16 May, 2006
aliyutilde@yahoo.com
I will not forget 16 May, 2006, the day that the Senate nailed the coffin of Obasanjo’s ambition for life presidency. The President must from now think of what to do with the rest of his life. He must be thinking of returning to Otta, at least for some days if not for the rest of his life. But Otta Farm will not be the same for him since he has squandered the goodwill it had which hitherto attracted the cream of our society. Prison will also feature in his calculation. Will the next President send him to jail after discovering his corruption activities?
Particularly as a result of the last possibility – jail - the President will naturally be preoccupied in his lame duck days with not less than five things. One, he will be thinking of how to clean the fingerprints that will implicate him in the future when Nigerians discover the colossal corruption that took place at NNPC, privatisation exercise, National ID card project, ministerial allocations, 2003 elections, Presidential library, third term, and so forth.
Two, since some of the fingerprints are indelible, he will also be planning to handover the presidency to a person who will decide to let the sleeping dogs lie. Here, Mr President is too late, for the time he should have used to manoeuvre was wasted planning for a third term. We are more worried that this contemplation will force the president to choose a thoroughly corrupt person to succeed him. Our days of suffering may not be over then.
Three, the president in the next few months may embark on his his last grab. God save the NNPC account! It is likely that we will witness something similar to the policy rush during the Abdulsalami days. Obasanjo is notorious for repeating every mistake of his predecessors. This will not be an exception. Appointments into strategic positions in the civil service; signing of huge contracts; speedy release of payments; completion of privatisation of important parastatals like NITEL and NEPA; etc, will be accelerated without even going through due process. The acceleration will not only be as a result of the President’s interest, but also that of his cronies, third term stalwarts, ministers, business partners and so on, with each rushing to make his last kill.
Four, the President will from 16 May 2006 enter his lame duck days, when he will cease to have the impact he had before as the President. Nigerians and the world will start to see him as outgoing, listening to him as they listen to a person on the death bed. No prudent businessman will sign any long term contract with the regime; he will wait until the next President is sworn into office. No nation will accord Obasanjo the treatment of an effective President, but only as someone whose relevance is over; they will be more interested to listen to who will succeed him. This is a situation that the President has dreaded all along. I was happy that he did not collapse in France the moment the Senate took that milestone decision on 16 May.
Five, the President will live for the rest of his life in shame. Here is a person who preferred shame to honour; whom God has given two chances of becoming a hero forever in our history but chose to be a disaster; and who spoke virulently against the corruption of other leaders only to prove being worse. He saw himself as the Almighty and wanted to lead for ever. He could not even see that Nigeria was bigger than Chad, Togo or Uganda. He broke every promise, and parted with every friend. Instead of choosing to remain with the noble, he sided with the crooks that led him to the pit of eternal dishonour. He will neither die the messiah he once hoped to become nor the statesman he once claimed. We will list him among our most incompetent and corrupt leaders.
16 May 2006 is not a waterloo for Obasanjo alone. Almost all governors who thought that third term agenda will offer them the chance to extend their tenures will share the five troubles of Mr. President which we listed above. The battle over the successor that will not expose them; the gradual motion of people away from them; their rush to grab the last opportunities to steal; and their fate after handing over will particularly preoccupy their minds for the next one year.
All those who partook in his third term project will find it very difficult to reconstruct the respect they had in our society. And they are many; in fact too many to mention. Some governors were carried by greed to support the third term, wanting to remain lords over their people forever; some were driven by the fear that EFCC dog will be set against them, given the stupendous theft they have committed; and some for both reasons – corruption and greed, hoping that third term will offer them the opportunity to loot their states ad infinitum.
Even among the mediocre governors who supported the third term, those of Nasarawa, Borno and Yobe deserve stoning. These political prostitutes terribly disappointed Nigerians. Bukar Abba Ibrahim for example was telling the world that since Adam, Yobe has never witnessed development as it did during the last seven years. The clown has forgotten that Yobe was at a time the seat of one of the most prosperous empires in Africa – the Borno Empire. It was very stressful to see a leader of Yobe State reducing himself to this level of buffoonery. The day I heard that interview over the BBC, I raised my hand asking God to intervene between us and these cheats. And he did, on 16 May, 2006.
