I was at a forum during the week where 20 years of uninterrupted democracy in Nigeria was reviewed. Most people came expecting it to be all gloom and doom: they were not disappointed.
Not even the deliberate efforts of some speakers to shine light on positives from the last two decades, lightened the mood significantly.
One speaker said he had given up on discussing Nigeria because public discourse had degenerated to the extent where what you had to say is irrelevant, because you are automatically profiled on the basis of ethnicity and faith.
A middle-aged lady spoke about an all-night conversation she had with her brother 20 years ago. The question they wrestled with was whether this nation could be salvaged. Her brother decided it was impossible and emigrated to the United States.
Ever the sunny optimist, she stayed back believing she and like-minds could join hands to turn things around. The woman who spoke that morning had become disillusioned with what the country had become.
Unfortunately, the people and politicians appear to live in a parallel universe. Those in government are quick to dredge up stats that suggest a massive improvement in our collective lot. For the average man, they might as well be speaking Greek.
Barely four months after governments at federal and state levels were inaugurated for fresh terms, and a clear three years plus to the next polls, trending discussion isn’t about decaying infrastructure or the economy, but about scheming for the 2023 presidential contest.
This is a country where politicking never stops and governing hardly ever gets done. Perhaps, I exaggerate, but not much.
The convention in most places is that once an election is done, the new administration settles down to govern. In countries with fixed four or five year election cycles, serious politicking doesn’t get going until 18 months or two years to the next round of voting.
That is not to suggest that ambitious politicians would not be quietly working to actualise their dreams.
But they recognise that an election gives a political party the mandate to deliver on its promises. At least 75% of the tenure of the administration would be dedicated to making the slate they sold to the people reality.
The current feverish discussion of the 2023 prospects of certain individuals and regions, simply confirm what a growing number of our people are have come to believe; that their voices don’t matter in a supposedly democratic setting.
Politicians and the shadowy figures that hover around the powerful, are only focused on who next gets to sit on the driving seat. The question, however, is to what end, because once the 2023 election is done, the buzz immediately shifts to who wants to be what in 2027.
In the last couple of weeks this pattern of discussion became accentuated after Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, suggested that at some point in our political journey we might need to discard zoning as our preferred method for power sharing.
Although he didn’t say this should begin with the next polls, the comments played into the narrative that a powerful tendency in the North was bent on retaining power in the region after President Muhammadu Buhari’s full two-term run.
Last week, the debate became even more animated against the backdrop of two government actions that appeared to significantly whittle down Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s clout within the administration.
No matter how it is dressed, a publicised presidential memo asking the VP to always seek Buhari’s approval for contracts and other matters concerning agencies under his office, amounted to some sort of rebuke – no matter how gentle. It suggested that, in the past, he may not always have done so.
Osinbajo’s comeback that he had always followed the law in running the agencies, showed that he recognised the subtle censure.
Coming almost in the same 24-hour cycle when the Economic Management Team he used to head was suddenly dissolved and a new advisory council that reports to the president empanelled, it was grist to the mill of conspiracy theorists.
Many commentators have since concluded that the one-two punch handed the VP, was a brutal tackle to take him down a peg in the 2023 stakes.
I am not saying it is, neither am I saying it isn’t. But this relentless intriguing and speculation is a distraction from the compelling governance issues that confront this country.
The level of misery and poverty is mindboggling. In many cities, the major sources of employment today aren’t manufacturing or some IT start-up, but motorcycle and tricycle taxis that are multiplying like germ culture.
While they provide short term transportation relief, they are no substitute for proper mass transit. They contribute to the general air of chaos because many governments are overwhelmed by their rapid growth rate and lack the capacity to regulate them. Rather than being a sign of empowerment, they have become emblems of decline and poverty.
Nigeria’s problems are urgent and can’t wait till tomorrow. They can’t wait for our ‘distinguished’ National Assembly members to return from their leisurely holidays. Neither can they abide much longer the president’s famed deliberate style.
That’s why it is obscene at this point in our history, to be inflaming discussions about 2023 when the promises of 2015 and 2019 haven’t been made good.
Nigerians truly need for their leaders to, for a change, deliver some genuine ‘dividends of democracy’. In recent times we have been sold the lie that bridges and roads built represent some kind of return for voters.
But as some have pointed out, we don’t need elected officials to build roads. Some of Nigeria’s most enduring public infrastructure were built by military dictators like Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Muhammadu Buhari, Sani Abacha and others.
We need to demand much more from those we invested our time to vote for. In addition to building roads, we should see improved healthcare, greater freedom of expression and association, more participation in the process, respect for the rule of law and better security across the land.
If the media and politicians persist in enabling this cynical system where politicking never takes a break, the result would be the sort of disillusionment that has seen voter turnout drop by a consistent 10% in the succeeding elections of 2011, 2015 and 2019.