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Tag: democracy

  • Chidoka to Nigerians: resist military intervention, insist on democracy

    Chidoka to Nigerians: resist military intervention, insist on democracy

    Former Aviation Minister Chief Osita Chidoka has urged Nigerians to reject call for any form of military intervention, stressing that democracy remained the best option for Nigeria.

    He enjoined the citizenry to rather fight for deepening of democracy as military intervention would not augur well for the country.

    Speaking at the 60th birthday National Dialogue in honour of Prof. Udenta O. Udenta, Chidoka also advised Nigerians to continue struggle for free and transparent electoral process and push for constitutional and moral reforms capable of moving the country forward.

    He said: “I was a young student activist and attended some of the meetings where the decision to support a military intervention in 1993 was canvassed. After Abacha came to power and the struggle to reinstate democracy started, mayhem was let loose on civil society and politicians. 

    “I located Fred Eno, Abiola’s Personal Assistant in Enugu Prison months after he was arrested without any information. Our late Chancellor at Eastern Mandate Union Dr. Arthur Nwankwo and Prof Udenta were in detention when Gen. Abacha died. 

    “All those who supported the military intervention in 1993 paid dearly for it. Military rule delivered economic retrogression and led to the “lost decade” of the 1990s. 

    Read Also: Chidoka: PDP will collapse if not reformed

    “Democracy is our best option. Nigerians should reject calls for military intervention as it would not augur well for the country”

    According to former Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Corps Marshal, “By 1999 our foreign reserves stood at $3 billion, economic growth averaged two percent, and we were a pariah nation and highly indebted to foreign lenders. 

    “After eight years of President Obasanjo, our foreign reserve was over $60 billion, and our balance sheet was clean after an unprecedented debt relief and economic growth at the rate of 6% annually.”

    Chidoka, who was Minister under President Goodluck Jonathan, said that economic growth under the Jonathan administration was strong at over 7% and delivered positive economic outcomes across various sectors. 

    “The military delivered death, killing Kudirat Abiola, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Alfred Rewane, and many others. They muzzled the press and destroyed our national institutions like NLC, NANS, and religious organisations. Their record of economic outcomes was abysmal and set the stage for poverty in the land. 

    “The mood in the country is reminiscent of 1993 when the democratic movements, labour, and leading political parties called for military intervention to remove Ernest Shonekan and install MKO Abiola after a coup. 

    “That was a strategic error that brought Gen Abacha to power and the consequential damage, death, arrest, imprisonment, and forced exile that followed. Let us not repeat that mistake.

    “Nigerians must continue the struggle for a free and transparent electoral process, holding government accountable, pushing for constitutional and moral reforms that would move our country forward despite the terrible outcomes of the past eight years,” he added.

  • Leadership, the elite and Nigeria’s democracy

    Leadership, the elite and Nigeria’s democracy

    We can never say enough about leadership because the lives of each nation or group of people even if they are ‘stateless’ according to UN terms, depend on the leadership in that environment. If we reference past kings and queens in all empires, even the biblical ones are today and will always be referenced for good or for bad. In essence, each leader deliberately or inadvertently writes his or her history.

    However, more often than not, a people define the leadership that emerges because leaders emerge from the people and the values of a people can most often be gleaned from the leadership that emerges from them and through their actions in a democracy.

    So most times when people complain about bad leadership they often forget that they have a hand either through actions or inactions about the leadership that emerges. Political philosophers like Plato succinctly described this when he posited that, “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors”.

    Very often especially in a developing nation like Nigeria, the elite often shy away from partisan engagement and involuntarily cede political leadership to the incompetent and people without the gravitas to drive productive leadership. The result of poor leadership is that like a relay race, the baton is passed from one group to the other and sometimes dropped in ways that development is delayed and everyone suffers and post failure analysis fill the air.

    The RoundTable Conversation sat with Dr. Otive Igbuzor, Executive Director African Center for Leadership, Strategy and Development (LSD) a civil society veteran who has spent his life fighting under different local and international agencies for justice, gender equity  and good governance, an author, researcher,  lecturer  and gender advocate who was appointed by the immediate past United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon into the Global Network of Men Leaders to End Violence Against Women.

    Asked about each nation getting the leadership it deserves, he said that there is some element of truth therein because leadership is about influence. People can influence others in different ways. In Nigeria for instance, we talk about transactional and transformational leaderships. You notice this in the ways the people often venerate leaders that dispense material and financial favors. The electoral process and the roles money play are all indicators of what one can say are the people getting what they deserve. When a people choose instant gratifications over planned nationhood and good policy drivers, they surreptitiously choose their leaders good or bad.

    When the people with questionable character use money to win elections and their religious houses organize endorsements and thanksgiving services, their communities give them titles and the people call them excellences, honourables and distinguished in very adulating ways, you find that such leaders would remain deified without being held accountable. Yes, to some extent you can say that a people get the leadership they deserve.

    Read Also; First Lady backs reelection of Uzodimma

    However, there are leaders who emerge and are able to change the followership through who they are,  what they do, how they lead, their practices and soon, so it is not a one-way traffic of a people getting the leadership they deserve.  However, there are transformative leaders. We have equally learnt that leadership according to Amandla, the cultural wing of ANC once said that leaders are not born but produced during the course of the struggle.

    Leaders can make the difference and that is why people say that everything rises and falls with leadership. In those days there used to be discourse about the fact that the people are the makers of history. But let’s take a trip back into history for instance the fact that Gorbachev sat over the disintegration of the former USSR and a Trump emerged in the last five years. We know the outcomes so scholars know that leadership matters.

    We must be concerned with the type of democracy that can deliver dividends of development. There has been a lot of discourse about the democracy that is functional. May be thirty to fifty years ago, policies were almost analogue but the dynamics have changed in ways that democracy and development are now closer than ever. Policy science has developed in ways economic policies are more exact and somewhat inclusive, each leadership in making policies can now tell what outcomes to expect in terms of the different demographics. We all can calculate which policies can increase or reduce poverty, which ones can enhance gender, minority and youth inclusiveness.

    Today we know what kind of policies can improve health, deliver progressive education enhance infrastructural provisions for  better productivity. So in essence, we all know what to do. We must match theory with practice because there is always a nexus. Many years ago, there were no mobile phones on a global scale, today we have it and the internet and leadership comes easier.

    All Nigerians, including media people must understand that ideas rule the world today especially now that knowledge economy is so huge and there are projections into the future where artificial intelligence and robotics  have will take over. We must move with the times but we must retain the core values that drive leadership and followership. The merchandizing of politics and erosion of our value system must be checked if development must come.

    We must all have to patriotically own the society at all levels. But we also acknowledge that leadership has changed due to a multitude of things, our colonial history, the military interruptions that changed the ways leadership selection  processes where most politicians owe allegiance to an Abuja power hierarchy is not good enough for our democratic growth.

    We must remember the effects of the truncated transition periods by Ibrahim Babaginda the former military President.  When he was done and Abdulsallam Abubakar came, the people were exhausted and only ‘professional’ politicians took over government when activists, socialists, patriots and intellectuals refused to participate in a post military era  Nigeria in 1999. Before they realized what was happening the professional politicians had their tap roots rooted on ground and the policies over the years like Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) pauperized the people.

    The most important solutions must be ‘organizing and not agonizing’ because there are enough patriotic people who are good and as Burke advised, evil triumph when good men do nothing. In Nigeria the only leadership problems are in the political field. You do not have many problems at the traditional, religious, academic or even corporate levels. It is always the political field. We have global leaders in all other sectors even at UN level.

    The way forward must be for committed and patriotic and educated Nigerians to stop showing apathy for politics but go out there and get involved to run away from what Plato said about the good people and inferior leadership.

    Again the middle class must get involved at party levels. They must stop and we must think seriously about integrating women into leadership seeing that globally, continentally and sub-regionally, Nigeria is far below in gender parity in the political space. Over the past twenty years, there has been progress in the world in terms of gender inclusiveness and all the world can see the progress being made by the Scandinavian and other countries where women seem to have access in the political space.

