Why the North is failing

 “A large chair does not make a king”. African proverb

By the time you read this, the ancient Emirate of Zazzau may or may not have a new Emir to succeed the late Alhaji Shehu Idris who had been Emir for 45 years. It entirely depends on what the State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai decides to do. The process of selecting a new Emir of Zazzau has a fairly-innocent familiarity to it, although it is activated only rarely. Descendants of former Emirs from the four ruling houses who are interested in becoming Emirs submit themselves for scrutiny and evaluation by four Kingmakers who are known by their offices and the responsibilities they perform. Kingmakers then submit a shortlist to the political authority (in contemporary terms, the State Governor). He in turn chooses who becomes Emir from the shortlist, presumably after further vetting and scrutiny.

This is where the process loses its innocence. The decision regarding who becomes Emir is fundamentally political. From the beginning of the last century when northern Emirs lost out to colonialism, they became essentially its agents and props, serving at its pleasure and providing a cheap and effective mode of control over large populations through the elaborate structures it had used to govern pre-colonial communities. In sixty years of colonial rule, colonial ( political)authority made it clear who was in charge and what the roles of Emirs were, removing quite a few for disloyalty or incompetence in implementing major colonial policies. A few Emirs emerged owing only to tinkering with the process and flexing of political muscles, but generally succession was confined to royalty, and all the outer trimmings of power were preserved. Emirs (and Chiefs) wielded delegated powers and served the purpose of creating the illusion of continuity in periods of great changes.

The political elite that succeeded colonial authority was thoroughly grounded in a system that gave it huge powers largely because the Emirate system had been turned into a major political asset, but only if it served its interests. A few skirmishes here and there reinforced the superiority of the politician over the Emir in real terms. Emirs learnt to submit to political authority and preserve the comforting illusion among millions of peasants that they represented all that was decent and valued under an intensely divisive political system that had no room for neutral power or opposition. There was enough room for both, but Emirs had to learn to be good or even better politicians than the new political elite. The old North was a huge territory that was structured around ambitious politicians, politicized Emirs, a tiny but influential emerging middle class and a peasantry that was content to be left alone once it settled its obligations to the state.

Then the military marched all over a delicate system, carving out political territories that lowered the state’s span of control, the caliber of the politician and reduced the space for maneuver between the fortunes and desperation of the politician and the vulnerability of the Emir/Chief who is now more visible as a rival, collaborator or a threat to the politician. Political engineering resulting in more and more states created multiple centers of power and politicians whose  leadership qualities were constantly decreasing. Local Government Areas, intended to serve as vehicles for faster local-level development ended up as mere shells, deepening  the plunder of state resources and squeezing  lower-level traditional structures into irrelevance. Control of power and resources became the only goals of political competition, and fights for them became increasingly bitter. Most Emirs/Chiefs learnt to adapt to virtual irrelevance except as discreet or prominent cheerleaders of partisan politicians. The North has paid too much for stifling poor governance, its ungoverned portions increasing with a worrisome population size, insecurity  and poverty.

Late Emir Shehu Idris lived through the best and the worst moments in the history of the North. He became Emir on the eve of the infamous local government reforms; lived through the highs and lows of the military’s self-destruct forays against politicians and each other; witnessed faltering attempts to plant a democratic system in a desert of democratic values; watched his Emirate shrink as bits and pieces drifted away with rising influence of ethnic and religious politics in Kaduna State; took cover as Shiism took root and blossomed into a phenomenon in his Emirate; worried over the de-industrialization of Zaria; lived with the  suffocating neighborhood  of Kaduna city; welcomed the influx of educational institutions which formed the backbone of Zaria’s economy; played friends and foes with politicians; missed fellow  Emirs who had shared his fate for decades and one or two who got fingers badly burnt as they stood up to bullying governors; and, in his twilight days, kept his head low as he shared space with a governor who had little sympathy for tradition or even the mildest resistance.

Ordinarily, the people of Zazzau Emirate would have known who is their new Emir a few days after the death of Emir Shehu Idris. Ordinary would have been a situation in which Governor el-Rufai does not have the final say. When you have politicians like el-Rufai, it is advisable to prepare for the unexpected. There is a process in place, but it has no time limits outside those set by the Governor,  and is open to manipulation and even abuse by everyone, including  the Governor. And yes, there are also  consequences, but these do not really matter to the degree that they are what he wishes. He could choose to keep the public informed of the reasons behind the length of time the conclusion of the process is taking, but that would create an illusion that he thinks he is accountable to the public. To be fair, he did say he was reading some books on the history of king-making in Zaria. Other than this, the rumour mills are replete with talks of bribery, new long and shortlists and arm-twisting. And the people wait and fume and lament and quarrel. Someone will eventually emerge Emir, and those who lose and their supporters will choose how they react.

The North has thousands of politicians and very few leaders. Leaders will do the right thing by their people, and they will attempt to convince the people who voted them into power why they chose which options. Northern leaders like el-Rufai give the impression that the public’s opinion of them and their policies are irrelevant unless they are voting. Leaders with power or influence sufficient enough to advise el-Rufai would convince el-Rufai to show respect and  sensitivity to a public that deserves to know. There are a few with this power, but they, like him, think the public is generally a disposable  nuisance. If the process had been subverted before it got to the Governor, he would have been duty bound to deal with it within the law. A sense of propriety would push him to take a decision that can never be perfect.

