It is indeed a testimony to the reach of
Olaopa, a retired federal permanent secretary, that the participants
for my session were drawn from the academia, private sector and the
civil society with respected Professors from the University of Ibadan,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-ife, Olabisi Onabanjo University,
Ago-iwoye and University of Lagos, in attendance. Some of the
accomplished people who stayed throughout the entire session that lasted
almost five hours included Professors Akin Mabogunje, Bolanle Awe, Femi
Osofisan, Adigun Agbaje, Olabode Lucas, Olabisi Ugbebor, Lai Olurode,
Abiola Odejide, Ayo Olukotun and A.O. Popoola. There were also Dr B. A.
Olarewaju, Dr Ademola Oyeleye, Dr Ashindorbe Kelvin, Dr Kayode Salman,
Dr Irene Pogoson, Dr Wumi Akin-Onigbinde, Dr Festus Adedayo, Mrs Yemi
Alabi and several others whose invaluable contributions made the event
very enlightening. Ms Chienye Ogwo, the CEO of African Initiative for
Governance (AIG) also came from Lagos.
In his opening remark, Olaopa commended
many of the attendees whose passion and commitment have given the ‘ISGPP
Book Readers Club’ its uniqueness, and whose regular participation at
their events “have continued to buoy the drive for a continuous
treatment of high-quality works that have direct implications for
governance and public policy in Nigeria.” This, according to Olaopa, can
only help in creating public awareness on the contemporary challenges
of development while exploring ways in which they can be tackled.
As one would expect in a gathering of
such intellectual heavyweights, the interactions were very engaging and
one thing that came out clearly from the session is the fact that
defeating an incumbent president is not an easy task anywhere in the
world. I particularly made that point very clear by referencing Hal
Furman’s paper titled ‘Why Incumbents Rarely Lose’ published in the nevadajournal.com,
where he stated that “Incumbents have a much easier time getting
re-elected than challengers have at even coming close to beating them”,
and he gave reasons that validate my long-held position as I explained
at the session before reading a section of the book.
I reiterated the same position in the
interview I granted reporters after the session which some people have
misinterpreted to mean I was dismissive of the presidential aspirants
who are currently challenging the incumbent. Nothing can be farther from
the truth.
I was asked about whether the massive
campaign for Nigerians to get their Permanent Voter Card (PVC) can help
the opposition in the election and I responded in the affirmative but
with a caveat: “Yes, it can play a part, but what I think basically is
that Buhari’s biggest challenger today is ‘go and get your PVC’. That is
not a candidate. Yes, the people will get their PVC but who are they
voting for? It’s also important. I like the awareness, I like the
consciousness and the fact that people are really ready to go out and
vote, but it also matters who they are voting for and the platform and
what those people are bringing to the table.”
The emphasis is on the platform because
as eminently qualified as many of the presidential aspirants are, there
is also the issue of the political party that will serve as vehicle for
their ambition. This was how I answered that question: “Right now, if
you are asked who would be the opposition candidate against Buhari next
year, you can tout many names but you are not sure. And for me, there
are only two political parties right now; there may be others in the
future, but now, it’s either APC or PDP. All these Red Card, Third
Force, and all those things… are helping the incumbent because he
already has his support base. It is the opposition that is being divided
along all these lines.”
The challenge for the opposition, as I
explained, “is that they have to get their acts together. I keep saying
that by the end of 2012 for instance, we already knew who was going to
challenge Jonathan in 2015. You can’t say the same thing today. And you
need a cohesive opposition to defeat an incumbent.”
There is nothing new in what I said. I
was not in the country for much of 2010 and 2011 and did not witness the
16th April 2011 presidential election won by the then incumbent
President Goodluck Jonathan. However, having completed my research paper
on such elections at the Harvard Weatherhead Centre for International
Affairs, I shared my perspective on why the outcome of the Nigerian
election of that year could not have been different. After editing the
paper to make it readable as a journalism text aside putting it within
the then prevailing Nigerian context, I published it on 22nd May, 2011,
exactly a week before Jonathan was sworn in.
Titled, ‘Divided They Run, United They
Lose’, it is noteworthy that some supporters of the defeated Major
General Muhammadu Buhari, quite naturally, did not take kindly to the
piece because they were still laying claim to being ‘rigged out’ at the
time. My position was that Jonathan defeated Buhari and that it would be
more productive for the opposition to accept the result and begin
preparation for the future. That was not a popular opinion at the time
given the post-election violence that claimed the lives of many people
in the north.
In the paper, I wrote: “The lesson is
that the fixation of the Nigerian opposition with voters’ turn out in
the South-east and South-south may not carry much weight. In any case,
no presidential election result has ever been upturned by court anywhere
in the world. While not advocating against the legal option already
taken by a section of the Nigerian opposition, my contention is that it
is more productive for them to begin to plan and organize for future
elections. The perennial narrative that they are rigged out by the
ruling party is becoming hollow. In a milieu where political parties are
not only weak but lack financial wherewithal while there is no ideology
binding members together, forging an electoral alliance is a long and
arduous task. Waiting till weeks or days to the election to begin the
process for such an alliance is therefore no more than an open
invitation to a sure defeat.”
