By Douglas Anele
As I argued last week, case against the Senate President, Bukola
Saraki, is an elaborate charade to hoodwink Nigerians into believing that the
so-called war against corruption is no respecter of persons and party affiliation
whereas the skewed system that breeds corruption is left relatively intact and
untouched, it means that the more things change in Nigeria under APC, the more
they will remain the same. But what is the skewed system that incubates and
nourishes corruption in our country? The answer is: the mixed-up
unitarist-federalist 1999 constitution imposed on Nigerians by the military
regime of retired General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
SarakiThat very constitution,
which concentrates enormous political and fiscal powers on the central
government and emasculates the federating units, is at the very core of
malignant corruption that has been crippling our developmental efforts.
Therefore, as long as the states, some of which are unviable anyway, continue
to depend heavily on a central government that periodically allocates and
distributes funds to them based on an arbitrarily selected formula, it would be
difficult to reduce corruption especially at the centre to a manageable level.
On this issue, the APC government
led by President Buhari has failed already right from the start, because
political restructuring of the country along genuine federalist architecture is
not in their calculus at all. Aside from serving the entrenched interests of
key members of the Northern establishment and their Southern collaborators, it
is very difficult to understand why APC seems completely uninterested in
political and fiscal restructuring. Probably Chinweizu was right in claiming
that President Buhari is a tool used by the antiquated Caliphate system in
Northern Nigeria to “appropriate the surplus produced by non-Caliphate sectors
of the country using various devices in the 1999 constitution.”
To some people, especially
compatriots from the North, any reference to the exploitative character of the
Nigerian state which is anchored on overt and covert diversion of resources
from the South to the North, or demand that the present grotesque system should
be jettisoned and a more equitable one established, is an unpatriotic recourse
to divisive ethnic parochialism. However, genuine patriotism cannot be grounded
on falsehood and unfairness, as already demonstrated repeatedly by our
inability to make sustainable progress in creating a truly Nigerian nation
since 1960.
Why, for example, did the 1999
constitution allocate seats in the National Assembly in such a manner that
guarantees domination of the federal legislature by the North? What is the
philosophy or rationale behind the lopsided distribution of states and local
government areas, an arrangement which ensures that Northern Nigeria gets more
than its fair share of our national resources derived mainly from the South? Is
it fair, in a federation, that Northerners own more oil wells than the very
people in whose lands the oil wells are located and whose communities have been
devastated due to oil exploration and exploitation? I repeat: if APC is serious
about meaningful change in Nigeria, it must begin a systematic replacement of
the 1999 constitution with a new one that provides solid foundation for the
emergence of true federalism.
On the on-going ministerial
screening, the President created pointless anxiety and unrealistic expectations
by delaying constitution of his executive council unnecessarily. This is
because, instead of his spokespersons acknowledging the obvious fact that he
was trying very hard to accommodate in his cabinet conflicting forces that
helped him win the presidency, they repeatedly offered the tendentious excuse
that the President was deliberately taking his time to pick the best people for
the job. For die-hard Buharimaniacs for whom the President can do no wrong, the
explanation by Garba Shehu was perfectly in order. Now that the ministerial
list is out in two batches and senatorial screening has commenced, many
Nigerians who expected something different, something dramatically innovative,
are disappointed. Some are still wondering why the President took so long to
generate a list that recycled former governors, federal legislators, and
selected bigwigs of APC, including Chief Audu Ogbeh, a man screened for
ministerial position over three decades ago when Bukola Saraki’s father, late
Dr. Olusola Saraki, was a senator.
I do not wish to repeat all the
arguments for and against Buhari’s ministerial list. It must be noted, however,
that in terms of quality, President Buhari’s ministerial nominees, taken
holistically, are not superior to the ministers appointed by his predecessors from
1999 to May 29, 2015, and by military dictators (including the much-inveighed
late Gen. Sani Abacha). A sizeable numbers of the nominees are experienced
professionals and technocrats. All the same, for a President whose party took
the gospel of change to dizzying heights during the last electioneering
campaigns, recycling of people like Audu Ogbeh is a mistake. In addition, if
indeed the President loathes corruption as much as his supporters claim, why
did he select politicians currently facing allegations of corruption?
The argument that an accused is
presumed innocent until proved guilty by a competent court is puerile and
escapist: for every single ministry each of those nominees might eventually
superintend, there are many qualified and competent Nigerians without
question-marks on their reputations, including those living abroad, who can do
the job satisfactorily. Overall, judging by the composition of the list, the
President just wanted to reward some loyalists that helped him win the
presidential election. But he cannot eat his cake and have it at the same time.
By placing party loyalty and contribution to his electoral success above
incorruptibility, Buhari is putting everyone on notice that the war against
corruption is selective and not as thoroughgoing as they were meant to believe
during the electioneering campaigns: it can be suspended depending on the
political situation.
President Buhari once again
missed a good opportunity to improve the quality of ministerial screening
exercise: he repeated the mistake of his predecessors by not stating the
ministry each of the nominees would be posted to. That in itself points to his
inability to rise above the negative gravitational pull of opposing political
forces that crystallised into the APC. At any rate, the Senate screening has
exposed the lack of genuine progress in the process of recruiting ministers in
Nigeria. Beyond sententious platitudes and loquacity displayed by some
nominees, substantially there is no significant difference in manner the present
ministerial nominees were screened by the senate and the screening done when
PDP was in power. Indeed, the situation is worse presently: the Senate
President himself is facing serious allegations of corruption and misconduct,
which casts a long shadow on the entire process.
Moreover, the political situation
now is markedly different from the situation in 1984 when Buhari, as a military
dictator who ruled with iron-fisted decrees, did not have to consult anyone
outside the Supreme Military Council before taking decisions. Consequently,
despite his initial unrealistic aloof attitude towards the National Assembly
mainly because of how Saraki disregarded the ruling party to emerge as Senate
President, Buhari had to pocket his ego and reach out to the Senate leadership
to get his nominees confirmed without serious legislative hitches.
Buharimaniacs can hyperbolise until kingdom come Buhari’s experience as a
former military ruler and the extent it prepared him for the challenges of his
present office. But his hasty disavowal of interest concerning who would emerge
as leaders of the National Assembly and disparaging remarks about ministers
suggest that he needs to learn more lessons on how to deal with complexity in a
stochastic political environment. I foresee a situation in which President
Buhari would increasingly jettison his initial idealism and operate more on the
principle that Nigerian politics is driven by survivalist calculations, not by
idealism.
Concluded.
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