Chidi Amuta

 President Tinubu may have stumbled on a sustaining logic and viable mission for his political future. Prior to last fortnight, I was among those who were doubting what narrative or political argument could sustain Mr. Tinubu’s interest in a 2027 run. Now, there seems to be something in the works. It is the fickle and belated argument that Nigerians had lived a fake life of petro consumerism before last May’s removal of petroleum subsidy. Prior to then, we all had lived a ‘fake life’ of prodigal waste.

We were splurging on our oil wealth through unlimited burning of cheap fuel. We were owning and driving fleets of multiple cars. We were often going to nowhere in particular in these cars. Those with no cars or rickshaws were using cheap gasoline to powered noisy ‘I pass my Neighbour’ generators to power homes,  run tiny businesses or just pollute the air in order to charge their phones for gossiping on social media.

In other cases, we were watching helplessly as greedy smugglers trucked loads of cheap gasoline across the borders and hauling in stashes of cheap cash. Oil oligarchs were fleecing the state through opaque and dubious oil subsidy scams. The annual national budget was being manipulated and padded to provide and pay for dubious subsidy provisions.

Then came a savior, so the new narrative goes. On May 29th 2023, an elected messiah strolled in with a message of salvation casually delivered: “oil subsidy is gone!” Mr. Tinubu casually commanded an end to the bazaar of fake life. No systematic thinking followed the policy jolt. No measures to protect us from this casual cruelty. Only hints from the IMF suggested an informed policy. But the public cruelty was unmistakable, total and instant. The mass suffering was undisguised. Living costs shot through the roof. Transportation costs sent every other cost upwards till now. As it were, the whole society was being compelled to do penance for a past life of wasteful oil consumption. A fake and indulgent past life was bound to end as a new sheriff swept into town. This seems to be the new narrative.

This thoughtless policy announcement is now being painted as a messianic intervention of epic proportions. Tinubu has come to save us from our past prodigality. What has so far been an accidental presidency is now being rebranded into a salvation mission.  A squad of clueless political jobbers hurriedly assembled as a government is now being cast as an army of reformers out to save an economy and punish a wasteful society for its past sins. A basically clueless president now wants to be greeted as a crusading messianic figure who came to end a culture of fake wasteful consumption of the nation’s oil resources in the form of cheap gasoline.

Tinubu was speaking recently through a surrogate at the graduation ceremony of a University in Kwara state. Nigerians are enamored of fake things, quacks and false prophets and politicians that parade fake credentials and false promises.

The pronouncement went viral. In a nation that is instinctively religious in its understanding of public issues, the accusation of a past fake life of unthinking consumption caught on. Nigerians had sinned in the oast and are now paying for their past sins. The president was accusing the Nigerian populace of the sin of past gluttony and waste. The president is now a messiah with an implicit mandate to end the fake life and replace it with one of prudence and frugality. The higher pump process and mass pauperization are aspects of the penance that we all have to pay for our past sins. The removal of oil subsidy is now presented as a much deserved act of expiation for past sins. Our people are being punished to do penance for a past life of prodigal waste and reckless indulgence.

To the best of my knowledge, the Tinubu presidency has so far not come up with a strong enough argument that could necessitate a 2027 run for a second term. Yet the machinery for a second term run is everywhere in evidence. Pressure groups are springing up in all corners of the nation. Carefully nominated spokespersons are making coordinated noises. Yet, the public has not quite seen in the episodic style of governance anything that should support lacks an argument. Its programs lack a consistency. It’s achievement remain scanty and eclectic. It has not articulated a systematic program that could sustain government for four years. And yet, the administration is nearly halfway through its tenure. How to find justification for the remaining time and onwards to 2027 remains the lingering political problem of the administration. Therefore, stumbling on this messianic streak could be a saving grace. Clearly, the magnitude of national problems that remain unaddressed is a mountain. It is easier to replace the multitude of problems with a single messianic salvation mission.

