The hoodlum: last man standing

  “You have to lift a person up before you can really put them in their place”, Chris Jami.

Of the many elements that have shaped our existence in the last few weeks, quite a few will remain with us for a long time. There will be a few like SARS, protests, clashes, attacks, lootings, killings, anger and fear that will melt into a future where they will mutate or find expressions in resolutions through changes and reforms. They could also reincarnate in slightly different forms, or worse, in the basic forms we have witnessed them recently. There are also others such as thugs and hoodlums who are etched so deeply into our character as a nation that time alone or tinkering with policies will not remove them from our existence. As we speak, the hoodlum is having the last and loudest say in events covering an amazing month which began without even a hint of his existence. From evidence on the ground, the hoodlum (who is also a thug when he wears attire that hints at politics) will survive, and could even flourish if key lessons are not learnt from the earth-shaking-events that still follow us.

The conventional definition of a hoodlum is a person who engages in crime and violence. In our context, this definition will be considered extremely limiting. We have lived with an increasing scale of violent crimes from the early seventies, and these gave the impetus for the creation of the recently abolished SARS in 1984.Rapidly expanding populations and urban areas, easier access to firearms, compromised law and order institutions, receding influence of social values, shrinking opportunities for social mobility, rising poverty levels and declining qualities of leadership all contributed to a rapid growth of alienated, bitter and dangerous young people who form our widest margin as a society. Governance and the economy focused on an increasingly narrowing circle of citizenry as sources of support or growth. Outside this circle, the amorphous phenomenon that we call the hoodlum grew from infancy as a local nuisance in many communities to the monster that stalks the nation under many guises.

The hoodlum has been many things over the years, in many parts of the country. His basic character as a mobile threat to social order and individual and collective security, breaching the state’s statutory monopoly of the right to the use of violence, living by the day on short term, self-satisfying goals or building lofty goals that are unattainable without breaching the fundamental structures of the Nigerian state is a constant. He was the area boy that harassed locals for a little for drugs and food. He pilfered in the day and robbed with firearms in the night. He broke heads and looted shops in times of numerous conflicts. He was a cultist, pipeline vandal, drug pusher, motor park tout, muscle to ethnic enforcers and majority of our politicians who cannot stand for elections without mobilizing massive violence. He provided the backbone for the ideals of resource control and militancy in the Niger Delta, the periodic enforcement of the Biafran cause and the bulwark of the alienated militants who have sustained the Boko Haram insurgency. He is the bandit that terrorizes communities in the north; the kidnapper who makes fortunes and becomes their slave; the foot soldier in communal conflicts and the gang member who makes forays into cities snatching phones and robbing vehicles in traffic.

The bulk of the hoodlum, however, lives within the community, scraping an existence and keeping an eye on opportunities, virtually all of them illegal. He is located in the distant fringes of society, expecting no favours from the government or his community. He has an intimate knowledge of the police, and he has the scars to show for his numerous encounters with them. The police, in fact, represent the only face of authority he has contact with. He fears the police, but does not respect it or the law and the state it represents. Of all the miscalculations made by the organizers of the #ENDSARS protests, the most serious was not building in the hoodlum into its plans, and ignoring the wider socio-economic contexts of the protests. They raised issues about policing, asking for reforms that could have been accommodated by an administration that was alert and sensitive. Then they raised wider issues about governance that would need a longer period to achieve, assuming, that is, that that they were sincere, and will be content to wait for responses from a lethargic leadership, a cumbersome amendment process built into the constitution and a political system that has been hijacked by a political class that bears a striking similarity with the hoodlum in terms of means and ends. The hoodlum watched, his eyes  on immediate goals.

The protests were the perfect setting for the hoodlum to flourish. His poverty has been worsened by the severe damage wrought on the economy by the COVID-19 pandemic. His feelings about leaders and the privileged have primed him for full scale involvement in any activity likely to get him relief for a few days. Unlike the largely middle-class leaders and coordinators of the initial protest whose disposition gave them the luxury of engaging the state for long periods over ideals and political issues, the hoodlum was more accustomed to a smash-and-grab approach without asking or answering questions. His initial encounter with the protests was in the capacity of the thug, that irritant that the protesters said were unleashed on them by the state or its sympathisers to break its back. The protest had no plans, the time  or the expertise to build in the hoodlum into its elaborate, elitist groups, so it fought him back or ran away from him. He followed a crowd that ate well and danced to good music, watching from a healthy distance to snatch a harvest that was being led astray by lack of good strategy and leadership.

The hoodlum was bound to win in a war between a bungling administration and a naive protesting crowd that thought it could have a revolution by tweeting cliches, waving flags and dancing  in the streets. Something had to give for him to move in. It did. The back of the protest was broken at Lekki, and it dispersed in many directions. The hoodlum stole  its anger and the outrage of much of the nation, and began to attack the state he had always despised and an economy he never believed had a place for him. The state retreated to give space to indignation and because it could not fight the full weight of the hoodlum with policemen and soldiers who were being accused of shooting at unarmed protesters. In a few days, the hoodlum had made a much bigger impact than the protest had done in weeks. Worse, he had smeared the record of the protests with blood and limbs, and had drowned out its appeals and its causes. 

When the history of these protests is written, the hoodlum will not challenge it. He is our history. He will always be part of a nation that ignores its margins, that section taken up by the neglected, bitter young who grow into monsters.

Trust as fatality

“The child of a rat is a rat”. African proverb.

