The Nation Newspaper

Category: Ropo Sekoni

  • Implications of change manifesto (4)

    Implications of change manifesto (4)

    Jailing corrupt people after due judicial process is one effective way to fight corruption; borrowing from the tradition of shaming persons who misbehave is another

    President-elect Buhari recently promised Nigerians that he is set to kill corruption before corruption kills Nigeria. People at home and abroad put credence in his words on account of his moral cleanliness, probity in public life and austerity in private life. Buhari has already started to demonstrate his no-nonsense approach to governance; he recently ordered his aides to desist from the flaunting of power for which people in public office are known: pushing other vehicles off the road to give political office holders a right of way they do not have. From a short field research before the presidential election, I interviewed some regular Nigerians that can be referred to as folks in the technical sense of the word, asking them why they would vote for General Buhari. The answer I got seven out of ten times was “Because we know he would fight corruption, even if he did nothing else.”

    While going through my files for the fourth piece on Implications of Change Manifesto, I came across an article that appeared in this paper about four years ago, shortly after President Jonathan assumed power after winning the 2011 presidential election. This was after President Jonathan’s assurance during his visit to Washington to fight corruption as part of his Transformation Agenda. At that time, just like now, transformation was viewed by many as change. I have chosen to take the liberty to re-present the article, at a time that the nation is also full of expectation and hope about the imperative of fighting corruption. Despite the fact that President Jonathan had little space for fighting corruption in his Transformation Agenda, I am taking the liberty to re-present the article in today’s column, as part of the avalanche of suggestions to General Buhari on how to deal with the hydra-headed monster that corruption has become in our country.

    Our new president is certainly aware that the culture of corruption in the country he has recently accepted to lead or govern is the primary source of the embarrassment that Nigerians face outside Nigeria daily, the reason for the stigmatisation of the country (and the perpetual call for re-branding the nation by our ministers), and the deepening of poverty in the country. I believe Mr. Jonathan was confronted with some hard facts about Nigeria’s oversize corruption during his visit to Washington. It was during his visit that a CIA revelation about Nigeria stated that Nigeria had lost more money to corruption than any other country on the continent. The report said that $89 billion was illegally removed from Nigeria’s treasury between 1970 and 2008.

    If international agencies are able to trace $89 billion to political and bureaucratic corruption in the 28 years under review, it will be safe to assume that four times this amount must have been stolen, with some taken out without being noticed while some is kept for use inside the country by those who are afraid to be caught exporting such stolen funds. It must have been Mr. Jonathan’s recognition of the magnitude of corruption, like the magnitude of darkness that covers the country every night, that he announced in Washington that he would fight corruption during his presidency.

    The country’s criminal justice system is unduly slow. There is some value to the slow wheel of justice in the country. It is usually better to err on the side of justice by being slow than to have a speedy adjudication system that puts an innocent person in jail. It must be because of the recognition of the slow criminal justice system that anti-corruption gurus are asking for establishment of special courts to handle cases of corruption. President Jonathan needs to respond to the challenge of fighting corruption in a country where everyone generally suspects the person in front or behind him of being corrupt. Too much of the nation’s funds that could have been used for providing good roads and adequate energy for development are being held by some of the few individuals that have had access to political and bureaucratic power in the country. There is need for creative response to the mother of Nigeria’s problems.

    Preventing corruption is, like preventive medicine, likely to cost less than fighting corruption in the traditional way that we have done in the last few years.  Most Nigerians would not be surprised if the money collected from those charged with corruption in the last few years does not justify the money invested in fighting this scourge. Using the present criminal justice system to prosecute the hordes of corrupt people in government and corporate governance may not be fast enough to bring many corrupt people to justice in their lifetime. More importantly, the existing mode of prosecuting and adjudicating cases of corruption may not assist the country to recover most of the stolen funds that are hidden in foreign countries or have been used to buy houses in Dubai, London, Washington, Pretoria, and even Accra by individuals that had taken money illegally from the nation’s treasury.

    The need to get money back from fraudulent politicians and civil servants to provide electricity, rail transportation, globally competitive education system, and life-saving health care makes it reasonable for the president to take another leap in the dark: offer amnesty to corrupt men and women who had stolen and taken out of the country so much of the nation’s funds meant for development. The EFCC and ICPC need to be re-energised through adequate funding, sincere commitment to the fight against corruption at all levels of government, and genuine cooperation with international graft-fighting institutions. With all these, it should not be hard for a re-invented EFCC to have accurate data on the places in which past fraudulent leaders have hidden and are still hiding the money they had stolen from Nigeria. It is with a list of such fraudsters in hand that the president should openly call on all past leaders that had stolen money to register for Corruption Amnesty.  A deadline for registration should be set.

    The offer of amnesty must include allowing thousands of politicians and civil servants who had looted the treasury between 1960 and 2009 opportunity to buy freedom from prosecution by surrendering 80% of the money they had stolen. Like the Niger Delta amnesty, those who voluntarily surrender the required percentage of their loot should be free from any judicial stigmatisation while those who refuse should be made to face the court of speedy justice in special anti-corruption courts.

    Nigeria cannot afford to forget 400 billion dollars in the hands of looters and their descendants. Doing so can only fuel the cycle of corruption and impunity and deepen poverty.  Even if corruption amnesty does not lead to total deterrence, it will clear the way for anti-corruption institutions to deal with fewer cases and to buy appropriate technology that can make preventive measures more efficient and effective.

    In his own case, President Buhari is not new to fighting corruption. He must have thought out his plan of action for his own war against corruption.  Many voters (if not most) have shown that political and bureaucratic corruption is one of the reasons they voted for Buhari during his fourth shot at the presidency. Trying and punishing every corrupt political office holder or public servant is an onerous thing to do for a government that also has Boko Haram and mass unemployment to fight. Jailing corrupt people after due judicial process is one effective way to fight corruption; borrowing from the tradition of shaming persons who misbehave is another. Corruption Amnesty may bring back the culture of shame that has disappeared from public life in our country for decades. Both forms of intervention can deter future offenders. To attempt to jail all corrupt past politicians and civil servants will require enormous expenditure because corruption has been the core of governance for too long in the country. Amnesty is a variant of Plea bargaining that can bring shame to corrupt persons while bringing back much of stolen funds to the country.

  • Implications of Change Manifesto (3)

    Implications of Change Manifesto (3)

    The ethic of change requires that those who fought murderously against change are not allowed to become decision makers in the party of change

    Last week, we concluded that fighting corruption would require addressing the facilitation of corruption by a political structure that creates utter alienation between the citizenry and government, in particular the destruction of the country’s tradition of federal governance and installation over the years of a unitary governance structure and culture. We also warned the new president against surrendering to any effort to blackmail him by those who want to be seen as heroes of the Jonathan national dialogue of 2014 and of the cosmetic devolution in the constitutional amendments recently rejected by President Jonathan.

    The argument in this respect is that recommendations from the Jonathan national conference and the amendments from the departing legislature lack proper democratic participation by citizens, especially that both lack opportunity for citizen participation by the way of referendum. Following the axiom of “What is worth doing at all is worth doing well,” the president should be given the opportunity to employ a proper process and move away from the notion that any respectable federal system can be sustained with federal allocation to federating units from rents collection. The column today will continue the discussion of implications of Change Manifesto for the way the country is governed by the new president and the All Progressives Congress in the next four years.

    Given the mass defection from the PDP to the APC since the presidential election, it is important for the new president and his party to be cautious about politicians who are afraid of opposition and thus need to rush to every new party that is in power. It is normal for the wary to pay attention to the rush to the new governing party by those who served as cheer leaders in the last sixteen years to the PDP in its personalisation of the state.

