Un-Due Process

“Price, (n). value, plus a reasonal sum for the wear and tear of conscience in demanding it.” Ambrose Bierce.

The nation is being reminded that the interests of politicians is superior to all institutions, rules and processes, including the public service and procurement processes. Events are unfolding which explain why our politics in Nigeria is so anti-people, and how politicians are running our economy aground. Just when you thought that the murky waters that swallowed former Minister of Power, Barth Nnaji may have receded to reveal slightly more level grounds, very powerful Governors are opening up a new front in a fight involving poorly-masked personal interests. By the time this drama is concluded, the vital interests of Nigerian citizens in the pivotal privatization of the power sector may have been further compromised. The integrity of the exercise will be questioned, and it is very likely that other quarrels over the process of selecting firms would be heard in the near future.

The crown jewel in the reform process is in danger of being plucked by a dispute over what is the most appropriate process to follow in privatizing distribution companies. Governors of Edo, Delta and Ekiti last week complained that the company they have backed, Southern Electricity Distribution Company, which lost at a critical stage of the bidding process, has been unfairly assessed. Therefore, it is in danger of losing out in the final analysis to Vigeo Power Consortium, which emerged as leading bidder. Although the process was at that stage incomplete, the Governors came, guns ablaze, to denounce the entire exercise, and threaten that they will prevent Vigeo from taking over power distribution in their areas. They insisted that they had invested heavily in generating infrastructure, and they would rather have the company they preferred, which has extensive knowledge and, presumably, their clout to operate in the zone. Nigerians took note of “area boys” mentality among state governors, and were sadly reminded of the intimate linkages between political power, corruption and violence.

Stung by weighty accusations that the entire ongoing processes of privatizing the power sector was fraught with corruption, Chairman of the National Council on Privatization, Mr Atedo Peterside, with the mandate of the Vice President who is chairman of the National Council on Privatization, followed up on the Bureau for Public Enterprises’ repudiation of the claims of the Governors with a detailed rebuttal. He blasted the Governors for crying foul over an in complete process, perhaps because they feared that their preferred company will lose. But he said more. The appearance of a “pre-emptive” strike by the Governors may have been a ploy to cover what Mr Peterside said was evidence of abuse of the process by the governors’ preferred company which may lead to its disqualification. Mr Peterside insists the entire process is being informed by the highest possible standards of openness, technical competence and transparency. The governors do not agree. They say they have evidence that Southern beat Vigeo in evaluation scores, and the method being adopted by the NCP is untested and not transparent. The nation took note of the foundations for widespread disputes over the entire eleven distribution companies scattered all over the country.

These disputes over power distribution companies are severely damaging for an administration which puts out power sector reforms as its flagship, and about the only area in which Nigerians desperately hope the administration’s words would be kept. It has not been without a whole cupboard full of skeletons either. It suffered loss of credibility in the dismissal of the former Minister of Power; on questions raised over the divestment proceeds (N400 billion); over the high profile nature of the Nigerians backing investors; on concerns over politics and the process; over pronounced regional sentiments and persistent claims that even those who oversee the process have deep personal interests in key outcomes.

These questions around the process, genuine or contrived, may have informed the bellicous demands of the governors to have their own company, qualified or not. Will they get what they want in the end, as a capitulating political concession, and out of the fear that they will make life difficult for any other company to operate in the area? If the process refuses to yield to the demand of the governors, and stands its ground to operate above political interests, it could very well award the Disco covering Edo, Ekiti, Delta and Ondo to Vigeo. What then would the governors do? If on the other hand, the process is stampeded by political pressure, compromises key indices and hands over the Benin Disco to Southern, it could very well open the floodgates to similar demands from other geo-political units which will demand that they have preferred bidders of their own. It will taint the entire process, and leave only one conclusion: political muscle and barely-concealed personal interests are still vital elements of the procurement process in Nigeria. This will not be new in Nigeria, but it will sink the entire power sector privatization programme.

