To fulfil all righteousness, the London political meetings, inappropriately dubbed peace meetings, have included Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi. The beautiful ‘quartet’ brides, who are the cynosure of the meetings, are skeptical of both his stamina and his wafer-thin structure presumptuously positioned to fight the polls; but they have nevertheless met him and probably sized him up shorn of the emotions that have lathered his campaign within Nigeria. Having the quartet on one’s side will enhance the prospect of victory at the next presidential polls. This accounts for the desperation to court their favour and help, but that support is not indispensable to victory. The four governors are Rivers State’s Nyesom Wike, Benue’s Samuel Ortom, Oyo’s Seyi Makinde, and Abia’s Okezie Ikpeazu, a quartet that has for months acted inseparably like Alexandre Dumas’ ‘three’ (but actually four) musketeers.
Their meetings in London arrested and captivated Nigerians all of last week. They met the Teflon king, Mr Obi, and his alleged chief promoter, the meddlesome ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo. They also met the grim Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Atiku Abubakar, with whom Mr Wike has been at daggers drawn. And they also met the gregarious All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu whose poetic licence given wing in Abeokuta before the APC primary has gifted the country ingredients for damning skits. The quartet claimed to be consulting with powerful national stakeholders in order to salvage the country from the doldrums. But more perceptive politicians believe the quartet is finding the most suitable groom to give their hands in marriage, and if not marriage, then perhaps a dalliance. Former Cross River governor Donald Duke also wormed his way into the meetings, though it is not clear in what capacity, or whether he still retains as much influence as he imagines he does.
The four governors appear resolute. During the PDP presidential primary, they put their money where their mouth was. They voted for power rotation to the South, and were not incommoded by the wild summations and imprecations of the Atiku crowd. They did not have their way, of course, having been ambushed along the way in a manner that taught them Politics 101. But having suffered immeasurable mistreatment at the hands of their traducers, including being likened to wistful usurpers, and ended holding the short end of the stick, they now seem blithely inured to the moral quandary of exacting their pound of flesh. Their dilemma is that while they want their pound of flesh, they are equally averse to shedding an ounce of blood. But politics is often bloodletting of the most fecund but figurative type. How the quartet hopes to marry their expectations with the conventions of the game remains a mystery.
Those who did the quartet in are of course not patriots. But the victims themselves cannot lay claim to altruism. The victims have framed their aggravations and London meetings as a patriotic endeavour to search for national salvation, and have clothed their final objective with noble gestures. They are free to colour national perceptions the way they want; but it is unlikely many Nigerians will be fooled. That they were, and perhaps are still being, mistreated in the PDP is beyond doubt. Sufficiently provoked, but unsure whether they would land on solid ground on the other side should they leap into the void, they have arranged, or made themselves willing participants in, a series of consultations to examine whether to leap and gain paradise or stay put and risk perdition. Whatever decision they arrive at in the end, and whether they like it or not, will remain a gamble.
Their tasks are not made any easier since party primaries are already concluded, and party structures are so tightly woven that they may be unamenable to dictations or even suggestions from new entrants and defectors. With the campaigns about to begin, elbow rooms have also become difficult to find. However, little by little, details of the discussions between the beautiful brides and their suitors will filter out. It is not clear whether the impasse between the PDP candidate and the brides has been broken with concessions made regarding the exit of the PDP chairman Iyorchia Ayu and his replacement by the Wike camp. And it is even less clear what his long-standing resolve to stay in the PDP regardless of provocations is worth. But given Mr Wike’s wit and daring, not to say Mr Ortom’s adamantine and commonsensical decision to safeguard his state against foreign Fulani invasion, it is unlikely that they lack the depth or boldness to correctly assess the chances of the PDP in the coming polls. Their instincts, not to talk of their sense of fairness and equity, tell them that it is immoral and inherently destabilising for another northern Fulani to inherit the mantle about to be dropped by the languid President Muhammadu Buhari. Consequently, if they are not restrained by the complications of getting their preferred successors elected in 2023 in their states, the quartet will probably have no scruples to either defect to the APC or at least do little to prevent the ruling party’s victory.