But if the three governors are barely educated, I must regret that even my mentor, Jibril Aminu, has at this last stage his life muddled into such a mess after series of record performances in all his previous assignments from a headboy at Barewa College up to his position as Minister of Education and, later, of Petroleum. I wonder why he did not choose to be like Sunday Awoniyi. Despite his involvement in the third term, Aminu is certainly not the man one would ever like to denigrate. But it pains to record that he is concluding his life on a terribly bad note. The only excuse one can give for his depreciating performance is that he has reached his level of incompetence, in accordance with the Peter Principle, which states that each of us will continue to rise until he reaches his level of incompetence. Aminu did not use the wisdom of his ancestors who said power, among four things, must never be trusted. Or is he thinking that Obasanjo will give him the presidential ticket?
Of course there are people in the National Assembly who are not worth of mentioning here – people like Mantu, Tafida, etc. Their fate in politics is sealed.
But 16 May, 2006 is not a day that exposed the scoundrels alone. We must mention our heroes. Charity, they say, begins at home. I am from a state whose politicians who, despite the ambivalent stand of the governor over the third term, categorically rejected the third term. I am very proud of that. My sincere appreciation goes to Bello Kirfi and his group of elders. It seems that this effort has made me to temporarily forgive the dishonesty and cheating they perpetrated against the opposition in the 2003 elections. He has proved to be the father of Bauchi politics. I hope Kirfi will maintain the strength of their coalition and use it to ensure that an equally competent person succeeds Muazu.
Our appreciation also goes to governors Tinubu of Lagos State, Kalu of Abia, Boni Haruna of Adamawa, and Dariye of Plateau. These people are my heroes simply because they proved to be men; they refused to be intimidated by a person who is equally guilty through and thorough. Tinubu in particular, unlike other southwest governors, resisted the ethnic persuasion by an opportunist who was not Yoruba enough to ever support Obafemi Awolowo. Then, of course, governor Bafarawa, who right from the beginning condemned tazarce. “Nigerians,” he told the BBC in a humble voice a year ago, have tolerated us for six years. We should be grateful to leave the scene for another group of leaders.” Then Shekarau, who, ab initio, we never expected will support the perfidy. He did not disappoint us.
Then we come to the most important category of heroes – members of the National Assembly who stood firm against the agenda, despite threats to their lives and cash inducement. Ben Obi, Kuta, Dansadau, Mamora, Kirikasanma, Chukwumereji, Nuhu Aliyu, Baba Tela, Gandi, Bunza, Matori, and plenty others deserve our special praise. I do not think it will be a bad idea if a resolution is passed one day to engrave their names on the wall of the National Assembly for generations to come. They did it proud. I wish rallies will be held in their respective villages and towns to receive them as their ancestors were received when returning from the battlefield. Neither will it be a bad idea for the nation to declare May 16 a Legislature Day. Yearly, we will hold a rally on that day to remember our real victory over the devil of despotism and self-succession.
Lastly, we must mention the Nigerian public which in various capacities, as organizations or individuals, resisted, for the first time, to be swayed by sentiments which the pro-third term characters tried to whip up. They tried to divide us on basis of religion, but the Catholic Church and Christian Association of Nigeria came out to condemn the project; they tried to pitch the South against the North especially at the Enugu Conference where the North was abused recklessly by the President’s agents, but in the end, the appeals had little impact; etc.
It is also interesting to note that the battle against third term was won without public demonstrations, which the police used every tool to suppress. We are glad that, for whatever reasons, the West did not go wild. It kept mute, unlike during the IBB and Abacha era, except for the half-hearted condemnations that came from Afenifere and AD. Yes. We did not require lives to be lost on the streets of Lagos.
Our newspapers from various regions also deserve our mention. Majority of them have maintained the heat on the President and his cronies. Up here we commend the tremendous contributions of the Daily Trust which for seven years has maintained its status as a voice of reason. Then, of course, this newspaper, Leadership – the nightmare of Mr. President, which has offered the opportunity to express our views and vent our anger on the third term agenda. The contributions of Radio Deutche Welle, Voice of America and BBC, have also provided avenues, particularly for the common man, to listen and contribute to the debate over the third term agenda.
