Locking the stables…

The president, who spoke at the dedication of the House on the Rock Church’s cathedral, said Nigeria had undergone a series of tough times, particularly during the military era, but that it was the intercessions and prayers of Christians that prevented even worse things from happening in this country. “The great task before us as a nation is to demonstrate unfailing love wherever we are and to show that underlying our faith and belief is peace and harmony, never hostility or violence,” he also said. We should excuse most of the imprecise language since the occasion was the dedication of a cathedral. Still, some people may find it curious that a leader will attribute his country’s survival entirely to prayers.

Now, if you run for election with a nebulous agenda such as President Jonathan did in 2011, you are bound to run into trouble sooner or later. If Nigerians’ expectations were raised to a level that the administration is now finding it difficult to meet, it was its own fault, at least by not reigning in its election propagandists. During the 2011 election, the Jonathan campaign office’s art department waxed poetic and erected giant billboards promising “A breath of fresh air”. Many such billboards were erected on highways; I used to drive past one on my way to work every morning. It was a brilliantly hopeful message, but it should not have been put out without a complementary program of rule to back it up. Sooner or later, reality was bound to catch up with the rhetoric. A far-sighted strategist who was thinking beyond the election period would not have authorised a message promising a breath of fresh air when the Jonathan campaign completely relied on all the old ways of acquiring and retaining power, namely the heavy use of incumbency powers, relying heavily on the PDP political machine as well as injecting a heavy dose of money donated by contractors, top corporate figures and the heads of juicy state corporations.

In Nigeria, one can get elected to a high state office entirely without a program. In my career as a reporter of Nigerian politics I have seen some leaders who got elected first and then thought of a governance program later. I know a man who was elected a state governor, who then appointed a committee to work out an agenda for him. When the committee members met with him and asked for some guidance in the task, he had none to offer. President Jonathan first spoke about having a “transformation agenda” about a month after the last election. He wasn’t the first to do so; President Umaru Yar’adua first spoke of his 7-point agenda at his first press conference after winning the 2007 election.

Okay, even if this is the accepted way of doing things in Nigeria, it is still good to work out a concrete and measurable program of governance soon after the election and to thereafter concentrate on it with the focus of a laser beam. If the leader does not have a concrete and measurable agenda, then his direction and pace will be entirely set by other people’s agenda. There is no shortage of invitations and requests that will land on the president’s desk; unless he imposes order and discipline on his own agenda, he will just be swayed this way and that like a willow tree in a gale. President Jonathan is demonstrably more active than his predecessor Yar’adua, but there is no coherent pattern to his presidential activity, most of which is to fit other people’s agenda. Courtesy calls; an ECOWAS meeting, followed by an AU meeting, a G8 invitation, a CHOGM, and so on.

The president is susceptible to such tug and pull, because his own agenda of rule is not firm. What are the concrete elements of the transformation agenda? I cannot remember ever seeing a document where the administration said it wants to transform Nigeria from this state to this one. Instead, whenever the Federal Executive Council approves a certain project, official spokesmen would claim that it is part of the transformation agenda. Such claims were made for power sector contracts and the Oronsaye committee on public service consolidation. The agenda is so nebulous that every small success recorded by any Federal Government agency, from tax collection to housing to sports, is attributed to the transformation agenda. It thus became a cheap propaganda line for ministers and agency heads wishing to ingratiate themselves with the president.  

Even though President Jonathan is very visible and active, his administration is generally inefficient, for example in terms of budget preparation and implementation. Every year since 2010 it recorded very low percentage rates of budget implementation despite the controversial definition of what constitutes budget implementation. The government could not issue any white papers on the reports of high profile committees such Galtimari committee on insecurity in the North East, the Lemu panel report on post election violence, or the Oronsaye committee report of streamlining government agencies.  There were rumours that a decision had been made based on Oronsaye’s report to scrap NECO, NAPEP and UTME but these were denied. No action was taken on Ribadu’s report on oil sector sleaze, and no action has been taken on the University of Abuja crisis even after a visitation panel concluded its work and the Ministry of Education said it drafted a white paper and submitted it to the presidency.

Inefficiency apart, other high-profile episodes that eroded the message of fresh air include Jonathan’s refusal to publicly declare his assets and his unfortunate use of the phrase “I don’t give a damn” to calls that he should do so. Allowing the businessman Mr. Femi Otedola to remain close to the president and a member of the circle of economic advisers despite attempting to bribe a legislative committee was the opposite the fresh air, as was the blunt refusal to deal with Ms Arunma Oteh despite her indictment by a National Assembly investigation. The pardon granted to former Bayelsa State Governor DSP Alamieyeseigha completely messed up the fresh air message. This is not to mention the case of pension task force boss Abdulrasheed Maina. The widespread belief is that the administration shielded him from Senate investigation and abetted his escape from the country. For the president to ask the Head of Service to punish Maina for absenteeism [read: fleeing] without mentioning the hundreds of billions of naira the Senate is alleging he mismanaged was a gale of putrid air mixed up with toxic corruption fumes.

On top of these is the president’s thinly veiled 2015 ambition, which has produced several anti-fresh air moves of its own. Installing Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as party chairman was one crude element of the 2015 ambition; he has ruined the party with a combination of arrogance, crude methods and the selfishness of trying to install his son as the next governor of Adamawa State. crude attempts to recapture structures of the ruling party and oust dissenters isn’t fresh air either, nor was the re-installation of old warhorse Tony Anenih as party Board of Trustees chairman, given his many toxic contributions to Nigerian politics and governance since 1993. No one ever said the transformation agenda should be a magic wand. Right now however, it does not have even the potency of a police music band conductor’s wand.

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