The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ropo Sekoni

  • Democracy and its Nigerian stressors

    Just as not having electricity embarrasses the average citizen, equally embarrassing is the fact that the president has to go abroad to take care of his health.

    Nigeria must have fully joined the club of plural democracies when it successfully transferred power from one regime to another via an acceptable election result in 2015. For this feat, it has been praised locally and internationally as a rising democracy. The country’s diversity is not just ethnic or religious; it is also ideological and cultural, carrying as many worldviews as can be imagined. The result of such diversity shows in the way people in the country react to any stimuli, including a president becoming sick and needing diagnosis and treatment.

    When a few weeks back, President Buhari felt sick, he wrote the National Assembly to announce his intention to go on 10-day vacation abroad, during which he would visit his physicians. Such letter should have been enough to calm the nerves of citizens of all ideological persuasions. By indicating that he would use his vacation to see his doctors ought to have been clear to all that  the 74-year old man was not sure of what ailment he had and had no way of being sure before consulting with his doctors. Nine days into his vacation, he wrote another letter informing the NASS that he had to spend extra time to wait for his medical test results, an indication that there was nothing more specific about his health to disclose to his citizens via NASS or special news conference. In most countries, this development would not stimulate production of an encyclopaedia on the health of a man waiting for results of medical tests.

    But not in Nigeria would people have adequate patience to wait for post-test announcements from Buhari or his media aides. The social media came in handy for peddlers of falsehood, rumour mongers, and mischief makers. Before anyone could say Jack, unaccredited reporters in the social media in particular threw up reports of medical diagnosis, prognosis, suggested treatments including mass praying and fasting by friends and foes of Buhari. The president’s aides were, for the first time in the newish administration, put on their toes. They went into a frenzy to offer unsolicited and unnecessary information about the president’s state of health: How he received his guests from Nigeria; how many of them he saw off to the door to his residence; what type of tea he drank; how much nostalgia he has experienced for being out of the country for less than two weeks; etc.

    Despite these assurances from presidential media aides, social media imps continue to sponsor manufactured stories about negative developments in Buhari’s state of health, putting such stories in the mouths of announcers that sound like ‘mercenary broadcasters.’ Inside the country, habitual polity heaters have also been at work to decode medical test results that have not been made available by the president’s physicians in London. All these efforts have created noise and confusion in the minds of citizens who do not feel that they have anything special to gain from exaggerations about the president’s health. Such people include citizens who believe sincerely that President Buhari is, despite his political status, someone’s father and spouse whose privacy rights should not be violated frivolously and those who believe that,  like all human beings, the president needs to get his state of health properly verified by professionals with the expertise to do so, before giving progress reports to citizens.

    Even political and tribal organisations have refused to be left out of the rumour factories growing around Mr. President’s health. Such associations have started to heat the polity by accusing groups from other regions of wishing Buhari dead, even though there has been nothing from Buhari’s doctors to suggest that the man is in any such danger.  For example, an APC Solidarity Alliance spokesperson has observed that “the health of the president has been grossly exploited to further undermine the stability of the country.” By attributing the president’s health challenges to other nationalities, such organisations are only illustrating the superstitious attitude that has underdeveloped most of Africa. Nobody, apart from the doctors studying President Buhari’s test results can say for certain what Buhari’s problems are. Yet, some tribal or partisan groups already feel competent to identify tribal groups working against the president’s recovery, even without release of medical test results.

    In addition, members of friendly political parties, particularly APC ministers and party chiefs, have been going in and out of London to see their party leader and have used the occasion of such visits to assure Nigerians that the man is alive and not in any hospital to wait for death, as many of Buhari’s opponents and self-appointed kinsmen in the social media would want citizens to believe. Even the two leaders in the National Assembly have rushed to Abuja House in London to be counted among well-wishers who would not allow the pressure of work prevent them from doing the needful. The effect of avalanche of meetings to Buhari in London has increased the level of consternation at home, especially among regular human beings.

    Yet, there are people who would want President Buhari to have all the peace he needs to soar above the current cloud over his health. They are not only praying and fasting for full recovery from an ailment that is still to be identified by experts, they also believe that regardless of the political office that the president holds, details of his health should not become the topic of every breakfast or dinner table. Such insistence on privacy acts contrasts with the view of strict constructionists of the principle of the citizen’s right to know everything about their president’s health. Rights watchers disregard the fact that the 1999 Constitution, as flawed as it is, is silent on how much detail of anyone’s health must be given to citizens. Despite increasing conflicting ‘news’ in the social media, it is reassuring that President Buhari has chosen to thank Nigerians for their support.

    More than anything else since President Buhari assumed power, social-media news about his health has created as much tension and distraction for the federal government. This situation has not resulted from anything that the president has done or failed to do; it derives largely from conflicting worldviews of multicultural Nigeria. For example, most Yoruba who still believe that no bad news about the monarch should be propagated before the community is ritually prepared to receive it must wonder why anyone in his right senses would talk ill of the president, regardless of his politics and ethical war against corruption.

    On the other hand, partisans from cultures that take political power to be more important than any other human action are likely to relish creating narratives of political succession for a man who is demonstrably alive and mentally alert. This is the only way to explain why any political organisation would readily allege that other groups are plotting against the government of a man who went to London on his own volition to take care of his health. Similarly, there are cultures that do not believe that any person can get sick or even die without being charmed by his or her enemies while there are other cultures that produce power mongers who have no qualms deriving power struggles from any hint that anyone believed to be holding power on behalf of any nationality is indisposed or sick. Equally, those who believe that a warrior against corruption is their enemy must have contributed to conflicting news about the president’s health, especially in the social media.

    However, some matters are already arising from the conflicting reports about the president’s health. Just as not having electricity embarrasses the average citizen, equally embarrassing is the fact that the president has to go abroad to take care of his health. Admittedly, President Buhari has not been in power long enough to have made radical changes to health care in the country. However, Buhari’s sickness should increase demand for provision of  world-class healthcare centers in the country. Recession or no recession, there is no reason for a country of almost 200 million people not to have at least six regional state-of-the-art hospitals, to treat all types of disease that any citizen may have.

  • Unity: between ritual and purpose (2)

    Unity: between ritual and purpose (2)

    When leaders complain about lack of unity, they hardly point at any specific thing that militates against unity, apart from reference to ethnic and religious diversity

    The conclusion to last week’s piece emphasises the tendency of political leaders—military and civilian—to construct unity as the real problem of Nigeria’s political democracy and economic development. Such leaders always fail to show why unity or the type of unity they seek is elusive almost sixty years after independence.

    Admittedly, it is easy for myopic politicians to ignore manifestations of unease in political interactions of leaders from different cultural zones, without lapsing into rhetoric of unity as panacea to all problems. This elite notion of “Unity first or nothing after” is unlike the attitude of the average Nigerian on what ails the country. Apart from tension or violence between herdsmen and farmers, most citizens who are trying to make a living in urban and rural Nigeria relate generally to individuals from other ethnic or religious backgrounds without rancour or suspicion. For example, those selling agricultural produce from the North relate to their southern customers  as mutual friends joined by  unity of purpose, just as those selling automobile spare parts or medications show no hard feelings towards their customers, regardless of difference in ethnicity or faith. Such people usually find difficulty in comprehending what the issues are when they hear their political or religious leaders talk about unity as the problem of the country.

    Apart from those in one form of political or cultural power, most Nigerians that one comes across on the street or in the market do not appear bothered by absence of unity or the effect of such absence on their relationships with people they do business with. When leaders complain about lack of unity, they hardly point at any specific thing that militates against unity, apart from reference to ethnic and religious diversity. Is this a way of saying ethnic and religious diversity is dangerous for the country or that there is a mechanism for obliterating such plurality? Is this also a coded way of suggesting that there is a normative culture and faith that others can disappear into, in pursuit of the unity needed to make the country peaceful and progressive? Our political leaders and their intellectuals are reluctant to proffer solutions to the problem that they perceive to frustrate since 1966 their efforts to bring development to the country.

