1. Mr. McDonald, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am honored to be here today at the Woodrow Wilson Centre and thank you for inviting me. I commend the work that you do. This is an institution known for scholarship, lively discourse and the search for policies that advance peace and development. By shining the light of knowledge, you help dispel ignorance and explore solutions to conflicts. Therefore, I will do my humble best to speak in the spirit that is the hallmark of this venerable institution.
2. Nigeria is the focus of our conversation today and I will attempt to briefly capture the challenges that confront us as a nation. I have devoted most of my adult life to promoting democracy in Nigeria. The battle has been neither short nor easy. I have lived in exile, unsure if I would ever see my homeland again. My life has been under threat to the point where I did not know if I would see the next sunrise. I say these things not to boast. There are thousands who made similar or greater sacrifice. I say these things so you may understand that my address to you is based on the long-term perspective of a person who has occupied the trenches from the onset of the struggle for democracy versus dictatorship in Nigeria. I am not of that class of politicians who have benefitted from the struggle without participating in it. Because they never invested themselves in this clash between liberty and blind might, these politicians do not fully appreciate, nor do they seek to advance the cause of democracy. Because my life has been defined by the achievements and setbacks recorded in this struggle, I understand with every sinew and fiber of my being how far we have come and how far we have yet to go.
3. Background: The House Has Not Fallen but Its Structure Is Weak
Nigeria currently is tossed by four distinct but related storms. First, we exist in political limbo. Although uniformed generals no longer formally control the levers of government, the ways and manner of military rule still dominate the political landscape. We hold elections in Nigeria. But that isolated fact does not a democracy make.
4. Nigeria exists in that strange dimension where we have a civilian government equally possessed of the attributes of authoritarian rule as if democratic governance. Everyday Nigeria awakens, it awakens to this hybrid existence and a vexing question: To which side shall the balance tip? Although most of us consider this an unfortunate predicament, numerous actors profit from the current state of affairs. Leading figures in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have repeatedly proclaimed the objective of ruling Nigeria for an uninterrupted sixty- year period. Such dynastic aspirations are at variance with true democracy.
Then there are those of us who believe the veneer of democracy is insufficient in this day and age. We believe Nigeria cannot remain a confused hybrid without succumbing to national regression. The nation must move either toward real democracy or real disaster. People are fond of saying that Nigeria is at the crossroads. Our situation is more complex than what the phrase usually implies. We are like a person with multiple personalities standing at the crossroads. Consequently, we remain locked in a struggle simultaneously pulling Nigeria in different directions. Democratic and authoritarian forces engage in a tug-of-war in which the soul of Nigeria’s governance is the prize at stake.
5. Due to the fact that competing elements of the political class have been locked for the last 13 years in this struggle to define the nature of government, there has been insufficient governance for the benefit of the people. We certainly have not seen much good governance. To be honest, we have not even had much in the way of purposeful democratic governance. Unfortunately, we have suffered more from inertia and confusion than from rule of intelligent but malevolent design.
6. Second, mostly due to Boko Haram and criminal groups in the northern and eastern parts of the country, internal security has ebbed to a low point. This has led to fear and uncertainty. Tension now dominates religious and political activities. It has had a profound chilling effect on economic activity in many areas. In many places, for example, children no longer go to school and farmers neglect their fields, fearing attacks by Bolo Haram.
7. Third, ethnic and sectional divisions are presently higher in Nigeria than at any time in recent memory. The ruling party resides in a state of chronic indigestion regarding the ethnic and regional allocation of top offices in the party and government, especially that of the president. Although members of the same “ruling” party, political figures from the north and south hurl often reckless accusations at each other not because of differences over substantive issues but because of regional loyalties. They don’t differ over substantive issues because they rarely think about such matters. No, they bicker across the widening geographic and ethnic divide that they have helped to create. Those who should aspire to the status of statesmen lunge at one another like street brawlers.
