THE IMPARTIAL OBSERVER
Political positioning and rhetoric undermine Nigeria’s democracy
Hank Eso
Sunday 25 May 2008
Our leaders are pretension in assuming that they know what is best for us
or that what is good for them is good for the nation.
This is an endemic fallacy.
If there is one problem bedeviling Nigeria’s nascent democracy, it is the belief that power is more important than governance. Frequently, one encounters outlandishly crude policy debate, which the underlying impetus is not the substance, but marginal and partisan interests. It is all about politicking and no governance.
I was already reviewing the second draft of this piece, when I read Rueben Abati’s article titled, “Five Things To Remember On May 29” (The Guardian, 18 May 2008). Embedded in the body of that article, was a subtitle, “How Politics Underdevelops Nigeria”, which coincidentally, was the sub theme of my piece. As gratifying, as it was to know that there were other people, who like me, felt that political positioning and rhetoric were undermining democracy in Nigeria, I cannot claim that this is a case of great minds thinking alike. Rather, I sense that the coincidence reflects the topicality of the issue and the enormity of concern that we should all feel about how politics is used to undermine governance. Before I move on, I wish to state that I concur fully with two points made by Mr. Abati: ”Politics is thriving in Nigeria, not democracy” and ”Every useful initiative eventually ends up as politics.” Such dispositions are hugely dangerous given the drift as well as the illusion they represent.
In Nigeria and at all levels, the best game in town, the best hedge on an investment and the underpinning ethos of everyday living and wellbeing or lack thereof, of 160 million Nigerians, boils down to one word: politics. Indeed, many Nigerian elected officials seem to mistake politicking and partisanship for leadership, just as the National Assembly seems to believe that probing every act of a fly that perches on their nose, will make up for their legislative obligations and providing regulatory guidance for public and private enterprise.
One does not necessarily have to agree with or accept the oftentimes self-serving foreign assessment of the state of Nigeria. However, the reality, which our leaders seem to shirk and abhor, demands that we do so occasionally, especially, when such views are in tandem with those of members of the Nigerian attentive public. The Financial Times observed recently that Nigeria is drifting. Nothing new I would say. But of our nascent democracy, Yar’Adua’s presidency and style, it also opined, “If Nigeria is to consolidate fragile steps towards more accountable rule and harness optimism abroad about its economic future, it will require firmer direction from the top.”
It was US Speaker of the House Thomas “Tip” O'Neill, who once proclaimed, "All politics is local." He did so in attempting to explain how personal and local political dynamics around the country could positively or adversely affect the effectiveness of lawmakers and hence, their legislative obligations. The Nigerian parallel is the employment or exploitation of the personal disposition of President Yar’Adua – his nicety, commitment to the rule of law and due process, respect of institutions of state and the separation of powers, etc. – for personal or partisan ends, that doe not serve collective interest or advance a true democracy.
It is perhaps worth exploring herein, how politics is being used to undermine national development and progress. Evidently there is justification for every drawback and a word; or as a friend who recently relocated to Nigeria had put it, a “current catch phrase in public policy speaks” for every thing – for every excuse. My friend felt compelled to write a reflective piece three months after his return to Lagos from a twenty-something years sojourn abroad. The first part of his observations was acutely dead on the mark of the pitfalls of politics versus democracy. His words:
It is some of the smaller and much more easily identifiable challenges that seem to elude the vision, and it is one of these that I want to underscore here: discipline and respect for the rule of law. The best economic prescriptions will amount to precious little if we do not create the right enabling environment in which they can take root. A country where there is little or no regard for the rule of law can only expect limited progress.
Our leaders have betrayed one of the core principles of federalism by playing politics with the commonweal. What we have, is ruling party and government with incompatible objectives. Presently though on paper and in principle we remain a democracy, Nigerians feel severely the absence of a strong leadership footprint on our nascent democracy. Nevertheless, broad expectations of elected leaders to perform their statutory duties can hardly be unrealistic. While as a nation, we are not bereft of talented people experienced in governance matters, it is deeply regrettable that President Yar’Adua recently expressed concern about the paucity of strategic thinkers and problem solvers within his cabinet. This is indeed regrettable. It is perhaps worth utilizing several topical issues with significant impact on the national interest, to show how we play the roulette with vital national issues, which if rightly handled, could become the underpinning basis for codification of practices and norms.