    So prevalent is the rhetoric of unity that even some of the most cerebral of the country’s cultural leaders repeat some of the refrains of the song of unity. For example, Professor Ango Abdullahi, Chairman of Northern Elders Forum, recently complained forcefully about the undue share of burden of unity heaped on northern region: The North appears as if it is the one that should carry the can for Nigeria’s unity and this is not acceptable anymore. If Nigeria is beneficial to all Nigerians, so be it, but Nigeria should not be kept while the North is being blackmailed and that Nigeria’s unity should be at the expense of the North. So, this is not acceptable anymore. So, the North is ready for dissolution, anytime.

    Leaders from other regions often express similar fears. For example, Afenifere leaders spent most of the period of Jonathan’s administration to complain about marginalisation: Yoruba ministers were given soft appointments in relation to other nationalities; so-called federal roads that pass through the Yoruba region were neglected; etc. On their own side, Igbo cultural leaders complain regularly under the Buhari regime about marginalisation, just as Ijaws now do with gusto after the exit of Jonathan. Such complaints are referenced by pro-government pundits as indices of lack of unity. Is this a logical explanation of the problem? Is any trace of Identity Politics in a multiethnic and multi-religious society synonymous with opposition to unity by those who complain about perceived unfairness?

    Ironically, those who whine about lack of unity are dismissive of any suggestion on re-engineering the country in a way to create a political culture of unity of purpose. In a polity driven by unity of purpose as distinct from unity per se (or uniformity on all matters?), various nationalities and faiths in the country would agree to a menu of goals they have come together to work towards, for the good of every individual, nationality, and faith in the union. Ban Ki-Moon once referred to this type of unity at a meeting of African Union: As I join all of you today, I see a vivid illustration of the unity of purpose that characterises this continent when it is at its best.  It was that unity of purpose that drove your countries’ quest for independence.  It was that unity of purpose that laid the foundations of your Union.  It is that unity of purpose that is the key to Africa’s progress in the years ahead….But I also witnessed how, through unity of purpose, my country was able to transform itself from a traumatised nation with a non-existent economy, into a vibrant, productive society and a regional economic power.  That unity of purpose brought together an unbeatable combination:  the concerted and enduring assistance of the international community, and the courage and determination of the Korean people.

    Political or cultural leaders who have preoccupied themselves with unity as a means of mobilising citizens, or better put, mobilising fellow elites to accept the seminal role of unity in the political, economic, and religious life of the country may need to borrow Ban Ki-Moon’s method of making a country or continent play a beneficial role in the life of all its citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion. This means that current political leaders need to pay attention, in consultation with ordinary citizens, to identification of specific purposes that should bind Nigerians together. Instead of amplifying the search for unity or pontificating about indissolubility or indivisibility of the country, the new emphasis should be on advancing ideas on what Nigerians want to achieve for living in one big country, rather than on their leaders worrying from one electoral cycle to another about the fear of the country breaking into smaller units.

    Such purposes are not hard to find; they exist in most successful countries of the world that many ordinary Nigerians risk their lives to enter: Korea, Brazil, Europe, India, South Africa, the Americas, and now China and even Russia. They include a polity and politicians committed to creating a culture of respect for human life and liberty, an economy that citizens can participate in without fear of prejudice, and a democracy that accepts the central role of equality, equity, justice, and tolerance for all cultural values and practices that do not threaten the humanity of anyone. Sincere commitment to these values create unity, rather than believing, as many of the country’s political leaders do, that none of these values can exist without unity.

    For too long, political leaders have talked about the importance of unity, without demonstrating the discipline and flexibility required to create a conducive environment for unity to grow. For example, when citizens call for an audit or review of the way(s) the country is governed, leaders who are in power quickly dismiss such demands as capable of threatening the unity of the country. Given that citizens’ voice was muffled during decades of military dictatorship, there have been several calls for sovereign national conference to renew or reinvent the terms of the union or for creation of a people’s constitution that each citizen can relate to as reflecting his or her own view of a federation of many nationalities. But such demands have been dismissed since the beginning of the current post-military rule as demands for disintegration of the country. Refrains of indissolubility have been promoted by those in power to drown calls for re-engineering the country away from purposelessness.

    Our political leaders need to stop playing the ostrich. The country is experiencing challenges that do not necessarily emanate from the psychology of the ethnic politician. The challenges are growing from a political complacency on the part of leaders who choose not to exert themselves mentally about how to save Nigeria for all its citizens. For decades, it was possible for leaders not to exert themselves in any way because oil money had made governing a nation relatively easy. It had also made it realistic for a huge central government to pretend to perform roles that are better performed by states and local governments. Now that oil seems to be losing its edge as a revenue earner, the vision needed to galvanise various components of the country to go back to a rational and realistic division of labour among tiers of government must not be avoided by those who relish saving a flawed political structure created by unelected rulers.

    Even at the family level, the microcosm of the state, parents who choose to muzzle or muffle their children’s voices especially when such children seek to express their pains, may end up having themselves to blame.

    • Concluded

     

  • Unity: between ritual and purpose (1)

    The obsession over unity by political leaders seems more to reflect a self-imposed myopia.

    Managing multiculturalism and heterogeneity is a major challenge and indeed a litmus test for leadership, good governance and progress not just in Northern Nigeria but in the entire global society…Our core challenges in the North today revolve around intolerance, absence of peaceful coexistence, poverty, illiteracy and lack of unity. How can we address these critical concerns?—Kashim Shettima, Chairman of Northern Governors’ Forum
    My findings so far show that everyone is talking from the position of strength. People are not talking from position of knowledge and this is not helping. We must be able to dump all our sentiments to overcome the challenges. “Just like other cases of injustice around us, we need peace; it is only peace with justice that can solve all these crises. Genuine peace is what everyone is craving for and this can only come when there is justice.”—Olusegun Obasanjo on Kaduna Crisis

    I have quoted Shettima and Obasanjo in the epigraphs above principally because they are the two most recent users of words that must have deafened millions of citizens in the country since independence, particularly since 1966. Unity featured prominently in Shettima’s address to Northern governors and emirs and peace and justice are highlighted in Obasanjo’s treatise on the Kaduna crisis. Unity has always been viewed in political discussions to be inevitable for peace to reign in the country, while peace has been used by Obasanjo in the context of Kaduna crisis as co-traveller of justice. But unity has been used most ritualistically in the country, to the point of meaninglessness.

    Between the attainment of self-government in Western and Eastern Regions in 1957 and the military coups of 1966, the ideology that drove governance was regional development. Each of the three founding fathers: Awolowo, Azikiwe, and Bello provided a vision for his region, hoping that development of the three regions would add up to national development and this almost happened or would have done so, were it not for interruptions by forces that made a career of unity mongering before and after the Nigeria-Biafra War.

    For example, Awolowo believed that the basic federal system in place at the time of independence provided a basic condition for sustaining national unity and could have been strengthened through creation of regions for ethnic minorities in the West, East, and the North.  Awolowo also provided citizens in his multiethnic region with a governance mission that stressed providing a good life for all citizens regardless of their place of origin, birth, faith, and socio-economic status. With the vision of public education for all, he made it clear to forces of semi-feudal rule in the region, euphemistically referred to as tradition rulers, that modernity was at hand and a government of change under him was in place. And he did everything within the power of his government to initiate the process of fundamental social, cultural, economic, and political change in his region.

    Azikiwe, who was philosophically pro-unitary government in his political rhetoric and had pleaded that the diverse groups in the country should forget their differences, also agreed to make do with the basic federal structure agreed to at the constitutional conferences between 1946 and 1958. He mobilised the people of his region to sharpen their achievement orientation and gave all energy to competition with the Western Region, despite his region’s leaner purse. His experiment demonstrated the capacity to do “very much with very little for his region, especially in the days before petroleum.