 If there are Nigerians still holding on to the hope and faith that the nation will reap positive and enduring benefits from the anger and violence and blood and pains of the last few weeks, their  numbers would be severely depleted by now. Watching children, young people and adults break into stores and warehouses and gleefully take away everything they can to homes, many people would have prayed that these do not constitute the only lasting legacy of the protests which began with a demand for a nation governed  by laws and civilizing ideals such as trust, compassion and accountability by both leaders and citizens. Of all the major fatalities of these protests, trust must be the biggest. The protests started because citizens got tired of operations of a police unit it could not trust anymore. It is ending with a loud statement that citizens do not trust leaders and the state to look after their security and welfare. Citizens do not trust leaders to give them relief when it is available and needed. Citizens believe their leaders are thieves, so stealing what they hide, or taking other peoples’ property is legitimate because it puts them on the same levels with people who swore with the Quran and the Bible to be truthful, honest and loyal to the  needs of citizens.

In many parts of the country, families have fed from looted food items in the last few days. Thousands of looters have made money selling looted goods, or are awaiting buyers of everything imaginable which has been looted. Children and young people who should be learning about the evils of theft and violence have helped parents and adults take away what does not belong to them. Long before government warehouses holding COVID-19 palliatives were looted across the land, God-fearing people put God aside and joined in stealing from shops, homes and stores belonging to others. It is called theft, and it is punishable by God and the state. Have they lost trust in God? Looted food will run out. Proceeds from looted items will run out. God’s promise to punish theft and leaders who steal from citizens will be punished will endure. Parents and adults who may have contributed to children believing that looting other people’s property, even government property, is not wrong will account to God for their actions or by what they become.  People who may have opened the door to the idea that shortfalls in what you want or need can be made up by stealing or looting  have crossed dangerous lines where arguments about right and wrong will  be difficult to settle.

Major breaches have been made to the right of citizens to trust that leaders can be persuaded or pressured to make major changes in  structures and processes of governance. The campaign for accountability and responsive leadership has suffered major setback with the undignified manner it ended with the citizen it sought to speak for scrambling for  illegal loot that will give him relief for a few days of weeks after which he reverts to living under leaders who never put premium on respecting him in the first place. Citizens joined hoodlums to hand over to the leadership the moral high ground to bury the ideals behind the campaign for good governance. They leveled the ground between citizens who had been denied rights and much-needed relief, and the leaders who denied such rights. Now the state threatens to unleash its full force at looters. It will prosecute a few that had the additional misfortune to be arrested with other people’s goods, or even with relief materials all looters thought they were properly entitled to. The state will throw the books at them, and others will watch as they are tried and convicted as thieves.

Where are the young Nigerians who trooped out in thousands to demand an end to the impunity and excesses of a police unit? Who will be there to keep an eye on SWAT, and make sure that it does not become SARS with a new name? Who will call out the next protests and what causes will it protest for? The nation is now laboured by a leadership that is seething with anger that it was disturbed enough to look at  noisy citizens, who, in addition,   had the temerity to report it  to a few countries in the world whose opinions matters to it. We will have to live with a democratic system that puts little merit on the rights and the value on  citizen activism and public opinion. This, at a period the labour unions appear to have abandoned the idea that they can led resistance against unjust and crippling policies. If the nation cannot rally public opinion around basic issues like improving the quality of policing using social media influencers, civil society activists, millions of young, alienated and angry youth, millions of fringe  elements that fill many  of the nation’s dangerous social black spots, what hope is there that the democratic process will grow and develop in part because citizens legitimately organize to demand that those they elected should address specific and general grievances?

The botched protests have seriously damaged relationships that are predicated on even the most minimum threshold of trust. Leaders and their instruments of enforcement will now disperse groups of any number convenient to them on grounds that they could constitute a threat. Trust between many politicians has been badly, some will say irrevocably, damaged with suspicions that some have hidden behind protesters and violent hoodlums to gain a few inches. Trust between ethnic groups in major towns and cities have been damaged with suspicions and rumours that even looting hoodlums operated with sensitivity to ethnic considerations. Vigorous fence-mending attempts involving leadership of Igbo and Yoruba ethnic elders will take a while to show results, not least because they operate in a crowded space in which other players are working against them. Northerners living in southern communities are sending messages home  that they are under attack without a finger being raised.

It will be most unfair to attribute a subversive motive to  the idealistic youth who sang and danced and waved the Nigerian flag and retweeted hashtags and even registered some initial successes. But they are guilty of gross naivety, a fault that opened the door to many interests that have now buried its place in history. Now the outlines of a promise that the nation could cobble together a consensus out of its quarreling parts,  and adopt  clear lines of action to affect major changes in the structure and operations of the country have been looted.

This administration is very unlikely to make concessions to ideals that bear the slightest resemblance to those of the protests, such as good governance, particularly since it is likely to believe it had defeated it and therefore owes it nothing. Citizens should brace for hostile governors whose stores of palliatives have been emptied by people who called them heartless thieves. The advantages of our social contract have dramatically shifted in favour of the political leadership. It will be comforting to think that a breed of leadership will emerge that will recall what these protests were  about in their early days, and devise governance strategies that will cumulatively  achieve their goals. The nation cannot manage its many challenges and survive routine responses to uprisings such as we are witnessing because the citizen and the hoodlum wants leaders to notice them.

 

Anatomy of an uprising

 If you chase two rats at the same time, you risk missing both. African proverb

 

In the first few days of these protests, I was particularly struck by tweets warning protesters not to allow politicians and celebrities and prominent people space to be visible and relevant (in the language of the uprising, it is put as “don’t give the mike”). It brought home one of the most pronounced characters of the protest: it was exclusively about young alienated Nigerians, a generation defined by a profound idea that it stands alone as the abandoned generation with has scores to settle not just with leadership, but with all preceding  generations and all manners and shades of establishment and influence. You got the distinct impression that the nation was about to witness an uprising of  the young, for  the young, by the young.It had all the assets needed to fuel it: deep anger, a sense of righteousness of its cause and technology that had been  tried and tested elsewhere as effective mobilizers.