The North is failing because it is being superintended by politicians whose ego is much bigger than their mandates, and others who have no idea about just and effective governance, so they retreat behind opulence until the next elections or end of terms. The drama over the Zazzau Emir captures the reality that the North must revisit its foundations, rebuild trust around leaders and create alternatives to the system which creates the type of leaders it has today. In the meantime, maximum leaders like Gov el-Rufai need to be reminded that there are consequences to their actions, many of which are out of their control.

 

Teacup in a storm

 

“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they do not know each other; they don’t know each other because they have not communicated with each other” Martin Luther King Jr.

It would have been the height of naivety to expect that President Olusegun Obasanjo’s meeting last week with select groups of elders over the state of the nation and what can be done to improve it, would receive universal acclaim.These are elders who prefer to be identified by their regional, ethnic or religious garments. Predictably, it has run into a storm, the type that leaves a teacup in a storm very little room for survival. Truth be told, virtually all parties involved in this skirmish have lost their innocence a long while ago. Nor are they strangers to each other or to controversies. What is relatively new is the depth to which the nation has sunk, a reality the Buhari administration stubbornly closes its eyes at, and all leaders and elders bear responsibilities for. Nigeria desperately needs to re-invent itself, but it suffers from crippling lethargy, indifference and absence of a leadership that should inspire it to do so.

You have a former President weighed down by a well-deserved reputation for poking fingers at, and issuing red cards to other Presidents, most of whom would also prefer to avoid sharing a room  with him  for longer than an hour owing to his own baggage.Then you have a motley group of elderly men and women who have records for raising voices against this and previous administrations.These groups serve as major irritants to the authorities; provide popular targets for young Nigerians and influence peddlers who see them as  complicit relics  playing well after added time.They bear scars  from  fighting rival groups and each other in a manner that leaves you to marvel at the wisdom behind distinguishing old people from elders. Finally, you have an administration suffering from chronic deficits in governance and pronounced paranoia from prolonged absence of real friends and admirers.Its definition of enemies leaves it in a permanent state of  stressful combat, shooting and widely missing every idea, suggestion or criticism over its record.

It would take a while for the noise generated by this meeting to abate, but its significance will last longer in an increasingly frightening political context.The nation’s Chief Governance Vigilante, President Obasanjo had been surveying the scene for a long while and losing sleep  over widening gulf between communities and regions, a crumbling economy and rising levels of poverty and desperation, creeping encroachment of violent crimes into lives of citizens, seeming absence of any idea By the administration over what to do about the state of the country, and a palpable foreboding that the nation is fatally flawed and headed for destruction unless something serious is done by someone. Obasanjo characteristically stepped forward as the someone, and enlisted the support of others who are just content to let him show his hardened and familiar hand at doing something. He reached out to  groups of elders who own patents for raising their voices at all wrongs, and a record for openly (and unsuccessfully) campaigning against President Buhari’s second term and earning a place as permanent enemies of the administration.

It was either a calculated gamble or the price for  poverty in his options, but Obasanjo went for the elders as the foundations for his envisaged multi-facetted and comprehensive project of engineering a national consensus around a commitment to move from private lamentations and prayers to God, to more active involvement and some kind of a re-discovery of a mission that will pull the nation away from the brink. The elders’ groups themselves washed up from old and new skirmishes with each other and, with bags full of misgivings, they answered his call.

Barely looking at each other, they listened as President Obasanjo went through his opening speech, sparing no element of language to describe the sorry state of the nation and showing no shyness in assigning responsibilities. The elders were his foundational building blocks, and he had been encouraged by an emerging consensus around essentials and rapprochement that hinted at the potentials of closing ranks and answering the clarion call to retrieve the nation from failing. When the delegations of elders opened up, even Obasanjo himself must have wondered if he had not chosen the wrong first eleven to launch his campaign. They were bitter, resigned to the prospect that the nation is irretrievable under this administration (or ever), skeptical over his motives and chances of success or still smarting from recent  fights with each other.

To his credit, President Obasanjo pulled the meeting from the brink. Perhaps the elders themselves had no better options that the Obasanjo initiative, but a room full of very old and angry Nigerians finally settled down commending him, committing to the success of the initiative, proffering suggestions on next steps and congratulating each other for showing requisite levels of maturity and a willingness to look to the future and stop counting past grievances. Against feelings that the initiative could suffer from predictable damaging assaults from the Buhari administration, delegates pressed Obasanjo for assurances that he and they were not alone. Nerves were calmed when he assured them that leaders of Governors’ fora will be in attendance, and a very senior level of persons are part of the support group. He was satisfied that he had met the requirements of briefing President Buhari and leadership of the National Assembly of the plan and expected outcomes.

Two days after a meeting that was attended by three governors, it released its Communique. It said all the things elders should say:  our country is in deep trouble; we commit to work with other Nigerians to find solutions; we  will work with groups and interests to support processes for improving quality of governance, the democratic and  electoral processes and the economy, and contribute to efforts  to amend the constitution and restructure the nation. Not a word about the registered failures of the administration; just a commitment to work with others to fix Nigeria.

