Restructuring: good cause, poor champions

“A small house will hold many friends”. African proverb.

Last week, Daily Trust Newspaper held its 18th Annual Dialogue under the theme, ”Restructuring: Why? When? How?”. This now famous event has become a platform that allows the nation to bare its soul for painful scrutiny. It has found acceptance among the high and mighty as an avenue to reach the nation, or to take up those who want to reach the nation. Its choice of this year’s theme was near-perfect. It asked questions you would think are settled in a country where the word restructuring comes second only to the word security in popularity. It was obvious that organizers of the Dialogue knew that these questions are as relevant today as they have always been in spite of the appearance of unprecedented momentum behind it. An event that puts the popular potion of restructuring on the table surrounded by questions and people like President Jonathan, Chief John Nnia Nwodo, Chief Cornelius Adebanjo and Professor Attahiru Jega was bound to excite a nation desperately in search of solutions to rising levels of challenges which provide ample ground for doubts regarding its survival as a united, secure nation.

Those who followed the Dialogue for answers got a fair mix of hope and disappointment. It was not that the impressive turn out lacked capacities to provide answers to the three most basic questions on restructuring. There were a lot of answers, but those who should decide what to do with them, including the speakers, were thin on the ground in terms of strategy and commitment. President Jonathan who could write  a book on failed attempts to re-design  the structures of the nation chose  safe distance to play the statesman by making the case for  restructuring and accepting the existence of the nation as a settled issue, strengthening the foundations of liberal democracy, improving co-existence and tolerance of our plural nature and improving our disposition to a nation that deserves to be loved and  be built to survive its current challenges.

Chief Adebanjo was his usual self: uncompromising and demanding. Nigeria must restructure NOW, and it should do that outside the state institutions that have no legitimacy because they are not products of popular will. He wants the nation to adopt the report of Jonathan’s Conference of 2014 as a basis for further discussions which must be concluded well before the 2023 elections. Chief Nwodo provided ample evidence to show why the nation is failing to work for Nigerians. He insisted that all past constitutions (including those which provided the basis for the two governments in which he served as Minister) were elaborate frauds which can only be corrected by a representatives’ conference of all Nigerian ethnic groups who will decide what type of constitution and country they want. The population should give it popular endorsement  through a plebiscite. Professor Jega agreed that restructuring was a national imperative to address major failings in the State’s capacity to discharge its most basic functions. His concern was that many advocates of restructuring want massive and immediate changes to the constitution, institutions and processes without paying appropriate attention to contexts, practicalities and the values of adopting a strategy that allows the nation go through a process that avoids more problems in the process of solving them.

There were many unheard voices which followed the high and low levels of an exciting foray into minds that shape and reflect much of the many variants of the meaning of restructuring. Young people and women did not have space. National Assembly members currently engaged in their own version of addressing ills of the nation through constitutional amendments, Fulani herders who have no States of origin but are now at the center of controversies over the type of country Nigerians want and many others who live on the margins of a country which itself sits on the margins of viability and utility to citizens did not have a say at the Dialogue. Still, there was an emphatic source of comfort for those who believe that the future of the nation depends on its being restructured. This was the appearance of virtual consensus that no part of the country   is opposed to the idea of restructuring. In a country which habitually quarrels over all matters of importance from regional, ethnic or religious positions, this is a major asset.

The positive of national consensus around restructuring does not stand out in the face of the many problems which exists. The Dialogue exposed major distances around the question of ‘how’? There is very wide spectrum of opinions here, from those who believe that existing governance and democratic structures provide sufficient channels for constitutional changes, to others who insist that meaningful changes must begin by rejecting the entire legal and constitutional status quo and operating outside them to create a new foundation for a new nation. There are opinions which support incremental approaches; some want existing laws to make room for greater citizen initiatives that enjoy immunity from State interference, and others believe in the utility of engaging current leaders to concede to the most pressing changes under current circumstances.

The poverty of the restructuring cause is manifest in many dimensions. One is the virtual absence of mechanisms or opportunities that should reduce distances between ideas, interests and groups. The Dialogue highlighted this in the numerous cases made for  fora or initiatives that will achieve this. This is where initiatives started by President Obasanjo and a few other groups need to be supported, but elites need to commit more seriously to the cause. Another is time. Part of the attraction of falling back on existing work is that it saves the process from re-inventing wheels. A staggered process which prioritizes the key goals will be of great value, but this will be challenged by arguments over strategy. The question of which strategy to adopt is crucial. If champions of restructuring cannot narrow distances on this important issue, nothing will be achieved.

Somewhere between a healthy respect for the democratic process and the need to achieve substantial changes, including changes in democratic institutions without challenging legitimate channels, a way has to be found to commence the process. Just agreeing to what strategy will be adopted will be a very difficult task. Another is the interplay between restructuring and political maneuvers towards 2023 elections. There are interests that will jettison the demands to restructure the country if they are assured that their preferences regarding the ethnic identity of the next President are secured. In many circles, the push for restructuring is informed by political grievances and group ambitions, and it will be easy for the cause of restructuring to become seriously damaged by the manner regions and interest work with or against each other towards 2023. The sympathy for covering much ground on restructuring before the 2023 elections arises in part from suspicion that no one elected under existing arrangements will support a process that could radically alter their powers and spoils. Then you have hostility or indifference from the current administration which will not even push its own campaign commitment to restructuring or work done by its chieftains beyond desks or archives. The limitations of our constitutional process is that it will be entirely dependent of the inclinations of the politician, not the nation. Current disposition of the legislature suggests that it stays close to the executive, even where there are pressures to exercise some autonomy.