A young generation began the march against a state that was more visible when brutalizing citizens than providing opportunities for its young to grow into productive adults. It had a fairly familiar target, a police outfit that had acquired notoriety over the years for crossing lines and advertising impunity. #EndSARS became a clarion call for all manner of grievances against the state. It also broke new grounds in the apparently spontaneous response by thousands of other young people in many towns and cities. It was difficult to fault a campaign against a largely discredited police outfit and demands for accountability and justice. As it gathered momentum, it was joined by additional numbers of the young, and other interests that had been nibbling at the edges of a country bursting with problems and paralyzed by leadership that is too isolated from its actual state. By the end of its first week, it had become a new phenomenon. It was not going to be Occupy Nigeria or other previous popular expressions anchored by civil society, labour unions, political grievances or other campaigns that fizzled out after engagement with a notoriously corrupting political process.

The uprising confronted the state with a major dilemma.  It could not be ignored owing to the appeal of its cause, and its popularity among an aggrieved citizenry. Acknowledgement of its legitimacy as a peaceful protest around a genuine cause made it necessary to make concessions. Like all protests that start with single causes, however, concessions invited more demands because they exposed a state that was on a weaker footing. More interests registered behind the uprising, making resolution difficult because not all agenda is exposed. The state’s room for maneuver was being gradually limited. If it lent too hard on protesters, it risked more anger and more determined resistance. If it gives too much space, opportunistic interests exploit them. A stand off meant both sides were losing.

In most conflicts, there are good moments to cash in on advantages, and there are bad moments for submitting to resolution. In reality, it is extremely difficult to know best moments and worst moments, when strategies should be modified, amended or entirely jettisoned. Parties involved in conflicts benefit from strategies, quality of leadership and the manner factors that are central to success or failure influence outcomes. It would appear to be the case that when these protests started, they were really about bringing a complete end to a police unit which had been notoriously difficult to reform or scrapped. Government response was faulty on two grounds. First, it delayed a decision that will suit the nature of the grievance, and unwittingly, perhaps, played into hands of those who wanted more. Second, the decision to replace SARS with SWAT was made under the damaging impression that the administration was allowing the Police to reform itself. It was naïve to expect   that the protesters and a public with deep distrust of the police will accept that this was a sufficient response to get people off the streets.

The uprising followed with five demands. Government, now weakened and beginning to panic, accepted all five without equivocation. By this time, the uprising was basking in widening support and a virtual immunity from strong arms of the state. The more intelligent sections of the crowds were celebrating its absence of leadership which could sell it out at negotiations or be muzzled by the state into capitulation. In reality, while it had no discernible leadership, it had strong, well-supplied and articulate influence behind it and within it, asserting itself. Its “decentralized” structure was a façade. It had people in major cities who did its thinking, directed activities of multitudes through elaborate social media, mobilized and arm-twisted celebrities into becoming its faces and began to look more like Tahrir Square spread over the country.

The major issue for the uprising laid in ambiguities regarding an exit strategy. In general terms it said there would be no cessation of the protests until the administration “did the needful”. The needful here stretched from improvements in policing institutions which had begun with the rejected SWAT, to improved qualities of governance and ended with resignation of President Buhari. Without a leadership that was to articulate and process wide-ranging demands, how were these demands to be discussed, negotiated and processed into hard victory? A common thread in the uprisings during the Arab Spring and in places like Sudan and Lebanon was the huge amount of time and energy that was spent in convincing protesters to discuss with the state towards a resolution. The manner those efforts at identifying representatives of protesters and engaging the state were handled exposed the wide variety of interests, many of them hostile to each other, and in most instances weakened the representations  by major compromises that had to be made.

The uprising was always going to deal with three strategic challenges. One was time. How much time would it have to keep the government under pressure and extract concessions before it loses steam or the initiative? The second was keeping its focus and control over its core goals, so that other interests do not supplant its struggles. Third was to resist outright subversion and sustain momentum and wider support. As things stand, the protests are paying a major price for a number of strategic and tactical errors. The absence of a visible, popular leadership at a time the protests were at its zenith means that articulation and representation has been so democratized that interests ranging from political, civil society and criminal have all taken positions in the protests. Poor strategic design owing principally to the spontaneous and rather chaotic emergence of the protests has made exiting with substantive goals achieved problematic. Marching and clashing with thugs opposing the protests is a poor option. Submitting to other shadowy interests will destroy the credibility of the protests, and may even threaten the goals that had been already achieved. Absence of effective control and leadership has resulted in major divisions regarding goals and strategy. The protests began to reflect the nation’s perennial fault lines and dissipated much energy and unity around champions of regional agenda and political divisions. It is also obvious that protesters have little or no control over people with criminal and less than honourable designs. Voices of the uprising against injustice and impunity are now being drowned by outrage over criminal activities and a public that is being made to pay a price it believes is too high.

The next few days will show if the uprising will cash in on its considerable achievements or lose much of it to a state that will find comfort in fighting back because the original cause itself had been lost. This should not be allowed to happen. Nigerian youth have raised the bar in courage to demand a country that works for them, and leadership that is accountable. This should be a major turning point in our history, not a stop- over on our way down.

 

The Protests: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

 

“Never beat a snake when you have not seen its head”. African proverb.

In the next few days, the nation will know the fate of the protests that have become the  major focus of a citizenry that had been on the verge of resigning to living in a nation that promises much and delivers little. As things stand, both the state and the protesters who marched out two weeks ago and rekindled hope that the Nigeria police is capable of being reformed are losing. The leadership of President Buhari was made to make concessions under intense, popular pressure, but these concessions had merely opened the door for more demands. The protests themselves have registered success in terms of their  initial objectives, but they  risks losing ground to other interests owing to poor strategies and inadequate appreciation of the complexities of the context of the protests. These historic protests and the unusual responses of the state under an administration that rarely stirs to disturb the status-quo should not be consigned to our pile of history of failed attempts. It is vital that the nation harvests its values, and learns major lessons which should feed governance and citizen-state relations in future.

