By Zik Gbemre

With an estimated population of over 185 million people, and being a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural diversity with about 520 languages, and over 1150 dialects; Nigeria can be said to be one of the most controversial, complicated and complex countries in the world. And with this, we would therefore understand why it will not be easy for anyone to successfully rule or govern the country. Mind you, we did not say that it is not possible to successfully rule or govern the country as it ought to be governed, we only said that it will not be an easy task. It is not for the faint-hearted. But it is no gain saying that the boundary of this former British colony called Nigeria was drawn to serve commercial interests, largely without regard for the territorial differences, uniqueness and claims of the ‘diverse indigenous’ people. As a result, we now have before us a country whose unity has been consistently come under siege. In fact, there have been eight attempts at secession that has threatened national unity between 1914 and 1977. The epic of which is the Nigerian civil war. Yet, the ‘potentiality’ in the country’s diversity as a nation, has made it still an envy by many. 

Perhaps, this diversity and complexities of the make-up of Nigeria, explains the reason why the issue of nepotism, favouritism, ethnicitism, religion and political affiliations have been the attributing factors that have made the nation not to have political leaders that ought to be elected/appointed on merit to effectively and efficiently lead the country to great heights. These issues, have ‘blinded’ both the government and the governed from making sound and good judgements in the appropriation of public resources for the good of all and sundry by those in authorities, and in demanding such when they are not getting it right by those being governed. In other words, it is as if our ‘multi-everything’ bearings have over the years, made us to be more self-serving/self-centered and not trusting one another when it comes to governance and the appropriation of our collective wealth as a people in the entity called Nigeria. This often times makes us wonder: will Nigeria ever become a great and admirable nation? Will Nigeria ever be able to overcome its diversity and complexity and become a ‘united front’ in global affairs to reckon with? Or has Nigeria gone beyond being redeemed?

In a country where every tribe and language has its own culture and internal custom, and where every Nigerian no matter his/her occupation and status – be it a Police Officer, INEC Official, Lawyer, Judge, Trader, Farmer, Activist, Politician or what have; all have one (often self-centered) vested interest or the other, and as such, policies and laws, no matter how good they are, are tailored not work for the good of all. Apart from the major tribes of Hausa/fulani, Yoruba and Ibo, the minority tribes don’t even agree with each other. Even the major tribes have their own internal wrangling and conflicts of interest. Every tribe feel they are superior to the other. Every village, town and city are different in nature from one another. No trust between themselves. In fact, within every State, there are a lot of differences in the tribes, languages and the people themselves.

Perhaps, we can attribute all the unhealthy and anti-development prevailing circumstances around the polity to the root factor of our diversity and multiplicity of cultures, ethnicity, languages and religious backgrounds. We believe that is why every ‘action’ and ‘inaction’, every ‘decision’ and indecision’ – be it of the government of the day or at any level of the public and private sector space – are viewed through the lens of ‘distrust’. Nobody seems to trust anybody that is not of their own stock. The said distrust is even amongst those of the same tribe and religion. This brings us back to the issue of ‘No Patriotism’ and ‘No Commitment to serve the interest of others’ – every man/woman for his/her selfish-self and those around them. But with even with people ‘not being content with what they have’, it is still a huge problem.

Let us look at Delta State for instance under this so-called new dispensation of democracy. Former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, who is an Urhobo man, was elected Governor right from 1999 and he served for eight years, but he concentrated development in his home base Oghara Town/kingdom far and above the other towns and tribes. For instance, the Teaching Hospital that ought to be in Abraka or be in Eku or Warri, was taken by force to Oghara town in Urhobo land. Ibori took the Naval base and MOPOL (MOBILE POLICE BASE) 51 SQUADRON MEANT FOR EFFURUN OR WARRI to Oghara town. A Polytechnic was taken to Oghara, a stadium was built in Oghara and till today, that stadium is not used by anybody for any sports competition because it is wrongly located. Almost everything Ibori did was more to favour his home town Oghara, even to the detriment and disadvantage of all Deltans. All major contracts went to Oghara town in Urhobo land as if Oghara town owns the entire Delta State. James Ibori took almost every major project in the State to his home town Oghara by force. Take the Delta State Teaching Hospital for instance, which is needed most in an area where there is more population and more prospects to have patients. But today, patients in emergency situations are forced to drive long distances from Warri and environs to get to Oghara. Some end up not making it alive. Teachers, Doctors and other Health Practitioners all have to drive/travel from Warri every day to Oghara town for work. That is how skewed, visionless, shortsighted and myopic the stock of political leaders we have here are, when it comes to governance. Every action has a political and self-centered undertone to it.

