ROADMAPS AND ROADBLOCKS

“By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.”
Mark Twain, 1897.

The second South South Economic Summit was concluded last week in Delta State. The Delta State government had wanted the President to land in Asaba, its capital, and was going to spend over N7billion to clear a sandy hill which in its judgment, was an obstacle to its desire to have the presidential aircraft land in Asaba, rather than in far away Uyo or Benin. In the end, President Jonathan did not attend the Summit. He was represented by Vice President Namadi Sambo. It will be interesting to know what the Delta State Government intends to do with the offensive pile of sand which it says obstructs large planes such as Mr President’s from landing. It could call off the expensive venture, or it could go ahead and remove the sand, and very likely spend more money to have the runway properly constructed for presidential aircraft. It is anybody’s guess which other planes will be expected at Asaba when President Jonathan ceases to be the No 1 citizen.

In any case, the Summit will be judged the usual success. It will be one in a series of geo-political fora which are being organized to design or unveil roadmaps and blueprints for the consolidation of development efforts in geo-political zones. The nation is marveling at the elaborate and inspiring blueprint being discussed by Yoruba States, which, if it were to be implemented, would make the southwest of Nigeria a highly integrated economic unit with a massive potential to develop. It also hints at a strategic option, a Plan ‘B’ for the region to go it alone in the event that the future of the Nigerian state cannot be salvaged or guaranteed. The region already has a critical precondition for economic integration and development: substantial political integration under the ACN.

The south east is also actively looking inwards, and its considerable number of citizens living outside the country are pushing for some space to make inputs into the design for roadmaps and blueprints. The region’s split personality is however still a problem, and it is being weighed down heavily by crime rates which make lawful and secure existence almost impossible. Nonetheless, it is actively tapping into the goodwill and good fortune of the south south, and for now, it sees a future around a 2015 presidency, and improvements in its political fortunes from possible constitutional amendments.
The south south is making its hay while the sun shines. It enjoys near solid unity under the PDP, and the substantial clout of an incumbent President. It alone receives about 50% of revenue from oil and gas, an amount large enough to allow Delta State government attempt to remove a sandy hill for N7billion without anyone batting an eyelid. The region is in a hurry to translate its considerable revenues into sustainable investable capital, durable infrastructure and an industrial base which will operate with substantial autonomy from the oil and gas industry. It could focus on a Jonathan presidency until 2015 as a critical target to achieve maximum impact, or it could plan to push for another term for him after 2015. It must be building this incumbency factor into its roadmaps, plans and strategies, because it is obvious at this stage that if anyone becomes President of Nigeria after 2015 under a PDP platform he will be expected to behave as if his zone is the only part of Nigeria which matters. This is what the PDP zoning formula has done to Nigeria. The sun follows PDP presidents, and most others live in darkness and bitterness.
Even the north central zone is making efforts to create a mental image of a region which can achieve some measure of coherence and uniformity. Its plethora of groups are constantly looking for allies in each other, and a few months ago, they even succeeded in hosting a security “summit”. This most diverse part of Nigeria has a massive crisis of identity, and quite a few of its thinking citizens believe it can and should focus on the most essential elements, such as resolving just how to treat each other legally, socially and politically, and how to relate with the rest of Nigeria.

The rest of Nigeria outside these areas have no roadmaps to a prosperous and secure future. They have roadblocks every few meters. The northeast and substantial part of the northwest are defined by violence and decaying infrastructure. They have become substantially de-industrialized in the last 20-odd years, and the most dominant party in the region, the PDP, has no room or need for this leaders. Most parts of the northeast, northwest and parts of Niger and Kogi states are effectively living under military occupation, and yet are daily exposed to the violence of Boko Haram. While leaders and intellectuals are planning how millions of fellow citizens will live in 10 or 20 years in some parts of Nigeria, poor citizens in the far north and parts of the middle belt live without guarantees that they will see the next day.
Significantly, the National Security Advisor, General Owoeye Azazi chose the second south south economic summit to offer an insight into the critical linkages between politics, economy and security. The NSA said the PDP’s zoning and rotation policy, a devise which effectively precludes entire populations from aspiring for the position of President, breeds bitterness and unhealthy competition. He said the current levels of violence can be traced to disputes regarding the Nigerian who, only by reference to his ethno-geographical (and religious) origins can become a candidate or a president. He was reported to have said that there are political linkages to the Boko Haram insurgency, and implied that these linkages are so deep that even if all the leaders of the insurgency were arrested today, there are no guarantees that this will end the problem. He was explicit in linking the failure of some politicians to realize their ambitions with the resurgence and improved capacity of the insurgency, and he made it clear that unless we address poverty and inordinate political ambition, the roots of the insurgency will sprout sooner or later. He did not sound optimistic about 2015, and hinted that current jockeying for positions will compound the current security situation.

Now, give or take the issue of whether General Azazi was acting as a spoiler in a forum which was intended to showcase the achievement of the administration and the PDP, his comments (which I hope he does not retract) say a lot about our current situation. He is right of course on the contribution of PDP’s rotation and zoning policy to the challenges of governing the Nigerian state. So long as the PDP continues to dominate the political landscape, the nation will continue to pay heavy penalties for an arrangement which has lost all credibility, and which offends the very foundations of a democratic system. The zoning arrangement will continue to generate the worst elements of our political system: the tribalization of our highest offices, and dangerous panderings to our divisive elements. Every political contest will have a bitter end, and will fuel more crises.
But General Azazi spoke about a lot more than the danger in the zoning principle of the PDP. He hinted that there is a strong correlation between the last elections and the current sophistication of the Boko Haram insurgency. As a key adviser and one who should know, the nation will welcome some evidence that links politicians with Boko Haram in a direct, substantial manner. The price the North and the nation are paying for this threat are unacceptable, and we need to go beyond innuendoes and conjectures to expose any possible linkages between politicians and Boko Haram. Certainly, if the Advisor himself says so, he must be standing on firm ground. He should let us know, because blaming faceless politicians and politics alone for a problem we live with on a daily basis just isn’t good enough.
Twelve years ago, Nigerians looked ahead with faith and optimism that the democratic process will provide the context for releasing the nation from its cumulative and damaging political liabilities, and unleash our creative energies to rebuild a nation we can all be proud of. Tragically, these twelve years have created many parts of a nation, some forging ahead, others regressing dangerously. Yet all the parts are so intimately interwoven that the roadmaps of the southwest and south-south are actually hostages to the hundreds of the roadblocks of much of the north. The link is a political process which increasingly perverts the democratic values and institutions which we should be building. Yes, General Azazi is right. The PDP is a threat and a danger to the nation. So is the Boko Haram insurgency. The PDP should not continue to breed insecurity, and Boko Haram should not continue to threaten the very existence of the Nigerian State.