President Yar’Adua is a decent man. But decency in Nigerian politics is often interpreted as weakness. This may explain why nicety and decency of the top man has become an indirect fodder for those who engage in extralegal machinations within government. Today, public officials who employ bureaucratese or misleading language, such as the “the president has graciously consented to..”, ”it was done within the extant regulation…” and ” we were able to obtain the president’s anticipatory approval…” understand fully that they are merely exploiting loopholes. Moreover, such elected officials and technocrats understand that “presidential words can also define momentous policy”. Whereas, well-meaning and honest public officials use such dispositions to promote public policies and interest, their less honest and less sanguine counterparts, use such opportunities to further personal gains and political ambitions.
Anyone who understands a thing or two about big bureaucracies knows that government business is hardly ever, conducted orally. To keep the nefarious in check, ensure continuity and institutional memory, there has to be a paper trail, even in this electronic age. Bureaucrats call it CYA – “cover your ass.” Hence, only those with dubious intent engage in the doublespeak dodge, often seeing it as “smart politics”. If not, how does one explain for instance, the utter disregard of the extant statute, in the appointment of Mrs. Farida Waziri as Chair of the EFCC, without even the courtesy of an advisory note from the Executive Branch to the National Assembly. The ensuing controversy over alleged procedural irregularities in her nomination is quite understandable considering that the reassignment of the former EFCC Chair, Nuhu Ribadu’s had elicited a similar controversy.
Likewise, when recently House Speaker Dimeji Bankole said that there was no consolidated record of Nigeria’s oil sales for the past forty years, he never said that the records never existed. If public records existed and are subsequently destroyed, cannot be found or intentional suppressed (ala the Okigbo Report), then, someone is playing dirty politics with the issue. Prof Tam David-West (one of the few high placed Nigerian officials ever convicted for accepting bribe) excoriated Hon. Bankole. The question is this: between Hon. Bankole and Prof. David-West, who is playing politics with the facts. As late Senator Patrick Moynihan once observed, “Although everyone is entitled to their own opinion, they are not entitled to their own facts”.
Abati was right in noting that in Nigeria, “Every useful initiative eventually ends up as politics.” We must think of all the probes and public inquiry reports Nigeria has commissioned since independence that never saw the light of day. Initiating a probe or commissioning a report conveys the notion of transparency and assuage ill fillings. Presumably, that is all it is supposed to do. However, a suppressed or unimplemented report hardly brings the desired closure to an issue. When the ruling party treats acts warranting criminal investigations or legislative censure or indictments as “family affairs”, it amounts to playing politics in the name of democracy.
The administration of Nigeria is replete with historical nuggets of incoming administrations being fixated on the policies of their predecessor regime; not necessarily to build on them, but to dismantle them and then recast the same policy under new names, new contracts and new expenditure. Of late, we have been witnesses to a spate of policy reversals. Much of these policies and programs were much vaunted by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration. The paradox, however, is that those behind the current policy reversals, were also instrumental to their being enacted by the previous government. What do they stand to gain or lose? Go figure!
NIGER DELTA CRISIS POLITICS
Let us take for instance, the Niger Delta Crisis, an issue critical to national wellbeing and therefore one that resonates widely. Political leaders use various words to highlight its importance, but all to no avail when it comes to addressing the development in the oil producing communities, hence the present crisis. Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro brought the needs of the Niger Delta communities to our national consciousness in the late 1960s. , From thereon, through the creation of the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) in 1989 and the establishment of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in 2000, we have sunken millions of Naira into the region, created many multi-millionaires in the process, yet, we have not managed the core issues -- resource sharing and environmental degradation well. Simply put, we have consistently played politics of convenience with the Niger Delta. Is it a Federal or State issue? Well, it is both, but more importantly, it is a national security issue with demanding imperatives. As Dan Amor recently noted in a Nigerian newspaper:
The criminality going on in the Niger Delta is the outcome of the hypocrisy of the Federal authorities and the multi-national oil companies who think that spending N200 billion daily on maintaining military presence in the region is better than investing such money in social infrastructure, education, training and employment of youths in order to address the social and economic grievances which lie at the heart of the current hostage taking and slow motion slide into guerrilla warfare in the region. Rather than use the huge gas reserves in the Niger Delta as feed-stock to drive power plants, petrochemical industries and allied investments which will turn the region into Nigeria's, nay West Africa's industrial powerhouse. This was the experience of Johannesburg (gold city) in South Africa following the discovery of gold there. Instead, our rulers prefer the obviously unimaginative, lazy and shortsighted way of stashing the huge oil revenue in foreign reserves to power the economy of the "G8" countries. What an unpardonable idiocy and shame!
