. This is where Gen Abubakar and Chief Obasanjo come in. The Senate President visited Gen Abubakar last Thursday, and Chief Obasanjo last Friday. It is not clear what they discussed, but it is almost certain he is attempting to legitimise his heretical move against his party, especially the aspect of conspiring to elect a PDP senator as the Deputy Senate President. Whether Senator Saraki can force a fait accompli on his party is not certain; but if he is to secure any legitimacy at all, he will have to do it through his party, not by the imprimatur of party outsiders.

  • Saraki and APC’s seething cauldron

    Saraki and APC’s seething cauldron

    It was clear from the beginning that the All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders were deeply suspicious of Senator Bukola Saraki, and were unwilling to have him elected as the Senate President of the 8th Senate. He had been Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governor of Kwara State, a defector among many others, including five sitting governors, to the APC since 2013, and one-term senator. He worked hard for his new party, risked so much, and together with scores of APC leaders and bulwarks, secured sweet victory against the prematurely ageing and considerably conceited PDP. In a party of some 60 senators, 210 Representatives, and 22 governors, he had a following that could not be ignored, and a presence that transcended but unfortunately divided his new party. To many party faithful, leaders and the wider public, it was inconceivable that a few APC leaders, essentially ensconced in the party’s headquarters, could seek to elbow Senator Saraki out of the senate leadership race.

    The distrust for him was, however, deep, though constricted. Without saying it, his opponents thought him excessively ambitious, unprincipled, amoral, ruthless, and without filial — whether of party or family — loyalty. Before and during his brief campaign for the senate presidency, he was accused of bringing every vice in his being into the service of that ruthless ambition. He disagreed. He believed he had a right to be ambitious, and in particular to aspire to the leadership of the senate. He saw nothing deeply offensive about being Machiavellian, for in his estimation, no one approaches the goals of power and office with the squeamish diffidence of a neophyte. As a veteran of many political wars with an eye permanently fixed for the main chance, he intuitively understands the need for strong-arm tactics. But in executing his plans for the senate leadership, he inadvertently but remorselessly justified the fears and suspicion of the party leadership.

    The party had conducted a mock election to present consensus candidates for the National Assembly (NASS) leadership, to wit, Senator Ahmed Lawan and Representative Femi Gbajabiamila. That consensus, from which Senator Saraki and his counterpart in the lower chamber, Yakubu Dogara, from Bauchi State dissociated themselves, woefully failed to fly in the face of what many uncritical members of the public regarded as the APC’s distasteful attempt to circumscribe the tenets of democracy. The consensus, they said, was either undemocratic, unrepresentative, or that it dangerously impugned the virtues of fairness and equity. Senator Saraki represented a solid group of PDP defectors in the APC, and that group was in danger of being short-changed. Worse, they argued, rather than view the party consensus as a real consensus, it was in fact a consensus engineered by Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the party leader accused of being both a control freak and power monger.

    Even though he and his group were invited to all APC meetings where the consensus was to be built, Senator Saraki was smart enough to recognise that the party leadership was suspicious of him. He rightly gauged that the leaders had no intention of giving him the ticket. He therefore took his destiny in his own hands and planned his war. He discountenanced his party’s change mantra and deployed all the old tactics the PDP was famous for to build a devastating coalition. He coaxed and cajoled legislators and reporters, and adopted scaremongering tactics.  No one could quote him directly on some of the stories that inundated mainstream and social media, but the suggestion came from his bivouac that Asiwaju Tinubu was deliberately and malevolently running rings round President Muhammadu Buhari, after virtually installing many other party leaders and popularly elected officials. No one in the party should have so much power concentrated in his hands, they concluded.

    The consequences of these campaigns were that Senator Saraki upped the ante, played Senators Ali Ndume and Ike Ekweremadu against each other, negotiated his party’s clear victory away by supporting a PDP senator for the position of deputy senate president, and seized upon the APC’s momentary lapse of concentration to engineer an election in which more than 50 senators were away at a botched meeting with the president. There were indications he could still have won had he and his backers, most of them snickering PDP ranking senators, allowed polling to proceed honourably. But citing legalistic reasons, and feigning ignorance of the meeting called by the party with the president, Senator Saraki stole behind his opponents and dealt them a death blow. The style, not to say the motive, rankled against the new philosophy the APC sold to the electorate during electioneering. But Senator Saraki justified his methods as completely legal, and even moral, for his opponents also deployed underhand methods to disenfranchise him.

