2015: A Review

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

Andy Warhol

This time last year the nation was delicately poised between destruction or regeneration. The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan was staring clear prospects of a loss to a man and a phenomenon they were willing to do everything to avoid. Most Nigerians were preparing for a major change in leadership. In 2015, Nigeria went through an experience no one could have even remotely foreseen. It started the year with fear, uncertainty, excitement and faith in a mix that could all blow up, or settle into a license to re-invent the future. The year is ending with prospects for substantive change that will be made at great cost. These issues made 2015:

1.   INEC, PVC, Card Reader, Orubebe

Professor Jega’s INEC made a major difference between a nation that could go up in flames and sink into prolonged anarchy, or successfully resolve a major argument over its capacity to surmount dangerous obstacles. While the nation worried over poor governance, rampant insurgency and crime, INEC cleaned up the Voters’ Register, created a new PVC and Card Reader and built up the spine to resist the desperate onslaught from the PDP administration to break it. Every weapon was thrown at INEC to subvert it, including attempts to psychologically break down Professor Jega and manipulation of the judicial process and national security to weaken the electoral process. Somehow INEC stood its ground, and its trump card, the Card Reader did its bit more by scaring the PDP’s rigging capacities than by functioning efficiently. PDP approached the election as it would a war, complete with deployment of the National Security Adviser and a war chest made from plunder of the nation’s resources, to lead the assault. Its pathetic failure was captured in the childish tantrums of one of the PDP’s collation agents, Godsday Orubebe, as it became clear that it had lost its grip on a nation tired of its incompetence, greed and arrogance. As it is, it will be near-impossible for INEC to do worse in future than its stellar performance in 2015.

2.   Buhari/APC

The merger of opposition parties survived against cynicism and the triumph of egos over larger interests. If PDP had paid more attention to the political process and the history of the outings of General Buhari, it would have noted that its chances of defeating the APC dipped very badly on the day he emerged as its candidate at its Convention in Lagos late in 2014. The sheer weight of popular support in most parts of the nation was reinforced by a disciplined and focused campaign and massive dose of defecting PDP heavyweights, to create a momentum behind Buhari’s campaign that confounded even the candidate himself. Buhari won the presidency after three attempts, and opened the floodgates for APC  Governors.APC defeated an incumbent party that had no plans for a loss. The nation registered a historic first: the expression of popular will in the defeat of a colossus which had fed fat on crass patronage, routinized corruption and the weaknesses of the opposition. Buhari’s victory placed on his shoulders the burden of making a real and tangible difference in the lives of Nigerians. It was his choice. Now he has to deliver.

3.   PDP/Jonathan

In March 2015, President Jonathan was relieved of a responsibility he had shown every evidence of failing to shoulder. The PDP leaked its way into a humiliating and frightening defeat, a victim of the abuse to which it had subjected the nation for most of its life. Jonathan fought and scratched his way to resisting defeat, urged on by a desperate circle that found it difficult to contemplate a nightmare it saw in a Buhari presidency. Abandoned by many powerful people in his party who saw an opportunity to be part of a victory, an international community that watched as he run an important and strategic ally in Africa aground and Nigerians who got tired of scaremongering and thieving leaders, Jonathan opted to throw in the towel before the fight was concluded. He thinks he had bought himself a safe and free future for doing what he needed to do, but those elements in the rank he abandoned may be his undoing, as more and more of them now insist that he is responsible for their actions. How long will Jonathan’s amnesty last?

4.   The economy/governance

If Nigerians thought official corruption was their biggest problem, 2015 showed just how desperate it has made the nation. Facts and investigations now show why it was so easy for Boko Haram to make a mockery of the Nigerian state. We now hear of the open season on the nation’s treasury with hundreds of billions shared out for compaign and sundry purposes. Billions of dollars or Naira have lost that jaw-dropping effect among Nigerians, and access to them have been radically democratized by a PDP government. The quality of governance hit a new low, with barely any serious budgetary commitment met. The price of crude moved from over $100 this time last year, to its current level of $35, going down. Reserves have been depleted. The integrity of the public service as a gate keeper crashed.

If the PDP had an economic policy, it was basically to steal as much public resources as it could. Now the Buhari administration has to fashion out basic economic policy that will seek stability, growth and improvements in welfare with severely limited resources. It has neither the resources nor the time to satisfy an impatient population and a global investment community that wants to know how it fits into Nigeria’s future. It has to offer a lot more than excuses in the form of a terrible inheritance. 2016 will be a very testing year for an administration that said it can fix Nigeria. The elements appear to be conspiring against a quick fix, but the degree to which plundered billions are retrieved and culprits punished may assuage popular discontent. The past will be every inch a part of the future under the Buhari administration.