The Presidency’s spokespersons are also famous for preferring details to substance, so they could be forgiven for reacting only against Obasanjo’s elaborate prose in lamentation. They reacted with unrestrained venom, pillorying Obasanjo in language only  he would be comfortable with. The Presidency must be running out of adjectives to describe the elders’ groups, because its spokespersons now tags  them    as terrorists for criticizing the plan of the legislature to follow the hallowed path of spending a lot of money for very little in return. The Presidency had a few cheerleaders, but no one offered options to the Obasanjo initiative or what else can be done about insecurity, poverty and rising concerns over the workings of a violence-based electoral process and the elections of 2023.

Then the elders hit back, insisting that they will not be cowed by an administration that lives in deep denial while the nation goes through massive tensions and stresses which could prove fatal to its future. They will meet again and again, anywhere and with anyone who can contribute to moving the nation beyond this stage. Are we dealing with a stand-off then? Not really. Government cannot stop this initiative, although it can hurt it by reducing it to an Obasanjo provocation. The nation does need to close ranks and get the shrinking and hiding elite to re-engineer a consensus around the basics of what needs to be done to achieve key goals.

The Buhari administration will not move near this vital requirement, but it will lose the higher ground if it maintains hostility towards initiatives that can make meaningful inputs into constitutional reforms, improving security of the citizen and communities and electoral reforms. The optics of senior Nigerians working together, not against each other, is very useful. They can reduce the drift, provide secure cover for vulnerable groups and nudge politicians towards actions that reduce stresses and improve inter-communal harmony.

Nigeria should not fail, but it will, unless more Nigerians do more with each other to pull it back from the brink. Obasanjo and the elders lit a fire. This fire will die if others do not keep it alive. It should not die, for all our sakes.

When?

“If a leader limps, all others start limping too.” African proverb.

Tucked deep in this paper two days ago was a report on a group of villagers who are now sheltering at Jibia Central Primary School in Katsina State. Until a few days ago these villagers, now Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) had lived with frequent attacks from bandits, during which young women would be raped, sometimes by a gang, or abducted; men would be beaten mercilessly and those who resisted killed; and belongings carted away or vandalized afterwards. A young lady, Rabi, said eight men were killed when bandits invaded their village, including the village head. “Almost every middle-aged lady was raped in our village that night, either by one person or by a group of the bandits. They have beaten our men including even younger ones and took our foodstuff away...,” she narrated to the reporter. The villagers were quoted as saying, ”We are in a dire situation. We cannot continue to remain here (in the school) and we cannot go back to our former place if the situation remains like that.”

When are stories of villagers that have acquired new status as IDPs after undergoing horrific crimes shock us enough to do something about them, and about  millions of other villagers who are as exposed to criminals as these villagers near Jibia were? Apparently there is no time frame. We hear daily about new and additional deployments of the military and police. At the same time, we also hear of audacious forays of bandits into villages and now,  even into towns and cities. We hear of encounters and killings of bandits from the air and of double-edged activities of vigilantes. Then we hear of chilling stories of atrocities of bandits who have the run of forests, rural roads, highways and entire territories. We hear of positive outcomes of negotiations for payment of ransom and release of kidnapped and abducted people, and of people who are murdered even after ransoms are paid. In truth, we do not hear of majority of kidnappings and assaults on villagers, as citizens have learnt to pay ransom quietly or bury their dead and learn to live with indignities and humiliations without recourse to the state.

When are women in particular going to raise voices against the dehumanization of quite possibly thousands of women who are raped right before parents, husbands and children? Where is the anger that trailed the abductions of the Chibok girls? Where are those voices that were heard all over the world after the abductions? Are they tired, or do they not care anymore? Where are care-givers, people who understand what it is for a woman to tell a reporter that she was gang raped along with half the women in the village in one night? Who is talking to men that ran and cowed before wives and children and are stripped of all dignity before being made to share bits of a primary school with raped wives and daughters? Who speaks to these IDPs, gives them assurance and attends to the sick and the traumatized?

When is all this going to stop? Who supports bandits with cover, communication, weaponry, intelligence, fuel, food, medication, drugs and spare parts for motorcycles? Who should we ask for answers? Do those who know the answers give them to those who need to have them? What do leaders do with answers? Communities are told not to fight back because that will merely provoke the bandit. They can and do raise vigilante, but these get blamed for inviting 200 motorcycles with 600 armed bandits to leave behind stories that will be told in whispers for many years to come. Young men who dare stand up for communities are fished out and murdered, and the story goes round that they were exposed by local informants. So everyone submits. Raped wives and daughters walk around with bowed heads and crushed spirits. Men are shamed and humiliated before wives and children. Villagers suffer wounds that will take many years to heal, if at all.

When shall  we stop asking questions? Would it be when peasants who have born the brunt of poor leadership for decades are pushed hard enough to stand up against criminals in a manner that pits illegitimate violence against illegal use of force? Will it be when citizens are pushed to a point where  they rise against leaders that are comfortable with blaming each other and retreating until there is no further space or excuses to offer? Will young men whose wives, sisters or mothers are raped take up arms against armed criminals, or will they join the  criminals to rape other peoples’ relations and plunder  other communities? When will women stop crying, and men walk with some dignity? When will farmers resume farming, and women stop begging for food to feed crying children?

