We need a father-figure to do what fa thers do: keep the family together.
Without any consciousness of leadership, a father should lead naturally, managing talents, strengths and weaknesses for the stability and growth of the family. As a country, we sorely need such a father-figure, for it is lacking. We need him to harness the resources of the country and manage its strong points and challenges. The country echoes with diverse tribal tongues and interests, but that is why we need someone to turn the diversity into strengths from which everyone can gain practically, not just hear in radio jingles or prepared speeches. We need some melody out of our cacophony.
Even when the kids move out of the home to foster new generations and break new grounds, they still need the occasional stabilising hand of the father. Without being an irritating intruder, off-putting visitor or overbearing figure, a father knows his stabilising role is for life.
Nowhere do we need such a stabilising hand more than at the states of the federation. They are the constituent parts of the federation but now, they are no more than a disused vehicle left to run without tyres, fuel or driver. It is a fatal ride. The house of the governors have since cracked and has continued to crack. Its roof has blown open. Its foundation has failed. But the most troubling part is that no one is fixing it. As crucial as the governors are to the health of the nation, they have broken up or have been broken up and continue to break up even further. Now, there is no such thing as one forum or one voice. Even in the small bits into which they have been reduced, they are still cracking up into smaller units.
What good can come out of such a fragmented house? What significant progress can a country with such divided governors make? Let’s face it: governance is about clear-headed vision and committed action, not contrived speeches of achievements. What vision or action can we reasonably expect from such balkanised and distracted governors. They have lost their soul. Love for one another is gone, as is respect for each other. What is left is mutual hatred and bad-mouthing. They will pretend that the machinery of transforming their states is still intact and that even more work is being done. They will say their states have never had it so good. We know better.
On Thursday when the Northern States Governors Forum (NSGF) called a meeting in Kaduna, only five of the 19 governors attended. Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi stayed away. So did Governor Ibrahim Shema (Katsina) and Governor Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe). None of the three sent a representative. In fact, of all the 19 governors, only five turned up for the Kaduna parley; most preferred to send their deputies or even secretaries. Yet, the NSGF chairman Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State said everything was just fine, rationalising that representation was as good as attendance.
Last month, the election of officers of the larger body was even more dodgy. Two factions claimed victory, one still holding as tightly to its claim as the other. The Chibuike Amaechi camp is resolute and as derisive of the Jonah Jang faction as the Jang party is dismissive of the Amaechi group. Under this sort of messy and disagreeable atmosphere, what can we genuinely expect from these leaders we call ours? Can you imagine Jang and his faction attending a meeting called by Amaechi or the Amaechi group turning up for a parley initiated by the Jang camp?
Does it matter? Yes. Not that Nigerians have benefitted so much from the governors’ forum. In fact, the NGF essentially and usually worked for the sole gain of its members. But the fragmentation and incoherence of the organisation bode ill not just for them but the entire country. It hurts our claim to democratic growth and further demeans us before the world. It casts us as a people quite unable to come to grips with even the rudiments of organised society. The strife among the governors does not inspire any confidence in the next general election. It outlines the shape of a bumpy, messy ride ahead.
It is depressing that the governors’ ranks can be so easily breached. But is it a self-inflicted wound or an injury caused by an external hand? Whatever the case, it speaks so terribly ill of a country so large and so potentially blessed.
For me, the biggest worry, though, is that no one is doing anything about it. The father of the nation, the President is too busy denying any complicity in the governors’ disunity to weld them together. Dr Goodluck Jonathan has nothing to gain from the governors’ fragmentation and resultant incoherence. In fact, he has everything to lose. His advisers should tell him that if he does nothing, his administration will go down in history as one under which the governors’ house crashed. And it could be worse for the country. The role of father falls to him automatically by virtue of his presidency. He must play it.