Katsina State governor Aminu Masari appears sure Mr Wike, for instance, will work for APC’s victory. No one can say for sure that whatever assurances the Rivers governor has given the APC will stand pat in the face of significant concessions by the Atiku camp. The atmosphere is very fluid, and the Wike camp is under tremendous pressure to stay put in the PDP. Those who have badmouthed the quartet, with Mr Wike the more poignant butt of cruel jokes and snide remarks, can always in the spirit of politics be made to embrace their quarry. But it remains to be seen whether the Rivers governor himself does not feel injured by the remorseless remarks made against his person especially by Alhaji Atiku himself and the unyielding critic Sule Lamido, a former governor of Jigawa. What is much clearer to the quartet is that the pendulum of victory in the 2023 presidential poll appears to be swinging in the direction of the APC, a fact that probably explains the exploratory discussions the four gentlemen have had with the ruling party leaders, much more than the vexatious fact of being ridiculed by the Atiku crowd.
If Mr Obi had any illusion about his political standing going into the London meeting, he must be disillusioned by now. He was probably reduced to a cipher in the discussions, notwithstanding Chief Obasanjo’s wanton and unsolicited heroics. The Wike quartet must have also sized up the former Anambra governor and found him to be purely meretricious, devoid of depth beyond the quibbling verbosity of his statistics and constant moralising. The Wike crowd would probably have become more entrenched in their suspicions of the unsuitability of the Atiku candidacy and the galling opportunism of his ambition to succeed a fellow Fulani in office. This consideration will play strongly on the Wike quartet, particularly Mr Wike himself and Mr Ortom, not to say Mr Makinde whose state and party are caught between and betwixt the Tinubu/Southwest candidacy. The Pentecostal army whooping futilely for Mr Obi may lack the profundity to see what the Wike crowd is seeing, or the danger of helping Alhaji Atiku’s candidacy by default, but in the end not even the blistering diatribe of former House of Representatives Speaker Yakubu Dogara and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir David Lawal, nor yet the abiding animosity of a section of the public, will dampen the momentum in favour of the APC agenda for 2023.
Like the rest of Nigeria, the Wike quartet knows that the APC administration has been unable to provide the inspiration and reforms the country needs. It is true that the administration inherited a lot of crises, but its inability to significantly ameliorate or change the story in nearly eight years has been a disincentive to the electorate. The administration is, however, stirring itself, determined to finish on a strong note. Whether they can produce that end-time miracle remains to be seen. But as the Wike crowd may have surmised, neither the flip-flopping and jaded Alhaji Atiku nor the impressionable and capricious Mr Obi is able to present a strong alternative or challenge to the APC in 2023, even if the electorate should resolve to gamble recklessly. If the quartet does not eventually reach a deal with the APC, it will not be because their heads fail them, but because their heart is unable to receive the adrenalin needed to jump-start the new politics they have so consummately romanticised and disseminated months ago.
Nigerians may be bewildered by the exportation of crucial political meetings to either London or France. France is idyllic; perhaps it soothes the nerves and dissipates the tensions accumulated from Nigeria’s turbulent politics. And regal London? Why, Britain was Nigeria’s former colonial overlord. In a demeaning way, many Nigerian political leaders are still tied to London’s umbilical cord. They are loth to sever those connections. Worse, they crave the endorsement of Whitehall. In any case, this generation of Nigerian political leaders will not do anything radical or revolutionary – including restructuring perhaps through regionalisation – or anything that would wean them from the sagging and unproductive breasts of their neocolonial masters. They find such an enterprise too risky and too foolish. Instead, they will pussyfoot around national agenda, placate domestic and foreign interests clumsily, and mollify the anger of the populace and the political opposition. In short, they will do anything but touch the fundamentals. The Wike crowd knows this. So, too, do the groups it is negotiating with.