As things stand now, it is difficult to see how confidence over this process can be sustained. The governors of the states appear to have dealt a very serious blow to it. If their weighty allegations are false, it will take more than Mr Peterside or even the Vice president to discredit them effectively. This has to be done by President Jonathan himself, or his flagship will be torpedoed by powerful governors in a region which is his strongest political constituency. Will President Jonathan take on the governors of Edo, Ekiti, Delta and Ondo, and will they blink first? In the event that the entire process cannot be salvaged by the presidency owing to overpowering political pressures, the House of Representatives should step in and conduct a thorough and open investigation over the entire privatization process.

The disputes over what is the appropriate process to follow in matters where vital public interest is involved and massive resources are at stake is central to the quality of governance. Isolating the process from very narrow interests which compromise it and deprive the people of huge benefits is one of the most important ways to fight corruption. The world over, this is not easy to achieve; but in Nigeria, it has never been more necessary. The on-going privatization of the power sector is a key test over whether President Jonathan has the political will to push through difficult, but ultimately rewarding policies. Nigerians should watch the outcome of the dispute over the Benin Disco with keen interest.

Noise makers and false prophets

“Power corrupts, but lack of power corrupts absolutely.”

Adlai Stevenson.

I spent two days in Akure, Ondo State a few weeks before the elections which last week returned the governor to office for a second term. Two days were too brief to get a real feel about possible outcomes of the election, but it was obvious even in that brief moment that the Ondo gubernatorial elections where going to be bitterly contested. Labour Party was fighting desperately to retain the only State it had control of. The Governor was fighting on all fronts to stop the bullodozers of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the sharks released by the People Democratic Party (PDP) to see if they could upset a delicate apple cart in Ondo State. The stakes were very high indeed, and it was easy to see that it was going to be a bruising battle.

The Governor of Ondo won his re-election bid, in an election which has yielded many interesting pointers. Coming only a few months after the Governor of Edo State had won his own re-election battle despite spirited efforts by the PDP to re-take the politically strategic state, an interesting pattern appears to be emerging. Is INEC better when it conducts single-State elections or are governors becoming more adept at defending their turf? Ideally, it should be the former, because it is obvious that single gubernatorial elections generate less quarrels over logistics and results than they do during general elections. Still, its capacity to improve overall performance can only be judged during general elections.

Edo State showed an election at which everything was thrown at the Governor by the PDP, but he survived on his own credibility, as well as the fierce defences of his party, the ACN. The PDP lost, and graciously accepted defeat. In the case of Ondo State, Governor Mimiko stood like a lone ranger, assailed by the twin forces of the ACN which was desperate to stamp its entire authority in the south-west, and the PDP which is seeking a foothold in a region where it can barely breath. The ACN swaggered around, and gave notice to Mimiko to vacate the office by its supreme confidence that it will win.

As it turned out, the PDP came second, beating the ACN to third place in an election which should register as a landmark humiliation for it. There ought to be some serious soul-search in the top achelons of the ACN, following the rout in Ondo. Who knows, a few sobering conclusions may register in minds long convinced of the idea that Yoruba people and the ACN are one and the same thing. Ondo people said they are not; and offending and arrogant postures which suggest that all Yoruba people must pay political allegiance to a power structure created above their heads will now be humbled by the obstinate independence of Ondo voters.

In Ondo State, and to a lesser extent in Edo State, the fallacy of political and ethnic boundries coinciding has been badly exposed. There is a profound lesson in the rejection of the ACN by Ondo voters; by the stubborn insistence of Edo State voters to vote for it instead of PDP, and the increasing tendency of voters across the country to resist linkages between their ethnicity and their politics, or between parties and so called strongholds. This speaks of potentials for emergence of political structures, movements and alliances that will break down barriers, provide citizens and voters with credible choices, and reduce the stranglehold of ethno-religious politics on the nation.