When former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was still in power, he practically took the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to Yenegoa, as well as key employments/appointments, especially in the oil and gas industry, which were meant for the general South-South, were all reserved more for the Ijaws – his own people. Even when the former Petroleum Minister, Mrs. Deziani Alison-Madueke was not doing well and performing as expected, Jonathan did not do anything to remove her because she is an Ijaw. He practically turned a blind eye to all her alleged atrocities and excesses in the oil and gas industry. During the Jonathan era, most of the NDDC Scholarships went to the Ijaws. Also, most of the NDDC and Ministry of Niger Delta Contracts went to the Ijaws as well, as if they were the only tribe in the entire South-South region. When former President Olusegun Obasanjo was President for eight years, he did the same thing. He relocated the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Head Office from Abuja to the proper place, which is in Lagos where the maritime activities are prevalent. But Obasanjo however refused to relocate NNPC Headquarters and its major subsidiaries to Warri and Port-Harcourt, which is where the oil and gas industry business is most prevalent.  Even when we wrote several letters to former President Obasanjo on the need to relocate the NNPC Head Office to the South-South since he corrected the one in the Maritime sector, he turned deaf and dumb to all our letters even when his office then acknowledged that they will look into it.  But for eight years, Obasanjo refused to act on this because the South-South are the minority tribes in Nigeria. We also wrote Obasanjo to advise Shell to relocate the Office of SNEPCO, a subsidiary of Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCIN), to Warri from Lagos, owing to the fact that the said SNEPCO Office is just 20 minutes helicopter flight from Warri to the Bonga field which is where the SNEPCO operations are located. But the former President did not do anything in this regard.  

Then also look at President Buhari’s appointments since he came to power, it is dominated by his hausa/fulani tribesmen as usual. So, we can see that the problems of Nigeria are many and too complicated to easily address. Every tribe/ethnic group wants his/her own kinsmen to be in power so that he or she will favour his/her own people only. As such, tribalism and favourism has become the norm in governance. People are no longer selected, appointed, elected or picked based on merit and their ability to deliver and bring about the dividends of democracy for the good of all. A Christian Catholic in Government would want to favour his fellow Catholic members with appointments and contracts. The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) members would want to favour their members for government contracts and appointments. A Muslim would want to have his fellow members to be favoured in government appointments and contracts. So, we end up having persons in sensitive positions of authority that are without the right qualification, expertise, integrity, dexterity, zeal, will, drive and vision to bring about an embracing change that will benefit ‘all and sundry’. It is only in Nigeria that the unthinkable, unimaginable, the absurd, and the unreasonable are seen playing out across all boards as ‘normal’, and no one dares to question or raise a brow about it. When you do, you are tagged a trouble-maker, and you even become a target for potential harm to come upon you and your family.

The one that troubles us most is the normalized pattern of voting public office holders. The observed voting pattern in Nigeria, is never really about who will lead well, or who actually has what it takes to deliver good governance in the interest of the general populace. The voting pattern is about who is our brother/sister (from the same ethnicity or religious background), or who is our Oga/boss (from who all sorts of goodies are expected to flow). Some even vote because it is either a ‘broom’ or an ‘umbrella’ – not because they know the character or the capacity of the politician in question. That is why the issue of ‘vote buying’ is very predominant’ in this part of the world. The electorates are left to remain poor by the political class, so that during elections they can use monetary items as bait to have them vote according to their preferred pattern. That is the pathetic situation we find across the nation, especially in the rural areas. So, even when the people know within themselves that those vying for one political portfolio or the other, are of questionable characters and without integrity, they still blindly vote for them according to either of the described pattern above. What that leaves us with are political office holders who practically do not understand what it really means to serve the public. That is why all we have had, especially since the current democratic dispensation, are public office holders who are best described as ‘Public Lordship’ and not ‘Public Servants’ like we see in developed societies.

As noted by Kenyan anti-corruption crusader, Prof. Patrick Loch Otieno (PLO) Lumumba, in one of his posts, “I held 250 town hall meetings. I articulated solutions to our problems in my constituency. My opponent did not campaign at all. He gathered money and showed up one day to elections. He distributed money. He won. Africans are not moved by ideas. Their stomach leads them.” That is the exact situation in Nigeria. The Nigerian Politicians deliberately keep the people in abject poverty so as to make them tempted to accept vote buying. And that is the realities on ground in this country. As far as we can tell, our Presidential System of Government has been structured and designed to ‘fail’ across all levels of elections right from the Wards to the Federal level.

The Nigerian Presidential System is not only too expensive to maintain, it also encourages corruption to thrive at a large scale. It has made politicians, to either borrow money or be sponsored by the few super rich men and political fathers, who would obviously in turn want a double, or even triple of their so called ‘political investments’. At the end of the day, the prevailing governance and management/appropriation of our collective wealth as a people, are not channeled to address people-oriented needs but rather, the selfish needs and desires of these ‘political investors’. In other words, our Nigerian-styled Presidential System of government was structured to keep credible people away/out of their reach, so that ‘political crooks’ would remain and be recycled within the country’s political space. We must stop the pretence and stop kidding ourselves – hoping that things will change. There is no way things can change if the current political structure and way of doing politics in the country does not change.