There are major issues involved in bringing desperately needed changes in the structures of the nation, but they will need higher levels of commitment, maturity, sensitivity to the current state of the nation, skills in building bridges and alliances and courage among the elite. At this stage, restructuring appears only as a slogan used to scare or abuse perceived enemies, or remain popular in tiny circles. Not much will be achieved by leaders who are content to issue threats, insults and ultimatums at each other, dissipating energy which should be deployed towards securing stronger foundations for the nation.

Dangerous maneuvers.

“If you do not want to relate or be touched, do not go to the market”. African proverb.

By the time you read this material the fire lit in Ondo  and Oyo States in the last few weeks would be smoldering  or lighting up other fires. A lot, at this stage, depends on responses of many people with responsibility to pull back the nation from a major crisis. The stakes are very high, and many of the key players have played their hands in a manner that leaves them very little room for maneuver. Events have moved at frightening speed since the killings in Oyo State and the ultimatum in Ondo State, and it will be difficult to undo some of the damage that has been done.

Even setting out a background to these latest assaults on the stressed foundations of the country is now hostage to entrenched parochial interests. The one version I am comfortable with says the governments and people of Oyo and Ondo States, like all Nigerians, have been increasingly worried over escalating incidents of kidnappings and banditry, most of them attributed to armed Fulani criminals. A few weeks ago, Amotekun operatives reportedly killed members of a Fulani family. Everything about the killings has been hotly disputed, except evidence of the killings itself and actual victims. The State governor, Commissioner of Police, Alafin of Oyo, Amotekun leaders, Fulani communities and groups, prominent locals, ethnic champions and social media influencers all weighed in on the killings, making investigations and establishment of facts and bringing the law to bear on the situation virtually impossible.

In the case of Ondo State the Governor met with representatives of Fulani communities and then issued them a week’s notice to vacate a forest reserve in the State. Here too, the trigger was suspicion that the forest habours criminal Fulani who are barely distinguishable from their kith and kin, Fulani headers. Fulani herders, although more familiar to communities all over Nigeria are not entirely without their own mountain of sins, and are now widely suspected of harbouring and providing cover for their criminal elements as well. Governor Akeredolu’s quit notice was precisely the type of action that will instantly attract overwhelming, popular endorsement, and politicians will do virtually anything for it these days. Murmurs of protests rose, and were met by a stout defence of the legal basis of the governor’s action. When President’s spokesman, Garba Shehu stepped in with his charges of unconstitutionality of the decision and a lot of fancy words which appeared to suggest that the basic rights of the Fulani community had been violated and should be restored  by rescinding the quit order, the murmurs became an  uproar denouncing President Buhari for habouring people like Malam Garba Shehu, for  being insensitive to the plight of ordinary Yoruba  citizens, for  backing his Fulani kith and kin and a lot more in a noisy reactions guaranteed to set ethnic blood boiling. Groups representing northern interests warned of dangers of the type of action being taken by leaders in the West, and these were met by more defiant rhetorics reminiscent of situations where entire populations were being prepared to be engaged in a war.

That, more or less, was where the nation stood until the meeting involving Governors of States in the South West, two from the North and Miyetti Allah on Monday 25th.From all appearances, the meeting was intended as a major damage control initiative, but the nation must wait a while to see if it succeeds in controlling any damage, and whose damage it controls. First, those who expected that the meeting will break grounds around the issue of the welfare and future of Fulani communities in Yorubaland will have to look hard to see if assurances that Fulani are welcome in the West, banning open grazing, night grazing and mandatory registration for all Fulani will restore a healthy  balance between host authorities and Fulani communities who have been shaken by a combination of popular hostility and governments seeking to reap from it. If Fulani stay put as they will most certainly do, even with additional conditions and restrictions, those who have sympathy for them will read a little victory. If threats and attacks cease and enforcers retreat, Fulani and their sympathizers will celebrate surviving a major scare. If Fulani rebuild relations with host communities and police their settlements against bandits and kidnappers to the satisfaction of host authorities, there could be hope of a near-total recovery of the space lost by good relations between communities in the South West.

There are sound reasons why there are many ‘ifs’ here. Governors have lit a fire that will burn up more of their standing in their States. There will be many  influencers  that will pass the word around that Yoruba governors have capitulated and Fulani have won this round and will resume normal activities which, in this case, include banditry and kidnapping. Somehow, the impression that the South West must be a no-go area for Fulani or nothing appears to have taken root in the midst of all the heat and passion generated recently. People like Sunday Igboho (and there are quite a few of them) have tapped a strong, popular sentiment that Yoruba security and dignity are at stake on this particular Fulani matter. The idea that a Yoruba nation can stand up against Buhari’s pampered Fulani and win, and then move on to other victories has deep roots in millions of minds. The distance between politicians who decide their own boundaries around this problem and folks who prefer to listen to local champions has widened spectacularly. Politicians, from Tinubu to governors and all others whose voices have not been heard to say what the rabble wants to hear are in very serious trouble.

This is why the Governors’ solution will not be sufficient to provide the type of assurances everyone needs to feel that justice and commonsense have prevailed. Governors will be hard put to stop communities seeking to enforce the lines drawn by them around the Fulani. Sunday Igboho still walks around in spite of orders to arrest him, a shouting testimony to the existence of severe limitations which Governors have. If police cannot, or will not arrest Igboho, and killers of Fulani in Oyo State are still at large, and youth who destroy Fulani settlements are roaming free, who will protect Fulani if enforcers or entire communities feel that Governors have not leaned hard enough on the Fulani? Governors, local communities and Fulani can try , but they will not stop banditry and kidnappings. Northern Governors and communities from which these elements deflected into violent crimes know this. Fulani in the West will be at the mercy  of bandits and kidnappers’ activities, and local communities and enforcers  will not leave them in peace if they continue to connect them will criminals.