The PDP’s assured confidence that it can rough it up and still emerge victorious in key elections is being badly dented. Without the cover of general elections, its contests take place more openly; its opposition is getting better in fighting back, and it is losing ground in important elections. The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has lost elections that have deep symbolic significance for its fortunes, and its present state. It lost an election recently to the PDP in Zaria, an event which would have been inconceivable, a few months ago, even with the success of Igabi in its kitty. The maneuvers around its Renewal Committee report which are seen as fights for the life and soul of the party could do either of two things: provide a significant and strategic assessment of its weaknesses and strengths, as well as chart a practical way toward; or represent a final seal on its fortunes as factions and interests fight over its implications and implementation.

The lessons for the ACN, CPC, APGA and the ANPP are quite obvious, if they care to look for them in the elections which have taken place recently. They cannot compete with the PDP because unlike them, the PDP is a contraption of rich and powerful people from all the nooks and crannies of the nation who are in it for money and power. With more power they make more money. With money, power is guaranteed. They can buy up voters, compromise electoral and security operatives, and even buy up the opposition’s  candidates.

Opposition parties which set up camps around ethnic sentiments or are thinly-veiled personality cults cannot harm the PDP. On the other hand, the PDP should not presume that its reach and cult-like control over power and sources of wealth is guarantee that it can continue to rule Nigeria as it wishes. Politicians who are versed in the old ways of doing things may be very surprised by the turn of events in the next few months. Firstly, it may be difficult to continue to paper over the serious limitations and the incompetence of President Jonathan by invoking false enemies and hostilities to his being a southerner, from the south-south and Ijaw. Ijaw people like all other Nigerians know when to draw the line when one of their own proves particularly incapable of exercising responsibility, and it amounts to gratuitous insult to say that people from one part of the country will continue to tolerate incompetence and corruption because they are taking place under the watch of one of their own.

Secondly those politicians who bank on President Jonathan’s pitiable record to make political fortunes are likely to find, at great cost, that records alone do not determine the fortunes of the PDP, or elected people. Projections which presume bloc votes of tribes or regions and religions during elections are founded on false assumptions as well. The ACN may pledge to deliver Yoruba people’s votes, but Ondo has proved that this cannot be guaranteed. The CPC is still firmly rooted around the person of General Muhammadu Buhari, and he is therefore both its greatest asset and greatest liability. Nigerians outside many parts of the North want to see leaders like the General in charge of the affairs of our nation, but majority would want to see leaders in political parties which are rooted in their lives, and which can win elections and form governments at states and the federal level. The ANPP cannot seem to decide whether it wants to be a local party changing hands by the day from one rich man to the other; or be part of a national regeneration process which should break down barriers. Other ethnic parties such as the APGA appear content to live as ethnic parties, and operate in constant fear of the PDP.

There are many scenarious which are being discussed in meetings and other fora regarding Nigerian politics. Many of these are anchored around false prophesies. One of this is that the Jonathan administration will continue to weaken the North politically, using every means at its disposal, until 2015 when he is safely back in the Villa. The falsehood in this scenario is that the North will submit itself like clay to President Jonathan’s designs and ambitions to be moulded. Another falsehood in that Senator Tinubu and General Buhari will engineer a far-north/south-west political alliance to defeat the PDP. The fact, however is that Tinubu’s control over Yorubaland is only marginally firmer than General Buhari’s control over much of the north-west. A third falsehood is that Nigerians will continue to be played by their leaders as pawns in ethnic politics. The fact however is that the current levels of anger, poverty and insecurity could compel millions of Nigerians to look for political solutions beyond what is provided by the present leaders. Bit by bit, Nigerians are beginning to question the political status-quo, and may ultimately insist that every citizen, except the politicians who amass power and wealth at our expense, has been a victim of the destructive and divisive politics which have brought our nation to its knees.