When will this nightmare stop? Will it be when President Muhammadu Buhari finally figures what he can do differently? Will anybody be held responsible for lapses, collusion, subversion and incompetence? Does any Nigerian in leadership position  feel responsible and accountable for circumstances that leave poor defenceless citizens at the mercy of bandits, kidnappers and sundry criminals. Do leaders remember that they swore to protect citizens, and that they will stand before God to be judged for neglect and indifference over the fate of people they led? Do leaders realize the gulf that exists between them and citizens; the levels of disenchantment with a political process that produces leaders who amass more power and wealth and leave citizens poorer than they were; and the fate of the democratic system that breeds only hate and anguish?

When will the nation hear from President Buhari whether it should resign itself to living with more IDP camps, more raped women and murdered and humiliated men, more gangs of armed criminals and wider spaces available to the criminal? When will he tell the nation what he will do that is new, if he intends to do anything new? When and how can we give governors and citizens powers and responsibilities to protect themselves? How much can parts of the nation tolerate before they begin  to question the utility of sharing the same roof with regions that have suffered from an insurgency for a decade; banditry, kidnappings and armed robbery for nearly a decade; an unstable arrangement to keep a lid on militancy, piracy and kidnappings as parts of routine existence for longer than a decade; crimes that abridge the freedom of citizens to move even outside  homes; corrupt law enforcement that is more liability than asset; and leaders who assume power under thoroughly questionable circumstances?

When will the IDPs at Central Primary School Jibia and many other locations go home and resume the humdrum of wretched existence? When will President Buhari visit an IDP camp, any IDP camp, to let citizens know that he cares? When will the nation raise its voice to atrocities in many villages in the North?

When will bandits be made to stop raping girls and women; stop beating up and humiliating men; stop stealing everything poor communities have kept; and stop behaving as if there are no governments in Nigeria?

When?

 

Kaduna’s troubled waters

    He who wants to plant corn must make peace with the monkeys. African proverb.

The pathetic drama around the comments of Dr Obadiah Mailafiya, and subsequent developments represent another page in a script being written by many authors with the blood and tears of largely helpless  villagers in parts of Kaduna State. The public domain has been clustered by hate and noise and outlandish tales manufactured by people too far removed from vulnerable communities. Neutral grounds are virtually non-existent. Elite ensconced far away in Kaduna, Abuja, some other northern cities and parts of the south of the country stoke dangerous fires while local villagers stay awake at night waiting to be attacked, or planning attacks. God is invoked to raise passions that seek to do what God condemns. Whole generations grow on injustices and atrocities that must be righted and redressed. Hate and fear have become the largest growth industry in an area that will qualify as one of the poorest in Nigeria.

How do you create peace without peacemakers? Every potential peacemaker is an active combatant. Geography and history have combined to create a cocktail of a community that can neither distance itself from a past basically shaped by violence, nor create a new basis of existence. It is not that the region has been frozen in time and space. In the last four decades, Southern Kaduna had undergone extensive geo-political transformation largely targeted at redressing perceived historical and cultural injustices. These have made the region neither richer nor more peaceful. Every solution appeared to have been built on a problem. There have been efforts to build institutions and create employment opportunities within the region by many governments. Yet this same period has witnessed some of the worst atrocities by communities against each other. Without peace, this region can only retrogress.

Now this region faces its worst possible nightmare: a conflict that will not just take a few hundred lives and then rest until the next fight. This time, the enemy can neither be defeated nor persuaded to go away because its grievance is embedded in the foundations of every town, village and individual. Villagers see danger in every stranger or neighbour, and they hear of grand schemes to exterminate them, appropriate their lands or convert them into another religion. Hundreds of military personnel are being deployed to the region, but every native knows that they cannot stop an enemy who lives in hearts, in remote villages and owns his weapon and grievance. The one who attacks is the enemy. When you attack, you are defending yourself. The nature of this vicious circle is lost in the generic term, ‘Southern Kaduna Killings’. Mainstream media makes huge capital from this tragedy. Politicians, including those who do theirs in the name of God, make capital out of the fear and helplessness of a million villagers mourning relations or waiting for worse. There are many groups here who are versed in stoking fires, and none that knows how to put them out.

It is not impossible to stop the current killings in the short term and lay the foundations of sustainable peace in this region even if some steps  have become intensely unpopular with some champions of the conflict. First, it is impossible to isolate the trigger to the current conflict from the killings that have made many Hausa-Fulani communities in Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and many other parts of the North West helpless victims of the evil on two wheels with an AK47 strapped on his shoulders. Not all Fulani are bandits, but, as many communities have found out earlier, you play into the hands of Fulani bandits when you fight back. Many Fulani are also victims, but the bandit feeds on the myth that he protects his own. A few months ago, communities in this region joined the long list of communities who were victimised twice: initially as victims, then again as victims of revenge for the temerity to stand up. It is important that these communities exercise their rights to be protected by those with responsibility to protect them, the same way millions are doing in the north. It is also vital that they close gaps between them and design local strategies that protect all of them.

Second, so long as the communities sustain their current hostile posture towards each other, they will  continue to play into the hands of those who attack and retreat, leaving them to search for enemies among neighbours. No community will sit idly to be exterminated, but this region is in danger of turning every villager into an armed fighter or a victim. Before long, the large number of boots on the ground, the State and federal governments will join the long list of enemies involved in genocide against particular groups because they have been unable to stop the killings. How much isolation and hostility targeted inwards can the communities of southern Kaduna stand?