5.   Organized violence, crime, law and order

When it appeared as a potential electoral asset, the Jonathan administration finally unleashed the Nigerian military against Boko Haram. President Buhari’s new service chiefs and a bolstered military and re-engineered international support appear to have further degraded the insurgency’s capacity to successfully wage conventional war and hold territory. Even making allowances for some legitimate padding in its exploits, the Nigerian military has made major inroads into limiting the insurgency’s effectiveness, but it will not claim that it has put an end to suicide bombing and periodic forays by bands of insurgents for some time to come. The Chibok girls who have become the global symbol of the power of the insurgency are not home, free. A new chapter in the manner the insurgents operate may be in the making, and the intelligence of the security forces and nerves of the population will be severely stretched as they target and hit soft, civilian targets. The war against Boko Haram is not won yet. Kidnapping has developed into an industry. Biafra is becoming an issue, and the Shiites have been badly hurt, but not finished.

        2015 will be the year that will not come to an end, because it will be in our lives for a long time.

Who has the President’s back?

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends. 

                         Alexander Pope.

 

The 2016 budget proposals submitted by President Buhari is a study is liberal optimism. In many ways, it is like all budget proposals: full of hopes and projections, signifying a stab at a future that could be anything from favourable to outrightly hostile. How you manage the difference depends a lot on the degree to which you prepare to deal with shortfalls and absorb shocks. Favorable contexts which bear out assumptions and projections are good, but they also pose their own challenges, chief among which are the propensity to indulge in luxuries and planning badly for the next year. The 2016 budget has many novel and ambitious elements, which is as a first budget from an administration that promises change in basic philosophy and institutional framework for governance should have.

 

If President Buhari substantially implements a N6.08 trillion budget he would have achieved a rare feat of triggering expansion and growth in a context which is decidedly hostile to it. True, it will have a deficit of N2.22 trillion, a fact that will not escape notice of people who will worry over the possibility that government is building its political capital by depleting a future which is not it's to tinker with. This will not bother more than the opposition and professional worriers if government does radically improve non-oil revenues which it projects at N1.45 trillion. Its plan to spend N1.8 trillion on capital projects, and N2.65 trillion on recurrent expenditure should also come as relief to those who worried that President Buhari may be tempted to buy into the reckless rhetoric which pushed for deep cuts on recurrent expenditure in one fell swoop.

 

The devil in the budget is located in some of the key assumptions. Oil benchmark of $38 per barrel with projected output of 2.2m barrels per day will invite many to knock it down. While the benchmark is unlikely to radically rise above the $38, it could conceivably go down to as low as $30, but is most likely to hover around the $30 - $35 band. The projected 2.2 barrels per day will be contingent on severe restrictions in oil theft and an aggressive pursuit of markets. Significantly, the President is sticking to fancy language to insist that subsidy on imported  petroleum will remain to preserve a price of N87 per litre. The commitment to sustain the fiction of N87 per litre will pose a major problem for President Buhari. His apology to Nigerians over long petrol queues will touch a nation long used to excuses and indifference. But his apology will not register the same sympathy in a few months’ time if the queues persist, and the pressures to acknowledge that he has missed a great opportunity to do what is both necessary and feasible begin to mount. The social welfare programmes promised in the run-up to the elections appear to be ready to be rolled out next year. The conditional cash handouts to the poor, school feeding programme, massive employment of teachers from the scandalous pool of unemployed graduates  will require available funds and very careful management so that they do not create crises of expectations and large pools of disappointment.

 

The 2016 budget proposals represent the first major step of the APC/Buhari administration towards changing the direction of governance in Nigeria. Until now, the nation had tolerated an administration that had set for itself three basic targets: to roll back the Boko Haram insurgency’s grip on our lives; to blow the whistle on corruption and outright pillage of our resources; and conclude a long-delayed process of selecting a key management component in Ministers. Now the difficult job of governing in a most economically-challenging environment is about to commence. If he had made the right preparations and right choices, President Buhari will soon find out. Chances are that he is likely to find out that delivering on promises is almost as difficult as winning elections he tried three times earlier to win. No President had stood out as the sole issue in success or failure than Buhari, because no President has been elected as much on his personal character and integrity as Buhari. Similarly, no President needs as much help and support as Buhari, because his character and integrity alone will not move the mountains he needs to move.The Presidency is a source of tremendous power, and a very lonesome place when things do not go well.