Once Upon a Promise

“A Politician never believes anything he says, so he is always amazed when other people do.” Charles de Gaulle. On 2nd February 2011, with more than two months before the general elections, I posted the piece below on my blog site, under the title “One –Term Jonathan.” I went back to read it again when news filtered in few days ago that the suit challenging the right of President Goodluck Jonathan to run again in 2015 has been withdrawn at his and his party’s request, and will now be settled out of court. I will let you judge the value of the comments I made around the time the President promised to run for only one term in far away Ethiopia. Judge it against unfolding events, and in particular, relate it to the desperate (and successful) attempts to secure a compliant PDP leadership and the body language of President Jonathan’s handlers before he even completes one year in office. Here it is. “In far away Ethiopia, President Goodluck Jonathan informed a group of Nigerians that he has no plans to run for another term in 2015. He stated that he will ensure free and fair elections from the April polls this year, and if voted in for the next four years, he will ensure significant improvements in key sectors of the economy such as security, power, education, roads and health, among others. This is the first time that President Jonathan himself will state that he has no plans to run again after 2015. On a number of occasions, his aides and campaign managers had mentioned this, but on all those occasions, little attention was paid to these claims, largely because Nigerians thought they were part of the campaign for the PDP Presidential ticket. Some of his spokespersons and campaign managers raised the issue of one more term to assuage the fears of the North and other parts of Nigeria that he, and by extension, the South of Nigeria, would likely govern for 12 years, if he runs and wins again in 2015. The South East PDP in particular was becoming concerned that if President Jonathan runs for another two terms, and the presidency moves to the North, it will then have to wait for another 20 years to have a shot at the presidency. This was becoming a major obstacle in terms of securing the PDP South-East bloc votes for the President. Another set of campaign managers raised a legal issue. They argued that the Constitution of Nigeria does not permit anyone to be sworn-in more than twice as President of the Federal Republic under any circumstances, and if the President were to seek for another term after 2015, assuming he wins in 2011, he will be violating the Constitution. This interpretation was intended to assure all Nigerians who were apprehensive that he will disregard the two years he took to complete late President ‘YarAdua’s term, and seek for two fresh terms of his own. Needless to say, this position has not been subjected to a rigorous legal scrutiny, and there is no guarantee that the Constitution itself will not be amended to make it possible for Presidents to be sworn-in more than twice in future. President Jonathan’s promise to serve for only one additional term if elected in 2011 can still be seen in the context of electioneering campaign. Among those who will believe him, the promise may lower some hostility against him in the North, since it may be assumed that the Presidency will move to the North. Those who will find comfort in this assurance and assumption obviously do not understand that president Jonathan’s candidature has effectively killed the zoning and rotation principle in the PDP. Whether he serves for four years, if elected in 2011, or eight years, issues regarding the rotation of the Presidency will be irrelevant. The position of the PDP Presidential ticket is now an all-comers business, and the PDP North will be ill-advised to put any political value to it. Indeed, given its numerical superiority, if the North achieves political unity, it should be in the forefront in the fight against rotation, and for the institutionalization of credible, free and fair elections. That the North today is abjectly making a case in the favor of a rotated Presidency is a refection of its political poverty. In any case, if President Jonathan’s promise not to seek a third term in 2015 is intended to gain him some political capital, its value will be very limited indeed. The manner in which the rotation principle of the PDP was subverted by the President and his supporters, many of them key architects and beneficiaries of the principle, will create genuinely founded doubts in the minds of many people. President Obasanjo’s failed attempt to tinker with the Constitution and give himself a third term is also fresh in the minds of many people. The sad fact about power is that it is difficult to give up, and Nigerians are not blind to the transformation of Vice President Goodluck Jonathan into a President who is fighting with all the resources at his disposal to win a second term. President Jonathan is a candidate who will have to convince Nigerians that he is better than other candidates to be elected president. Nigerians will judge him on his pedigree and his antecedents, including his performance as a president. Matters relating to what happens in 2015 are too far in the minds of Nigerians. What the nation wants from President Jonathan now is an absolute and transparent commitment to a free and fair election in April, and the creation of a secure enabling environment which will allow all citizens to vote freely, and for their votes to count.” With the monumentally-embarrassing exposé around the oil and gas sector, much of it under the watch of President Jonathan, the scandalous pension scam, the unprecedented threat to national security in many guises and forms, and with the catastrophic tsunami which Steve Oransaye’s report is about to unleash on the nation, we are being dragged into another race for 2015 by the President. And we wonder why we have so many problems!