8. Talk of disintegration now is fashionable in some quarters. Two weeks ago, a faction of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) issued a Declaration of Independence in Nigeria and designed a flag representing the sovereignty of the Ogoni people. Calls for self-determination by the South East-based Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) have intensified. Last week, MASSOB was reported to have applied for UN observer status. Add to these developments, the new sense of Ijaw ethnic consciousness, similar ethnic agitations and Boko Haram’s anomie and you realize all is not well with Nigeria. It is clear that centrifugal forces have gained strength and this noxious gain is substantially due to the intramural machinations that define the ruling party.
9. Fourth, for the majority of Nigerians, the economy functions as an obstacle not an ally. Government claims that Nigeria enjoys the world’s third fastest growing economy with annual GDP growth of roughly 7 percent. This handsome figure contrasts with the unattractive lives most people endure. Income inequality is among the worst in the world. A higher percentage of Nigerians now wallow in abject poverty since the ruling party came to power. With insecurity escalating across large swaths of the land, electricity generation at a miserable 4,000 MGWs for an entire nation of over 150 million people, the collapse of the manufacturing industry and spiraling unemployment figures of youths and college graduates, it is difficult to take the GDP figure at face value.
The Nigerian government finds it convenient to lie. If by happenstance the GDP approximates the truth, it means super-elite within the elite benefits enormously while the rest of the nation suffers. True national prosperity cannot be founded on such a top-heavy architecture. Most Nigerians believe their lives are much harder now more than 13 years ago and getting worse. The hope that people still have about the future has nothing to do with the quality of government economic policy. It is mostly due to an innate sense of optimism that is a uniquely Nigerian trait which defies the normal standards of logic. It is one of the things that keeps Nigeria afloat though so many things say it should have already drowned.
10. The picture I have painted is stark but accurate, harsh but not hopeless. If I thought things were beyond hope, I would pursue another vocation. I am glued to this path because I believe a democratic, responsive government can improve Nigeria. However, if it persists along current policy lines, the federal government will resolve nothing and will preside over a worsening state.
11. I do not claim the opposition to be a choir of angels. We are not. Not all who call themselves to be opposition politicians are bona fide democrats. There is a principled opposition and an opportunistic one. Some are disgruntled elements of the current regime who have slipped into the opposition for a chance to settle personal scores or to advance personal ambitions through a different route. These people are opposition in name only; in reality, they are but the photographic negative of the status quo they purport to oppose.
12. Nor do I believe those in power are evil incarnate. Some are decent people. However, the governing system they have created and the dominant values under which that system operates extinguishes these people’s finer qualities. The overriding concern of the PDP political community is to retain power, not to advance the public welfare. With all our gaps and imperfections, the opposition is possessed of greater civic purpose and has in mind substantive policies qualitatively better than the toxin the current government is brewing.
13. In the rest of this address, I will contrast the policies of my party, the Action Congress of Nigeria, with those of government. You will see that we have significantly different visions. The problem with our current rulers is not that they don’t love Nigeria. They love the concept of Nigeria well enough. The real problem is that they care little for the average Nigerian.
14. Insecurity: A Growing Nemesis
Nigeria is fast becoming one of the most dangerous places on earth. The stories of militia killings, brutal attacks and bombings we thought restricted to Afghanistan, Iraq or Somalia are now daily fare in Nigeria. In Boko Haram, Nigeria confronts a creeping, low-grade, brutal insurgency. These extremists oppose more than the current Administration; they threaten Nigerian democracy. Large parts of the country now lie outside the authority and control of federal government. People in these areas are more cognizant of the extremists’ senseless violence than they are assured of the government’s ability to stop it.
