By Oseloka H. Obaze
Bad leadership and its consequence, bad governance, are dismembering Nigeria. Both are repetends in current Nigerian political discourse. Both are also indicative that rather than focus progressively on nation building, Nigerians are distressing over the unraveling of their country. The New York Times on its 13th June, 2024 front page declaimed that “A resourceful nation buckles” and went on to assert that “worst economic crisis in a generation torments Nigeria, as prices soar.” National deconstruction; the antithesis of nation building, is what is happening to Nigeria. As actor Robert DeNiro once surmised, “Evil thrives in the shadow of dismissive mockery.” Nigeria now is a bastion for evil deeds; and a mockery and ghoulish shadow of itself. The nation has attained or acquired numerous dubious labels and negative qualifying governance indices.
Some may consider attributing the deconstruction appellation to Nigeria light, when juxtaposed with her progressive national deterioration and diminution of influence globally. But the deconstruction narrative is apt as it is more insidious. It relates more to faith and fate. What does deconstruction mean, and how does that apply, affect or relate to present day Nigeria? Deconstruction is “the act of breaking something down into its separate parts in order to understand its meaning, especially when this is different from how it was previously understood.”
Contextually, the deconstruction of Nigeria means that we have finally arrived at the critical truth juncture, where having lost faith, Nigeria now means different things to a majority of Nigerians, and her different ethnicities. This affirms that all along, the presumed commonality of shared belief in what Nigeria meant to Nigerian citizens was an expedient ruse. Nigeria was, is, but her future is indefinite. That fate was contrived by Nigerians; hence some surmise that “the contraption called Nigeria has never been one.” Paradoxically, those advocating the rethink of Nigeria are neither nation-building heretics nor anti-establishment. At the risk of accusations of sedition or treason, they only advocate dismantling Nigeria as a way of rebuilding it. But when government criminalizes civil protests, something is awry.
Here’s the stark reality. Nigeria no longer represents what many of her citizens previously understood it to be; a nation, federation and commonwealth, and a country statutorily obligated to afford equal rights and protection to her citizens. These were the qualifiers of yesteryears. Today, with ethnicity, religion, power and resource sharing, poverty, cancel culture, state capture and bigotry all weaponized, there hardly exist any shared common causes. Ethnic hairline cracks have turned into chasms. The national disconnect is so expansive that Nigerians are no longer bashful in asserting that Nigeria no longer serves common cause. The notion or concept of “united we stand” seems passé. Far gone is the nation, wherein NPN, a former ruling national party had as its fulsome mantra: ‘one nation, one destiny’. Right now, Nigeria rarely evokes any positive déjà vu as much as it elicits resignation, consternation and trepidation.
As incessant disfranchisement elicits calls of segregation, and the concept of a heterogeneous and monolithic North is increasingly disavowed, the fervent belief in an indissoluble Nigeria is repetitively eroded. The rise of non-state actors and the attendant visceral violence meted out by armed bandits to various Christian and indigenous populations in North suggest a new and heightened level of intolerance and polarization. Those in power, who ought to assertively tackle such challenges have demurred.
With multi-dimensional poverty raging, no part of Nigeria is totally secure; no village, town, city, state or geopolitical zone. Nationwide, pockets of communities are now ungoverned spaces subjugated by bandits. Most of those in power, who shelter behind the cocoon of state security apparatus, can hardly return to their respective homesteads. Such broad sense of debilitating insecurity is common, even if hardly acknowledged publicly. Nigerians can also attest to the dearth of patriotism. So, what wand is binding Nigeria and still keeping it whole? Simply, it is the belief that bad governance can’t be perpetual.
Meanwhile, the broad understanding persist that those national elite who covet leadership roles have failed woefully at fulfilling three basic leadership requirements: ‘lead, follow or get the hell out of the way’. Rather, in a crablike fashion, they give primacy to the revolving door leadership syndrome. This default to business-as-usual and resignation combine to yield a fatalistic leadership disposition and hubris. Most Nigerians now accept that such disposition must change. But who gets to bell the cat?