    Bello too did not whine about unity, having said categorically that the nations within Nigeria should not attempt to forget their differences but strive to understand them. As the premier of the most plural region in terms of ethnic and religious diversity, the Sardauna put the federal system to good use. He opened doors of opportunity available in Northern Region to the Fulani, Hausa, Bachama, Gwari, Nupe, Kanuri, Igala, Idoma, Yoruba and other nationalities, to the extent that long after Bello’s exit, it was easy and realistic for many of the region’s leaders to invoke the spirit of One North, despite ethnic and religious differences, a concept that was brought back to life last week at the meeting of traditional and modern rulers of the 19 states carved out of Northern Region. Bello did not promote the rhetoric of fear preferred by vendors of perpetually fragile national unity, which subsequent military and civilian leaders from the region seem to have made a career of promoting as a national ideology and an excuse to create what in folk idiom is referred to as landlord/tenant dichotomy in the country.

    The point of this historical hop and jump is to emphasise that fear mongering was not a part of the vision and mission of the three founding leaders who were separated by ideology: Awolowo with social democracy, Azikiwe with pragmatism, and Bello with strong regionalism. The defeatism that made fear mongering or bogey creation out of the concept of unity had no space in the mental landscape of the three founding fathers.

    Recently, I went to give a lecture in Ondo on Ideology and Governance. A management studies undergraduate at Wesley University of Technology asked me about my “take on unity or lack of unity as an obstacle to development in the county.” I threw the question back to him in Socratic style: “Give me your own understanding before we do comparative thinking on the matter.” Undoubtedly, the young lady is a bright student. Before we knew it, our two-person front-yard seminar had grown into a small classroom. The consensus at the end of the seminar was that the matter of unity is exaggerated to occlude poor governance and faulty architecture of governance or what the Chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum referred to last week as “management of multiculturalism and heterogeneity as a litmus test for leadership, good governance and progress in Northern Nigeria.”

    If truly our leaders not only in Northern Nigeria but also the entire country have the extra vision to apprehend unity as the country’s basic problem, why have they not pushed further to discover the root cause of the appearance of disunity in any region or in the country? Why are they cagey or defensive when citizens raise issues with a constitution that has de-federalised the country?  The rhetoric of unity is not limited to any region, it occurs almost everywhere, especially in the presidency, where it has acquired ritual potency since May 29, 2015. Just about every minister and media manager in the Buhari administration finds refuge in the word UNITY.

    For example, if citizens from southern states complain about number of positions given to northern states in security or other sensitive sectors, such people are exhorted to think about the unity of the country. If Fulani herdsmen (from Nigeria or abroad) kill Christians in Southern Kaduna or Taraba and survivors of those killed also killed Fulani people they could reach, officials are likely to stop at urging both parties to be mindful of the role of unity in the country, just as it happened in Kaduna last week. If a section of a community experiencing inter-faith or inter-ethnic crisis complains about partiality of security staff sent to maintain law and order, such people are encouraged to think nationally, as if the Nigerian nation goes beyond aggregation of all the people(s) inhabiting the Nigerian space.

    The obsession over unity by political leaders seems more to reflect a self-imposed myopia. The problems facing regions and the country are too legion for unity to be the most recurrent decimal in the nation’s political discourse. To borrow and bastardise Olatunji Dare’s concept of Inflation and lexical theory, I venture to say that the country’s political stagflation creates lexical emptiness or words without meaning. For about half a century since the coming of military rule and military-authored constitutions, unity as a word seems to have lost its meaning. It has become a scare tactic to stop calls for change, probity, equality, equity, and justice, all sine qua non  of sustainable unity and multiethnic democracy. Any political system, especially in a multicultural nation-space that smacks of dominance (real or imagined) of any group over others automatically mangles unity. Unity in other federal democracies is nurtured by principle and practice of governance that makes a religion of tolerance of difference and accepts equality of all, something that seems to be lacking not only in post-Bello Northern Region but also in the entire country.

    Presentation of Unity as a call for uncritical acceptance of the status quo is dangerous for any multi-ethnic and multi-religious state. Whichever shade of meaning of unity is intended by its ritual users: “oneness, harmony, continuity without deviation or change as in purpose or action,” requires invariably common acceptance of purpose of living in the same country,  equality, equity, justice, and tolerance for difference if unity is to germinate, grow and bloom.

    To be continued

     

  • Commercialising the armed forces: a disgusting idea 2

    Commercialising the armed forces: a disgusting idea 2

    The army’s participation in cattle farming in every part of the country is being guaranteed to be free of the tension fomented by nomadic herdsmen.

    The Federation shall, subject to an Act of the National Assembly made in that behalf, equip and maintain the armed forces as may be considered adequate and effective for the purpose of defending Nigeria from external aggression; maintaining its territorial integrity and securing its borders from violation on land, sea or air; suppressing insurrection and acting in aid of civil authorities to restore order when called upon to do so by the president, but subject to such conditions as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly; and performing such other functions as may be prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly.—1999 Constitution Sec217.(2). [Emphasis added]

    The first part of this piece describes details of the new mission of the military to become a major player in the country’s economy through direct and robust investment in agriculture. More specifically, the announcement by General Buratai includes playing a major role in the economy by moving nomadic cattle roving to the next level; raising fishing ponds, vegetable gardens, fruits, chicken and eggs, and establishing cattle ranch in every part of the country where there is a military base. The thrust of today’s column is to discuss concerns about decision of the military to amend its constitutional role, without reference to the legislature.

    First concern is that the role of the armed forces in the development of the country is clearly stated in the constitution, as captured in the epigraph overleaf. The role assigned to the armed forces in the constitution is similar to the role allocated to the armed forces in most successful countries in the world: to protect and defend the country’s sovereignty, its people and its borders. This is the function of armies in the world, except a few countries, like Egypt and Pakistan, where the military is empowered to compete with civilians in every aspect of the economy. Defence and protection provide guarantee of peace and a peaceful environment in which all other human activities, economic and social, thrive. And this is what enables prosperity and provides conducive environment for citizens, owners of the country’s sovereignty, to engage in building the economy for all.

    For the armed forces to be able to deliver the function of defence ably and successfully, the military engages in physical, psychological, and intellectual training. Making members of the armed forces combat-ready and effective requires concentration on their part. The funds to give the military undivided attention to protect citizens are provided by citizens. In short, professionalisation of the military is considered crucial to peace and stability that can allow nations to prosper and develop sufficiently to create a good life for civilians and military alike. Any attempt by the military to divert the attention of its members from its statutory role and take on the task of growing the economy is fraught with danger for the country’s territorial integrity and security of life within the country.

    More specifically, intellectual training for the military is quite demanding. It aims to build in every soldier and officer the knowledge necessary to function in the modern world – from the knowledge of history, geography, basic/applied sciences, diplomacy to the knowledge of engineering that can improve capacity of the military not only to use sophisticated weaponry but also to add value to weapons manufacturing. Nurturing a capable military is a lifelong engagement. It is therefore illogical for the country’s military to get attracted to the experiment of countries like Egypt and Pakistan, which use their armed forces to combine defence of the nation and economic production that ranges from poultry business to dairy production and selling insurance premiums. Any attempt to constitutionally allow the Nigerian military add new layers of civilian economic activities: raising cattle, goats, and chickens is bound to create distractions for the armed forces, thus putting security of the nation-state and its citizens at risk.

    Although the duty of a soldier to protect and defend is universally at a great cost to the citizen; nevertheless, it is a price worth paying because the benefit is as priceless as it is unquantifiable, just as the recent routing of Boko Haram terrorists from Sambisa Forest has demonstrated. Most citizens have not paid adequate attention to General Buratai’s new policy of turning military men and women to cattle farmers. When citizens wake up to realise the danger in the military’s radical departure from its constitutional duty, they are bound to ask: How does cattle ranching by the military meet the purpose of defending and protecting citizens?