Finally, as the President and our Governors who thought they will never vacate their seats come to terms with the realities of 16 May which we listed in the first part of the article, we must start to map out ways of not allowing them impose a successor who is worse than the President, though it is difficult to contemplate one. In doing so, the political cohorts of the President will again use religion, ethnicity and regionalism to divide Nigerians. I wish the collective spirit with which we defeated the third term ambition of the President will remain strong enough to resist their machinations until the election day. I hope we will have the heart to choose a competent leader from any part of the country, any religion or any tribe. If that will happen, I will have cause to smile for the second time in my political career. The first was 16 May 2006.
Bauchi
17 May 2006
Showing posts with label Nigerian Democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nigerian Democracy. Show all posts
Friday, May 21, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Discourse 119 After Mugabe, Obasanjo
Friday Discourse (119)
After Mugabe, Obasanjo
Two issues have dominated political discourse in Nigerian politics today: the woeful failure of the Obasanjo administration and our apprehensions about 2003 elections. In our discussion today, we are presenting to our readers, as much as the space here would allow, a summary of a paper that elaborated on the two issues and presented last week at Center for Democratic Research and Training, Mambayya House, Kano on Saturday 23 March 2002. It was titled “The viability of democracy in Nigeria: Issues of the moment.” The full paper, containing details on references, is pasted on the website of the column.
Yardstick
The 1999 constitution has spelt out clearly in Chapter II what it calls the fundamental objectives and directive principles of government by which the administration is supposed to abide. Briefly, they include, inter alia, adhering to the provisions of the constitution1 and running the government according to the principles of democracy and social justice2 with sovereignty belonging to the people3 whose security and welfare shall be the primary purpose of government.4 The composition of government should “reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also command national loyalty…”5 The constitution also charges the government with abolishing “all corrupt practices and abuse of power.”6
On economic objectives of government the constitution states that the government shall, among other things, “harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic and self-reliant economy; control the national economy in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and opportunity.”7 The economy shall be run for the common good of Nigerians and not “operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group”8 while “exploitation of human or natural resources in any form whatsoever for reasons, other than the good of the community shall be prevented.”9
Performance
If the above provisions are used as a yardstick to measure the performance of this administration, then failure is the fairest conclusion that any dispassionate mind would reach at. The flagrant abuse of the provisions of the constitution has earned the President the name of a dictator; he has flouted the principle of democracy in various ways; the composition of his government is skewed in favor of his tribesmen; and he has failed to check corruption. Worse still, he is auctioning the country to individuals, foreign and local, in the name of privatization which is going on amidst all protest from the public and the legislature. In the following paragraphs we have summarized these failures as they concern some sectors of our politics and economy.
Beginning with security of lives and properties which according to the constitution is the primary responsibility of government, the performance has been exceptionally dismal. At no time, since the civil war, were so many lives and property lost than during the tenure of this administration. Ethnic and religious unrests have caused the death of thousands of Nigerians. The fact that in some cases they occurred many times in one city, like Lagos, Kaduna, Kano and Enugu, shows the reluctance of the government or its incompetence to actively stop the menace. Worst still, as we once mentioned10, the perpetrators are left to go free.
Neither is the polity more stable now than before. There is a renewal of secessionist agitations either in the form of old Biafra11 or the clever calls for restructuring that is championed by intellectuals of the southwest12 and which has given rise to terrorist organizations like the OPC and MASSOP.