Couched in terms of saving us all from a sinful fake life, the mandate of the Tinubu presidency becomes both a moral and economic crusade. Coupled with foreign exchange and other economic policy crises, the fuel subsidy removal salvation mandate can stand as a national economic reform measure. But taken together, their negative impacts cannot market them politically for another presidential term. But dressed in moral garb, a mission to encourage an end to a fake life could pass for a crusade for a review of our moral values.

Tinubu wants to migrate from an economic reformer to a moral crusader for a new economic order. But in order to make that somersault, Mr. Tinubu will need a total makeover. He needs to revamp and come clean on his personal credentials.  He needs to rejig his team by replacing fellow travelers and debt collectors with technocrats. He needs to revise his priorities and revise or even review the agenda of his creaky party.

Those expensive real estate renovations in his previous budgets need urgent review. Those new executive jets, fleets of SUVs and those lengthy motorcades and yachts etc do not quite fit into any reformist moral agenda. You need to save yourself before setting out to save others! The question remains this: does Mr. Tinubu have the moral credentials to navigate Nigeria from an assumed sinful past?

It is politically unwise in any case for a leader to set himself above the people. It is erroneous to posit the people as sinners and the leader as a saint. The consumption of subsidized petroleum products is the result of past government policies. Tinubu was here with us through the various dispensations that instituted the subsidized petrol prizes. He and his numerous businesses was a beneficiary of the subsidized prices. It is doubtful whether he and his relations and associates were totally innocent of the wheeling and dealing in petroleum products imports that sustained the subsidy regime.

The most important requirement of credible political leadership is to rise above a messianic posturing and immerse oneself in the crises and problems in which the people find themselves. The challenge of credible political leadership is to face the problems of a tenure and seek to resolve them by uplifting the people from the challenges that torment them. To distance oneself from the challenges and posit oneself above the people is false consciousness which can at best convert the leader into an aloof and distant messianic figure far removed from the realities that define general social existence.

If 2027 is the issue on hand, then the Tinubu government must face up to the challenge of that our current problems are largely the result of both its inherited and self-created policy quagmire. Tinubu created the subsidy removal and its serial conseqences. He created the consequences of the foreign exchange merger. He imposed the myriad taxes, levies, tariffs, charges that have joined forces to make life unlivable for most Nigerians. Hunger became a national feature under his watch just as suicide became an option for a lot of Nigerians seeking to escape from the harrowing realities of the present time.

The road to escape from these consequences of present day policies should be the basis of whatever new thinking the president and his team want to advance for a possible 2027 run. Better solutions to the problems already created by the Tinubu government should be the basis of any credible opposition to the Tinubu incumbency.

There is no need to negatively brand all Nigerians or consign us all into a tribe of sinners just to find a narrative to ennoble Mr. Tinubu’s rudderless stewardship find an excuse for its elongation. We are already suffering enough of the consequences of bad governance. There is no need to call us names, insult us further or, for that matter, burden us with guilt just to sit comfortably on its bruised backs.

Dr. Amuta, a Nigerian journalist, intellectual and literary critic, was previously a senior lecturer in literature and communications at the universities of Ife and Port Harcourt.

Chidi Amuta

Of all the ills that afflict a democracy, a stubborn virus in the party system is the most lethal. Where politicians treat the party system as their exclusive preserve, to do as they wish, it is hard for the system to self- correct let alone see that there is anything wrong. It could be worse when parties become like rickety “molues’ merely meant to convey political passengers to their next election destination irrespective of their belief, aim and purpose for seeking power.

Where political parties degenerate into cultic monopolies reserved for a few anointed chieftains and their select acolytes, the party system festers to infect the overall polity with its own infirmities. A corrupt political party system can only lead to a devious mangling of democracy itself. It as easy for a liberal multi-party democracy to degenerate into a cultic autocracy manipulated by a select minority for state capture and authoritarian oligarchy. A devious manipulation of the political party system is the commonest source of authoritarian rule in most of Africa.

