The hasty impeachment of Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, a ferocious critic of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, presents Nigerians a terrible dilemma. On the one hand is the fact that some of the governors, including those who are candidates for impeachment, are difficult to defend on account of the misrule alleged against them by the electorate through their lawmakers. On the other hand is the fact that Nigerians also know that the Goodluck Jonathan presidency is believed to be covertly manipulating the impeachment processes for malevolent political ends. If the Fourth Republic is not to be endangered, the electorate and their legislators will have to do a delicate balancing act to separate reality from illusion, and distil truth from falsehood. The outcome is, however, by no means certain.
Governor Nyako, who defected to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) with four other Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors last year, was impeached yesterday in a process that lasted barely one week. It is feared in opposition ranks that his impeachment presages similar plans deliberately aimed at a number of vulnerable APC states, including Nasarawa – which is ongoing – Rivers, Edo and Kano, among others. The impeachment drive is presented to the unwary public either as punishment for executive malfeasances or strictly local politics in which the presidency has no hand, but only passing and amusing interest.
To the wary, however, the reality is much more troubling. Not only is the impeachment weapon emblematic of brute presidential power to whip erring governors into line, especially if they are vulnerable, they are also part of an overall strategy to secure re-election for Dr Jonathan. In order to guarantee a second term, the president’s strategists estimate that a few APC states, especially those previously under PDP control, will have to be reclaimed before the next general elections, and if possible, before he throws his hat into the ring a second time. A previously quiescent Nasarawa State, with a legislature controlled by the PDP, has begun the process of impeaching its governor. Like Adamawa’s Governor Nyako, who was removed post-haste in spite of his aides enacting a series of fancy but tortuous footwork, Governor Tanko Al-Makura of the APC is not expected to survive the ordeal.
Other than through impeachment, there is no other way the president and the ruling party can achieve favourable political dynamics for the 2015 polls, for they are tarred with the same brush as the governors they seek to unhorse. Were Adamawa and Nasarawa to be left in the hands of the APC, especially in the face of the superior electoral votes the APC potentially retained until last week, party strategists calculate that Dr Jonathan would face an uphill task in securing a second term in office. With Adamawa gone, and Nasarawa expected to follow, amidst the domino effect of a few other opposition states falling into the PDP column, the president’s re-election chances are believed to be much brighter than they were until last week.
More importantly, after having suffered a number of reverses in the past one year, among which were the defections of five governors and scores of national lawmakers, the ruling party may have finally determined that the president must bare his fangs brutally and ruthlessly in order to make electorally safe states even much safer for him, and unsafe states to suffer acute trepidation. If he couldn’t attract defectors, his strategists reason, he must at least not tolerate deserters or let them off lightly. All options were put on the table, not minding whether they were extralegal or unconstitutional measures. In their calculations, they banked on the indifference of voters, their ignorance, and to some extent, their cowardice. So far, the Jonathan presidency and the PDP have not been disappointed.
The Nigerian presidency is one of the most powerful in the world, suffused as it is with wide-ranging powers and domineering excesses. This is not simply because of constitutional provisions that nourish the president’s appetite to deploy power tyrannically, but also because of other cultural factors that manifest principally in traditional subservience to authority. Since institutions here are either weak or susceptible to inducement, presidential powers, much more than what the constitution envisages, become even more pronounced and counterproductive.
It is not clear beyond speculations just how many states the president and his party intend to undermine, though nearly all the states suffer from either incompetent executives or misrule. But if the opposition required to check them is not urgently mustered, there may be no end to the subversion of opposition states until the country falls under the iron grip of the president. The moment Ekiti State was won by the PDP in the June poll, the party’s frenzied plan to rein in other states switched into high gear. Unfortunately, the electorate, elite, media and even civil society organisations largely appear to believe that the problem is essentially that of the opposition, especially the APC, to tackle. This is not only short-sighted; it is criminal negligence.
It is time the electorate began to ask questions about the pattern of impeachment obviously orchestrated by the Jonathan presidency. In spite of the noticeable shortcomings in the administration of Adamawa State, the impeachment processes activated in that state and Nasarawa are not quite the local affair the PDP has tried to paint them. The motives of impeachment, which are designed to create favourable dynamics for the PDP in those states and many other states in next year’s polls, show a cynical disregard for the constitution and due process. If you must impeach, by all means do it decently and procedurally in order to lay a good precedent for future governments. More portentously, the continuing subversion of a few more opposition states both endangers democracy and lays the groundwork for totalitarianism.