Its politicization notwithstanding, Niger Delta is about those who legitimately feel disenfranchised. Mishandling of the Niger Delta grievances has certainly left more deep-seated animosities in its wake.
OIL REVENUE AND EXCESS CRUDE POLITICS
Basics Arithmetic is rather straight and operates on four cardinal pillars: addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. However, these principles seem to progressively change and assume different shades when it come to Nigeria’s oil revenue and accounting for it. Simply put, those in charge, play politics with the oil figures - both the allotment and the accruing revenue.
At different times, I have in this space touched on the less than transparent ways we handle our oil proceeds. I also touched on the critical question of domestic excess oil crude allocation. The matter is still far from being resolved. I also do not see that the powers-that-be are in anyway inclined to stop playing politics with our oil policies. If not, how one does explain certain policy excuses offered by Nigerian public officials, except to characterize them as the “usual politics.” Even the blind knows from hearing and the deaf from reading, that it has been ages since the domestic refineries in Nigeria produced refined products at their full capacities. Yet, each month, the full quota of crude oil are allocated to refineries based their on their full refining capacities. What nobody says is how and where the excess unrefined crude is disposed; and if not used, where it is stored.
Recently, when this issue reared its ugly head again, Minister of State for Finance, Remi Babalola's as per media reports (The Guardian, 24 Apr08) explained the matter a way that left one’s head reeling. The Honorable Ministers words: "... the arrears (petrol subsidies) for January to March 2008 have been submitted by the PPPRA for processing and will be funded from the same excess crude account as has been the extant practice and to which Mr. President has graciously consented as it affects all tiers of government...." This explanation is a dodge or a forge or both. The world be dammed, if this does not amount to “Robbing Peter to pay Paul”, with the obvious intent to obfuscate existing policies. If we were not talking about crude oil, but cash or the revenue from it, what the minister referred to, is in accounting terms, called “vitiation” and could not possibly happen without authorization from the overseeing authority. So, where are the federal auditors in all this?
Interestingly, for anyone who has paid the scantiest attention to this matter, the official charged with the broader issue of overseeing national revenue, Mr. Hamman Tukur, Chairman of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Committee (RMAFC), has long decried the practice that Minister Babalola tries to validate. On more than one occasion, perhaps with the benefit of hindsight regarding the gross misuse of “dedicated accounts” during the Babangida and Abacha era, Mr. Tukur had publicly condemned the existence of an excess crude account and on each occasion, characterized them as unconstitutional and a cover for siphoning funds from official coffers, aka presumptive fraud. Statutorily, both Tukur and Babalola are advisers to President Yar’Adua. One wonders who has the upper hand on such policy matters. Well, it is all about politics.
SELECTIVE DUE PROCESS POLITICS
When in 2007 the Siemens bribe scandal broke, embarrassed Nigeria promptly cancelled all existing contracts with Siemens and suspended further dealings with the company. In reality, however, whereas Siemens’ chairman and chief executive both quit over the alleged scandal of Siemens paying bribes to Nigerian officials, and the company was fined €201 million and made to pay €179 million in back taxes, nothing happened at Nigerian end. Besides media reports about EFCC investigation of some highly placed Nigerians, including four former ministers of communications, namely, Cornelius Adebayo, Haruna Elewi, Tajudeen Olanrewaju and Bello Muhammad as well as Senator Jubril Aminu, who were all reportedly mentioned as recipients of Siemens bribe, in the trial proceedings in a court in Munich, Gernamy, zilch has happened. In a country that practices real democracy that would not be the case and it would also not be the case in Nigeria, if politics did not subjugate democracy.
However, the greatest scandal of all is this: in the wake of the scandal, the ever-loquacious Attorney-General Michael Aondoakaa, proclaimed, “We are going to look at the case. As the Attorney-General of the Federation, I can tell you that it is not a matter that government will treat with levity.” He had even threatened to summon Mr. Joachim Schmillen, Germany’s ambassador to Nigeria to explain the scandal. Yet nothing further has been heard of the scandal despite the Attorney-General’s bluster. But then what is new? Look at the length of time it took EFCC to to take Senator Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello into custody, on allegation of being in possession of N10 million from the N300 million Ministry of Health’s unspent fund scam. While she was in hiding, certainly, people assisted her, which in any real democracy, amounts to obstruction of justice - an act that is equally a punishable offence.