    Citizens are also likely to wonder why the legislature would prefer to ignore attempts to institutionalise private profiteering for military officers by adding cattle and dairy production to their job description. True lovers of democracy and free enterprise in the country are bound to urge General Buratai’s civilian bosses, from the minister of defence to the president, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and the legislature to concentrate on soldiering and leave issues of politics and economic management to those who are trained to handle them. The involvement of the military in Nigeria’s politics for decades delivered instability with which the country is still struggling. Why would anyone think that army’s institutional involvement in the economy of the country will deliver anything different? Effects of militarisation of the polity for decades, particularly redesigning the polity as a command system that turn states into subordinates of the central government from its status as coordinates are still being interrogated by citizens from various regions.

     There are other dangers in giving the military powers to determine its role without reference to the legislature. General Buratai’s policy announcement about the intention of the military to get involved in growing the nation’s economy threatens the principle of separation of powers. In particular, it poohpoohs the principle that in a democracy, the military are bound to operate in accordance with laws of the land with respect to constitutional and administrative law for every aspect of the nation’s life. It is in fact wrong for a policy that has not been approved by the legislature to be announced to the nation by a chief of the army, where there is a civilian minister of defence. The fact that the current president and minister of defence are retired soldiers does not give any officer the right to act as if the country is under military rule.

     The proposal by the military to engage in economic activity has capacity to distort the nation’s economy. For example, how can competition be fair if a branch of the executive (the military) funded by taxpayers arrogates to itself the power to become a player in an economy in which civilians who, unlike the military, have no access to public funds be assured of a level playing field? Without mincing words, the attempt by the military to grow the country’s economy instead of focusing on defending and protecting the country is a wrong-headed one. It is capable of scaring citizens with rich traditions of cattle farming, like the Fulani, from effective participation in this activity, if constitutionally armed men in the military are given license to compete for land and other resources with civilians. How fair is it for the military to acquire land on the terms of allocation for public use to be allowed to turn such land into profit making capital for military officers and their spouses?

     The argument that both Egyptian and Pakistani armies are as involved in their respective economies as the Nigerian military would want to be does not make the Pakistani or Egyptian model right for a multi-ethnic democratic federation. The question Mr. Buratai needs to ask himself is what advantage has the involvement of the Pakistani and Egyptian militaries in the running of their respective economies delivered for the people of those countries? Without any disrespect to these countries, the story is one of poverty and chronic instability.  Neither Pakistan nor Egypt is mentioned among the world’s economic best practices. On the contrary, they figure prominently in the list of high receivers of aid from other countries.

     Finally, what the country needs as it moves into a regime of productive economy that requires creativity and innovation is not to turn its military into farmers. It is to invest more on the military to make it more reliable in terms of protecting the country from both internal and external attacks. The country has over 170 million civilians who can raise cows, goats, chickens, etc. It is politically unwise for an elected government, especially the legislature to support or look away from a proposal that may distract less than 500,000 members of its armed forces from giving the 170 million people the security cover they need to grow the economy.

  • Commercialising the armed forces: a disgusting idea 1

    The army’s participation in cattle farming in every part of the country is being guaranteed to be free of the tension fomented by nomadic herdsmen.

    In addition to producing military supplies, various military institutions in Egypt own 35 factories that produce vehicles, chemicals, mineral water, cement, consumer goods, and various types of food including pasta, bread, and olive oil. These military organisations, namely the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation, the Ministry of Military Production, and the National Service Products Organisation, were also named on lists circulating in Egypt in 2011 as owners of service-industry companies, restaurants, gas stations, and construction services. The military-owned enterprises not only enjoyed privileges in the form of subsidies and tax exemptions but were also above the rules and regulations applicable to other privately owned companies…. There have also been claims from a number of Egyptian activists that laborers for these construction services were drawn from conscripted military ranks.[6]Mahmoud Jaraba in Series on ‘Civilianising the State in Middle-East and Asia Pacific Regions.

    Before going into the piece for today, this column wishes to congratulate the Nigerian military for doing the country proud with respect to the menace of Boko Haram. We hail the army for succeeding to penetrate Sambisa Forest, a forest that had acquired in the last five years a mythological character for being a forest with the thickness uncharacteristic of desert and savannah belts. We raise our glasses to the military for dislodging the terrorists that had used the forest as an enclave from which it has destabilised the country for years. We note that the military has acted in a way to recall in the minds of citizens the efficiency for which it was known when it participated in bringing peace to many countries of the world in the past. We extend felicitations to President Buhari who, after the end to the magic of Sambisa Forest, is likely to have more time and inner peace to face the problem of recession and economic reform to shift the economy from dependence on oil to producing and adding values.

    Today’s focus is on the recent announcement by the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai, made on his behalf by the Chief of Army Logistics, Major General Patrick Akem, on what has been named Barrack Investment Initiative Project. According to General Buratai, the Barrack Investment Initiative Project (BIIP) is part of a larger strategy for the military to become a direct investor in cattle farming: “To take it to the next level, we want to adopt a system where the cattle are not just free ranging, coming from Sokoto to Port Harcourt, thereby making their meat tough to eat, the products will soon be coming from our own farms and ranches.” General Buratai provided more detail on the Army’s initiative: “The intention of the Nigerian Army was not just to secure the country, but to contribute in growing the economy of the nation… We want to tell our wives that they can live beyond the salaries of their husbands, so we are trying to empower the women in the barracks to be able to form co-operatives, so as to access loans and to a large extent be able to fend for themselves and their families, even without the salaries of their husbands.” He concluded by assuring his audience that “he had created the BIIP as a platform that affords army family members the opportunity of raising up (sic) fishing ponds, vegetable gardens, fruits, livestock, chicken and their eggs.”

    I have quoted copiously from General Buratai’s explanation of an initiative that looks so simple and attractive in a country under economic pressure birthed by recession and fall in the price of petroleum, for a purpose. And this is to share the complex ramifications of a brazen initiative by the Armed Forces to militarise the country’s economy in the context of a teenage democratic system, born just seventeen years after decades of military rule, and at a time that the country is seeking to consolidate a constitution that seeks to subsume the armed forces under the authority of  an elected government and diversify its economy in a way that saves government and its institutions from the vagaries of market economy through privatisation, which includes government selling off its own business-related investments.

    It is therefore befuddling that the military has crafted a new strategy that is designed to give it a role in the economy at a time that the citizenry is having a sigh of relief about its withdrawal from the nation’s politics. It is also confusing that General Buratai’s announcement of Barrack Investment Initiative Project was made a few months after a controversial bill to establish cattle grazing reserves in every part of the country was presented and then withdrawn from the senate. Sponsored by one Sadiq Ibrahim, the stated objective of the now withdrawn bill was to prevent conflicts between pastoralists and arable farmers on the one hand and foster the development of cattle ranching in Nigeria on the other hand. The army’s participation in cattle farming in every part of the country is being guaranteed to be free of the tension fomented by nomadic herdsmen.  But it is preposterous for any branch of government or profession to claim more sophistication than other groups, more so in the absence of any empirical research on conduct of the military when it was in control of political power. More importantly, the real worry is that the military may be starting a process of creating a parallel economy in competition with civilians and the possibility of such competition growing to become a parallel government in the fashion of Egypt and Pakistan.

    Admittedly, the desire of the armed forces of Nigeria to become a major player in the country’s economy is not new in Africa. The model described by General Buratai is a proto-form for what exists today in the Middle-East and Asian countries, especially Egypt, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. For instance, the epigraph at the beginning of this piece from Mahmoud Jaraba pertains to the danger of competition between a military-industrial complex and a subjugated civil economy in Egypt, where the military is involved in every aspect of production of goods and services. Similarly, the size of Pakistan’s economy controlled by the country’s armed forces was put at about $30 billion in 2014. Like the Egyptian model, Pakistan’s military is involved in a wide range of economic activities: Stud and Dairy Farms, Restaurant Management, Shoe and Woollen Production, General Insurance, Fertilizer of Production, Distillery, Wind Energy, Cement, Meat, Seeds, Bread and Cake, Banking, Telecom Service, Operation of grocery stores, etc. Egypt and Pakistan started this model in a rudimentary way like the one announced by General Buratai in respect of “raising up fish pond, vegetable gardens, fruits, livestock, chicken and their eggs.”