A CYNIC’S GUIDE TO CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

“Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, order more tunnels.” John Quinton. Technically, we could claim to be at another starting point in terms of amending the Nigerian Constitution. Our constitution amendment attempts have been like races. There have been many starting points and false starts in the past. A few starts in the past were not concluded, and in many of the races started, you couldn’t tell who were genuine competitors, and who joined the race midway. Distances were not made clear to competitors in the past, and often umpires joined the races. On the whole we had extremely expensive build-ups to amending the constitution, but they have all yielded very little. There are many reasons for this, and for those who need to understand the reasons why the Nigerian constitution has been notoriously difficult to amend, a cynic’s guide may be useful. i. The exercise involves an isolated few leading an unfortunate multitude. Amending the constitution requires collaboration between the President and the federal and state legislatures. These are supposed to be institutions in which people who are genuinely elected exercise mandates from the electorate, and exercise such mandates only in the interests of the people. To do this, they need to be accessible, accountable and sensitive to the needs of their constituencies. Positions they will adopt will therefore need to be informed by what is best for their constituencies. In Nigeria, however, elected people tend to develop lives of their own, once they receive certificates of return from INEC, or hear the final word from the judiciary on prolonged litigations around their elections. They would have paid huge amounts to their constituents, election and security officials and sundry opinion leaders to secure victories, so they will treat mandates as commodities fully paid for. Most positions they will adopt on amendment are likely to be informed by what it will pay them, either in material terms, or some gratification related to their electoral fortunes. Generally, strong interests behind amendments tend to have very narrow objectives, and in most instances they want to maintain the status quo, or prevent changes which will bestow advantages elsewhere. Nothing of substance, therefore, gets amended, which is fine so long as a huge amount is expended in the process. ii. The dice is always loaded. Constitutional amendments are mostly about tinkering with the manner power is distributed or utilized. No amendment is undertaken purely on its merit, and issues about substance and timing are often informed by very powerful and calculating interests. If you want to amend the number of terms an elected executive can serve, you propose an amendment to that effect along with about 100 other amendments. When you want tenure elongation, you get a committee to identify about 150 areas of the constitution that need amending. If you want no substantial change, you include one or two proposed amendments that will foul up the whole exercise, so every one of the proposals will be thrown out. Self-serving amendments are difficult to push through, so they are placed in the same basket with genuinely-popular issues such as Local/State Government relations. They either float together or sink together. iii. Its mostly about money. Since 1999, every legislature had budgeted huge amounts for constitutional amendments. Countless hearings and expensive junketing have been held. Every type of consultation has been made, such that President Jonathan merely set up a committee under former Chief Justice Belgore to isolate those areas where we still argue over in our constitution. The national assembly (again) nonetheless set up its own expensive machinery. States will also set up committees to make inputs into the review exercise. Everyone is behaving as if we are starting this business for the first time. So we will waste billions to do everything else except consult the real interests, who are the people. If nothing comes out of the exercise, we will blame no one. It is just the way our democratic system works. iv. Its all about incumbents. The review will be about what people who wield power today want, not about our experiences with the running of the constitution in the past, and not about the future. The President will want a review of the term of elected persons in office, so that they stay longer. Powerful interests in the southwest want a radical restructuring of the federal structure to give greater fiscal and other forms of autonomy to (possibly bigger) federating units. The southeast wants to have additional states and provisions which enforce the rights of citizens irrespective of their ethno-cultural and geographical locations. The south-south would want to retain or increase its take-home-pay on revenues derived from petroleum and gas. The north will have a basket of demands, most of which will either cancel each other out, or pitch it against itself and the rest of the nation. Governors would want to maintain their stranglehold on Local Governments. Some powerful interests will support state police; others will oppose it. The PDP will have its own shopping list. Legislators will have one eye on the way their Governors want the exercise to go (or not go), and another on their parties. Federal legislators will enjoy a little more autonomy, but will be constrained by pressure from Presidency, their parties and bread-and-butter politics. State legislators will roll over wherever and whenever the Governors want them to. It will not be about improving the electoral process, reducing cost of governance or official impunity, curtailing corruption or empowering the citizenry to hold leaders accountable. v. It is a gimmick While it goes on, the processes for amending the constitution will hold our attention with live transmissions. Most Nigerians who have no T.V sets or power will be shut out. It will divert attention from the scandalous exposé around the petroleum and gas sector; the pension scam, or the impending tsunami which Steve Oransaye’s Committee is about to unleash on the nation. It will divert attention from the spectacular failure to deal with Boko Haram, with frightening crime levels in the southeast, with threats of re-emergence of criminality in the name of militancy in the Niger Delta; and with the unwillingness to deal decisively with endemic failure to organize crisis – free elections in this country. vi. No penalties for failure. If the constitutional amendment exercise fails to amend anything of value, it will not be anyone’s fault. In a year or two, or during President Jonathan’s (third, second, whatever) term, a new round of attempts to amend the constitution will commence again. We will spend more billions, and if that does not produce any result, no one needs to be blamed. The Nigerian constitution is almost impossible to amend because it works for some powerful interests the way it is. Why should they change it?

