Lets nudge these Southern Senators!

So the southern caucus of Nigerian Senators were able to find their way to Calabar to discuss grave issues that are of vital concern to the southern part of the country called Nigeria. Of course, that big grammar means that they are likely going to talk about restructuring and resource control, issues that they strangely left in the hands of a Northern All Progressives Congress (APC) Governor in the name of El Rufai. Governor El Rufai couldn't care less about resource control and restructuring, he is too busy distracting Kaduna state citizens and indeed the whole nation with his education reforms which every governor seems to admire and may blindly copy.
Granted that we cannot afford semi literate teachers to handle our children anymore,but that is not the main issue in Kaduna today. El Rufai is yet to deal with Fulani killer herdsmen or Killer Fulani Herdsmen(do they mean the same?) till date. We do not know who attacked the various settlements in Southern Kaduna and it appears that these killings might be buried. There is something macabre playing out in cattle herdsmen who can ransack a village, kill people and go free.The other day when Arewa youths gave a quit notice to Igbo people living in the North, El Rufai vowed to have them arrested. Till date nothing has been done.
But back to the Sourthern Senators. Most of them have neither defined or understood how to present the case of restructuring and resource control in the Senate without angering their northern counter parts. Are the trappings of office so sweet that they cannot even focus on the future of the people that elected them? If they do not get it right this time when will they? These senators need a nudge so they can wake up from their eldorado slumber and start working for the people they represent. If the people want restructuring and resource control,they had better handle it pronto!

The sit tight strategy of the Nigerian politician

The Nigerian politician is a rarebreed. At the level of a governor, a legislator or even a local government chairman he has developed a system that enables him to run roughshod over the electorate, keep them at his beck and call even as he engages in activites and programmes that are not necessarily to the advantage of those who supposedly voted him into office.  He schemes and plots his way to perpetuity in office moving  from one position to another and a gulllble electorate that suffer from ethnic and religious prejudices back him to hilt, even when he is hurting them with his selfish principles. It’s a tragedy.  But it subsists in the Nigerian nation. Here is a break down of the common approach that the politicians in Nigeria often use in winning elections and keeping themselves in power.

1.       Look for a Godfatther: There are not many politicians in Nigeria who do not have a godfather. The Nigerian scene of political contest has replaced the mentor/protégé relationship that exists in other climes around the world with something more crude and belittling in godfatherism. A so called elder statesman holds the hand of a younger politician who he has signed a pact with and practically tells the electorate that “this is the person they should vote for”. The mentor’s approach to this is slightly different since all the elder politician does is show his support for the younger with the hope that his older breed of followers and loyalists will follow suit in with their support.  The Godfather is expected to swing the nomination for his candidate within the party and  help convince delegates and even induce them to vote for the person of his choice. This inducement could mean outright bribery at times so the Godfather ought to have deep pockets. 

2.       Once the nomination is obtained in the party the next step is to campaign for and contest the elections. There are many forces that could sway a candidate into office. Some virutally unknown candidates would ride on the “coat tails” of a popular candidate and get into political office merely because they are in the same party. We saw this play out a lot during the Buhari 2015 victory in which many unknown candidates in the legislative and even at the gubernatorial level came into office. Many of them had merely taken the gamble to see what could come out of it. At the end of the day, they do not take their responsibility seriously and are merely out to enjoy the trappings of office for as long as possible.  Elections can be won in different ways. Politiicians in this part of the world work hard to influence the outcome of the ballot. Bribing electoral officials, tip voters to vote in their favor, nothing should be put past these desperadoes who would do anything to achieve their goal.

3.       Once in office, its good to begin with a few populists moves in form of projects or what we love to call “dividends of democracy” to entice the populace and make them feel you are on their side. Usually the opposite is the case. A few years in power and the real politician will manifest. Many of them behave like the proverbial mad man who uses the hoe to plough the field to his favor. During this stage of his political scheme, the incumbent gets involved in as many projects or contracts as possible. The idea is to have as many sources of returns or finance as he is able to. The objective is to build a nest egg. Some of them virtually dip their hands into the treasury and take out what they need. Others funnel the resources they need through contracts to friendly companies or companies in which they have interests so they  can reap the benefits directly.

4.       While building a nest full of eggs, its important for the politicians to spread as many favors as possible around. Help people, give contracts and carry your party members along so that  you can build a support base and when its time for you to leave office you have a support system in place. If you have built enough wealth then this support system will last. Money is the name of the political game in Nigeria, numbers help, but money helps to garner  numbers. Most political office holders spend a full term or two terms unless of course they out play the game and get schemed out in the whole process.  If a governor , for instance, can carry all the key party members in his state along, have the state house of assembly in his pocket and continue to spread the money around the party members, he would remain popular in the party even if he does not do much for the electorate that voted him into power.  Once the nest egg is built you are ready to leave office. Leaving office could mean moving into another political office, where possible, one that is juicy enough for you to double dip. (Double dipping is a situation where a political officer holder who has lived out his term receive emoluments from the former office as well as a new office to which he has just been (s)elected.