If these protests fizzle out because interests outside its core objectives of improving levels of accountability of leaders and state institutions have taken over and provided the state with an excuse to muzzle it out of existence, its achievements could be at risk of being reversed by leadership and state institutions that are basically resistant to substantive change. That will be a real tragedy because young Nigerians need to know that they can make their nation notice them; real reforms of vital institution of governance such as the police  are desperately needed ; and the utility of lawful  resistance against impunity and poor governance would suffer a major setback. The nation would have missed a historic opportunity to get leaders to appreciate the consequences of indifference and bad governance.

There is an existential threat to these protests: those who are still pursuing an agenda for police reform and improvements in the quality of governance are losing the initiative to others with motives that are radically at variance with their own goals. It could be explained by the absence of good strategy, but organizers of the #EndSARS campaign do not appear to have paid much attention to the need to build an engagement process and reduce damage to exposure to many interests that have scores to settle with the administration. The state could sit back and watch as public outrage and fear among the public replace hope and faith in changes, and then move in to clear criminals and sundry interests who are taking over these protests by the day. There will still be a price the state will pay in the short term: civil society will protest at strong state response; international community will condemn trampling on citizens’ rights; and violence against the state and criminal activities against citizens may dig deeper than the state anticipates. The nation could go through a prolonged, violent process as it attempts to assume the higher moral ground to protect citizens and national security and stability.

These protests have exposed the many weaknesses of a nation dealing with concerns over how its plurality and cumbersome structures could be addressed to improve the manner groups live and relate with each other. The commencement of the #EndSARS campaign revealed the many elements of a nation with two characteristics  that Nigeria has been. Young people stood up to demand an end to a police unit with many enemies and few admirers in major cities in the south, while young people in the north marched out to demand improvements in the manner northern communities are protected against Boko Haram insurgency, banditry and kidnapping. Ordinarily, there ought not have been a problem with this, but the  parallel protests and their concerns virtually spoke of a nation that could not look beyond its limitations. There were no bridges between these protests. In fact, at a point it became politically incorrect, even subversive, to acknowledge the other campaign, unless it was to give it   negative political colour. The common area of the protests, which is social media platforms, will depress any Nigerian who still nurtures the hope that young Nigerians will not be afflicted by  our virulent ethnic and religious stereotyping and pedestrian profiling. The sharp edges in the #EndSARS campaigns were blunted by #SecureTheNorth campaigns. Fringe campaigns that were more explicit in their political tones were countered by others specifically intended to counter them. What could have been an uprising to address the rights of all Nigerians to security, protection and justice was fractured as much by a state that knew where lines were weakest, as by pre-existing conditions that should worry those who believe that the nation has a future as a united, caring entity with a level playing field for all citizens.

There have been positive outcomes from these protests that must be translated into more tangible benefits in the long term. Policing as a key instrument of governance has been subjected to serious scrutiny, and it is vital that vigilance over substantial reforms is maintained. Deeper questions regarding adequacy, professionalism and suitability in a federal framework should be major components in the changes which should be brought to policing. The unprecedented levels and types of threat to communities in the northern part of the country have also been elevated to new heights,, and the commendable efforts of the youth who chose to focus on the region most deserving in terms of improvements in security of communities must not be consigned by history as a failed attempt by our young to demand serious and urgent changes in the security of northern communities. It is important to place on record that youth in Katsina State and a few other parts of the north had made efforts in the past to invite attention to the state of their communities, but were dispersed and sent back to continue to live with bandits and kidnappers. This is the moment to acknowledge these young people as heroes who did not wait for an uprising to start in the south before they demanded action. This is also the moment to inform President Buhari, in the event that he does not know: millions of northerners believe that he has sharper ears for voices from the southern part of the country than the north. Even for a president with two years to the end of his second term this should be a major source of worry. Young northerners have marched out against the failure of his administration to protect northern communities. They should not make this a habit because his administration has no answer to insurgency and collapse of security institutions in the north.

These protests have reminded us that Nigeria is indeed a nation of young people. Some data claim that 65% of us are below 35 years of age. Yet we run the nation with scant attention to the needs and potentials of our young. Now we know: the young can only be ignored at great peril. There is already serious damage done to our young population that is bitter, ill-prepared for a productive future, isolated from all systems and processes that are vital to their development and perception of their country and now, as we see, ready to close the country down unless they are listened to. The protesters and the thugs who clash with them, the graduates among them and the illiterate, unskilled young who tag along, the students who are tired of staying at home from educational institutions and even offspring of privilege worried about living lives caged by desperate age mates now demand a country that acknowledges their needs and not only meets them but creates space for them in all important matters.

The nation needs to approach these protests, or what is left of them very carefully. They must be prevented from worsening the difficult circumstances under which we live, but they must translate into tangible achievements in the longer term. There will be interests that will benefit from tying the state down around skirmishes. Governments need to combine tact, resolve and an enlightened approach in dealing with them. The nation will lose all the values that have accrued from the initial protests if it loses the battle to bring these protests to an end in a manner that suggests that it is learning important lessons from them already.

 

Ondo as a question

“The secret is to gang up on the problem, not on each other”. Thomas Stallkamp

Now that INEC says the voters in Ondo State have preferred APC’s Akeredolu over PDP’s Jegede, it would appear safe to indulge in a whole pile of speculations that had been waiting to ventilate. After the predictable loss of Edo State a fews weeks ago, Ondo was to settle a number of begging questions  which are at the heart of the  struggles to win and keep some territories before  many epic battles related to 2023.We can dispose of the less speculative questions, such as whether INEC is improving its management of stand-alone elections. Edo was an anti-climax for those who thought all punches will be allowed to settle arguments over the dominant character of Edo politics. It must be true that there are elections that are very difficult to rig, even with the combined powers of a bent electoral manager and a legion of  field influencers. Ondo was always going to be a closer call, Edo having buried a few ambitions long before the elections. In any case, field fixers had a field day in Ondo buying votes, but on the whole, you could say that INEC Chairman Mahmoud has improved his case for a renewal if those responsible for it think he can at best remain substantially neutral in  2023.

