Fw: Prof. Olukotun's Column
Ayo Olukotun
----- Forwarded message -----From: "Tobi Adewunmi" <tade...@isgpp.com.ng>To: "Ayo Olukotun" <Ayo_ol...@yahoo.com>Cc:Sent: Thu, 16 May 2019 at 12:32Subject: Prof. Olukotun's ColumnLOOMING DEMOCRACY DAY: JUST ANOTHER VULNERABLE TIME?
by Ayo Olukotun
“To repeat Chinua Achebe, there was a country. Only God knows what we have now, when major roads connecting our most important cities such as Abuja-Kaduna, Lagos-Ibadan, Ibadan-Ife, Enugu-Port Harcourt, and so on are under siege of kidnappers and terrorists, and the Northeast and Northwest of our country are besieged by bandits” – Akinjide Osuntokun, Emeritus Professor of History, The Nation, May 16, 2019.
The Greeks of old had two different words expressing the concept of time, the first, ‘Chronos’, refers to sequence, the normal passing of time denoted in a calendar; the second, ‘Kairos’, speaks to a significant passage of time, in which landmark events take place. The looming, low-key celebration of Democracy Day resourcefully forked by the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to include May 29 and to recognize the much downplayed June 12, is happening, not as a significant milestone for the nation, but as a political ritual, a vulnerable transition.
Emeritus Professor Akinjide Osuntokun, quoted in the opening paragraph, provides insight into the depth of the growing insecurity across the nation, contrasting the current frightening disorder with more placid times in the past. No doubt, we have passed through turbulent times under the Fourth Republic, there was an interval under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, when, after a bombing escapade the previous year, a national anniversary was held in the protective ambience of the State House, Abuja. The point of departure is that this particular one has been a more widespread challenge, with more deaths and far more uncertainty. Confounding is the variable that the top political echelon are still busy congratulating one another, giving out awards, strategizing about the next election, when Nigerians have their lives in such trepidation and peril! Are our leaders so uncaring, or they are merely sidestepping the spreading scourge, to engage in backslapping and merrymaking? Instead of lamenting or berating, let us rummage for the fundamental issues, with the hope of turning things around, not just about insecurity, but about soaring poverty, the return of high inflation, especially of food prices, the puzzle of unstable electricity, congested expressways, second rate education among others.
Let me begin with a simple maxim: Order without consensus and civility is a House of Cards that will soon come tumbling down. The skyrocketing insecurity and banditry can be related to the fracture in almost every governmental institution in the country. Take a look at the political parties and see how disheveled they all are. The recent fusillade of hard words launched against APC leader, Sen. Bola Tinubu by Gov. Almed El-Rafai, openly narrating tactics that could be used to end Tinubu’s hegemony in Lagos, is only the tip of the iceberg of a ramshackled party, broken into several parts. The story of confusion and division at high levels is replicated in other parties, and other institutions, giving the impression of a polity at war against itself. Needless to say, that very little governance can go on in such a phenomenally divided realm.
When at the inception of the current Republic, the independent (London) journalist, Karl Maier, wrote his ‘This House has Fallen’, he was referring to the urgent need to reconfigure and recompact a badly divided nation, traumatized by years of military misrule. Nineteen years after, that important political dialogue between the federating units is yet to be held, though inchoate attempts were made at holding one. Whether the divisions that we see all around us, stem from the bigger ones discussed by Maier, or whether they emanate from the failure of consensus among the governing elite, the point is that, they hinder every serious attempt to make genuine progress. For example, at Zamfara, and other states affected by banditry, there is so much dialogue of the deaf with security accusing traditional rulers of treason, and traditional rulers talking back at security, accusing them of incompetence. Whatever the merits of this tense and heated conversation, it is far cry from the kind of governance consensus that is required to ward off the bandits. In other words, somewhere along the line, we may lost what the Americans like to call, The Art of Overture, featuring trade-offs, hard bargaining, and adroit negotiations.
