Finally, a tentative commentary on President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet appears possible. The public can’t be wrong: the cabinet is lawyerly, star-studded, eloquent, not quite gender sensitive and not too saintly, but potentially vibrant, and in many alarming ways apolitical. So far, everyone is focusing on the putative brilliance of the ministers, many of whom have been confirmed already. Soon, it will be time to discover whether that brilliance can be translated into productive, impactful work, or whether the cabinet can demonstrate the subliminal character necessary to concretise the values and principles of a great society. Soon, too, as a result of the expected synergy between the cabinet and the president, and the extent to which they meet the yearnings of the country, it will become clear just how ambitious the country is, or whether the country has diminished, as some suspect, to become frustratingly satisfied with little.
It is unlikely that the expectations of the people concerning the cabinet, let alone its performance, will be high. Nigerians are famously not too difficult to please. But sooner or later, they will confront the critical question of assessing President Buhari’s governance philosophy and framework, not because they are complex and the people are slow of understanding, but because so far there has been no clear articulation of these indispensable foundations. The public is familiar with the president’s fight against corruption and insecurity, and his determination to plug, by dint of hard work and body language, every avenue of stealing and waste. But they will need, and will ask for, his philosophy of governance, which he has not really quite articulated. If the cabinet will help him articulate that philosophy, then it will have to do more than make the dreaded noise he recently spoke about.
There is suspicion President Buhari will hope that the positive spinoffs from his disciplined government and brilliant cabinet will stabilise the economy and ennoble the country’s politics. Should he rely almost exclusively on these spinoffs and hope that a well-governed country with a healthy economy and normalised politics will obviate the urgent need for a governing philosophy, he will leave his government vulnerable and exposed to the vicissitudes of politics far beyond his control. It is indeed possible to govern a country well without a clear philosophy, but as France and Italy contradistinctively showed after World War II, it is impossible to sustain the legacy eked from the physical exertion of simply governing well. Somehow, the president may also view the Ahmed Joda transition report as a fitting foundation for his presidency, and consider other critical reports such as the Oronsaye report as complementary to his effort to navigate the country’s developmental warrens. But for now, notwithstanding his party’s manifesto and the engagement of these other reports, he has not given any indication of conceptualising a philosophy and framework of governance to serve as the indispensable fulcrum of his government, in the same way the world understands Reaganite America and Reaganomics, Thatcherite Britain and Thatcherism, Roosevelt’s New Deal, and Bush’s (the younger) New American Century.
Perhaps it will take a little longer for President Buhari to give a concrete feel to the embryonic ideals emanating from his presidency. But perhaps, also, there will be no attempt by his presidency to synthesise or grow anything resembling a philosophy. It is therefore the duty of the public to demand, as indeed the business community is already doing, a definite, consistent and coherent set of programmes and ideas upon which the renewal and rebuilding of Nigeria can be anchored. The impression already is that, at bottom, President Buhari has spent more time plotting his way into office than forming and firming the ideas upon which he hopes to base his presidency. He has focused his energies on some pressing problems, and has worked hard to assemble a cabinet that could pass muster. But these will not transform into a great nation until that great nation has been built on a great idea. A fine cabinet is useful only to the extent that it is appropriately deployed in the service of a great idea; a great idea that will not manifest until it is harnessed from its disparate strands.
Moreover, part of the crisis inundating the parliament, in which a Bukola Saraki virtually and unethically seized the legislative levers of power, could be traced to the president’s inability to conceptualise a governing philosophy for the country, as this column has repeatedly maintained. Rather than tamely surrender to what he described as the fundamentals of democracy, Nigeria needed President Buhari to develop a bold and unrivalled idea of Nigeria, and work actively instead of passively to build a unified parliamentary, judicial and political framework for it. What would Napoleonic France and indeed Napoleonic Europe be without the Napoleonic Code and, to some extent, the Continental System? The world may find this comparison and example odious, but what would Germany be without Bismarckian realpolitik and Hitler’s Mein Kampf? And what would Britain and America be without their exceptionalism, whose fiercely competitive core drove the Americans to the moon and Britain to global political and language imperialism? It is against this background that Soviet history makes sense, and Russian (Putin) redivivus becomes a sensible rather than a provocative project.
Nigerian leadership since independence has been mediocre. In some sense, Ghana under Nkrumah, Tanzania under Nyerere, Egypt under Nasser, and South Africa under Mandela gave vague indication they knew what the situation called for. There failure, while it can be explained, cannot however be excused. But Nigeria never once attempted to approximate the ideals for which Nkrumah and the others lived and died. Yet, Nigeria has never lacked the opportunity, as the ample goodwill being made light of by President Buhari is showing. Babangida, Obasanjo and Shagari each had the chance to make something out of Nigeria. That they all failed, some very woefully, is a testament to the apparent genetic flaw inherent in their leadership.
This column invested heavily, perhaps excessively heavily, in the Buhari project before he won the March 2015 poll. But given the undue emphasis on assembling an untainted cabinet, the inattentiveness to the parliament’s subversive and centrifugal tendencies, and the disregard for building the country’s ideological lodestar, the columnist will hope his effort and investment have not been altogether misplaced. The situation is of course not hopeless. Far from it. Yet, there is little so far to give any indication of success given the abandonment of the elements that conduce to building a great society.
Theatrical Senate screening and Adebayo Shittu
Senators and the Senate President, not leaving out the theatrical and voluble Dino Melaye, have been having a ball since the ministerial confirmation process began. They promised it would be stringent and thorough, but perhaps the Senate defines words in curious ways now. Bukola Saraki has been winking away at only God knows whom, while other senators may be in danger of cracking their ribs from the theatrics on the Senate floor. Some of the nominees themselves have embarked on incredible, extravagant somersaults to win confirmation.
But while the Senate blithely engages in political revelry, could they be kind enough to interview nominee Adebayo Shittu from Oyo State a little more rigorously on what he knew about the April 25, 2000 religious crisis involving the Tabliq Muslim sect and the First Baptist Church, Oke Adagba, Shaki, Oyo State, which later spread into the town. Let him arm himself with the 2001 Oyo State Government White Paper on the crisis. Surely, as a prospective minister of the Federal Republic, he wouldn’t mind shedding some light on the crisis. More importantly, it would be interesting to hear his view on the matter, even if it has changed, and his projection on sectarian peace in Nigeria.
Gowon and the Nigerian quandary
On Thursday, former head of state, Yakubu Gowon, paid a condolence visit to the Awolowo family at Ikenne, Ogun State. Speaking to the press, he remarked about how ethnic diversity and sectional interests made it tough for him governing Nigeria. The same complex pastiche, he said, would make it tough for anyone to govern the country. He admonished Nigerians to be patient with President Muhammadu Buhari, almost the same gentle and indulgent manner he admonished everyone to be patient with ex-president Goodluck Jonathan.
The contention, however, is whether the problem is actually caused by complex ethnic and sectional interests or whether the leadership lacks depth and puts little premium on justice and equity. Nigeria’s problem is not the differences between its people, as sometimes competitive as these might be, but the inability of leaders to recognise and embrace the building blocks of leadership. They refuse to acknowledge that leadership compels them to offer leadership to all interests without prejudice, and that it is compulsory to anchor their leadership on the values of justice and equity. Leaders who cannot transcend their backgrounds and prejudices have no business being in government. No, Gen Gowon, Nigeria is not difficult to govern. The problem is finding competent, transcendental leaders who have intuitive understanding of what must be done, when and how.
NATION
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