There are a few more fairly incontestable matters arising from Ondo. Elections mean a lot more to elected leaders than the security of citizens. Close to 40,000 security personnel spent a few days in the State to create the impression that the government is very serious about stealing mandates. On the day the elections held, thousands of people were marching in towns and cities against police brutality and criminality. In the few days that thousands of security personnel spent in the state, only God knows how many villagers up North were invaded, robbed and raped by bandits, or how many people were kidnapped across the country. It is now safe to assume that power is the only goal of politics for our politicians, not the quality of governance. There is also disappointment for those who had hoped that  an option to PDP and APC can be procured for Nigerians. The votes in Ondo suggest that our people are till captives of two parties that have so little to distinguish between them that governors can change parties a few weeks before elections and still win, and seemingly popular politicians can be rejected if they attempt to ride to power on unfamiliar platforms.

From this point on, we move to the interesting realm of speculation, so feel free to disagree. To start with whose victory was Ondo? No, not the re-elected governor, but the camps that have emerged to make the civil war in the South West APC a low-intensity conflict until Edo. Edo was said to be the prize for the forces that are ranged against Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and was secured with considerable internal subversion from a region with considerable stake in his failures to be sole landlord. It is a tussle with considerable risks for all parties. How much ground can APC lose to be able to establish that it is not the exclusive playground of the Jagaba? At what point does it become self-inflicted damage to the young(er) turks bent on re-making the political framework of the South West without the footprints of Tinubu? Presumably, both camps will claim credit over Akeredolu’s victory, although some  identifiable hands showed in the  contest. Tinubu will heave a sigh of relief and claim that APC is solid enough in the South West to support his ambition. His internal opposition will be content with a tough  victory, because a loss of Ondo will substantially alter the balance of forces against all camps in the long term. PDP will rue a loss, but its performance will give it the confidence that the South West has preserved its basic character: friendly to APC, but not hostile to PDP.

There are bigger stakes in the outcome. If APC is only precariously balanced in the South West, what are the chances that the region can lay a credible claim to the right to field its presidential candidate for the 2023 contest? Both Asiwaju and his formidable opposition rely on two major reasons why the presidential ticket should go southwest. One, it can lay claim to evident loyalty to the party. Two, it is South, and in all probability, a southern candidate will be fielded by the party. The only question is, should it trust an aging and internally-weakened Asiwaju with the ticket, or go for self-proclaimed  bridge-builders, people who want to change the basic character of Yoruba politics? The latter worry that Asiwaju could fail to get the ticket, and the region could fail to get the number two position as well. Asiwaju would appear to be in a weaker position than this rainbow opposition. He is substantially caged in a fraction of the South West, and in spite of his reportedly stupendous war chest, governors in the region and even Abuja are reportedly matching him and are uncomfortable with the prospect of a retreat  of the Yoruba to a regional island.

Ondo could be cold comfort for Tinubu if the stories that Abuja is contemplating fielding a serving minister from the South East or even President Goodluck Jonathan as APC presidential candidates are anywhere near the truth. His sharpened instincts should advise him not to discountenance the rumour. Sourcing an APC candidate from the South East could be credited as an unusually sharp thinking on the part of the presidency. It could be the seal on a relationship that has not bubbled with warmth recently on the part of President Buhari, and may confirm rumoured disquiet and discomfort by many people close to the President over the prospects of a Tinubu presidency. For those who oppose him in his own backyard, preventing him getting the ticket is a major goal, but the biggest goal is a Yoruba candidate who an unite the South West and convince the rest of Nigeria to trust him with the presidency. The Jonathan angle sounds too much like poor fiction, but it could serve the objective of hinting at how far Buhari’s people want to take the ticket away  from the South West.

The basic question to ask is the degree to which Ondo helps the design of the South West to be substantially involved in post-2023 Nigeria. At this stage, you have to ask how much the  state  of the whole  South West aids the clamour for a southern president in 2023.If it has designs to partner with the other two  southern zones to build a solid alliance that should convince the North to hands-off the presidency in 2023, those designs are not visible. Competing with the South East  and South South for a southern president will leave it open to greater damage and substantially at the mercy of northern politicians and voters. No southern candidate on any platform will make much headway unless he has huge support from the North. The problem is, most  Northern politicians and voters   show no inclination to cede their  right to compete and support a Northerner  for the presidency in 2023. Beyond the polite suggestions from some politicians  that equity and national survival  make a strong case for rotation in both parties, as well as dire threats and frightening scenarios over what will follow a failure to engineer a southern president in 2023, very few people bother to consider the reality that all Nigerian  voters will have substantial freedom regarding who to vote for, and many may not be impressed by arguments that their votes must go to pre-determined candidates.

SARS: From Policing to Governance

“A tree breaks, that takes all the force of the wind”. African proverb.

 President Buhari has been stirred into what are, going his standards, extraordinary activities  by  popular outrage at the activities of the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS). He had meetings with the Inspector-General of Police, decided  to scrap SARS, reorganize the police around its mandate and committed  to investigate its activities. The special broadcast over the agitations will resonate far beyond those in the streets and others who have long given up on the idea that President Buhari feels the slightest need to account to Nigerians. As we speak, however, these gestures appear only to spur the agitators and many other interests with their own designs and grievances against his administration. 