Distinguished political science Professor, Richard Joseph it was, who narrated, how in the course of conversation with a Northern politician of scholarly extraction, referred to a statement by the politician to the effect that some of the people in power these days simply do not know how Nigeria works. My understanding of the statement is that the delicate balancing acts and skills, needed to collate a public realm with centrifugal drives, are missing, or in short supply.
The other point that needs to be made concerns the lack of diligent planning and deliberate rehearsals that must be staged in search of credible governance outputs. Unsurprisingly, there are many plans in the archives that are not known to current office holders, which makes governing look like walking in a blind alley. Who was not surprised, to cite an example, when the governor of Zamfara state, Abdulaziz Yari, revealed that the bandits in his state are far better equipped than our soldiers? If this is a fact, at what point did this become known to the authorities, and how does it fit into their prior planning and counter-insurgency mapping? Furthermore, was there any anticipation among our strategic thinkers and policy makers of the level of challenge that the country is currently witnessing? If there is none, who is responsible for the omission? Are there any questions being asked apart from pious lamentations and calls for prayer bazaar, about the significant lapses in our security architecture? The same thing applies to other aspects of our national life, such as education, where, instead of spending money to raise the quality of our humanistic and scientific infrastructure, we are multiplying institutions all over the place, without thought for how a shoe-string educational budget can warehouse the dizzying expansion. As I had occasion to point out in a previous write-up, South Africa has only twenty-six public universities, and a clutch of private ones, yet, nine of its universities are world-class, in the sense that they appear in advantageous positions on global league tables, with one of them, the University of Cape Town, listed as No. 20 in the Times’ Higher Education survey in 2017. Why for God’s sake can’t we copy the good examples, and best practices, instead of leaving our youths, going around the world scavenging for, what if we were a better governed clime, we can easily come up with at home?
A final point concerns the need for Nigerians, as a people, to move from lamentations, to public spirited actions. There are too few people, and they are getting fewer still, who can be called active citizens. We would rather lament, and regale our neighbours with how golden things are outside Nigeria. As we mark, in a fortnight or so, two decades of a democracy without coups, we should now all take responsibility, and stop to shift them to our leaders. The lessons of our history, the heroism of June 12, the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, the benevolent upmanship of our heroes past should inform us that without enlightened and sustained civil action, things will continue to drift. It is time to stand up and own this democracy.
- Prof. Ayo Olukotun is the Oba (Dr) Sikiru Adetona Chair of Governance, Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye.
Ayo Olukotun
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MERCY DROPS AMIDST THE UNCERTAINTY
by Ayo Olukotun
“[In reading Newspapers] I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing (to offer) but man’s failures” – a former Chief Justice of the United States, Earl Warren
Critical media are often accused of doting on woes, exhibiting our shortcomings and failings, hardly muttering a word about our achievements. Not just in Nigeria, but globally, as the opening quote, sourced from American politician and jurist, Earl Warren indicates, are these complaints and criticisms aired, now and then. If you ask me I would say that the march of history, in its more edifying variants, has benefited more from reformist and radical journalism, far more than establishment or marketing journalism that is little more than what someone described as stenographies of the power elite. Be that as it may, even as we lament our failings, collective and class-oriented, we must occasionally interrupt the dismal narrative to view our more positive sides, the little mercies, the beckonings of greatness, the touching acts of heroism, fresh departures, that prefigure the vista that, though temporarily dislocated, Nigeria may yet arrive at its destined status.
Take for example, the inspiring stories of enhanced revenue generation, relative accountability and showcasing of disciplinary mien in two parastatals, namely the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) and the Federal Internal Revenue Service (FIRS). In a season when several federal parastatals have refused to reply queries from the Auditor-General, it is heartwarming to learn that JAMB, under Ishaq Oloyede, and FIRS, under Tunde Folwer, have continuously expanded the possibilities of innovative income drive, cushioning thereby, the ravages of recession and post-recession. In the case of JAMB, in contrast to an earlier lackadaisical period, when monies generated disappeared into the bottomless pit, the organization has ensured that since 2017, between 5 and 7 billion Naira have been paid to the national coffers as monies accruing from its operations annually. In the same vein, FIRS has progressively increased the tax net and raised national tax revenue from a paltry amount under the Jonathan administration, through 4 trillion Naira in 2017 and 5.3 trillion Naira in 2018.