Three, the economic poverty of the region is surpassed only by poverty in its leadership. Today, Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) has supplanted powerful ethnic associations, political and other elites and traditional rulers among the non-Muslim communities. It has subsumed the awesome powers of the Church in leading communities on matters of politics and co-existence. The non-Hausa/Fulani Christian elite of the region is deeply divided, and much of it is cowed by aggressive insistence that only militant narratives should be heard. External champions are sniffing around to make capital from people they will not help with jobs or investments. SOKAPU smells only enemies and collaborators. An influential organization that should be deeply involved in the search for peace is laboured by short-sightedness that creates the impression that southern Kaduna belongs to particular groups and faith, or can be made into one; conflating faith and partisanship into damaging political isolation; and a false consciousness that gives it the assurance that it alone represents the interests of Christian communities.

The Hausa-Fulani Muslim community’s local leadership is virtually non-existent, and its cause has not been taken up by leadership of its faith and kins in the North or Nigeria. It has found it difficult to adjust to the status of a political minority and  a statistical majority. It cannot move beyond the horrors of past mass killings in Zangon Kataf, Zonkwa, Unguwar Rimi, Kafanchan and other places that were homes to their ancestors, yet it cannot seem to get the justice it feels it deserves. Tragically it now has a solid victim mentality, the type that ties a community with a past and creates a mentality that seeks only restitution. It seeks to match SOKAPU in style and substance, but it lacks the latter‘s extensive, if opportunistic armour and network. It now has to answer for every killing that neighbours cannot pin on elusive killers, and it is being made to fight someone else's battles.

The combative character of Governor Nasir el-Rufai has its uses, but on this issue, it merely  fits the bill for groups that want to perpetuate the narrative of a people under attack without sympathy or protection from their government. It is difficult to fault the steps the government of Kaduna State has taken in Chikun and Kajuru LGAs, particularly the efforts to get communities to own and drive the processes that create and sustain peace. A governor who never leaves the trenches should know that adversaries will open up new fronts, and stretch him too thin and two wide to win the war. Long before other northern governors knew what ravaged villages looked like and the limited value of the deployment of policemen and the military in mitigating threats, el-Rufai had become a veteran from just one LGA, Birnin Gwari. In this instance, he needs to out-flank those who benefit from these killings by exploring other options to build peace.

 

    With all his bravado, el-Rufai cannot be indifferent to efforts that seek to show him as incompetent in managing crises, and indifferent to the plight of a whole section of the population under his trust. This governor who is passionate about demolition pasts and creating his own versions of the future will be judged badly by history if he does not explore all avenues to help communities build bridges; learn to distinguish between false prophets and genuine saviours; and recognize the reality that  hostility alone merely breeds more hostility. He must rise above the fray, and resist the temptation to exchange blows with minions who will write his story with more blood long after he leaves. Kaduna State is too important to be left to opportunists and adventurers to continue to exploit.

Since last week’s provocation

Politics offers yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems. Marshall McLuhan

  Most of the response  to my column last week agreed that it was kite- flying on the part of Malam Mamman Daura to nudge the nation away from a fairly known (if thoroughly abused) routine of zoning and rotating elective offices (actually we are talking the office of the President here).I thought the word provocation would be impolite if applied to an elder like Malam Mamman, although the political terrain tends to make elders a little less recognizable in this country these days. I had laboured under the impression that I had followed the political firmament fairly closely from the type of distance that allows you to be wrong and still sleep well, but the last few days have revealed a lot that makes up the fascinating and often worrisome phenomenon that is Nigerian politics. I thought I should share some of the most important issues that arose from reactions and discussions. 

1.   Motive

 

        There was  broad agreement  that he offered a personal opinion to redress a drift towards the institutionalization and universalization of a political arrangement created to address a historically-specific problem. Its continuation would harm the nation by short-changing its search for competent leaders to steer it through the next challenges stages in its development. Worse, it threatens to perpetuate a problem that ought to have been solved at this stage. It freezes a political process that should develop from engaging and resolving problems related to pluralism and inclusiveness and the creation of consensus among the elite.

 

Another  possible motive could be the realization that a southern presidency for quite possibly the next eight years will damage the north irretrievably, after his uncle’s two terms would have left it a lot more insecure, poorer and more divided. The only real asset the north could be certain of in a democratic setting is its voting power and its questionable ability to think and act politically as a region. To be forced, threatened, intimidated or cajoled into giving this up is to strip it of its loincloth. No one says the northern voter must vote only a northern candidate, but no one should insist that he votes for a southern president because politicians looking at their fortunes say so either. There is a popular view that a northerner who is both competent and popular can be freely elected.

A substantial number of people also thought that a possible motive could be to distance President Buhari from possible fallouts and consequences of having to live under the questioning attention of a PDP president, in the event that  APC fields  a southern candidate and  loses. Without a doubt, even the most forgiving President elected on APC platform will have many questions to ask President Buhari, ministers and officials regarding the management of the economy, among other issues related to governance. There could be  a few people who squirm at Tinubu’s recent political outings  as party leader. They look at his soiled hands in the party, Lagos and Edo States, and they worry whether President Buhari and his small circle will sleep with both eyes closed under his Presidency.

2.    South Vs North

 Two issues were particularly revealing regarding the North/South divide. The first is the dominant of the insistence that the northern voter has no obligation to vote for a candidate decided by leaders of his political party. If he has to be persuaded, it will have to be done by politicians he trusts and feels comfortable with. Right now, these are very thin on the ground. The caliber of current northern political leadership is pitiable, and it does not help the case for rotation that some leaders will appear to be jockeying for positions under a southern President at the expense of the north.