It is quite likely that this administration will have to deal with one of the biggest crisis to confront it in its more than six years. It now has to deal with an assortment of opposition that will confront it with a familiar dilemma that many leaders across the world had confronted. It is crisis triggered by  popular anger and driven by inept management resulting in more anger  until it is resolved in a number of many possible ways, depending on the disposition of leaders and the strength of the resistance. It is particularly tragic that the very instrument that the Nigerian state will respond with is also the source of the grievance. The harder the police leans on protesters, the more it validates the original sin that it is basically anti-people and must be resisted with stronger resolve. The administration can offer more concessions, but these are likely to feed the resistance even more. The plural nature of the interests taking on the administration will make it very difficult to negotiate a resolution that will bring these protests to an end. Stronger muscle by the state could tip the balance of sympathy against it even more dangerously, as other interests join in a feast on an administration that has been weakened.

It is not entirely academic to state that this crisis was avoidable. It is important to state this because the failure to deal with policing and security matters with a strong resolve by President Buhari under whose watch national security as a whole took a turn for the worse now make it necessary to look for responses that address past failures and current  challenges. This administration did not invent SARS. In fact, you could even credit it with some effort at improving its severely damaged image, although these efforts were largely cosmetic. Nor should it take blame for armed robbery, cultism, fraud and all manner of crimes that sucked in  an already compromised police institution into the type of muck that make it impossible to tell the criminal from the law enforcer. SARS was the response of choice in communities that had paid huge prices for lawlessness and criminality. Over the years, its tactics became less about good policing and more about achieving results at all cost. In a nation with poor measuring mechanisms, it has always been difficult to evaluate SARS in terms of its mandate. But is was relatively easy to finger it for setting its own standards, operating with shocking levels of impunity and the impression that the citizen and communities as a whole must pay for the existence of criminals, particularly those criminals that showed no mercy or remorse for hurting the innocent.

The truth, however, is that SARS is a microcosm of the Nigeria Police, and it makes no sense to speak about reorganizing the police to handle the original and legitimate mandate of SARS. It is important to remind the nation that it has one and only one federal police with roughly 450,000 men and women serving 200 million people. It is poorly trained, poorly remunerated, burdened by corruption and facing  a formidable array of criminals  who see the police as basically competitors for the benefits of crime, and an indifferent or hostile citizenry that had never believed that the police was its best friend. The policemen and women who will replace SARS personnel will be pooled from the same police, and former SARS operatives will be redeployed into a  police force to disappear and place their experiences and mindsets at their own service, narrowing the margin between police and the criminal.

These protests will demand a lot more than President Buhari is offerring. They will demand the heads of the leadership of the police and more heads of people that are failing to protect the nation. Worse, they are opening up new sources of worry in the misfortunes of communities in mostly northern part of the country who had, in bits and pieces, demanded that President Buhari protected them, particularly in his own home state. The protests, and the reactions of the government to them so far open up deep wounds and they will have different champions in the north to demand higher levels of concern and action against the Boko Haram insurgency, run-away banditry and kidnapping. To ignore northern demands for more decisive action against the bloodletting in many communities will bring out into streets people with little tradition for protesting against power, but it will be unwise to downplay the feelings of a people who were resigning to being locked out until they see a door ajar.

This is the time when President Buhari should act with some decisiveness and wisdom. There are many interests escorting this campaign and protests, and they have smelt blood. Many of these interests have a patently political agenda, and all of them target additional damage to the image and credibility of President Buhari’s administration. His choices in response are severely limited. He needs bold moves to remove the steam from these protests and show the degree to which he understands the fury behind genuine anger and mischief from opportunists. First, he must now accept that the people he had trusted to defend and protect the Nigerian citizen and nation have proved incapable, so he should replace them with others who show a promise to do better. In this instance, it will be difficult to make a good case for the exclusion of the IGP among Service Chiefs who should be relieved of their jobs. Second, the President should set up a judicial panel to investigate operations and complaints against SARS. Three, he should set up a high-powered and inclusive committee to advise on improving the effectiveness and standards of professionalism, particularly accountability, of the police.

Four, he should  accept to work with the National Assembly and citizens to examine the utility of amending the constitution to provide for state police, and how these should work with appropriate standards to serve and protect Nigerians. Five, he should reorganize all government agencies and their operations to make improvements in their impact on youth unemployment. Six, he should bring the ASUU strike to an end immediately and assist tertiary institutions with what they need to resume teaching in the next few weeks. Seven, he should create a forum which will include governors, traditional rulers, policing and security agencies, civil society and other persons with experience and insights into security to advise on how banditry and kidnappings in the North should be brought to an end. Eight, he should change his tendency to create unhealthy distance between him and the horrific conditions under which many communities live. He has to cultivate higher levels of empathy and sympathy for the plight of citizen who suffer because the people he has trusted to serve and protect them have failed to do so. Nine, he should re-visit his standards of accountability and responsibility to the Nigerian people. He cannot continue to govern through people he has entrusted with massive responsibility who are failing him and the nation, but stay on the job because he thinks his responsibility stops at their appointments only.

It is very important that President Buhari does not play further into the hands of these protests. This is an opportunity for him to overhaul his government sufficiently to kill the fire that will rage even more fiercely, as well as address genuine grievances. There are too many jolly riders in his administration, and he is poorly-served by the lack of quality advise on politics and governance. There are interests in the protesting multitudes that want to see an even weaker Nigerian state so that criminality can stretch its legs. What is needed to defeat them is clear-headed thinking and not more force against the protests.