For one to be elected a State Governor of a State, the applicant should be able to have political structures in all the Local Government Areas and Wards. It requires a lot of money to fix these political structures in place in a country like Nigeria, especially with the high level of poverty and many tribes and languages.  So, to stand a good chance to win an election, one must look for money to be able to go around for campaigns, or you look for political investors to sponsor you, but who will later dictate for the Governor. That means one leads to be super rich or be financed by another who is superrich, to stand a chance to be elected. And of course, those that gave their money for that person to be elected would want to be paid back in many folds. How do we expect a person with great ideas of what it means to govern, but the person is without money and financiers, to be able to get money to run for election in all the wards of his State? If he/she is financed by another, then he/she will be dictated by the said godfathers/financiers who will practically be in charge of governance, and not the actual person sitting on the seat of Government. These are bare facts. It is the same in all the elected positions of public offices across the country. From the Office of Councilors, Local Government Chairmen, State and Federal Assemblies, up to the State Governors and to the Office of the President. We can see that our Presidential system of government promotes corruption and with, there cannot be accountability and transparency in Government.

Politics in Nigeria has been turned into an ‘Enterprise’ of some sorts and the Nigerian politicians are the Entrepreneurs. So, it will be difficult for us to have free and fair elections in the country. All we will keep having are people who would like to win elections by all means possible, and they really don’t care how they get to that public office. Let us not pretend about this. For it is the realities on ground. Do we call these Nigerian Politicians – Political Entrepreneurs or Political Investors?

Let us be reminded that Nigeria adopted Federalism due to its size as well as ethno-linguistic, cultural and religious diversity for the country. Despite the acknowledged diverse nature of the country and adoption of Federalism by the country since 1954. However, the past and present political leaders of Nigeria have continue to run the country as if it is a Unitary State – with too much power concentrated at the centre and no resemblance of autonomy for the component regions/states or any respect for the people that make up the federating units in the first place. The result is that the country remains a Federation only on papers but a Unitary State in practicality. Nigeria is operating a Federal System (both political and fiscal) in a terribly awkward manner which is regrettably backed by a lousy, unpopular and “military-imposed national constitution”. Nigeria needs to fashion out and design its own democracy and system of government that will not cost money for one to be elected to govern at the State levels and to become a President.

Our borrowed Presidential system and democratic Government has not worked for the general good of the Nigerian people, one reason of which is as a result of many tribes, languages, cultural differences and what have you. The United States of America (US) that we are copying cannot be described as a country but a continent of its own. The US economy is bigger than the entire African continent comprising of 50 countries. When you add up the economies of all the African countries put together, it is not up to that of the US. Africa might be termed wealthy in terms of the ‘potentials’ it possesses, but that is where its wealth ends – potential, not developed and actual wealth. So, we cannot be comparing our Presidential system of Government in line with what is obtainable in the US that has the financial muscle and wherewithal to function as they like.  African countries, especially Nigeria, has to carefully assess every government policy it sees being practiced in the US before jumping to embrace it.

We strongly believe that a Parliamentary System of government will be less expensive to run, in a country like Nigeria. It will be much better if we adopt a less costly system of government that will still assure us dividends of democracy, and not a system of government that one must be a billionaire before he/she can win elections in the country. The First Republic (1963-1966) has remained the best years of Nigeria’s growth and development by virtue of the fact that we were then practicing a Parliamentary system, which the British Colonial Masters left behind for us to run with. Sometimes we wonder where Nigeria would have been as a nation, if we had stuck to the system of government we had in the first republic, till now? We are most certain that Nigeria as a nation-state would have become the Dubai of Africa. That is why the British system of government still remains the most efficient, effective and economical system of government in the world. From the lowest level of public office to the highest level in the UK, the effectiveness of the institutions of government and the level of accountability of public resource, is so exceptional that it becomes ‘natural’ for the people to get/enjoy the dividends of a democracy. Mind you, Parliamentarism is the dominant form of government in Europe, with 32 of its 50 sovereign states being parliamentarian.

Seriously, the Presidential System of government as it is practiced in Nigeria has never done us any good as a developing nation. All we have seen is a widening great divide between the government and the governed; the poor and the rich; the haves and the have not. The enrichment of the few in government circles have made going to politics to seek for elective positions as a career; to be the surest and quickest way to instance wealth. Hence, the issue of ‘service’ does not come to mind by our ‘professional politicians and political investors.’ They are too busy filling their pockets and satisfying the interests of those that put them in power.

Zik Gbemre, JP.

National Coordinator

Niger Delta Peace Coalition (NDPC