“Nigerians should deliberately search for leaders with foresight, intelligence and experience that can turn the country’s fortunes around”
– Pastor William Kumuyi, General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Christian Ministry (The PUNCH, Thursday, January 27, 2022)
Have you noticed that the list of aspirants for Nigeria’s coveted number one political office, come 2023, lengthens by the day? On Wednesday, two new aspirants—Senator Bukola Saraki, former Senate Leader, and Senator Rochas Okorocha, former Governor of Imo State—announced their intention to join an already elongated roll. Bear in mind that previously we had Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress; David Umahi, Governor of Ebonyi State; Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, former Governor of Abia State; Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello; Prof. Kingsley Moghalu; Dr. Philip Idaewor of the United Kingdom branch of the APC, not counting a host of others who have either declared by subterfuge or are encouraging rife speculations that they are very much in the race. This latter group is also a long and unfolding one including current Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo; former President, Goodluck Jonathan; former Vice-President, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku; Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal; Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, among others.
Conceivably, the list might billow up to 25 or more. Were the country in a routine season, there may have been no need to comment on what is fast becoming a jamboree of aspirants; however, as Pastor William Kumuyi quoted in the opening paragraph correctly recognised, Nigeria is trapped in a period that requires leaders who will “turn the nation’s fortunes around.” Of course, chorus boys and automatic endorsers of the current administration perpetually project an image of normalcy or superlative achievement by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). But those who feel the hurt and who live in the desperate travails of the hour know where the shoe pinches.
A couple of days back, a junior colleague decided to make the journey from Ibadan to Lagos by train. “Why would you subject yourself to that ordeal?” I inquired gently. He answered with the frightening narrative of how portions of the road linking the two cities had been converted into a traveller’s nightmare by acts of violence, including shooting at passenger buses in recent times. Notwithstanding that security officials claim that the attack is a one-off, those smart enough know that this predicament begins usually with a limited number of kidnappings and daring attacks on travellers. In other words, Yorubaland, which was once thought immune or relatively immune to the kind of banditry that virtually annulled the possibility of peaceful commuting by road between Abuja and Kaduna has drifted southwards, increasing the devastating national peril. That is not all. The ongoing brouhaha about fuel subsidy has opened a Pandora’s Box when the eternally opaque Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation told us that Nigerians consume fuel to the tune of 65.7 million litres daily and that it will require a sum of N3 trillion to underwrite the cost of the postponement of fuel subsidy removal by 18 months. Unsurprisingly, an irate Dr Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ekiti State and Chairman Nigeria Governors’ Forum fired back that “there is a lot of fraud in consumption and distribution figures,” suggesting that no one is sure anymore about the competing and contradictory figures churned out by NNPC.
Please note that this was precisely one of the cardinal sins of the Jonathan administration but after eight years of so-called reformism, we have come full circle regarding the abracadabra of subsidy, resulting in a gargantuan foreign debt and the spectre of national bankruptcy. This apart, the Minister for Finance, Zainab Ahmed, confirmed recently that the deepening suffering of Nigerians as a result of high inflation is one of the reasons why the removal of fuel subsidy earlier slated for June has been put on hold. Doubtless, in an intensely political season, the electorate will be thrown all kinds of unusual favours for well-known reasons. Recall the famous words of the Swiss philosopher J. J. Rousseau, made centuries ago, that “the people of England regards itself as free, but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it…”
Needless to say over time, the British people have deepened their democracy to the point where it can outlast the unusual generosity of the politicians during elections, leaving countries like Nigeria in the lurch of polling-determined policies and promises that will fade out when elections are over. That is to say, the country has only pushed back the frontier of misfortune for a country that produces oil but which is unable to maintain its refineries or keep its currency stable enough to avoid wide fluctuations of its exchange rate.
Moreover, successive governments have seized upon the incompetence of earlier ones to make failed promises the object of their campaigns in a never-ending cycle of violated social contracts. To the politicians playing this game, it is perfectly okay. The problem, however, is that the chickens of earlier unkept promises have come home to roost with a vengeance, with the result that the country is kept in the stranglehold of a dark tunnel. Browse the promises made to Nigerians in successive elections since 1999 and you will marvel at the magnitude of the differences between oratory and performance.
Buhari, like Jonathan, promised to end the reign of darkness in the power sector and decisively bring electricity generation up. What do we have today? The country generates megawatts of electricity, fluctuating between a figure lower than the administration inherited or just a little above it. So what happened to the sweet promise made during campaigns of amplified and sufficient power generation? Do you want to look at the education sector where no Nigerian university is in the first 500 universities on global league tables contrasted with South Africa which has 9 public universities in the first 50 and the University of Cape Town in number 20 position? The reason for underlining the dismay of Nigerians as another election rapidly approaches is that the current harvest of presidential aspirants has been disturbingly short on policy matters much less turnaround ideas. If these gentlemen do not know what is required is not business as usual in a nation threatened by existential crunch but transformational and visionary leadership.
The political parties as well as the soaring number of aspirants are silent on roadmaps for redemption and reinvention. There is no mention of the woes of a distorted federal structure nor of the prospect of a national conference to renew the federal bargain. In other climes, policymaking is serious business with political parties hosting policy conferences, both to feel the pulse of the people and to design a compass out of the woods. What obtains here is policymaking by turnkey. Do you recall turnkey projects imported hook, line and sinker from abroad, leaving you only to turn the key? The correlate is turnkey policymaking featuring policies written by intellectual contractors with no input from our leaders.
Enough of this jamboree of the soaring number of aspirants with little or no ideas for redesigning a failing state. Let the race to salvage Nigeria truly begin now.
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