Ultimately, the federal government has to be more actively involved in deepening the foundations of co-existence between Fulani and host communities. It is difficult to see a continuation of the practice of herding across the length and breadth of the country with the type of spreading hostility generated around Fulani herders. A serious federal government will have to engage all major stakeholders in security and the future of the national assets which livestock represent. It should be a matter of extreme urgency that federal and Northern Governments invest in large scale ranching in parts of the North. Until that is done, the Fulani herder will remain a roaming threat to himself and national security.

Landlords

 “Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.” John Cheever, 1912-1982, American novelist.

By the time you read this, the raging controversy over the “quit notice” given to some Fulani by the Governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, would be reaching fever pitch. It will compete with raised voices over activities and exploits of Amotekun in parts of Oyo State. The nation’s fever will rise a bit, but it will take a while to establish whether this is another serious ailment the country should worry about, or a disturbance that will take a few hot words and foraging a depleting store of responsible leadership to bring down. Either way, we are dealing with an increasingly familiar routine. Leaders with responsibility are challenged by security threats over communitues. Their options are extremely limited by law and local politics. They generally tend to choose the softest options, which, unfortunately tend to merely compound the threat in the long term even if they get applauded in the short term. Other leaders with responsibility and powers under the law and real options that can address the threats tend to look away, feign   ignorance over the problem and its solutions or deploy the weakest responses guaranteed to leave the threat intact or more emboldened. Governor Akeredolu is stocking a fire because he can. Even he cannot be sure that it will burn the problem away, but he will get applauded for following a beaten track instead of sitting on his hands.

In the next few days, the Governor will either dig in and justify his decisions to expel a Fulani community from a forest, ban night herding activities and presence of cattle on highways, or he will play the landlord who rescinds his quit notice on a troublesome tenant on condition that he behaves more appropriately in future. The decorated lawyer in him knows that the law is of dubious quality as support for his decision to limit the activities of Fulani communities in Ondo State. As Chief Security Officer, he has the power and the duty to take steps to secure citizens. The same constitution that gives him this power stops him from expelling any Nigerian from the State on any ground. He has powers to make laws that improve the safety and security of the citizens in Ondo State, but he has no powers to do this at the expense of the rights of other citizens to live and earn a living anywhere in the State. Every citizen, indigene or Fulani must conduct themselves within the law, and when they fail to do that, there are state institutions that should deal with this failure. This is where the Governor’s problem lies, and it will be small comfort to remind him that all his colleagues suffer from this major handicap.

The politics of his decisions is only marginally less challenging than the legal context. Given the spreading demonization of the Fulani, it will be a brave Ondo man or woman who will not support a firm hand in dealing with a small community which is identified as representing threats to their safety and security. Nonetheless, the Fulani in the forests of Ondo will not walk away without a fight. They will challenge the stigmatization and restrictions as unfair and punitive. They will insist that they are made to suffer for suspicions of being criminals only because they are Fulani, or for crimes committed by a small group that may or may not be Fulani. There will be voices raised in defence of the Fulani community, and the governor cannot entirely ignore some of these voices. There will be people who will whisper that there are options in dealing with this Fulani community, not all of which need to be made available to a public that is already applauding this strong posture. The Fulani community could refuse to leave and insist that it has a right to live where it earns a living unless the law says otherwise. The governor will be left with the option of invoking relevant laws and marshaling enforcement mechanisms to enforce a quit order, but he has to brace up for more trouble. Communities could chip in with threats and action that could inconvenience the Fulani community to leave, but this option will leave the governor at the mercy of a lot more trouble than he started with. Amotekun could be of some use here, but right now it is engaged in a damaging battle to launder its activities and image in Oyo State.

There are grounds for feeling some sympathy for both the governor and the Fulani he is asking to adjust. All governors realize how empty their titles of Chief Security Officers are. They have very little control and influence over the police or the military, and those who do are too removed from a population which looks up to governors for protection. Do-it-yourself security arrangements like Ametokun win political points, but they are severely hamstrung by legalities and local and national politics, such that their real values are outweighed by their limitations. When citizens accuse Fulani communities of habouring kidnappers the first instinct is to believe them. Asking the Fulani to police themselves is not good enough for citizens. The Fulani themselves are victims of Fulani criminals, and to make them custodians of their own security by leaders who should also protect them is to ask for too much. Leaning hard on them looks good at home and bad outside. The only Chief Security Officer in Nigeria is President Muhammadu Buhari, but his police is limping on one leg and his military is fighting a dozen battles a day all over the country. Northern communities are veterans at living with armed criminals, and they testify to the huge spaces which exist between the citizen and security and law and order agencies.

It may be asking too much from frightened and panicking a nation to spare a minute to hear the Fulani’s story and sympathise with the plight of a community that is defined by the dispersed nature of its existence and the tragedy of sharing an identity with the nation’s latest popular criminal. Still Nigerians need to hear that majority of Fulani are law-abiding citizens with centuries of knowledge about living with hosts. They, like most Nigerians, need other Nigerians as much as Nigeria needs them. The Fulani can be harassed and caged, but he cannot be eliminated from spaces in our lives which we must have to give us comfort.

