A former Speaker of America’s House of Representatives, late Tip O’Neill, once said that all politics is local. This is reflected in what sociologists call gemeinschaft, “social relations between individuals, based on close personal and family ties,” where there is high-touch human relationships.
The opposite is gesslachaftt, “a rationally developed mechanistic type of social relationship characterised by impersonally contracted associations between persons,” or the mass, or atomised, associative society, where relationships are more psychologically distant and formalised.
Politicians must always pay attention to the everyday concerns of their constituents, and not only the so-called national issues. As politicians often use the themes of local politics to hit at each other, the National Leader, All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, himself accused of being the political potentate of Lagos State, caused a train wreck to the political hegemony of Senate President Bukola Saraki in Kwara State with the “O to ge,” or “enough is enough”, mantra.
The “localness” of politics informs the tiff between the Yoruba and Igbo elements of Lagos State, who went at each other’s throats, as Muhammadu Buhari was comfortably coasting home to his re-election as President.
The Yoruba prefer Babajide Sanwo-Olu, while the Igbo think Jimi Agbaje will serve their ethnic interests better, as Lagos State governor.
Because politics is indeed local, everyone must pay close attention to the next round of elections, which is focused on governorship and state Houses of Assembly seats, even though state governments are no more than glorified super-ministries of the central government.
The state level elections are expected to be violently contested by all stakeholders – including those who appear like they would win with considerable ease. And so, no one is taking any chances.
Pundits, who think the next round of elections will reflect the pattern of the presidential election, insist that the APC candidates should emerge governors in the states where the party’s presidential candidate was victorious.
Some candidates are even strutting as though they have already won their own elections. Sanwo-Olu boasts, “Like the President won his election, I am certain we will win our election in Lagos too.” In Nigeria, states read the lips of the central government before they act, or even think.
The Peoples Democratic Party is expected to retain its hold in states where former Vice President Atiku Abubakar won, in order to consolidate its local spheres of influence.
By remaining in government, if only at the state level, party members will be assured of a safe corridor from the APC that may be wielding the federal might.
The immediate past Ekiti State governor, Ayo Fayose, amply epitomised this principle of protecting oneself with state power while he remained the last standing PDP governor in the South-West geopolitical zone. Nigeria is a land where demonstration of power is the first principle of survival.
But some other pundits think that those PDP states may switch allegiance, and join the APC bandwagon so that they can be assured of abundant share of the federal pie, and gain the patronage that accrues to those in the good books of political powers at the centre.
Sanwo-Olu reportedly said, “You need the Federal Government to do a lot of things… We need to work with them in certain areas like right of ways for rail, waterways, power, abandoned properties, etc.”
Section 1 of PART II of the Second Schedule of Nigeria’s constitution, which enumerates the content of the Concurrent Legislative List, provides that “The National Assembly may, by an Act, make provisions for the division (or sharing) of public revenue: between the federation and the states; among the states of the federation; between the states and local councils; and among local government councils in the states.”
This provision graphically demonstrates the power of the Federal Government, and the puny, weak, and even inconsequential power of the state governments. Before the Nigerian polity is restructured, so that the states or regions regain their First Republic groove, the governors must make the best of the bad situation.
That states whose governors belong to the same political party as the President might expect to get prompt and sympathetic attention at the inner chambers of Nigeria’s Rock informs the wisdom to align state politics with the centre.
But more to the point is that the electorate across the country must choose their next set of governors and state legislators, with the following at the back of their minds: The dearth of funds that have led to perennial inability of state governments to pay workers’ salaries; the need to attract infrastructure, and the need to provide social services like healthcare, education, and urban mass transit, for their voters.
As you probably know, an utter lack of imagination has contributed to the failure of governance at the state level. Many governors spend their time merely lamenting, and then attributing their inability to provide the dividends of democracy, to a unitary constitution in federal garb.
Very few state governors ever come up with brilliant responses to the situation they found themselves. All too often, they lapse into stealing from the meagre allocation they get from the monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meetings.
Nigeria is fashioned so that the states will remain as perpetual carriers of the begging bowl to the central government that ripped them off in the first place. It is really unsavoury for the original owners of resources to go a-begging to get a fraction of what belongs to them.
If it is not too late, the next governors who will be elected to run the states next Saturday must be considered on the basis of their promises to engage the agricultural resources of their states, embark on rural development programmes, invest in education, and upgrade and expand health facilities.
A sure way to kill all these welfare birds with one governance stone is to revive the farm settlements, where they already exist, or set up new ones: It would be a one-shot deal for achieving rural integration.
The incoming governors must be reminded that the groundnut pyramids, the hide and skin trade, and the cotton farms of Northern Nigeria, and the cocoa, rubber, and palm oil plantations of Southern Nigeria, were the handiwork of regional governments, who got little or no input from the central government.
Just imagine what it would look like if citizens can have a guarantee of roads, pipe-borne water, healthcare facilities, electricity, telephone and Internet, and entertainment, in addition to adequate food, in their locale. That would be a practical approach to providing the “stomach infrastructure” that former Governor Fayose has turned into a valid political, and existential, agenda.
The governors must have the savvy to engage the grassroots in their states, in order to mobilise the citizens for all-round development. Though the election is very close now, and no one can change the candidates of any of the political parties, the electorate must intelligently choose between the motley of candidates, some of whom are pretenders and charlatans.
And if Nigerians really want serious action at the state level, they should organise themselves to seize the initiative from the centre, by owning, and running, their states as community efforts. There is an urgent need to emphasise the community above the distant, remote, plastic, and unfeeling state.
What this means is that it’s time to run Nigeria from bottom up.
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