The NGF must confront insecurity on a non party basis
Innumerable congratulations, Excellency. We are here today for serious business so let it suffice for me to say, as I mentioned in my text message to you, that I have sent you five congratulatory messages in as many months, and by His grace, good news will never seize in your household. Amen.
The emergence of Dr Kayode Fayemi – former, and serving, Governor of Ekiti state , an academic and policy wonk, with a doctoral degree in War Studies from King’s College, University of London who, though governed the state with about the ‘littlest’ monthly federal allocation, still turned out the first ever Nigerian state governor to pay a monthly stipend to the elderly, a policy he ensured, as Director of Policy for the APC, at inception, became the corner piece of the Buhari administration’s social investment programme – at a time like this, cannot have been more apt.His educational and political trajectory, not forgetting his democracy credentials should, to a great extent, serve not only him, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum , but also a currently, highly traumatised Nigeria, besotted with some grueling, multi- faceted challenges, amongst them economic, and wide ranging insecurity. Governor Fayemi could possibly not have been better prepared for the challenges eagerly awaiting the distinguished members of the NGF .
Of these, I shall draw attention to only two very critical issues, with the pervasive, almost intractable, national insecurity, topping the list. The other is the emerging Local Government/Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) snafu at a time the President has just spoken about the inevitability of true federalism, if Nigeria is to make a headway.
How the in – coming Chairman leads his colleagues to tackle these two problems will not only assist governance at the federal level, it will significantly determine whether, or not, we are a serious nation, and understand, how far we have regressed in recent years because of our divisive, and anti developmental politics. Nobody will easily forget how the NGF stood, ramrod, against every attempt by President Goodluck Jonathan to save for the rainy day. When recession subsequently hit the country with crude oil selling at its lowest in decades, the governors were the first to shout blue murder. One of Governor Fayemi’s greatest challenges would be how to moderate the greed of his governor – colleagues, many of who are already dead set in their ways.
He obviously should need no telling about how the rampaging insecurity in the country can effortlessly mess up all his APC federal government has achieved in the past 4 years. Insecurity has become so pervasive that not a few state governors had literally sang the Nunc Dimitis. Indeed, his immediate predecessor felt no shame, whatever, asking that a state of emergency be declared in his state. This speaks largely to the needless, and totally unhelpful, unitarism currently in place in Nigeria.
Under his leadership, the NGF must confront insecurity on a non party basis as no bandit, no Boko Haram or kidnapper asks what political party his would be victim belongs to. The Forum must thoroughly interrogate the causes, and not just the evidences of insecurity, several of which we see on a daily basis. So horrible is it in Katsina that the President, this past week, despatched top military and other security personnel to the state. The governors must help themselves too. They must establish a synergy with the National Assembly, work amicably with that arm of government to facilitate the creation of state police when the much talked about community police would become truly operational. They should also work towards affecting a massive increase in the number of our serving police men who are currently evidently overworked.. There is also the much needed constitutional amendment that will have state commissioners of police being made responsible to state governors. Incidentally, these things require no rocket science if only all arms of government will work harmoniously for the sake of the people.
As you read this, it is not only Abuja-Kaduna road that is a death trap. There are many such roads, and axis, all over the country; not forgetting that many Sambisa-like forests, all over the country, have reportedly been taken over by kidnappers who operate in 10’s, and 20’s, brandishing weapons that are alien to our security forces. It will be quite helpful if, under Governor Fayemi’s leadership, our governors would work in harmony with the Executive to ensure that these ragamuffins are cleared from wherever they are hiding. Otherwise, Nigeria risks a great diminution of the advances the Buhari government has made in agriculture since many communities, in different parts of the country, have since abandoned their farms as a result of the bestiality of murderous Fulani herdsmen. The NGF, as first responders in stares under attack, must help the executive to fashion out a reasonable, safe and equitable way out of the present situation. Needless to say, increasing decertification, and climate change, in general, must induce some consideration for the millions of herders we have in Nigeria. But those of them, in their thousands, who have transmogrified into armed robbers and kidnappers must be flushed out..
Olakunle Abimbola describes it as ‘baiting a needless crisis”. However, the incipient war between the executive, the NGF and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) may end up needing a Treaty of Versailles to resolve and that would only be tentative because had Versailles succeeded, Hitler’s war, aka World War 11, would most probably not have occurred. This coming war is tricky; positioned as it is, betwixt the anti- corruption war, Buhari’s numero uno programme, and true federalism to which he recently sang some panegyrics. Governors would have a titanic struggle to douse the claim that many of them have been fleecing Local Government funds and, ipso facto, rendering that level of government literally useless. But theirs would be no less herculean than the combined ammo of both the Feds and the NFIU would have to contend with. The brickbats are already flying but, not being learned, I shall not get into any legalistic disquisition. Rather, I shall, respectfully, press into service an evergreen statesman, the one and only Uncle Bola Ige who, for me, has clinically finished the Local Government debate.
I quoted the Cicero as follows on these pages in an article on Sunday, 30 July 2017:
“In his column in The Sunday Tribune of 27 April, 1996 from which I shall quote at some length Chief Ige wrote: “anyone who has a good knowledge of the local government system, its history, theory and practice, not only in Nigeria but also in civilized countries, cannot be surprised at what is happening in various parts of the country since the Federal Military Government announced the “creation “of new local government areas. I personally have been shocked and pained by the violence that has been unleashed in some places and I am apprehensive that the tinder box is waiting to be ignited in some places where uneasy calm exists. There are modalities that govern local government systems all over the civilized world. The first is that a local government must be truly government at local level. In other words, the people of a given area must be allowed to come together, of their own accord, and in a spirit of agreeing to some sort of social contract, to run their local affairs. The community must of course be easily identifiable – usually they must be people of the same stock, or citizens who inhabit a town, or a village or a quarter as existed both during the colonial times and when we had regions. That was also what happened when I was governor of the old Oyo State. Local government system was based on emirates where they existed or administrative units where there were no emirates in the North; in the West, it was based on the combination of the Obaship system and innate democratic inclinations of the peoples of Western Nigeria; in the East where the people were largely republican, the local government system was based on the clan. Unfortunately, the Murtala-Obasanjo federal military government began the nonsense that has remained with us. Pretending that they wanted a better Local Government administration, they set up a Commission, headed by Alhaji Ibrahim Dasuki. In my opinion, the recommendations of that commission were the worst disaster to have happened to local government system in Nigeria. For instance, it was from there that the idea of uniformity in size, scope and administration was introduced”
The Yoruba in discussing a matter like this would say, O so si ni lenu, O bu iyo si meaning somebody farted in your mouth and instantly added salt”.
The new NGF Chairman will be expected to put into navigating these, and other critical issues of state, his well known perspicacity, experience and love of Fatherland.
I wish him well.