There is a larger threat to Nigerians than the Fulani. This is a Nigerian State that allowed some Fulani to assume the level of threat they pose to all of us, and has failed to understand and deal with the threat. The threat which banditry and kidnapping represent are real and must be treated as a national threat. Fulani people must understand that they need to get directly involved in fighting this scourge, but the nation will not solve the problem by kicking the Fulani around all over the nation. Those Fulani who demonstrate real desire to stay clear of criminality need to be encouraged, or the ranks of the criminal elements among them will swell. The issues of banditry must be seen as a national threat, the same way we should see the Boko Haram insurgency, the threat posed by irredentists such as IPOB, cultism, militancy and piracy and run-away corruption. Local initiatives in uniform or governors who behave like angry caretakers and landlords will not solve a problem that has a national dimension and deep roots in the weaknesses of the State to eliminate. This is the time when governors should do justice to the expectations of the people who elected them by taking up President Buhari on improving responses to security threats and  constitutional issues around addressing public safety institutions.

51 years in a thousand words

“It is always the season for the old to learn“.Aeschylus,525-456bc, Greek poet.

Last week, I participated in a virtual conference under the theme, “Never Again: 51 Years After the Nigerian  Civil War”. It was organized by Nzuko Umunna, an Igbo Think Tank with support from some media organizations. Participation at the attendance was bettered only by the frank expositions and lamentations that reminded one of how stuck we are in a past that will not yield to  a future because neither the past nor the future show any meaningful convergence of the elite. On the face of it, a theme with emphatic “Never Again!” will suggest an exercise that will rally substantial national consensus that  events leading to the civil war and the civil war were some of the darkest chapters in our history, and should be carefully documented and harnessed as major building blocks of a new nation.

It may not have been the intention,  but my reading of it was that the Conference was a resounding comment on the disarray that pervades our national psyche on all matters which define our past, the current circumstances under which  we all suffer,  and a future that is bleak and blank, inviting all and sundry to design it.Virtually every participant - except perhaps irredentist Nnamdi Kanu - were over 50 years at least. It is safe to assume that 90% of those who followed the Conference were not even born in 1970, the year that the civil war ended, but their voices were loud and assertive at the Conference. It turns  out that those who embodied the history, shaped it and witnessed it had bred generations of bitter and ill-informed generations which now install  barricades around the nation to represent their versions of their lives and legacies.

The only consensus of the Conference was that many things are seriously wrong with our country. Beyond this, conflicting versions of the starting point of a depressing tale of consistent decline welcome any enquiry into our roots with bewildering strands, many of which have acquired lives of their own. Some locate the first mis-steps at the 1914 amalgamation. Some will point at quarrels over constitutions, census, elections, conflicts with ethnic undertones, faulty designs of the federation and regional conflicts, all of which undermined the legitimacy of the new post-colonial Nigeria and made the 1966 coup virtually inevitable. There are others whose  start will be marked by the blood shed in a coup that was undertaken in January 1966 in a manner that suggested that only political leaders  and military officers  from selected parts of the country were its target, and  a turning point  that suffered from a fatally naive  idea that a  better country could be built on the back of widespread discontent at political largess secured through violence. There are other starting points located  at the July 1966 counter coup, the bungled attempts to rein-in secessionist tendencies,  the pogroms and the decision to secede. Everything about the war is fertile ground for dispute. Its  trigger, execution and end are violently contested by people whose learning medium is the internet and circles which thrive only on feeding major sections of the population with made-to-measure history. Post-war developments provide additional sources of dispute, from rehabilitation and integration policies to the fact that no Igbo person has been a number one citizen of the country, elected or otherwise, and the Igbo is still being victimized by a nation which sees nothing unjust in the five states which the Igbo share. 

Where are the success stories of a nation that was created by the power of the foreigner 121 years ago, and has spent more time outside colonial control than under it? What happened to the historians that began to capture the idealism, the vision, the struggles and the determination and success of two generations of Nigerians who grew up to find their lives in colonial bondage, but resolved to fight it for freedom? How could a country that put such store in knowledge and pride in history lose vital chapters of its existence, chapters that speak of proud Africans who believed in their capacities to rule themselves; to make mistakes and fix them; to dream big and build the foundations of a future with vision and faith? Where is the history that speaks to the willingness of the Nigerian in all parts of the country to write a new chapter in greatness by the manner he welcomed the Igbo back into a nation they helped build; the faith of the Igbo in the intrinsic goodness of Nigerians who made spaces available to him in every inch of the country; the enterprise and industry of the Igbo that allowed him to rebuild and reclaim pride of place in the economy of every community he made home in post-war Nigeria; the incredible speed of reconciliation that allowed major players in the rebellion and those ranged against them to share political parties, support each other against each other in political competition in  less than a decade after a terrible civil war? Where is the story of the Nigerian elite and simple folk that stood up against apartheid; the political elite that stood up against a military that had run out of ideas and spaces; the world-class intellectuals that built excelleny universities, military officers that led the search for peace in distant lands, respected economic entrepreneurs, sports people and millions of Nigerians who walked with a swagger and the type of confidence around a world that knew a Nigerian at sight?

Nigerians had lost many opportunities to build a model African nation that is as good as the best, and this loss began with its loss of the value of history. It stopped the vital work of building the past into the present and the future. The end of the civil war coincided with the start of an era where  core values were eroded by massive sources of easy wealth. Immediate gratification became the defining objective of all public and private endeavours. Leadership became dwarfed by corruption and lack of vision, and the nation began to live a day at a time. This was the perfect context needed by those who will benefit from re-writing history and harvesting massive influence. The political elite took its eyes off building a nation and began a damaging scramble for power to plunder the commonwealth and build little enclaves too weak to be of use to the citizen, but capable of setting him up against contrived enemies. Fabricated history became weapons, providing even punks outside the country with enough ammunition to create alternative history and ride on them into cult status. They now define the enemy and prescribe what to do with and about them. They give abandoned generations a false sense of reality, some meaning for their alienated existence, and ready made enemies to vent on.