    A Yoruba proverb: Agbara ojo ko nioun o nii w’ole, onile ni ko nii gba fun un (Flood from rain does not shy away from destroying houses, it is the landlords that must guard against this) is worth the attention of the new president and his party. Those who participated in encouraging the PDP to disregard and misjudge the citizenry to the point of losing citizens’ confidence may not be coming to the president’s party because they believe in the platform of change. The exodus from the party of yesterday to the party of today may be because the defectors or carpet crossers, to put it euphemistically, are afraid of not having immediate access to a new political patronage network. The ethic of change requires that those who fought murderously against change are not allowed to become decision makers in the party of change. Defectors would need to be watched, not necessarily by leaving them with “empty stomachs” as President Jonathan has feared while APC members are overfed from the loot of office, but principally because there should be no room for feeding even APC party members from what in normal circumstances is meant to be used to make life easier for all citizens.

    It is reassuring that the president-elect has already announced to those running around Abuja, Kaduna, and Daura for ministerial positions that he will require that every minister in his government declare his or her assets. But care must be taken to go beyond asset declaration as a mere symbolic action. Each candidate for ministerial position must be made to show proof of how he or she came about the assets declared. This should include proof of taxes paid by candidates for ministerial positions. Many of our ministers and governors in the past had declared assets without showing any proof of source of the property they claimed on their asset declaration forms. Such requirement is likely to keep those who had benefited from corruption in the past from becoming major public policy makers in the government of change.

    Since the most visible aspect of governance by the PDP in the last sixteen years has been the rule of impunity as distinct from the rule of law, the new president must lead by the power of example, rather than the example of power, which was the core characteristic of PDP’s governance style from Obasanjo to Jonathan. There should be no room for the politics of vindictiveness and marginalisation in the government of President Buhari. Regardless of who voted for whom, General Buhari has become the president of Nigeria the moment he had the majority required for gaining that office. No section of Nigeria must be made to experience the marginalisation that the Yoruba region experienced in the last six years in particular.

    In the character of democracy, every citizen has a right to have a preferred presidential or gubernatorial candidate. But once a leader has been chosen by a majority of voters, the leader is obligated constitutionally and morally to govern for the benefit of all citizens. But nothing in being president of and for all requires the president to form a nebulous government of national unity that many PDP politicians have been canvassing for during their visits to congratulate General Buhari. A government of national unity may bring benefits to individuals calling for it but it is dangerous for the polity, as it is capable of leading to a one-party system that suffocates or muffles political opposition necessary to keep the governing party on its toes.

    A PDP governor in the Southwest has been quoted by one of his aides as whispering that what appeared to be desperation during the campaign was necessary to prevent an opposition party from becoming the party in power and with the opportunity to use power the way PDP had used it in the last four years. It is therefore conceivable that those begging for a government of national unity and those rushing to obtain APC membership cards during the interregnum are doing so in order to avoid experiencing a negative use of power by the Buhari/APC government. Without doubt, such persons have very little understanding of the politics of change. The new president and his party cannot afford to imitate the government they have displaced electorally. Citizens are still around to take note of such unwholesome governance. A party that is committed to change knows more than any other group that it needs to be in power for more than four years, if it is to be able to make sustainable changes to a polity and economy damaged by personalistic and patrimonial governance in the last few years. The toxic character of the polity in the last six years requires a responsive governance capable of healing the country, instead of a continuation or a variant of a government that pumps venom into the polity.

    With or without loss in revenue from petroleum, the governance of the country for the past few years has been marked by waste, greed, and disregard for sustainable policies on remuneration for political appointees and lawmakers at the three levels of government. It is not just the severance benefits for state governors that need the attention of the new president; more than this, the existing severance benefits for the president, vice president, and lawmakers are plainly irresponsible. This is the time for the practice of paying fat salaries and benefits (too fat for legislators to acknowledge publicly) to be re-examined and pruned down. There is no reason why the lawmaker should earn more than a permanent secretary. There is no justification for lawmakers’ constituency allowance that is not subjected to the process of accountability. Lawmakers should just be made to do oversight for the executive and create laws to improve governance and the welfare of citizens; they should not be saddled with community projects which are basically part of the functions of the executive branch of government. This is also a good time to reconsider what is referred to in political or bureaucratic vocabulary as security vote for those in political office. It is difficult for citizens to understand why huge sums of money are given monthly to local government chairs, governors, and presidents as security votes in a country that has military intelligence group, SSS, national intelligence service, regular police etc., not to talk of owning the largest military in sub-Saharan Africa. Any funds given to political office holders that are not subjected to periodic scrutiny and accountability by impartial auditors smack more of pork and should be discontinued in the era of change and accountability.

    It is not enough to diversify the economy and thus increase the sources of revenue to the government. It is important that revenues that accrue to the government(s) are not wasted or thrown as pacification inducements at political appointees, civil servants, and lawmakers. Revenues that flow to government coffers belong to all the citizens and should be used to improve the welfare of all. That is what the manifesto of change is expected to do.

    To be continued

  • Implications of Change Manifesto (2)

    Implications of Change Manifesto (2)

    Moving away from the state of anomie that has been a part of the country’s experience over the years certainly requires heavy-duty calibration of all dimensions of governance and government

    Last Sunday, we examined the alienation between the State and the citizenry on account of a political and economic system that has denied citizens of their political efficacy through a governance system that is powered by rents collected from sale of petroleum. We concluded the piece on the need to move from a rentier state back to a productive economy, such as was in vogue in the country in the years before the civil war. We will today focus on the implications of the post- civil war political structure and culture (that should now be a part of the Manifesto of Change) on subnational units of government.

    As we mentioned last week, corruption in our country has two causes: remote and immediate. While immediate cause can be traced to character flaws of individuals in positions of authority, remote cause can be traced to the character of the country’s political economy over the years. The change of the economy from productive activities (agriculture, manufacturing, and service provisions) to rent collection from petroleum since the 1970s created a very fertile land for the growth of public and bureaucratic corruption. Multiplying states from 12 to 36 in the years after the civil war and designing such states to run on the steam of allocated funds from revenues from petroleum led to estrangement between citizens and governments all over the country.

    The fragmentation of the four regions in existence before the civil war marked the beginning of a political economy that enabled political leaders to personalise governance and freely appropriate public resources at the national and subnational levels. The revenue from petroleum was enough for the elite to share and settle scores among them, just as it was sufficient to establish and sustain security forces to keep citizens in line to cheer their political leaders as they enrich themselves. The relationship of alienation between citizens and the State made it easy for governance institutions to be built and nurtured, not for the contributions they could make to national development but for the symbolism of progress they can evoke.

    For example, the educational system grew in size with the same speed that it lost its purpose. Credentialing replaced learning all over the country. Infrastructure was neglected by leaders whose goal was to acquire enough funds to open accounts in foreign countries to train their own children, not minding what type of education the average citizen receives at home. The public school, known as the institution that generates literacy and development in most parts of the modern world was ignored by governments while citizens with access to funds created private fee-paying schools to replace or eclipse public schools. Academic standards and quality assurance were thrown to the wind by most learning institutions, and the consequence is what both citizens and political leaders now refer to as educational decline.

    The federal governments has viewed for the past 50 years freedom and development at the subnational level as a threat to national unity and integration. In the process, those holding the lever of federal power have been preoccupied with loading powers and functions on the federal level of governance. Politicians and public servants at the federal level with oversize revenue allocation have found pork everywhere and have been cutting without qualms as much for  themselves as could be done in a system that promotes impunity to shield those who defraud the state. At the subnational level in 36 or more capitals, the mimicry of federal style of personalistic and patrimonial governance has grown. At every level of government, those who seek political office also feel bound to privilege immunity over integrity, to the extent that even lawmakers also seek immunity for themselves in an amended constitution.

