The Nation Newspaper

Tag: progressive politics

  • Osun: Of progressive politics and democratic participation

    The approval by the national working committee of the All Progressive Congress (APC) of the use of direct primaries for the Osun State governorship aspirants represents a welcome reinstatement of the ethos and the building blocks which is at the very heart of the party system. Pluralism predisposes of course that there must be a choice of political parties from which the electorate will make a choice. The operations of political parties are therefore fundamental to the health and smooth operations of a democracy.

    It is unfortunate that the military intervention of January 15, 1966 by prohibiting the political parties of colonial times and the first republic tore apart the cloak of political socialisation and has subsequently prevented two generations from understanding how political parties are supposed to be structured, operated and driven. The twists and turns of the military handover to civil rule in reality led to the emergence of hurriedly cobbled together electoral special purpose vehicles who are only now by a natural process of evolution, transforming into real political parties in the sense that would have been incompatible with the initial military oversight.

    Democratic centralism is the propelling mechanism upon which the modern party system is based and for over 150 years, much like the separation of powers is bedrock of democracy. To be succinct, we might use the definition from Wikipedia – “Democratic centralism is a method of leadership in which political decisions reached by the party through its democratically elected bodies are binding upon all members of the party “. Anything else by deduction and indeed in common-sense will be a recipe for indiscipline leading to anarchy and the party’s reason for existence. The subordination of the interests of individuals, groups and factional interests to that of the overall collective interests of the party as a whole is therefore the lubricant of the modern political party. Overall it leads to greater accountability and provides a mechanism for genuine oversight and if all else fails, the right of recall, the ultimate sanction and corrective mechanism.

    In Nigeria’s political history over the past 70 years, it has been a perennial issue. It led in the 1940s to the well recorded turbulence in the pioneering anti – colonial Nigeria Youth Movement. In the 1950s the interpretation of party supremacy in the NCNC led to a faction led by Dr K.O. Mbadiwe breaking away. The eventual reconciliation was cemented on the firm acceptance of the efficacy of the principle of democratic centralism by the reuniting factions and tendencies. The defining momentum for the supremacy of democratic centralism in Nigeria is of course, the party convention of the Action Group party in Jos, now the capital of Plateau State in 1962. The issue was straightforward, the necessity of the regional government controlled by the Action Group to be in alignment with the expressed wishes of the membership of the party as interpreted by the elected organs of the party. The rest is history, too well known to be recounted here.

    Democratic centralism and the expressed position of the membership of a political party cannot be sensibly translated through the anti-democratic invention of military rule – election by delegates. This mechanism is a reflection of the unitarist mind-set of the military; it is inevitably propelled by corruption in which a handful of delegates are up for sale to the highest bidder. Using this framework, the members of the party, those who conscientiously build the party by attending party meetings, sustain it by paying their dues and doing the hard work of mobilisation as well as logistics coordination, are frozen out. Inevitably they are marginalised and become in essence extras in someone else’s movie. This is not the way in which modern political parties are operated. The party activists must control the party and be at centre stage. Through this mechanism of common ownership, their concerns and interests will become paramount. The candidates of the party must be chosen by them and must reflect their wishes and desires. Two decades after the exit of military rule and the reinstatement of democracy is more than enough to reinstate the control of the party by the membership. It is unacceptable that this is just happening; it must now become the conventional wisdom as well as the entrenched practice.

    In many instances in the recent past, Osun State has broken the mould; the approval of the national executive of the APC is yet another path breaking move which must be institutionalised. The strength of a democracy is best reflected in the resilience and the entrenchment of a democratic framework in the operations of its constituent political parties. Through democratically operated political parties, the culture of mass participation and communal ownership becomes entrenched in the polity. Mass participation acts as a bulwark for democracy, this should be of great importance to a country which has gone through the debilitating effects of military rule. In this way, mass participation through the trajectories of political parties anchored on distinct philosophical positions become the bulwark and a key line of defence against any anti-constitutional move. We have to provide solid lines in the defence of our democracy.