Fifty one years after the civil war, Nigeria is fighting a worse wars. While its political elite scrape the bottom of a damaged barrel, other leaders and elders find relevance only by routinely demonizing each other. Organized criminals are exploiting a weak leadership and taking up positions  in lives of millions of citizens. Millions of the young do not see their places  in the future of the country. This is the time to ask  the nation what it took to fight a just war and preserve a nation that deserved preserving. It is still the same country. What it needs are citizens who will read its history correctly and pull it away from the edge. It will not stay on the edge forever. If those citizens exist, they need to step up. There are no easy options for Nigeria, but the option of tolerating its continuing decline is the worst for  every Nigerian, wherever they stand.

Sheikh Gumi and George Obiozor

 “A person does not wander far from where his corn is roasting”. African proverb

Two recent events bring to mind the place of non-state actors in influencing major political events in modern nations. Non-state actors are individuals or groups that are entirely or substantially independent of sovereign states, but influence political, social matters at local, national and global levels. These actors have negative or positive influences depending on the their dispositions to important public issues. In weak states or states in transitions, they play pivotal roles in influencing outcomes of conflicts, some of which they are directly responsible for triggering and sustaining. In many instances, they mediate or create interventions that reinforce or reduce weaknesses in governance or the impact of damage in the lives of citizens. In democracies, non-State actors are critical intervening variables whose places are determined largely by the degree to which the State performs its basic functions and these find their ways into the lives of the citizen.

One significant but  under-reported event was the excursion of Sheikh Ahmad Mahmud Gumi into some rural areas in the north to meet with Fulani communities and engage them towards mitigating the terrible scourge of their communities and the rest of the nation, which is banditry and rustling. The Sheikh is an outspoken critic of many elements of governance, and he has recently gone further than most Muslim clergy are willing to go in calling out this administration on its records on security. A few weeks ago, he decided to go a step further: he took the risky step of going to places long abandoned by the Nigerian state and terrified citizenry to enlist Fulani who are still holding on to a precarious life on the side of lawful existence. His goal was to reinforce a shifting line that should reduce the weaknesses of a community that is overwhelmingly Muslim, but bleeds members daily to a life condemned entirely by their faith.

The Fulani has only been marginal in mainstream political structures and processes in Nigeria. Its nomadic elements bear historic grievances for being exploited  for decades by a quasi-feudal system, capitalizing on the isolated nature of the nomad who roamed around with massive assets. In the last decade, the Fulani lifeline has been decimated by rustling,  barricades, indiscriminate hostility and  damaging profiling, rapturing the only relationship between most Fulani and  structured, organized and lawful existence. Uprooted Fulani quickly learnt the lessons on the power of the gun, and many began to rustle others’ cattle. From there, the huge, ungoverned spaces created by a state that paid little attention to rural populations provided the perfect setting for dramatic escalation  of criminal activities like banditry and kidnapping to the current virtual rebellion by the Fulani led by its most uninformed and alienated elements. The Nigerian State has little answer to a  growing phenomenon that is fueled by criminality and a rough-and-ready ideology of revenge, and is quite capable of sustaining itself at the expense of more and more citizens and communities. It compromises critical elements of the Nigerian State, and its seeming success breeds recruits in hundreds daily. Access to firearms, drugs and huge pay-offs make this calling worth all the risk.

State governments who had attempted engaging leaders of bandits and kidnappers all have same tale to tell: leaders of criminals change by the day, and those who last long do so only because  they will not, or cannot, enforce agreements which remove  the bandit and kidnapper from the huge, if short-lived rewards of a dangerous life and relocates him  into an unfamiliar life as a settled citizen stripped of all that made any sense to his existence. Perhaps it is the recognition of the fact that rustling and banditry are the fastest growing sectors of the northern economy, and the concern that little is being done to engage it that spurred Sheikh Gumi into his campaign to raise awareness of Fulani community to the its responsibility to resist further incursions of criminality into its fold. He would know that Fulani have both some of the most learned Muslims in Nigeria, and some of the widest circles of poorly-educated and uninformed Muslims. He would know that many families live  with the painful absence of members who steal away to join gangs, or die in bids to make money that cannot be spent in a productive manner. In any case, Sheikh Gumi broke new grounds, for which he should be commended.

Fulani is one of the largest ethnic groups in this country, and there are millions more kith and kin all over West Africa who are quite possibly the most capable of being mobilized to support each other or partake in largess acquired by the barrel of the gun. If appeal to their faith which is unambiguous about crimes and violence works, it will be a major step towards reintegrating Fulani. The fact that Boko Haram leader, Shekau even reacted to it suggests that it has a potential to make a major difference. Sheikh Gumi’s initiative should ordinarily be supported  and encouraged by all governments, but it is most unlikely to be ignored by the administration of President Buhari which has a very narrow band of friends and a wide one foes. Critics fall among the latter, and Sheikh Gumi is a registered critic. Still,  State governments who feel the heat more than Abuja and Fulani elite should support this initiative. It is vital that this seemingly chaotic rebellion by elements of the Fulani which now vents on spoils of criminality does not acquire political consciousness.

