Following his shock and clearly unanticipated defeat in the April 28, 2015, presidential election, especially in the light of the unbroken electoral invincibility of presidential incumbency in the country’s political history, former President Goodluck Jonathan was ushered back from the dizzying heights of intoxicating glory to the sobering realms of reality. In perhaps the most reflective and philosophical mood of his 16-yearsojourn in public office, Jonathan told members of the Christian community in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, who paid him a post-election Easter homage at the presidential Villa, that he had actually been in a cage during his adventures in power at various levels from Deputy Governor to Governor, Vice President and ultimately the country’s apex office since 1999.
In his words: “From 1999 I have been in the hands of government. I am yet to see somebody luckier than I was in the hands of government for 16 years, not in government as a parliamentarian, because if you are in the National Assembly or House of Assembly, you take care of yourself in your house. I was in a cage being taken care of by the government. But I think it is enough and I am happy. Help me to thank God for that”.
Of course, Dr Jonathan could not have been more mistaken as regards the true nature and essence of the cage. I am reminded of the gripping autobiographical novel, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’, by the late African American writer, Maya Angelou. She writes with a combination of zest, verve and pathos about how, growing up in segregated America in the 1930s and 40s, she was ‘imprisoned’, her self-esteem entrapped in the limiting cages of racial discrimination, gender repression and class deprivation.
The song of the caged bird is not a rousing, thrilling, joyous Hallelujah chorus. It is a dirge, a pitiful, mournful monotone. For, the cage is not a space of liberty and dignity. It is a humiliating place of confinement. It is a restrictive prison. It is a suffocating cell. Feed the caged bird as much as you want. It will always thirst for the freedom to flap its wings, hop from tree to tree and soar freely in the skies. By its very nature, the cage constricts, distorts and devalues the true nature of its trapped occupant.
The defining essence of the quintessential occupant of public office particularly in a democracy is to pursue the Benthamite ideal of the greatest happiness of the greatest number of the people. He is fulfilled only by a passionate commitment to fulfilling his social contract with the public and promoting the general good. To do this, more so in a presidential system where governmental effectiveness depends largely on the energy of the executive arm, the Chief Executive must be free to soar in what Eugene Peterson would describe as the ‘wide open spaces’ of respect for the majesty of the law, dogged commitment to truth, unimpeachable transparency and fierce fidelity to the public trust. But the Nigerian presidency is deliberately designed to negate these values; to effectively cage the occupant of the office, imbue him with an exaggerated sense of his own infallibility, while crafty minders of the presidential zoo feather their nests to their heart’s content.
You must give it to Jonathan. Yes, he has his own faults like all of us. But he is at heart a good natured man who can be sometimes amazingly naive in his utter simplicity. This is why he at least honestly admitted he was in a cage even if he himself betrayed a manifest misunderstanding of the nature of his confinement. The Nigerian presidency is tailor made to take maximum advantage of the weaknesses of a man like Jonathan. Thus, while he theorized leisurely about the very intricate differences between stealing and corruption, the delighted minders of the presidential zoo kept him endlessly distracted while, as is becoming ever more glaring by the day, they engaged in a looting spree of epidemic proportions. But then, the problem is not with Jonathan. It is with the Nigerian presidency, which transformed an ordinarily humble school teacher into a most unwilling Nebuchadnezzar.
It is my humble submission that every President in this dispensation has been effectively caged by the excessive and intoxicating powers of the Nigerian presidency. General Olusegun Obasanjo is an able man. It is not for nothing that he has played historical roles at key moments of Nigeria’s political evolution. His patriotism and nationalism are beyond dispute.He was really passionate about fighting corruption. Towards this end, he takes the credit for ensuring the creation and strengthening of such anti-corruption agencies as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as well as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other offences Commission (ICPC).
At the end of the day, however, Obasanjo’s legacy was indelibly stained by the aborted Third Term Agenda, aimed at illegal and immoral tenure elongation. This ranks among the worst forms of political corruption perpetrated in this dispensation. The excessive and intoxicating powers of the Nigerian presidency fed the Messianic streak in an otherwise well- meaning President making him vulnerable to the antics of essentially self-seeking sycophants.
The late President UmaruYar’Adua was a man of impeccable integrity as well as uncommon dignity and honour. But for the ill health that dogged his brief tenure, there were indications that he would most likely have easily ranked among the greatest Presidents of our time. Not only did he frankly admit the flawed nature of the polls that brought him to power, he took concrete steps to initiate fundamental electoral reforms. He set the precedent of publicly declaring his assets without prompting. Yet, a vicious and rapacious cabal, capitalising on Yar’Adua’s ill health marginalized the legal and legitimate institutions of state and practically hijacked the reigns of presidential power until death mercifully intervened.
Now, President MuhammaduBuhari has his work cut out for him. His integrity is legendary. His zero tolerance for corruption makes him an iconic moral avatar. The Daura General’s austere lifestyle stands him out in the putrescent crowd of the country’s indulgent and hedonistic political and economic elite. Buhari cuts the enigmatic figure of the conservative General as radical reformer. In a short span of time in office, he has demonstrated convincingly that his redemptive zeal has not flagged. Yet, it is unlikely that the change agenda of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which Buhari embodies, can transmute into the enduring transformation desired even if he spends two terms of eight years in office. The rot and decay have set in too deeply for an instant cure to be effected within such a short time frame.
The change Buhari and the APC promise should, in my view, begin with the presidency itself. The President must curb the monstrous powers of an institution that perverts and taints virtually all who sit at the apex of presidential authority. Within the context of a demobilized civil society, an inchoate party system, a deformed federal structure that is essentially unitary, an ineffectual and morally incapacitated legislature and an economically famished and ethically challenged media, the Nigerian presidency is institutionally ‘overdeveloped’ and a veritable source of systemic dysfunction.
Buhari must thus strive to enhance and institutionalize the relative autonomy of critical institutions of state – the police, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), anti-corruption agencies and Directorate of State Security (DSS) in particular – from the suffocating grip of the presidency. This is to ensure that if less restrained, decent and principled persons occupy the office in future after him, they will be less able to wield presidential powers in the kind of politically detrimentaland disruptive ways we have witnessed in the last 16 years.
Two other critical ingredients necessary to avert the possibility of another caged presidency under Buhari are first, decoupling the ruling party from the unhealthy dominion of the presidency. Luckily, President Buhari has shown a commendable reluctance to immerse his presidency unduly in internal partisan party matters. As the sobering experience of the PDP shows, when a ruling party at the centre becomes no better than just another parastatal of the presidency, its vital energies are sapped, its internal structures and processes begin to atrophy and it is only a matter of time before it collapses under its own dead weight. It is up to President Buhari and the APC to choose another path.
Secondly, the APC must pursue a fundamental de-concentration of power from the centre to the states and local governments in a process of systematic re-federalization of the polity. The Buhari administration deserves commendation for its dogged prosecution of its anti-graft war. However, theover-concentration of power, responsibilities and resources at the centre, must also be a cardinal part of the APC’s change agenda in order to tackle the menace at the no less important structural level. As it is, the Nigerian presidency still remains very prone to being caged by ethno-regional cabals, unprincipled power cliques and shadowy cartels of graft with negative consequences for the polity.