    There must be a constitutional quota for women and luckily there is an opportunity for a constitutional review in ways that there must be implementable affirmative action for women. Everyone concerned about this must reach out to their legislators to facilitate action because it has been confirmed that when women are in positions of authority, they make better policies and programmes that touch on the lives of citizens and that is why the countries on top of the human development index across the world have many women at the political field providing various levels of leadership. You see countries like Denmark, New Zealand, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Norway etc. doing really well. To Igbuzor,  women movement must prioritize women participation in politics to help the country develop.

    The RoundTable Conversation has equally identified governors that have been sensitive enough to integrate more women into their cabinets and is carrying out research on their progress in comparative terms. The Nigerian global percentage of women in parliament stands at less than ten percent while countries across Africa are all at thirty percent and above with Rwanda with the global highest of 61.3%.

    There are no surprises about Nigeria being the poverty capital of the world when some of her best and brightest are forced out of the country by even less brilliant and less educated men whose only qualification is their gender. An Amina Mohammed faced hostility when she was nominated for a ministerial post, today she is at the United Nations as Assistant Secretary General. Arunma Oteh is now at the World Bank but was hounded by some legislators when she was the Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

    Nigerians must, if they wish to face the task of development productively be more involved in the leadership evolution processes to select leaders with the necessary pedigree and qualifications that can make the democracy we all cherish more functional and development oriented. Transactional leaderships leave both the leaders and the beneficiaries of such formless transactions poorer and more disoriented in the long run.

    Clutching unto some mundane and parochial socio-cultural and religious practices and views just so as to favour patriarchal longings would always hurt everyone at the end. Nigeria is too blessed to continue to fail its population. Good and functional leadership benefits everyone ultimately in ways that the future of the country remains assured. All stake holders in the media, civil society and governments must work together to birth more functional leadership that benefits everyone and chats a better path to the future.

    The dialogue continues…

  • Democracy beyond politicians

    By Kayode Robert Idowu

    If you seek hard evidence that the character content of a country’s political culture derives in a large measure from its leadership elite at any given point in time, you only need look at the United States now. At the last count, the world’s epitome of democratic decency had slipped into riotous political behaviour that typifies backwater democracies.

    On Wednesday, last week, some two dozens Republican lawmakers stormed a secure meeting room for US Congress committees in Washington to disrupt Democratic-led impeachment inquiry on President Donald Trump. The current American leader, as is well known by now, came under scrutiny for possible impeachment liability after a whistleblower alleged that he and top officials of his administration had pressured some foreign leaders, most notably Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to dig up dirt on his political rivals as would facilitate his re-election bid in that country’s 2020 poll. Mr. Trump and his supporters have insisted, however, that he’s done nothing wrong.

    Reports said the GOP lawmakers last week barged into an interrogation bunker known as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), railing against the impeachment inquiry and holding up a scheduled testimony by a Pentagon chief for about five hours. Some of the intruding legislators took their mobile phones with them into the facility, prompting Congress leaders and others to accuse them of security breach. Reason: SCIFs are designed to prevent electronic eavesdropping and allow people to table classified information; hence electronic devices are not permitted.

    US Congress rules stipulate that only committee members and authorised staff members are permitted to attend depositions like the one that held on Wednesday. But the conservative lawmakers forced their way in and demanded they be allowed to witness the closed-door proceedings where members of House Intelligence, Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees conducting the impeachment probe were set to interview Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Cooper. The intruders eventually sat in on the committee room and engaged in a shouting derby with their Democratic counterparts. At lunchtime, they ordered pizza to be brought into the meeting area. They ended their protest hours later only when they had to leave for attendance at House votes.

    News analyses argued that the brawl option last Wednesday stemmed from mounting pressure on Trump’s camp following the deposition a day earlier by US acting ambassador to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, who testified that the American leader had made military assistance to Ukraine conditional on a pledge that Democratic frontrunner for the 2020 poll, Joe Biden, would be investigated for suspicion of damaging deals when he was vice president under ex-President Barack Obama. Taylor had said US relations with Ukraine were consequently “fundamentally undermined.” In response to that testimony, however, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement that the proceedings were “a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.” Mr. Trump himself had earlier described the impeachment inquiry as a lynching.

    Reports further said the facility sit-in occurred two days after the American leader rallied Republicans to “get tougher and fight” for him. Ace news channel, the Cable News Network (CNN), reported that many of the lawmakers involved in the protest were at a White House meeting on Tuesday with the president. It added that someone familiar with the matter disclosed that Trump had advance knowledge of plans to enter the space. But the channel as well cited notable GOPs saying Wednesday’s protest was not raised at the meeting the previous day with Trump.

    My interest in the apparent degeneration of political culture in Trump’s America is the inherent immunity, to a considerable degree, of that country’s institution of democracy against character failings of its power elite. This is due mainly to the fact that democratic norms and values are deeply enshrined and the governance structures firmly institutionalised, hence they ultimately outlive momentary shockwaves. In other words, the system has been so cultivated and calibrated over the years that it somehow gets to filter out rouge occurrences and hold its ground.

    Nigeria’s democracy is emergent and highly vulnerable to culture shocks from the generally poor political conduct that characterises this clime. For our democracy to thrive, therefore, we need to painstakingly cultivate and institutionalise attendant values and governance structures beyond peculiar traits of the political elite. This admonition formed the thrust of a keynote paper by former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, at a conference on 20 years of democracy in Nigeria staged in Abuja on Wednesday, last week, by TELL Communication Limited.

    Speaking on the subject, ‘The electoral process in Nigeria: Safeguarding the people’s will for democracy to thrive,’ Jega said the challenge of democratic development in a country like Nigeria is how to prevent reversals and ensure consolidation of positive strides made hitherto in the political process. But the political elite, according to him, constitutes the biggest sticking point of this challenge. He noted that while most ordinary Nigerians have struggled for democratic development and consolidation since the return to civil rule in 1999, the political class, “perhaps due to lack of enlightened self-interest, (has) tended to treat and engage with the process of democratisation with kid gloves.”

    Jega explained: “In such a significant area as the electoral process, the integrity of which is crucial to democratic consolidation and good governance, the prevailing mode of participation and engagement by the elite is akin to kids playing with fire: at the least, they get burnt and at worst, they could set off a conflagration that consumes the entire edifice. As commonsense dictates that we must stop kids (from) playing with fire, so it is that we must stop the elite, especially the reckless segment of the ‘political class,’ from setting off an electoral conflagration that could consume our entire democratic edifice. The only way to successfully do this is to strive for, and imbue the Nigerian electoral process with requisite integrity that would guarantee the actualisation of the aspiration of Nigerians for both stable democratic development and consolidation.”

    The political scientist noted “remarkable trust deficit” on the part of voters in the electoral process, as indexed by progressively declining percentage voter turnout in periodic elections. To redress this, he urged that no effort be spared to “ensure that elections are conducted with integrity; i.e. (that) elections are free, fair and credible and are characterised by inclusiveness, transparency, accountability and competitiveness…substantially complying with international standards…”

    But the surest route to thriving democracy, according to him, is to institutionalise electoral integrity as would safeguard the people’s will. To this end, all key stakeholders have roles to play. Among others, the political class must eschew desperation and be statesmanly in electoral contests. The electoral body, INEC, must deeply entrench its neutrality and constitutional independence, enhance the professionalism of its workforce and strengthen linkages and mutual trust with major players in the electoral process, including the security agencies. The executive and legislative arms of government need to ensure the best possible legal framework for INEC to conduct good elections and adequately provide for financial as well as administrative autonomy of the electoral body. And the media should engage with the electoral process professionally, eschew fake news and reporting of hate speech, partisanship and other unsalutary conducts.

    An obvious deduction from foregoing recommendations is that we need to take Nigerian democracy beyond politicians for the practice to thrive.

    • Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

  • Bayelsa APC primary: Redressing the injustice

    Democracy as a system of government where power and authority is directly derived from the masses is the greatest value system of human civilization.

    Besides promoting the inalienable right of man over freedom of choice, it has entrenched the values of peaceful change of government while averting the danger of might is right.

    Contemporary scholars like Professor Laski in his book “The Grammar of Politics” emphasised the need to dismantle anything that will constitute a road block to the flourishing of constitutional democracy.

    In Nigeria, it is sad to mention that we still have many rivers to cross as there are several impediments towards building the true values of democracy in the country. Just as Mahatma Ghandi expressed worry about the trending issue of politics without conscience, the Nigerian political class represents what Ghandi talked about, as vast majority of the political class believe in nothing but circumventing of due process in riding to power.

    The manipulative tendency without any sense of honesty of purpose has cost the nation potential investors, as they have no confidence in the institutions.

    The recent APC Bayelsa State governorship election primary, held barely over a month ago is a locus classicus that has become a source of worry within and outside the country.

    Listening to a local radio programme in United Kingdom of recent with focus on democracy in Nigeria, one was stunned at how Bayelsa APC primary election became the focus of the programme.

    The programme depicted Bayelsa as a state where no free and fair election had ever been held since the birth of democracy. As a Bayelsan myself, one was really ashamed of the ugly narratives about the state and Nigeria in general.

    Also, a Non-Government Organisation (NGO) once conducted a research on the conduct of credible election in Nigeria. It delivered a damning verdict on the South-South geo-political zone of recording the worst electoral malpractice in the country, with Bayelsa coming top on the chart.

    When the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC announced the date for the Bayelsa governorship primary election scheduled for the 4th of September, 2019, it opened a window of excitement in Bayelsa State by members of the party in the state and beyond.

    This is because APC came to power dangling the mantra of the progressive mould, projecting the party as a beacon of hope for the thriving of democracy in all ramifications.

    When the governor of Yobe State, Mai-Mala  Buni, was announced as the chairman and returning officer for the Bayelsa APC governorship election, it further rekindled the hopes of the party faithful, that being a governor and immediate past national secretary of the party, he would raise the moral bar of conducting a free, fair and credible election.

    However, that hope was dashed as it was later proved right by some doubting Thomas’ that had their misgivings as they say a Leopard cannot change its colour. The National Working Committee adopted direct primary as the mode for conducting the primary election.

    The party’s electoral committee set up for the conduct of the election arrived Yenagoa, with the state party Secretariat as the venue for collation and announcement of the outcome of the election.

    The electoral committee allayed the fears of contestants, especially frontline contestants like Senator Lokpobiri and my humble self, who appealed to the electoral body to distribute the election materials with sense of fairness and equity. For the purpose of fairness, the contestants demanded that the names of returning officers at ward level be published before the election commenced; making available ward result sheets in the various LGAs where elections were to hold, as well as provision of tags for the eight LGA agents across the state.

    Interestingly, apart from brazenly brushing these demands aside, the purported distribution of the election materials where election was never held is a rape of democracy and indeed cast a huge doubt on the ideals of the party.

    This is where confidence eroded the whole process, paving way to total disenchantment and ill feelings among party members, who had thought the coming of APC was the coming of progressives to do things differently from the past.

    What further transpired later was what party members described as a “shame of the century” when the result of the primary was allegedly not only announced barely two hours after the purported “distribution” of election materials, but also announced the result in an hotel by the Secretary of the Electoral Committee, Mr. Emmanuel Ocheja, who was not even the returning officer.

    This was like one of the Seven Wonders of the World in a state like Bayelsa where 75% of it is marine and elections usually last for two days. In some of the riverine areas of the state, it takes six (6) hours to get to destinations and one wonders how such magnitude of the conduct of direct primary would last for only two (2) hours. These are pertinent issues that are begging for answers.

    It was ridiculous that the electoral committee reduced such an important exercise to mere allocation of imaginary votes. One also wonders how a returning officer and chairman of governorship primary election committee could throw conscience into the wind to endorse a process he never witnessed and allows a collation officer to usurp the powers of chairman of electoral committee to declare a winner; a power which everybody knows cannot be delegated.

    It was as deceptive as that of the biblical ”Jacob’s voice, Esau’s hand”. What became much more despicable and disturbing is the fact that the national leadership of the party deliberately jettisoned its own zoning principle as it concerns that of Bayelsa State.

    In Bayelsa, there is this internal understanding of the governorship rotating among the three senatorial districts. There is also a micro zoning arrangement where, if a local government had produced a governor and the zoning falls within the LGA’s that make up the zone; the LGA’s that have not produced a governor are expected to be given the opportunity to have the governorship slot.

    In the case of Bayelsa, all the political parties zoned their tickets to Bayelsa Central Senatorial District, comprising Southern Ijaw, Yenagoa and Kolokuma-Opokuma local governments.

    It is sad to note that Southern Ijaw, which had previously had the slot with late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, has again been given the ticket of APC to Mr. David Lyon from the same Southern Ijaw.

    Some political analysts regard the micro zoning of the candidacy of APC to Southern Ijaw LGA “as the height of insensitivity towards the local political aspirations of the people of the state; which will have multiplier effects on the political fortunes of the party despite the noise of “gale of defections” from the PDP to the APC”.

    Obviously, the ticket of the party ought to have been given to candidates from either Yenagoa LGA or Kolokuma-Opokuma LGA. But this was ignored because of the self-serving agenda of few individuals.

    The conduct of the Bayelsa APC primary has further diminished the moral barometer of the avowed slogan of APC to put in place the true spirit of progressive politics in the front burner.

    I have personally studied the politics of Bayelsa State in the past 20 years and it is no overstatement to state the obvious that APC has shut its political foot with devastating effects.

    Today, apart from the plethora of cases challenging the outcome of the primary election at the court, there is lack of unity, cohesion in the party like that of a divided kingdom, which cannot stand to confront the PDP in the state.

    Some party faithful, like Elder Patrick Miebaikido, believe that “the micro zoning of the candidacy to Southern Ijaw in Bayelsa Central Senatorial District is a monumental error, which the party leadership was hoodwinked into buying the idea.”

    Going by the alleged hard facts before the public, there is a general apprehension and uneasy calm among members of the party, believing that for APC candidate to scale the hurdle is like a camel passing through the eye of a needle, as the question marks over the emergence of the party candidate are too many.

    Though the issue of party primary is the internal affairs of the party which prevents courts from interfering, by virtue of section 6 of the constitution, the court has the latitude to interfere on any activity which fails to comply with the internal rules of the party.

    Moreover, the standard bearer of the APC from Southern Ijaw will impact negatively in the politics of Bayelsa State. Apart from the blatant neglect of the principle of zoning which had built cohesion and unity among the people over the years; by this singular act, APC has sent a dangerous signal that Southern Ijaw with its supposed “voting population” advantage will continue to produce governors, while LGAs like Kolokuma/Opokuma with population disadvantage will not be given the opportunity to take a shot at the governorship of the state. This fact cannot be swept under the carpet.

    Rather than promoting unity and sense of belonging among a state that was once united by a common history and destiny, the APC incursion has planted a time bomb which may detonate in the fullness of time.

  • Leadership, democracy and good governance; challenges and prospects

    First and foremost, I wish to thank the FEMI OYEBANJO FOUNDATION for the great honour and privilege of asking me to give this birthday lecture in honour of Chief Femi Oyebanjo, the Aro of Oke-Oro, Ekiti, a man I have always held in great awe and respect.  The Aro and I came a long way and for over three decades I have been more than privileged to learn at his feet. I first met Chief Oyebanjo in 1981 during the calm that preceded the tempestuous 2nd Republic politics in Ondo state. (We will henceforth omit all reference to Chief Oyebanjo as events conspired to ensure that the lecture, God willing, will now be given on the occasion of his 90 birthday. Amen).