    What is going to happen in Osun State is a reinstatement of the central ethos of mass participation which is so central to the health and vigour of a democracy. A democratic spring is on course in the state, it should be applauded and as in a lot of areas in which the state has blazed the trail it is worthy of emulating.

     

    • Ademiluyi is a public affairs analyst.

  • Anambra: A case for progressive politics

    It is sometimes said that Anambra politics is a peculiar brand that hardly exists elsewhere. Its unusualness derives from two distinct characteristics. One, it is capital intensive. Two, it is fractious, and can be potty when inclined. But in all its irregular beats, it does not fail to requisition help from within its fold which, in the Anambra spirit, is rendered unstintingly.

    Not thinking differently perhaps, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the intrepid economist and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, urged against the tendencies, advocating rather new elite cohesion and consensus in what he called statesmanship politics. He enjoined the motley aspirants to the November governorship election not to waste their resources, but to deploy them to the burgeoning start-up companies and help create value-adding jobs in the state. “Can we then implore most of the contestants to rather deploy the billions of Naira they would soon waste on the campaign trail into building medium scale industries in the state?”

    Before this exhortation evaporates into a puff of illusive smoke or becomes a blathering topic of a politician on the stump or an agendum for others in endless nocturnal meetings, it is important to flesh out some details. One, politics in Anambra is no small business. The volume of cash deployed in the venture (greater percentage of which is invested outside of the state) if ploughed into the economy would redefine the Anambra narrative. Perhaps investment profile of the state as well as her exploits in areas of security, agriculture, education, infrastructure, public utilities, health, and youth empowerment, among others, would have recorded huge success. By now the Obiano government should have advanced to finer aspects of governance and not be grappling with opening the state up to investors. Two, I- can- do- it- spirit of the Igbo man has greater expression in Anambra than any of the five core Igbo states. Virtually every well-heeled man or woman in Anambra is deluded with the idea of gubernatorial grandeur. Unfortunately, nothing, including stark defeat, deters the resolve to heat the political space. Consequently, the state is left to bear the brunt.

    It is against this background that the call for statesmanship politics becomes apt. It serves the state and ndi Anambra better to appraise the Obiano administration and give support where necessary so that it will complete the task before it.  This, perhaps, is the better way to get the state to achieve greatness. As it is, everybody in the state, including known opposition, cannot disclaim the many achievements of the government. How it severed, in less than three months, the dead hand of insecurity and brought economic prosperity. How, in three years, the volume of investments in the state tripled to $5.2 billion. How the wheel of governance has continued to run smoothly amidst so many elsewhere that have grounded to a halt. How road network in the state is about the best, if not the best, in the country. How these roads are duly interspersed with bridges. How, outside the three flyovers in Awka, the agrarian and oil communities hitherto separated by water and deep gully erosions have been connected by well-constructed bridges. How impossible it is to recount in detail some institutional changes made by the government since inception, which carefully insulated the state from recession and pushed her up the ladder of development.

    Perhaps it is to sustain the changes which have bolstered growth that Professor Soludo, a no less equal competitor for the governorship position, decided against any ambition just to support good governance. He knows that any change in leadership will easily upend all what have been achieved. He is not deluded that the aspirants would offer anything new. He knows that the economic miracle some of them have been promising can be achieved by investing in the economy and not until they assume the office of the governor.

    It is no longer news that there has been a burst of activities (economic cum social) in the last three years of Obiano, which positively altered the value of life and property in the state. At any rate, the population of the state has increased in the last three years just as the value of landed property has made some appreciation. These things can only get better through sustained effort and not by any miracle or by changing a successful general in the course of war. After all, it is said that “continuous effort and not strength or intelligence unlocks potential.”

    So far as the effort is concerned the state has gained a lot of mileage. Today Anambra is celebrated and coveted with equal passion. It is therefore unwise to contemplate change amidst the ongoing transformation in the state. No reasonable person will be willing to see such great effort made naught by unbridled ambition.