 

So who has got the President’s back, as he forges forwards to lay the foundations of responsible and accountable government? Does he have the solid support of major political 'stakeholders,' those illusive Nigerian politicians who will be there when patronage is being distributed, and go missing when pots dry up, or accolades become rare? The fight against corruption will involve a lot more than retrieval of stolen funds, and successful prosecution of corrupt people. It will involve reinforcing systems and processes which prevent theft and subversion of public interest in the conduct of government affairs. How many of the key stakeholders are willing to submit to a transparent and honest procurement process and open government where loyalty is not rewarded with stupendous sources of additional wealth? How many will live with lean and hard times that will face Nigerians, and how many will walk away and build spare structures in anticipation that public opinion and mood will punish an administration which promised much and delivered little? How deep is their loyalty to Buhari the President, as opposed to Buhari the candidate? How much flak are they willing to take for a leader with a registered difficulty in shifting positions?

 

How many of the President’s management team share his basic philosophy and are willing to live a comparatively spartan existence in return for a future that will remember them for changing the nature of the relationship between public office and social standing? How quickly and effectively will his ministers, advisers and principal officers fall in line and shield him from avoidable heat and impatience of Nigerians? What role, if any, will the Party play in governance? Will it be treated as a liability while it rots in crises, or are there plans and the political will re-engineer it to cheer-lead the government and keep the PDP and the fight back by corruption at a fairly-ineffective level? 

 

Where will APC governors stand when the going gets tough as the President warns it will? Will they align philosophy, policies and programmes to reinforce Buhari, or utilize the pronounced space President Buhari plans to create between his government and theirs’ to pursue their own paths, including preparing new personal political agenda? Will the shivering senators waiting for the anti-corruption war to reach them close ranks to frustrate the President, and use their considerable powers to protect friends and associates from the Buhari onslaught? Is the judiciary a friend or foe? How much sympathy does he have from the media?

 

Having someone’s back means being unconditionally loyal. Buhari will soon find out if he has the support he needs to fight insecurity, poverty and corruption, or he is basically alone. He says he will make some tough decisions in 2016. One of them should be to look behind him and engineer the type of loyalty he can count on in this battle to make a difference.

Zaria

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.

Anne Bradstreet

 

        The people of Zaria, my hometown, woke up to a nightmare last week Saturday. For more than twenty years, they lived and gave space to one of their very own as he led a religious movement reportedly numbering a couple of millions. Zaria historically has upheld the best traditions of Islamic scholarship, and had found itself at the heart of the stresses and tensions which colonial influence brought to bear in the competition for the future of colonial and post-colonial Nigeria. Colonial authorities grafted their own frontier institutions of western education in a city which was unapologetic over its tendency to lean away from establishment. The heady mix of deeply-rooted and competing Islamic intellectual traditions and a vast infrastructure of western education created in one city the semblance of unusual religious tolerance, and constant volatility in competing tendencies and styles. 

In the last fifty-odd years, the Izala movement emerged with one foot in Kaduna and the other in Zaria to effectively challenge the  Darika tendencies that were dominant in most of Muslim North. This marked the beginning of massive turbulence and struggles for control between tradition and reform, which the rise of Shiism heightened by capturing the more global Sunni/Shiite divide. Fringe and popular clerics such as Maitatsine, Sheikh Jafar Adam, Muhammed Yusuf and Sheikh Albani rose and were felled by bullets of rival militants or the state. 

So how did the Shite Islamic Movement of Nigeria survive and expand beyond all these skirmishes, becoming the most sophisticated, organized and distinctive group with members in virtually every town and village in the North? It would appear that its leaders learnt a valuable lesson early on, when their militancy and brushes with the law in the early days of their movement (inspired by the Iranian revolution) threatened to decimate a sect whose tenets were extra-ordinarily hostile to all of the existing and received Islamic traditions known in West Africa. Quite possibly benefitting from quality advise and massive funding from Iran, the leaders chose quiet recruitment, disciplined pursuit of western education, well–funded organization and cultivation of a personality cult of the leader as its strategy. 

Minimizing confrontations with the state, it built an intimidating following targeting rural Muslims which it called out on special occasions to frighten a Nigerian state routinely engaged in fighting religious intolerance and fringe groups. Its elaborate economic welfare strategies held together adherents, and gave meaning to lives of alienated young people. Its attractive version of sanctioned sexual co-habitation made it particularly attractive to young men, and allowed the sect to spread faster than any sect did in West Africa. Today it has some of the most highly-educated members in academia and private sector, and its young is rarely without skills or trade. Its brand of anti-US and Israeli opposition, as well as resistance against Boko Haram gave it a sharper ideological edge.