A second significant event was the election of Professor George Obiozor as the President-General of Ohaneze Ndigbo. It is difficult to ignore the historic place of this major event. The new President-General takes over from the combative and articulate John Nwodo, whose tenure witnessed a gritty attempt to protect the  local turf and keep Igbo interests firmly in the nations’s view. The Obiozor I knew did not blink either, but he will have to play the political game in a manner that does justice to the huge amount of faith placed on his ability to lead the group and deal with challenges that will mature and become potent under his watch. It will be his lot to create space for Ohaneze Ndigbo as the  loudest voice of  Igbo people, certainly louder that other voices that do an injury to  his people because they suggest that Igbo people are divided between Nigeria and exiting a nation that does not leave every group asking the same questions. He will have to lead his organization to engage with the rest if Nigeria over the option of an Igbo presidency. The diplomat in him will come in handy when options appear limited or unviable. He will lead the organization at a period when the nation needs level heads to deploy against people who will choose hostility and confrontation in the manner they pursue goals. His group will find parallels in other ethno-regional groups, and the politics if 2023 will test the will and strength of elders to resist temptations to submit to the familiar as opposed to creating a new foundation for a nation that can survive its current serious challenges.  

 

Power

“Corruption, the most infallible  symptom  of constitutional liberty”. Edward Gibbon, 1737-19, English historian.

It is tough resisting the temptation not to write on the stripping of America’s democratic credentials and the looming possibility that its spearhead, President Donald Trump, is likely to be impeached for an unprecedented second time in the history of the US, with just a few days to the end of his ignoble presidency. Gloating over the demystification of the leadership role of the US among nations wear  the label of democracies  may give many who have  different reasons to rejoice at the blood in the nose of a giant. Some of the shock and awe at the spectacles of the last week in the US are  informed by inadequate knowledge of the history of the struggles of the US to reach its current status. These struggles have involved instances of the use of violent means to subvert the democratic process, the most serious being the civil war that followed the election of President  Abraham Lincoln and the resultant civil war over the decision to abolish slavery.US democratic traditions and institutions have very deep roots in systemic violence and  stubborn resistance to  many of the edifying values and ideals of democracy. Indeed, the US  is a study in the power of  deliberate efforts to paint over terrible scars and ignore gaping wounds to create a facade for the world. It is also a resounding testament to the reality that there is no perfect democratic system in the world. Students of power will find much in the history of the US on the use and abuse of the most powerful weapon mankind had ever invented: the capacity to influence and direct the behaviour of others.

There will be another world that will be seriously upset at the predictable but avoidable  end of a Trump presidency. An engineered insurrection by the leader of the world’s most powerful democracy against an in-coming administration will take years to unravel its implications. The US had planned and executed many coups in foreign countries to  achieve its goals and frustrate the expression of local goals. It had failed in other attempts to subvert popular will and remove popular leaders  it was not comfortable with. It had installed leaders and puppets; propped up dictators;  embraced  leaders who run completely non-democratic systems leaders; murdered foreign leaders; tolerated sham elections; punished abuse of human rights and tolerated abuse of human rights and generally acted as overseer of a system that was flexible enough for the US and its allies to set many different standards and punish their versions of misconduct. The record of the US at the global level  is therefore only marginally worse than its domestic records at attempts to live up to the ideals of its founding fathers. Trump may not be an outstanding student of history, but his presidency showed an uncanny understanding of the potentials of deployment of powers against foreign adversaries   and domestic opposition to achieve his personal  goals. Still, warts and all, the US has just created a vacuum that will take a while to fill and cost a significant element of humanity much agony as it deals with subversions of democratic processes which will take inspiration and comfort from the recent experience and circumstances of the US.

Many attempts at damage control make much of the idea that strong institutions are vital for survival of democratic systems, and, in the specific case of the US,  the evidence is strong in support at the idea that the insurrection triggered by Trump was bound to fail. Certainly, strong institutions are vital, but they are vital for the survival and growth of all forms of governments, including dictatorships. Democratic systems substantially create separate but related branches of government and other institutions like political parties, free press and laws that will support values such as freedoms of expression and association and rights to choose and hold opinions among others. What is problematic is the tendency to over-emphasise the central place of institutions and underrate the place of the nature of political leadership. Furthermore, no democratic system exists that can isolate the basic character and dynamics of the political system and context in which it operates.

There are many lessons from Trump’s desecrations that teach the value of  understanding contexts. Popular versions of recent US history point to the election of President Barrack Obama as a major departure from historical conventions. Eight years of the presidency of an  African-American threatened to be succeeded by a female President and wife of a former Democrat President. The US would have been run for at least    sixteen years by liberal administrations headed by a black man and a woman. If you do not give Trump credit for anything, you have to concede to him an instinct for an awareness of a strong right wing that was ready to be activated. His outing was a coup against the entire US political establishment. The Republican party swallowed its pride and fears and collapsed around the outlines of government by a strong leader. It sank deeper when it read his serial assaults at the heart of America’s conventions as its gains, rising  to his defence when he was impeached by the Democrats. His huge support base fed on a rich staple of alternative realities and a long list of old and new enemies. Trump was untouchable, until voters said he had lost to Biden. The electoral process was thoroughly interrogated. It stood with the voters. Dozens of challenges in the courts confirmed this. Trump chased it all the way to the final certification, creating a frightening bloc of doubters and elected Republicans who were bent on smearing the popular will and staying in the good books of a president that was virtually a cult figure who could threaten political ambitions and American democracy.

Trump will be a rich source of understanding the fragile nature of power. He has upturned many settled questions about American democracy, principally the capacity of institutions to check personal ambitions, and the massive incursions of social media into mainstream US politics with its potent powers to alienate and create another America. He has breathed life into a huge segment of US society that will be difficult to put out. The Republican party will take some remaking and valuable time to rediscover. The Democrats will have power, but they have  to meander between strong   hostile blocks attempting to fix a nation  in search of a new mission and addressing existential threats such as the pandemic. As Trump skunks into one of the shameful chapters of US history, the rest of the world should limit its celebration at the fall of a giant. If a president in the world’s most powerful democracies can wrought so much damage, the perennial question over creating a resilient balance  between diffused powers around leaders and institutions will now need a major re-visit. The world will have to fix those problems that will involve the US’s hefty hand, for good or evil. Leaders who already operate with the most minimal concern for legitimacy will draw inspiration from recent US experiences. Others who labour to build strong  democratic institutions will draw encouragement from the strength of the US judiciary. The whole world will however need to deal with a relatively new power with awesome powers to disrupt: social media. This is the new child produced by a partnership between technology and democratization that no one seems to have a handle over.