    This recall, therefore, is only a precursor to articles which will soon appear on this column in answer to some of the questions that have arisen since the emergence of Prof (Senator) Banji Akintoye as the YORUBA LEADER. As is usual with the Yoruba, the articles will be handled syllogically; that is, applying deductive reasoning to arrive at conclusions so there would be no need for any abuses, whatever, from any quarters.

    The title, lest I have got you carried you away is: Leadership, Democracy and Good Governance:  Challenges and Prospects.

    In full disclosure, let me quickly make a confession.  I could not have been luckier in drawing this topic.  Why, you’d ask? I am particularly blessed that a John, not the Baptist, preceded me in interrogating the very issues I have been asked to deal with here today. I refer here to Dr John Kayode Fayemi, a Development Scholar, solid academician and governor of our dear state who, only last month at the CHATAM HOUSE, London, gave a lecture on Democratisation, Development and Good Governance. Though today’s topic is not on all fours with what he dealt with, he said enough, for me to leverage on.

    What then is LEADERSHIP? Leadership has been variously defined down the ages, but for o purpose today, I shall  adopt  the  simple  Microsoft Encarta dictionary definition of Leadership as the ability to guide, direct, or influence people because it is in these very areas that Nigeria, as a country, has so lagged behind that people have questioned what type of leaders God gave Nigeria. Many here, I suspect, must have heard the apocryphal story of the visit of the U.S President, the British Prime Minister, the German Chancellor and of course, their Russian counterpart to God to complain about the excessive human and natural resources He endowed Nigeria with.  God was reported to have laughed heartily; agreed He was favourably disposed to Nigeria but wondered aloud whether His August visitors have ever bothered to interrogate the type of leaders He gave her.

    What then are the essential ingredients of leadership, and which one world leader, past or present, can we use to demonstrate them?

    I proceed, here under to list them just as I shall be using the truly unique British Prime Minister, the indomitable War hero and statesman, Sir Winston Churchill to demonstrate each.

    INTEGRITY:

    A leader must have unimpeachable integrity.  He must have unshakeable moral values. Sir Winston Churchill was voted in a recent BBC poll as the Greatest Briton ever in history. Even in war time he never once understated the hard facts of the consequences of the war. Rather he promised Britons sweat, blood and tears. This rallied, rather than cow, the British since they trusted and respected him greatly.

    CONSISTENCY:

    Churchill was consistent. He had spent years warning of the ever growing Nazi threat. For some time his warnings went unheeded. He was, in fact, dubbed a warmonger. When the sitting Prime Minister was keen on appeasing Hitler, he stuck to his cause, rather than give in to the naysayers. For him, Hitler was a demon and the Nazis were too evil to be trusted about anything.  He would later be called upon to lead the nation and his consistency redounded well to the benefit of Britain and humanity.

    EXPERIENCE

    Experience is key to leadership. Churchill had been a Member of Parliament for nearly 40 years by the time he was made Prime Minister. For 25 years he had held high ministerial office in a wide range of departments. He had been in the government and served on the front line during the First World War. He had seen action, was captured and escaped from a prisoner of war camp. All these were crucial in his leadership role during the horrifying war years when hordes of German planes were daily pounding London.

    HARD WORKING

    He had an incredible work ethic and was a perfectionist. He demanded much from those around him – but more from himself of the extreme high standards he had set. He was, for instance, quoted  as  saying “Each night before I go to bed, I try myself by Court Martial to see if I have done something really effective during the day – I don’t mean merely pawing the ground, anyone can go through the motions, but something really effective.”

    KNOW YOUR PEOPLE

    Finally, a leader must know the people he leads, or indeed, wants to lead. He must show empathy and identify with the yearnings of the people. He must, at all times, demonstrate leadership traits that are worthy of his place in society.

    Britons, even in the agonising war felt close to Churchill. He was very sympathetic to their cause. His speeches touched everyone’s heart. He was a natural communicator, had no airs and was seen as an open book by his compatriots. Everyone knew where they were with Churchill.

    Shall we then take a quick look at Democracy and then, Good Governance, without which a country, state or even local government will be in great peril.

    Some 55 odd years ago in 1957, at the United School, Are-Afao Ekiti, my class teacher, Mr Fajana, later Chief, defined democracy for us as ‘the government of the people, for the people and by the people’. Events in the last half a century in Africa have strenuously questioned that definition of democracy. But our governor, to whose lecture I referred earlier, has done some good work of defining levels of democratisation in Africa.

    He identified three broad categories.

    I quote him: “First, I think we all need a typology of Africa’s democratisation that further interrogates the broad categories away  from the  Manichean divide – of success  and  failure, pessimism and optimism, sub-optimal performance and unprecedented progress – which is possible and indeed, necessary because of its practical implications for policy choices by African citizens, their governments and development partners. In this vein, one could clearly talk about five strands and even within them, experiences remain mixed and non-linear. One, there are states in the process of consolidating democracy and achieving better governance due to more legitimate and accountable governance, reformist economic management, rights based agenda, and a more active and demanding citizenry among other critical success factors – Botswana, Benin, Ghana will qualify here. Second are states in various stages of transitions – Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania. Third, are states in conflict or emerging out of conflict – DRC, Cote D’Ivoire, Mali, Liberia, Sierra Leone.  Fourth are states in relapse or re-militarization – Comoros, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar and Mauritania and fifth, in my view, are out rightly authoritarian states”.

    What I understand Dr Fayemi as saying here is that the type of democracy in place in each category has determined to a significant level, to what extent Good Governance, in its proper essence, can be delivered to the peoples of these countries.

    What then is good governance?

    Modern economies are not built with capital or labour as much as by ideas. Put differently, wars are won in the map room. To talk about Good Governance, therefore, is obviously not to re-invent the wheel since the subject has agitated the minds of scholars for long, but much more seriously within the past decade as a result of the concern, worldwide, for best practices. Good governance, as terminology, is used in describing the desired objectives of a nation-state or a geo-political zone, as we are in South-West, Nigeria. Put simply, it is anti-corruption, i.e a system in which the government and its institutions are accountable, effective, efficient, participatory, transparent, responsive, consensual and equitable. Once a system meets these stated desiderata, the end is what the Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, described as the raison detre of any government, i.e catering to the happiness of the greater majority of the people.

    At the 2005 World Summit, leaders across the world concluded that good governance is integral to economic growth; to the eradication of poverty and hunger and towards ensuring sustainable development. Good Governance, the summit observed, ensures that the views of the most at risk segments of society, the oppressed: women, youth and the poor, are reckoned with because they suffer the most from the consequences of lack of good governance.

    The Independent Commission on Good Governance in public services established in the UK in 2004 by the Office For Public Management (OPM) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, whose primary aim was to develop a common code and set of principles for good governance across public services to serve as a guide, came up with six core principles. These are:

    1. Focus: good governance means focusing on the organisation’s purpose and their outcome for the citizenry.
    2. Effective performance in defined roles.
    3. Promotion of values.
    4. Taking informed transparent decisions.
    5. Developing capacity and capability for effective governance, and,
    6. Engaging stakeholders and making accountability real.

    Having thus laid the philosophical underpinning of our core categories, let us now take a quick look at the challenges and prospects which Leadership, Democracy and Good Governance pose for us as a geo-political zone or as a state.

    SETTING GOOD GOVERNANCE AGENDA FOR YORUBALAND

    The desideratum for good governance is peace; political as well as social peace.  We need to, first of all, examine the sources of conflict and the structures available for conflict resolution in Yorubaland. The major source of political conflict in Yoruba land in the last twelve years or so has been the marginalisation of the Yoruba nation in the political scheme which came to a head with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the war of attrition that followed the annulment, with the consequent decimation of the cultural and political leadership of the Yorubas.  This led to the mainstreaming agenda which dislocated our political and social life.

    With Yoruba land back in the progressive political platform, an agenda for good governance becomes a sine qua non. It is, therefore, a time for rebuilding; a time for working out  a blueprint for sustained social, political and economic development of Yoruba land.