The prevalence of poverty is something that the administration inherited from previous regimes. As far back as 1992, the percentage of Nigerians living under the poverty line has reached 34.7% and three states – Sokoto, Kano and Bauchi – already had it over 50%.13 The situation has continued to deteriorate in spite of democracy and the pledges of the President. In a recent interview over the BBC, the President admitted that poverty has sharply increased during his tenure but explained that, were it not for his effort, it would have been worse.14
The fact is that there is little on the ground to show that the federal government is serious about poverty alleviation. Budgetary allocations indicate a progressive decline in interest. The Presidency voted N10billion for poverty alleviation in 2000 budget. This figure, insufficient as it was, was reduced to N6billion in 2001 and further down to N1billion in 2002.15 The poverty alleviation program of the government at the grassroots level is nothing more than distribution of monthly allowances (called ‘pobati’ in the North) to party loyalists and thugs and attendance of seminars.16 The World Bank has also joined us in faulting the government‘s policy in this respect.17
It might be that the government does not like alleviating poverty by direct intervention. Then indirectly, agriculture would have been the sector to improve for maximum effect since it employs over 70% of the population. However, agriculture is among the sectors that suffers the worst setbacks since the debut of this administration. It stopped virtually all interventions, including the food supply program under the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF)18 and scrapped of bodies like National Agricultural Land Development Agency.19 It withdrew subsidy on fertilizer and consistently allocated ridiculous amounts (N3bn only this year),20 amidst public protests.21
The government also failed to make any impact in areas that are technically easy. Rehabilitation of roads is a good example. It revoked contracts awarded to the most reputable firms in the country in the second phase the PTF’s roads rehabilitation program. One and half years later, it awarded some of them to contractors who lack the technical ability to execute them. In spite of the contracts awarded at rates that are on the average six times higher than that of the PTF22, after one and half years some of the jobs are going at snail speed causing the deaths of many Nigerians;23,24 some were started and immediately abandoned;25 many have not commenced at all, a year after their award; and very few have been completed.26 There is even a case of double awards where the federal Ministry of Works claimed to have awarded the construction of a road that was earlier completed by a state government at half the price awarded by the Federal government.27
Let us come down to simple civil service matters, like the payment of salaries to workers and pensioners. So ineffective are the disbursements that even the Police went on strike;28 the army too threatened to embark on one, an action interpreted by government as mutiny.29 Three pensioners recently died while waiting for their pensions among over 1,000 ex-service men that barricaded the entrance of the defense headquarters in Abuja.30 Never in the history of the country was government so incompetent and insensitive.
The administration is not without its innovations and promises though. The most pronounced promise was that on electricity. The then Minister promised six months to register a substantial improvement in electricity generation and distribution in the country. Nothing was achieved, and the task had to be assigned to a presidential committee. In the aftermath of that failure, which saw the sacking of the management of National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), it was realized that the N2.3billion allocated to the organization for the improvement did not reach NEPA at all. A committee of the senate that investigated the matter found that the money was deposited in a private account for months.31 Then the President last year promised Nigerians uninterrupted power supply by the end of 2001. Three months into 2002 the promise has not been fulfilled.32 He has conceded failure and has set another date, June 2005(!), for generating 10,000 MW.33
The President also launched the Universal Basic Education program amidst accusations of marginalization by the North. A year lapsed after the launching without any blueprint at hand; two years later, today, no teacher or education administrator can convincingly explain what the program means or what it has achieved so far.
While it was ready to abolish all welfare programs it inherited from previous administrations without even following the due process of law34, the Obasanjo administration was very willing to retain privatization and pursue it with all vigor and haste35. The exercise is carried out without regard to national interest36, public protest, objection by the National Assembly37 or the advice of consultants.38 The reasons given for the privatization are invalid in most cases and the goal of attracting foreign capital has not been realized in many. Finally, there are strong allegations that the exercise is perturbed with corruption,39 which the Director General heading the exercise was unable to satisfactorily rebut.40 Revelations by PriceWaterHouse Coper, consultants to Bureau of Public Enterprises, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the confessions of error by the Director General at the public sitting of House of Representative Ad-hoc Committee on Privatization of NITEL have clearly shown gross flaws in the privatization of NITEL in favor of IIIL, the company which won the bidding.41 After all this, BPE has, as early as February is planning to list NITEL shares on Nigerian Stock Exchange, aware of the inability of IILL to pay for the shares.42 The question here is why the haste in the first place in defiance of the advice from consultants?