GENERAL BUHARI, IN AND OUT

“You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.” G.K. Chesterton, 1874 – 1936. General Muhammadu Buhari is being reported to have made two seemingly contradictory statements regarding his future. One version of the reported comments is that he will stay in active politics until the electoral system is sanitized, which is his shorthand for a genuine reflection of popular will though the ballot box. The other version says he is repeating his earlier promise not to run for elective office again, but will stay in politics to help improve the electoral process. Predictably, both comments are being followed by an entire legion of interested politicians and millions of citizens who still see him as symbol of the hope for real change. There are major interests at stake in the manner these contradictory positions are resolved, and it is impossible not to see some serious jockeying for positions with regards to 2015 in both positions. Visions of General Muhammadu Buhari shedding tears at a public function in Abuja with a few weeks to the 2011 general elections, and pledging that he win not run for another elective office after 2011 are still fresh in the minds of millions of people. But then so were his promises that he will not contest the outcome of the 2011 elections in court if he lost. His charge to his almost fanatical followers to guard their ballots every inch of the way with all the means at their disposal remained the most resonant message he delivered. He led his party into an election which promised much, and delivered very little. Bitter intra-party squabbles sapped his party’s energy, while creating damaging pockets of resentment which were duly capitalized upon by the PDP, a party which acted like a hoard of vultures following a wounded prey to its death. So many ambitions depended on Buhari’s nod; so many disputes sought for his wise resolution; and so many people looked up to him to lead them away from a nation where corruption, poverty and impunity were progressively destroying the very foundations of their lives and their future. The cumulative effects of massive, unresolved problems around a weak party structure centered essentially around the person and character of the General, and the limitations of his capacity as a leader who had a reputation for extending too much or too little trust in equal measure showed very clearly in the manner the CPC approached the 2011 elections. The bitter recriminations which followed President Jonathan’s decision to run as PDP’s candidate created the impression that the North was there for the taking by the General and the CPC. But the prospects for electoral alliance with the ACN were disastrously bungled, thus limiting Buhari’s huge following essentially to the far north. Massive disputes were left unresolved in areas where the PDP would not have dreamt of a whiff of victory; and they cost the CPC unbelievable losses, or created opportunities for the elections to be extensively rigged. Damaging ethno-religious campaigns were orchestrated to deprive the General support of Christian voters across the country, but particularly in the north. Northern PDP governors rolled out untold amounts to shore up Jonathan’s showing in the north, and everything was done in the south to show that voters there did not even know that Buhari contested for the Presidency. So 2011 was an unmitigated disaster for the CPC. For millions of people who were convinced that the elections were rigged, rioting became the popular means of expression. From Sokoto to Maiduguri, mostly young people rose up in anger at the announced result of the Presidential elections, and the Jonathan administration was shaken to its marrow by the extent of anger and destruction. But the international community thought it was better to endorse the elections quickly and move on, so it instructed its observers to say so and leave the smoldering nation. INEC was both vilified and commended, depending on who was supported, and the gains made by the appointment of a seemingly fair electoral umpire were lost in the smoke and bitterness which followed the election. General Buhari scored over 12million votes, virtually all of them from northerners, and President Jonathan got his desperately desired second term. General Buhari’s party performed, on the whole, worse than anyone could ever have imagined, and his party went to court to challenge the elections, and lost there again. The post election trauma in the party was profound. It nonetheless set in a motion the search for a renewal strategy, starting with a committee under Malam Nasir el-Rufai, which is yet to submit a blueprint for regeneration. The role of Buhari himself and his immediate advisers came under very critical scrutiny, and the party performed poorly in many subsequent elections. The icing on the cake were the events which preceded the re-run of the Kebbi State Gubernatorial elections, when the CPC’s leaders, including its own candidate in the election, defected to the PDP. Nothing is certain in politics, but the General is likely to attempt to resist pressure on him to run for the Presidency again in 2015. If he does that, he will be required to say so and show it in everything he does. It is particularly important that his supporters and members of the CPC understand the critical difference between being in politics for life, and contesting for office until your last breadth. If Buhari opts to allow the emergence of people from within his party who will substantially run it, establish firm structures, and encourage the emergence of a national democratic party, then the party will be well placed to even replace the PDP as the ruling party. Yet this is where the problem lies. The slightest hint that the General will leave some space for others sets in motion tremendous activity among ambitious people to take up positions of leadership. There are many interested and suspected contenders, and they range from Malam Nasir el-Rufai, to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, as well as others who believe they have labored enough for the party to get Buhari’s nod for leadership. There are yet others who are keeping their heads down and waiting for an opportunity, including many big name PDP members who have been chased or squeezed out by the formula which has shifted the source of power of the PDP to the south south and south east. Certainly, if the General can engineer the emergence of genuine intra-party democratic practices well before the next elections, then his party stands a much better chance of making a major impact in forthcoming elections. This will involve a transparent reduction in his profile and, quite honestly, influence in the manner the party is run. In simple terms, if the CPC cannot function well without the towering presence and influence of General Buhari, then he and all those who worked hard with him in the past have wasted their time. On the other hand, the routinization of his charisma in a party which has the potential to provide national leadership, provided it also engages in strategic alliance – building, will be the best legacy General Buhari will leave. The scramble for General Buhari’s endorsement or the fight to establish a foothold with or without his blessing will challenge the party as much as the pre-election quarrels did last year. This is why the General himself should be personally involved in pushing through key reforms in this party so that a new leadership emerges which enjoys popular, rather than the General’s support. For a man who has elevated the demand for credible elections to a step below the worship of God, General Buhari needs to be reminded that intra-party democracy is a fundamental requirement for a working and credible electoral process. The dominance of the PDP in the national political landscape may be a function of its ability to manipulate the electoral process better than the opposition, but the unhealthy presence of Tinubu in the ACN and Buhari in CPC does not give much comfort that they will differ much from the PDP in terms of manner they are run. The only way the opposition can take on the PDP is to organize and release the energies of millions of Nigerians to feel that they have roles and stakes in overhauling the Nigerian political and electoral system, and that they do not exist only to put people into political offices. General Buhari can show Nigerians that there is a lot more to politics than running for office.

DEATH ON AN EMPTY STOMACH.