The naked nation

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

African Proverb

Imagine please what went through the minds of the four young men who were apprehended in Port Harcourt by a mob which tortured them, paraded them naked with tyres around their necks, and then set them ablaze. In the hours during their ordeal, among the many thoughts that went through their minds, one must have been that they will be rescued by the police, or some sort of authority; or even by other citizens. Reports say the police showed up, assessed the situation, and withdrew. A few citizens attempted to intervene, but were scared away. The four young men were murdered by fellow citizens amidst jubilation. They died believing a truth: their nation has abandoned them. Their colleagues rampaged, because they had no faith in the state either.

Or imagine, if you will, being a citizen in Dogon Dawa, a village in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area of Kaduna State who cowered for hours in the hope that relief will come during a massive attack by a criminal gang which attacked your community to free their colleagues and exact revenge. You would have hoped that in the period it took the gang to kill 26 people, including 10 coming out of a mosque, policemen will come in to take on the criminals. You would have been wrong. The gang had enough time to kill two of their own who they injured in the process of rescuing, kill the village head and a lot of young people. Many who died must have felt the type of helpnessness and hopelessness the students in Port Harcourt experienced.

Or imagine, if you will, that you are one of the students at a Polytechnic in Mubi, Adamawa State who learnt that a gang was going from house to house with a list, calling out names and slaughtering or shooting young people. In the period it took the gang to murder about 40 young people, you must have hoped that relief in one form or the other would come, particularly since you lived in a town which recently became part of the frontline in the fight against an insurgency. Many who answered in the affirmative when asked to confirm their names, or opened doors when asked to do so, and were then murdered, were young Nigerians who died with their dreams of living in a nation that cared enough to secure them from this type of end.

Or imagine, if you will, that you are a citizen in Benue or Nassarawa or Plateau State, who lives in a community attacked by enemies armed and willing to kill children as well as adults. You would have known that the conflict will take lives, and you would have prayed that yours will not be among them. You would have hoped that the attackers will not come; that security personnel will stop them; or your own villagers’ efforts will protect you. Those who died in these villages, including children, would have died with bitter, last-minute thoughts that they lived in an uncaring nation which had abandoned them.

Or imagine, if you will, that you are a citizen in Maiduguri, Potiskum or any of the cities which have become active battle grounds these days. You live in fear of the Jamaatu Ahlil Sunnah Liddiawati Wal Jihad a.k.a. Boko Haram and the Joint Task Force in equal measure. Both treat you as an enemy, or one who can easily become one, and both treat you as expendable. You live daily with the stress of dodging bullets and bombs, and you watch as neighbours and relations are felled, arrested, or migrate. Your children know the difference between the sounds of bombs and bullets; and young men live with fear of being arrested for being young men. You live daily with hopes that something will give in this conflict: either the JTF will change tactics, defeat the JASLIWAJ, or the insurgency will melt and disappear. As your life becomes more endangered daily, you look in vain to a nation which owes you some level of security, if nothing else. You hope in vain as another bomb goes off, and you lock up for hours while fights rage outside your home. When its all over, you come out to count the losses, which may or may not include your property or relations.

Or imagine, if you will, that you are one of the millions of Nigerians whose livelihoods and assets have been swallowed up by floods. Before it came to you to render you a refugee, you may have heard of warnings that this year’s rains may trigger unprecedented flooding. You may have heard of protests from the Nigerian government that neighbours were allowing dams to flood our nation. You may have seen distant lands swallowed up; hundreds of thousands barely escaping with the cloth on their backs; and the creeping flood as it inched nearer and nearer to you. If you are one of the millions who have lost everything; and quite possibly you live as a refugee at the mercy of officials of the Nigerian state who tell you they do not have enough to feed you all, or re-build your homes, you may be wondering what became of your government and a nation that appears to have abandoned you to the elements. If you hope for start-up relief, many citizens who know better will tell you to pray to God for assistance instead, and start your life all over again on your own.

