Meltdown

          “It is better to lose the saddle than the horse”. Proverb

Ordinarily the spat involving General Gowon, President Obasanjo and President Jonathan over remarks made with reference to dealing with current security challenges would be put down as another symptom of systemic decay which pervades every facet of our national life. It will rank alongside the unseemly quarrels which broke out among senior clergy and simple folk after the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (C.A.N) Pastor Oritsejiafor joined select Nigerians who now own their aircraft. Public disagreements at these levels among people who should know better are not new, and many people have resigned themselves to living in a nation without statesmen, elders or moral standard-bearers. The involvement of General Yakubu Gowon in this quarrel is uncharacteristic and unusual. For a man who had largely resigned himself to praying for the nation as his contribution to national survival and unity, General Gowon’s criticism of Obasanjo was more than a slap on the wrist. President Obasanjo would not have felt a slap on the wrist, anyway; and this perhaps explains the choice of words such as irresponsible by the General who by any strand of imagination cannot be seen as an errand boy. It must have made some mark on President Obasanjo, who responded with a stout defence of his comments, and complained over the choice of words from the aging former Head of State.

These are not ordinary times, and the quarrels involving a sitting President and two former heads of state must be seen as evidence of a national meltdown (credit to Modibbo Kawu). At the heart of the issue is the seeming failure of the Jonathan administration to find solutions to the insurgency known popularly as Boko Haram. President Obasanjo started it by invoking a genuine dark spot in our recent history: the killing of soldiers and policemen in the town of Odi, and reprisals by soldiers which was however sold-off as firm and decisive response. It was not a good example to bring up, because it reminded the nation of another budding insurgency which had enough confidence to kill many policemen and soldiers; and of an administration which was willing to go far beyond arrest and prosecution of culprits, so that appropriate lessons were learnt by “militants”, communities and the nation. It was easy for President Jonathan to deny Obasanjo’s claim that Odi set standards for successful state response to threats to national security, because, indeed, criminal activity in the Delta after Odi took on a life of its own. So what were all those lives lost for? He did not even need to state how his own strategy, if he has any, is better than Obansajo’s at Odi, or Zaki Biyam.

President Jonathan’s repudiation of Obasanjo’s claim over the impact of Odi which was given fillip by General Gowon begged the question. If strong arm tactics and blitzing forays into communities only create more problems than they solve, what is Jonathan’s grand strategy to deal with Boko Haram? He had used the same media chat to denounce both Obasanjo’s claims on the impact of Odi, and to state categorically that there are no discussions with leaders of the insurgency. They are faceless, he said, and you do not negotiate with faceless people. A few days later, his government puts out huge sums as bounty on all its leaders, who are identified by names and aliases. Two days after this, two bombs went off in a church in Jaji military cantonment, an event comparable in its audacity with the bombing of the U.N Headquaters in Abuja.

It would have done General Gowon’s current standing greater service if he had both advised General Obasanjo to be more circumspect over some of what he considers his achievements, and advised President Jonathan to be more resolute in finding solutions to the insurgency. These very important people exchanged hot words over a problem that just gets bigger. A few others in their class will resist the temptation to join the fray, and opportunities to offer wise counsel and advise in private must be obviously rare these days.

The nation’s assets in elders and statesmen is virtually depleted. General Gowon’s last salvo which was answered by President Obasanjo’s many irreverent spokespersons may quite possibly take a while to be heard again. President Jonathan and Obasanjo will turn the nation inside-out as they fight for the heart and soul of the PDP with eyes towards 2015. Foot soldiers of the two will raise the stakes at every opportunity, and even the very serious threat of the insurgency is likely to continue to be exploited in this fight. There is hardly any Nigerian elder who has not lined up behind some intensely-divisive issue, principally matters to do with ethnicity or region.