 

 

 

Restructuring: A Rising Tide

“Reforms are less to be dreaded than revolutions, for they cause less reaction”. Justice Darling

There was a hint of exasperation in the Presidency’s response to the rising demands for restructuring and threats at the failure to do so. Media was awash with a warning from President Buhari to ‘agitators’ to cease and desist giving him timelines to either do one thing or another or risk the nation’s breakup. Apparently, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God’s comment last week hit a raw nerve when he was reported to have said:” It is either we restructure, or we break up. You don’t have to be a prophet to know that. That is certain- restructure or we break up.” Spokesman Garba Shehu said such comments are unpatriotic, unhelpful and unwarranted, and the administration will not be pressured to take a decision when it is dealing with insecurity and a pandemic.

The Presidency did reveal that it has its own designs on dealing with the clamour to re-visit the basic structures of the nation. Malam Shehu said: ”The president as an elected leader under this constitution will continue to work with patriotic Nigerians through and in line with the parliamentary  processes to finding solutions to structural and other impediments to the growth and wellbeing of the nation and its people”. Apparently he is referring to the call by the Senate for public inputs into another attempt to address major weaknesses in the design and operation of the nation’s constitution, a call that has been roundly criticised as a familiar dead end. Presumably, this is the only channel approved by the presidency, and breaches will continue to be punished with press releases that reek of desperation and frustration that these demands are not dying down.

The problem for the administration, and there are many, is that the demand for restructuring are gaining ground from a wide spectrum of groups and interests, and many are literally within reach. Last week, the nation watched a clumsy attempt to launder the Vice President’s message to a Church activity, delivered by the Secretary to Government of the Federation, which made the case for rebuilding the nation’s foundations. As a pastor in RGGC, the same Church headed by Adeboye, his message was couched in biblical language and symbolism, but there was no doubt that he was appealing for greater commitment to address gaping holes in our existence as a nation. Those who thought the Vice President pastor was showing leadership and required levels of responsibility in acknowledging the existence of serious problems were taken aback by the disclaimer and attempt to distance the comments from the rising tide in support of restructuring.

Chairman of the APC Governors’ Forum, Ekiti Governor Kayode Fayemi also insisted the party has not abandoned the restructuring agenda it made a commitment to before 2015.”Nobody wants  Nigeria to break up. They only want Nigeria to work for us….We must confront our reality as a federation. The current structure is supportive of a unitarist model. The state structure for now is problematic. There is need to move towards devolution, not only of functions, but also of resources.” As a sign of commitment, he said the committee they had set up  on restructuring under chairmanship of Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai has submitted its report, and it will be forwarded to the legislature as input into its review exercise. Governors are a powerful group in Nigeria, so both their inputs and powers over state legislators who have defined roles in approving constitutional amendments are immense.

By the day, new voices are being raised in support of restructuring, and they range from those which define it in terms of demands to be met or “their people” will walk out of Nigeria, to those who believe a major review of the constitution particularly in areas where the federal system represents major sources of concern and conflict will suffice. Why then, we must ask, is this issue so vexing for the administration? The vast majority of Nigerians will not support  breakup of the nation. They realize that no one’s particular version of restructuring will triumph over all others. No region’s definition of restructuring will be acceptable by all, unless it speaks to the interests of the entire nation. Most of those seriously involved in pushing the restructuring agenda recognize that it will have to involve considerable negotiation and a willingness to work through many strategies. Most groups also recognize that there are many stakeholders who will aid or frustrate the processes of a major review. These include the administration, politicians and groups  that occupy the fringes of political opinion on the future of Nigeria.

Perhaps one answer to the question lies in the possibility that the Buhari administration believes that calls for restructuring are targeted at it as a reminder of its failures. In the event that this assumption is correct (and its reactions to date suggest that this is the case), it stands accused of two additional failures. One is that it is a poor student of history. Nigeria has always been a work in progress, and it has gone through multiple mutations from many sources and motives. Restructuring is in the nation’s DNA, and demands for it will last for as long as the nation lasts. For the records, we are not alone here. Most nations in the world have had to go through major changes in their structures and systems, and even some of the oldest nations are still grappling with basic questions regarding the manner their countries are structured. Nations have fought wars, split under horrifying circumstances, spent decades fighting to settle disputes about identities, resources or systems. A second failure of the administration lies in its failure to distinguish between governments and the nation. Governments are at specific points in history, placed in charge of destinies of nations, but they never replace nations. Criticising administrations is not unpatriotic. Even language that offends the manner governments draw the lines on responsibility is not subversive or unpatriotic.

Virtually all the groups I am part of in this attempt to re-visit our structures and systems have very clear ideas about where they draw lines. They do not include secessionists or groups that threaten the nation’s future as united, working and just. They recognize that options exist for many groups, but some are illegitimate and will be resisted. They are concerned that an obstinate, ill-informed insistence that the foundations of the nation are basically sound, save for the rattlings of elderly noisemakers, will continue to breed desperation and unwarranted hostility from Nigerians looking for answers. Most important, they recognize the imperative of a genuine scrutiny and remedy of some of our basic constitutional and political limitations as the best strategy for caging opportunistic irredentists and latter-day champions of chaos and confusion.

It is important to assure governments and major stakeholders in the future of the country that calls for restructuring represent responsible and constructive inputs into resolving some of the nation’s current limitations and assuring that it rests on a stronger foundation to deal with a future. This is not the same as begging governments to “allow” restructuring to take place. Responses to the clamour to undertake substantial amendments of the constitution, reform of  electoral processes and addressing obvious weaknesses in operations of the Nigerian state need to be mature and informed. By the same token, responsible citizens who desire to achieve genuinely productive goals must recognize that governments have statutory responsibilities that make them major players or spoilers, and they have interests and sensitivities that can make substantial difference in the quest for serious changes in the governance framework.