The second issue is the damage which the zoning/rotation idea has done to the expectations that leaders will be just and fair to all sections and all Nigerians. The primacy attached to identity politics creates for it the impression of a zero-sum game. With the spread requirement,  the constitution has taken adequate care of concerns that leaders could emerge only on the basis of sectional support. The more you tell the  northern peasant or petty trader running away from bullets, robbers and rapists that a president must be elected from the south because politicians say it must be done to unite the country, and other Nigerians want to enjoy power he has not enjoyed, the more he thinks he is being abandoned for another eight years. Southern politicians who hurl abuses and insults at northerners for every  ill in the country provide ample motivation to many northerners to stay closer to theirs. You could pry away a substantial portion of votes of minority north, but it will be at a huge price that could compound the region’s and nation’s fragile security and unity.

The strongest argument against the rotation/zoning principle has been that it serves the fiction of the existence of a south and north, two regions that each share broad interests and commonness which make them counterpoints to each other. Even a stranger to Nigerian politics knows that the north is so heterogeneous that rotation merely benefits the largest religion and the biggest of its many ethnic groups. Far from improving access to power by smaller groups, rotation merely recycles the instruments of dominance. Similarly, the idea of a political south comes to life only when there is something to share or wrest from northerners. The rest of the time, major groups maintain as much distance and hostility as they can from, and towards each other, and smaller groups only get their share when they cause trouble. As we speak, the tussle between Yoruba and Igbo over who should field a presidential candidate in either party is assuming fearsome proportions. There is a theoretical possibility that an Igbo PDP or a Yoruba APC candidate could ignite enough anti-north sentiment to create a pan-south support to counter the numbers of the north, but there are no politicians working to build bridges across huge, historical political chasms in the south.

 3.   Will there be trouble without rotation?

There are many Nigerians from the north who think it is the right thing to do to support the emergence of a President from the south in 2023.There are also many from the south who think without rotation, the country will be handed over to forces looking for good reasons why they should question their stay in Nigeria. Majority of Nigerians just want credible elections and good leaders who will heal the nation. If politicians from the south and north engage productively,

it will be possible to field a southern candidate, but no one will guarantee that they will win. The same applies to politicians from the north who believe they can win in spite of their primary identities. Rotation is about winning tickets, not winning elections (although this position will be vigorously disputed by some northern PDP politicians who believe rotation does not occur unless power is actually won and exercised).  If parties allow fair processes to work in the manner their candidates emerge and the electoral process works with an improved level of transparency, fears over rotation will not translate into serious problems. If there will be trouble over rotation, it will be an intra-party problem which the parties will sort out or pay a price for.

4. Is there a solution to the rotation problem?

 

        In a way, Malam Mamman Daura had offered one solution: just find the most competent person(s) and trust them with power. This solution, however has many problems, not the least of which is that competence dressed by politics wears many looks. President Buhari gained from perception of competence and was not a product of zoning/rotation in his party. Alas, he is not a shining example of the primacy of competence over all else. A third party which is not trapped by the rotation problem and other anachronistic baggage of the two big parties could field a competent Nigerian who could win against the PDP and APC. This option, if it works, could signal the rebuilding of the nation’s political process, and put behind us all the nightmare of recycling problems in the name of the search for solutions.

Let’s speculate

Democracy is four wolves and a lamb, voting on what to have for lunch. Wilma Brown.

   It is most improbable that Malam Mamman Daura expressed a personal opinion when he provoked a predictable furore last week around zoning of elective offices. More than anyone else, Malam Mamman knows that he had long forfeited the right to express a personal opinion in public, and on a public matter. Improbable, I said, not impossible.It is no one’s fault that Malam Mamman has left ample space for being second-guessed since he assumed a pivotal role in the political fortunes of his uncle, President Muhammadu Buhari, and in the affairs of the north for longer than that.

    It will be legitimate to indulge in some speculation behind the rare comments of the most important private citizen today. Could it be the case that Malam Mamman hopes to deflect national outrage at the spectacular failure of the Buhari administration to get some handle on widening insecurity and embarrassing setbacks in the fight against corruption by lighting a fire around a combustible issue such as zoning of elective offices? If that was the game plan, it was a good choice of combustible material. The snag is that Boko Haram insurgents, bandits and a dozen  other armed groups making a living out of weaknesses of the Nigerian state and  making President Buhari look inept, weak and indecisive do not appear to have been  part of the script. Voices for and against Malam Mamman’s rare outing competed with the public  interrogation of Nigerian soldiers by Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum after he escaped what looked like an ambush on his way to Baga, and the Shehu of Borno’s plaintive cry that Borno people are no longer safe.

    Another speculation: President Buhari does not want to get his hands dirtied (and his life after presidency discomfited) in the maneuvers over who should get his nod, or with quarrels over where the ticket should go for 2023.He has a moral obligation to support Tinubu’s ambition to run in 2023, but his moral obligations do not have much of a leverage. His last-minute intervention a few weeks ago restored some semblance of order because it was in everyone’s interest to seem to be loyal and respectful to a party leader. There could be a few people like Malam Mamman who would remind a lame duck President Buhari that he will not be able to pull out  any more chestnuts out of fires. The rest of the trip to 2023 will be rough and bruising. Staying out of the fray will be very difficult  and an expensive gamble, but choices have to be made. Tinubu’s people will be chalking  up Malam Mamman’s comment as a major assault and a setback .Most of them will not hear any argument over differences between the uncle and the nephew. They will insist that a worst-case scenario would be that President Buhari offers no opinion at all over zoning in APC. Saying that an unwritten, but powerful rule should  be jettisoned is akin to doubling up on Tinubu and other southern APC politicians’ burdens.