Without support from former heads of state who have all faced major challenges during their watch; and in the absence of a solid, united national resolve by the elite to rally around and push the nation beyond its dangerous stage, even at the risk of working with President Jonathan, the ship of state will not just drift, it will quite likely run aground. The Boko Haram insurgency, or its many variants and opportunists will continue to damage the credibility and capacity of the Nigerian state to assure citizens that they are safe. Massive exposés around corruption will further dent citizen confidence in the integrity of leaders. Isolated events such as the killing of people in Bichi over a reported mispronounciation, and the events in Nassarawa state in the last two weeks, and many more of such incidents all over the nation reinforce the perception of a state which cannot provide security over lives and property.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the Nigerian state has lost control over the exclusive monopoly of violence. The Boko Haram insurgency has registered a major success: the ability to capture public attention. But it has done worse. It may be responsible for sending signals of a weak state, or one which is indifferent to the plight or security of citizens. In these circumstances, public fallouts by eminent persons who should be part of the national resolve and consensus are extremely damaging. The nation is facing imminent meltdown. It needs every hand, particularly hands with experience, patriotism and commitment, to play less to the gallery and get off fences, to help save it from a real meltdown.

Two – tier nation

“Until a rotten tooth is removed, one must chew carefully.” Nigerian Proverb.

Governor of Rivers State and chairman of the Governors Forum, Rotimi Amaechi provided a useful glimpse into the thinking of some Governors on some of the key issues being discussed for constitutional amendments. Governor Amaechi is a very influential governor, so his words should be accorded serious consideration. He is governor of one of the richest states at the heart of the Niger Delta with strong views on resource allocation. This means that what he says about sharing resources among and between federating units should carry some weight. He is chairman of the Governors Forum, a powerful group that has the final say on most matters to do with the economy and politics of the land.

Governor Amaechi wants to see a two-tier federal system, involving only federal and state governments. He made the case that far from granting autonomy to local governments for which there is popular clamour, local government should be abolished as a federating unit. The Governor reportedly said emphatically that Governors will not support “this talk of autonomy for local government”.

This position of the Governor is revealing, and represents a refreshing candour from a powerful man. Now the nation knows that Governors (and logically, state legislators) will shoot down proposals to amend the constitution and give Local Government Councils full financial and administrative autonomy, no matter what the nation thinks. Many Nigerians believe that a serious error was made by the authors of our constitution who made all necessary provisions for democratically – elected local councils as third tiers, and they then introduced crippling controls over their full functions in Section 7 of the Constitution. The hope now is that this error, if that is what it was, should be addressed by the current review exercise. Nigerians now have another interesting scenario to deal with. This scenario solves the problem of the absence of autonomy by local councils by abolishing them altogether. It also adds another interesting perspective to the debate over the nature and structure of our federal system. One of such perspectives in fact argues that States should be abolished, and geo-political zones as presently constituted should be accorded legal status as federating regions with wide autonomy, and each of the six may decide whether they want local councils or sub-regional structures, and may create them as they wish. The more popular clamour is for full autonomy for local councils, principally to encourage the growth and development of democratic values, institutions and practices and enhance citizen-state relations. The third perspective is the one the Governor does not like: a federal system with its current excess baggage, and states and local councils which by default or design, severely compromise each other’s capacities to function better.

In simple terms, if Governor Amaechi says it now, it should come to pass: no amendments will succeed which seek to make local councils autonomous. It is also trite to argue that governors will not even hear of any proposals which give geo-political zones some legal recognition, and presumably some responsibilities. Governors who want local councils abolished so that only states and the (newly-improved, slimmer) federal government will exist will not welcome any other structure, under whatever guise. Governors must also know that they are unlikely to get the local councils abolished as third-level federating units. There is too much interest in going the other way; and if they won’t let them function independently, it will be difficult to see how they will be allowed to abolish local councils.

So it is very likely that the status-quo will survive the reviews, unless the all-powerful governors have more cards up their sleeves than Nigerians realize. It is difficult to see what motivation President Jonathan (who is the other party in the matter with interest and clout) will have to take on the governors on local councils’ autonomy. Chances are that if the governors do not like it, the national assembly and the President are unlikely to push or win against them on this issue. And this is the reason why Governor Amaechi’s comments on other areas also need to be noted. He makes the case against legislating financial autonomy for state legislatures, another issue with popular support. Again, at the heart of this issue is the manner Governors exercise determining control over democratic institutions which are intended to function with genuine autonomy from them.

The popular clamour is for some sort of legislation which should guarantee state legislatures first line, direct access into resources which are sufficient to shield them from restrictive influences of state executive arms. The governor argues that there should be a political, rather than a legal solution to this problem, and it can be solved in a manner which both allows the judiciary and legislature at state levels to do their work unhindered, and the executive to continue to perform the task of the principal allocator of funds. If governors feel that neither the constitution nor public opinion should prescribe how they fund other arms of government under the current political dispensation, it is safe to assume that this will be the final position at the end of the review. They should, and will encounter fierce resistance from state legislators, but their current political and financial clout should help them survive with a few token concessions. After all, at the end of it all, this will be a matter settled between governors, state legislators, and federal legislators. The presidency is likely to stay out of this one.