AVOIDING JUDICIAL AND LEGISLATIVE SUBPOENA POLITICS
When the Oputa Panel convened several years back, it invited Nigerians in their public and private capacities to come forth and testify. Because it was convenient for President Obasanjo or better still, since he was still aspiring to be like Nelson Mandela, he showed up. But his fellow and subordinate ex-general, notably Ibrahim Babangida did not. Nothing happened. Only this week, Minister of Finance, Shamsudeen Usman and Dr. Bright Okongwu, the Director of Budget Office failed to appear before the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts to explain what happened to the allotted N25 billion in the 2006 budget meant for payment to local contractors. Instead, they sent their minions who were dismissed b the committee. Instances such as these are neither new nor infrequent. After all, former President Obasanjo conveniently found every excuse including anger and ennui, not to appear before a National Assembly panel probing the energy sector contracts during his regime. If former heads of state sworn to uphold the law can be so contemptuous of the law and its makers, why do we expect the common person – the so-called children of a lesser God – not to toe their line and example? All said these episodes speak to our weak institutions and our utter disregard for the rule of law.
OVERLOOKING CONFLICT OF INTEREST POLITICS
In the wake of the Ministry of Health unspent budgetary allocation scam, the Federal Government recently issued a circular through Mr. Babagana Kingibe, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, reaffirming the illegality of ministries and agencies purchasing vehicles for National Assembly members or granting loans to them for whatever purposes. Simply put such gratification amounts to a conflict of interest. Besides the impropriety of those in the legislative branch collecting money from the executive branch institutions, for which they have fiscal oversight, the legislature, as an independent arm of the government has its own budget. Furthermore, as comforting as it may seem for the Federal Government to announce as it did recently, that it had recovered some N300 billion in unspent 2007 capital budget for ministries, departments and agencies, the announcement still begs the question. First, it means that the accounting officers had ignored spending rules and financial codes and regulations. Second, beyond the current accounting officers being disdainful about the rule of law, what happened to the unspent capital budget expenditures between 1999 and 2007?
PRIVATIZATION POLITICS
New reports of controversies surrounding the privatization of publicly owned companies and enterprises suggest that all is not well with their handling. We know this much is; most were transferred into private domestic and foreign hands for pittances; read NICON Hilton Hotel, NICON Insurance and Nigeria Re-Insurance, NITEL, Ajaokuta Steel Mills, and the Port Harcourt and Kaduna Refineries (later rescinded). Only recently, the Federal Government agreed to an out of court settlement with Mr. Jimoh Ibrahim, over his acquisition of NICON Insurance and Nigeria Re-Insurance, when it was evident that Mr. Ibrahim had not meet his due diligence with regards to the new “recapitalization threshold” and settling all NICON’s legitimate claims and outstanding liabilities to its creditors. Finally, today, no one seems to care about the security implications of ours being a nation without a solid land-based telephony system. We all rely on the GSM, even though we do not control the transmitting and relay satellites. Yet, are leaders are comfortable and believe that a multiplicity of GSM network and carriers, some foreign, is critical national advancement. In their political etymology, it is progress. Our national development and self-improvement ethos has never been so ironic.
AS I SEE IT
There will always be a disjunction between playing politics and practicing real democracy. However, our leaders consistently outwit themselves with pretension, in assuming that they know what is best for us or that what is good for them is good for the nation. This is an endemic fallacy. Such politics of self-gratification is not the bedrock of any true democracy. Additionally, leading by precepts has never engendered optimism – not even the-glass-is-half-full type. Our nation, unfortunately, has been subjected such form of governance.
Perhaps, in accepting that our bane has been bad leadership, which willy-nilly translates to bad governance, we should look anew at how we train our leaders, their orientation and how they are selected. Finally, we must try to assess if our leaders truly understand their responsibility to us in a democracy; the system of government we have chosen. As Max de Pree observed, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor.” Only when we find leaders who are indebted to us as the electing constituency, will we begin to make headway in our democracy. Until then, it will be the same rut of politics as usual or the usual politics, all in the name of democracy. For now, Nigeria’s governance is all about posturing and speaking the right political language.
With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay impartial, and observe closely.
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Hank Eso is a columnist for Kwenu.com. His commentaries on Nigerian politics and global issues have appeared in The New Times (Lagos), African Profile International (New York), The Nigerian And Africa Abroad (New York), African Market News (New Jersey), Gamji.com and Nigeriavillagesquare.com
© Hank Eso, Sunday 25 May 2008
Email: hankeso@aol.com