A weak Nigerian state pampered and tolerated a movement that showed the potential to threaten it, without actually doing so. Gaping holes were left unattended from massive and sustained interference from Iran under the cover of religious freedom. Local communities in and around Zaria learnt to walk around the members of the Movement. Gradually its leader became virtually untouchable, a larger-than-life figure whose fanatical followers learnt more about group identity than the elements of the faith. In Zaria the Movement squeezed and intimidated a community which sulked and gave more room. Their outings and marches took days or weeks to conclude, and snatched routes and highways away from the public using nothing more than organization and sheer numbers. 

A confrontation between a march and the military in Zaria ended in the killing of over 20 members of the Movement, including two of El-Zakzaky’s children, less then two years ago. The Movement buried its dead, and in spite of shrill cries for investigation and justice, the Nigerian state has done nothing about it. Then the former Governor of Kaduna State was humiliated on a visit to a sick party loyalist at Gyellesu by Shiite thugs. Nothing happened. People of Zaria took note: the Movement was above the law. Every law, except its own.

Saturday last week was what every Zaria resident feared: a Movement believing itself untouchable, meeting resistance that will not accept its authority. The proverbial unstoppable force met the immovable object. The manner the military reacted to the provocation and humiliation of having the Chief of Army Staff beg Shiites for the privilege to drive through their roadblock on a public highway will suggest that soldiers in Zaria had had enough of the insular insolence of the Shiites. It is now obvious that the onslaught that took hours to plan and unleash in multiple centers following the roadblock incident was designed to make only one point: the Shite in Zaria had crossed a line, and the military or government (or both) was not going to let them keep it. Nothing else explains the force deployed, the elaborate preparations, the siege and the casualties that were registered in the reaction of the military.

The passionate debates about events in Zaria tend to generate a lot more emotion than reason. Some people feel Shiites provoked, and deserved whatever treatment they got from the military. Many who think this have lived with the Shiites in and around Zaria, had cheer-led the military assault and some even ransacked bodies of killed Shiites for money. There is also profound indignation and shock, on the other hand, that the military could lose its head, or calmly plan and undertake such attacks on civilians under a government that is sworn to uphold rule of law. People now worry who is next. Those who think the Shiites got what they deserved are wrong. What they deserved was justice from a state which had no business fighting a civilian population the way it did. Those who blocked and threatened General Buratai from driving past could and should have been arrested and prosecuted. If their leader encouraged it, he should have received the same treatment. 

In the next few days, anger and the demands for investigation will overcome any sympathy for the military assault. There should be legitimate concern that the military does not appreaciate the fact that it handed over to the Shiites a victory it will exploit to the detriment of national security. The last thing the Nigerian government needs is genuine national and global sympathy for a group which thrives on offending its laws and directing its loyalty exclusively to a foreign nation. The state has lost a vital moral high ground, and will now have to contend with damage control that will tax all its capacities. El-Zakzaky and detained Shiites will have to be released, tried or jailed. This process will be used to boost the image and symbol of martyrdom, and this is precisely the stuff upon which Shiism feeds. His supporters will not relent. The longer he stays in military detention away from the judicial process, if it is necessary to put him through it, the more challenging managing this crisis will be. 

Damage control has already suffered serious setback. The astounding silence of President Buhari, beyond the one-line statement of his S.A Media to the effect that it is all a military affair is difficult to explain. He needs to speak, directly to Nigerians, and re-commit his government to upholding the rule of law and protecting national security. A judicial inquiry should commence immediately to investigate what happened in Zaria. Sheikh El-Zakzaky, his family and detained adherents must remain unharmed. Dead bodies should be released to relatives for burial. Any Shiite or soldier who has broken laws should be prosecuted without delay. At all cost, this incident, must not be further mismanaged to open a new front in our nation’s battles for its soul and future.

Promises and Challenges

             “Promises are like babies: easy to make, hard to deliver”. Anon

         On the 30th of March this year, if President-elect Buhari said he would walk on water, it would have taken a foolish man to argue with him. He had just won an election that did not even look like it will hold. If it did, it was likely to bring the whole house down. Right until the very last minute, desperate attempts were being made to prevent the emergence of a Buhari presidency. His incumbent opponent had conceded defeat (a first in Nigerian presidential election history). The international community was beside itself with the satisfaction that its registered aversion to a weak and corrupt Jonathan administration had been ended.

      Nigerians spent days putting lives and limbs at risk in celebrations. It is quite probable that more young people died celebrating Buhari's victory than those who were felled by bullets and machettes in our notoriously-violent election process. Just having Buhari there meant anything was possible. The defeat of Jonathan and the PDP meant Buhari had a clean slate to reinvent Nigeria after his own image. Very few people understood his manifesto, or cared what it contained. But Nigerians understood honest leadership, peace without Boko Haram, and an end to the institutionalized pillage of our resources. Young people wanted good education and jobs.