But the presidency will dig in for a bruising fight if the governors take up the fight for more responsibility and more resources from the federal level, which they may. And they have many good cases here, as the governor explained. Federal government has too much responsibility which it discharges badly, or leaves to states to discharge. So it has power, but sheds responsibility. States do much of their own, and would do much of what the federal government does better. So they want both responsibility and power. And the resources that go with them.

There are valid reasons why the allocation of responsibilities and resources needs to be revisited to improve the manner our federal system works. But these issues are not likely to reflect popular positions. They are likely to be settled in horse-trading or opportunistic negotiations that are likely to leave the federal structure pretty much as it is. The irony may be lost on governors when they ask for additional powers and resources from the federal government, and then continuously deny the right of citizens to elect and hold accountable, local-level governance structures with potentials to improve lives. Nigerians who look forward to some substantive amendments to our constitution should pay attention to what governors want out of it. Even if their chairman is flying kites at this stage, it is likely that Governors are planning either of two outcomes: a radically restructured federal system that gives states a lot more power and resources; or the preservation of the status quo.

A.B.U: the value of vision

“Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurance of the improbable”. H.L. Mencken

There are many legends surrounding the establishment of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria which would have been retold in the last few weeks, as one of the largest universities in Africa celebrates its 50 years of existence. Some will be founded in fact, others would have arisen from the kinds of reconstructions made with positive strands to give the person of Ahmadu Bello, Sardaunan Sokoto the type of myth which has made him almost super human. Two of such legends which touch on his visionary leadership stand out for me. One claims that at the planning stage of the University, the Premier was informed that his goal of rapidly bridging the education gap between the North and South, and accelerating the development of high quality manpower for the North will take many years to achieve, even after the University is set up and running. “Why”, he asked. He was told that for many years of its early life, the University will have to admit and graduate people from the South, because there just won’t be enough qualified Northerners to take up all the places available at undergraduate levels. “Don’t worry”, the Sardauna said, “admit and train them. One day, the institution will train majority from the North”. Today, the University is the largest institution which produces critical manpower for northerners; and it has the largest mix of Nigerians in its students, faculty and support services. It is, in fact, the most Northern and most Nigerian university at the same time.

Another legend has it that after the decision was taken to establish the main campus of the university at Samaru, Zaria, the Sardauna visited, and was asked by the physical planners how much land should be acquired for it. Turning east from where he stood, with his back to Zaria, directed that the University should have the land from where he stood all the way to Funtua, now in Katsina State (a distance of about 45 kilometers). The British team involved in the planning did a quick estimate, and advised that will be too much land for a university, and too much land will pose management problems for it in future. Don’t worry, he was reported to have said. It is better to have too much land for a university that should focus on agriculture, than have it beg for land to expand in future. In the end, the planners ignored his vision without letting him know, and pegged the institution’s main campus boundries before Shika. A.B.U. is today a virtual community, and one of the few economic lifelines of the ancient city of Zaria, the city that has the misfortune of not being a state capital and living in the shadows of Kaduna.

The many legends which surround the origins of A.B.U and the visions of the Sardauna, like all legends, have not been fair to history. Too much emphasis has been placed on the role of the Sardauna, whereas the institution owes its origin to many people, including largely sympathetic, committed and hardworking British colonial officers, administrators and academics who worried about the dangers of the widening gaps in higher levels and spread of western-style education between the North and South. The Sardauna’s “northernization policy”, which sought to shield northern public institutions from massive influx of qualified personnel from the south, stood the risk of being self-defeating. It could create crippling vacuums, encourage mediocrity when northerners were allowed into positions they did not deserve, and in the longer run, it will be difficult to sustain even in a federal arrangement which had allowed huge autonomy for regions.

The solution laid in rapid development of human capital, but not all of it needed to be degree-holders. This is the second area where some dissersive was done to the real impact of the institution. The most lasting legacy in the first three decades of A.B.U was in its capacity to produce high quality, middle-level, technical and administrative (all sub-degree) personnel which played vital roles in public institutions, including the civil service and the economy.