    An issue that is often overlooked in the literature on militarisation of the economy in Egypt and Pakistan is how much this model has developed the economy and democracy in these countries and other countries in the Middle-East and Asia. One thing that is unmistakable is the fact that both Egypt and Pakistan are two of the largest receivers of aid from Western countries of Europe and North America, despite the participation of their well-trained military in the economy of both countries. These two countries also experience democratic hiccups at the instance of powerful military men with substantial control of the economy in addition to full power of coercion made possible by taxpayers in the civil society.

    Subsequent discussions will focus on the following: constitutionality of a military competing in the private sector and with citizens, primary owners of the country’s sovereignty; implications of a commercial(ised) military for unfettered democratic governance and the federal government’s ongoing economic reform of the private sector; effect of divided attention of the military between securing the nation and participating in wealth creation; sources of the capital for creation of wealth by the armed forces; threat to civil society and economy by the armed forces in competition with the private sector; erosion of democratic government’s authority over a part of the executive branch of government that engages in business; ethicality of a public institution taking a loan from private banks or using taxpayer’s funds to engage in business,  the danger of importing Egyptian and Pakistani models to a multi-ethnic federal democracy; etc.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

     

    To be continued

  • As we fulfill this year’s ritual of resolutions

    As we fulfill this year’s ritual of resolutions

    The governments—central and subnational—need citizens’ resolve to join hands with each level of government to get Nigeria on the path of political and economic progress.

    Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.—Oprah Winfrey
    Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’—Alfred Lord Tennyson

    Not to disappoint my youthful readers who have asked for my views on 2016 Christmas in a year of biting recession, I will comment on making resolutions for the New Year, rather than on an important religious festival that requires insights of professional theologians some knowledge of economics. I will use my end-of-year piece to urge my readers to make resolutions that can make their rulers feel encouraged or compelled to do the right thing to improve their life chances, especially governments’ commitment to nation building for equality, equity, and justice.

    About two years ago, this page appealed to readers not to leave Nigeria out of their prayers for progress for individuals and the country, especially its polity and economy. There was no recession then, as petroleum was at the peak of its destiny as a cash cow that could pump enough money into the economy to excuse governments’ fiscal irresponsibility and infrastructure neglect. I am sure most of my readers voted for the regime of change now in power and whose fortune or misfortune it has been to clean the Augean Stables and at a time that recession has reduced by two-thirds the value of the naira in the pocket of each of us—big or small, elite or lowly, Christian or Muslim, Fulani or Yoruba. Nobody ever thought that it would be this soon to make New Year’s resolutions towards improving the wisdom of those governing us, after voting   into power the party we saw as having the promise to solve all of the country’s problems.

    During the days of Abacha, a Nigerian Juju musician released an album with the theme: Ijoba n se won to le se, omi lo po ju oka lo (the government is doing its best; it is just that water done pass gari). We cannot afford to be this ambivalent this time. The governments—central and subnational—need citizens’ resolve to join hands with each level of government to get Nigeria on the path of political and economic progress. Just as we do as individuals, let us urge those who rule us to make resolutions to do better in the New Year, since there seems to be no alternative for our dear country to realise its huge potential. Let us make a few resolutions that the space of this column can take.

    Resolution One: Let us stop begging our lawmakers to desist from allocating 20 per cent of the budget to dig boreholes in the rural areas to convince their constituents that they mean well for them. We should tell legislators in plain language that our villages need treated water, such as people in South Africa, Cote d’Ivoire, Botswana, etc., get in abundance once they pay the monthly charges. Let your lawmakers know that in countries blessed with leaders having consideration for younger generations, policies about water supply are influenced by principles of environmentally sustainable development. Plead with the executives not to give in to demands by legislators to become borehole contractors, warning further that too many boreholes in the country can wipe out the lives of millions of citizens should the boreholes later induce earthquakes. Choose not to keep silent in the face of irresponsible governance. Building boreholes by the legislature or the executive is a sign of irresponsible quick-fix solutions. It is already common knowledge that our country has the largest number of boreholes and generators, all enemies of the environment.

    Resolution Two: Call on your pastors, prophets, imams and marabouts to stop scheming about how to eclipse the secularity of the Nigerian State. Calling for Sharia or Ecclesiastic jurisprudence is an excuse to further divide Nigerians. The law that was used to create Nigeria from various nationalities, cultures, and political systems was neither Sharia nor Ecclesiastical. The country has witnessed enough to know that sectarian conflicts do more damage than good for a country—monolingual or multilingual. From what is happening around the globe including in Nigeria, any effort by one religious group to dominate another or harass adherents of other faiths on the excuse of inevitability of universalising principles of the religion of one is fraught with danger for all. Tell your lawmakers, the president, and governors that Nigeria has too many problems already without adding new sectarian ones to the list.

    Resolution Three: Call on your lawmakers to look at old laws, especially those that started as decrees under military dictatorship and review them with the aim of discarding those that have outlived their usefulness or making them comply with demands of the time. Many young citizens in the National Youth Service Corps have become victims of many crises in the country. Many have been killed or maimed by Boko Haram terrorists, many had died assisting in the conduct of elections by INEC; some had lost their lives at the hands of religious terrorists while others had died of infectious diseases during their service year. A letter to General Yakubu Gowon to thank him for introducing the NYSC scheme when he did will be in order from a cooperative of mothers and fathers for change. From all appearances, Nigerians from most walks of life apart from the political market for power are sufficiently united. The average Yoruba or Igbo buys Suya from Hausa or Fulani butchers just as the Fulani buys used motor parts from Igbo traders without feeling uncomfortable. Continuing with NYSC in the name of unity is not cost effective, more so now that every kobo should count. If rulers obsess over NYSC, they should transform it to an adult scheme for the least united demographic group in the country: politicians. Under its new form, those in power or planning to seek power should undergo one-year sensitivity training on ethnic, cultural, and religious otherness before being allowed to run for elections or nominated for political appointments.

    Resolution Four: Civil society organisations (not those that depend on funding from abroad) should appeal to President Buhari to stop his image makers from repeating the story that it was Jonathan that caused the problems facing Nigeria today. Nigerians already know this, and this was why they did not vote for Jonathan for a second term. There is something called Noise in communication theory, something that may sound nice without adding any value to the message. This claim has served its purpose and can only be perceived as noise two years into the post-Jonathan presidency. Citizens already know that whatever Jonathan did while in power could not pass for innovation. He met a political culture that was already mature in corruption and was designed to import everything under the sun with revenue from petroleum, including petrol. All the generator companies in the country were already in place to make nonsense of efforts to generate and distribute power to citizens before Jonathan came on the scene. So were illegal foreign accounts owned by practicing and retired politicians—military and civilian.

    Resolution Five: The government closest to each citizen is the local government. Resolve to get engaged with this level in the new year, by organising friends to host your local government chair for an evening of Asun (goat barbecue). At this evening of hedonism, present your local government chair with a list of what he has done and not done with funds allocated or released to him by the governor of his state. Assure your LG chair that the 20 persons hosting him to Asun are members of an NGO funded by 10,000 local stakeholders who are bent on calling for international audit of his administration. This will free up time for the EFCC to pursue massive thieves of state. But make sure you organise over 1,000 members of the LG in the first quarter of the year to carry placards demanding an audit.

    Like all New Year’s resolutions, none of this will go far if you lack the will to make it happen. The governments may be well meaning but, as a Yoruba proverb says: “Nobody knows how to walk without his head from moving back and forth.  And like human beings, governments need to be assisted to make self-improvement resolutions. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

  • ‘Unitary Federalism’ and our other oxymora

    Good luck to those who are this optimistic about any issue that promises to give power and money to individuals in our dear country.

    To take part in “a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress.—The Economist at its founding in 1843.