Interestingly, several of the initiatives and modernization imperatives such as Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), had been in place since the Jonathan years in office, but were indifferently implemented. Fowler’s contribution was to breathe dynamism into existing policies, in order to both widen the tax base, and to amass impressive sums for national coffers. Recently, the institution announced excitingly, that it would employ online modalities to break new grounds in the difficult assignment of creating a tax culture in Nigeria. In the case of JAMB, its revenue activism can be better understood when it is factored that between 2010 and 2016, only 51 million Naira was paid to the treasury as revenue by the organization; this figure is only 1% of what accrued to the nation from the same organization in 2017 alone. Remarkably, in some of the years between 2010 and 2016, nothing was paid to the commonwealth. One might also add that JAMB has extended its reformist impulse and dragnet to catch up with exam fraudsters and their barons, through the adoption of close circuit television cameras at the University Tertiary Matriculation Examination centres.
Part of the reasons for pinpointing worthy strides in a nation notorious for incompetence and heist is that, it affirms the right values and flashes the prospect that there can be a better way than the current morass. So, when some of our leaders say that Nigeria is ungovernable, they are only employing idle words, for Nigeria is not ungovernable but it is not being effectively governed. It is important therefore, to employ the status conferral function of the media to highlight new departures and spirited efforts being made, in spite of the odds, to carve out new niches of redemptive governance. This is not to say that the two institutions selected for approval are the only ones that are doing well, or are without blemish, for example, in the case of JAMB, it would still have to work hard to win the battle against the fraudsters, considering that some of its own staff were implicated in the racket, and also given that those who have built semi-industries and make fast bucks around exam fraud are not expected to yield ground easily. In a related vein, the FIRS will have to carry its current struggle beyond its narrow confines, in order to bring in more highly privileged citizens, with high tax net worth, against which it has fought a running battle. The fact that data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is showing that a preponderance of citizens and corporations paying high taxes are resident in the Lagos area, suggests the imperative and urgent need of diversifying the tax net across the nation’s geography.
Undoubtedly, there is some ambivalence about tax activism in a setting in which citizens ask the fundamental question of why they should pay taxes when social services are either non-existent or fragile. The point however is that the state itself may wither or be further atrophied if citizens do not pay taxes, especially, when oil receipts are fickle and brittle. In this connection, what can be called the social welfare miracle of Lagos state, was partly built upon the success of the state in pouring the dividends of enhanced tax drive into developmental activities. There is no reason, why the nation cannot repeat that miracle provided that citizens can draw a connection between the taxes they pay and the services they enjoy. In other words, FIRS would need to stretch its tentacles to include more of the informal sector, a goldmine in taxing terms, as well as pursue, with determination, such policies earlier enunciated such as the Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularization Scheme (VOARS) and the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration System (VAIDS), targeted at rich but tax-defaulting Nigerians. In doing this, FIRS should also mind the complaints in certain circles, that some of its methods in collecting revenue, border on intimidation. It should be possible for the organization to walk the tight rope between enforcing the law on tax collection and doing it in a humane manner that does not raise ethical issues.
As we look forward to a reformed and better governed country than we currently have, the debate is bound to go on as to the place of agency, the human factor or leadership, in turning around organizations. In the two institutions sampled, several policies of enhanced revenue yield had been enunciated overtime without improving their lots. They simply existed as part of a national lootocracy in which whatever resources were generated, went down the familiar drain of corruption. The critical watershed would appear therefore, to have been the leadership factor, which enabled them to morph from somnolence to integrity and resource optimization.
As President Muhammadu Buhari begins his second term next week, it would be pertinent for him to come up with a team that can help him translate his vision of a less corrupt and more productive Nigeria into realities. One of the ways of achieving this is through a census of his appointees who have served the nation well, as well as those who have merely marked time, or even undermined his programmatic objectives.