    It is not often said, but it takes more than a term of four years for proper development to be entrenched. More than that, it requires conscious succession of leadership for such to happen. Lagos State is a good example. The story of Lagos is told better since the active succession to power in the state by one and the same party (AC/ACN/APC). Before Tinubu, Fashola and Ambode, the story of Lagos was told differently. Before 1999 the state revelled in false splendour.  Its journey to a megacity neither started before 1999 nor outside the influence of their home-grown party.

    The development journey of Anambra might not have followed the same pattern. Regardless, what is known of the state and her development, apart from the PDP effort of 2003- 2006, was essentially the making of the APGA government. It will therefore amount to political indiscretion to change the engine of development now that it has progressed from a chugging effort to an accelerated speed.  The cost would not just be enormous but can be choking to Anambra.

     

    • Ejike Anyaduba wrote in from Abatete
  • Rock of Gibraltar of progressive politics

    Rock of Gibraltar of progressive politics

    ‘Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so’ – Charles de Gaulle

    The Pull-Him-Down (PHD) syndrome is a common Nigerian factor that has greatly retarded inexorable progress of the country. And any time this column reflects on the syndrome, most especially at this period of the nation’s political history, what readily becomes a reference point is an interesting puzzle that many politicians across the country have found a hard row to hoe.

    That riddle is Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu – national leader of All Progressives Congress (APC), the Jagaban of Borgu land, Asiwaju of Lagos and former governor of Lagos State. Despite the indignant blackmail of political buccaneers, he is still waxing stronger within the nation’s political firmament as a dependable torchbearer of the progressives across the federation.

    Without sounding immodest, it would not be out-of-place to state today that, he remains the most-sought-after politician and perhaps, the most influential one of the progressive hue in contemporary Nigeria. At a point in the history of this country, the late sage, Pa Obafemi Awolowo, was the issue. Even after the great man’s death 28 years ago, most dubious politicians in the south-western part of the country still use his name, without success, to deceive the electorate during electioneering periods. Momentarily, Bashorun MKO Abiola appeared on the political horizon, but was cut short by the feudal military oligarchy that denied him his electoral mandate before the killer tea helped him into an early grave. MKO remains our man forever.

    Since the passage of these two men, I doubt if there is any Nigerian that has taken the political emancipation of his people from the yoke of tyranny and poverty seriously as much as Tinubu has been doing. The political ignoramuses might deride him; the grovelers of centrist governments are used to impugning his character, but that is the man still standing like the rock of Gibraltar. Asiwaju has the power and tactics of political liberation; he is imbued with a rare economic skill, being a shrewd accountant with vast international experience. This man of unquantifiable goodwill has this uncanny nerve for discovering a talent, which was reflected in the membership of his mostly well-endowed cabinet team, which he assembled during his eight-year rein as governor of Lagos State.

    The man has greatly helped to secure the southwest and now the federation for the country, but few disgruntled element would still criticise him simply because they are oblivious of his steadfast commitment to finding solutions to the challenges facing the country. Tinubu thinks Nigeria, dreams Nigeria, lives Nigeria and sleeps Nigeria. From the north, east, west and south, people call him at random to seek his help or input on knotty challenges. These men and women are not necessarily members of the political elite class. The Jagaban is also at home with the downtrodden whose interests form the thrust of his concern for a better country that we all can be proud to call our own from May 29, 2015.

    Some, out of sheer envy of his large heart and vastly spread goodwill, will query his source of wealth. Simply because the man is doing what they cannot ever do or are not privileged to do since they are not in a position to do it, they harbour the ache in their bellies. Some see him as being immoderate. But Benjamin Disraeli had an answer for them when he said: ‘Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.’ There are empirical examples of Nigerians, irrespective of tribes and especially among the Yoruba, the man’s cradle, that have benefited immensely from his largesse. But sadly, these same people still hypocritically relish speaking ill of him. That is one of the inherent sacrifices of greatness, being paid by Tinubu.

    Who doubts Tinubu’s progressive credentials? That person needs to embark on historical excursion. At a time that the Yoruba states of Oyo, Ogun, Osun, Osun and Ekiti were falling to the gangsterism of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in 2003, it was only Tinubu’s Lagos that stood to absorb the heat of conservatism before eventually launching, single-handedly, the worthwhile battle that liberated the former western region but Ondo and later Ekiti states, from the grips of ruling party’s rampaging agents of neo-colonialism. The giant strides that the region is witnessing today are a consequence of Tinubu’s political sagacity.