There is some room for more productive collaboration between those pushing for meaningful restructuring and government. First, though, both sides have to move from their current positions. Hostile and belligerent language and threats are as damaging as name-calling and insults. Second, there must be very clear understanding that all changes must be predicated on a recognition of the legitimacy of the status quo until it is amended; that all organs of government need to be accorded due cognizance in terms of their roles in reforms and amendments; and citizens have a right to organize and demand that those with responsibility also accord them the respect they deserve. The demands for more substantive changes in the manner the nation is structured and functions will not go away. Indeed, they could very well be the basic stuff of the contests to political offices in 2023.That will make them merely opportunistic and extend the nation’s problems and uncertainties to very dangerous points.

While I was away

“Not to know is bad. Not to wish to know is worse”. African proverb.

Loyal readers of this great paper with fairly long memories will remember me as a weekly columnist who took a break. It turned out to be a lot longer than I planned, but I am glad  for the opportunity to be back. I did some research on the our circumstances as a nation between the last time I was here (October 2014) and where we stand today. It is in incredible how much can change in six years. I needed the break to help defeat President Jonathan and make General Muhammadu Buhari President after three previous attempts. Like millions of fellow Nigerians, I believed that the Jonathan administration had run its course, and a lame, confused and rapacious administration that was losing the war against Boko Haram and corruption needed to give way for a tough and clean leader to lead the nation to reclaim its security and integrity of public office.

I did get a front row in a successful campaign, and the euphoria that followed the election of President Buhari was grounded in profound its significance. An incumbent administration was defeated for the first time. The defeated President did not challenge the result. The North was politically united in choosing Buhari over Jonathan, an unprecedented event with huge symbolism. The nation had a seamless transition from fear and bitterness to relief and confidence in our capacity to grow and develop our fledgling democratic ambitions. To be sure, we swept a lot under the carpet. The conduct of the 2015 election was never interrogated by the usual heavy-handed judicial role in deciding the legitimacy of mandates, so there was no opportunity to establish where the electoral process was weak or strong. It was good enough that its outcome did not repeat the 2011 bloodletting on a grander scale. It is very likely that a few behind-the-scene understandings were given and received regarding the future of key persons in the outgoing administration which may have oiled a historic friction-free transition.

So we moved on, flush with confidence that insecurity, corruption and an economy with major limitations were about to get a deserved treatment under a tough President Buhari. We were substantially wrong. Buhari turned out to be indecisive, hesitant and dangerously looking as if power was a end in itself, and governance was all about the personal convenience of the leader. Boko Haram, Jonathan’s ultimate nemesis, was pushed back to its originating base, where it adjusted to a role of a constant threat that would defy Buhari and our beleaguered armed forces even as we speak. Within a year, a few of us in the winning party began to raise our voices at gaping holes between promises and results. By the end of the second year, it was clear that Buhari was not the solution. Indeed, he looked more like the problem. If he could not dramatically improve on the much-maligned standards of Jonathan, in the context of the elections that brought him to power, he could only be worse.

Me, I jumped ship, left the party and resumed a familiar role as a critic. This time, the fightback was a more vicious. People like me, the din from the chorus line will chant, would only criticise Buhari because he did not make us Ministers. We were ignorant of the rot he had inherited. We were closet PDPians, people against whom the tap of corrupt wealth had been switched off. It was particularly louder in the North, until the loud drums celebrating the infallibility of Buhari began to quieten down as the fight against corruption took on a decidedly political hue; poverty and insecurity became more pronounced; a nation that had shown a promise for more quality in the co-existence of its communities began to drift apart owing to incompetence and indifference in managing its plural character; and the nation and the world saw through the false front that advertised the Buhari administration as a solution.

The nation had a chance to retire a tried and failed administration, but did not. Two elderly northerners with huge baggages squared up in 2019.The votes gave Buhari a second term, and an invaluable opportunity to make amends, particularly for northern voters who made the difference with numbers and faith that more time was needed to realize the Buhari magic. The votes were right, the voters were wrong. Everything that was wrong in his first term got worse in his second term. The voices against the failure to stem new threats to citizens, in addition to the survival and even resurgence of Boko Haram, a crumbling economy and a leadership run by people you can count on one hand gave the impression of a leadership that had no plans or intention to change its style or substance. You got the distinct impression that President Buhari  was deeply averse to change of any type, a betrayal of the widespread  belief that the promise to affect positive change in the lives of citizens and the fortunes of a nation fighting on many fronts was singularly responsible for his two victories.

Things only get worse when leadership  does  little or nothing to address serious problems , or locks itself up and governs with tired statements from hired hands. And they did. The nation’s security challenges grew. A pandemic wrought havoc on an economy that was hanging precariously on export of crude oil whose prices collapsed. One or two key players in a severely limited administration died. Bandits, kidnappers, robbers, sundry criminals in urban centers and insurgents took up more space in the lives of citizens. Elderly Nigerians raised voices against each other and began to issue dire threats on the future of the nation unless major changes in its structure are not affected. Groups and regions drifted apart, the young vented its frustrations through social media in such unrestrained manner that saner Nigerians would switch off the possibility of a future of the nation with this generation.

Now I resume at a very sad moment in the life of a country I took a break to help fix. I always had an identity, but now my identity is more pronounced. My name alone determines responses to what I write.I am also more sensitive to the vulnerability of my identity, my region and a nation I still have strong faith in. I am active in geo-politics, the type that allows you to work with elders from all parts of Nigeria today, and quarrel like perfect strangers tomorrow. I am part of an emerging consensus that it is dangerous to assume the survival of our nation only on the say-so of a few people in leadership positions who cannot say anything else to citizens operating under major stresses that make softer options attractive. I am part of many initiatives to re-visit our foundations as a nation; lower the hostility against each other; re-invent dialogue and negotiation as political tools and improve elite cohesion and popular support for serious changes in the manner the nation is structured, governed and secured. I find myself in the midst of a raging debate on what is the right approach to amending the constitution; which part of the country should “produce” the next President;  if there will be an election in 2023 if the nation does not restructure, and other weighty issues.

      Now that I am back, I hope to share these with you.