    There is no doubt that General Buhari has been voted by majority of Nigerians to inherit a broken nation, not in territorial terms but clearly in moral and political terms. Generally, the local parlance: “Nothing works in this place and nobody seems to be in charge” remains true until May 29. In a few states where there is an appearance of governance and progress, such situation is more of aberration that brings more danger to such states as citizens rush in droves from their states to such places. Moving away from the state of anomie that has been a part of the country’s experience over the years certainly requires heavy-duty calibration of all dimensions of governance and government. But building or re-building institutions that can sustain good governance also requires new thinking, more so now, that what has made it easy for both leaders and their supporters to abandon rules of engagement at all levels— easy flow of funds from petroleum— may be approaching its long lean years.

    It is common knowledge that no modern nation has been built or sustained with just one commodity: rent collection from petroleum. Most modern nations are sustained by revenues raised from activities of citizens and companies by way of taxation. No modern nation has survived without proper infrastructure, particularly energy provision for manufacturing, just as no modern nation can remain so without respectable mass transportation systems. No modern nation exists without internal and external security. In short, no modernity without infrastructures for modernisation.

    Correspondingly, no multiethnic nation can thrive under a political structure and culture that concentrates power and functions at the centre.A system (such as has been in existence in the country for decades) that grows a central government that controls subnational governments is not likely to be conducive to national development and unity. Most multiethnic federations that have succeeded are those that have promoted an ethos of cooperation among constituent groups, not those that have held subnational governments by the jugular all in the name of promoting national unity. There are plenty examples of multiethnic polities and societies that seem to have built national unity and development on the pillar of freedom for subnational groups to serve as centres of production and innovation. The United States of America, Canada, Brazil, Belgium, Switzerland, and even South Africa are illustrations of successful multiethnic governance.

    It is instructive that none of these countries has denied any section of it the fiscal autonomy of federalism that it needs to innovate and flourish. Given the magnitude of the systemic damage that has happened to Nigeria over the years, it may be unrealistic to expect that General Buhari will hit the ground running by leaving aside the problem of growing insecurity, endemic corruption, and dilapidated infrastructure and embarking in his first day in office. It will also be delusional to govern in a way to suggest that national development can ensue from a system in which the central government controls subnational units like vassals, the way Nigeria has been governed for almost 50 years.

    It is salutary that outgoing President Jonathan has refrained from accepting cosmetic constitutional changes sent to him by the outgoing legislatures. Even if President Jonathan had won the election and have been given the opportunity to implement the recommendations of the national dialogue that he established last year, he still would not have addressed the problems militating against freedom and development in the country, because the recommendations from his own conference are not any more substantial than those from the departing federal lawmakers.

    As daunting as the problems of corruption, insecurity, infrastructure deficit, and educational decline might be, suggestions to General Buhari should include finding ways to think creatively and courageously about how to govern Nigeria with a constitution and a political structure that Nigerians like. The existing constitution was almost used to prevent him from getting elected, if the rest of the world had not warned against deployment of overbearing federal might—police, military, and other security agencies— to intimidate voters across the country. Assuming, as usual, that the problems of Nigeria pertain only to the content of governance and not its form is to miss the point about how to return government to citizens through establishment of a productive economy in the different regions with the view to facilitate the growth of each region to create an education and an economy that can nurture a federal system.

    General Buhari may not need to rush into solving the country’s lingering political problems. However, he and his governing team need to get the matter of re-federalising the country back to the top of the list of Must-Dos, without doing anything to take political advantage of citizens’ yearning for an integrated multiethnic nation-state that is positioned constitutionally and structurally to benefit from unity of purpose than one that is designed to generate suspicion among its constituent units, as Nigeria has been for the past 50 years.

    To be continued

  • Implications of Change Manifesto (1)

    Implications of Change Manifesto (1)

    What is billed for change is not diagnosis of Nigeria’s ailments but the efficacy of the treatment of such ailments

    While the history of the decline of the PDP as the largest political party in Africa, particularly the reasons why the party lost to the APC in all the elections waits to be written, the belief in many quarters—elite and folk— is that majority of voters who chose the APC over PDP in all the elections did so because of the promise of change by General Buhari and the APC. Just as the president-elect has started to inform citizens about policies he would introduce to herald change, so are many politicians and even public servants acting and talking in a way to suggest that they do not understand what a manifesto of change means. Even after most Nigerians have opted for a new ideology of governance, many of those who have benefited over the years from a government that has little attention for citizens’ welfare still behave as if Buhari’s change manifesto is mere rhetoric.

    It is clear to the average observer that the most appealing aspect of Buhari/APC campaign is not as much the focus on issues (as distinct from the preoccupation of the ruling party with smear campaign) as it is the desire of most Nigerians for change. Nigerians were fed up with a governance ideology and style that had failed and wanted to have a socio-economic experience that is different from what had obtained for the past sixteen years in general and the past six years in particular.In effect, Nigerian’s desire for change and Buhari’s promise of a socio-political experience that is different from the socio-economic menu of the past sixteen years coalesced to bring what used to be the opposition party to power.

    It is, therefore, not surprising that the President-elect has since March 30 been introducing doses of policy change that is expected to move away from the traditional way of governing the country. Even after General Buhari has said that anyone interested in becoming a minister in his government must be prepared to declare his or her asset, those who have been poster-boys and girls for corruption in government are very loud in announcing their desire to work with Buhari. Individuals who are running away from the laws in other lands and those who should be in court answering to EFCC charges are in the forefront of those advertising their support and selling their expertise toBuhari, as if change is only about content with no connection to form.

    Many of the dimensions of governance that Buhari and APC have promised to change have been part of the rhetoric of government in the last sixteen years: corruption, poverty, infrastructure, education, health, national security, and the country’s political structure and culture, to name a few. What is billed for change is not diagnosis of Nigeria’s ailments but the efficacy of the treatment of such ailments. In other words, Buhari and his party want to move away from rhetoric to praxis. In doing so, it is obvious that it is not just content that should require the attention of the new president but also form.

    As today’s piece promises to be one of many on the implications of Change Manifesto, the rest of today’s column will focus on what should be changed about the fight against corruption. Fighting corruption requires the integrity of a leader who himself or herself is averse to corruption. What is known and propagated about General Buhari is encouraging for the reason that he is the kind of leader that is favorably placed to take the fight against corruption from its present highly rhetorical level to a noticeably practical level. As it is with any desperate problem that requires desperate solution, corruption has both cause and effect.

    The effect is often material or tangible and thus identifiable. For example, having a candidate for governorship or ministerial appointment declare his assets is capable of addressing the material aspect of corruption, especially if such candidate is unable to prove the source of the pre-engagement income he has declared or if at the end of his time in office, he is unable to explain changes in his income at the point of exit from office. Secondly, character flaw can help to facilitate corrupt behavior on the part of office holders. Individuals with moral weakness and poor ethical standards are more likely to be more corrupt than disciplined and morally upright persons in positions of power. So, making sure that only individuals with high ethical standards are appointed as ministers and into other positions can assist the fight against corruption.

    But the cause of corruption deserves as much attention as its effect. Strong institutions and a political system that is not designed to facilitate corrupt behavior are matters that should be of concern to the Buhari administration. Without mincing words, the distribution of power and responsibility between the central and state governments over the years has contributed to the growth of the culture of corruption in the country in the last forty or more years. The rise of political and bureaucratic corruption that has earned the country the stigma of  being one of the most corrupt countries on earth in the last thirty years has links with the descent of the country into a modern form of hunting and gathering culture that has been in vogue in the last forty or more years. What is often referred to in modern political and economic vocabulary as rent collection from petroleum sale is a modern variant of hunting and gathering as sources of livelihood.