The President has promised to fight against corruption. After a long delay, a tribunal was promulgated and constituted43. However, no government official has been brought before it in spite of the abundance of such cases.44
Finally, the government is poor in its resource allocation. In a country perverted by poverty the President could buy a jet of N5.4 (the exact figure is not known to the public) and build a stadium of over $300million dollars in a capital whose sewage is flowing freely on its roads. It is also allocating N1billion this year to agriculture against N10bn for the national identity card scheme.
We cannot exhaust the failures of this government. Its performance is nowhere close to that of the Second Republic or even the Abacha administration. We share the same view with members of the House of Reps who resolved that “the President should apologize to Nigerians for the inability of his administration to tackle the socio-economic problems plaguing the nation.”45
But its greatest failure is in the field of democracy, which to most Nigeria means elections. This is what we shall discuss in the section that follows.
Strategies towards 2003
The failure of a government to live up to the expectations of its people is not new in the history of democracy. In such cases, the constitution has made provisions for the changing it. Such provisions include the formation of new parties,46 recalling of members of the legislature47, impeachment of the President48, and elections.49 The problem with the Obasanjo administration is how it immobilized these provisions in quest of political dominance and re-election in 2003.
The first was the anesthesia administered to opposition parties through federal appointments and contract awards. This started even before the presidential elections of 1999 when the leadership of All Peoples Party (APP) was lured into giving up the idea of fielding any presidential candidate. There was little wonder when immediately after assuming office the President appointed its leader as his adviser on inter-party affairs. He immediately abandoned the party, never to be heard again. It is likely that the same game will be played in 2003, where efforts will be made to ensure that the APP presidential candidate cannot match Obasanjo in personality and resources. The other party, Alliance for Democracy (AD), given its ethnic background, will support the second term of Obasanjo. So the PDP may likely go into alliance with it to ensure that it has defeated the APP during the next election.
Secondly, the present administration successfully moved to dominate the ruling party by planting loyalists of the President in key positions. The nation will hardly forget the corruption that pervaded the 1999 national convention of the party in Abuja. It was so brazen that senior party officials like Mal. Adamu Ciroma and Alh. Bello Kirfi – both members of the Federal Cabinet – had to draw the attention of the President. He ignored them. Later on, Okadigbo, who was opposed to Obasanjo, was impeached from the leadership of the senate. Ghali NaAbba – the Speaker of the House of Representatives – narrowly escaped after conceding a compromise with the Presidency.
Thirdly, the party was also glad that opposition groups within it became impatient about the non-performance of the President. They were expelled, immediately it became clear that they were contemplating forming new parties. Then the party held another convention in which no election took place. Party posts were shared between nominees loyal to the President and presented only for ratification by delegates.50
Fourthly, new parties have not been registered and the 2001 Electoral Act was itself tampered with by the President. Stringent conditions were imposed on the new parties and the sequence of election reversed. The tenure of local government chairmen was also extended in violation of the constitutional provisions.51
Fifthly, the PDP is deliberately delaying the promulgation of a new electoral act after repealing that of 2001. The delay, as rightly observed by the National Chairman of the APP52, will make matters worse for any new party, while the ruling PDP has long ago given Obasanjo a mandate for a second term. The doors have been slammed on other party members, like Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, to contest the primaries with him. When finally the new Act is passed by the Assembly and signed to law by the President later this year, time will be too late for the new parties to make any impact during the election.
Sixthly, how are we sure that there will even be elections in 2003? That is a question that many people would not rush to answer in affirmative. That is because, given how the Presidency and the PDP emasculated other parties and gradually built a culture of ‘consensus’ candidature, it could use all resources at its disposal to make other parties give up any contest. Already, last year, a leading campaigner for Obasanjo and an influential figure in the Arewa Consultative Forum, Malam Liman Ciroma, has voiced his approval of zero election in 2003. All elected office holders should be allowed a second term unconditionally. There are also strong indications that in some states the three registered parties are negotiating how the present governors will return unopposed.53
Finally, more apprehensions grew with the sacking of resident electoral commissioners by the President without even the knowledge of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC)54 and their replacement with members and loyalists of the ruling PDP in all states of the federation. According to one of the governors, nominations were done secretly by PDP governors.55 Earlier, the governors, like the President, also did not show fairness as required by the constitution in the appointments of their state INEC commissioners. Most of them constituted the body to their advantage with little or no regard to membership from other parties.