15. There has been energetic debate whether poverty or a distorted Islamic radicalism feeds Boko Haram’s emergence. The debate is unnecessary. Both are factors. Poverty is a terrible weight that most of its sufferers bear silently. What rankles is not simply poverty but poverty occasioned by injustice. When young people concluded that their lives are finished before they start and that the reason for this is the corruption of government and established leaders, enter radical and violent ideas about Islam as the wrecking ball to tear down the corrupt edifice. Without this combustive mixture of poverty and injustice, Boko Haram would be a fringe movement with a few members engaged in petty crime. Because of this combination, Boko Haram is a socio-political reality with many members and even more sympathizers. Boko Haram is succeeding in its agenda to upend Nigeria. Not only has it challenged government authority across the North, it has revived ethno-religious antagonisms that were better left buried.
16. In the face of this threat, government has been ambivalent. One day, government states it will forcibly deal with the group. The next day government leans toward negotiations. Although this problem has been with us for some time, policy coordination remains ineffective. Because Government fears decisive action will produce political fallout, they have resolved to be irresolute. Thus, government has done little except leave an over-stretched and under-equipped police force, backed by army units in the most heavily-scarred locations, to respond to Boko Haram attacks and dispel their cells. The most one can say is that government policy is one of soft containment. This has proven to be ineffective, and perhaps counter-productive.
17. Government must realize BH is more than a law enforcement problem. It is a socio-political threat of such magnitude that confronting it can no longer be subservient to crass political calculations. Government must operate on a grander scale. While I do not fully agree with Assistant Secretary Carson’s proposal to create a Ministry of Northern Nigeria, I endorse the implication central to his recommendation: bold, strategic innovation is required.
18. Correct policy must be twofold. First, it must protect the people from repeated attacks. Second, it must weaken the extremist organization. Clandestine groups of this nature are comprised of factions of hardliners, pragmatists and casual followers. The task at hand is to drive a wedge between the other sub-groups and the hardliners. The pragmatists will be amenable to negotiation and reintroduction into society. As a socio-political solution is being fashioned in a way that reduces the number, operational breadth and political strength of BH, government can then treat the reduced number of hardliners as more strictly a law enforcement matter. What follows are important suggestions that government should explore to achieve these objectives:
A. Improve local community-based information-gathering and sharing.
B. Enhance local conflict resolution measures.
C. Deploy adequate and trained security personnel and establish community policing
D. Compel better coordination of intelligence among security agencies
E. Set up local human rights monitoring groups.
F. Create employment and economic opportunities.
G. Open dialogue with the pragmatists and local opinion-makers.
H.Provide feeding lunch in primary and high schools to take children off the streets
I. Direct support to the farmers; combined with skills development programs for the unemployed.
Economic Policy: The Richer the Nation, the Poorer the People?
19. The vast difference between the government’s economic outlook and that of my party was manifest in government’s mishandling of the fuel subsidy removal. Government revealed a preference for fiscal austerity that would increase costs paid by the private sector thus deflating aggregate demand at a time when the private sector was stagnant and more deserving of fiscal stimulus than in need of restraint. The public eruption that followed government’s decision transcended the fuel subsidy. This decision and the public’s reaction were about the relationship between government and the people and about the primary objective of government’s role in the economy. It was about whom, among the Nigeria’s various social classes, did government most value. This was why mass demonstrations occurred in major cities throughout the land. The protests were not because people would spend more for gas. The protests were because people felt betrayed.
20. Government’s decision to remove the subsidy was made simply because this government saw more value in “making” money than in “saving” the hard-pressed masses. In other words, the people were not worth the expenditure. By seeking to end the subsidy, government breached the social contract for no compelling reason. Months before the fateful decision, the opposition met with the government and warned it about the dangers of its approach. Instead of attacking the subsidy because it affronted economic orthodoxy, government should have weighed the actual political and economic benefits of the expenditure. The opposition insisted that there must be conditions precedent. My party was not wedded to the subsidy but was wedded to the maintenance of a comparable level of investment in public on social programs. We suggested a plan whereby the subsidy would be methodically phased out and the people compensated with investment in public transportation, primary health care, and infrastructural development. Complementing this would have been a public affairs strategy fully explaining to the people that the change was not to breach the social contract but to improve it.