“No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Thomas Hobbes, 1588 – 1679 The bomb that went off early on Easter Sunday at the heart of the commercial section of the city of Kaduna left behind it more casualties than most other explosions witnessed since the seeming democratization of the knowledge, skills and means to inflict massive violence on Nigerians, centered around the Boko Haram insurgency. Not necessarily in the number of lives, limbs and livelihoods which it took. There have been attacks and assaults in the past that registered more deaths and destruction than the Easter Sunday bomb. Not even in the force of its impact, because there were bombs that took down entire structures in the past. And not in its aftermath, because it did not trigger massive clampdown by security forces and the consequent additional casualties, or sectarian riots. And, it did not go off in a church, and thus add to the list of other bombs which specifically targeted the Christian community while they worshipped. But the Easter Sunday bomb took its own casualties in a rather unique way. One of such casualties is the received wisdom that Boko Haram bombs target Christians and their places of worship. To date, there is no conclusive evidence that a church in the vicinity was specifically targeted, although, as is to be expected, there are many claims that Christians were its intended target. Another casualty is the pattern of the bombing campaign. No police or military facility was attacked; and no markets, government building or home of a security officer was attacked. There are lots of speculations regarding the intentions of the bomber, and many theories around how the vehicle with the bomb exploded around a junction in a commercial area on Easter Sunday, at a period and place which was bound to have little traffic. But by far the biggest casualty was the nature of the victims of that Easter Sunday bomb. Most of those who died (and we still do not know what figure to accept) were the poor and those living on the margins of existence. Most were also Muslims, young men and elderly women selling them food to put some energy in their bodies to enable them scrape enough to the next day. Many of the achaba riders who waited for food to be served, or were fortunate to have been served were honest young men who preferred the risky and irritating life of an achaba rider, to life of crime or destitution. Many of them would have been refugees from clampdowns on taxi-motorcycles in many parts of the northeast, as reactions of security agencies and state governments to the activities of Boko Haram. Many would have completed secondary schools and may even have qualified for admission to higher institutions, but had no support to push them over and above those with privileges. Some of the casualties of the Easter Sunday bombing may never be known. Their limbs were packed and carried in body bags along with those of many others. They died with dreams of better lives in a nation which shows no signs of creating opportunities for better lives. They may have heard President Jonathan say a few weeks ago that the Boko Haram insurgency would be brought to an end by June this year. Like most Nigerians, they must have hoped that the President’s words were founded on the realities and facts on the ground. As people who spent their waking lives on the streets, they had been on the receiving end of the numerous restrictions, inconveniences and hardship which govern daily lives of citizens of Kaduna and other cities in the North. They were familiar with the demand of pushing their motorcycles past checkpoints, and engaging with policemen when they break curfews after 9.pm. Most spend nights sleeping ten in a room, and scrape through lives which stress them between making enough to make “returns” to owners, or sending monies home to families and parents in Zamfara, Jigawa or Yobe. Some of the casualties of the Easter bomb in Kaduna who died on empty stomachs may have been part of the fanatical following of General Muhammadu Buhari in the run-up to the 2011 elections, and who naively believed that change was possible and inevitable in their time. They may have been part of the motorcycle riders who accosted the Vice President at the Al Mannar mosque in Unguwar Rimi on a Friday before the 2011 elections to tell him they won’t vote for the PDP. They may have been part of the crowd that rose up to protest the result of the 2011 elections, and who joined the subsidy removal protests a few months ago, along with fellow Nigerians. Most of the casualties of the Easter Sunday bomb were Muslims. If the bomb which killed them was planted by fellow Muslims, they would have died in the hands of people who say they are fighting so that Nigerian Muslims will live as good Muslims. If they died from bombs planted by people who exploit the situation to weaken the Nigerian state or sustain the Boko Haram insurgency by other means, they would have been casualties of an undeclared war where the vast majority of casualties are law-abiding citizens. Many people died on Easter Sunday in Kaduna on an empty stomach. It may take weeks for the relations of many of them to know that they have been blown to pieces while waiting to buy food. They will be statistics in a war which shows no sign of being won by either side. The nation will not grieve over them, because they are just another set killed by bombs and bullets, and there may be many after them. By far the biggest casualty of the Easter bomb in Kaduna is the hope that Boko Haram will recognize that its mode of operation and goals are not winning it support; that government will acknowledge that it is dealing with an enemy which requires multiple strategies to deal with; and that the poor who live with hunger, frustration and hopelessness may be spared more pain and privation.

OBASANJO, TIK AN’ TIN

“A ripe melon falls by itself.”

African Proverb

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chairman, Board of Trustees of the People Democratic Party (PDP) made a turn on his celebrated political route, and has left the nation guessing and following with intense interest. He says he is making a stop, and will take another route, but only he knows how long the road is, or if he plans to make a u-turn, re-fuel, abandon the vehicle, take on new passengers, or is just thinking over what to do, or where to go next. Many people say they believe Obasanjo when he says this leg of his eventful journey is over, but insist that he has run out of fuel, and his vehicle’s engine has “knocked”. He cannot call mechanics to repair his car, or bring him fuel, because he has no credit on his phone, and mechanics do not trust him to pay them. They say he cannot go further because the road ahead is too dangerous for him, and he is safer abandoning his journey. Others are just relieved that he is abandoning his eventful political sojourn, and will hope that he will retire his plans and vehicle for good. There are yet others who really couldn’t care less, and will say that there are many Obasanjo’s on Nigeria’s political terrain.

Obasanjo himself says he is coming to the end of a stage in his life, and is starting another, out of choice. For a man who is not known to accept defeats or setbacks, this is to be expected. The stage he is resting, the stage of active politicking has indeed been full of events and accomplishments. While it lasted (if it is over, that is) Obasanjo was the dominant figure in Nigerian politics. Even before then, he had the dubious distinction of being accused, convicted and sentenced to death for planning a coup d’etat, after he himself had benefited from a coup staged by others in 1976. He rode on the back of the ambitions of other military officers to become the number two man to Murtala Mohammed, then after more ambitions were shot dead on streets and stakes, he became a reluctant number one. He went down on record as the Nigerian military head of state who handed over power to a civilian administration, and his Yoruba kith and kin declared him public enemy number one for not handing it to one of his own, whether we won the elections or not. He invoked more wrath when he charted his own course in opposing Abacha, and refused to endorse Abiola as the messiah. When he fell foul of the intrigues which had become part of the military tradition, he was clamped into jail by Abacha, but survived his jailers, survived Abiola, survived NADECO, and became the prime beneficiary of a largely-northern initiative which identified a Yoruba Presidency in 1999 as the only route to stabilizing the polity and maintaining northern influence at the centre.

When he stood for election against another Yorubaman, he lost at his polling unit, his ward, Local Government and the entire southwest zone, but was voted in by a national party which had created a “consensus” around his pedigree, candidature and presidency. He came to power with tremendous goodwill and support from the remnants of the NPN, which had roots in the north, east and the south-south. Within two years, he had fallen out with most of the people he had picked to run his government. By 2002, he realized that he needed both political power and a war-chest to sustain control; and his run-in with his deputy taught him the lesson that you cannot survive politics on someone else’s platform. By 2003, he had learnt many more lessons, but by far the most important appears to be one that suggests that a leader is only as powerful as the people around him are weak.