    It is not certain what the APC can do to remedy the problem or assuage the deep public embarrassment and humiliation it faced with Senator Saraki’s election. The party’s leaders have, however, finally reconciled themselves to his victory. But, in a perverse way, given the style, method and the structure of Senator Saraki’s victory, the APC leaders’ opposition to him was comprehensively justified. It is not easy to defy your party, but he did it robustly. In addition, he struck a deal with the opposition PDP, undermined his own party, and vitiated its March and April polls victory. He underscored what APC leaders probably feared most: that Senator Saraki was definitely not sufficiently APC, and could not be trusted to lead the party’s policy and ideological charge in the senate or elsewhere, notwithstanding his contributions. There was no emotional commitment between him and his new party other than as a vehicle for achieving political goals, they insinuated. Though he scorned the idea of returning to the PDP, as some have speculated he might do soon, it is all but clear he remains indistinguishable from his former party. He may not defect; but he is not in love either. As every family knows, there is no marriage as sterile as one in which a spouse is emotionally indifferent.

    Senator Saraki is not only capable, as he has shown, of brutally hurting party relationships over what he described as unjustifiable wrong done him, his election and the cohabitation he has consummated with the PDP will inordinately complicate the task of building the APC into a left-of-centre organisation with clear, progressive and enduring philosophy. His style is idiosyncratically PDP. He is, therefore, inured to the PDP’s vices, shenanigans and deplorable style. In any relationship he strikes, Senator Saraki will most probably insist on his own way, no matter the cost. But more humiliatingly for the APC, its failure to enthrone its candidates will considerably weaken it as a party, structurally and morally, and make it almost redundant. It is so weak now that rather than any of the coalition of victors in the NASS leadership contest defecting to another party, the possibility of seizing control of the party at a later date is even much more likely. To all intents and purposes, the APC is now either asphyxiating or already apoplectic.

    The party will have to fight scrupulously and cleverly to reclaim respect and impose discipline. If they push too hard, they could self-destruct. And if they approach the grave challenges facing them so early in the day lackadaisically, the party could become inconsequential. It is even harder to understand why some notable party leaders were not sensitive to the deeply nuanced politics of the NASS elections. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, probably because of his ambition for 2019, has thrown in his lot unreflectively with Senator Saraki. He is himself not the most principled politician around, given his capriciousness and flighty political dalliances. He has built a reputation for unpredictability to the point that every scintilla of presidential character in him seems irretrievably lost. Surprisingly too, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, whom many, including this column, had touted as a future president, was disappointingly unable to appreciate the nuances and implications of the Saraki revolt, and had indeed even celebrated the comprehensiveness of his party’s humiliation in both legislative chambers, humiliations he regarded as triumphs.

    President Buhari may have his misgivings about the role the party attempted to play in the NASS elections, especially in view of his conviction that the legislature should be completely independent. Nor, is it clear how much he is bothered by insinuations of the role and influence Asiwaju Tinubu is alleged to be amassing to himself. But so far, neither the president nor Alhaji Atiku, nor still Mallam Tambuwal, has demonstrated deep understanding of what their party should be, and how it should be run, not to talk of the power and influence it should command. If they understand that without the party, their positions and ambitions could suffer constant reverses, none of them has shown it. Indeed, it is not even clear where analysts got the impression that it is wrong for either the president or the party to show interest in who become NASS leaders. Nor is it clear where they adapted their theory of complete legislative independence. The president in particular has been misadvised on the legislature, especially the relationship between the presidency and the lawmakers. It is certainly not undemocratic for him to be interested in who lead NASS, or have friends and supporters in both chambers. More, he should be interested in NASS leaders whom he can described as passionate party men and loyalists, those who can help give a concrete feel to his ideas and visions of the country.