 

Trump: Kickin’ and screamin’ and burnin’ the house down

 “Sir, I would rather be right than be President”. Henry Clay, 1777-1852.American statesman.

Hundreds of millions of people who thought  US President  D J Trump will run out of steam and options on  his way out of office and  into infamy and ignominy have just found out they are wrong. It turns out even the most hardened supporters of the defeated President had underrated his capacity for damage. In two weeks’ time, he will be out, but the world will remember Trump’s last few weeks more than  they will remember the inauguration  of a new J Biden  administration under the pall of a devastating pandemic and an outgoing President who  has trashed  the rule book on appropriate conduct by leaders of  democratic countries. As you read this, Americans would be waiting to know if Trump has cost the party that gave him  the US control of the Senate, from elections for two Senate seats in the State of Georgia. If his party wins the two seats, a damaging divided government is virtually guaranteed, and this will be the type of situation Trump can live with. A divided government is the last thing America needs at this stage when if faces some of the most serious challenges in its recent history. If his party does win one or both seats it will owe nothing to an outgoing President who has reduced the entire country into two camps: those who support his ambition to overturn results of an election he had lost on the one hand, and those who want America to move on and heal gaping wounds inflicted by him.

The best friends of the US will ask where it found President DJ Trump. It is not as if the US had built a flawless democratic system, one without the type of blemish even growing democracies will avoid. It has been a long journey beginning with profound ideals and incredible faith that the human spirit can live up to them. It has taken more than two hundred years to establish strong foundations and leave room for drama and the unexpected. America grew on a tripod: a strong economy, a rich democratic tradition and a powerful military. They  supported a country that laid claims to world leadership, and provided it with the means to take up those who thought otherwise. Many countries built, or attempted to build democratic systems with a lot of local variations, but the US held up the belief that it could be done, even if there were glitches and stumbles on the way. So long as hallowed values such as free and fair elections, functioning democratic institutions, accountable leadership and rule of law are not breached, a democratic system can be dressed up in many forms. Now the US is watching a home-grown phenomenon it had only seen in distant lands: a powerful leader who will attempt to sacrifice critical democratic values to feed his personal ambition.

If we will be fair to history, we have to accept that Trump had served notice that he was not going to be your traditional President of the US. His campaign combined breathtaking offensives against political and personal conventions, standards and etiquette,  and a play at a rich base he had the instinct to recognize as valuable asset waiting to be cultivated. He won an election against the entire  US political establishment, and set about building a strong political base and an economy that will bear testimony to his claim as a  successful businessman. Too many things did not fit the image, but, in spite of serious challenges including an impeachment, Trump was on a mission to re-design the office of President of the USA. His supporters cheered him on. His opponents waited for an election to vote him out. A world used to a standard US modus watched in awe as a US President set about altering settled patterns and accepted wisdom on the globe. Huge numbers of Americans poured out in anger at institutionalized racism, demanding radical changes. Trump turned his back on them. His strong base noted and approved. The pandemic descended on the US with great impact. Trump thought he could ignore it or stare it in the face and it will go away. His base shouted support and Americans began to die in great numbers.

Trump believed there was no way he would lose the election against Biden, but he did. Every evidence known to the US democratic process said he had lost fair and square. But Trump does not accept that he lost. Correction: he does not believe he should cease to be President of the United States because he had lost an election. A loss can be fixed, even if this violates the most sacrosanct foundation of the democratic process: popular will expressed through an election. This is where Trump begins to look like many pocket dictators strewn across the world who tolerate elections only because they can be made to yield predetermined ends. In the case of the US, it is much worse. Pocket dictators get away with it because that is what they do .In the US, Trump stirs a huge army of doubters who will not accept result of an election that has been more scrutinized  than any other election. Then elected representatives of the people in the US Congress began to line up behind the doubters, sending signals to the world that the US electoral process is vulnerable to manipulation, and has been violated to a degree that it produced a false Biden presidency. They will go through a formality today that  will enlist the US  among countries whose citizens insist that they live under democracies with rigged elections. It will not change the result which gave Joe Biden victory, but it will rob the US of a rare moral authority to pronounce on the quality of elections in a world desperate for standard bearers.

President Trump is not waiting for a paper process that will merely smear the American electoral process. He is becoming increasingly desperate to be sworn-in for a second term on January 20th.From all appearances, he believes he had won the elections but was denied victory through a conspiracy that includes many members of his own party. If the electoral process has been stolen beyond his reach, he believes the can tweak it to give him victory under the most impossible of all circumstances. A number of  things about President Trump should provide serious sources of concern for the US and the world it relates with. One is the state of mind of a very powerful leader who believes he has been cheated out of victory, and  he must  serve another term at all cost. The second is what he could do with the awesome powers he would retain and exercise until the President-Elect in inaugurated. Two days ago, a phone conversation in which he was urging an election official to procure illegal votes for him was recorded and released. The world  will be well advised to brace itself for more desperate antics from an apparently delusional president. It will be difficult to snatch a lighted fire from Trump’s hand until he decides what to do with it. The most worrisome  issue, however, is what Trump, out of office but not out of power, will do as the spiritual and political head of a very ugly face of America. Without a doubt, a bitter, vengeful but popular Trump will continue to be a major factor in American and global politics. President Trump will leave the White House kicking and screaming. Outside, he alone will decide what he does with a very potent political base. The US is not out of the woods yet.