    Everything is falling in place in the west that has extended to Edo State and this gives credence to Walt Whitman’s statement: ‘Produce great men, the rest follows.’ Tinubu is that great progressive torchbearer! Who still doubts the fact that progressivism is indeed taking firm root in the west and beyond today in the country with the victory of the APC championed by Tinubu. Indeed, Charles de Gaulle was right by saying: ‘Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men and men are great only if they are determined to be so.’ Tinubu is a successful determined political risk taker of out time.

    It is this uncommon determination to be great and to fully liberate the masses from the yoke of reactionary politics that compelled Tinubu to take with zeal the national progressive politics project, since the merger of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) with other opposition parties – far beyond the west and to every nook and cranny of the country. The move is generating spite, covetousness as much as cynicism from those who always see impossibility rather than possibility in laudable initiatives. The victory of the party in the presidential election and its winning of 22 states in the just concluded 2015 general elections must have further frustrated his already dumbfounded enemies, both covert and overt.

    The difference between Tinubu and the rest in the political arena is that he sees possibility where others remain political jellies. His often-talked-about political superiority complex does not mean pride, although it might appear to be so in the eyes of the mischievous among politicians and the so-called pretentious technocrats turned overnight politicians that want to see it so. Tinubu feels a higher esteem over the obstacles he desires to surmount and he is blessed with the rare courage of overcoming them, with enough energy reserved for any eventuality.

    Like Awolowo during his lifetime, Tinubu has, in contemporary Nigerian politics, become a thorn in the flesh of the electorally beaten outgoing centrist rulers and envious allies, who believe that despite their brazen ineptitude, it is a taboo for a Tinubu to continue to triumph on the political firmament. This PHD syndrome is the major headache of outgoing current presidency and the enemies within. Tinubu, the statesman has proved to be deserving of an unassailable and conspicuous portion in the nation’s history book and now; Nigerians will henceforth have the golden opportunity of looking back and be able to confidently say: We are eventually free from the tyranny and ineptitude of the reactionaries, at long last!

  • Reflections on future of progressive politics

    Reflections on future of progressive politics

    “Mankind will never see an end of trouble until… lovers of wisdom come to hold political power, or the holders of power… become lovers of wisdom”-Plato, The Republic

    Without equivocation, the Osun State governorship election has become history, but the fact remains indubitable that for long, it will remain one epic election that gave so much goose pimple to both the progressive and conservative political camps in the country. After the defeat of progressive-inclined All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Ekiti governorship election of June 21 by the conservative People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the latter, it seemed, became emboldened to think that it would repeat the feat in Osun without ado.

    The Ekiti election’s outcome threw the politics of “stomach infrastructure” that has always been an important but uncelebrated factor in the nation’s politics to the front burner of national discourse. But in truth, those who are hypocritical of stomach infrastructure, especially within the progressive fold, laughably started to embrace the hypocritically derided phrase, and often times, practicalising it in their enclaves to a ridiculous level.

    The issue for today is not about stomach infrastructure. Although it is incidental to it, but more importantly, it is about using the Osun election template, won by inscrutable incumbent Governor Rauf Aregbesola, to give a prognosis of what the future holds in store for progressive politics in the south west region of the country. The pertinent questions are: What would have happened in Osun, if its governorship election had come ahead of the Ekiti election in which out-going Governor Kayode Fayemi lost woefully? Would the feverish preparations for Osun still have been as high as what was witnessed before and during last Saturday’s election?

    Osun presents interesting credentials. Of all the south west states’ APC governors, Aregbosola stands out among the genuinely grassroots-oriented. He understands core politics and true meanings of party loyalty, reliability and commitment which he often plays to the extreme. It was to his credit that only Osun State, of all the lot in southwest, admirably upheld progressive tenets by voting against PDP presidential candidate in the 2011 Presidential poll. Others, for inexplicable short-sighted reasons, went conservative and are today facing the shameful consequences from the incumbent president. Also, of all the south west states, Osun, under Aregbesola, is the only state bereft of internal hullabaloo in its branch of APC. In digression, the party’s internal crisis in Ogun has assumed a frightening dimension, while Oyo and others are witnessing peace of the graveyard. Above all the afore-stated, Ogbeni’s urban renewal scheme is wonderful.