    ‘Unitary federalism’ in today’s title is a borrowing from Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and man-times contender for presidential candidature under several parties including, most recently, All Progressives Congress (APC). I am not re-using the phrase of one of the leaders of APC to draw attention— positive or negative—to claims by Abubakar’s political associates and opponents who call the former vice president a born-again federalist. Such exercise is better done by professional power seekers. I have borrowed the title because it captures, among other things, the absurdity that underlies ongoing constitutional amendments in the National Assembly, an absurdity spawned by the fact that the ruling party under which Abubakar had contested for presidential candidacy also has high on its manifesto: “A NEW PARTY, A NEW NIGERIA, THE APC MANIFESTO” the pledge to Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit. 

    This column has in the last ten years addressed ad nauseam the issue of re-federalisation of the country’s polity and, consequently, its economy. The column has no intention today to re-tell the story of how the country came into its present dire straits. It seeks to expose some contradictions in the ongoing constitutional amendments that smack of obsession over a governance system that does have everything to pamper its political elite but lacks the structure that can create an enabling space for improvement of the life of the country’s silent masses. The current system, characterised by Abubakar as ‘unitary federalism’ has deliberately under-developed the masses, to ensure continuity of a system stacked against the interests of the masses: limited access to an education that can open the minds of the masses and push them to hold their political representatives responsible for their suffering; imprisonment of the few with above average education by religious merchants who promise miracles and prosperity in a political and fiscal system that restricts creativity and innovation; and saddling of post-military political rulers with a governance system that makes it more profitable for politicians to sustain rather than change. I prefer to leave consideration of the sincerity of Abubakar’s commitment to re-federalisation to political power speculators and focus on the potential of oxymoronic political reality to stymie national and regional development in a multi-national democracy.

    Now to the various contradictions being authored by current lawmakers.  Those criticising federal lawmakers for making laws to further dismantle federalism in the country need to go back to read APC manifesto that pointedly seeks to devolve powers and responsibilities to states and local governments: “Initiate action to amend our Constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states and local governments in order to entrench true Federalism and the Federal spirit.” It will be curious how many politicians committed to federalism in the APC paid attention to the promise by the party to constitutionalise local governments as a distinct federating unit completely autonomous of the state. Commenters who choose not to pay attention to subtle attempts to decapitate states and predispose the 774 communities (referenced as local governments in the 1999 Constitution) to eventually demand abrogation of the states to return to two tiers of oversize central government and 774 fragmented administrative units) should put on their thinking caps before it is too late.

    What is needed to reduce the current ‘unitary federalism’ is to recognise that most of the globe’s successful federal systems believe in the principle that the logical structure to have in a federation is national and subnational governance, not national, subnational, and sub-subnational governance structure, an absurdity designed by military dictators to sustain unitarism while at the same time glorifying federalism rhetorically. Some pundits have observed that the ongoing constitutional amendments are as oxymoronic as they are because the lawmakers do not expect the amendments to be approved by the states. Good luck to those who are this optimistic about any issue that promises to give power and money to individuals in our dear country. In the absence of clear ideological guide of lawmakers by their parties about importance of federalism to stability and development, the matter of getting the amendments approved may not be between federal and state legislators, but between potential premiers or mayors of local governments wanting to have their own fiefdom and citizens who are kept in the dark about implications of approving such amendments for their wellbeing.

    Another contradictions-laden amendment is abrogation of State Electoral Independent Commission (SIEC) currently under the supervision of states. The text of this proposal is to create a uniform (so-called national) electoral agency culture, largely on the assumption that INEC is better than SIEC, even though no verifiable research has been done to establish this fact. This is reminiscent of the fear had been generated against state police system. Opponents of autonomy to states have said that state police is likely to be corrupt, an assumption that the central police is not corrupt, a conclusion that has not been supported by any evidence. One erroneous assumption is that anything that is central is good and whatever is subnational is bad, an attempt to construct a metaphysics of sub-humanity for subnational entities in relation to the central government in a multicultural society. Those who are lucky to benefit from electoral power in the hands of the central government are likely to see this amendment as progressive and the insistence that subnational governments must be denied of the power to determine where and how to improve governance at that level very friendly to the electoral politics of the party in power at the centre.

    One contradiction that cannot be overlooked is the reticence of lawmakers from regions that have been clamouring for re-federalisation, particularly legislators from the Southwest, Southeast, and the South-south. For example, the average newspaper-reading or television-watching student in the Southwest is likely to be more at ease to remember names of lawmakers from the Northeast and Northwest than those from the Southwest, largely because nothing is heard from the latter group’s participation in the debate on constitutional amendments, especially changes that threaten the residual powers in the hands of states under the 1999 Constitution. Additionally, it is curious that lawmakers from the Southwest have not given noticeable attention to interacting with the electorate on issues as critical as constitutional amendment. Political leaders in a region that has championed the call for restoration of federalism consistently since the 1990s need to do two things urgently: remind Southwestern lawmakers in the National Assembly that they are representatives of  the region in the federal legislature and not appointees of the central government, and that consequently legislators from the region need to interact with citizens and show signs that they are contributing to debates in the legislature on behalf of those who voted for them.

    As APC prepares for the 2019 elections, it will be necessary for voters to demand from their political leaders the stand of each state in the region vis-à-vis the current unitary federalism upon which Atiku Abubakar from the Northeast has almost become an authority in recent times. A referendum on what citizens in the region want: unitarism or federalism should be conducted in each of the six states, to guide lawmakers sent to the National Assembly, particularly those that seem not to have any idea on the matter on the type of debates expected from them on matters of choosing between more federalism or more unitarism.

  • Beginning of renaissance in the Yoruba region? (3)

    One area that leaders of the region need to pay attention to create strategies for revitalising the region’s knowledge industry in order to move the region in the direction of the knowledge economy.

     Let’s face it. We cannot continue to pretend that we can deal with the issues confronting our Region and her people on a case-by-case, insular state basis. It will not work, and we cannot, no matter how hard we try, achieve long-term sustainable development and radical transformation in Yorubaland. Therefore, the key to leveraging our uniqueness is the regional approach to dealing with our afflictions, overcoming our difficulties, as well as creating sustainable pathway to progress together. State-by-state solution solutions, desirable as they might seem, are no longer enough. The capacity to optimise the space for development lies in collective thinking and actions, as well as effective collaborative governance. —Abiola Ajimobi, Chairman, Southwest Governors Forum & Host of Southwest Regional Development Summit on November 21, 2016.

    Today concludes the series on attempts to stimulate a renaissance imagination in the Southwest. This piece borrows substantially from the Yoruba Summit’s optimism about turning the challenges facing the region into opportunities for development. Emphasis will be on policy suggestions on areas of critical importance that can help the region regain its long-lost tradition of people-centred governance that gave the region a head start almost half a century ago, which has in the last three decades been experiencing gradual erosion.

    Just like the governors, this writer knows that the current six-state structure in the southwest will be very difficult to dismantle or regroup into one-state region that was in place until 1975. This is not because other federal systems do not have room for existing states to merge if they so wish, but largely because professional stakeholders in the power industry in the existing states would resist such move.  For example, in the German Basic Law, the constitution allows for merger of states wishing to do so, just as the Ethiopian constitution creates conditions for secession, for any state desires to opt out of the federation. But the country’s 1999 Constitution does not countenance that possibility while most political stakeholders, from post-colonial politicians to traditional rulers are equally preoccupied with creation of more states. The realistic thing to do in our present circumstances is what the governors have done: embarking on process of integrated development. What should leaders and citizens of the region do to ensure that the goal of integrated development that can empower citizens across the six states is met? The short answer to this question is that they must look for creative ways of marrying the Awoist philosophy of governance with new ideas that can respond to the demands of the 21st century.

    One area that leaders of the region need to pay attention to create strategies for revitalising the region’s knowledge industry in order to move the region in the direction of the knowledge economy. The things that need to be done in this respect are not as far-fetched as they seem. The curriculum of primary and secondary education in the region needs to be reviewed to encourage innovation and critical thinking. Governors and legislators from the region need to call for a review of the current centralised curriculum.  From the experience of such countries as the UK, the US, Belgium, school curriculum in federal polities need to marry national core with local courses that can promote freedom and innovation. One recommendation submitted to the governors of the region by DAWN at its inception: using Yoruba as language of instruction in the first six years of schooling while teaching English as a language, needs to get the nod of the region’s governors in the planning for Integrated Development. The current constitution, as unitary as it seems, does not prevent states from promoting mother-tongue education.