    By replacing the relative productive sector in place in the early part of the postcolonial phase with rent collection from petroleum, Nigeria created a socio-economic and political culture that fostered alienation of the citizenry from the country’s rulers. Under a system that is characterized by running both national and subnational governments on allocations from rents collected from petroleum, citizens’ efficacy was eroded. Citizens ceased to be actors (tax payers) and became consumers of what is passed down to the states from the federation account.  Overloading the central government with powers and functions that do not have to be performed principally because of the absence of strong institutions and primacy of the rule of law, those charged with the power to run the country have had so much pork to use to bribe or silence citizens, and to cripple dissent. Impunity consequently grew to an endemic level at the centre, just as it also became part of the culture in states, especially those that are governed by the same party in power at the center. There are many telling examples all around us till today.

    The culture of ruling with impunity and consuming with recklessness on the part of those in power became part of the economic and political culture of the country, to the extent that finding honesty in public and also private sectors has become like finding a needle in a hay-sack. The effect is the penetration of corruption to every level and aspect of life in the country.It is, therefore, salutary that INEC has helped to bring the first corrective step to the culture of impunity and corruption in the country. Having a free, fair, and credible election that made it possible to make citizens’ ballots count to the point of replacing the political party in power with the opposition party for the first time in over sixty years is a remarkable boost in citizens’ political efficacy. It is therefore appropriate that the President-elect has chosen to focus on fighting corruption. But the first step in doing this effectively is to return the country to a productive economy that shuns the dependence on fossil energy. Easy flow of petroleum dollars has also made it easy for states to become fiefdoms that also depend on manna from the federation account, rather than the productive centres that the regions were up till the end of the civil war.

    Cutting recurrent expenditures must include creating a budget that does not need revenue garnered from selling of petroleum. Whatever money accrues to the country from petroleum can be devoted to infrastructure building and renewal, rather than allowing revenue from petroleum to provide resources for the running of our government at the national and subnational levels and the interminable ballooning of recurrent expenditures fomented by those who see political appointments as license for infinite acquisition.

    To be continued

  • 2015 election verdict and Nigeria 2

    2015 election verdict and Nigeria 2

    In the entire history of civilian rule in the country, only General Buhari had sought the highest office on his own for the past sixteen years until he finally found APC as the instrument of victory on March 28

    Since the victory of General Buhari and the APC in the presidential and federal legislative elections, the feeling in many parts of the country recalls (for those of us that were adolescents in 1960 in particular) of the excitement and hope that greeted the lowering of the Union Jack in Lagos and other regional capitals in 1960. Many people in that generation have been made by Buhari’s emergence as president-elect to feel like the youths of today that the yoke of domination has disappeared and the sky has been made to look like the limit for everyone. The cause of such feeling was the atmosphere of freedom and the character of fairness with which the election was conducted on the whole. It is too soon for today’s column to know how free and fair state elections would be. But it is already clear that should the gubernatorial and state assembly elections be inferior in any form to the presidential and federal legislative elections of March 28, citizens’ optimism about the years beyond May 29  may diminish, especially that most governance is done at the state level.

    From the announcements by the Nigeria Police Force that vehicular movement is prohibited from midnight Friday till noon on Sunday, citizens are already getting concerned about the draconian measures in respect of state elections. Voters are already grumbling out: “What makes state elections more complex than national elections?” Over 50% of the nation’s resources are under the control of the president while the most important laws in the country are the responsibility of federal legislators. Why would the IGP and other security agencies feel more worried about state elections than the presidential one that was conducted peacefully in relative terms in most states of the federation on March 28? By the time readers get to this piece, the nation would have known why the security forces put the country on red alert with respect to yesterday’s election. Let us leave comments on the April 11 election till another time.

    The purpose of the column today is to advance the theme started last week: potential impact of Buhari/APC victory on the country’s future. It may not be because of Buhari’s governance style in 1984 that a majority of the country’s voters chose him and his party over the incumbent president and ruling party. Indeed, it may be in spite of it. The PDP has in the last sixteen years run a central government of impunity while Buhari promised voters a regime of change from impunity to accountability and the rule of law. The rule of impunity since 1999 till date had become synonymous with an African variant of fascist and repressive rule, a governance model that is as uncaring as colonial domination.

    It is the promise of change inherent in Buhari/APC’s campaign that must have given citizens the feeling that a regime of emancipation of the oppressed was born on March 28. Observers have given more attention to the making of the APC presidential candidate that had been the style in the past. Since 1959, the common perception has been that the country had not had a president who actually chose to become one. The belief in 1959 was that it was Ahmadu Bello that asked Tafawa Balewa to come to Lagos to rule Nigeria on his behalf. In 1979, Shagari averred openly that his interest was to become a senator before he was drafted by the ruling club to contest for the highest office. In 1993, MKO Abiola, who sought for the highest office and won the support of the people, was prevented from using his talent to govern Nigeria. In 1999, it was a group of military dictators that organised to draft General Olusegun Obasanjo to serve as presidential candidate of a party jointly created by former military rulers and their civilian acolytes bent on protecting the interests of promoters of military rule. UmaruYar’Adua was drafted by General Obasanjo in 2007. And Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was brought to the presidential ticket by the same forces that drafted Yar’Adua, and the rest is now history. In the entire history of civilian rule in the country, only General Buhari had sought the highest office on his own for the past sixteen years until he finally found APC as the instrument of victory on March 28.

    Those who are feeling excited as a people were in 1960 when British colonialists responded to the mild nationalist struggle and bowed out in a manner reminiscent of President Jonathan’s acceptance of the election that changed the guard from Jonathan to Buhari and from PDP to APC have good reasons to be optimistic, as is usually the case with change from one ruling party to another in most democracies. Despite claims by some pundits that Buhari’s electoral victory rested largely on votes from the core North and the Southwest, it is remarkable that Buhari’s win in four of the country’s six geopolitical regions shows more evidence of greater freely-given support from more diverse groups in the country than at any time other than at the end of the free and fair presidential election of 1993.

    With respect to those already calling for caution or guarded optimism in relation to Buhari’s campaign promises, this is an appropriate time to remind voters of the old proverb: “The taste of the pudding is in the eating.” Only those of us who claim to have special power of audition and sight to hear and see what ordinary human beings cannot see have the power to predict how fulfilling Buhari’s regime would be. But for those who feel that Nigeria now has the opportunity to make use of its political independence, more than ever before, it is in order for them to realise that in democracies, citizens are not expected to go back to bed after electing their representatives into power.

    Democracy requires that voters must remain alert and vigilant each minute of the political time and space they have delegated to their elected officials from the president to lawmakers and even civil servants. Such show of vigilance was greater during the regime of Jonathan than at any other time in the past. It was not until towards the end of Obasanjo’s rule that anti-tenure elongation warriors raised the voice of challenge against the impunity of Obasanjo’s regime. It was also at the tail end of Yar’Adua’s short regime that the forces of vigilance became strong, particularly when a clique set out to rule the country on behalf of Yar’Adua after it was clear to the international community that the gentleman had passed. Jonathan was certainly the most criticised president just as he was the most tolerant of brazen, brash, and brutal supporters within and outside the security forces. The ferocity and velocity of the impunity of Jonathan’s regime led to the preference of voters for Buhari and APC as agents of change from a regime of repression to one of liberation.

    As this column observed last Sunday, it is the citizens that can protect Buhari from any force or forces that are opposed to change from the usual governance style that celebrates power at the expense of responsibility and promotes impunity over efficiency. Correspondingly, it is the citizens that can also hold Buhari and APC down to promises given in exchange for votes. Already, poster-children of the politics of impunity are rushing in droves to the party for change. This may be an indication that many of such defectors may not comprehend the implications of a Change manifesto for the content of governance as from May 29. Jonathan has done his bit to advance peace and stability in the country by calling President-elect, Buhari, even ahead of the formal announcement of the latter’s victory and making a statesman’s concession speech before the world press. PDP members who have not left for APC need to be congratulated for staying in their own party. It is the existence of alternative political party(ies) that distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship of a ruler or of his party.