Many people, including ministers, administrators and academics shared and played vital roles in pursuing the vision of establishing a world-class university in Zaria. When it became clear that the goal of rapid expansion of numbers of northerners in degree-level programmes in A.B.U as well as other universities was frustratingly slow, (and this was going to continue to impact negatively on a North which had earlier, under the leadership of northerners, been made to pay the huge price of being dismembered to secure a center-dominated federal system in which its political pre-eminence was severely diminished), the military agreed with a few academics and public servants to introduce a radical solution to the problem. Why not introduce a home-grown solution, in which A.B.U grooms its own entrants into its degree courses, direct from mostly northern secondary schools? The Higher School Certificates Examinations (HSC) were proving killing field for most of the north’s best and brightest, and producing too few for the places available in A.B.U. Introduce a programme that exposes fresh secondary school leavers who would otherwise find it difficult to survive the lottery of the H.S.C to its equivalent in quality, and absorb them directly into degree courses, they suggested. Four years after his death, the vision of the Premier and his team was given a major boost by northerners in Lagos, Kaduna and Zaria who shared it.

 It required courage and vision to even contemplate such audacity in a sector long dominated by southern academia and politicians. But it was embarked upon, and predictably, was roundly condemned by all other Nigerian universities. No university in the south will admit the product of the School of Basic Studies(S.B.S), or School for Preliminary Studies at Abdullahi Bayero Collage, Kano and even in A.B.U, products of H.S.C treated the SBS students with such overt contempt that many of the young men and women who attended the school walked around the campus on tip-toes. The School of Basic Studies had revolutionalized both the numbers and the quality of the degree-level output of A.B.U, and its impact is almost as profound as the vision which informed the establishment of the university in the first place.

Fifty years since the A.B.U was established, with northern regional funds by a regional leadership, the North today has around thirty (30) universities. Yet, even making allowances for massive demographic changes, the North today has more poverty and youth unemployment in comparative terms. The quality of higher education in our universities is an embarrassment to the concept of higher education, and a major liability for a region and a nation desperate to find solutions to its endemic poverty. For every university graduate the north has, it is quite probable that 10 children are roaming its streets as beggars or without skills, education or future as productive adults. State governments establish universities as mere status symbols. Most states in the north cannot fill their quotas in existing universities, but they establish state universities that are so badly funded and run that they have to produce graduates with even lower qualities. State governors starve polytechnics of funds, so they fail to produce critical middle-level, technical manpower. They barely fund teacher education, so they have thousands of teachers who are hardly better than the students they teach. They hardly fund secondary-level education beyond paying teachers’ salaries, and they pocket local governments’ resources, so primary education deteriorates by the day. Some statistics claim that only 10 out of every 100 graduates from the North finds employment in the first 3 years after graduation.

There ought to be key lessons in the history of the A.B.U. The most outstanding should be that a visionary leadership and a committed bureaucracy can transform societies. There should also be lessons in the pivotal position of high quality, state – subsidized education particularly for the north. Above all, there ought to be some reflection over the quality of leadership of the North today. The North has no future without massive investment in its human capital. Now children of its elite study overseas, and return to live in chaotic and threatening environment with uneducated children of the poor. Northern elite, particularly those who have benefited from high-quality, state-funded education will be shamed by the state of physical condition of the A.B.U. But they are spared that embarrassment because they do not visit it. They do not even visit the state universities they establish as status symbols, except when they inspect contracts awarded to political cronies. Funds they could deploy to sustain the high standards of universities such as A.B.U, and expand opportunities for young men and women from their states are diverted to prestige projects. The vision of northern leaders 50 years ago has been taken over by its very opposite: short-sighted opportunism. A.B.U today stands as testimony to the value of good leaders, and the damage of poor leadership.

Our misunderstood President

“Politics – the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.” Oscar Ameringer

During the a better-managed and choreographed media outing on Sunday this week, President Jonathan said he thought he was totally misunderstood when he made comments on the need for complete deregulation if investment in the downstream sector is going to be substantially attracted to the Nigerian oil and gas sector. He had been widely reported a few days ago as suggesting that fuel subsidy will be removed in order to make room for additional investment in areas such as refineries. He said provision for subsidy has been made in the 2013 budget estimates, but insisted that full deregulation will eventually have to involve removal of all subsidies.