To a great extent, all the present hue and cry about the trouble with democracy in Nigeria begins and ends with the ills of the party system. There is of course a ruling party, the APC. I have lost count of the number of other parties in the system, about 80, I understand! But of the multitude, only two other parties, namely the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party are most prominent. At least, this is the number that made themselves heard from the results of the 2023 presidential elections. Ideally, then, the APC as the ruling party should be feeling the heat of the other two major parties as ‘opposition parties’.  By the nature of democracy, the Nigerian public should get a constant feel of an effective policy alternative to the ruling party from the body of opposition parties. Yes indeed, from the general trend of discourse in our polity, there is indeed a ruling party from the perspective of governance and dominance of the political space. But no one seems to hear the concerted voice of an opposition set of parties. Both Mr. Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi as individual political leaders are consistent in criticizing the policies and programs of the ruling party. It is doubtful if the parties they lead are acting and speaking like opposition parties rightly regarded and properly defined.

In Nigeria, once parties are formed and registered, they are left to guide and guard the political process on the basis of their independence.  But our parties also use their independence to cultivate the ingredients of their own decay and even death. The concept of party supremacy is often invoked to insulate and protect the internal weaknesses and deficiencies of the parties themselves. The supremacy of defective parties is the engine room of misrule and the decay of democracy.

In Nigeria’s tradition of multiparty democracy, it is common for the ruling party to predominate the political space with a myth of infallibility. Winner takes all. Other parties exist in name and skeleton, not in substance. The ruling party systematically swallows the others in bits and pieces, literally cannibalizing them.

Therefore, although many parties exist on the INEC register, there is only one effective party. That party is the ruling party, the one that won the last election and controls the majority of the political space. In between elections, our system operates like a one party state except where the next most popular party controls a sizeable chunk of the political space. Thus, our political culture has tended to produce a pseudo one party system after each national election.

The tendency is for party members from the losing parties to seek to migrate to the winning side. Even as a deliberate ploy, the ruling party seeks to harvest or poach members from the opposition in order to maintain its ruling hegemony or whittle down the power of the opposition.

In recent times, concern has arisen within the political class over the aggressive expansion of the APC into territories ruled by the opposition parties. After the 2023 general elections, the winning APC dominates the political space: majority in the National Assembly; majority of state governors; majority in state legislatures as well as control of federal executive power. Correspondingly, control of the national economy and the power of patronage follow logically. In the process of wielding majoritarian power and influence, the ruling party acquires the swagger of one party.

Recently, chieftains of the other parties have cried out in protest that the APC, in its rapacious hunger for membership, seems to be gearing towards swallowing other parties and therefore laying the foundations for a one party Nigeria. Alhaji Atiku, presidential candidate of the PDP in the last election, has openly leveled this charge. So have other party leaders and key politicians.

Vicariously, the opposition parties seem to be lending support to this trend.. They have failed to manage their affairs in a manner that should make them stronger as opposition platforms.

The PDP is caught in an existential factional fight between the disciples of FCT Minister Nyesom Wike and those of Alhaji Atiku. The party has no consensual executive. Similarly, the Labour Party with control of only one state governorship but victory in 12 states in the 2023 presidential race is torn in litigations. Mr. Peter Obi , the party’s presidential candidate in the last election along with Alex Otti, Abia State Governor are pitted in legal battle with the party executive, led by the disputed chairman, Mr. Abure. Mr. Abure has been contesting leadership of the party in court and has infact won pending appeal. Most of the other parties are not faring any better.

The opposition parties are mostly torn by crises and instability. In that process, they are reinforcing the nation that our system has no credible opposition. The so-called opposition parties lack internal integrity or self-defining identities to justify their independent existence in a multiparty democracy. In this atmosphere, only the APC wears the appearance of cohesiveness.

Even then, the cohesive appearance of the APC owes only to one factor: it is the party in power and has the monopoly of control of power, patronage and pork. Outside that circumstantial exigency, the APC is as splintered as the rest. It is even more incoherent than the others in terms of ideas and a track record of governance and definable legacy.

Effectively, then, we are in a practical one party situation: the ruling party and literally no opposition parties. Intrinsically, there is no difference between all the major parties in contention in this democracy, whether ruling or not. There are no ideological or value differences among our parties. They are all acronyms, colorful flags and emblems with little intrinsic meaning. They have different names.

