It would have been amusing if it did not serve as a reminder of the many worrisome deficits in the nation’s human capital stock and qualities of leadership. I am referring to the attention-grabbing spat between a small group of elderly persons called Northern Elders Forum (NEF) and the Presidency over the state of national security a few days ago. Members of the Forum, whose average age, it would be safe to say, would hover around seventy five (and very likely to be almost entirely men) had released a scathing verdict on President Buhari’s record on handling national security. ‘Buhari has failed to protect Nigerians’, the media summed up their lengthy commentary on the state of the nation. ‘You are nobodies who lost along with Buhari’s opposition which you supported’, the President’s spokesman retorted immediately. A weary nation stirred a bit. It was settling into a permanent state of resignation that every grievance had been heard and treated with tired and routine excuses or plain, hostile silence.
The instant response from the president’s men suggested that these elders may not be entirely nobodies. It could also be the case that these ancients had found a sensitive spot on an administration running out of space to defend itself against just about every failing you can accuse an administration of. It is not entirely out of place to wonder if General Muhammadu Buhari would not have been an active member of this elders’ club if he had not made a second career as a politician seeking to become president. Think about it: he is about the same age as Professor Ango Abdullahi; he is northern; he had retired with a passion for service; he had campaigned against a weak administration and an insurgency that was increasing its reach into our lives; he had no stomach for corruption and poor governance; and he had put much value in working to make leadership account.
It all reminds you of this same group and a certain General Buhari who gave President Jonathan sleepless nights asking him where the Chibok girls were and why Boko Haram was guzzling up huge territory in the North East. These irritating elderly men are now reminding President Buhari that he won an election on the back of promises to end the insurgency by the end of 2015; that he knew what was wrong with the military and he could fix it; and he would retrieve all the Chibok girls.
Ordinarily an African community will put much store in the pronouncements of elders in charting courses during difficult times. Ours, however, is not an ordinary community. We are a nation substantially run by elderly men who are constantly taken to pieces by other elderly men. The president himself sits at the head of a government substantially made up of elderly men who have an uncanny resemblance with members of Northern Elders Forum. Key members of his inner circle are elderly northern men who are as hostile to change and criticism as Professor Ango’s ‘non-army’ are about wholesale change and persistent finger pointing. You can forgive President Buhari, therefore, if he is not entirely awed by old northern men who insist on telling him that things are seriously wrong, and how he should go about fixing the nation.
Elders quarrel in a nation with 70% of its population below 35 years of age, with less than 2% of its elected representatives at all levels below 35. 60% of the entire population lives below poverty line and a shrinking middle class compounds a frightening population growth. More than 50% of its female population are not involved in its economy as producers or distributors, and women are virtually non existent in the political process. At least 13 million of its children are Almajirai, and millions more will grow into adulthood without any preparation to participate in a productive economy. Its education facilities churn out hundreds of thousands of graduates ill-equipped to be productively engaged, and join the league of the bitter at absence of opportunities for the underprivileged. At least 3m of the population live as internally displaced persons, if you do not count those who squat with relations. Huge swathes of agricultural land is abandoned owing to insecurity; entire regions have become de-industrialized and massive deficits in basic economic and social infrastructure point to a threatened future for a country with the most wasted potential for greatness.
Nigeria’s poverty is most pronounced in the quality of its leadership. In most countries of the world an elected president will find it difficult to stay in power when he insists that daily slaughter and kidnapping of citizens can be explained away by the nature of the enemy or lack of appreciation of the complexities of security by a beleaguered citizenry. Not defeating an unusual enemy like the insurgency could be excused up to a point, but escalating kidnappings and bandit activity, which make a mockery of the state without evidence that leadership is willing to move beyond its normal, ineffective strategies cannot be tolerated. It is worse when vital institutions of state like the legislature operate as adjuncts of executive arms, oscillating between total capitulation and timid wrist-slapping. When leaders draw firm lines around what they owe citizens, and in effect, those lines leave citizens exposed to all manner of abuse, interests without political authority to respond to needs of the people find space for relevance or noise making.
There are many irritants in Nigeria like the Northern Elders Forum with a nose for opportunities to create ethnic, religious or regional issues out of the failings of elected leaders. In saner climes, these elders would have yielded grounds to a much younger generation of their children and grand children, but Nigerian politics is captive of a past scarred by many opportunistic assaults that have stunted its growth and prevented the emergence of generations of political leaders who are less trapped by a past. This is a past that bears a major imprint of these elders’ conclaves, but recreated to assume the hue of a guardian of hallowed values and protectors of particularistic interests. Elected leaders court them to sing their praises; lambast them as irrelevant antiques with loads of grievances; or pay them off to remain distant.
The Buhari administration will come increasingly under criticism of groups such as NEF because, for the most part, they say what most Nigerians say, which is that it is not doing well enough to secure citizens and improve the economy. The worst thing the Buhari administration will do is to dismiss criticisms from these groups and retreat into a permanent defensive posture because the nation does not understand that it is doing its best. The nation will only understand if it sees evidence of acceptance that more needs to be done, and concrete results on the ground. Busy-body elders will only become less relevant when leadership assumes real responsibility to solve national problems, and consigns quarreling elders to positions where their blessings and quiet counsel is what is needed to complement energy and vision of younger leaders.
Abubakar can be reached at [email protected]