Students of communication arts and management of media must be wondering what can be done to mitigate the manner our President is routinely misunderstood. When he speaks directly, he is misunderstood. When he is spoken for, Nigerians see things differently. When he and his spokespersons speak on the same issues, people tend to see different angles. Last Sunday Nigerians saw a President at pains to establish a new level of personal integrity and sincerity in speaking directly with citizens. But the issues he took up, and the positions of his administration on a number of key issues must have left Nigerians perplexed over how they got to their current understanding of some of these issues.

In spite of the widely-reported engagement of the federal government in discussions with the Jamaatu Ahlil Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad (a.k.a. Boko Haram) insurgency, the President said there has not been any dialogue anywhere with the group. Although neither the President nor his spokespersons had confirmed the numerous rumoured initiatives and engagements with the insurgency directly, it could not have escaped his attention that much hype had been built around the idea that the insurgency had been engaged in talks with his government through its members in Saudi Arabia, and had even put out a list of mediators which included General Muhammadu Buhari. Is it also possible that the President missed the widely-publicized suspicions that the olive branch of the insurgency was a fiction manufactured by his administration to create the impression of successes against the insurgency, and ensnare General Buhari? Could he have failed to be briefed that even a suspicious olive branch had raised hopes of millions of people over the possibility that this terrible war could be resolved through dialogue soon? Could it have made more sense to allow dangerous speculation, damaging opportunism from the opposition, and crashed hopes from beleaguered communities to subsist, than an earlier repudiation of claims that talks were going on, or were being offered? Who were those faceless people who spoke to journalists with such confidence regarding “back-door” dialogue with the insurgency? Are they the President’s men, or people who exploit huge gaps in the manner his administration responds to critical issues of governance?

Now that the nation knows from the President himself that there is no plan to speak with the insurgency, should we resign ourselves to a long-drawn war, or are there options in dealing with this insurgency being contemplated? In denying that President Obasanjo’s assault on Odi had helped to cripple the Niger Delta militancy, the President implied that force alone is not the antidote to this insurgency. Yet force is the only thing his administration appears set to continue to deploy, even in the face of near-universal acclaim that it is becoming increasingly counter-productive. Just one day after the televised denial of on-going discussions with the insurgency, reports said another video had surfaced showing soldiers shooting civilian captives in Borno. The international media is not likely to relent in digging deep into allegations of extra-judicial killings by security agencies; allegations made time and time again by the community, and routinely denied by the military.

If the President’s answers to questions around the insurgency raised even more questions, his positions on other important issues were no less puzzling. The President gave himself a pass mark in the fight against corruption, citing electoral reforms as evidence. He said Nigerians blamed every failure and every evil in the country to corruption, so the fight against it must be thorough and total. But even as he spoke, civil society groups and labour are flexing muscles and mobilizing to take him up on the failure to deliver on promises that he will free the oil and gas sector from the stranglehold of corruption and powerful interests. Petrol queues are reappearing, and more Nigerians buy petrol from black markets than licensed distributors. Most people know of the on-going battles between importers, and the government, and most Nigerians pay for these battles with high product prices. Would it surprise the President, then, to know that most Nigerians believe he is losing the battle against powerful interests in the oil and gas sector? Is he aware of the damage done to the integrity of his reform process by the drama (and the fall outs) from the presentation of the Nuhu Ribadu report? Should he justifiably expect Nigerians to believe that White Papers prepared by this Ministers on work done by professionals and other people of high levels of integrity on sensitive areas will yield much value in terms of the quality of outputs?

President Jonathan believes he will be judged the best President Nigeria has had by 2015. But he will not know if he will run for another term until 2014. And he thinks it is unfair to ask him if he will run again at this stage. So his penchant for not being misunderstood is likely to be enhanced, if he is still unaware that the popular rejection by Nigerians of the tenure extension proposals discussed during the recent hearings on amendments to the constitution has everything to do with his personal ambition.

The recent televised outing of the President revealed a man thrust into power who is grappling to justify his status. There was no evidence that he was engaged in sophisticated double-speak or elaborate schemes to fool Nigerians. With President Jonathan, what you see is what you get. Unfortunately, what Nigerians get is the impression of a man who genuinely thinks that history has a place for him, but is finding it increasingly difficult to exercise a firmer hand on the levers he requires to shape that history. At this stage, Nigerians generally think he is too far removed from the actual events going on in the name of his administration; and he is too far removed from them.