    Consequently, one would have expected that with these laudable credentials, he would enjoy an easy re-election, notwithstanding his being unnecessarily controversial often times. But no; the contest was fierce because the conservative PDP was desperate to take over Osun, thinking that once that was done; the free fall of other APC-controlled states is guaranteed. The PDP presidency did everything unthinkable, including deployment of hooded security men and the militarisation of the process, to harass and intimidate members of the opposition in the state before/during the election. But because the people were adequately sensitised on the evil being planned against Ogbeni, whom majority of the voters preferred to PDP’s Iyiola Omisore, it failed.

    The failed evil machination in Osun was a plot by PDP to destroy the stronghold of the progressive-inclined APC, especially the south west. The actual target was the current political leader of Yoruba, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The plot in Osun was to hit the shepherd so that the flock will disperse; but, sorry, it failed. Whatever reservations anybody might have about Tinubu, the bitter truth is that he has, through commitment and unrelenting struggle against conservative politics in the southwest, emerged the immovable symbol of progressive politics and the most effective political leader of the Yoruba after Papa Obafemi Awolowo. The only frightful thing is that this column would not want his leadership mileage to be frittered away under the guise of attempting to bring the west to mainstream politics of the country through political alliance with politicians from other regions that merely respect and revere Tinubu as an astute and brilliant politician and not necessarily as leader of all regions.

    However, a word of caution here: That the grand conspiracy in Osun against Tinubu could not fly does not mean that the opposition should go to sleep. All efforts must be geared towards ensuring an unalloyed internal unity of purpose in the progressive fold in Oyo, Ogun, Edo and Lagos states before it gets out of hand as 2015 approaches. Besides, a genuinely progressive strategy to win Ondo State after Governor Segun Mimiko should theoretically commence in earnest before 2016.

    There is a saying that “con is the opposite of pro” and to achieve the afore-stated, the APC in professed pursuit of progressive ideals must be able to affirmatively answer if it is truly the opposite of conservative PDP. This becomes imperative because of the infiltration of the progressive fold by some “aliens.” Yes, politics is a game of numbers, but should the progressive be seen to be playing politics without principle of like minds in pursuit of power, whether at the state or federal level?

    In case the progressives may not easily realise it, these conservatives’ unholy alliance with them has done a lot of damage through leakages of secrets and political strategies. For example, Femi Fani-Kayode came into APC, hobnobbed with the fold for a while and used the platform to regain national prominence only to bolt back into his natural conservative constituency – the PDP. Mimiko exploited this same gimmick to regain his stolen mandate in Ondo. Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, former presidential candidate of the progressives, is as good as having gone to PDP to oil his ambition of becoming Adamawa governor.  The progressive inviolability of APC cannot be vouched for in recent times because several conservative elements are now in the fold, not because they share its ideals, but for sheer political convenience.

    Unlike in countries like the United States where partisan beliefs are guarded jealously, politicians here are driven by raw pursuit of inordinate ambitions and most times seen criss-crossing about three political parties before getting to a destination where their bread will be buttered at the detriment of principle and people’s overall interest. There is the need to sieve the grains from the chaff if progressive politics must survive beyond the moment in the southwest – and this is damn urgent!

    The issue of party discipline is an important aspect of what the progressive family must address very without. Most current progressive governors see their platform as just mere footpath for attaining power and quite unprogressively, stand aloof from their people and erroneously think that high taxation, road construction and other capital projects are all what it means to cater for the welfare of a poverty-ravaged people.

    The future of progressive politics rests in not taking the people for granted. Afterall, Sydney J. Harris once declared: ‘Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.’ If the progressives must continue to rule the western states, the leadership should not give the people any opportunity to ask ‘whether they are the powers that ought to be.’ These reflections are indeed, for the wise!