    But by and large, it is the citizens that will ensure that the pudding promised by Buhari and APC will taste as delicious as he had promised. Citizens who are in the departing ruling party also need to urge their leaders to stay with the party, in order to prevent transformation of the country into a one-party state, on account of politicians whose vision is constrained by short-term personal gains.

  • 2015 electoral verdict and Nigeria’s destiny 1

    If APC had not functioned as an opposition party, it would not have been possible for citizens to choose it to govern them when citizens became dissatisfied with the PDP that had ruled for the past sixteen years

    This column observed last week that if the 2015 presidential election turned out to be free, fair, and credible, Nigeria would have moved  noticeably close to its destiny. After the verdict of the presidential and federal legislative elections have been released and accepted by the two leading candidates in the presidential election: President Goodluck Jonathan and General Mohammed Buhari, it is safer this week, than it was last week, to say that Nigeria is finally at the door to the room in which the country’s destiny has been imprisoned for decades. However, the elections left some areas of concern that all stakeholders: electoral candidates, political partisans, the citizenry, and our international friends need to pay urgent attention to as they all prepare to enter a new era in the history of the country.

    The pattern of voting in the various regions indicate that the country is a divided one. Votes from the Southeast and the South-south, the two regions of origin associated with President Jonathan, voted almost 95% for him while the president-elect also got about 89% of the votes from the Northwest and the Northeast, the two regions that he can also claim as ancestral homes. It is only in the Southwest and the Northcentral that both candidates actually split votes in a manner that suggests that the voters give considerations to the campaign messages of the two leading presidential candidates: change or continuity.

    As many commentators in the social media and the traditional one have already acknowledged, the division existed before the election and is traceable to the rhetoric of antagonism among believers in the principle that federal power should be determined solely on the basis of geopolitical considerations, especially by many political and cultural leaders in the Northwest/Northeast and in the Southeast/South-south who did not have the courage to contest elections on the basis of  allocation of national political power to specific regions but had the capacity to serve as leaders of thought for their people. It is thus not surprising that ethnic or regional ideology has left its mark on the ways people voted in the ‘far north and the far east’ of the country. However, this gulf cannot be left unclosed if the Ideology of Change, which is not an ideology based or derived from ethnic bias, is to spread evenly across the nation.

    One challenge for the new president is setting in motion processes for healing of the nation, particularly after the intense campaign of calumny that prevailed in the last three months. It is re-assuring that the healing process has been kick-started by outgoing President Jonathan and incoming President Buhari. In addition, many of the gladiators of the last six weeks, from Afenifere, members of the two factions of Odua People’s Congress (OPC), leaders of Niger Delta militia, to governors and party spokesmen who provided leadership for propagation of dirty  and hate campaigns (capable of bringing disunity to the country) have also started to pledge support for the president-elect. Although no word has come from traditional rulers who joined the fray of partisan politics openly a few days before the election, it is likely that sooner than later such traditional rulers would use their Praying Rods or Walking Sticks to pray for Buhari and unity of the country.

    More specifically, the job of healing the nation rests on the new party in power. While General Buhari focuses on governing the country properly as from May 29, his political party needs to redouble its intellectual and political energy to post-election selling or the ideology of change or progress to every nook and corner of the country, especially now that political and cultural leaders from across ethnic and regional divides have declared unequivocal support for the new president. Messages regarding the imperative of change in a country that has been in the wilderness of progress for decades are more likely to sink into citizens, now than a few months ago, when the political price was high enough for many politicians and their supporters to want to kill or maim others for it.

    In trying to heal the nation, messengers of peace and inter-regional cooperation must avoid the escapist measures that almost drove the country into crisis a few weeks ago. Before the election, several pundits overreacted to the tension in the air. Some of such opinion leaders called for an Interim government and a government of national unity or stability, contraptions that are essentially alien to our current constitution. The dare-devil ones even asked for a military government as one of the ways to avoid crisis in the polity. But the citizens had finally spoken with patience and clarity; the INEC that was identified by many for axing had also done a better job than it did in 2011 nationally or in Ekiti and Osun states in 2014; and the country’s international friends had stood solidly for free and fair election as the best option for peace and stability.

    It is, therefore, distracting for anyone to start calling for a government of national unity after citizens had chosen the candidates and political party they want to govern them for the next four years. The constitution already requires the president to pick his cabinet from every state of the nation. Furthermore, the constitution does not forbid the president to invite persons from other parties or even non-believers in partisan politics to his cabinet if he believes such persons have value to add. But nothing in the country’s Basic Laws requires any president or party to form a government of national unity. It was the fear on the part of some people to face the challenges of electoral democratic elections that led them to call for Interim government or government of national unity before the election. Now that the election is over, the constitution must be given a chance to work until it is changed or amended.

    Apparently, most of the masses who voted last week were more concerned about who to govern them in a way that is beneficial for them and their dependents, rather than in the appointment of ministers and board chairmen and women. It is the fixation of the ruling elite on distribution of largesse as the end of electoral politics that made the election campaign in the last few months life-threatening to individuals and even to the nation. This is the time to move away from reducing matters pertaining to rule of law and good governance to personalistic and patrimonial politics.

    Government of national unity may harbour more danger for the polity than we can immediately apprehend. The joy of multiparty politics is in the possibility of changing from one ruling party to another. This aspect of electoral and representative democracy puts all political parties in check, as it reminds both the electorate and politicians of the importance of doing what is likely to make citizens choose their own parties at elections. Nobody should have morbid fear about political opposition. Government of national unity has the tendency to stimulate one-party rule and thus suffocate oppositional politics. The new ruling party should exercise caution with respect to welcoming professional ‘decampers’ or addicted ‘carpet crossers’ into their fold. The Buhari APC government should remind all citizens that it is in the interest of the country for opposition parties to grow and thrive. That is part of the checking and balancing process in functioning democracies. If APC had not functioned as an opposition party, it would not have been possible for citizens to choose it to govern them when citizens became dissatisfied with the PDP that had ruled for the past sixteen years. Our political culture must always leave space for opposition parties that can challenge the ruling party every time there is an election. Removing the door to the recruiting room of APC in order to welcome those that the electorate rejected after ruling them for sixteen years, in the name of government of national unity or politics of inclusion may be another ploy to destroy the gain of last week’s election: a political culture that provides options for voters.

    The world has become more complex than when Buhari first ruled Nigeria. The impact of global political ethics on so-called third-world countries now grows by the day and has now become evident in Nigeria. If there is anything that has become obvious from the election of last week, it is that it is citizens that can protect Buhari and his government, not power and positon-seeking men and women who would not want to be outside the corridor of power for any period of time, and for that reason, are already clamouring subtly for ‘government of national unity.’

    • To be continued
  • 2105 presidential election and Nigeria’s destiny

    2105 presidential election and Nigeria’s destiny

    If yesterday’s elections were free and fair by national and international standards, President Jonathan would have pushed the country in the direction of its destiny

    If the presidential election yesterday was free, fair, and credible, Nigeria as a country would have moved very close to its destiny of a peaceful, stable, unifiable, multi-ethnic modern state that is pro-development. The euphoria ignited by a free, fair, and transparent election would be of immense pleasure to the nation as a corporate body, its citizens and friends across the globe.

    The distance between the country and its destiny since independence can be traced to several factors. One was the desire in the first republic for a one-party state by a ruling party that wanted to dominate the rest of the country. Another was the rise of military regimes that succeeded in changing the character of the country from federal to quasi-unitary system of governance, most of which in the process became more corrupt than the civilian regimes they ousted from power.