    Leadership in Yorubaland

    Our leadership tradition is two-tier, i.e cultural and political but with both merging a-times. The Egbe Omo Oduduwa and Afenifere provided cultural cum political leadership; Obasanjo’s mainstreaming agenda created an out-rightly unpopular splinter group led by the Yoruba Council of Elders and the Akinfenwa AD as arrow heads. For the current political peace and harmony to be sustainable, our public office holders must be seen to perform optimally to the satisfaction of the citizenry as well as create a cultural leadership in its own image taking cognisance of the generational shift of the new political class. A Pan-Yoruba cultural organisation into which a lot of work has gone for the past five years with a thriving secretariat – THE AGBAJO YORUBA AGBAIYE- can, with judicious re-engineering, adequately fit the bill. It is led by Lt. Gen Alani Akinrinade, one of Yoruba’s finest specimens. It is my hope that the South-West governors’ forum can lead the charge here. It will not conflict with the new and improved ARG which is strictly political, and in my view, its Yoruba Academy is to serve as the intellectual power house for Yoruba land.

    GOOD GOVERNANCE

    The Yoruba race is one that inherited a good tradition of good governance in Nigeria. The high level of education of our political progenitors created a milieu that we can always look back to today to shape our political future.  The question does not arise, therefore, as to what good governance is all about for our new leaders.

    I proceed, therefore, to spell out the dividends that the new progressive governments should deliver to our people in the geo-political zone.

    Agenda for Good Governance

    1. The development of the Southwest must be done along regional lines, i.e regional integration. Fortunately, this is the trend that our new political leaders are already charting. The region is an economic block, and as such, a regional approach will be cost-effective and economically viable especially in the areas of infrastructure procurement, industrialization, commerce, the environment, and agriculture.

    Education:  Given the anti-intellectual posture of the PDP which would rather ravage resources, our education is in the doldrums but it is obvious the governors have taken education as a major priority of their government. For instance, I served on the Ekiti state Education/Visitation Panel set up by Governor Kayode Fayemi and chaired the Communique Committee at the subsequent Ekiti Education Summit. Similar summits have been held in other states in the region. There is a gaping need for increased attention to be paid to technical education, with particular emphasis on skills acquisition through the formal school system  – trade centres, vocational schools, traditional apprenticeship, reinvigorated Polytechnics etc.  The gigantic work of development cannot be accomplished with a top-heavy technocratic class without a competent class of those who translate dreams into reality. This restructuring will benefit the entire regional economy.

    Agriculture:  All the states have potentials for agricultural development but this must be harmonised to take care of areas of comparative advantage in food and cash crop production.  Food storage, preservation and processing industries should also be established, as well as, harmonised to avoid artificial glut. Agriculture should be used as a means of youth empowerment.

    While mechanisation is the ultimate for mass production, the consequences on the environment should be taken into consideration. Peasant agriculture should still be given attention because it has sustained us for a long time and a huge percentage of our farmers are engaged in it. Agriculture should also be used for women empowerment.

    Agro forestry: The Governments should go back to the preservation of our forest resources and also the afforestation and reforestation of overused land. There should be uniform laws to curb unauthorised logging, bush burning, poaching of wild animals etc because the entire region has the same forest resources. The youths should be massively involved in a forestation programmes across the region as a means of employment.

    Industrialisation: Industries are cited where the raw materials are available.  Good transportation in the region can bridge the disadvantage of access to the market. Major industries should be jointly-owned to ensure viability.

    THE ROAD NETWORK:

    Here is one area where the main streamers, under the lead of Ogagun Olusegun Obasanjo, has hurt us the most and there is no gain-saying its critical imperativeness.

    Luckily we have as governors, highly committed young men who know exactly how to tap into development partners and approach institutions like the IDA to come rescue us because roads are key to all our developmental plans. They should also find PPP -Public Private Partnership, attractive, with a strong regulatory frame-work to manage it.

    I haven’t the slightest doubt that we are poised for a very challenging but extremely exciting period of renewal in Yoruba land.

    A ju se. Odua a gbe wa.

    Congratulations Sir. Many happy returns.

  • The Irony and promise of democracy in a federation: lessons from recent security issues

    The cases of Arab Spring and the ongoing Asian Spring in Hong Kong indicate why the masses must not be over rattled.

    The challenge for us is to continue to defuse the potential perils of diversity by continuing to pursue measures that promote social inclusion and national cohesion. One of the most important ramparts of national cohesion are the guarantees of fundamental freedoms: the right to life, which comes with it the duty of governments to ensure peace and security, freedom of movement, freedom of worship, and the rule of law. Everyone must be reasonably assured that their lives and livelihoods will be protected by the government, that their disputes will be fairly and justly resolved, regardless of their ethnicity and faith.- Prof Yemi Osinbajo’s lecture at the Lagos Country Club, “How to Keep Nigeria One”

    If someone who first visited Nigeria 20 years ago returned to the country in the last four months, he/she would think the house has fallen or is falling. The reason for the negative change would have been attributed to lack of security and conflicts among some of the country’s ethnic nationalities. If the visitor has been familiar with the character of Nigeria as a combination of territorial and ethnic federalism, he/she would have been surprised at the level of suspicion and antagonism between the Fulani and the Yoruba. Such visitors would have been surprised to hear, in a region not known for complaining of marginalisation, calls from Yoruba civil society groups on the federal government to do its constitutional duty about rising insecurity in the Southwest and other regions. Further, such visitor would have been amazed at the speed of response to urgent calls in an era of democracy.

    But democracy watchers may not be as perturbed as the visitor, feeling less worried because of his/her interest to understand why Nigeria’s governing elites work as they do. Believers in the concept that democracy is largely the function of elites and those who believe that democracy is a game for many groups in the society-from professional middle class to the working class-to play together in pursuance of the common good are also likely to be worried that things have had to wait for months before proper consultations take place on how to stem violent crimes in the society. Knowing that it is the group generally left out of consideration by both governing elites and professional middle-class men and women-the masses that had worked hardest and in silence since the outbreak of physical insecurity.

    Generally, it is the masses that remain the last to react to insecurity because they live continually with insecurity in other forms-material and social poverty. But the masses are the most potent when they choose to react positively or negatively. The cases of Arab Spring and the ongoing Asian Spring in Hong Kong indicate why the masses must not be over rattled. And when the masses choose to explore peaceful methods before acting, they often do well. Fortunately, in the Southwest in the last few months, the masses opted to act like informal advisers to the governing elites and other influencing groups that function as agents of pluralist governance-traditional rulers, civil society organisations, the media, etc. Instead of focusing on the tinder box inherent in kidnapping murder on highways and in deep forests, the region’s masses started informal consultations across the spectrum of rulers in the region.

    Picking on the role of the masses in a democracy in another context, Thomas R. Dye and L. Harmon Zeigler, argue particularly in the section on “How Democracy Survives,” that “democracy does not depend on mass support for democratic ideals. It is apparently not necessary that most people commit themselves to a democracy; all that is necessary is that they fail to commit to antidemocratic movements… Those (the masses) with the attitudes most dangerous for democracy are the least involved in politics.” The authors argue further that mass anxiety may become volatile when, for example, the masses experience poor level of personal safety-crime, street violence, and terrorism, etc.

    Although anxiety-inducing criminality had existed in the Southwest in the last few months, the region’s masses had not acted in a way to complicate the search for resolution.  Although masses have woken up in the morning to vacillate between going to the farm and staying in the town or village, for fear of being kidnapped or killed. Some have taken their children to school and stay around till the end of school hours to take them back home while many market women have stayed on their farms, waiting to no avail for their wholesale buyers of fruits and vegetables to come and collect their produce. Yet those whose livelihood depends on moving from one town or village to the other have done so less frequently and those with the courage to do so have travelled with their hearts in their mouths.