Less than a year after the election,
common sense eventually prevailed. Buhari – whose support base in three
presidential elections that ended in defeat had been restricted to only
two of the three geo-political zones in the north without any
appreciable showing in the entire south – got together with the former
Lagos State Governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and others, to begin the
process of building a serious opposition coalition against the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP). The rest, as they say, is now history.
Last Thursday, following the reviews of
my book by five eminent scholars, including Olurode, a former
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Commissioner as well as
Prof Olukotun, Dr Festus Adedayo, Dr Pogson, Mrs Alabi and Prof Olabisi
Ugbebor, who posed a question about why our politicians are never
really concerned about strategies to make Nigeria work, certain
conclusions were drawn. But not before Ugbebor likened the politics
being played in Nigeria to a game of Ludo by practitioners to whom
cross-carpeting has become a way of getting off the hook for crimes
committed.
At the end, some of the conclusions from
the session were: One, the core values that should support our system
are almost irreversibly totally eroded with impunity fast becoming a way
of life in Nigeria today. Two, we would be playing the ostrich if we
fail to understand that the involvement in our politics by the United
States, United Kingdom etc. and the choices they make during our
elections are primarily to protect and perpetuate their interests and
influences. Three, the autonomy of INEC must be vigorously defended and
upheld because the gains derived from the 2015 election cannot be
divorced from the very strong electoral bureaucracy. Four, several
hurdles are still placed against the participation of our women in
politics. Five, it is important to take another look at the political
structure of our country in a bid to make it accountable and deliver on
public good. Six, President Goodluck Jonathan deserves accolades for
accepting defeat notwithstanding the reservations about some people
within his party on the conduct of the election, especially in some
northern states.
My visit to Ibadan was made enjoyable by
Tobechukwu Nneli, the ISGPP Research and Programme Manager who will
soon be leaving for the Blavatnik School of Government, University of
Oxford as one of the six successful applicants for the AIG scholarship
for this year. Prof Awe also sent me a much-treasured handwritten letter
of appreciation for the copies of my books that I gave her. But while I
thank Dr Olaopa and the distinguished personalities who graced the book
reading, the take-away for me is that there is an urgent need for us to
be more serious about the leadership recruitment process at all levels
of government in Nigeria.
It is sad that a nation so blessed with
an abundance of highly educated (in all fields of human endeavour) and
very competent men and women is almost always saddled with leaders who
are ill-prepared for governance. Yet, for as long as our leaders
continue to emerge based on the wild cards of chance and luck without
preparation while relying on ‘body language’ to muddle through, good
governance will also continue to elude us as a nation.
The Road to Anarchy
On Tuesday, as the two priests and 17
worshippers murdered in Benue State on 24th April were being buried, the
Catholic Mission in Nigeria held a nationwide peaceful protest against
incessant killings and the violence that defines this season in the
country. On that same day, unknown gunmen killed scores of people in a
fresh attack on Egbura communities in Umaisha, the headquarters of
Opanda chiefdom in Toto Local Government Area of Nasarawa State while
armed bandits that are also terrorising and killing people in Birnin
Gwari axis of Kaduna State, invaded Maganda village and abducted three
housewives.
Given Max Weber’s definition of the
state as the entity that “upholds the claim to the monopoly of the
legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order,” it is
rather ominous that such coercive power seems to have been lost to
sundry criminal cartels that daily prowl our country as we gradually
sink into an abyss of chaos and anarchy. What makes the situation even
more worrisome is the growing number of private militia and gangsters in
possession of lethal weapons who now operate freely in many corners of
the country. That has also led to a situation in which many governors
are establishing their own armed security outfits, including those with
dubious mandates, despite the fact that security is within the exclusive
preserve of the federal government.
From Governor Rochas Okorocha who has
since established the ‘Imo Security Network’ to Kogi State where
Governor Yahaya Bello early this year created his own ‘Vigilante Service
Group’ to Rivers State where the bill creating the ‘Neighbourhood Watch
Corps’ was signed into law in March this year by Governor Nyesom Wike
to Taraba State where the ‘Tabital Pulaaku Njode Jam vigilante group’
has been in operation for years to Kaduna State where the ”Vigilante
Service” was established two years ago to tackle cattle rustling and
associated crimes, there is hardly a state today that does not have one
form of security outfit or another. And since practically all of them
bear arms, with extrajudicial execution as their modus operandi, anarchy
is not too far away from Nigeria.
What the foregoing says very clearly is
that the conception of the state as an entity with a monopoly on the
legitimate use of force is being eroded in our country, given a
preponderance of violent actors who prey upon the weakness of the
official law enforcement apparatus to impose their own order. I hope
President Buhari and his men will begin to address the situation before
it is too late.
• You can follow me on my Twitter handle, @Olusegunverdict and on www.olusegunadeniyi.com
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