    President Buhari may be seeking to burnish his suspect democratic credentials by bending over backwards to allow democracy to take root in all the branches of and arms of government. But the country still needs a strong president, one who has definite and visionary ideas of what to do, how to do them, and when. Those who have the president’s ears must nudge him to open up to edifying power groups across the country rather than inadvertently sequester himself in the captive hands of eloquent, sinister and capricious politicians and governors. He should have studied the implication of a Saraki senate before deciding on non-interference. Senator Saraki’s campaign style was so open, so disavowing of everything the APC stands for, and so pregnant with gloomy forebodings that they recommend themselves for the president’s determined, even if subtle, countervailing moves. His refusal to intervene, not to add his reluctance to inaugurate the 8th NASS, spoke more to his incomplete understanding of democratic precepts than his salutary regard for democratic norms and an independent legislature. Even his statement after the NASS elections neither captured the tragic undertones of those elections nor gave a clue as to just how forceful, prescient and powerful he hoped to be as president.

    Senator Saraki’s campaign style and controversial election have given fillip to a weak and struggling PDP. He exhumed them, and gave them life. He also surrounded his campaign with men like Dino Melaye, a politician so enamoured of injustice and undemocratic practices that he poisons everything he touches. The PDP, which should strive to redefine itself, and especially the ideas it hopes to project in the next few years, has instead been given a soft landing and leeway to take a shot at the presidency in 2019. The APC has not really and fully defined itself. The PDP’s unprecedented involvement in the leadership of the NASS will complicate APC’s journey of discovery and definition. What is clear now in NASS is the triumph of a group dedicated to conservative approach to politics, society and economy. Because the NASS elections witnessed dangerous compromises, APC will be compelled to tread softly and slowly, if not emptied of its soul and inner core.

    The NASS elections also indicate that the APC has not found the formula to grapple with the inchoate ideas, controversial standards and acute restiveness of the party’s Young Turks, many of whom resent party discipline and control, and don’t get along very well with party leaders. Senator Saraki’s election in particular has left a deep wound in the party that will be difficult to treat. APC leaders must therefore adopt more imaginative consensual and inclusive political tactics to cater to the needs of the many groups in the party. But perhaps the frictions and fractures displayed so early in the day will help the party to moderate its methods and find more ingenious ways of communicating its nuanced march into the future. If this is not done forcefully and soon, the PDP, which has found the APC’s fault lines, will exploit the situation desperately and ruthlessly.

    Nigerian democracy lacks depth, direction and quality. The APC was expected to be the tool to recalibrate these standards. In view of what happened last Tuesday, especially how some analysts erroneously thought the results of the NASS leadership elections bode well both for democracy and diffusion of power, Nigeria still has a long way to go. That journey cannot be helped by Senator Saraki’s victory, let alone his style and ambition, which come at the expense of his party. Sadly for the APC, it seems that only a few of its members really appreciate what the country is up against and how it should transcend the self-inflicted problems of a poorly drafted constitution, national redefinition, and national rebirth. The problem is enormous. Given the fractious coalition that gave APC victory in the general elections, not to talk of the anticipated clash of egos in the party, that problem will be with us far longer than we fear.

  • Debating Buhari’s speed

    Debating Buhari’s speed

    Barely one week into President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency, Nigerians have become embroiled in a debate over whether he is cautiously forging ahead or making haste slowly.  They want to see action, plenty of it, perhaps reminiscent of military regimes, the kind that came in those sentimental and impressionable days with ‘immediate effect and automatic alacrity.’ They want, by now, to see his list of ministers ready, even if it would not be presented for screening. They wanted to see his principal staff in place a day after he was sworn in, kicking and puffing with activities and thundering the resolve of a president high on energy and brimful with ideas. They want to see everyone, security agents and civilians alike, shaping up or preparing to ship out. Alas, barely one week into his presidency, the renewed and reinvented President Buhari has only managed to announce a few appointments, one of which even sounded like duplication.

    The problem, it seems, is that during the campaigns, most of the voters, many of whom reached voting age long after President Buhari had ceased to be military head of state, did not actually know him. The voters took to heart the piffle dished out by PDP propagandists, some of whom, like Femi Fani-Kayode, Governor Ayo Fayose and Olisa Metuh, simply invented the APC candidate of their notorious fantasy. They sold him to the electorate as an ogre, brutal and impetuous, abrasive and unreflecting, and hasty, bigoted and inflexible. If he were all of these, those who voted for him in the northern part of the country couldn’t care less. They did not dispute the propagandists’ impressions, but they were unmoved by the extreme pejorative dismissal of a man they trust and had become instinctively attached to. Elsewhere, the propaganda was rather effective, with the Southwest voting for him by a close margin on account of their double-mindedness over his attributes; and the Southeast and South-South embracing his opponent, former president Goodluck Jonathan, to the hilt.