Ayo Olukotun
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AISHA BUHARI: CONSCIENCE IN THE SHADOWS?
by Ayo Olukotun
“So, I don’t know where the social investment is – maybe it worked out in some states. In my own state, (Adamawa), only a local government benefited out of 22. It failed woefully in Kano” – Mrs Aisha Buhari, Wife of the President, The Punch, Sunday, 26 May, 2019
“I believe that if she (Aisha) were to listen to the information they have there, if she were to check our data, she will be able to find all the beneficiaries” - Mrs Maryam Uwais, Senior Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, The Punch, Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Beginning on a light note, do these quotes sourced from the Wife of the President, and the Senior Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment, not remind you of the song, ‘Whose report will you believe?’ However that may be, the contrasting narratives, to an extent, reflect the controversy that have trailed Aisha’s blunt criticism of the Social Investment Programme of President Muhammadu Buhari, who was sworn in for a second term on Wednesday, May 29, 2019. Unsurprisingly, the opposition People’s Democratic Party has opportunistically seized upon Aisha’s rebuke, to claim that its criticisms have been vindicated by an insider in government. Nonetheless, we must go beyond that kind of superficial chit-chat, not backed by statistical evidence, to inspect the personal disposition and role of the First Lady, in the context of the political see-saw and governance issues, under the Buhari Administration. In doing this, we may come close to answering some of the hanging questions that have been raised by previous commentators on the matter.
To provide a brief context, it should be noted that Aisha has emerged as an influential critic of Buhari’s policies, politics, and administration over the last few years. She, it was, who made it known that the State House clinic lacked the most basic therapies for diagnosis and treatment, while at the same time investing in impressive and high-rise buildings. It was the same First Lady, obviously a maverick, who raised a question of why two shadowy politicians should make big policy decisions in a government that was voted in by 15 million Nigerians, provoking thereby, a spirited discussion of the cabal that is alleged to be a mastermind of Buhari’s policy-making. She went on to say, last year, that she might not campaign for her husband, unless the insidious power map privileging the cabal was restructured. Of course, in spite of those comments, and the fact that nothing changed before the campaigns, Aisha played a notable role in her husband’s reelection, especially in her home state of Adamawa, where she held several town hall meetings. Not just that, very recently, Aisha announced that plans were afoot to honour her husband, with a University named after him, to be underwritten by a consortium of foreign investors including Qatar and Sudan. One may justifiably raise doubts whether Buhari will be better honoured by a private University created to honour him, or by his making, lasting contribution to resuscitating the comatose standard of higher education in Nigeria; I bring this point up to debunk the claim that the woman is a serial critic, an opposition figure, or mole that does not see anything good in her husband’s administration.
Brutal and bruising remarks have been made in respect of Aisha’s vociferous comportment and what would seem be tendencies for out-of-turn criticisms. For example, the Tribune columnist, Dr Festus Adedayo had raised issues, late last year, in the following words, “So, what makes Aisha Buhari tick? ... is she merely a flippant and unguarded woman who likes to hear her own voice, an activist whose advocacy for the common man is not bound by the locales of power, a frustrated woman who feels that ‘strangers’ are usurping her roles as First Lady, or a bemused woman who suddenly finds a strange and effeminate man in her bedroom, different from the man she married?” (Nigerian Tribune, December 9, 2019). Needless to say that not being privy to transactions that go on in the famous ‘other’ room, we are not in a position to answer Adedayo’s probing questions into affairs of the heart in the first family. It must be remarked however, that on the face of it, there is a gentle irony, in what will appear to be, rival conceptions of power and administration, openly ventilated between a President, with a mercurial, no-nonsense temperament, and his spouse whom Buhari once dismissed as belonging to the ‘other’ room.