Or imagine, if you will, that you have been kidnapped by a gang which demands for millions from your family. You would have hoped to be traced and rescued. Then, after a few days, you would pray that your family will find some of the amount your abductors are asking for. As they negotiate and threaten you, you would be forgiven for believing that your life means nothing to the Nigerian state.

Now imagine a nation in which police move in quickly to stop lynchings and arrest the mob and the suspects. Imagine a nation in which villagers sleep indoors and not in farmlands and in the bush out of fear of night attacks, because security agencies have taken steps to protect them. Imagine a nation in which the police arrest and begins the prosecution of people who kill students in Mubi, and villagers in Dogon Dawa, Riyom and Barikin Ladi. Imagine a nation in which government takes pro-active measures to minimize the damage of the floods, and relieves suffering and losses of citizens with the resources of the state and by tapping into the considerable resorvoire of compassion of Nigerians. Imagine a nation where citizens prefer soldiers to fellow citizens who demand that they live by their own values or die; where foreigners are not shot or kidnapped for being foreigners; where the young are not so thoroughly embittered that they cannot see any good in their nation, now or in the future.

Imagine our nation as a respected parent or elder, naked and exposed. That is what it is. Imagine what it will take to restore the dignity of that relation or elder, who is naked because she has been stripped of all her covering and dignity by the indifference and incompetence of those who should cloth her, and by the docile submission of spectators over her state. Everyone of us is that naked elder. The nation will remain naked unless the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan radically improves the capacity of our security agencies to protect and secure our lives and property, and improve the manner the economy functions. Things cannot, or should not get worse than they are. If our leaders cannot improve our security environment, and arrest the decline into helpnessess and hopelessness by citizens, they should step down.

PDP: the weaknesses of power

“A pot that can no longer boil water should be discarded.” 

Sudanese Proverb

 

The intense quarrels which broke out among PDP big-wigs long before President Jonathan presented the 2013 budget proposals to the National Assembly do not  appear to be abating. They are, in all probability, likely to worsen if the disputes over the 2012 budget implementation continue to be sources of friction. The ruling party is living up to its reputation as a working contraption which feeds off the weaknesses of our political system, and delivers less and less to the quality of governance. A stranger to this tendency for the PDP to tear itself up every once in a while, and still find a way to stay on its feet will be thoroughly baffled. But Nigerians familiar with the disconnect between political power and the capacity to win elections and deliver service will most likely just note this particular round of fights within the PDP. Younger Nigerians will wonder if our democracy will ever change their lives.

At the current stage of this latest fight, the leaders of the National Assembly are taking on the aides of President Jonathan who publicly upbraided them for their comments and reactions to the administration’s performance in the budgetary process. The aides will not back down either, and the national assembly members will rally behind their leadership. The yawning gaps between the claims of the executive arm on its budget execution achievement, and those of the legislature may never be empirically verified. Both sides realize that budget implementation is a major yardstick by which to measure the impact of governments, so it is not surprising that the quarrels are heated and messy.

In democracies where different parties control large blocks of the legislature, disputes over the budget are central to electoral fortunes of parties, and citizens pay very close attention to them. Governments collapse routinely over budget issues all over the world. So serious is the issue of a faithful implementation of budgets that our own constitution makes failure to implement the budget by the executive an impeachable offence. The problem has always been that the executive had insisted on its own definition of faithful implementation; and at any one time, it can call a whole host of reasons, including unnecessary interference from the legislature, for its inability to achieve its targets. Threats to impeach Presidents over budget performance is nothing new; and the nation hardly pays any attention to them.