            So when Buhari ordered his new military chiefs to end the Boko Haram insurgency before the end of this year, it would have been foolhardy to think he was giving them a tall order. After all, his predecessor, prompted by election pressures had rolled back the insurgency's territory considerably, with new weapons and a postponed election. His service chiefs saluted and said, done sir. A frenzy of activities followed: command and control was relocated to the frontline; alliances with neighbours were reinvented and reinforced; military morale was boosted through improved welfare; the global community lined up to help in every way except with boots on the ground. Boko Haram suffered major setbacks, but their videos said it was all a lie.

         Deadline down the road, the insurgency is far from finished. Sambisa forest is still there, in spite of massively-improved air assault and painstaking recapture of surrounding areas. The insurgency is still holding some territory, but even more worrisome, their bombing campaign is threatening to cancel out all the progress being made by the Nigerian state. As children routinely kill themselves and scores of other citizens in mosques and markets, the military and intelligence services are warning the public of the possibility of new campaigns in places such as Lagos and FCT. The Chibok girls are still in captivity, and the internally-displaced population is being counted in millions. In spite of many efforts to re-interprete the December deadline by people including Gowon and Obasanjo, neither Buhari nor the military top brass acknowledged that it was too optimistic.

        December still has some way to go, and there is some talk of reviewing strategies in view of the multi-facetted nature of the threat of the insurgency. Bottom line is that Nigerians will live with this threat for a long time after December 2015.His political opponents will gloat and remind President Buhari that he has missed his deadline. Missing deadlines regarding Boko Haram used to be a patent exclusively held by his predecessor, so it ought be of some concern that Buhari should be mentioned in the same breath with Jonathan. Others less-inclined to gloat over a national crisis will draw attention to some linkages between integrity, competence and missing your own set deadlines. Boko Haram itself, from the little corner it has been pushed, will attempt to make a mockrey of the December deadline. Its touted alliance with ISIS will be flashed before Nigerians to give it an international dimension, and the latters’ exploits and the renewed panic it is generating in Europe and U.S will give it a boost.

         The review of strategies in dealing with Boko Haram will have to be comprehensive and involve a long term perspective. Long after Sambisa forest is cleared and every inch of territory is liberated, the battle against de-radicalization, proliferation of small arms and bomb-making technology, the surfiet of sleeper cells, rebuilding communities and infrastructure and rehabilitating IDPs have to be vigorously taken up by a nation which will now be joined by many advanced industrialized countries now coming under greater impact of global terror. In political terms, President Buhari may also learn a lesson on setting deadlines on difficult challenges. The mobs that march routinely in cities in the East and South South demanding release of Nnamdi Kanu of IPOB are becoming a real headache. The game plan appears to be to pitch the federal government in a direct confrontation with a group that wants the impossible. There are clearly attempts to secure for the Igbo, political and economic advantages using threats and blackmail. How Buhari handles this threat will be a major indicator of his political acumen.

          His limping opposition, the PDP, will not need to look far to recognize missed targets and sundry failures. The road ahead is not by any stretch of imagination smooth, and Buhari's government has many tough choices to make in a nation which thinks it has been patient and supportive enough. Will Buhari remove fuel subsidy or not? If he does not, how does he make political capital by retaining a huge drain that still fails to eliminate the type of long fuel queues we live with these days? If he will, when will he do it, given that his political capital and goodwill is a lot less robust today than three months ago? Is he going ahead with the populist handouts that will eat deeply into resources at a time the nation's revenues are desperately stretched? Does he have a plan B, in case he cannot sustain them? How much thought has he given a strategy of reflating an economy by massive borrowing? Will the 2016 budget and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework contain the details of basic fiscal and monetary policy the international investor community has been anxiously waiting for? The mind-boggling revelations on the pillage of our resources are precisely the reasons why powerful interests worked hard to prevent the emergence of a Buhari Presidency. At current rate of discoveries, revelations and confessions, holding cells should be bulging with V.I.P suspects. Even as he retrieves billions of our resources, Buhari should ensure that EFCC and the police and the courts commence trials. Nigerians want to see the guilty in jail, not perpetually in courts being represented by expensive lawyers.

          President Buhari has used up most of his bonus period. His new cabinet made of a mix of hardened, bruised experience and touching innocence is eager to go, but needs to know how much rope it will have. A year is half its length in politics, and everyday brings up new challenges. Nigerians have made excuses for Buhari over many challenges he inherited. But they will not excuse his failure to solve them, because that was precisely why they elected him.