 

2021: An agenda

“Wood already touched by fire is not hard to set alight”. African proverb.

 The year 2021 is very likely to be one with the dubious distinction of entirely carrying over the problems of the year before it, and doing so with considerably worse results. Its outlook is likely to disappoint millions who think the year 2020  was the modern world’s worst nightmare. It was the beginning of a nightmare, but 2021 is very likely to bear the major imprints and character of 2020.If humanity is to make 2021 better than 2020, it will have to have prepared well to deal with the impact of COVID-19 as it caught a completely unprepared world. The global community and all nations have to improve responses to the pandemic and adjust to its impact on social and economic relations, as well as prepare to deal with a phenomenon that will remain with mankind for the next few years. In addition, routine life has to be sustained, albeit in a new context that will show the normal in substantially different form. The most successful strategy for all nations will be designed by an informed understanding of  new challenges, identification of realistic priorities and mobilization of resources to achieve them.
        For Nigeria, the year will be difficult. The combination of a depressed economy, impact of the virus on social relations, lives and livelihood; insecurity and governance challenges should demand a regime of disciplined and focussed policy initiatives, management of resources and innovative approaches to dealing with major problems in familiar and new contexts. At all cost, the temptation to run the economy and basic governance policies along familiar lines should be avoided. Strong political will, fresh ideas and a sense of urgency and mission are needed by leaders to pull the country through a period that could worsen the precarious state of the nation’s political economy. These will be some of the issues that should be prioritized.

1. Governance  and administration. 

President Muhammadu Buhari’s disposition and approach to governance is central to the success or failure of the nation to avoid deeper crises. The quality of his administration particularly in the areas of security and economic management will need to be substantially improved. It cannot improve unless he assumes firmer control over the decision-making process, a willingness to address issues, personnel and policies that require changing to improve effectiveness and accountability, and an awareness of his place in history. He has two years to turn the tide of decline and hopelessness that are becoming the hallmarks of his administration. Legislators at the federal level will need to raise their levels of accountability to the people they represent and utilize their powers to improve the quality of governance.
State governors and legislators still have huge powers and resources to make real difference in the lives of citizens. They should lead with a new sense of purpose and re-order their priorities to address poverty, insecurity and development of social and economic infrastructure. All leaders should attach great emphasis to restoring trust and faith of the people in authorities. The fight to limit the damage of the virus cannot be won unless citizens are involved in a context that makes them willing stakeholders. All governments must assume direct responsibility and deploy resources towards fighting this pandemic and mitigating its damaging consequences on the population.

2. Public spending, managing the economy

The design of federal and state 2021 budgets do not suggest an awareness of the need to operate outside the old normal. Substantially, all budgets have followed traditional patterns, except for noticeable increases or reductions reflecting anticipated revenues. The federal budget in particular sustains its fiction around anticipated revenues and the crippling tendency to allocate resources in a manner that guarantees that they will not be released or used  productively if released. All budgets  need to be re-visited with the objectives of establishing priorities that are informed by current and future realities.

Key concerns should be sustaining basic economic activities, mitigating the effects of COVID-19 pandemic (including provision of preventive and curative support for all segments of the population), providing support to the most needy, building of social and economic infrastructure and payment of wages. Executing or supporting the fight against pervasive insecurity should be a national priority that should be supported with substantial resources. The federal budget in particular should substantially improve allocations to defence and security, education, poverty mitigation, fighting the scourge of the virus and funding vital infrastructure. The scope available to the private sector to contribute to design of basic economic policy should be improved. Sustaining current employment levels and regular payment of wages is vital. Management of anti-poverty programmes needs to be made more transparent and accountable. Close attention should be paid to food security because of its relationship with insecurity.

3. Security

The threats to state and citizen security have been increasing, and they will become worse in 2021 as armed criminals take up more space and from the state. Leadership of defence, security and public safety institutions have proved incapable of stemming the tide, and the clamour for major changes at leadership levels of these institutions will intensify. President Buhari should accept to undertake large-scale changes in management of security and public safety institutions not only because there are good reasons behind the demand, but because this is vital to re-engineer public faith and confidence in them. Funding and expansion in numbers and capabilities should be  accorded the highest priority, and current allocation in 2021 budget should be improved. Policing has been made worse by the effects of the #EndSARS protests, and it is vital that its most important challenges are addressed with minimum delay. Constitutional amendments should be put in place to provide for regional and state police.

The fight against Boko Haram has taken another major casualty from Nigeria: its territorial integrity. Regional cooperation in this fight should be re-invented, and the administration should re-assess border security and the movement of persons and weapons into the country as a matter of great urgency. The single track strategy of fighting the nation’s multiple threats needs an informed re-assessment. Options which exist in dealing with threats and conflicts should be explored. Banditry in particular has a potential for being productively engaged, and the insurgency itself needs to be re-assessed in terms of the degree to which it is amenable to political resolution. 

4. Education

Federal government’s universities have gone through a routine, painful ritual during which a largely indifferent government and universities that are run by inept labour unionists rather that academics flex muscles over money. This edition of the ASUU strike is over, but universities  are unlikely to resume full activities without substantially compromising the safety and health of their communities. Education as a whole requires huge  investment in technology to prepare it to operate under the demanding conditions of the pandemic. Funding of universities also needs massive and sustained improvement which should start from 2021.A critical segment of young Nigerians’ only access to an uncertain future is public university education. The nation must improve funding and quality of the education available to its young if it is to reduce the rising tide of bitterness and alienation among its future generation.