If failure in governance and subversion of democracy are the prerequisites of sanctions by the international community, it should hasten to leave Mugabe. A bigger fish is here to catch: Obasanjo.
After Mugabe, Obasanjo
Two issues have dominated political discourse in Nigerian politics today: the woeful failure of the Obasanjo administration and our apprehensions about 2003 elections. In our discussion today, we are presenting to our readers, as much as the space here would allow, a summary of a paper that elaborated on the two issues and presented last week at Center for Democratic Research and Training, Mambayya House, Kano on Saturday 23 March 2002. It was titled “The viability of democracy in Nigeria: Issues of the moment.” The full paper, containing details on references, is pasted on the website of the column.
Yardstick
The 1999 constitution has spelt out clearly in Chapter II what it calls the fundamental objectives and directive principles of government by which the administration is supposed to abide. Briefly, they include, inter alia, adhering to the provisions of the constitution1 and running the government according to the principles of democracy and social justice2 with sovereignty belonging to the people3 whose security and welfare shall be the primary purpose of government.4 The composition of government should “reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also command national loyalty…”5 The constitution also charges the government with abolishing “all corrupt practices and abuse of power.”6
On economic objectives of government the constitution states that the government shall, among other things, “harness the resources of the nation and promote national prosperity and an efficient, a dynamic and self-reliant economy; control the national economy in such manner as to secure the maximum welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen on the basis of social justice and opportunity.”7 The economy shall be run for the common good of Nigerians and not “operated in such a manner as to permit the concentration of wealth or the means of production and exchange in the hands of few individuals or of a group”8 while “exploitation of human or natural resources in any form whatsoever for reasons, other than the good of the community shall be prevented.”9
Performance
If the above provisions are used as a yardstick to measure the performance of this administration, then failure is the fairest conclusion that any dispassionate mind would reach at. The flagrant abuse of the provisions of the constitution has earned the President the name of a dictator; he has flouted the principle of democracy in various ways; the composition of his government is skewed in favor of his tribesmen; and he has failed to check corruption. Worse still, he is auctioning the country to individuals, foreign and local, in the name of privatization which is going on amidst all protest from the public and the legislature. In the following paragraphs we have summarized these failures as they concern some sectors of our politics and economy.
Beginning with security of lives and properties which according to the constitution is the primary responsibility of government, the performance has been exceptionally dismal. At no time, since the civil war, were so many lives and property lost than during the tenure of this administration. Ethnic and religious unrests have caused the death of thousands of Nigerians. The fact that in some cases they occurred many times in one city, like Lagos, Kaduna, Kano and Enugu, shows the reluctance of the government or its incompetence to actively stop the menace. Worst still, as we once mentioned10, the perpetrators are left to go free.
Neither is the polity more stable now than before. There is a renewal of secessionist agitations either in the form of old Biafra11 or the clever calls for restructuring that is championed by intellectuals of the southwest12 and which has given rise to terrorist organizations like the OPC and MASSOP.