Since he became president, Dr Jonathan has himself enacted a string of unconstitutional and impeachable offences. He has subverted the judiciary, muzzled the press, albeit briefly, perhaps as dress rehearsal for 2015, inducted security agencies into partisanship, serially violated the constitution, propped up and canonised miscreants as a counterpoise to existing authorities in states, and generally constituted himself and his presidency as the most divisive in the nations’ history. But in spite of these flagrant violations, the people have indulgently overlooked the infractions of his government and glossed over his abuse and misuse of power.
Considering how indifferent Nigerians are to the Jonathan government’s loathing for constitutionality, they may wake up one morning, like Germans did in the 1930s, to discover that the democracy they fought for under the military has either disappeared or has been seriously abridged and distorted. A culture of brazenness and arbitrariness is already taking root. And that culture is fed by the undignified and petty squabbles among the political elite. Political parties can have ideological and policy differences, and can punish erring executives and other officials of government. But to mask personal hatred for opposition parties and their leaders under partisanship, while also encouraging unlawful use of power, will doom democracy, enthrone dictatorship, and may also bring many of Dr Jonathan’s supporters, if not the president himself, to ruin. The French reign of terror should instruct those willing to learn from history. For there is always no guarantee that the proponent of terror today will not end up as victim tomorrow, or that those who remain silent today will have anyone speaking up for them tomorrow.
Voters can of course theoretically punish the president and the PDP in 2015 no matter what the latter do to demean the constitution and secure a second term, but there is neither firm indication nor proof that any such punishment would be carried out or be contemplated. More worrisomely, there is no proof that whatever anyone does now would cause the president to moderate his overenthusiastic use of power. The clear fact is that going by the president’s wilful subversion of the constitution, there is nothing to suggest that either he or his party has lofty notions of what democracy is all about, nor a vision of where the country should be or aspire to be now or in the future. Yet, the country cannot afford to succumb to fatalism. Even if the country is unable to grasp the dangers ahead of it, partly because of ignorance and docility, the opposition must take on the onerous responsibility of defending and promoting Nigerian democracy.
But to do that, the opposition must itself be above suspicion. Indeed, it is precisely in the worst of times that the opposition can best flourish. They can anchor their campaign for political rectitude on two fundamental grounds. First, since Nigerians cherish their democracy, with all its imperfections, the opposition can show the Jonathan government in its worst colours as an oppressive and incompetent government determined to doom the Fourth Republic. The Jonathan government can be shown as cynical haters of the constitution for the countless number of constitutional provisions it has broken. It can be painted as abusers of institutions for its manipulation of the judiciary and loathing for press freedom. And it can be denounced for its brinkmanship in re-introducing the military into politics, an institution just slowly emerging from the rancour and divisiveness that manifested in its ranks under military rule. A sustained campaign using examples from history, including the First Republic, should help to discourage further abuse and vote into office a party that respects, defends and promotes the constitution.
Second, the Jonathan government is vulnerable in policy formulation and execution. Given the parlous state of the economy, the worsening human development indices and the state of social and cultural decay, it is not surprising that the Jonathan presidency has sought to atone for its shortcomings by a most disingenuous and ruthless use of extra-constitutional measures. It is precisely at this point that the opposition can best mobilise the electorate by deploying persuasive and credible information about the harm the ruling party in all of its about 16 years in office has inflicted on everyone. More importantly, the opposition should draw the attention of the public to the fact that the Jonathan presidency is reluctant to campaign on programmes or achievements, but relies on the brutal manipulation of political forces and dynamics in many states, and the use of divisive ethnic (minority v. majority) and religious politics.
Crucially, the opposition must paint a vivid picture of what four more years of Dr Jonathan would mean for democracy, societal cohesion and security, economic progress, and religious harmony. There is no question what great harm the Jonathan government is doing to democracy and good governance, especially the impeachment processes it appears to be inspiring for ulterior reasons. However, the greatest challenge the opposition will face in seeking redress is how to clean up its own politics and methods. It welcomed all-comers to its fold during the giddy months of defections, some of them already liabilities to their constituencies; how then does it summon the puritanical zeal to present itself as champions of the new politics the country desires so badly? In other words, the opposition must repackage itself before it can sell itself and programmes to an electorate already alienated from and tormented by the Jonathan government.
It is, indeed, at this point the electorate must wade in strongly to help set the right priorities for their leaders and the led alike. The agonising option they must contend with is whether to ignore the rampage inspired by Dr Jonathan, his gunboat democracy, because his victims have a sullied past; or to compel him to justly use his powers as well as honour the oath he took to defend and protect the constitution. That oath is obviously not being kept, thereby making him not only a hater of democracy as a whole, but a promoter of instability.