    Yet the masses have not caused any civil disturbance. On the contrary, they have opted to use the structures of pluralist governance available to them to sublimate their anxiety into seeking consultations with their community leaders on the way to restore order. In other words, the masses have chosen to give democracy in a federation of many cultures the chance it requires-consultations with others on finding solutions to immediate problems. For example, the masses in the region have refrained from making inflammatory or hateful statements, from protesting on the streets, and issuing threatening ultimatums. Most of what the masses have done is to consult with their immediate leaders who they perceive as their elected representatives and traditional rulers who they see generally as their cultural leaders in a semi-federal system.

    If the recent promises of President Buhari to the region’s traditional rulers to restore security in the region and other parts of the country yield desired results, the masses of the region would deserve appreciation for not losing interest in consultation as an important democratic option at a time of major crisis and for refraining from making statements that can add petrol to the fire ignited by kidnappers in different parts of the region. It is gratifying that the masses, believed to be the least concerned about democratic rituals, rhetoric, and theatrics that abound in the country’s political culture, have acted to showcase the importance of tolerance and restraint to the nurturing of democracy, particularly in a federation of competing aspirations and expectations.

    Given that presidential pledge on restoration of security is just a few hours old, it is premature to start sharing compliments, but one lesson has emerged from the handling of the security crisis in the Southwest so far. The lesson is that the notion of plurality as a means of nurturing democracy, especially in a culturally plural polity, is worth giving more attention than it has received in our public discourse.

    The quote from the vice president’s lecture two days ago at the Lagos Country Club in respect of how to keep the country united to benefit from its diversity like other diverse polities is, coming at a time that conferences and workshops are holding in different parts of the country on the imperative of sustaining the country’s unity, timely and apt. More of such talks are needed to assure citizens that our governing elites are concerned about threats to security and its resultant threats to national cohesion.

    While congratulating conveners of public discussions on our federation, watchers of our federal democracy need to sponsor more conferences and workshops on peace, harmony, and stability, especially at a time when there are no crises. Nurturing democracy in a post-military era is like nurturing a child; it is a daily investment of time and resources. Working toward peace is a task that can benefit from continual education of governing elites and the masses. Both groups can benefit not only from seminars on how to build inter-ethnic harmony, they can also benefit from how not to kill peace.

    In conclusion, a quote from How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in relation to American democracy is relevant, not only to Nigerian democracy but also to Nigeria’s federalism: “Think of democracy as a game that we want to keep playing indefinitely. To ensure future rounds of the game, players must refrain from either incapacitating the other team or antagonising them to such a degree, that they refuse to play again tomorrow. If one’s rivals quit, there can be no future games. This means that although individuals play to win, they must do so with a degree of restraint.”  This observation applies to Nigeria’s federation in toto. And our governing elites should pay attention to any threats to peace and security, before such threats fester.

    This columnist will be on vacation for the next two weeks and will resume on August 25.

  • Democracy without democrats

    Post-election, it is always the vogue to carpet the electoral umpire (not unjustified many times, particularly during the notorious Maurice Iwu era), as the worst monster since the dawn of Satan.

    But a report on the 2019 general elections, released on April 29, has hit the nail right on the head: Nigeria is a fond democracy without democrats.

    That is the major disease.  Even the Iwu Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was a symptom, though that symptom was so virulent it could qualify for the epidemic itself.

    A report by the Centre for Transparency and Advocacy  (CTA), a medley of civil society groups, observers during the 2019 general elections, just bared it all.

    On INEC: “There is no doubt that the present INEC under Yakubu invested heavily in producing a free and fair election,” CTA declared.  “INEC proved quite independent in the way and manner it responded to the unexpected challenges thrown its way by the political class.”

    No logical mind would say this verdict is unfair.

    On politicians, the non-democrats that insist on running a democracy: “The politicians, their agents and thugs constituted the greatest menace in the conduct of the 2019 general elections.  From brazen acts of vote-buying, violent attacks on perceived opponents,” CTA listed its long and ringing indictment, “intimidation and abduction of INEC officials, snatching and destruction of ballot boxes and papers, to burning up of INEC offices and electoral materials in Plateau, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Benue and Abia states, the political parties and politicians showed their desperation for power.”

    Again, no logical mind can claim this verdict is harsh!  So long for general non-democrats running — and therefore, ruining — a democracy!

    Even then, beyond establishing a general trend, broad generalities, just as statistical averages (with the possible exception of the mode), do grave harm to pin-point accuracy.

    Even, as the political class appears as guilty as charged, the question is what segment of it got the cake of the blame, in these last polls?

    Look at CTA’s damning indictment again, and track the states home to pre-election destruction of INEC materiel: Plateau, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Imo, Benue and Abia states.

    Before the advent of the smart card reader, many of these states, particularly in the South-South and the South-East, had gathered notoriety for not holding elections but with the political elite just writing figures that suited them!

    So, if some thugs in the states set fire to INEC card readers, well before the polls, you could guess the intention of the thugs, from the not-so-mute voices of the political masters that sent them.

    Tragically, the media, supposed to point out all these, had since become captives to vested interests, rationalizing the irrational; and pouncing on INEC to do magic, when politicians that should play by the rules descend to playing juvenile and dangerous election-season games.

    If Nigerian democracy must thrive, the media and every segment of goodwill must help to shape Nigerian wayward politicians into responsible democrats.

    With that change of temper, INEC will do with less logistics; and the state would certainly spend less on elections.

     

  • 2019 polls in retrospect: Does democracy need religion?

    No doubt, the much awaited 2019 poll has come and gone. But the ripple effect lingers on. To any keen observer the election threw up a number of critical issues that deserves in-depth prognosis while waiting for another four years. Or else we may be repeating same mistakes without learning from history. It is incumbent on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and indeed all Nigerians to learn from the flaws of the recently concluded elections which was the most long drawn because of the new developments of declaring elections inconclusive; a term completely alien to our previous elections in earlier republic.

    No one can deny the fact that it was the worst in the annals of electioneering in this country most especially in terms of brazen manifestation of vote-buying with the electoral victory going to the highest bidders despite INEC’s pretensions to the contrary.

    The spate of electoral violence in some states such as the South-south region and in particular Rivers State where the civil society was over-militarised cannot go unnoticed. In core northern parts of the country, it is unfortunate that the phenomenon of under-age voting became the norm! Not only that while the Electoral Act made it incumbent on INEC to observe party primaries, lack of internal democracy tore virtually all major political parties apart with the wounds yet to heal in many cases where candidacy issue is still being slugged out in law courts! Beyond that the pathetic unprecedented high rate of apathy is indeed unfortunate in the last election too.

    The thrust of this piece however is the debilitating influence of religion on the 2019 polls. This has never been the case in all previous elections in this country. Thus is it apposite to delve into the nexus between politics and religion especially in a plural and deeply divided society like Nigeria. If care is not taken, the concomitant effect of religion vis-à-vis national integration in our elections may be untoward for the nascent democracy and stability of Nigeria’s convoluting federal structure.

    Nevertheless, political philosophers all took dim view of religion and politics. ‘On my arrival in the United States of America, the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention’.  Tocqueville reports in Democracy in America (I, 308). Tocqueville’s wonder embraces admiration as well as surprise. Though religion is not formally a part of the American political system, Tocqueville goes so far as to describe it as the first of America’s political institutions by virtue of its indirect effects upon political life (I, 305). Tocqueville on the other hand citing the American experience proposes that democracy can indeed become a friend of religion and may even be crucial to its vitality!

    Be that as it is, and coming back home, despite the fact that 1999 constitution (as amended)  stipulates that Nigeria is a secular state and should be in all ramifications, but, the percolating influence of religion on the body politick makes power sharing to take two dimensions. The formal and the informal; for the latter where a governor is a Muslim the deputy is automatically a Christian. Aside from few states of the federation where the citizenry are predominantly either of the two contending faiths! While at the federal level, the federal character principle got extended to embrace informal power sharing. A Muslim or Christian presidential candidate normally does go all out in search of a vice of the opposite faith. This is not just for the beauty of it but rather as a vote-catching mechanism. While one cannot easily forget that religion was not really a deciding factor in the past as the late M.K.O. Abiola/Babagana Kingibe was a Muslim/Muslim ticket, it’s like contemporary Nigeria’s political firmament has been taken over by religious inclinations and avowed bigots in the polity.

