Can a toxic presidency produce a wholesome president? That is one fundament players across the political divide have refused to grasp.
That appears responsible for the conceptual fog that continues to plague the National Conference, billed to take off on March 17.
On the virtual eve of a supposedly make-or-mar confab, partisan temper appears coalesced on the ruinous centrism that has beggared Nigeria for decades now — and seems set to see its eventual unravelling.
The trajectory of the Nigerian ruling court, since the colonial times, appears clear enough. Lord Fredrick Lugard headed a colonial regime sold to total local exploitation for its Metropole.
At independence, foreign domination gave way to local domination. The collapse into military rule, shortly after, further formalised the notion of power without responsibility.
Even with the current democracy, little has changed. From Olusegun Obasanjo to Goodluck Jonathan, the ruling ethos appears clearly on the side of an unquestionable Leviathan, even with the mouthing of “democracy” and “federalism”.
At the root of this subversion of democracy and good governance is idle funds in the central till, that gives each succeeding president the Dutch courage that it could do and undo — so long as it has enough cash to fund its rascality. And all the talk about the unity of Nigeria being a “no go” area is all scarecrow stuff: to divert attention from the real dangers; and keep the central Leviathan intact.
Even in the build-up to the confab, you could tell from the body language of the Jonathan Presidency that it is anxious that those idle funds are never drained off, so that it could retain the instrument to wield humongous mischief, powered by idle money.
What is more? Though one should always give the extant government the benefit of the doubt, that its intentions are noble and its motive pure, the N7 billion budget for the confab, with the anticipated N4 million allowance for each delegate, looks like some grand but cynical bribe to lure who is who into some bazaar, from which they can’t possibly pull out until it is too late.
Yet, if this conference fails to fix Nigeria for good, other dynamics would fix Nigeria for ill.
But not only the government side is fixated with centrist tendencies. The opposition too is not entirely cured of that ailment.
To be sure, the newly released All Progressives Congress (APC) road map appears exciting. But it is still based on the centralist tenet of an all-powerful and all-rich federal government; that would nevertheless spend its excess money more responsibly than the reckless and spendthrift Jonathan Presidency.
If the APC federal government is pledged to creating two jobs for every one job a state creates, the simple logical conclusion is that the central government is an economic Leviathan, far richer than the states it is supporting.
No doubt, creating jobs that way is not unwelcome. Indeed, it would be hailed by all — the distressed youths and their ever-stressed parents and guardians. But it hardly changes the current folly of building an economy top-down, instead of down-up. That is the bane of Nigeria’s pseudo-federalism, and the root of the country’s perennial under-development.
Where then are the sharp federalist alternatives, that should mark APC out as leading the push from sickly centrism to vibrant federalism, in the best tradition of “Change”, its political war cry?
Still, APC may well be a victim of its grand coalition. Aside from the South West that has a radical federalist agenda, the attitude of others appears somewhat ambivalent, even if it is the fashion these days to mouth “true federalism”.
The North is basically centrist at heart, which is understandable. That region has most benefited from Nigeria’s skewed federalism — and power nepotism. But it also has paid the stiffest price of its dysfunction. With its parlous development index, it is a region purging from the sweet poison of its “good” fortune.
The South East is torn between growing and managing its landlocked homeland — which, with its talent it is perfectly capable of doing — and the fate of its far-flung Ndigbo in the “Nigerian Diaspora”. Its ambivalence on the federal cause is perhaps understandable.
The South-South, on the other hand, screams federalism and resource control to have more of its oil wealth — hardly illegitimate. But if Jonathan can nick the good luck of four more years, it would appear quite open to a central bazaar’s last hurrah.
These might therefore be the cross-current APC had been navigating before coming up with its road map, which is anything but federal, save for its proposal to vest minerals and mining in local interests, as against the present joke of making it a central affair, and its consequent paralysis.
After the failed hope of five decades, therefore, it is sheer folly to entrust the fortune of Nigerians to a good man or woman, without radically restructuring the bad system. That is more or less what the APC roadmap offers. The APC good men and women are welcome. But even more welcome is a good system!
The system to do the job is robust federalism, with even more robust checks and balances, between a pared down centre and much more energised federating units. That should ensure the real economy is in the constituent parts, with the federal government doing positive facilitation and coordination.
Former President Obasanjo and incumbent President Jonathan are a pole apart as any can be: the one, a gruff, irredeemable old soldier whose default temper is dictatorship; the other a harmless-looking, ever-smiling bloke with a supposed liberal temper.
But see the difference in their presidencies: six and half-a-dozen, when the issue is unconscionable domination and wielding power without responsibility!
The one suborned the local economy for an illicit presidential library complex; and is living happily ever after with his trophy. The other cannot account for an allegedly missing US$ 20 billion oil money. Yet he is flushed, not with regret, but with a sickening sense of divine entitlement for second term!
Obasanjo and Jonathan are both products of a toxic presidency. Any wonder they have not emerged non-toxic presidents?
So, the first task before the National Conference, if they really want Nigeria’s survival, is to detoxify the Presidency flush with toxic money, and channel such to development, where it is needed.
Two eminent Nigerians are pointing at the way out.
Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Commonwealth secretary-general, is voting for a restructured federation, based on federating regions of states.
Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who shares in the notoriety of the military and its central command complex that has left Nigeria winded, warns at the mutual desperation between his native North (ogling central power as it is) and the South-South — read opportunistic Jonathan (not in a hurry to spew out, to use Achebe-speak, the palm kernel thrust in its mouth by benevolent spirits!).
The National Conference must rid Nigeria of its misery — a toxic presidency that fattens while the people in its charge waste. It is the arrogant face of mindless centrism that has underdeveloped Nigeria for too long.
But should it preserve this hideous Leviathan, it would have paved Nigeria’s way to Golgotha.