Our parties are populated by the same caliber of Nigerian politicians drawn from a uniform national elite pool of unemployed college graduates, failed “charge and bail” lawyers, unsuccessful venturers and other jobless middle aged hustlers, etc. This is why it is ever so easy for people to migrate from one party to the other with ease. No ideology. No core beliefs. No values. No commitment to any form of service to the people. No vision for the nation. Mostly an eye for financial returns wherever it may be found. Nigeria has earned a distinction of being the only country in which an individual can have breakfast in on party and end up with dinner in a totally different party without any qualms.

So, effectively, we have a political canvas populated by practically the same tribe of political animals. They are at best hunting for a party label to wear around their necks for the purpose of qualifying to contest the next election or being enrolled into the next power grab assemblage.

Anyone interested in testing this assumption should point out any differences in policies and programs among the states on the basis of the parties in power in each state. Oyo state has been ruled by a PDP government for almost 6 years while its neighbor Osun has been ruled by the APC. What is the difference in style of governance, policy thrust or vision?

The common origins of the parties is best dramatized by the manner in which the former ruling party, the PDP, split up and eventually gave birth to the APC and others. Differences within the ruling PDP between incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan and the more progressive governors in the Nigerian Governors Forum had become intractable by 2013. While the PDP convention was going on at Abuja’s Eagle Square, The renegade faction of the party staged a walk out from the party at Eagle Square and trooped to the Yar’dua Centre where they birthed the New PDP (N-PDP) as an official faction of the party under the leadership of politicians like Atiku Abubakar, Rotimi Amaechi and the inspiration of Muhammadu Buhari behind the scene. Politicians who went to a party convention in the morning as PDP returned home in the evening as N-PDP!

Subsequent political machinations culminated in the coalition of opposition parties that became the APC under which Mr. Buhari ran and won the 2015 election that brought the APC to power. Yet in spite of its origins, the APC which remains Nigeria’s ruling party has neither evolved a unifying identity nor a defining legacy of program in power to earn an identity.

But our system is only a one party arrangement by default. By strict definition, a multi-party system in which one ruling party gobbles up others is not by technical definition a one party system. That terminology is still the preserve of authoritarian systems as the ones operating in China, North Korea and, to a large extent, Russia. The attributes of one party authoritarian systems are well known. Nigeria is far from that rigid formality. What we have is merely evidence of the lack of the discipline to practice multi-party democracy in its ideal form. It is that ideal that needs to be revamped and strengthened.

Penalties for cross-carpeting need to be tighter. Opposition parties need to imbibe the culture of methodical and systematic opposition. Politicians need to understand how to lose elections and remain party members through a power tenure. Party membership ought to outlast one election cycle, most importantly, our parties need to spend time to evolve into embodiments of ideals and values. Those who sign up for party membership ought to subscribe to the ideas and ideals of these parties. The work of opposition parties ought to be as serious and rigorous as that of the ruling party.

The alternative to the ideas of a ruling party should be no less rigorous and credible than the prevailing ideas of the dominant ruling party. In the United States, when a Republican president is in the White House, the Democrats in Congress or governing individual states are no less rigorous and serious. Similarly, when in the United Kingdom a Labour Prime Minister is at 10 Downing, the Tories do not go to sleep or fall apart. They quickly rouse into an alternative government. If the opposition caves in or succumbs, liberal democracy risks degenerating into one party authoritarianism.

Dr. Amuta, a Nigerian journalist, intellectual and literary critic, was previously a senior lecturer in literature and communications at the universities of Ife and Port Harcourt.

By Chidi Amuta

There is a shrinking feeling about it all. With each off -season election that is conducted and results announced, we feel smaller and unfree as a polity. Our elections bring about more insecurity; unpopular electoral outcomes require goons and thugs to protect illicit incumbents.  And of course a larger number of election related court cases spring up to create work and money for an army of lawyers and judges. The state of alienation of the majority of the people is palpable. The elation and celebration is mostly among the minority of those who happen to have ‘won’ in this particular election. For the rest, the majority of consequential electorate, it is an overwhelming sense of betrayal, of being hoodwinked and ousted from what was meant to be a general celebration of democracy and collective empowerment.