    Perhaps the odd one out is Kaduna State where the governor – Mallam El-Rufai – opted for a Muslim/Muslim ticket on the ground that even if he were to pick the Pope he knew Christians would not vote for him! He was cashing-in on the asymmetric population size of Muslim/Christian in Kaduna State which no doubt is injurious to national integration and religious harmony.

    Though Karl Marx (of blessed memory) postulated that ‘religion is the opium of the society’, advocating that government should avoid it (religion) as much as possible and allow the citizenry to engage themselves with whatever faith they may profess individually or collectively, but in contemporary Nigeria both the state and government are enmeshed in manipulating religion for selfish reasons; making arrant nonsense of the secularity of the country.

    Meanwhile, God in His infinite mercy saved Nigerians from the debilitating role of religion in politics in the last poll. The country was on the verge of going the way of Sudan or Somalia that were torn apart by religion. The voting pattern in the presidential election was tainted by religion rather than free choice. The two major presidential candidates Buhari/Atiku are Muslims while the two vice presidential candidates too are of Christian faith. This was supposed to be a dilemma for Christendom but with the perception of most Christians either rightly or wrongly painting the ruling All Progressive Party (APC) as an Islamic Party capable of Islamising the country perhaps for the negligence in handling the herdsmen imbroglio. At the end of the day, most Christians voted for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) despite the media war of calumny against the PDP which ordinarily was badly discredited before the general elections. But this was not just happenstance as the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) and Catholic Mission cum notable Christian religious leaders mobilised against the ruling party APC. The usual norm of neutrality by our religious leaders was completely jettisoned by religious clerics.

    An objective analysis of the presidential election result glaringly revealed that Christians dominated states in the Southeast, South-south, Southwest and the North all opted for PDP. This is unprecedented in voting patterns in Nigeria. One state in the Southwest that tasted the venom of jaundiced religious inclinations in making electoral choices is Oyo State. Christian community were of the view that the informal power sharing was breached in the state. The incumbent governor being a Muslim for eight years was mentoring and sponsoring another Muslim to take over from him. As if to add salt to an injury, the three senatorial candidates in the state happened to be Muslims! This became a campaign issue which was used to swing votes against APC. In my personal interaction with some Christian religious leaders in the state, they confided in me that they were far from being comfortable with the sense of alienation they had before the elections in terms of choice of candidates which was tilted in favour of Islam. Interestingly, Muslim clerics in a live telecast during the last Maolud celebration asked APC governorship candidate to affirm his Islamic faith before he could enjoy the support of Muslims in the state. With all these, APC lost virtually all critical elections at a roll – presidential, senatorial seat contested by the governor and the governorship election badly too.

    From the foregoing, it needs be emphasised that the relationship between religion and democracy would thus appear to require very careful management. It may take ‘eternity’ for Nigeria to operate really as a secular state where even sufficiently educated people that are supposed to know better as a guiding light to the society operate as religious bigots how much more an ordinary folk.

     

    • Ojo (Ph.D) an Associate Professor of Comparative Politics and immediate past Chief of Staff to Oyo State governor .

     

  • A good time to improve our democracy

    From comments of pundits and folk observers of political affairs, it is becoming clearer that more efforts are required by political and government leaders to listen, more than ever, to texts and subtexts of political conversations from the academy and the media to bus-stop or beer-parlour seminars. Those who see elections as the most important aspect of democratic governance are already calling for electoral reforms that can make voting less stressful for the electorate. Just a few weeks after the elections, some citizens are asking for further digitization of the electoral process to further facilitate voting. Such calls include introduction of proxy voting, online voting, online registration for PVCs, carrying ballot boxes to millions of Nigerians in diaspora, and making election dates sacrosanct as it has become in the United States.

    But much more muffled than demands for electoral reforms are calls for political reforms that can save and strengthen democracy in the country. Even in constituencies which in the past seemed inured to post-election tension, such as those who assured neighbours after the annulment of June 12 presidential election that Nigerians have uncanny flair for surviving any form of crisis, are now whispering that the country should not push its luck too hard and too far.

    New calls are coming from old and new quarters that the belief by many political leaders that Nigeria’s political system has reached the ‘end of history’ needs to be jettisoned. During the Jonathan administration, symbolic efforts were made to reopen the country’s journey away from the imagination that the legacy of the military in government has sealed the country’s destiny. But the efforts, marked by the 2014 National Conference, quickly fizzled out, as Jonathan himself looked away from recommendations on how to reform the political system.

    The first four years of President Buhari’s administration returned to the school of thought that Nigeria has reached the end of history, especially from the perspective of Buhari. Even after the All Progressives Congress (APC) had campaigned among other pledges to devolve powers to subnational governments and after the APC as a party had made recommendations on how to reform the federal political system, President Buhari held on to the belief that nothing was wrong with the political culture of over centralization that military regimes had bequeathed to the country via the 1999 Constitution.

    Even at the time that many communities in the country were calling for sovereign national conference, restructuring of the polity, re-federalization, or devolution of powers to subnational governments, the kind of division that surfaced during and after the 2019 elections was almost unimaginable. Callers for restructuring were at that time more concerned about ignoring the need to reinforce national unity through the mechanism of decentralization. Today’s Nigeria looks more divided than it was in the Abacha years, despite that today’s government has the legitimacy that the Abacha administration lacked. Fortunately, today’s government has more  legitimate opportunities to act than Abacha did.

    It may be true that citizens voted for President Buhari because of the manifesto of Next Level and that all his government needs to do in the next four years is to deliver on the promise of Next Level. It must also not be lost to us that millions of Nigerians could have voted for Buhari and the APC to give them four more years to deliver on the promise of devolving powers and bringing federalist spirit to the country. Adding the number of APC men and women who read the APC manifesto of 2015 and 2018 as complementary platforms and then voted for Buhari and APC for  another four years to those who might have voted solely on the basis of the platform of Next Level, we are likely to get a true picture that majority of voters who voted desire economic and political reform or restructuring.

    Democratic elections not only allow citizens to choose the leader(s) they prefer, they also allow those seeking to govern the electors to have a glimpse of what bothers them. The 2019 elections reveal that there are diverging views in the polity about how to sustain the country’s national unity and development. Thereafter, it is the leader that is expected to receive and digest the messages embedded in the patterns of voting. It is not only the desires of those perceived by the winner that have voted for his stated manifesto alone that should matter for inclusive governance. And inclusive governance is not necessarily limited to choosing candidates for political appointments, governing in an inclusive manner often requires that the leader pay attention to wishes of those who might have voted for other parties, once such wishes are not inimical to progress of the country.

    Remarkably, President Buhari has promised open and inclusive governance voluntarily, a sign of his readiness to be different than when he complained about those who did not vote for him in 2015. The promise of inclusive government coming from him unsolicited by those in opposition suggests that the president is ready to listen to the views of others during his second term more than he did in the last four years. Therefore, this column congratulates him for announcement of his commitment to open and inclusive governance. Unlike in the last four years when he relished dismissing those who called for political reform that includes returning federalism to the country, his final tenure may require cultivation of a different leadership style.

    The leadership style of the last four years was not democratic enough for the needs of the country. It indicated that President Buhari was more interested in keeping the re-engineering of the country’s political system by military rulers as a mark of ‘end of history.’ Nigeria is one of the youngest countries in the world, even though the nations within it are old civilizations. Imagining the country as having already reached its apogee in political system is akin to disregarding the humanity of its citizens, especially their God-given capacity to improve ideas and structures that affect their life and living.