          Surviving the damaging intrigues of the run-up to the 2003 elections, and the elections themselves which were roundly condemned as heavily compromised, he set about to consolidate all power around him. He had succeeded in convincing his Yoruba kith and kin to appreciate that when your mother is in the kitchen, you do not embark on a hunger strike. A combination of crass opportunism among Yoruba politicians and his desire to build a power base of his own created in his party’s spectacular in-roads into the southwest.

          By 2004, he was not on speaking terms with most of the people he started the PDP journey with back in 1998, and by 2006, he had made enemies with virtually all of them. He was the only source of power, and his party bore his heavy imprint. His many scuffles with the legislature showed him the wisdom of engineering and controlling its leadership, but the third term misadventure showed that even Obasanjo could fail to reach all targets. He attempted to fight corruption, but it was too deeply rooted in the very political structure on which he relied for survival, so he failed spectacularly. He made the type of enemies that will haunt you in your grave; and so he attempt to perpetuate his powerful grip and immunity from enemies by deciding those who succeeded him. He plucked a good man with a very weak health and an unhealthy  respect for him, and another whose entire political career appears to have been written by accident and planted them in the Presidential Villa. To secure his firm grip on his party, he got it to re-write its constitution to virtually give him control of its Board of Trustees for life, if he wanted it.

With his handpicked people in the Villa, and his Party in his pocket, Obasanjo must have thought he had it made. He was wrong. In the 2007 elections, the ACN under Tinubu had began to chase his Party out of the southwest, and bitter Yoruba politicians in his party, some of them the age of his children, were insulting him in public over their fate. The new President installed in 2011 had new mentors and godfathers who had taken up position to keep him isolated and safe from Obasanjo. The rout against his party was completed in 2011, and he was back there he started: a leader without a political base. The last Convention of his Party showed him how badly the ground had shifted from under him, and it would appear that for once, Obasanjo recognizes when to throw in the towel.

Obasanjos’ enemies should not jubilate yet. The man had fallen down many times, and had been or his feet before you could say “iroko”. But this is indeed a good time for this elderly Nigerian to leave the scene altogether. He says he wants to mentor future politicians, pay attention to his presidential library and help Nigeria attract foreign investment. All laudable goals, which will be best accomplished if he stays away altogether from the political terrain.

                  

OBASANJO: GOING, GOING

“It is not what you are called, but what you answer to.”

Kikuyu Proverb.

A few months ago, a spat between two former Nigerian Heads of State, Obasanjo and Babangida held a bemused nation’s interest for a brief moment. Two former leaders who between them had been Heads of State for 18 years had fallen out in a media war over their records in office. They traded insults, and the media stoked up the fire. Former President Babangida reportedly blinked first, and dismissed the quarrel as the handiwork of the media. He said he couldn’t have taken up Obasanjo, a respected senior, in a public quarrel.

Babangida had stepped aside from many conflicts and confrontations in the past, the most famous being after aborting the elections of the late M.K.O Abiola, and finding that his career as a scheming tactician at the head of a military which had become complacent over demands of leading a restive nation, was coming to a dangerous end for him. Since he would not write his own history, those who wrote his history to date have defined him by those terminal events, and his profile has remained limited by the quicksand that almost swallowed him, the military institution and the nation.

Last week, former President Obasanjo also stepped aside. If he had the time to look up the history behind Babangida’s stepping aside, he may see how uncannily similar their circumstances are. Like Babangida, Obasanjo had lost his grip on the instruments of survival; and to push on would have been foolhardy and dangerous. Both former leaders had attempted to create conditions for virtual, perpetual control, and both had miscalculated the volatility and dynamics of changes on their fortunes. Both had reached ends they had not foreseen, and have been victims of the scheming which made them the only sources of power when they ruled.

Few people will believe that Obasanjo resigned from the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees of the PDP which he practically wrote himself into for life, out of choice. Most keen followers would say the writing has been on the wall for him for quite some time. It is possible that Obasanjo may have less friends than any Nigerian alive today, and he himself will acknowledge that he has not cultivated life-long relationships. He has fallen out with the surviving officers whose coup d’etat in 1976 gave him a number two position, and later still, the number one position, albeit with some reluctance. There are still elderly Yoruba people who will not forgive him for not handing over the Presidency to Awo in 1979, and although Yoruba people made a tactical decision to work with him and tap into the immense patronage available to him as president until 2007, they have retreated back into their tribal cocoon. He has fallen out with virtually every politician who worked to make him President in 1999, and northern politicians in particular are bitter that he paid them back by systematically dismantling the northern political establishment, and impoverishing the region.

Obasanjo learnt, the hard way, that power must be jealously guarded, or it could slip away irretrievably. Wily politicians showed him the value of a substantial war chest to oil a strong political structure in which loyalty is absolutely owed only to him. He supported the democratic process, to the extent that it was amenable to his control. He systematically lowered the quality and clout of the people around him, until he became absolutely the only source of power. He recognized the immense powers of the legislature to challenge his dominance of the political terrain, and worked to limit its potential damage to his interest by engineering and influencing the emergence and loyalty of its leadership.

He recognized the damage of pervasive corruption, but used institutions meant to fight it to achieve his political objectives. He took no prisoners, and he made legions of enemies and tolerated people who exploited his position to make untold wealth which reinforced his powers.

When it became obvious he had to go in 2007, Obasanjo re-invented himself in the Presidency that succeeded him. He installed a sickly President and a deputy whose political career appears to have been designed by pure providence. With his people in the Villa, he re-wrote his party’s rules to make himself its Board of Trustees chairman for life, if he wanted to. But not even Obasanjo could control all events. Tinubu rolled back his party and influence out of the southwest, and the new president acquired new mentors and handlers who kept him at a safe distance from Obasanjo. Without a political base and with the shifting locus of power to the south-south and south east, Obasanjo was fast losing his grip.

The last PDP convention must have shown Obasanjo that quite a number of people in his party have learnt lessons on how to keep power, but they are not with him. The tradition he started of keeping a firm hold on party leadership was sustained, with even more decisiveness then he did. Consensus in his party has been elevate to the status of the holy grail, and every element of decision – making in the PDP is now the exclusive preserve of a few people. There are new actors in the block who are willing to challenge the old order, and without bridges to fall back on, the old General read the writing on the wall.