The prevalence of poverty is something that the administration inherited from previous regimes. As far back as 1992, the percentage of Nigerians living under the poverty line has reached 34.7% and three states – Sokoto, Kano and Bauchi – already had it over 50%.13 The situation has continued to deteriorate in spite of democracy and the pledges of the President. In a recent interview over the BBC, the President admitted that poverty has sharply increased during his tenure but explained that, were it not for his effort, it would have been worse.14
The fact is that there is little on the ground to show that the federal government is serious about poverty alleviation. Budgetary allocations indicate a progressive decline in interest. The Presidency voted N10billion for poverty alleviation in 2000 budget. This figure, insufficient as it was, was reduced to N6billion in 2001 and further down to N1billion in 2002.15 The poverty alleviation program of the government at the grassroots level is nothing more than distribution of monthly allowances (called ‘pobati’ in the North) to party loyalists and thugs and attendance of seminars.16 The World Bank has also joined us in faulting the government‘s policy in this respect.17
It might be that the government does not like alleviating poverty by direct intervention. Then indirectly, agriculture would have been the sector to improve for maximum effect since it employs over 70% of the population. However, agriculture is among the sectors that suffers the worst setbacks since the debut of this administration. It stopped virtually all interventions, including the food supply program under the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF)18 and scrapped of bodies like National Agricultural Land Development Agency.19 It withdrew subsidy on fertilizer and consistently allocated ridiculous amounts (N3bn only this year),20 amidst public protests.21
The government also failed to make any impact in areas that are technically easy. Rehabilitation of roads is a good example. It revoked contracts awarded to the most reputable firms in the country in the second phase the PTF’s roads rehabilitation program. One and half years later, it awarded some of them to contractors who lack the technical ability to execute them. In spite of the contracts awarded at rates that are on the average six times higher than that of the PTF22, after one and half years some of the jobs are going at snail speed causing the deaths of many Nigerians;23,24 some were started and immediately abandoned;25 many have not commenced at all, a year after their award; and very few have been completed.26 There is even a case of double awards where the federal Ministry of Works claimed to have awarded the construction of a road that was earlier completed by a state government at half the price awarded by the Federal government.27
Let us come down to simple civil service matters, like the payment of salaries to workers and pensioners. So ineffective are the disbursements that even the Police went on strike;28 the army too threatened to embark on one, an action interpreted by government as mutiny.29 Three pensioners recently died while waiting for their pensions among over 1,000 ex-service men that barricaded the entrance of the defense headquarters in Abuja.30 Never in the history of the country was government so incompetent and insensitive.
The administration is not without its innovations and promises though. The most pronounced promise was that on electricity. The then Minister promised six months to register a substantial improvement in electricity generation and distribution in the country. Nothing was achieved, and the task had to be assigned to a presidential committee. In the aftermath of that failure, which saw the sacking of the management of National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), it was realized that the N2.3billion allocated to the organization for the improvement did not reach NEPA at all. A committee of the senate that investigated the matter found that the money was deposited in a private account for months.31 Then the President last year promised Nigerians uninterrupted power supply by the end of 2001. Three months into 2002 the promise has not been fulfilled.32 He has conceded failure and has set another date, June 2005(!), for generating 10,000 MW.33
The President also launched the Universal Basic Education program amidst accusations of marginalization by the North. A year lapsed after the launching without any blueprint at hand; two years later, today, no teacher or education administrator can convincingly explain what the program means or what it has achieved so far.
While it was ready to abolish all welfare programs it inherited from previous administrations without even following the due process of law34, the Obasanjo administration was very willing to retain privatization and pursue it with all vigor and haste35. The exercise is carried out without regard to national interest36, public protest, objection by the National Assembly37 or the advice of consultants.38 The reasons given for the privatization are invalid in most cases and the goal of attracting foreign capital has not been realized in many. Finally, there are strong allegations that the exercise is perturbed with corruption,39 which the Director General heading the exercise was unable to satisfactorily rebut.40 Revelations by PriceWaterHouse Coper, consultants to Bureau of Public Enterprises, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the confessions of error by the Director General at the public sitting of House of Representative Ad-hoc Committee on Privatization of NITEL have clearly shown gross flaws in the privatization of NITEL in favor of IIIL, the company which won the bidding.41 After all this, BPE has, as early as February is planning to list NITEL shares on Nigerian Stock Exchange, aware of the inability of IILL to pay for the shares.42 The question here is why the haste in the first place in defiance of the advice from consultants?
The President has promised to fight against corruption. After a long delay, a tribunal was promulgated and constituted43. However, no government official has been brought before it in spite of the abundance of such cases.44
Finally, the government is poor in its resource allocation. In a country perverted by poverty the President could buy a jet of N5.4 (the exact figure is not known to the public) and build a stadium of over $300million dollars in a capital whose sewage is flowing freely on its roads. It is also allocating N1billion this year to agriculture against N10bn for the national identity card scheme.