5.       Often you may miss the opportunity to get selected or elected into another position. If this happens, you are open to litigation over the money you made away with in the former office. The best way out is to hire legal muscle that would confuse the court and delay the case into perpetuity, until  its either discarded or forgotten.

Many politicians in Nigeria have used this strategy in various forms and situations and got lucky. They have enriched themselves and their families into many generations to come with stolen or embezzled loot which would remain irrecoverable forever. 

Nigeria is the country of the Blind

In H.G Wells novel, The Country of the Blind, a mountaineer falls into a hidden valley in South America where all the inhabitants have been blind for generations. The mountaineer has the initial reaction of superiority. After all, he can see. In the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king!

But in this land its not so. The soicety is constructed around the norm of blindness, so his sight provides no advantages, but rather seeing is a disadvantage here. If he wants to be accepted and intergrated, he must either act or become blind. The acitivty is the community is built around blindness. Work is done at night, there are no lights, colours have no meaning, buildings have no windows. The mountaineers underdeveloped alternative senses mean he cannot participate  fully in the culture of the community. To fit in he must either turn blind or denounce his sight.

The politics of Nigeria is really no different from any democracy in the world when we refer to the stance and disposition towards what favors me and my party. To this end politiicans are blinded by conceited conviction of knowing all and making wild assumptions about the society they represent.

Those who join the fray with the lofty ideals to help society often get caught up in a rat race for power and resource control that susbsititute the critical issues that concern the majority for the trivial and insignificant and are bogged down by mind, power and wealth seeking games that serve as distractions from the real reason for the elective position.

For instance in Nigeria, there is a loud hue and cry over the need for resturucting and resource control. Leaders of the lawmaking bidies who are wont to legislate over such demands have turned a deaf ear and have suddenly become dumb about such issues. In fact, they have developed  blindness to the rather lopsideed distribution of resources by the federal governrment. The oil rich parts of the country, mainly South Souh Nigeria has been the main source of revenue generation for the country. And states that do not have a drop of oil are slurpping up dividends that they have in no way earned. Save the rather obnoxious fact that they share a country with those stattes that produce it.

The closest reaction to the agitation has been a rather casual call for the 2014 national conference findings and recommendations. The llegislators asked the executive for a copy of what has become public knoledge already. The genral attitude of Nigeria’s lawmaking bodies to the call for restructuring is is lackadaisical and defiant. The legislative are behaving like the bliind generation in HG Wells The Country of The Blind.

Could such defiance be as a result of the trappings of office? OR could it be because of an overwhelming number of notherners in the national assembly that would shut such a discussion down shouldl it even be brought forward?  The call for a true federalism has characterised the rhetoric of Abubakar Atiku, a former vice president who appears to be preparing to run for the presidency in 2019. Atiku has been clever in his bandying of popular opinion. Many people ask if he is given a chance and eventually wins would his rhetoric not change?

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)has had resource control and restructuring on its front burner before it got into power. Now the APC doesn’t seem to know what the two concepts mean anymore. There is something about political power in Nigetria that dulls the senses. Political offices create tunnel vision. The office holder only sees what he wants to see and in many cases is blinded to the most important things.

Can another election herald in another group of office holders that see and listen better? Its difficult to tell. Who Knows if the new legislators would not develop blindness when they need their sight most?

Buhari's endorsement of El Rufai's teacher sack.

Merely endorsing what El Rufai, the governor of Kaduna wishes to do concerning the teachers of his state is not really enough. The one-day retreat on education reforms summoned by the presidency should lead to real reforms. Even though every speaker expressed dismay at the standards in Kaduna teaching service, I think the Vice President,a former academic himself made a very important statement.
Professor Yemi Osinbajo told the gathering of ministers and bureaucrats that its time that we pay more attention to Science. The advanced and emerging economies of the world place premium on Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The question arises: From the hundreds of thousands of graduates that are leaving our universities every year what value have we gained in scientific and technological development from their learning? Nigeria does not present a proper ground for the practice of many of the skills that scientists learn in school these days. Many who have trained in Nigeria feel frustrated that they are unable to practice here or are restricted by the limited choices that they have.
If we heard Osinbajo right, we are lagging behind in scientific development, engineering and technology and its time for the county's educational system to address this. With all the universities of technology and numerous departments of science in the various citadels of higher learning its time for something to change. This is urgent. Brazil, Russia, India and China are the real emerging economies in this world and in the turn of the century they will have a stronghold on industrial development which would be difficult to rival. Would Nigeria just remain one big market? What future contributes to industrialization and scientific development will this giant of Africa make? Where will we be in the turn of the century?These are the questions.