    Afterall, President Buhari has already recognized that the economic system bequeathed to the country by military regimes is now outdated and needs reform. His rhetoric and actions in respect of reducing reliance on finite fossil energy as means of livelihood for about 200 million people must have stimulated his economic reform, particularly his emphasis on economic diversification.

    The President will leave a richer legacy if extends his acceptance of inevitability of economic change to the political system left behind by the military, just as he has been trying to do for the parasitic reliance on petroleum. The need for change becomes more urgent when citizens demand that the political system by which they are governed are alien to their history and requires to be replaced by a more user-friendly political system. His second term in power gives Buhari a rare opportunity to improve not only the economy of the country but also its governance. Coming back for another four years gives him a chance to create structures that can lead to sustainable national unity. The calls for democratic decentralization, regardless of whatever irritating names this process must have been given in the past, is a call worth giving consideration by President Buhari, no longer because he needs to market himself for another tenure, but because he cares about Nigeria beyond his presidency.

  • Legitimacy, power and democracy

    In politics  and indeed in any  democracy, winning power  is one thing.  Securing  that power  however  is  another  matter. Ensuring  that power is won  and  won in the right  way and manner is the  main  ingredient  of  legitimacy  and the  rule  of  law. Some  world  leaders  are  locked  in a  grip  of  a fight  to protect  the power  that they  won at elections  and  are  as it were fighting for their  political  lives  as such.  Others  have such overwhelming victories at elections that  their  legitimacy  is assured  if not  already  taken  for granted. In effect  then the acquisition  of  power  in elections and the keeping or loss  of it thereafter is the crux  of our discussion  today.

    Nothing illustrates our  topic  today  more  vividly  than  two events,  first  in Osun  State  in  Nigeria  last week,  as  well as the Mueller Report in the US which  literally cleared US  President Donald  Trump  of collusion  with  Russia  in winning  the US  2016 Presidential  election.  The  two  events  are also  two sides  of the same coin. One  removed  legitimacy  from the Osun State incumbent governor  Olugboyega  Oyetola  in  Osogbo  the other in Washington affirmed  the legitimacy of the American president’s election  two  years  ago . .  We  shall  examine the two  events alongside  Brexit  Adventures  and Deals of UK PM  Theresa  May in clinging to  the legitimacy  of the Brexit Referendum at  all  costs and branding those  MPs  opposing her  as anti  democracy  and against    the  declared  interests  of the British  people.  We also  examine the challenge posed to the new  mandate of President Muhammadu  Buhari  of  the APC  by  the  court case  brought  after the election by his defeated  opponent  who  gave figures purportedly from INEC  server thereby  claiming to have won the  2019 presidential  elections in Nigeria.

    It  is well known  that the legitimacy  of an elections  flounders when  the  integrity  of  its fairness  and  legality  is successfully  assailed in a court  of  law.  Yet  it is not only in a court  of  law  that electoral  integrity  can  be  attacked  or undermined. Public  opinion  too  can drag  legitimacy  in the  mud as the CNN, Washington Post  and New  York  Times  have shown  the US President over alleged  Russian Collusion  in  the  last two  years.

    Belief  in the legal  system  or its opposite  can  also  tax  the legitimacy  of any newly  elected leader when  post  election  legal battles  begin as is the case  in both  Osun  and the last presidential  elections in  Nigeria. In  all  these  scenarios  and in any political  system,  legitimacy,  the affirmation and conclusion  that  a leader has been  elected in a free and fair election  according to the electoral  rules  is the icing on the cake in any democracy  in our  world as we know it  today.

    We  go back  to the Osun  guber  election  where  the Court ruled that the incumbent  governor  Olugboyega Oyetola  should vacate  office and his  opponent  Ademola  Adeleke  who  lost  the election earlier should  be given a fresh  mandate  certificate  by INEC  which appears  to  be a straight  forward  situation.  Until  INEC announced  that it would  not do this yet  because the displaced incumbent  governor  has 21  days to  appeal  according to the law.

    Which  he has done, meaning  the status quo remains  and the incumbent  governor remains  in  office  till  the  case is decided in the Supreme  Court  at a time no  one can  certainly  predic. That  simply  means that the incumbent  governor’s  legitimacy  is fractured  even  as he rules  as governor  in borrowed  robes. Unless of course  the  Supreme  Court  overturns  the verdict  that stripped  him  of  legitimacy  later. For  now  according to our  law,  the new  winner must brood  over what  he  thinks  is  his stolen  mandate  and legitimacy.  Certainly  he  and his supporters must  think  of  the law  as an  ass  in this  case, at  least  for now. But  if  the  Court  of  Appeal  or  Supreme  Court  affirms his  verdict  and  he assumes  his  mandate  he  can  certainly refer  gladly  to the legal  saying that says the mills  of  justice may grind  slowly  but they grind  exceedingly  fine.

    Certainly  Donald  Trump  can  also echo  the  view  point on the mills  of justice  on his clearance  by the Mueller  Inquiry  on Russian  Collusion. But  one  must commend  the doughty US  President for  the fierce way  he  defended his  mandate  and legitimacy  all along.  Undoubtedly  if  he  had  been  quiet  I doubt  if  the decision  would have  favoured  him. He  fought  the  anti  Trump Press with  a huge barrage of tweets  never  seen  or  used  before by any  President in the US or  even  our entire world.  His counter  Charge of  ‘fake news’  and’ witch  hunt’  were  catch phrases  he used  to blackmail  his media  opponents  and to secure his  legitimacy  which  the Russian Collusion charge  threatened mightily. He  has my  grudging  admiration  in this  regard  as well as my  pity on what he has been  made to go through  since his election.  He  is certainly  a good  lesson  for  Political  Science and  politicians  on how  world  leaders  should  fight  for their mandates  and power, secured in a free  and fair  election in any democracy.

    Let  us  now  look  at  the Brexit  issue  and especially  the role of the British  PM, Theresa May  on her  many  deals  that Parliament never  bought till  she pitched in  her resignation as the ultimate price of approval. She  has  thus    literally    given  her head on a platter  of  gold  for  a lamentable  reason  and a  pitiable  excuse. In  a way  she has turned  legitimacy  and democracy  on their  heads by insisting on the Brexit  Result  of  a  Referendum that the British  people now no  longer want. In  insisting on that Brexit  Result  she  is  pursuing  a false  legitimacy  for  which history  would  judge  her harshly  as unduly rigid  and frigid  or even  blind  on the direction of  public  opinion and the true wishes of the British  people on  Brexit.  She  has taxed  the patience  of MPs, the  loquacious  but    brilliant  Speaker, the taciturn EU leaders  and she  has  lost  her  leadership  role cheaply  and quite deservedly  for  the  wrong  reasons  including that the British  people  must  fall  on their  sword  for  voting Brexit. Her  act  is a wonderful  and unbelievable one in  how  to be a  poor  first  amongst equal  in the Cabinet  System  that  has been the backbone  and  legitimacy of  the  British  Parliamentary Democracy  that  has  now  crashed  with  her handling of  Brexit.

    It  is not sad  at  all  in my view  to see her exit as  PM over Brexit. Good  riddance would  indeed  be an understatement. On  the  presidential  election    appeal, the  charge  by the spokesman  of  the ruling  APC  that  it was criminal  for the PDP  to access  the server of INEC    to  collate  a result  different from that  announced by INEC  as election  results for  the presidential election makes interesting  reading.  First  the APC  Spokesman  is a well  known  lawyer  and should  know that the  case  is already in  court  and commenting on it is  subjudice. But  since  he  has broached  a crucial  issue  one  must  ask if  it is wrong  to  access

    election  results on a public server  especially  in an election. The issue  at stake is the integrity  of  the figures. That  is what APC  should dispute and  INEC  should  affirm or  disprove.

    Nigerians are  watching  to  see that justice  is  done one way or the other.  That  is the mark  of  legitimacy  in any  democracy  and Nigeria is not an exception. Once  again, long live the  Federal Republic  of Nigeria.