It may be too early yet to sing hallelujah for Obasanjo’s  retirement. The old man will be chased by old enemies and adversaries all the way to his end, so he is unlikely to even give up all his defences. Obasanjo may write his own history, but there will also be many other versions. One of these may say that he was a man who had a historic opportunity to lay the foundations of good governance in Nigeria, but failed to do so. The party whose BOT chair he has given up is not exactly a shining legacy to leave behind, in a nation desperate for evidence that it can build a working democratic system.

CONSPIRACY IN CONSENSUS

“If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates”

Jay Leno, Comedian.

The just concluded National Convention of People Democratic Party which produced a new set of its leaders is a study in the perversion of all the core values of the democratic process. It is significant not just because it has extended a tradition in the party which has successively replaced popular will with elite conspiracy, but because it makes a very clear statement on how events are likely to unfold towards 2015. Anyone who had hoped that the many lesson which are crying to be learnt from 2009 to date will be disappointed. Many other Nigerians have since resigned themselves to the fact that the ruling party lives by its own rules; and these are not the rules which give life and sustenances to the democratic process.  

The PDP now has a national chairman who was rejected by a small caucus at his base and political home; but was dusted up, spun around and installed by a stronger, and quite possibly smaller clique which has higher ambitions and stronger stakes in his chairmanship. He will work with other officials who are products of the muscle of big men and powerful vested interests. None has had their popularity or acceptability tested among card-carrying members of the party who will not get close to former President Obasanjo, President Jonathan, Governors or the legion of fixers. These will be people who emerged on the skeletons of many ambitions sacrificed on the alter of very narrow ambitions, and who will be constantly reminded that they owe their positions to a few men who forced down many competitors so they can take theirs.

The current leadership of the PDP is the product of a consensus of the few against the popular will of the members. It will lead a party which is willing to submit to everything except elections to test the popularity of its leaders. It will know that the nation will not be fooled by the spin put behind this perversion that an agreement among a few strong men which is termed consensus is superior to an open and free election at every stage provided for by the spirit and letter of the constitution of the party. These leaders will be the same people the nation will expect to uphold the rules that are central to the protection of intra-party democracy. They will lead their party to contest for offices in an electoral process which places a major burden on political parties to respect their own rules. They will take many decisions, and deal with many intra-party disputes on the basis of rules which require to be respected. If they carry the consensus mentality which brought them into offices, the nation will be in even greater trouble than it is. And why shouldn’t they? Consensus solves the problems which are associated with free and open contest that may lose a position powerful people desperately need to garner more power. It provides a cover for many anti-democratic practices which are undertaken without which you cannot guarantee nomination or the elimination of opposition.

Consensus among largely northern elite brought President Obasanjo to power. He systematically and assiduously dismantled the basic power structure of the north which installed him as President in 1999. Thereafter, he became the consensus. There was only one source of power from 2002 until 2007. His power rolled back the AD in 2003, and until he met his nemesis in Tinubu, he may still be relevant in the southwest today. It was consensus personalized around Obasanjo that produced President Yar’Adua and Jonathan, and it was the Northern PDP consensus candidate misadventure that created the underserved sympathy that was in part responsible for the Jonathan Presidency. Wherever you see the PDP, you see consensus, and it invariably means some monumental subversion of the will of the people is at play.

So what could be the motive behind this latest manifestation of the contempt for internal democracy in the PDP which is being touted as the victory for democracy? Could it be the case that President Jonathan’s desire to run again in 2015, whether the constitution gives him the right to be sworn-in three times or not, is already being pursued? Even if, in the unlikely event that he doesn’t run, he retains the power to decide where the Presidency “goes”: southeast or north, a national party leadership wholly loyal to him will be vital. Could it be the case that the President is already involved in weakening potential opposition, such as Atiku Abubakar, in the manner the leadership of the party is installed? Could these be opening skirmishes between the President and Governors which will test who has powers to decide who runs and who doesn’t, in a party where outright blackmail and unimaginable uses of money and official powers have secured many victories, without a single ballot cast?

The hope that the electoral process will be improved by the manner political parties improve their own internal democracy will be further diminished by the last PDP convention. As it is, the political terrain is replete with evidence that the nation is not learning the appropriate lessons from the setbacks suffered from 2009 to date. The only viable opposition is the ACN, but it is too busy building tribal fortresses against the PDP, and in reaction to signs that the nation is heading for massive structural instability under this administration and beyond. Its champion whose 60^th birthday is being celebrated, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has chased Obasanjo out of the southwest, but has no illusions of turning his party into a credible option to the PDP. The CPC has suffered massive post-traumatic stress disorder, and although it is currently undergoing critical self-assessment and examining strategies for renewal, it is  losing ground and space at a rate that should alarm it. Only last week, it lost an entire edifice in Kebbi State, complete with the candidate challenging the election of PDP’s candidate with just days to the re-run elections. If the PDP wrote its own script for dealing with the opposition, it couldn’t have done a better job. But what is it doing with the unexpected spoils? It carries on as usual. It has little time for intra-party rules; candidates who should test popularity at their constituencies, or even the opinion of a nation which is routinely told that consensus is the best form of democracy. It “dashes” zoned positions to powerful people, and even a 60 year old man has been made youth leader by his godfather.

The future of Nigeria’s democratic system is bleak. The nation is agog with debates about conferences and restructuring, and is grappling with monumental security challenges. All these have their roots in bad governance. The party which has led this nation for the last 12 years has shrunk the democratic space dangerously. When a friend credited the PDP with holding together Nigerian democracy in the last 12 years, I observed that it sounds like saying that the hyena ate up the goat to keep it safe. The only problem bigger than the PDP is the absence of real opposition to challenge it to raise the bar, or replace it altogether and breath a new lease of life in this system in which big men rule us by their consensus.

OUR SHRINKING DEMOCRACY.

“I show you doubt, to prove that faith exists”

Robert Browning, 1812 – 89.