21. The starting point should have been a calculation of the amount government could afford to spend on the general welfare given the level of overall national economic activity and the constraints imposed on government expenditure by inflation. Ignoring our counsel, government lifted the subsidy by stealth. Government also deployed armed soldiers to deter further protests. This episode reveals the vast difference between opposition and government economic policy. The priority of fiscal policy should be the maximum improvement of the overall economy. Fiscal surpluses or deficits are but tactics to achieve this objective. Sadly, government has elevated a mere tactic to the status of the primary objective.
22. The Nigerian economy is characterized by idle human capacity and thus suppressed aggregate demand. Government fiscal policy has a significant role to play in putting the idle to work. The current administration seeks the path of austerity. This will push Nigeria into the same predicament the United Kingdom and the Euro zone now face. Government expenditure is needed to stimulate the economy up to the point where the growth of inflation does not cause such damage that it erases the benefit derived from the additional expenditure.
23. Last, we need to reform the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the labyrinth of agencies that nurse at its udder. The current Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, is not the right effective prescription. For instance, the bill yields too much power to the Minister of Petroleum. Furthermore, some parts of the bill makes the oil sector even more fertile ground for corruption and patronage. The bill should be amended so that the NNPC functions like a duly regulated publicly owned and publicly traded company. This will minimize the opaqueness that now characterizes company operations. Earned revenues will then be used for their stated purpose and not some one’s private political end. Also, the PIB needs to be recalibrated in order to strike a fairer balance between the needs and objectives of international oil companies and the needs of Nigeria. The Brazilian experience with Petrobras and the success made of it is here instructive. Norway is flourishing today because of transparency in its oil industry operations.
If we can take these aforementioned steps, government will promote growth that benefits ordinary Nigerians. If we continue as we are, the Nigerian economy will cement into a highly bifurcated, unjust one where a small elite enjoys the fruit of life while the majority of Nigerians participate on the losing side of a life-long contest against poverty.
24. Electoral Reform: Less Than Meets the Eye
As a result of agitation by the opposition after the 2007 elections, the late President Yar’Adua inaugurated the Electoral Reform Committee. Chaired by former Chief Justice, Muhammed Uwais, the Committee produced a comprehensive report enumerating 83 substantive recommendations. With this document, Nigeria has the blue print needed for electoral reform. Key recommendations dealt with ensuring the independence of the Electoral Commission and of creating an electoral process less vulnerable to manipulation. If implemented in full, the report would have radically transformed the political landscape, placing Nigeria on the path to fair elections and legitimate democracy. Save for the replacement of the INEC chairman, only few of the recommendations were enacted.
25. The 2011 elections were better than the 2007 edition. However, they were not of the outstanding quality government and many international observers claimed. In a way, international observers did Nigeria a disservice. Expecting the worst, they unduly applauded the modest improvement that took place in 2011. Observers should not have been taken in by the orderliness of the ballot casting at the local polling booth. In Nigeria, the ordinary people have always done their part. The people are ready for democracy. It is the most powerful faction of the political elite that is not. Your observers did see what happened before Election Day or after the polls closed. Observers judged a complicated electoral play solely by viewing one of its several acts. If they had observed more carefully, they would have seen that hundreds of members of the opposition were beaten, several others killed and scores detained simply for carrying the membership card of the wrong party. In parts of the country, it effectively became a crime to be a member of the opposition. In many parts of the country, the voting tallys were so inflated as to embarrass the less flagrant agents of malpractice in the ruling party.
This is a truer picture of the 2011 elections than the tidy fable widely disseminated. The negative consequence of the overinflated measure is that the bar has been set too low for subsequent elections. Those in power believe they do not need to improve the process. This would be a gross miscalculation. Should subsequent elections be of the same dismal quality, there could be an eruption that bypasses the court system as the best means for resolving the egregious malpractices.