As we conduct more elections, the size of our voter population seems to be shrinking. In fact, it seems to be running in inverse relation to the longevity of our democracy. The more the number of years we celebrate as a “democracy”, the smaller the voter population seems to be running. After 25 years of unbroken democracy, our sense of democratic participation and involvement seems to be thinning out, shrinking as we conduct more ‘successful’ elections. In short, many more Nigerians now feel excluded from the process of leadership selection than they did in 1999.

It is worse. In order to guarantee more security on Election Day, the population of policemen, soldiers, State Security Service personnel, civil defense personnel and other para military personnel swamp voters, candidates and election officials. The atmosphere is one of a garrison event. Voting venues sometimes look more like mini garrisons with uniformed personnel in full battle gear menacingly on patrol in election venues. You wonder who the “enemy” is really as these personnel brandish assault rifles and handguns. . These scenes hardly remind you of a ritual in praise of freedom to choose leaders. People are frightened. Sensible people either stay away to be safe or avoid these scenes of undeclared war. In any case, more often than not, the end results that are declared often run counter to the real expressions of the wishes of the people. Even if peoples’ express wishes are reflected in the results, those ‘elected’ do whatever they wish, not what the people voted for.

The frightening prospect about Nigerian democracy is that fewer and fewer people are coming out to vote. People register and obtain voters cards for identification purposes, not necessarily for voting. You never know which bank or government office might need a voter’s card for identification! Otherwise, people register as voters and prefer to stay home and safe on election days!

Recently, in rapid succession, off -season governorship elections have successfully held in Edo and Ondo states. In spite of charges of rampant vote trading and other minor familiar bad behavior among political mobs, the elections largely testified to a degree of democratic commitment. The announced results have since formed the basis for a peaceful transfer of power from one gubernatorial dispensation to its successor. The aggrieved have since proceeded to courts and tribunals in a shameful tradition that only castigates the sorry quality of our elections. To that extent. Democracy can be said to be alive and well in Nigeria. We hold periodic elections. Elaborate logistics are laid out. Big money is often wasted. Results are announced. Election officials and political hacks cash out and go home richer from a season of harvest. Some even build new houses.

Yet for all the appearance of democratic progress, Nigeria may be sliding more into minority rule than progressing with democracy as majority rule. The most classic definition of democracy is the rule and triumph of the majority as a result of credible elections. Yes, the majority is a statistical dominance which overwhelms the minority. It presupposes that those qualified to vote participate in the ballot and overwhelm the minority in a triumph of the majority. Majoritarian prevalence is the essence of democratic rule. If however, the reverse obtains, a situation in which the minority prevails over the majority and their electoral verdict comes to determine who rules, then we may have enthroned a curious minority rule. Something is wrong when an exercise that was intended to serve majority rule ends up repeatedly enthroning minority rule.

In both Edo and Ondo, the new governors were elected by less than 25% of the registered voters. In Edo, only 24.49% of the 2.6 million registered voters cast their votes. Similarly in Ondo, less than 500, 000 or 25% of the registered 2 million voters cast votes. Other registered voters either stayed away or could not be bothered that something important was taking place in their states on the election days. This trend merely accentuates a trend that had gathered steam in the 2023 presidential election.

In the 2023 presidential elections, only 26.72% of registered voters cast their votes mostly for the three main candidates with a smattering of votes for the other numerous candidates of the nearly 80 parties. That dismal turnout and the overall result cast a pall over the election and its confusing nature has lingered and tormented the incumbency of Mr. Bola Tinubu as president till date. For good reason, Mr. Tinubu is viewed more as a ”minority” leader on account of being sworn into office on the basis of less than 9 million votes in a population of over 80 million registered voters and a national population of 200 million odd people. Literally about 24.9 million voted in that presidential election in what is a 44 year low in voter turnout. Tinubu got 8.8 million votes to be sworn to rule over a nation of over 200 million with over 80 million registered voters!