Last week two events took place which make loud statements about the nature of our democratic dispensation. The first was the National Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which told the members of the Party and the Nigerian public the persons who will lead the party after weeks of engaging in every trick in the book known to democracy, except open elections. The second was the celebration of the life and achievement of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the undisputed leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), and a man who represents the only visible source of opposition to the PDP, but does so only on his ability to play the ethnic card. Nigerians who had hoped that our democratic system would have grown and developed beyond the charade which was the PDP selection of its leaders; or the celebration of the person, and not the vital component of the democratic process (the political party) will be sorely disappointed. Worse, our sense of foreboding over what all this means for 2015 has been deepened.

The PDP has always been the big man’s party. Small people (citizens, voters, its members, opposition) have their values for the party, but each plays a strictly choreographed role. Citizens of Nigeria are useful to the party because the constitution says they own sovereignty. The PDP routinely goes through the rituals prescribed for relieving the people of this sovereignty through elections that have progressively been worse than the other since 1999. They are informed who will be their leaders, and every once in a while, they rise in protest over results, but the electoral process and the party has become adept at ignoring or surviving them. The Nigerian voters are mobilized with money, primordial loyalties or fear to line up on election days and serve a very important role of casting ballots. These, however, are not necessarily the votes that will count, as the experts and fixers who have gained competence and confidence in rigging elections move in even before voting is concluded to procure results. Members of the party have a major role to play, and do so by being paid to select delegates, who in turn are paid to attend congresses and conventions to hear who has been decided to emerge candidates or leaders on their behalf. Stubborn members who insist on running against a small cabal which exists at every stage are dealt with in a number of established manners, the most popular being compensation with money, lucrative appointments or contracts, threats or humiliation of the type that will be remembered by grandchildren. The opposition is useful for the PDP to preserve the mirage of a democratic system; to provide targets for routine defeat, to provide candidates which can be poached or turned around; and to ridicule as ineffective and weak, unlike the largest party in Africa.

The manner the new leaders of the PDP have just emerged shows clearly that PDP is the biggest threat to the Nigerian democratic process. Its affairs will be run by a small clique which has emerged as a result of decisions of not more than 20 people from a party which claims to have a membership running into millions. PDP’s ‘consensus’ is pre-eminently the subversion of the popular will and elite dominance in its most destructive form. It represents the most odious contempt for the basic democratic principle of the exercise of choice, the distribution and exercise of power from the most humble card-carrying member to the President, and the desperate need to improve intra-party democracy as the pillar for improving the Nigerian democratic and electoral process. In its 12 years of existence, the PDP has used the conspiracy of the powerful which it called consensus to wreck thousands of genuine political ambitions; to foist the influence of money, incumbency and professional fixers, and to shrink the political space to a most dangerous level.

The last conclave which produced a chairman rejected by his primary constituency, and a whole list of other officials who all owe their positions to a powerful person in the PDP, is no different from past conclaves. But it does raise a number of legitimate concerns. It will be impossible not to see the ambitions of President Goodluck Jonathan for another shot at the Presidency in 2015 in the manner the current leadership of the PDP has been cobbled together. In the event that the constitution bars him from being sworn-in three times as President, and the discredited zoning formula of the PDP is dusted up to serve his interest, he will still use the leadership of the party to play off the East against the North in the selection of a Presidential candidate. He, along with President Obasanjo and a few Governors will therefore retain the power to chose who the PDP fields, and may choose another weak and ineffective leader. The millions of people the PDP claims to have as members will have no say in this, as, indeed, they had none in its entire life. INEC cannot force the PDP to observe even a modicum of respect for intra-party democracy. If the PDP does produce the next President in 2015, he will be even less of a popular choice of members of the party, and less so for Nigerians.

In spite of the huge drums rolled out to celebrate Tinubu’s achievements during his 60^th birthday, it is difficult to see how this event differs substantially from the dismal record and recent outing of the PDP. In spite of the spin and elaborate PR around the celebrations for Tinubu, there are really only two things that can be said about him. One is that he has succeeded  in chasing Obasanjo out of the South-West, to a point where he is virtually irrelevant in Yoruba politics, and can only find space and clout inside the PDP, a party he re-designed to serve the interests of the powerful.

If Obasanjo’s role in the manner our democracy is being shrunk is hurting the rest of the nation, then Tinubu could claim to have saved Yoruba people from its impact. But he has only done this by consolidating his power around Yoruba politics. Today, the southwest bears a close resemblance to a monolithic tribal enclave (give or take one or two pockets of resistance) working feverishly to build an economic and political framework for autonomy, or substantial autonomy from Nigeria. Many of his admirers will say he has done this in reaction both to the desperate battles to wrest the Southwest from the PDP and Obasanjo, and the manner the political dynamics since 2010 have made ethnicity as the most decisive factor in the struggle for power. In any case, here you have Tinubu, the most powerful politican in the southwest, but absolutely powerless outside it. On the other had, you have Obasanjo, a Yoruba man who won’t get the time of day in Yorubaland, but who has powers to decide, along with a few others, who will rule Nigeria.

Tinubu’s admirers will mention how much he tried to build electoral alliances with the CPC, and how much he got his fingers burnt. They will say he and his party represent the only credible political opposition to the behemoth which the PDP has become. They may acknowledge that Tinubu realizes that the ACN, as presently structured and run, runs the risk of becoming an extremely successful tribal party, with limited influence over the manner the Nigerian state is run. The ACN and the PDP are choking the democratic process in Nigeria: one by elevating the limiting value of tribe and region to the highest value at a time they should be subsumed under a national democratic culture; the other by negating all the basic principles of a democratic system which recognizes participation, inclusiveness and respect for rules and laws. The Tinubu legacy should not be limited to a tribal enclave. He must reach beyond Yorubaland, and established real alliances with other parties and regions to provide real opposition and challenge to the PDP. This way, perhaps those few members of the PDP who say they are ashamed of the manner the party they love conducts itself and runs the nation, may be challenged to rise and reform this cabal which masquerades as a political party.