    Still on reinforcing the architecture for a knowledge economy, each of the state universities in the region should be funded to become centre of excellence for designated disciplines. It is self-deceiving to act as if each of the existing universities is a centre-of-excellence comprehensive institution. The financial and manpower resources to make each state university in the region are not available at present. Relatedly, a coordinating body should be established to steer joint applied research on specific needs of the region. Similarly, each state should provide leadership for incubation of ideas for development of one of the following areas borrowed from initiatives in integrated development in other parts of the world: Growing Prosperity, Improving Wellbeing, Attaining Sustainability, Fostering Creativity and Innovation, Building Communities, and Expanding Opportunity. Each state should share knowledge on assigned area with the others. On these concerns, there is need for far greater investment in research and development through partnerships and collaborations with universities, research institutions, and businesses in the region.

    Furthermore, each must be mandated to report on its area of specialisation to a Regional Economic Council. If DAWN is to be used for this purpose, it will need to be strengthened substantially. Such strengthening will include proper funding and reconstitution of the agency’s board of trustees and diversifying of its staff to include representatives of the private sector, particularly in business, agriculture, and manufacturing, as well as professional economists. Odu’a Investment is one regional company that requires immediate attention. For a company like that to be worth just about N5 billion in over 40 years of operating and mostly during decades of buoyant economy in the country calls for review of its vision and mission. Like the region itself, this company needs to be born again.

    Profitable agriculture and manufacturing used to thrive in many parts of the region, from textile industry in Ado-Ekiti to food and beverage processing in Ibadan, palm-oil processing in Okitipupa, glass manufacturing at Igbokoda, wood processing at Ondo, ceramic/cement manufacturing in Abeokuta, beer production in Abeokuta, Ilesha, Ijebu-Ode, Ibadan, and multi-purpose factories in Ikeja. Most of these factories had collapsed during the years of total dependence on oil revenue. There is need for an agricultural/industrial strategy. Any strategy that does not include specific initiatives for regular electricity in the region – on or off-grid – will be as much of a mirage as it has been for the whole country. The regions in the north are already working toward provision of electricity to drive their agriculture and manufacturing. Planning for development of agriculture and manufacturing ought to be coordinated among the states, rather than each state going it alone.

    Furthermore, a new thinking is imperative in respect of culture of public service in the region, especially the civil service. As the region enters a new era of taxation as the region’s main source of revenue, a new vision of public good and public service will be needed, rather than the current public service culture that had been damaged by decades of corrupt enrichment of politicians and bureaucrats with access to public finance. There will be, more than ever before, need to create trust in government. And this can only happen if citizens are encouraged to participate in decision making and civic organisations in the region have opportunities to monitor service delivery to ensure transparency and accountability.

    Finally, planners of integrated development must take advantage of the huge Yoruba diaspora in the new commitment to re-energise the region. The diaspora, though formally ignored by governments in the region, is reported to remit annually close to $8 billion to the region. It is also a demographic group that can add significant value to development efforts in areas of education, health, technology, and management. There should be a strategy to establish formal relationship between the region’s Integrated Development Commission and the diaspora, to stimulate synergy between Yoruba homeland and diaspora. There are enviable models for the role of diaspora in development of homeland in India, China, Estonia, etc. The governors have chosen a good goal for the region. And this goal can bring smiles to the faces of the people, if approached with the resolve to succeed.

    Concluded

  • Beginning of renaissance in the Yoruba region? (2)

    If the summit is to be more than a talk-shop and a renaissance worth citing, past successful models in governance in the region must be unearthed and studied while opportunities should be provided for new ideas.

    The conclusion to the first part of this series last Sunday congratulated governors in the Yoruba region for taking the right decision to return to integrated development initiatives, first kick-started with the establishment of Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) about three years back. But the piece also advised that for this new energy to produce desired fruits, the initiative should not end with governors’ summit(s). The new vision of governors that sustainable development requires more than efforts within mini-states created from the Western State and beyond political partisanship of individual governors ought to be sold to state lawmakers, local government chairs and local government legislative bodies, and citizens. These stakeholders need to be mobilised to think afresh about inter-state relations in the region. They also need to be given political education to recognise the need to move away from mistakes of the past, and to embrace lessons from successful development initiatives in the past in the region. Today’s column will address mistakes of and lessons from the past and make suggestions on areas of urgent emphasis as the Southwest attempts to re-invent itself.

    Though not all the mistakes of the past can be remedied, it is necessary to mention a few of the ones that brought the region in particular to its present difficulties. Contrary to claims by some social media pundits, it is not the death of Chief Obafemi Awolowo that brought the crisis of development, especially decline in progressive governance to the states of the Southwest. This is not to say that were Awolowo alive much longer, the ideology of governance in the region would not have advanced beyond Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria and Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria.

    To borrow Achebe’s saying, the rain started beating the region when military dictators seized control of Nigeria as a whole and grew in power long and well enough to embark on balkanisation of the country, first, into 12 states in response to the intricacies of the geopolitics of  the civil war, and second, to change a political system of strong and viable regions within the country into smaller and weaker states that would, in the absence of creative thinking by leaders of such mini-states, depend completely on allocations from the pool of funds garnered from sale of petroleum. Military dictators’ consumerist attitude to reliable cash flow from petroleum after the civil war made it easy for them to kill regional autonomy that robbed the 12 states of their capacity to design their development strategies to suit the needs of their people. State institutions: roads, universities, colleges of education, health institutions, research institutes, regional commercial ventures that were thriving and growing in capacity to respond to people-centred governance withered as more oil dollars came to the country.

    In the Yoruba Region, those charged with governance and those governed in the few years of civilian rule between military coups and even during the current post-military era started to acquire and internalise the culture of consumption without production. Oil revenue was enough to buy whatever the country needed, why should any government try to fix what was not broken was the reigning philosophy of those in government—military or civilian. Even cocoa farms that used to drive economy of the Yoruba states before fragmentation were contracted out by owners of such farms, and their children were sent to Lagos and other big cities to participate in the easy life made possible by allocations from rents collected from petroleum and the growth in the service economy that resulted from oil boom. In the Southwest, factories started in the 1950s gradually disappeared as provision of electricity (then the preserve of the central government) evaporated.

    Consequently, the creators of what has been characterised as ‘feeding-bottle’ federal system put their emphasis on oil, without even remembering the importance of saving electric power system to prepare the country for entry into the modern world. Nigeria became a nation of imports—from toothpicks to generators or from milk to rice. In short, both rulers and the ruled in the region spent their energy chasing what they saw as their share of the oil bonanza, at the expense of creating economic structures and intellectual preparation for self-reliance in any sector.

    Even community leaders grooming their children for political career became obsessed with creation of new states and gladly led delegations to military dictators to create states for them. Powered by regular allocation of funds from the federation account, leaders encouraged citizens to become insular from their neighbours in new or old states to the extent that Ekiti people working in Ondo State and vice versa, Osun people working in Oyo and vice versa, and those in other contiguous Yoruba states started at the instance of politicians to treat each other as foreigners joined by the same language. Even when leaders of other regions still found time to meet for periodic review of their economy, Yoruba leaders met each other casually at weddings or funerals of loved ones. Consequently, knowledge to develop a modern economy evaporated in each of the states and the desire to think outside the box declined as well. Since the national culture was about planning to spend money that was assured from petroleum, leaders in the Yoruba region, apart from Lagos, started to act as if there was no need to plan beyond brainstorming on how to spend allocations from Abuja. Suddenly, most Yoruba states found it impossible to pay public servants (real and ghost), assembled in the first instance not to solve any problem facing citizens but largely to justify the size of recurrent side of annual budgets, and the rest is now history.