ASUU undeservedly loses face
Judging from the hue and cry about the continuing strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), now in its sixth month, the argument may be gradually shifting in favour of the federal government. Months of dithering and grandstanding by Labour and Employment minister Chris Ngige yielded nothing but ground to the lordliness of the Education minister Adamu Adamu whose exasperation has prompted his call to students to sue the university union. Reports even suggested, fleetingly, that the union could be proscribed. But neither litigation nor proscription now appears recommendable. Instead, with a note of finality, and sensing that ASUU has its back to the wall, the government has spoken of its determination to enforce the no-work, no-pay rule. Worse for ASUU, it is also not doing too well in the court of public opinion.
Had they persisted for too long in the strike, and thus brought this calamity, assuming it is one, upon themselves? The jury is out on that. Six months is no joke, as every student and their parents will acknowledge. The disruption is heavy, and the toll incalculable. Now, after a few indeterminate concessions to the union, it is being asked to resume work and in addition forfeit six months pay. Efforts are also ongoing to break the ranks of the union with a few universities either resuming classes or being asked or ordered to resume classes. Some lecturers, like parents of the affected students, have become strike-weary. Instead of directing attention to the government’s undisciplined and serial refusal to honour agreements, some of which the public insensitively described as unimplementable, ASUU is now cast as irredeemable, intransigent, inflexible, and unconcerned about the future of youths and tertiary education.
It is not certain how ASUU will tackle this exigency. Some concerned members of the public have dug into the antecedents of ASUU president, Victor Emmanuel Osodeke, a professor of soil science, and concluded that more than any other factor or person, his recalcitrance, which has taken years to mature, is responsible for the cantankerousness of the union. The long strike, the investigators said, was predictable and even inevitable on account of the union president’s idiosyncrasies. They are saying in other words that he is a dictator, and ASUU leaders, morons. Last week, it was also reported that the union had scheduled a meeting for today or Monday. If the meeting holds, the union leaders will decide, subject to the approval of constituent chapters, whether to call off the strike or proceed on indefinite strike. If the strike persists into the campaigns and the union can keep its ranks fairly united, the ruling party will be hurt badly in the next elections. The party will be made to understand that governance is not about ego or self, or entirely about who is right or wrong. It is not clear whether ASUU members can stay the course; but certainly the APC administration can’t afford a protracted strike.
The ASUU strike is a litmus test of the temperament, flexibility, priority and appreciation of public policy by the Muhammadu Buhari administration. It has repeatedly failed that test. Given the haughtiness of Dr Ngige during negotiations and the abrasiveness and near indifference of Mallam Adamu in the short period he took over proceedings, it is evident that the government views the strike from the dualistic perspective of winning or losing the argument. The government has done its arithmetic and found that it simply cannot pay or provide the funds ASUU is asking for. The administration does not subject its own skewed assumptions to validity tests of any kind to find out whether they are well prioritised or whether they can endure the ensuing long-run stress or match the vision more ambitious societies have carved for their educational sector. ASUU is being described as unrealistic in their expectations. Those who say so have not visited public universities in recent years, nor do they seem to care about indigent students. ASUU is not unrealistic. But whether they can coax a remedy that satisfies the short to medium run is another thing.
However, the fundamental flaw in the federal government’s argument is so obvious that it is shocking Nigerians cannot see it. Admittedly, the rot in education did not come about overnight, and indeed previous governments are as culpable as the current administration. But by lacking an overarching ambition and not envisioning educational greatness for the country, it is easy for any administration, particularly the current one, to mouth inanities about educational funding. Nigerian leaders have not been to the mountaintop, cannot see the Promised Land, and have a poor understanding of the renaissance and unparalleled greatness the revivification of education can bring about. It is a demonstration of an even worse misunderstanding of how the university system runs for the government to withhold salaries, for as the lecturers say, all they need do is also to skip the frenetic catch-up classes and examinations they always organised after every strike.
If ASUU can be persuaded to resume work despite the foggy and unreliable agreement reached with them this time, it will be insensitive not to pay them their six months arrears. If the union loses in the jaundiced and emotional court of public opinion, it will be because, like their government, Nigerians are unable to take the long-term view of issues and are incapable of transcending the opacity and undisciplined passion that have hobbled and underdeveloped their country.