The Ekiti State governor-elect, Dr John Kayode Fayemi, recently gave the keynote address at DAI Board Meeting in Nigeria.
(August 09, 2018), and I am certain no regular reader of this column would be surprised that the pedagogical offering graces these pages today. It is absolutely fascinating that we can all, once again, drink from the wealth of knowledge, and experience, of this development and people-oriented, professional in politics.
But then, let me slightly vary the address by starting from the concluding part because of its topicality. Happy reading.
“In conclusion, let me go back to Ekiti because that’s why you invited me in the first place. Clearly, the past four years has not only seen the steady decline in the socio-economic circumstances of our people, but also a corresponding denigration of our integrity as a people. When I left office in 2014, Ekiti had the highest enrolment of school children in Nigeria, now it has the lowest in the South West; equally, Ekiti had the lowest child and maternal mortality rates in the country but it’s now experiencing serious challenges in the health sector, it has the lowest HIV prevalence in the country and the highest life expectancy partly because it was the only state with a social security benefit scheme for the elderly. Given the fact that effective governance has deteriorated, all these gains have been eroded and poverty rates have hit the roof. More worryingly, our pristine values had been eroded and our collective reputations sullied. My decision to contest in the recently held gubernatorial election in the state was therefore motivated by the need to lead a collective rescue mission of our state, which inspired the theme of our campaigns “Reclaiming our Land; Restoring our Values.”
I believe our victory at the polls is a testament to the collapse of Stomach Infrastructure and its resounding rejection by the people. While the jury may still be out in certain quarters, I am convinced that Ekiti citizens on balance have shown their preference for tangible development against democracy of the stomach. They have seized the opportunity to rewrite a new narrative. Our duty is to ensure that they do not regret their choice. This is why it is imperative that we resume our aggressive developmental strategy for the state. Clearly, Ekiti State needs rapid development to regain the lost years. We need to restore inclusive governance that caters to the generality of the citizens-particularly at the grassroots. So, if DAI really wants to do development differently, the destination of choice is Ekiti. Help us in the quest to reclaim our land and restore our values. It is a key factor in moving from short-termism to sustainable development”.
Excellencies, Distinguished ladies and gentlemen
Let me express my gratitude for the privilege of addressing this audience. I would like to thank particularly the CEO of DAI [Jim Boomgard] and the Country Director, my brother and friend, Dr. Joe Abah, for asking me to do this. This is my first public engagement since the historic election in my state almost a month ago. It is understandable therefore if I use this occasion to share a few thoughts on the trajectory of politics, governance, and elections in my home state Ekiti, and its implications for democratic development in Nigeria.
The myth of stomach infrastructure in Nigeria
In 2014, when we lost the election in Ekiti State, there were many who cast the polls as a contest between an aloof intellectual consumed by the minutiae of governance and infrastructural development and a people-pleasing populist who showed that he was in tune with the masses. Our administration was said to be too bookish and too focused on reversing the poverty trend in the state and thus easily upstaged by a charismatic challenger who understood the power of “stomach infrastructure”-a euphemism for immediate gratification over long-term development. What has transpired in my home state since 2014 has further fortified my belief that cheap populism and opportunistic demagoguery do not represent what is best in us as a people and hold no potential for actualising the hopes and dreams of millions of Nigerians.
In the age of deceptive populism and post-truth politics, we must concede that Ekiti represents a local manifestation of a global malady-what has been referred to by French political scientist, Francois Bayart as ‘the politics of the belly’ or what the respected Stanford scholar, Larry Diamond, described as leading to a ‘global democratic recession.’ Indeed, some observers have identified certain traits that many of these latter-day populists have in common including a disdain for decorum and civility, a disregard for facts and evidence and a flair for the outrageous all of which serve to reify a basic and all-encompassing unfitness for public office.
Yet it is easy to believe that when elections are won on dodgy propaganda, cheap populism, and criminal brigandage, voters who bought into the sleight of hand might see the error of their ways and that self-correction is bound to be the resulting outcome. Unfortunately, when lies become the oxygen of politics and governance, it is often the ethos of politics and the institutions of governance that are largely diminished. Since the voters are supposedly always right, what this does, if care is not taken, is allow them to justify their errors on the simplistic notion that “all politicians are the same.” Even where there is evidence to suggest otherwise, as was the case in Ekiti in 2014, there still persists a level of self-righteousness that fails to acknowledge errors of judgment. But if we are to move from this situation, all must admit they have sinned. The voter, on the one hand, must accept culpability for being cast adrift in the ocean of lies. On the other hand, every politician must acknowledge the place of populism and not labour in the mistaken belief that the average voter is so discerning to separate the wheat from the chaff. In short, substance matters, but symbols cannot be ignored.