    The last factor was recurrence of fraudulent or manipulated elections between 1959 and 2014. It is on record that the 1959 election supervised by the departing colonial master was rigged in favor of the section of the country that Britain preferred to succeed it. Similarly, the 1964 federal election was rigged in favor of the ruling party, just as the 1979 and 1983 presidential elections were adjudged by many citizens to have been manipulated in favour of the ruling party at the center. The June 12, 1993 presidential election claimed by its organiser, General Ibrahim Babangida, as the freest in the nation’s electoral history was also ‘rigged’ against the winner, MKO Abiola at the end through annulment. The other four elections: 1999, 2003, 2007, and even 2011 were all perceived by national and international observers as below the average standard of democratic elections in the so-called third world. No wonder, one of the earliest promises of President Jonathan after he assumed the presidency in 2011 was to ensure conduct of free and fair elections. If yesterday’s elections were free and fair by national and international standards, President Jonathan would have pushed the country in the direction of its destiny, but more on this later.

    In many ways, corruption, believed to be the cancer that has been destroying the country, cannot be isolated from the type of governments that the country has been saddled with since 1959: military dictatorships and civilian administrations brought into being by questionable elections. Citizens for too long have known that a government created by fraud cannot but be fraudulent. Consequently, many citizens, if not most, view all the governments since independence as lacking in legitimacy. Such citizens see corruption as part of the political fabric of the country and joined their leaders on the bandwagon of political and bureaucratic corruption. If by chance or design yesterday’s elections were free and transparent, legitimacy would finally come to the governments that grow from them.

    The first vital step in rebuilding governments at all levels in the country is a free and transparent election. It will stop the tradition of personalistic and neo-patrimonial state that has been in existence in the country’s independent life till now. In other words, the culture of impunity that has raged for decades will be over. Citizens’ consent to their governance through free and fair ballot will further energise them in their demand for full accountability from those who govern them. Not only at the executive level will a new culture emerge from fair election, the legislative culture in the country in the last sixteen years will have to bow to the expectations of citizens who own the mandate now freely given to the executive and the legislature.

    Whether the incumbent is the winner or loser of a free and fair election, he will come out as the moral winner. He will write his name in gold as the first president that respected citizens’ fundamental human right to choose their leaders in an unfettered election. President Jonathan will, despite the muscular and vitriolic campaign of the last two or so months by his supporters,  be able to beat his chest in any part of the country while saying that he has become one of the builders of a free modern polity. If he loses, he will be one of the many democratic leaders across the globe that failed to win re-election, something that has never happened in our own country before him.

    Should General Buhari win a free and fair election, he is likely to be humbled by the trust of the people in giving him the opportunity to rule the country several decades after he had ruled it as a military dictator. He will no longer see his power as deriving from the barrel of guns but from the hearts of voters across geopolitical and ethnic lines. Consequently, he will be more likely than not to listen to the wishes of the electorate, knowing full well that without them, he could not have become president in the last quarter of the life of an average ruler. There will be no space in his government for any manner of ethnic or cultural domination but only for the building of a modern democratic multiethnic nation.

    As for the average citizen, he or she will feel invigorated by free and fair elections. The feeling of political impotence on the part of the electorate which has created an I-don’t-care attitude over the years will disappear. It will become easier for the electorate to demand accountability from their president and lawmakers. It will become easier for citizens to join policy debates about how much should their lawmakers earn directly and indirectly. Citizens will have more opportunities to bring the issue of re-federalising the country for unity and development on the table with the hope of stimulating a process that is inclusive in terms of how to make the country work and keep it united for progress and development.

    International friends of our country will be more likely to be partners than what they have been. Our immediate neighbours in the ECOWAS will feel relieved that the giant of the region has finally risen to the challenge of accepting the nuances of democratic process and governance. No longer will our West African neighbours feel threatened that post-election violence will create another wave of refugees that can destabilise smaller countries in the region. A Nigeria that has finally joined the ranks of Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, etc., in moving away from the culture of impunity to one of accountability and the rule of law will certainly become a friendly lever of economic power in the region.

    With respect to our other international friends in Europe, the Americas, and the Orient, Nigeria’s free, fair, and transparent election will have to disabuse their minds about the facile generalisation about Nigeria being largely a rogue, failing, or failed state. The feeling in the outside world that a country that cannot conduct a free and fair election lacks legitimacy and cannot be trusted to respect accountability will diminish and gradually disappear as the culture of allowing citizens to choose their leaders grow in the country.  Nigeria will be able to see more genuine investors, instead of hearing about them on government-controlled radio and television announcements.

    Finally, millions of Nigerians at home and abroad who have been worried stiff about the future of the country will now sleep without the fear:”what are we going to do if things suddenly fall apart.”

  • Too late in the campaign to ‘talk federalism’?

    Too late in the campaign to ‘talk federalism’?

    What is wrong is for Yoruba groups to confuse the demand of the Yoruba for restoration of federalism with the recommendations of the 2014 national conference convened by President Jonathan.

    With apology to my other readers, this column today will focus on persistent questions in the last few days from my politically-charged readers about the place of federalism in a presidential campaign that is supposed to be about good governance, anti-corruption, national security, employment, etc.

    On ‘why it is the Yoruba people that are shouting loudest about federalism this close to the presidential election,’ there is nothing wrong with any nationality or region choosing to introduce an issue or agenda that is of significance to it at any time during the campaign. The Yoruba have been in the forefront of the demand for restoration of federalism since Alao Aka-Bashorun popularised the phrase ‘Political Restructuring’ of Nigeria and Chief Enahoro’s Movement for National Reformation, NADECO, and PRONACO included the matter of sovereign national conference in the list of demands during and after the struggle against the last phase of military dictatorship. In another sense, it is conceivable that the absence of federalism has thrown up such problems as corruption, unemployment, lack of security, etc.

    There is also nothing wrong with Yoruba political or socio-cultural groups choosing to bring the issue of federalism into the campaign at this point. In fact, to not do so now is not to be sufficiently honest with the next administration, regardless of who wins the election. What is wrong is for Yoruba groups to confuse the demand of the Yoruba for restoration of federalism with the recommendations of the 2014 national conference convened by President Jonathan. Even President Jonathan himself said several times that he did not convene the conference to gain any political advantage but to provide a platform for a national dialogue. This may be why President Jonathan had not campaigned on the strength of his involvement in the campaign in regions other than the Southwest until his supporters in the Yoruba region sponsored special campaign events on the conference.

    That other concerned citizens and groups (such as the Yoruba Assembly) have joined the fray of discussing federalism almost on the eve of the presidential election is also in order. It is important for the two presidential candidates to be made aware of minimalist and maximalist positions on the matter of federalism and to know the difference between those who are clamouring for devolution of a few administrative functions and those who seek fundamental changes in the sharing of power and responsibilities among federating units and the central government. It is proper for each of the presidential candidates to know the specific demands of each of the constituent units of the country, ahead of voting and assumption of power. Electoral democracy is not only about those seeking power to present a programme of action to the electorate, it also allows citizens to bring their own programmes to the attention of those seeking to govern them. Thus, bringing the issue of federalism back to the table at this time is in order.

    What is out of order is for any group to claim that the recommendations of the 2014 national conference represents what the Yoruba want in 2015 and beyond. That two Yoruba groups plan to meet on the same day (one in Lagos and another in Ibadan) to push the matter of federalism into the campaign rhetoric is not unusual. The Afenifere and its supporters have a right to sell the Jonathan conference to voters, but they are wrong to say that the recommendations from the conference represent what the Yoruba want from the next political dispensation. Nothing is also amiss about the Yoruba Assembly, an organisation that has championed in the last few years the call for genuine federalism, to remind Yoruba people about which programmes to push to the table of the next president and the next legislature, as no president can unilaterally restore federalism.