Even at that, this writer’s takeaways from Aisha’s frequent and latest intervention go beyond whatever may be inferred, rightly or wrongly, from her emerging crusades within the epicenter of power. For instance, Uwais’ rebuttal of Aisha’s assessment is not totally convincing, to the extent that, as far as this columnist is concerned, the data ‘they have there’, presumably at Aso Rock, have not been widely made public, as a counter-narrative. Not just that, even if the First Lady relied only on impressionistic data, there is a place for that in public discourse, especially, where officialdom has not been quick to furnish the general public with full and open disclosure. Furthermore, the first lady was not adversarially critiquing the programme, but the way in which it has been implemented by specific actors who, despite their rhetoric, may have questions to answer. What is at play therefore is not an irascible critic, throwing stones at any and every direction, at an edifying programme, but a constructive, even if piercing, critic who is eager that things should be done properly, and that the general public is not ripped off. Indeed, I regret that too few voices from inside the deafening silent bulwarks of power are heard, providing justified amendments to the thinking and actions of the high and mighty.
Our leaders are walled off from the public, and from enlightened conversations by coteries of fawning and adulatory yes-men and women, who merely second-guess the leader rather than advise him. In an earlier phase of Nigerian history, we had advisers and ministers who spoke truth to power. As an undergraduate at the then University of Ife, I listened to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, praise the well-known economist, Prof. Sam Aluko in the following words, “If Aluko feels strongly about a policy, he would take the pains to bring his ideas up to you several times, if you do not do anything about his suggestions, one day, you will find his opinion in the newspapers”. Today, there is a culture and veil of silence in the corridors of power. Those who should be talking will seem to have exchanged their liberty or right to disagree for perquisites of office. A sampler, what are the politicians from the Southwest in the ruling party saying and doing about rising banditry and kidnapping, increasingly encroaching on Yorubaland? The answer is blowing in the wind.
To get back to Aisha, she is not without her imperfections, illustrated by a famed wardrobe that may well make some American billionaires green with envy. Nonetheless, in a season when the guardian priests of our democracy, the interlocutors, have chosen to remain strangely incommunicado on burning issues, we must thank her for violating, engagingly, the oaths of secrecy and drab conformism, even if no official action will follow her intervention.
Ayo Olukotun
IS THE JUNE 12 STRUGGLE OVER?
by Ayo Olukotun
Next Wednesday, June 12, is the first time in our history, when the anniversary will be celebrated nationally with all the paraphernalia of official recognition. From a commemoration observed by scattered bands of devotees, members of the Abiola family, and human rights activists, confined mainly to the Southwest, June 12 has now mutated into a national observance and symbol of nationhood in the same class with other national holidays, totems and identity markers of statehood. Chief M.K.O Abiola, the martyr of the struggle, has been awarded the highest national honour that a Nigerian could be given, while initiatives are in the works to permanently replace May 29 by June 12, as Democracy Day. President Muhammadu Buhari has earned kudos for being insightful enough to, as it were, steal the thunder of June 12 activists, by adopting its limited programme of recognizing the demand to immortalize Abiola. So, Buhari can now half-jokingly ask June 12 campaigners, ‘what else do you want’?
Of course, as everyone knows, one of the ways of erasing from the political map, an issue-based campaign, is to simply adopt it officially, thereby destroying its bite. This is a tactic of making the agitation respectable, cosmetically deal with its animus, and then send it to the archives through ceremonial activities. It is in this sense, that one can declare the June 12 struggle as having been won, however, deeper inspection will show that for those who took the agitation seriously, for groups of advocates who linked the struggle to envisioning a new Nigeria where elections can neither be rigged nor annulled, where the people, rather than party barons decide the nation’s destiny, where citizenship means more than having a Passport or Permanent Voting Card, where security of life and property is not a mirage but a governance right, and where the crisis of ethnic nationalities is justly addressed, the struggle over June 12 is far from over. Two recent examples will make the point.