  Or, consider this: Malam Mamman acts on his own and attempts to bail out a President who needs a firm hand to keep him out of even more serious trouble. He washes the President’s hands clean on all issues to do with who succeeds him. He  prepares the President to assume a moral high ground. First, no one will fault the argument for elevating competence over all other considerations. Second, zoning principle is not in APC constitution and it may win the party a few points when it campaigns for competence. Third, there is a suggestion of a level playing ground for all interested parties: no one needs feel  aggrieved because the primacy attached to competence does not negate the idea that concessions could be made to zones or regions by the political process. In other words, there are competent people all over Nigeria, and whoever emerges candidate would not have fought other  good  opponents with both hands tied behind their backs.

      And finally: the President does want APC to win the election, but does  not want some particular people to fly the flag and possibly succeed him. This thinking will be more contingent on what the opposition does or does not do. Zoning will bestow some advantages on some politicians, and after his eight years, no one gets prizes for guessing that these are likely presidential material from the southern part of the country, or, more specifically, from the south west. With the patterns and spread of votes established in the last three or four elections, a popular PDP candidate from the north could beat a southern APC candidate. President Buhari is unlikely to boost the chances of any candidate he hugs too tightly given  current  disposition towards him, particularly in the North. If PDP fields  a northern candidate and APC  fields a southern candidate, a strong endorsement from Buhari will be a death knell to that candidate. If both parties field northern candidates, northern voters will scrutinize the APC candidate very closely for evidence that he has  no traces of Buhari.
 
     It is difficult to see how Malam Mamman’ provocation is  innocent. The idea that northern voters will do the bidding of politicians and vote candidates that are products of zoning  had suffered major damage in the PDP under Jonathan. The sentiment is strong among northern voters that they are free to vote for another northern candidate, and they will exercise that choice in 2023.Malam Mamman’s position distances President Buhari from blame in the event of that possibility. It offends southern politicians who feel that an endorsement of the idea of north-south rotation will, for what it is worth, improve their capacity to work with northern power brokers to mobilize northern voters for them. On the other hand, it gives encouragement to northern politicians who are gearing to fight it out with southern politicians.

      Nigerians from the South are offended by the mere thought that northerners could contemplate ‘keeping’ the presidency for another eight years after Buhari. Last minute defections over grievances by powerful politicians has now become one of the hallowed traditions of the Nigerian political system, and it will be a mistake to assume that the issue of zoning will not be a major influence on the fortunes of the two major parties. Significantly, influence of parties on powerful members, and  control of politicians  on voters from both parties is waning. Politicians from the South are guilty of hardening the stubbornness of the northern voter by the manner they cling to a sense of entitlement, complete with dire threats, if any northern candidate dares aspire for the presidency. The image of 12 northerners battling  it out for the PDP ticket in Port Harcourt before the 2019 elections are fresh in the minds of Nigerians. This will haunt both parties.

    Zoning was a scheme to accommodate political ambitions, and had very little to do with the interests of Nigerians. The  fallacy that zoning improves the fortunes of citizens from particular regions has been laid to rest by the spectacularly dismal impact of Buhari’s leadership on the lives of northerners, empirical evidence that there are more than one North and South, corruption and  incompetence. Now it threatens the foundations of a nation. There is virtually no attempt to cobble together a solid front involving the three geo-political zones in the south to improve negotiation capacities. Northern politicians sit smugly on the assumption that millions of northern voters will only vote for them.

      Northern politicians are haunted by the dismal record of President Buhari, and PDP politicians from the north can smell the carcass that will be left by Buhari, but few of them can be believed when they say they will breath new life into it, with politicians from the south playing second fiddle. Southern politicians suffer from endemic weakness in numbers, and they realize they have to have a hefty push from many northern politicians and voters. They will need more than insults and threats to make major inroads into the north. There is some space for an option to the two major parties, but it could be taken up by aggrieved politicians from the two parties. Perhaps there is a profound lesson in Malam Mamman Daura’s provocation, whether it was intended or not. It is this: the challenges facing  post-Buhari Nigeria will be so serious, Nigerians must realize that they cannot resolve them using old, worn-out tools.

The President’s Service Chiefs

When crossing a stream, use the leader to know its depth. Nigerian proverb.

It must be difficult being one of our current military  Service Chiefs. Imagine being in the eye of storms well past your service’s expiry date, with all and sundry asking that you be sacked. Imagine being in a situation where you may want to leave but cannot, and staying on is entirely at the pleasure of a President who says publicly he is displeased with your performance. But many will not shed tears for them.  After all, were not plucked from the air. They were part of the military that Nigerians punished President Jonathan for, and trusted a former military General and Commander-In-Chief(C-in-C) to do better with.