    The Yoruba Assembly must let voters know the views of Yoruba self-determination groups on recommendations of the 2014 national dialogue, as stated by its promoters below:

    “States can now create employment and develop their own states. Each state can have its own constitution, its own police force, can have its own prison service, can create its own local governments and in addition, in the economic domain, solid minerals that had been the exclusive preserve of the federal government since independence, have now been brought to the concurrent list; creation ofself-funding regional institutions” in order to encourage developmental efforts among cooperating states”

    a.           Creation of  Self-funding Regional Institutions among Cooperating States

    Recommending a self-funding economic agency without fiscal federalism that gives the power to raise revenue for development at the sub-national level is nothing more than self-deception. A country in which the states or federating units depend on allocation from the centre cannot call itself a federal system. None of the federations in the world: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, United Arab Emirate, and the U.S.A., operates on the model of state dependency on allocations from the centre recommended by the 2014 national conference. A self-funding regional institution is another bureaucracy to occlude the removal of the power of sub-national governments to generate revenue for its own development and pass some of such revenue to the central government for national projects.

    b.           States as “federating Units” that can have their own Constitutions

    Insisting that existing states are federating units without giving any consideration to economic viability of such units is to deliberately endorse the erosion by military dictators over the years of the political structure and government system upon which the peoples of Nigeria obtained independence as one country in 1960. It should be left to a plebiscite in each state to determine if it wants to join other contiguous states to form a region or remain as discrete units with constitutions. What is the use of the power of writing a constitution given to a state that has to go the central government for monthly allocation? What is significance of a suffocating federal presence in each state for citizens’ human and civil rights and good governance?  For example is Ekiti State today, where we now have 6 legislators in control of the State Assembly as the majority while the remaining 17 are considered minority because the centre is supporting that abnormality, a federating unit or a subjugated one? It will be an insult to the memory of Chief Obafemi Awolowo for any group to say that the recommendations from the conference have complied with the federal system that Chief Awolowo practiced in Western Region and upon which he struggled to demand improvement in his writings.

    c.            Each State can create its own Local government.

    If the central government will retain and disburse all the funds for local governments, it is dishonest to say that the power to create local governments at the state level is a gain in the direction of federalism. The reluctance to move away from the structure imposed by military dictators instead of returning to the autonomy of each state to fund its local governments is what makes the 2014 national conference a distraction that must not be passed to the next administration by Jonathan or Buhari. This represents further distortion of the federal system.

    d.           State Police

    State police is a consequence and not the cause of federalism as supporters of the Jonathan Conference want people in the Yoruba region to believe. Right now, states depend almost entirely on federal allocations to pay their workers’ salaries. State police is to be funded from received allocations at the same time that the number of states is to move to 54. We have also been told that the allocation accruing to the centre is reduced by 10%. But the increase in the number of states would have already made nonsense of the increase to states, as 54 states (rather than 36) would still share the new percentage of allocation to states. Reducing or increasing the amount of allocations is not fiscal federalism by any stretch of imagination. Such determinations are precisely what is wrong with the unitary system the Jonathan conference has ‘panel beaten’. Fiscal federalism proceeds from the shared control of economic and fiscal policies by national and sub-national governments.

    Nigeria before and after elections needs contestation of ideas to improve governance of the country. The Yoruba Assembly should have no apology for challenging exaggerations about the significance of the 2014 national dialogue.

  • An unseasonable remembering of JUNE 12

    An unseasonable remembering of JUNE 12

    Nigeria does not need another June 12, targeted at the North, the South-south, or Southeast

    The season of remembering June 12, 1993 as a day in our country’s political history and as a trope for resistance of oppression is three months away. But the bizarre circumstances of our time make a premature remembrance imperative. In normal times, nobody will say or do anything that is capable of bringing back the memory of June 12, but words and actions in the last two months by both political and cultural leaders are strikingly similar to the circumstances before the election (that could have brought MKO Abiola to the presidency) and the uncertainty and instability that came after the annulled election.

    Although the election contested by Chief Abiola and Alhaji Tofa on June 12, 1993 was sponsoredand supervised by a military dictator while the 2015 election is mandated by the 1999 Constitution, the circumstances before both elections are looking too similar and thus becoming worrisome to anyone who believes that the survival of the Nigerian Union depends on consolidation of democracy and on proper democratic transition between regimes or at the end of each presidential/gubernatorial tenure. In what ways are the days before the two elections looking alike?

    In 1993, primaries were cancelled just as citizens were not sure if the election was going to hold until the election came upon them. There was a group known as Association for Better Nigeria that emerged miraculously to make efforts to stop the election through an Abuja court. In 2015, pre-election primaries were not cancelled but the presidential election was postponed from February 14 to March 28. Furthermore, a new political group, Young Democratic Party, threatens to go to court to stop the election shifted to March 28. The desire to stop the election is on account of the insistence of YDP that its name be put on the ballot by INEC to enable it contest the presidential election on March 28, a little over two weeks away from the election and despite the fact that Young Democratic Party has not conducted its primaries to choose its presidential candidate.

    Events after the 1993 presidential election are resonating in the election discourse of 2015. In 1993, an Interim Government was installed to replace what would have been a democratically elected president with mandate from majority of voters in an election that is still being touted today (even by those who annulled it) as the freest and fairest in the political history of the country. The Interim Government was also branded as a Unity government. The Interim Government that started with Chief Ernest Shonekan quickly transformed into a Unity government under General Sani Abacha after he kicked out Shonekan, and the rest is now history.

    In 2015 and even weeks before the election, self-appointed political engineers (as individuals and groups) have also been drumming for Interim government and Unity government. Even a group led by Prof. Ben Nwabueze, the country’s foremost constitutional lawyer, has called on whoever emerges as winner of the election to install a Unity government that draws ministers and board chairs from the political parties in contest for the presidency. It turned out that the Interim Government put in place by General Ibrahim Babangida in 1993 was a transition government between two military dictatorships, thus suggesting that annulment of the June 12 election was premeditated and that the matter of Interim Government was a stratagem to prepare for entrance of Babangida’s military successor.

    What is confusing about the noise being made in support of Interim and Unity government in 2015 is that the election is supposed to be a process at the end of one democratically elected government to choose another or renew the tenure of the incumbent. Under the constitution, the incumbent is qualified to contest for a second term in office just as any member of opposition parties is qualified to contest against the incumbent. Under the constitution that brought the incumbent president to power, there is no provision for an Interim or Unity government. And there is no incontrovertible evidence that the incumbent has decided to sit tight regardless of the outcome of the election. If anything, President Jonathan has assured the nation and the world that he will quit if he loses the election.

    Are the new political engineers in the country’s boiler room seeing what President Jonathan himself cannot see and what the rest of the country is unable to see? Or, are they simply playing the role of Cassandra, foretelling doom, regardless of the facts on the ground? Are the new political engineers scheming to suspend the constitution and bring a new contraption into being? Is the call for Interim or Unity government simply a manifestation of the nation’s pathological problem, known in popular parlance as the Nigeria Factor, a reference to the propensity of Nigerians to engage in denialism? Whatever it may be, it is a dangerous call to make on the eve of a constitutionally-mandated election. Such calls have the capacity to disorientate citizens and demoralise voters.

    What makes the 2015 election different from the one of 2011? The two leading candidates today were the two front-runners in 2011. The campaign in 2011 was decent, even elegant. The two candidates and their supporters focused on what they could or would do if elected, just as the pundits on duty then encouraged voters to exercise their franchise fully. In 2011, nobody mentioned the two concepts now in circulation: Interim and Unity governments. Even when General Olusegun Obasanjo declared that the 2007 election was a ‘do-or-die’ event, no political engineers called for Interim or Unity government. I still recall the encouraging assessment made by President Jonathan at the end of the 2011 election: “a successful and acceptable civilian to civilian election,” a subtle reference to the 2007 election that brought him in as vice president as not successful and acceptable.

