Let me first wish President Muhammadu Buhari a speedy recovery. Presidents are human beings, and must have the time and space, within constitutional bounds, to look after their health. That said, the matter in hand concerns the ship of the Nigerian state and Buhari’s role as its chief captain. How the president steers the ship matters to Nigeria’s future. So, before discussing the substantive issue, let’s consider Buhari’s approach to governance.
Recently, the British Telegraph newspaper described President Buhari as a “Headmasterly figure.” The paper was referring to his didactic, “my way or the highway” leadership and governance style. But you can’t govern a country like a headmaster would run a school. Leaders of countries must be responsive, consultative and consensual. However, Buhari lacks good consultative skills. Blame his military background, if you like. He generally prefers instructing others than building consensus. He is taciturn, yet remarkably self-willed!
John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist, once said: “when the facts change, I change my mind”. But with President Buhari, the facts, it seems, rarely change. Here is a leader who ruled his country once and, by sheer providence, is governing it again some 30 years later. Yet he is so nostalgic about the past, he wants to repeat the mistakes of 30 years ago! The great Muhammad Ali, whose death the world currently mourns, once said: “The man who views the world at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years”. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar unwittingly echoed Ali’s sentiment when he said recently: “We have a president who doesn’t learn from the past.”
Of course, countless column inches have been devoted to President Buhari’s wilfulness on economic policy. For instance, despite seeming movements on petroleum subsidy and the exchange rate, comprehensive economic reform is not on the president’s radar. But that’s not my focus here. My concern is the issue President Buhari wants to avoid like the plague: political restructuring! Shortly before his inauguration, Buhari granted an interview to Television Continental (TVC), in which he dismissed the National Conference organised by former President Goodluck Jonathan as one example of “how we don’t get our priorities right in this country.” His argument, when you parsed it, was that political restructuring is not a priority for Nigeria! Recently, in another interview, President Buhari went further. He said he didn’t like national conference; and signalled he wouldn’t touch the conference reports with a barge pole! But the president’s antipathy to national conference is ill-informed. No country has achieved major political or constitutional settlements without some national conference to ensure elite cooperation and inclusive participation. President Buhari’s rejection of past conference reports is also ill-advised; another example of his idiosyncratic and headmasterly approach to governance!
But let’s cut to the chase. President Buhari doesn’t believe this country needs restructuring. He gave a wide-ranging inauguration speech without once mentioning political reform. Buhari takes the view that the civil war was fought to keep Nigeria together; so the problem is not with the political structure, but the people! But, as I have said repeatedly, civil wars don’t unite nations, only negotiated political settlements do. Recently, the APC leadership tried to use the economic situation as an excuse to avoid addressing the issue. According to the party’s National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, restructuring is not the government’s priority, but rebuilding the economy, creating jobs and ensuring security! This is misguided, of course. Economies respond to external stimuli, with politics and institutions being the most potent.
The classical economists, such as Adam Smith, were called “political economists” because they were concerned with the interplay of economics, politics and institutions. They recognised that economic performance is shaped by institutional and politico-governance structures. Thus, Charles Soludo, former Central Bank governor, was right when he said that “You can’t create the new Nigeria, a post-oil competitive economy without fundamentally altering the existing constitution.”Equally, you can’t tackle the deep ethnic divisions and tensions that threaten to tear Nigeria apart without restructuring the country. Not by creating empty regional bodies, but by devolving substantial powers to regional governments to engender competitive federalism and make Nigeria stronger!
Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Commonwealth Secretary-General, has long advocated this change. And more prominent Nigerians are adding their voices, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who made a strong intervention recently, saying the current political structure “has not served Nigeria well.”Now, you would expect APC, a “progressive” party, which promised to “amend the constitution and devolve power”, to lead the reform in the national interest. But, apparently not; they have other priorities!
But, and here is my point, APC would be committing political suicide unless it makes serious efforts towards political reform before 2019. In a piece, “APC faces an uncertain future: It must unite or die” (BusinessDay, 20 July 2015), I argued that to retain the presidency in 2019, APCmust maintain its North and South-West alliance. This, I posited, was because Buhari and his party were too unpopular in the South-East and South-South to win in the two zones. Today, the anti-Buhari/APC sentiments in the South-South and South-East are even more deeply entrenched, and, unless there is a miracle, APC doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning in the two zones in 2019. So, as I argued then, I say again: APC must strengthen the North/South-West alliance that gave it victory in 2015 if it wants to retain power at the centre in 2019.
Yet, no geo-political zone is more vociferous about political restructuring than the South-West. For the South-West, restructuring Nigeria is an article of faith, a desideratum. The Yoruba leaders who voted for Jonathan in 2015 did so because he promised to implement the report of the National Conference. Remember how Jonathan quickly convened a Federal Executive Council meeting during the campaigns to approve the report? It was to reassure the Yoruba leaders. Of course, in the end, the powerful countervailing force of Jonathan’s unpopularity offset his gains in the South-West. But PDPstill won 42 percent of total votes cast in the zone as against APC’s 56percent. APC’s victory can hardly be described as a landslide!
But 2019 will be a different ballgame. In my view, the issue of restructuring will assume prominence in the electoral politics of the South-West in 2019. Today, APC’s South-West leaders, who have advocated political restructuring all their political lives, have suddenly gone quiet now that their party controls the centre. The annulment of June 12 1993 election and Abiola’s mandate, on which they harangued every past federal government since 1999, is also hardly mentioned now that their party controls the federal government. The hypocrisy and opportunism of APC’s South-West leaders will be remembered in 2019. So will Buhari’s antipathy to political restructuring, which may cost APC the South-West and, inevitably, the presidency!
To borrow the immortal words of President Buhari, this column belongs to everybody and belongs to nobody, with no party affiliation whatsoever! So, my honest advice to APC is to shun hubris and be sensitive to the body language – yes, that famous phrase – of the people. A word is enough for the wise!
Olu Fasan