We cannot exhaust the failures of this government. Its performance is nowhere close to that of the Second Republic or even the Abacha administration. We share the same view with members of the House of Reps who resolved that “the President should apologize to Nigerians for the inability of his administration to tackle the socio-economic problems plaguing the nation.”45
But its greatest failure is in the field of democracy, which to most Nigeria means elections. This is what we shall discuss in the section that follows.
Strategies towards 2003
The failure of a government to live up to the expectations of its people is not new in the history of democracy. In such cases, the constitution has made provisions for the changing it. Such provisions include the formation of new parties,46 recalling of members of the legislature47, impeachment of the President48, and elections.49 The problem with the Obasanjo administration is how it immobilized these provisions in quest of political dominance and re-election in 2003.
The first was the anesthesia administered to opposition parties through federal appointments and contract awards. This started even before the presidential elections of 1999 when the leadership of All Peoples Party (APP) was lured into giving up the idea of fielding any presidential candidate. There was little wonder when immediately after assuming office the President appointed its leader as his adviser on inter-party affairs. He immediately abandoned the party, never to be heard again. It is likely that the same game will be played in 2003, where efforts will be made to ensure that the APP presidential candidate cannot match Obasanjo in personality and resources. The other party, Alliance for Democracy (AD), given its ethnic background, will support the second term of Obasanjo. So the PDP may likely go into alliance with it to ensure that it has defeated the APP during the next election.
Secondly, the present administration successfully moved to dominate the ruling party by planting loyalists of the President in key positions. The nation will hardly forget the corruption that pervaded the 1999 national convention of the party in Abuja. It was so brazen that senior party officials like Mal. Adamu Ciroma and Alh. Bello Kirfi – both members of the Federal Cabinet – had to draw the attention of the President. He ignored them. Later on, Okadigbo, who was opposed to Obasanjo, was impeached from the leadership of the senate. Ghali NaAbba – the Speaker of the House of Representatives – narrowly escaped after conceding a compromise with the Presidency.
Thirdly, the party was also glad that opposition groups within it became impatient about the non-performance of the President. They were expelled, immediately it became clear that they were contemplating forming new parties. Then the party held another convention in which no election took place. Party posts were shared between nominees loyal to the President and presented only for ratification by delegates.50
Fourthly, new parties have not been registered and the 2001 Electoral Act was itself tampered with by the President. Stringent conditions were imposed on the new parties and the sequence of election reversed. The tenure of local government chairmen was also extended in violation of the constitutional provisions.51
Fifthly, the PDP is deliberately delaying the promulgation of a new electoral act after repealing that of 2001. The delay, as rightly observed by the National Chairman of the APP52, will make matters worse for any new party, while the ruling PDP has long ago given Obasanjo a mandate for a second term. The doors have been slammed on other party members, like Alhaji Abubakar Rimi, to contest the primaries with him. When finally the new Act is passed by the Assembly and signed to law by the President later this year, time will be too late for the new parties to make any impact during the election.
Sixthly, how are we sure that there will even be elections in 2003? That is a question that many people would not rush to answer in affirmative. That is because, given how the Presidency and the PDP emasculated other parties and gradually built a culture of ‘consensus’ candidature, it could use all resources at its disposal to make other parties give up any contest. Already, last year, a leading campaigner for Obasanjo and an influential figure in the Arewa Consultative Forum, Malam Liman Ciroma, has voiced his approval of zero election in 2003. All elected office holders should be allowed a second term unconditionally. There are also strong indications that in some states the three registered parties are negotiating how the present governors will return unopposed.53
Finally, more apprehensions grew with the sacking of resident electoral commissioners by the President without even the knowledge of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC)54 and their replacement with members and loyalists of the ruling PDP in all states of the federation. According to one of the governors, nominations were done secretly by PDP governors.55 Earlier, the governors, like the President, also did not show fairness as required by the constitution in the appointments of their state INEC commissioners. Most of them constituted the body to their advantage with little or no regard to membership from other parties.
If failure in governance and subversion of democracy are the prerequisites of sanctions by the international community, it should hasten to leave Mugabe. A bigger fish is here to catch: Obasanjo.
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