    Calls for Interim or Unity government are confusing citizens and are capable of making voters feel that their votes would not matter. Even some social media pundits are more alarmist than the political engineers that propagate their ideas in the traditional media. Some social media pundits are already insinuating that 2015 may produce the June 12 for the North, just as 1993 did for the Southwest. Realising that in 1993 the two principal characters that annulled the presidential election were from the north: Babangida and Abacha, and the victim: MKO Abiola was from the Southwest, any innuendo about a Fulani June 12 should be (and is) worrisome.

    Nigeria does not need another June 12, targeted at the North, the South-south, or Southeast. Those who participated in pro-democracy struggle to move the country beyond sidetracking properly conducted elections, just like those who stood by to watch them, cannot but remember that the years of transition from military dictatorship under Babangida to Interim Government under Shonekan and back to military dictatorship with the obsession to transform into elected civilian government were some of the worst years in the country’s history, especially in terms of repression,  unnecessary loss of lives through extermination of citizens by those in power, and erosion of Nigeria’s international dignity.

    Like a civil war, one June 12 is enough for a country that wants to survive as one. What is at issue in 2015 is straightforward and clear: fair, free, and credible election. All suggestions from political engineers and pundits should be to encourage politicians and citizens to talk and work towards free and fair election and to support INEC to conduct free, fair, and credible elections. A free, fair, and credible election is the only thing that can move the country towards further consolidation of democracy and assure citizens that the country as a multiethnic ‘state-nation’ is worth giving a chance to find its feet and grow, not calls for extra-constitutional political contrivance.

  • As the Yoruba reflect on this moment in history

    As the Yoruba reflect on this moment in history

    Despite the age-old tradition that Obas should conduct themselves as supra-partisan leaders, the ruling party brazenly made some Obas to act in a partisan manner

    It is an understatement to say that the Yoruba are already thinking about this period in the country’s history. The present moment is in many ways similar to what obtained in 1965 in the Yoruba region when Hubert Ogunde, the father of the Opera Mode in Nigeria, composed Yoruba Ronu. The use of ‘reflect’ in the title in today’s piece is the closest English translation of Ogunde’s use of Ronu. For Ogunde then, the Yoruba were at a crossroads in their region’s history and development and needed to do self-assessment and critique; audit the region’s political culture; and dream a-new about its future.

    In his most evocative imagery, Ogunde then described the Yoruba society as a pace-setter and model for others, suddenly transformed into a football that everybody on the street kicks around for fun, all on the strength of the control of means of signification by a few Yoruba politicians in power or with access to power want to control the political destiny of the Yoruba .Ogunde was then preoccupied with the extent of political crisis and decline in the Yoruba region. Today, the decline in the region is more than political; it is also looking cultural and moral, given the character of participation of some Yoruba sons and daughters in the new campaign culture in the country.

    What Ogunde warned against in his Yoruba Ronu, a song that had been used generously by opposing parties in the current campaign, was a political leadership that appropriated the public means of mass communication to tell only the story of the ruling party and in doing so, insult citizens directly or indirectly. As we observed in this column last week, the dominant political culture of that period was summarised by the sentence: “We do not have the time to campaign about programmes; whether you vote for us or you don’t our party has won the forthcoming election.”

    The intention of today’s column is not to query individuals or groups for exercising their freedom of association and expression. This freedom had been part of Yoruba culture for centuries and long before the advent of colonial political culture. In most Yoruba communities, there was the tradition of self-expression that allowed citizens to critique or even lampoon their leaders at the times set apart for rituals of rebellion and castigation of those with power over citizens, be they monarchs or chiefs or the economically powerful in the society, just as everybody was free to canvass for support for his or her candidates for office in the precolonial Yoruba polity. But the exercise of such rights in the traditional context, as it is in the modern context in other modern societies, also had rules of engagement. Deception or humiliation of citizens, particularly vertical figures in the society, was frowned upon.

    The events in the last three weeks are reminiscent of what happened in 1965 when the ruling party in the region humiliated some of our Obas. Despite the age-old tradition that Obas should conduct themselves as supra-partisan leaders, the ruling party brazenly made some Obas to act in a partisan manner. Fortunately then, as it seems to be now, there were also many Yoruba Obas who chose to act in compliance with tradition: avoiding to identify with any of the political parties contesting the election. At the end, it was the citizens that voted. Not one Oba out of those generously suborned and those that were left as black legs and fanatics of the opposition party, was seen at any of the polling stations. But all the same, 1965 started the abuse and humiliation of Yoruba traditional rulers, even at a time when cultural and moral decline was not this self-evident.

    Of course, the decline was accelerated and deepened by military dictators. During the many years of military rule, traditional rulers across the country were wooed and cultivated by dictators at the federal and state levels with the consequence that the institution became politicised more and more. Some Obas were encouraged to become contractors of the government and thus pushed into a situation where they could not resist supporting the government in power, regardless of the deleterious effect of its programmes. But generally, military dictators on the surface showed some respect to the Obas until the annulment of 1993 and in the years of Abacha’s rule of terror.

    The last sixteen years of post-military rule appeared to have given traditional rulers the space they needed (and still need) to conduct themselves as statesmen and not as rapacious hustlers that some of them were deemed to be during military rule. But the event of a few weeks ago in many parts of Yorubaland brought the humiliation of Yoruba traditional rulers to an embarrassing level. Those who organised the campaign of President Jonathan in the north acted in a way to show respect for northern monarchs. President Jonathan visited individual Emirs in their palaces to announce his presidential candidacy and to repeat the accomplishments of his administration. In most cases, he asked northern Emirs to pray for him, instead of asking them to vote for him.

    In contrast, Yoruba Obas were treated as government employees by those who coordinated the presidential campaign in the Southwest. Several Yoruba monarchs were herded and assembled to receive the president, not in palaces of individual monarchs as it was in north. Like school kids on excursion, Yoruba Obas were assembled outside their palaces to listen to the president’s campaign, especially his promise to de-marginalise the Yoruba region, if elected for another four years.

    It is one thing to have or know monarchs that are rapacious enough to want to take any risk with their crowns. But it is another thing to treat many monarchs as if they are Warrant Chiefs who were created to facilitate colonial governance and thus owed their livelihood to the goodwill of colonial administrators. Whoever organised the presidential campaign in the Southwest was not fair to Yoruba monarchs for failing to encourage President Jonathan to visit the traditional rulers in their palaces individually, the way he did in the north. Summoning Yoruba monarchs from their palaces to a central place to listen to the president’s campaign is wrong and can be counterproductive. Many voters who still have respect for the institution of monarchy in the region may see the levity with which Yoruba monarchs were herded as a sign of continued Yoruba marginalisation, more so as this is already a dominant theme in the campaign of Yoruba Council of Elders and other groups.

    Of all the elections I have observed in the country, I cannot remember seeing any Oba cast a vote. The electoral value of the Yoruba monarchs may not be as high as to deserve summoning them to a central place to listen to political campaigns of the ruling party or of the opposition party. Yoruba Obas themselves know this. No self-respecting Oba can come out openly to campaign for any political party or candidate. A few of them that may have the temerity to persuade their subjects in secret also know the consequence: loss of respect among their subjects.

    It is churlish that the coordinators of the PDP campaign in the Southwest treated the Obas the same way they treated their subjects: ordinary voters that needed to be brought together to hear the candidate campaign. It is even worse that many monarchs left their palaces to listen to political campaigns. What tradition requires of Yoruba monarchs is for them to wait in their palaces for political leaders to visit them and bring to them whatever messages they have. Tradition also requires that the monarchs talk diplomatically to such candidates without making any overt commitment one or way or the other. Whatever may be the problems of individual monarchs and whatever specific politicians may know of individual Obas, traditional rulership in Yorubaland is an institution that still requires, like its counterpart in the north, respect from politicians.