    Otherwise, the real President Buhari is fundamentally different from the picture of him painted by the PDP during electioneering, a picture quite at variance with his personality and attributes. As head of state, he was never impulsive; he was instead methodical, unhurried, even long-suffering, reserved, surprisingly trusting, and eager to delegate responsibilities. Nothing said he was infallible in those days, and in fact made his fair share of mistakes. But he was then, and still now is, a man who quietly made up his mind and stuck with it for a considerable length of time. Nor did he suffer from any complex, a fact that made him indifferent to analysts describing his first coming contrapuntally as the Buhari/Idiagbon government. More importantly, those very close to him argue that the picture of him painted by his detractors is so far off the mark that it is difficult to redeem.

    It is, therefore, unlikely that President Buhari can be moulded into someone he is not in a matter of few weeks or years simply because he had been invested with the mantle of leadership. From the look of things, given his reactions to the germane politics of his party, including last year’s primaries and keen jousting for influence and dominance in the APC, he will proceed more with the deliberateness the public can’t seem to recognise or appreciate than seek to please them. He will build a careful continental, and if need be, international, coalition against Boko Haram, examine all conceivable battle scenarios, assemble the troops and materials needed to wage an effective war, no matter how long, and then launch determinedly into the campaign. He is inflexible as his opponents say, but it seems more like the kind of inflexibility that makes him committed to a task for as long as it takes, notwithstanding the reverses.

    It has also been suggested that he had all of six weeks to plan his first few actions once sworn in. Instead, it is said, he opened himself to interminable queues of visitors and well-wishers, while failing to pay attention to the exigent issues of the day. But notwithstanding the transition committees set up to make the handover seamless, President Buhari did not receive the Jonathan government’s handover notes until a day before inauguration. In a democracy, he needed to exercise more caution than in a military regime. Nor could he have ignored the stream of well-wishers to whom he owed his election, if not his present and future support. Five years of the Jonathan presidency might have hurt the country unbearably, but it is no excuse for expecting that in one week, the Buhari presidency would begin, without reflection or study, to launch recklessly into popular schemes and programmes.

    It is expected that he will assemble a great team, reappraise his campaign promises and party manifesto in accordance with current reality , and after a few prefatory steps and troubleshooting measures, will in the many months ahead plan and execute uplifting and soaring projects. It is not clear how he will relate with the National Assembly, but he has his party and leading party strategists to help him navigate the warrens that both legislative chambers have become. He will in addition need to sharpen his wit and reflexes, for he will be confronted now and again by many urgent and debilitating national issues. In many instances, the opposition will attempt to blackmail him even as they enact and execute policies and programmes that undermine the rule of law and constitution. Ekiti and Rivers are examples.

    Much more than what speed he is on, his main challenges will concern how to calibrate intelligent reactions to the selfish manoeuvring of the opposition, whether in Ekiti or elsewhere. Rather than re-programme their party scientifically as a sound alternative to the APC, the PDP seems to be confecting and perfecting a series of measures to blackmail the president and the rest of the country using the constitution and all other sentimental buncombe. All President Buhari needs to do is ensure great fidelity to the constitution. He should confront political chicanery firmly, promptly and courageously. He urgently needs to set the tone for the country, a tone that was neither in his campaign promises nor in his party manifesto. That tone will determine to a large extent whether he will be feared and respected like great world leaders, and therefore be successful, or he will be ignored and exploited like former president Goodluck Jonathan. President Buhari needs a disciplined, focused and ambitious country; only he can set the tone in the direction. This has nothing to do, at least so far, with the speed of his actions. It has instead everything to do with the brilliance and prescience of his actions.

    Nigeria has the population, economy, skilled manpower, a dangerous mix of problems and challenges, as well as exists in very interesting times. All that is required to drag her out of stagnation and decay and turn her into a roaring success is an intuitive and courageous leader, one imbued with sound judgement and deep intellect. Will President Buhari be that man? Nothing guarantees he will be a success, or that he has all the qualities to make the difference. But there is nothing in him that predisposes him to failure either.