26. Although facing this stacked deck, the ACN registered electoral gains. Made anxious by our victories, the PDP has determined that we shall not win another contest where they field the incumbent. In this vein, the lone reform they promoted since the 2011 election was a measure terminating electoral complaints 180 days after their filing. Rarely do cases get heard within the time allotted by the new provision. This means most cases will ultimately be dismissed on a feeble technicality. All the guilty party need do is to stall court proceedings, which is an easy feat in Nigeria. If this law had previously existed, the successful complaints lodged by the opposition in Ekiti, Osun, Edo and Ondo states after the 2007 elections would have been rejected on technical grounds. The criminality of those who actually lost the contests and rigged the vote tally would have been rewarded by granting them the highest office in their states. Let me state unequivocally, that the 180-day law is an imposition against the just disposition of electoral disputes. It is a cynical use of the law to protect the corrupt hijacking of the electoral process and the electorate will. The ruling party, PDP has used the tyranny of its majority in the Parliament to abrogate the electoral rights of Nigerians to fair hearing. The opposition will be relentless in the fight to upturn this unjust law.
27. What the new 180-day law does is to first strike fear in the minds of citizens that legitimate petitions will fail and then create doubts about the electoral system and the dispensation of justice. Ultimately, this could lead to people pouring out on the streets to resolve electoral disputes or simply resorting to other means of self-help. (Ladies and gentlemen, I restate that what this law has done is to circumscribe one of the fundamental human rights of the Nigerian people.)
28. Centralists versus Federalists
In reaction to opposition gains at the state level, the current Administration has embarked on a program to consolidate more power in the federal government. It seeks a constitutional amendment shifting the control over local government funds from the States to the federal government. This effort mocks federalism and is not endorsed by substantive logic except the logic of a naked power play. By controlling the finances of local governments, the federal government will acquire greater power while undermining state governments.
29. Another blatant encroachment against federalism is the establishment of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, (SWF). This is another instance where the international community has done Nigeria a disservice by applauding the Nigerian model of SWF. Under this set-up, the federal government uses as it wishes funds belonging to the States. As such, the mechanism violates the constitution. It is doubletalk for the international community to claim support for the rule of law in Nigeria then encourage the federal government to rupture the constitution. Our constitution mandates that revenues are completely allocated to the federal, state and local governments. The SWF amounts to an illegal confiscation of state and local funds by the federal government. If the SWF is allowed to stand, the federal government will be free to concoct subsequent excuses to withhold additional funds from the states. In time, federalism will erode because the fiscal independence of the States will become fiction.
30. Rule of Law: Where is it?
Demonstrating its preoccupation with remaining in power, the PDP government has engaged in a sustained attack against the rule of law. Starting with the Obasanjo administration to the present, its disregard for the judiciary and the rule of law has become the stuff of political legend in Nigeria. When confronted with an adverse judicial decision, the PDP government does what authoritarians do; they act as if the court does not exist and as if the decision was never made. This makes ruling much easier for them but makes democracy less real for the rest of us. If a judge has the temerity to deliver a few decisions in harmony with the rule of law but against them, our rulers do not accept this in good faith. They are prone to discipline the honest jurist. Thus, one year ago, the government suspended Court of Appeals President Salami because he had the courage to follow the law. Salami’s wrong was that he did right. Despite several panels of eminent jurists exonerating him of any impropriety, the government of Jonathan Goodluck has refused to respect the verdict of the law by reinstating him. An innocent and upright judge has been made to suffer. This shoddy treatment of a senior judge has a chilling effect on the rest of the judiciary. By effectively dismissing Salami, the government intends a strong caution to other judges: “Apply the law to us and you are in trouble. Do as we wish, your position on the bench shall be assured.”
31. This government cannot prosecute a war on corruption. To do so would require the government to mainly fight itself. That is why the EFCC, though being headed by a core professional and a team of experienced hands operates with little independent discretion. There is undue interference from the Ministry of Justice and the Presidency. Thus, cases are initiated but never finished. People are arrested but never effectively tried. Sometimes, they are let go with a only a slap on the wrist. It is mostly theatre and little fact. Someone recently quipped that the current administration has a unique way of minimizing corruption. It allows a choice few to make away with such a king’s ransom that everyone else who would consume at the government trough is forced into honesty because there is nothing left to take.