These Service Chiefs held senior positions when the war against Boko Haram was a tiny speck that was bungled into a huge monster by the ‘YarAdua/Jonathan administration, and they witnessed it grow into a new and difficult enemy. They were part of a military under whose nose the Chibok girls were abducted. They could not have been entirely isolated from, or oblivious of the reported scams and sleaze around defence contracts. They were part of the military that was chased out of vast tracts of Nigerian territory under the Jonathan administration. They rose through the ranks of a Nigerian military that was (except for those moments when they overthrew democratic regimes and each other)strong, with a proud tradition. 

So our current Service Chiefs were part  of a mixed past that President Buhari charged with responsibility for creating a new future. It was assumed that he had searched deep and wide, and his selection of NSA, Chief of Defence Staff, Chiefs  of Army, Navy and Air Force,  even given our national creed for geographical spread, had to be the best from what was available. What reasons would the nation have for doubting that a former General now President  will not lead a military with new leadership to raise its levels of professionalism, effectiveness, morale and integrity?

If, therefore,  six years after the nation’s hopes were raised, the chorus now is that we are less secure, and the nation is baying for the heads of Service Chiefs, serious questions need to be asked. First, what is it about our military that has made major improvements in capacities and effectiveness virtually impossible to achieve under the new leadership? My thinking here is that our military has been fighting two major wars for longer than a decade, and losing both. The more damaging war the military has been losing is against itself. It is very likely that exposure to power and corruption in the past have made major inroads into the military, and hallowed values like professionalism, integrity, honour and good leadership have eroded discipline,  morale and institutional integrity. No military can win a war of any type if its foundational values have been emptied by corruption and loss of morale created by nepotism, politicization and discredited leadership.

The second war the military has been losing is one  that pitches it against every threat or security challenge in a nation  that grows more insecure almost by the day. The virtual collapse of policing institutions and the dramatic erosion of social structures that  had worked to  reduce the incursion of  violent criminal activities  in the past have created huge vacuums around the security of citizens and growth of large  number and varieties of internal security challenges. Poor political leaderships at all levels, unread in the complexities of governing a  rapidly-changing country, have consistently  adopted a single-track approach to solving all security challenges and conflicts: use force, and more force. Unfortunately, that force is only the military, and there is not enough of it, or even reasons for its involvement in the first place.

Even if its strength, funding, standards of professionalism and quality of leadership have been consistently addressed and improved in the last two decades, it might just have been able to defeat Boko Haram and consign restiveness in the Niger Delta as a permanent feature of our national life. Now it engages these  security challenges with mixed results, and is then spread thin all over the country with orders  to separate many  fights between communities, fight bandits and rustlers and kidnappers and perform a dozen other duties that are responsibilities of policing institutions and communities themselves. The military loses all its battles against old and new  enemies, not just because it does not know how to fight them, but because its rank and file understands that politicians create problems which they want the military to solve with lives, limbs and poor motivation.

A second question that has to be answered is related to the role of the President and C-in-C. How, and at what stage does a former general and military head of state realize the weaknesses of the military he is commander of? What yardstick does he apply in judging effectiveness? What manner of C-in-C leaves a military engaged in fights in many fronts virtually unchanged and its leaders sitting tight over subordinates who should assume more responsibility? The sad fact is that as C-in-C, President Buhari has failed the military, and the military is failing the nation under its current leadership.

When the Senate recently joined ranks with the House of representatives to demand the removal of Service Chiefs, a presidential spokesman made a comment that has more truth in it than any he has not made. He said the fate of the Service Chiefs was entirely at the discretion of President Buhari. In a sense, he reminded the nation that the military may be failing the nation because President Buhari cannot, or will not fix it. He recently gave its leadership a slap on the wrist with a public rebuke and a demand for improvement. This has not worked, because reports suggest that more soldiers are dying at the hands of insurgents and bandits, and communities are as exposed to armed criminals as they have been in the last year. The answer to the second question therefore is that the military is poorly led not just by Service Chiefs, but by President Buhari, and it is difficult to see how it can win any of its multiple wars with this type of leadership

A third question that needs an answer has to do with the type of leadership the nation needs in the face of its many political and security challenges. The first answer that comes to mind is that at the very worst, it must do a lot better than President Buhari’s leadership. It must have a vision of a secure and peaceful nation with growing opportunities. It must be willing to take tough and informed decisions, develop an effective sense of timing and hold all persons with responsibility to account. It must operate with high intelligence and a sense of purpose. It must build and sustain strong institutions, including defence, security and law and order institutions and public service that are run by competence, integrity and accountability. It must be a leadership willing to take an informed view about the state of the Nigerian political and administrative structures, with the goals of addressing key issues that represent developing and existential threats.

In the meantime, it will be important for President Buhari to realize that Service Chiefs are not aides he can retain or fire at his personal pleasure. They are public servants who are accountable to him, as he is accountable to the nation. The bottom line is, he has not improved national security under their leadership. Keeping them in place suggests either of two things. One, he alone is satisfied with their performance, and the nation does need to know why. Even making allowance for the need for secrecy, this is unacceptable. Two, he does not care enough for all opinions to replace current Service Chiefs with others who may do better. That is intolerable contempt from an elected President.

President Buhari needs to do a lot more than replace Service Chiefs. He needs to look deeply at our defence, security and law and order assets and liabilities and address them before the end of his term. The nation will not survive its current challenges unless he accepts to affect major improvements  in the management of national security. The replacement of current leadership of the military and security and policing agencies should only be a part of this.