What transpired in the recent election in Ekiti must be seen in this context; first with the deconstruction of opportunistic demagoguery for what it is with contrasting perspectives of an incontestable past record of competence in office, but also by the effective deployment of critical strategies that resonated with the voting public. Although the job was made easier by the sheer adversity of the past four years, it is also true to say Ekiti voters have become more resistant to the cynical ploys of those who would use poverty as a political weapon with no corresponding record of service delivery to the people.
Implications for developmental politics
Three years is a long time in politics and almost four years after our historic triumph in the last presidential elections, we find ourselves on the cusp of another election year with choices of great consequence upon us. In 2015, we offered a message of change and millions of Nigerians moved by the compelling currency of our agenda voted massively in favour of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress. In so doing, they also brought a watershed moment and a turning point in our politics-the dislodgement of an incumbent president and party. Clearly, the post-election euphoria has since dissipated. It is fair to say that in the immediate aftermath of our taking charge of government, we could have moved with far more urgency than we did.
Some critics have argued with some justification that we could have done a much better job of managing expectations after the polls. It is said that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. Even so, the poetry of our campaign was never so abstract and fantastic as to downplay what we believed to be the onerous nature of the task ahead. The journey so far has been difficult. An economic recession occasioned by falling oil prices proved to be an immense obstacle to our plans and programmes. Toward the end of last year, our efforts began to yield fruit and the country moved out of recession.
Our exit from recession and the resurgence of oil prices after a period of economic contraction indicate that despite the challenges facing us, there have been many positive changes upon which to build. In critical sectors like agriculture, social investments, infrastructure development, particularly roads, rail and power infrastructure, mining and manufacturing, the country has witnessed significant progress.
These are areas that have a direct verifiable bearing on the fortunes of millions of Nigerians in terms of jobs and investment opportunities. We have prioritized improving the ease of doing business in Nigeria as part of our overall commitment to making Nigeria an investment destination. Elsewhere, particularly in the Northeast, the advent of an administration that has shown commitment in word and deed to tackling the insurgency in the region has yielded positive results. The first is a universally agreed upon improvement in the security situation in the region. According to the Global Terrorism Index, there was an 80 percent decrease in terror incidents in Nigeria-the biggest such decline in terror-related incidents in the world. This development has inspired much goodwill and the significant commitments by the international community to humanitarian intervention, recovery and rehabilitation in the North-East. To be sure, there remain serious security challenges nationwide-especially as it relates to farmers-herdsmen clashes and the administration is committed to addressing them but it is an undeniable fact that normalcy is returning to the insurgency-affected North-East-a region of the country that captured global attention in recent years. I believe government will also bring that zeal to bear in tackling other threats to peace and security in other parts of the federation.
Clearly, there are areas in which we have not fully kept to the ideals and programmes espoused in our manifesto. The question of fundamental reforms to our federal architecture remains very much an elephant-some would say The Elephant-in the room. The fervour surrounding the debate about restructuring and improving our federalism indicates that there are very passionate and strongly held views on both sides of the divide. There is, however, considerable agreement on the fact that there are fundamental flaws in our national governmental order that strongly inhibit our drive for reform and progress. The government is not unaware of the enduring topicality of this issue. Indeed, the All Progressives Congress set up a committee on “True Federalism” which has submitted a report to the Party after extensive consultations around the country and I believe this is an issue that the Party will pursue with added vigour in the runup to the 2019 elections.
All said, I am willing to acknowledge that there are many who feel that there are sufficient grounds for disappointment and there is much room for improvement in terms of how we have managed our historic mandate so far. Even so, I remain convinced that going back to the norms and paradigms of the previous administration is not an option. And here, I must let you know since you’re outsiders looking in that it can be dangerous to fall for the myth that the major parties are the same. WE ARE NOT THE SAME? When in office, the PDP embraced supply side economics in accord with the dictates of international financial institutions. In their worldview, the moneyed elite and big business got preferments to maximize their economic advantages. This trickle-down economic theory clearly failed to empower the bulk of our population. Alternatively, we have embraced a more grassroots model of economic development with social safety nets, increased agricultural output, revival of moribund industries, improved infrastructure development, and the promotion of knowledge economy. In all of these, we see government as a catalyst for development, not a bystander that seeks to sell off all public goods. This is our alternative vision for development and democracy and the difference is clear.