Additionally, the PDP government efforts at constitutional reform are confined to the aim of securing political power. They seek to abuse their majorities in the national and state assemblies to ram through amendments solidifying their grip on power. For instance, they are nursing an amendment proposing to rotate the Presidency among the nation’s six geopolitical zones so that during any given election only candidates from the anointed region can contest for office. I have referred to this as “Turn by Turn” politics. It is an untoward attempt to impose the PDP’s sordid interparty arrangement on the nation. The provision negates democracy. The people should always be afforded the right to vote for whomever they desire. Everyone should be allowed to contest for office and not be barred simply because their place of origin does not accord with someone else’s timetable.
32. We need to discuss our future, if necessary conduct a referendum on a number of issues that are germane to our future development. The idea that a ruling party can use its bogus majority in the National Assembly to tamper with the constitution and abrogate the right of Nigerians to vote and be voted for, to fair hearing alter the independence of the judiciary and promote division among the citizenry cannot chart a path to progress and development. Governance at the national level has veered too far off course. Tinkering around the constitution’s edges cannot provide the needed corrective measures. To most of us, the Jonathan Administration appears like the dazed captain using a teaspoon to bail water from his sinking vessel. We require a National Conference for two important reasons:
First, the present constitution was never established by the people. It is the handiwork of the military. A constitution that was forced on us does not have the requisite legitimacy needed for such a complex, diverse nation. The past thirteen years have revealed important flaws in the constitutional structure, namely the capacity of the federal executive to arrogate the powers of other governmental institutions. The exclusive legislative list is too large and overbearing. The states have suffered as a result. So have civil liberties. We need to drastically overhaul the constitution to provide for a more perfect federal system that restrains the ability of the federal executive to encroach on the prerogatives of other institutions and on individual liberties.
CONCLUSION
Nigeria has entered a troubling period. Government which is supposed to resolve the nation’s challenges now does the reverse. President Jonathan may have won the 2011election. However, since then, his errant policies have awakened the people to the grave mistake they made when they handed him the staff of office. If an election were held today, Jonathan would not win. To all Nigerians, his Administration has been a disappointment. If it continues as is, they will come to see it as a manifold disaster. By his policies; political and economic, the people believe he has turned his back on them, that he has broken the contract between the government and the governed. If given a viable alternative, they are more than ready to turn their back on him and his party. The opposition now is ready to provide that alternative.
Political competition in Nigeria is no longer primarily driven by personal rivalry or ethnic considerations. Democratic policy and principle drive the politics of my party. On one side, there stands the PDP and its governing aristocracy. Their vision for the nation is neither caring nor democratic. Their vision is to impress the vast majority into the service of small elite. They seek a Nigeria that is modern in appearance yet quasi-medieval in the relationship between the governing elite and the governed masses.
On the other side, stands the progressive opposition that seeks a more democratic, decentralized political structure as well as an open economy that creates more opportunities for those Nigerians who live below the crushing poverty line. Yet, Nigerians are not a sadistic lot. They know what they want and the kind of good governance such as we have in the six states controlled by the Action Congress of Nigeria they can deliver good governance. Nigerians will vote wisely but fear that an Independent Electoral Commission where card carrying members of the ruling party are appointed Resident Electoral Commissioners, (REC), will manipulate their votes.
I have no delusions. The task of developing Nigeria will be hard. The task of unseating the current party in power may even be harder. Yet, for the good of Nigeria, the opposition must persevere, the international community must support Nigeria in the renewed struggle to ensure the sanctity of the ballot box, foster respect for the rule of law and to build democratic and economic institutions that will endure. I thank you for listening.
pmnews.
No comments:
Post a Comment