On May 29, while Buhari and the Governors were being sworn in, a group of activists converged at Freedom Park, Ojota under the guise of Peoples Alternative Fronts, to demand, among others, an end to insecurity and the fulfillment of governance rights, such as steady power supply, consistent water supply, conducive business and intellectual environment. The message and powerful symbolism of the protest are that democracy to be meaningful, must go beyond procedures and formalities, to connect with the transformation of people’s lives, and the institution of real changes in place of nominal ones. As this columnist have had occasion to argue, elections have come and gone, leaders have been recycled, but most Nigerians, paraphrasing a popular aphorism, might well be asking, ‘When will this Democracy end?’ This of course shouldn’t be seen as a call for authoritarian regression, but one to institute proper and meaningful democratic civilities that would impact the lives of Nigerians. Certainly, this was one of the objectives of the long and entrenched struggle to revalidate the annulled June 12 election.
The other narrative, troubling, is the recent efforts of religious and ethnic minorities, especially in the Northern states, to state their case to the global community. Recently, a consortium of influential Nigerians, including former Defence Minister, Lt. Gen. Theophilus Danjuma (rtd.), a former military governor of Rivers State, Gen. Zamani Lekwot (rtd.), and Chief Solomon Asemota SAN, wrote to the British Parliament that the Buhari administration had embarked upon an Islamization programme, as well as Jihad, in the process, complicating the insecurity problem in the nation. In the same manner, and very recently, the newspapers reported that Christians in Kaduna state under the aegis of Voice of Northern Christian Movement in Nigeria, wrote to Donald Trump, United States President, alleging ethno-religious cleansing in Southern Kaduna. The issue is not even whether these allegations, weighty as they are, are valid or not. What is important is that highly placed Nigerians from that part of the country hold the perception that national security enforcement is being skewed against these religious minorities.
How does this connect with June 12? Recall that the protests as they were articulated at the time, included a demand for a nation where the rights of nationalities and minorities will be guaranteed. The annulment of the June 12 election by the military cabal of Northern origin brought to the fore, the national question, and the need to design a federation in which all ethnic nationalities, will be co-equal rather than being dominated by an imperial centre. The 1999 constitution, it is well known, merely froze the authoritarian aspects of our political culture by creating an overbearing centre and facilitating presidential omnipotence. Unfortunately, Buhari, at least until recently, has tended to side-step and thumbs-down demands for a conference to revalidate our federalism through a redesign. It is not entirely clear how to read last month’s statement by Buhari that, ‘true federalism is necessary at this juncture of our political and democratic evolution’. There is also what will appear to be a nod of sorts to the policy of creating state police when Buhari, earlier this week, received the report of the Presidential Panel on the Reform of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad. What appeared to be a hopeful sign that state police might soon emerge as a feature of our federalism was reversed when the Presidency clarified that Buhari was yet to take a decision on the approval of State and Local Government Police in the federation. This dilly-dallying is, at least, an improvement on the earlier emphatic disapproval of the President for restructuring, either through the front or the back doors. The situation reminds one of the German philosopher, Karl Marx’s quip that men make history in circumstances that are not of their own choosing. To put it clearly, it is conceivable that the current troughs of escalating banditry, incessant farmers-herdsmen clashes, against which an outstretched, centralized Police Force is struggling heroically, have led to new thinking and fresh ideas connoting a more objective attitude towards the restructuring agenda, in one form or another. This ought to excite those committed to the national renewal and state building possibilities of what we may loosely call, the June 12 movement. Persuading top policy makers to see the wisdom of reinventing Nigeria through a new political engineering should be one of the priorities of the unfinished quest for national self-revalidation and modernization. There is a sense in which many of the aspirations for good governance are bound up with the kind of restructuring that will creatively unleash the energies of the federating units, many of which harbour the potential to become like Dubai or any of the Asian Tigers, if allowed to run on their own steam.
The other point to make is that those committed to remaking Nigeria in the image of an African giant playing on the world stage should understand that reforms require both institutional and non-institutional backup. Horizontal reforms are required at the level of state institutions, such as Parliaments, Parastatals, Police and the Judiciary. Our experience shows however, that these institutions would not reform themselves until there is organized impetus from civil society organisations, protest movements, and social forces. The abiding essence of the June 12 struggle is to keep putting reform imperatives back on the front burner through consistent clamour from below.