Which is a great tragedy, considering the importance of budgets as principal instruments of governance. The only tragedy bigger than the routinization of these quarrels is the failure of the political process to give them more substance. The Nigerian situation is such that only the PDP opposes itself; and this opposition is predictably and routinely settled as a family affair. The national assembly, in which the PDP has a huge majority, flexes its muscles; huffs and puffs and then rolls over at the end of the fiscal year. You then hear the same quarrels next year, and they are repeated with uncanny similarity: late and shoddy prepations; disputed assumptions and projections; late passage of the Act; inclusion of “contraband” (constituency) projects; late and inadequate releases; bogus or shabby execution and false claims over execution rates among many other reasons. The executive does not seem to take these quarrels seriously either. Even when it “prepares” the budget early, as it appears to have done this year, it does this at the expense of requirements for critical inputs from spending and implementing agencies. Budget philosophy, frameworks and basic assumptions are presented as non-negotiable, largely because the executive treats legislators with thinly-veiled contempt as people who will hardly understand them, or pay any attention to them, particularly if certain “interests” are taken into consideration.

So a fair question to ask is why a political party that has virtual control of key decision-making powers at federal and state levels proves spectacularly unable to perform basic functions such as budget management and the maintenance of security, law and order; still continues to exert such decisive and negative influence in a nation where citizens have a choice? The answer to this question is complex, but it cannot continue to be ignored. It is important to ask what makes the Nigerian political system so weak and vulnerable to manipulation that a party like the PDP can survive and expand. If its key functionaries such as the President, leaders of the legislature and the party can accuse each other of incompetence, subversion and dangerous grandstanding, and threaten impeachment and disciplinary action against each other, there must be something wrong with a democratic system that just looks on and waits for the next quarrel, not the next election. There must be something fundamentally wrong with a party which cannot stop damaging fights between its President and governors over major policy instruments such as Excess Crude Account (or Sovereign Wealth Fund); over revenue-sharing formula; over privatization of assets; or any one of scores of major issues. But when neither the opposition nor the PDP itself is able to transform these routine quarrels that progressively sap the vitality and substance from our democratic system from internal matters to major political issues, then it is time to ask whether the our democracy is worth anything at all.

To be fair, it is not enough to blame the PDP for running our democracy aground through its established standards of incompetence, insensitivity and total disregard for public opinion which can only be explained by its confidence that it will retain power by any means necessary. The culpability of the opposition in the abuse of the democratic process is greater than its total disrespect by the PDP. An opposition that briefly comes to life during elections, plays the game the way it sees the PDP play it, but does it worse; and then disappears behind ethnic barriers, or gets swallowed up by the rarified air of Abuja politics is a bigger liability on the Nigerian people than the PDP.

It should surprise no one that the PDP is watching all the current excitement over prospects of mergers and alliances among opposition parties with a comforting amusement. It has seen it all before, and there is nothing on the ground to suggest that anything that will threaten it will come out of them. The PDP knows that the opposition is barely distinguishable from it in many critical aspects: big parties are centred around very few people or individuals whose words are final on any matter. Alliances or mergers are therefore attempted collaboration between personal egos and ambitions, and they fall flat on their faces because party leaders cannot yield ground to interests bigger than them. So the PDP continues to laugh all the way to elective offices because its conclave of the few rich and powerful plays the game better than parties who make pretenses at populist ideologies, and who have neither the resources nor muscle to buy off the entire electoral machinery, as well as a substantial rump of the opposition.

The flashes of defiance and hopes for the assertion of some element of autonomy and integrity which the House of Representatives in particular is showing give hope that his time around, the legislature will challenge President Jonathan to do better. It may also exercise the mandate of the people of Nigeria in such a manner as to dent the arrogance and confidence of a ruling party which should really be called the ruining party. The opposition has a great opportunity to do more than wish that the PDP will implode. It can work towards 2015, but it needs to work now to reduce the damage which the administration is visiting on the nation. It has to work hard, because it is, itself, severely limited by one of the major shortcomings of the PDP: the basic assumption that politics is relevant only during elections. If they wait for elections to show Nigerians the liability which the PDP is, they will lose again. Because though the PDP may not be good at anything, but it is better than all the opposition combined in being returned as winner in elections.