The conventional wisdom in established democracies is to reduce low voter statistics to low voter turnout. Thereafter, all manner of explanations and academic explanations are sought for low voter turnout. What however is breeding in Nigeria is not just low voter turnout in an established democracy. It is a deepening malaise.  It is a progressive mass apathy, a turning away from democracy. It is a vote of no confidence in democracy and its serial disappointments over the years.  People have been losing interest over time to elections and their efficacy as instruments for democratic change.

An election may change the personae that drives a democratic government. But elections in Nigeria have failed serially in improving the quality of governance, the quality of live of the people. If we reduce the essence of democratic governance to   the qualitative change in the lives of the people, then elections must mean more than periodic rituals. They must mean the use of elections to replace a less effective an ineffective government with a more effective one. In it all, democracy and the elections that power it must be a change mechanism to empower a more effective governance in the delivery of good governance. If periodic elections fail to empower leadership that brings about positive change in the life of the people, then elections begin to

Lose their import and meaning.

In recent years, people are more excited by the entertainment value of the ritual of election season.  There are the massive campaigns, mass movements, the garish party -inspired costumes and of course the gifts, cash handouts, items of “stomach infrastructure” and other inducements to drive partisan followership. Outside these fleeting elements, the actual ritual of voting means nothing. Most people have already concluded that  the elections will not fundamentally change their lives from the perspective of real governance action.

At best, the ritual of democracy and elections becomes a class thing. The elite tend to see elections as the business of the lower classes, those who are gullible, who can be enticed with petty cash inducement, small gifts, and empty promises. These are people who can afford the time and inconvenience to go out and wait endlessly in the elements to cast a vote and justify their petty inducement packages. The elite are too busy with other important things and cannot afford the inconvenience. In any case, their existential conveniences have been guaranteed by their social and occupational entitlements and position. They reduce good governance to material good things. Why queue to vote if you have water, electricity, a car, personal security guards or some left over cash to send junior to a nice school? Active political choice at election time is therefore left to active party members, the few that can be mobilized, induced or bought to vote for chosen candidates.

On election day, the elite wait in the comfort of their cozy homes while their servants, gatemen, divers, cooks, stewards, nannies and other menial and servile dependents troop out to vote and decide on who rules the next dispensation.  When subsequently the governance process goes awry and society fares poorly, the elite leads in the criticism and complaints. This is the contradiction of Nigerian democracy.

The vast majority of people, namely, the elite, the rural and urban majority are alienated from the electoral process. People spend years going through a democratic ritual of elections without seeing any positive changes in their life circumstances. Nothing changes. Therefor, over time, the majority of people see little or no point in subsequent elections. The outcome is a succession of ‘minority’ governments over time.  This is the underlying logic of the recent results that we have seen in recent times. Our low voter turnout means the prevalence of minority rule, government by the minority over the majority.

Yet, it is the verdict of this statistical minority that goes to determine the outcome of our elections. This minority elects the next president, the next set of governors, legislators, local government officials etc.  In effect, we have a democracy controlled by a statistical minority left to rule the lives of the majority. The result is a succession of minority governments with the majority of the populace left to grumble and complain for the next four or so years.

A statistical minority government does not exactly fit the conventional definition of “minority “rule. We are used to minority rule by minorities defined in terms of ethnicity, race, caste or class. That is usually a political ruse deliberately foisted by a political elite that wants to dominate power as in Apartheid old South Africa or America before universal suffrage and the end of slavery.

Statistical minority rule such as we are witnessing recently in Nigeria is something else. It is the result of the disfigurement of democracy by political and social manipulation and usurpation. In an assumed democracy, if a ruling elite is empowered by a demographic minority to rule over the majority, it is the fault of democracy itself. If democracy fails to deliver good governance, the life of the people worsens over time and democracy itself is endangered. The minority can be manipulated to commandeer the electoral process to produce results that place minority governments in place.

But these minority governments cannot in themselves guarantee or protect democracy as a value system. It is the delivery of good governance alone that can ensure majority participation and mass election participation. Democracy can only mean majority rule when governance guarantees good governance for the majority. It becomes the business of the majority to troop out to protect and defend democracy with their votes.

Dr. Amuta, a Nigerian journalist, intellectual and literary critic, was previously a senior lecturer in literature and communications at the universities of Ife and Port Harcourt.