One good thing the institution of the on-going Jonathan National Conference (JNC) has done is to stir up a frenetic national discourse both within and outside the conference on the perceived structural ills of Nigeria and a myriad of proposed remedies. Every Nigerian has suddenly become a political scientist and every political scientist a skilled constitutional engineer with magical solutions to the problems of the country. A constant refrain by most of the participants in this debate is that the fundamental problems of the country are primarily structural and that if we seek first the kingdom of political and constitutional re-structuring, every other thing shall be added unto us.
Of course, no one can reasonably underestimate the depth of some of the structural problems besetting the country especially in such areas as effective security architecture, equitable revenue allocation and the devolution of powers from a bloated centre to the constituent units. But it would be grossly misleading to seek to blame a deficient structure for problems of leadership that are essentially ethical in nature. To unduly emphasise the structural problem is to directly or indirectly exonerate poverty of leadership at various levels of government of responsibility for Nigeria’s continued dalliance with underdevelopment in spite of her abundant human and natural resource-endowment.
The substantial and impressive strides in infrastructural development and provision of social welfare services to the citizenry in several states across the country show that leadership can certainly make a difference despite obvious structural constraints. There are two aspects to the political system – the structure and the underlying values that underpin them. When the prevalent values in a society promote impunity, corruption, inefficiency, lawlessness and nepotism, these vices will be subversive of any structure no matter how expertly constructed.
Thus, these vices were as subversive of the parliamentary system of government in the first republic as they were of the presidential system in the second republic as well as in the current dispensation. Without a fundamental revolution in the ethical base of society, the superstructure of economic and political institutions will function perversely. Returning to the British-type parliamentary system or adopting the French model of the presidential system, as some argue, is therefore not necessarily the antidote to bad and dysfunctional governance. None of these systems will function efficiently and productively in a contaminated moral environment.
There is absolutely nothing, for instance, inherent in the presidential system that compels a President to convoke a three-month national conference like the one currently underway in Abuja at the clearly indefensible cost of seven billion naira including the four million naira monthly allowance to delegates. It is obvious that a conference that is itself ethically compromised in this manner cannot produce an outcome capable of sanitising the country’s moral environment for honest and transparent governance to thrive.
A leadership that keeps a Minister of Internal Affairs in office for even a day after the recent National Immigration Service employment scam and tragic fiasco under a presidential system will behave the same way in a parliamentary system. The presidential system of government is not to blame for the retention in office of a minister on whose watch there have been several alleged scams including the fuel subsidy scam, the kerosene subsidy scandal, the alleged expenditure of N 10 billion on chartered flights or the still unresolved allegedly missing $20 billion. This can happen as easily under a presidential as in a parliamentary system. It is a question of leadership.
Some avowed Awoists have predicated their advocacy for a return to the parliamentary system on Obafemi Awolowo’s ideas. This is decidedly misleading. The only redeeming feature Awolowo found in the parliamentary system was the separation of the office of the Head of State from that of Head of government. He argued in his book, The People’s Republic that the parliamentary system unduly abridged the principle of separation of powers and unnecessarily restricted the electoral jurisdiction and support base of the Head of Government.
As Awolowo put it on page 255 of the book “Hitherto, we have, all of us, indiscriminately and unscientifically, followed the British democratic practice, as if it was the best method, and, in any case, because our British masters taught us to believe that it was the only method worth emulating. But we now know better. From the exposition we have made, it is quite clear that the American method is better than the British, and that the French method under de Gaulle is better than the American”.
In the same vein, those who advocate a return to a six-regional structure similar to the four regions of the first republic claim Awo as their patron saint. In reality no one worked harder to dismantle and break up the four regional structure of the first republic than Awo. He relentlessly canvassed the creation of states for the minority ethnic groups and advocated a minimum of 12 states and maximum of 18 states for the country. The truth is that a return to a six regional structure without revamping the ethical context of our politics would amount to nothing but the enthronement of ‘decentralised despotism’.
Now, let me touch on another factor that is crucial if any proposed structural changes are to yield the desired fruit. We must become more exacting and discriminating in our assessment of those we elect into public office while holding them up to the strictest standards of performance. Let me explain. On Friday, April 12, President Goodluck Jonathan was in Enugu to address the South-east PDP unity rally. The governors and key leaders of the South-east seized the opportunity to urge him to declare his second term ambition assuring him of massive support in the region.
Obviously in an expansive mood, the Abia State governor, Theodore Orji, said the President should not decline to run because the people of the region would stone them if he did so. Among the President’s achievements in the South-east according to Orji was that “It is during your tenure that our people occupied positions that were forbidden to them. It is during your tenure that an Igbo became Chief of Army Staff, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Coordinating Minister of the Economy”. This is truly incredible. So these are achievements? In what way have these appointments contributed to the development of the South-east or the empowerment of the poor people of the region?
As the columnist Sonala Olumhense, has carefully documented in The Guardian, on February 12, 2011, President Jonathan promised Igbos in Aba that if re-elected he would “stamp out kidnapping; provide facilities that would boost the enterprising spirit of the Igbo; upgrade the Enugu Airport to international level; dredge the River Niger; build a dry port in Aba for Igbo businessmen; complete the Second Niger Bridge; rehabilitate all the main roads into Aba; tackle the erosion crisis and make Aba the Ground zero of eventual aircraft production in Nigeria”.
Olumhense continues “In Uyo on March 7 (2011), he promised to build coastal roads and rail from Lagos to Calabar. In Awka on February 26, he said he would construct all the major roads which link Anambra with its neighbours; complete the on-going aero-dynamic survey of gas in the Anambra River basin leading to power supply and Liquefied Natural Gas industry; complete the second Niger Bridge and complete the Onitsha Inland Port. He vowed that Nigerians would not be talking about generators after his four years in office”.
Now, what percentage of these mouth-watering promises to Igbos has President Jonathan fulfilled? What is the basis of his enthusiastic endorsement for a second term by Igbo leaders? Structural change without a change in the way we assess and endorse performance of elected officers will change nothing in Nigeria.