    It is salutary that those governing the six Yoruba states today finally gave attention to the old proverb: “Necessity is the Mother of Invention.” Historically, the current governors did not create the culture of consumption without production; they just took part in it, having been elected into the system and sworn to protect the constitution that legitimised a unitary system of governance. What is remarkable about the governors’ decision two weeks ago to look for a way out of the dark tunnel is that they are no longer complacent that the central government can continue to pay their bills. Being very close physically to the people they govern, they can be reached by protesters and demonstrators faster than those in federal government. But more importantly, citizens are already expressing support to the governors for coming together, despite differences in political party affiliations, to look for solutions to problems whose magnitude is still unfolding. It is, however, reassuring that the governors finally resorted to traditional Yoruba humanist notion of alterability: every problem, no matter how difficult, has a solution close by for those who care to open their inner eyes and are ready to make the appropriate sacrifice.

    If the summit is to be more than a talk-shop and a renaissance worth citing, past successful models in governance in the region must be unearthed and studied while opportunities should be provided for new ideas.  Incidentally, four of the five governors characterise themselves as Awoists and the only governor that does not feel obliged to define himself happily agreed that party ideologies would not prevent the governors from co-operating and collaborating to develop the region in critical areas. It thus makes sense for the summiteers to refamiliarise themselves with what worked well in the governance of the past, particularly during the era of Awolowo.

    Awolowo’s ideology that the primary role of government is promotion of the welfare of the people prevailed in every aspect of his government. He ran a government that saw it as its responsibility to inspire citizens to create wealth through agriculture and manufacturing. By living by his promise to create equality of opportunity, especially with respect to provision of access to public education, some assistance for health care (possible within the resources available to its young government that relied on taxation), infrastructure designed to assist agricultural activities (possible within the level of resources available), etc., Awolowo used positive social policy to achieve a measure of political cooperation from citizens. Some of the writings of and about Awolowo’s government would be useful as the region attempts to transcend the limitation imposed on development efforts by decades of governance with little effort and imagination to do more than sharing the national cake made possible by rents  collected on petroleum.

    To be continued

     

  • Beginning of renaissance in the Yoruba region?(1)

    Beginning of renaissance in the Yoruba region?(1)

    This column congratulates the governors for waking up after a long slumber spawned by the years of ‘collect and spend’ in a quasi-unitary system of government created between the 1970s and now. 

    Let’s face it. We cannot continue to pretend that we can deal with the issues confronting our Region and her people on a case-by-case, insular state basis. It will not work, and we cannot, no matter how hard we try, achieve long-term sustainable development and radical transformation in Yorubaland. Therefore, the key to leveraging our uniqueness is the regional approach to dealing with our afflictions, overcoming our difficulties, as well as creating sustainable pathway to progress together. State-by-state solution solutions, desirable as they might seem, are no longer enough. The capacity to optimise the space for development lies in collective thinking and actions, as well as effective collaborative governance. —AbiolaAjimobi, Chairman, Southwest Governors Forum & Host of Southwest Regional Development Summit on November 21, 2016.

    It is the recent summit of governors of six Yoruba states collectively referred to as the Southwest that is being referenced (though hyperbolically) as nascent renaissance in this piece. Since the emergence of renaissance in Italy in the 14th century and its spread to the rest of Western Europe, just about every nation in the world has experienced different forms of cultural rebirth or renewal. By renaissance, we do not refer just to cultural nostalgia about the past of a nation, we also mean the outcome of being born again: the growth of the culture of knowledge to replace superstition and surprise of freedom to eclipse feudalism in all forms. Our reference also pertains to the gust of creativity in all aspects of human effort that a renaissance mind set stimulates towards realisation of the imperative of progress.

    More specifically, today’s focus is on the rise of new attitudes to reality that was in evidence last Monday when six governors of the six contiguous states in Western Nigeria who had not met for years to discuss common interests, even after their counterparts in the North, the East, and the South-south had done so several times in the last one year of national experiment with change. We will give social scientists enough time to study the root of the conversion of all Yoruba governors from insularity to integration. But as belated as this summit is, it is the reasonable thing to do in the circumstances in which the region has found itself since the onset of what looks increasingly like a post-oil economy and polity. This writer warned on this page in 2012 in a four-piece essay on Petroleum and the Future of Nigeria that many things would have to be done differently when oil became more plentiful while the few knowledge societies across the globe continued to succeed in creating products that would give competition to petroleum, thus tilting the world in the direction of environmentally-sustainable development.

    Even though those who determine fiscal policies in the country at large have not fully bought the idea that we may be seeing the tail of rent collection from oil, they are not unmindful of the need to think anew about how to sustain the country as a whole and current federating units in the face of recession caused principally by fall in the price of oil and the ‘mega stealing’ of funds made possible in the days of oil boom. For example, President Buhari is still so optimistic about petroleum that he has given his junior minister of petroleum every encouragement to find petroleum in commercial quantity in the north. Many commenters have even expressed worry about the wisdom of using the little money in hand to look for more oil when the oil in the south from Calabar to Lagos is losing value. Others have argued that it is better to look for more oil wherever it may be in Nigeria so that it can be sold before it becomes useless in the fast-approaching Green ethos. Buhari’s administration has also invested emotional energy in promoting diversification as an alternative to putting all the eggs of the nation’s economy in one collapsing basket.

    Furthermore, it is encouraging that a region that had been for decades the pacesetter for other parts of the country and has in the last few decades become a dumping ground for all consumables is now being jolted by the summit of Yoruba governors to come to terms with the fallout from a philosophy and style of governance that was driven by compulsive consumerism— either in the allocation of funds from petroleum to national and subnational governments or in terms of stimulation of a national culture of sharing of national cake, with little or no attention for creating national or regional bakery. In fairness to the current governors, they came to power under a national system that viewed governance as the capacity to spend what is allocated to each level of government. This column congratulates the governors for waking up after a long slumber spawned by the years of ‘collect and spend’ in a quasi-unitary system of government created between the 1970s and now. While it may be late for an individual to come to terms in the evening of life with his or her problems, it is never too late for a nation to come to terms with its problems, because nations never get too old to take risks. As expected, turning the words of the summit’s communique into actions is bound to face challenges as well as opportunities.

    For example, challenges may arise from divergence in vision of PDP and APC governors. The two PDP governors at the summit have become in the last one year passionate advocates for re-federalisation while the four APC governors after the 2015 election are still on the verge of choosing between re-federalisation or diversification or combining both. However, it is remarkable that the six governors find working together agreeable, despite divergent views on creation of an appropriate form of government that can make governments perform their responsibilities to citizens. Therefore, the governors deserve to be congratulated for committing to turn what may look like challenges into new opportunities. And it is the opportunities that the essays under this title will focus on.

    Shifting from a political culture of consumption to production may not be achievable solely on the steam of change of vision by the governors. State legislators and representatives of Yoruba states in the National Assembly need to be re-educated about the need to buy into the new economic vision. In a situation where federal lawmakers are still spending huge sums of money on cars for their members in the name of constituency work (whatever that means), many state legislatures are calling for budget autonomy to allow them spend as they want, and the federal legislature is pushing for financial autonomy to 774 local governments that receive about 20% of funds in the dwindling distributable pool, it is realistic for the governors to involve other  levels and branches of government in the project of thinking outside the box on the way forward for a region that seems to have lost so much of its comparative advantage to decades of living off rents collected from sale of petroleum. Local governments should also be encouraged to have a conference to discuss modalities for migrating from decades of manna to productive economy.

    Let no one be deceived, other regions are already ahead in the project of managing their economies beyond or without oil. For example, northern governors have been at this project since May of 2015, notwithstanding that the current president is from the north. Northern governors have gone abroad to look for loans and investments from both sectarian and secular institutions for development of their regions. They have also gone to get foreign investors interested in partnering with them to mine minerals in their regions and assist in modernisation of their region’s agriculture. Although the economic situation of the Yoruba region at present is worse than outsiders can readily apprehend, there is hope for revival and renewal of lost glory, but all hands must be on deck to craft right policies, programmes, and projects to develop the region in a sustainable way that can continuously address the welfare of its people.

    To be continued