Also acknowledged, is that the prevalent leadership hubris erodes any form of governance bipartisanship, as well as commitment to national interest and show of self-sacrifice. Clearly, Nigerian leaders seem unwilling to grasp that the singular, collective role expected and mandated to them as policy, economic, security and legislative managers, boils down to one critical task: lead. This is more so of those who hold the exulted elected or appointive positions as Heads of the Three Arms of Government in the Three Tiers.
Quite often, history instructs leadership decision-making. Drawing from the history of democracy: President Ronald Reagan once said, “The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one who gets the people to do the greatest things.” And before him, President John F. Kennedy averred that “the only valid test of leadership is the ability to lead and lead vigorously.” It’s disconcerting that the national elite by refusing to learn from history continue to ride the Nigerian ship roughshod. Their roguish groupthink and ‘we versus the masses’ mindset bedevil Nigeria the most.
Unsurprisingly, Nigeria is now synonymous with the historically tragic Titanic. Dubbed too big to sink, it took on water listlessly until it sank. Hardly did those onboard seem aware of the imminent catastrophe. Ditto our nation and our current leaders. As Prof. Okey Ikechukwu rightly observed, “Elite myopia, leadership illiteracy and abysmal ignorance of both 21st Century leadership and cultural anthropology of the Nigerian state are working together here.” Nigeria has functional federal, state and local governments. Yet the impact of non-state actors has never been quite as severe as it is now. Banditry and kidnapping are now booming businesses, thus leading some to suggest complicity or negligence of government agents or both. In one year, July 2023 to June 2024, kidnappers in Nigeria reportedly demanded up to N10.99 billion. Were security and its corollary, the responsibilities to protect the twin indices for assessing national stability, then Nigeria is a failed nation.
Despite stark bad governance, governmental affairs are still run in the business-as-usual mode. As Nigeria’s rot and rut has metastasized, her crisis off-ramp remains uncharted. It can’t be uncharitable, therefore, to categorize as certifiable, those in power, who are fixated on 2027. These people seem to take a dangerous delight in the subjugation of hungry Nigerians into servility, servitude and penury. It is also the height of misgovernance, precepts and hypocrisy that those who not long ago were themselves immersed in national protests, would today seek to charge protesting hungry Nigerians with treason.
Equally culpable, are those who hitherto have been in power at various times, yet are unwilling to make the necessary self-sacrifice required to build a new coalition or the bipartisan New Tribe required to make Nigeria whole and truly a nation. Perhaps, it is at them that President Olusegun Obasanjo directed his recent barb, about our vulnerabilities due to lack of national institutional memory.
The debate on restructuring, which has been swirling for decades, remains inconclusive. Secret and open battles over the future of a new Nigeria, and who will shape it, persist. Accordingly, Nigeria may yet be a dismal nation transformed. The true beauty of democracy is the guarantee of periodic and genuine elections. Unless something cataclysmic happens, Nigerians must gird up for the 2027 general elections. It will, of course, not be business as usual. But the needed electoral reforms and sustainable transformation won’t happen without a critical rethink of those entrusted to reshape and lead Nigeria.
Nigeria arrived at the present juncture due to lack of consequences for bad governance, profligacy and official malfeasance. That notwithstanding, the present government has run amuck in fiscal profligacy. Moving Nigeria forward requires a New Tribe. That a new tribe is not an additional ethnic grouping that will rank with or supersede the -Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo- WAZOBIA collective; but an adjunct coalition of detribalized Nigerians committed to true nationhood. They will be the successor regime to the present ‘tribe’ of corrupt national elite, who live off the confusion that is today’s Nigeria. For the New Tribe, ethnicity and religion will be the least of qualifying variables; and it must consist of a Team of Rivals.
As a nation, we had long abandoned measurable and benchmarked governance principles. That too will have to change. What is not measured or benchmarked does not get done. Thus, the New Tribe must prioritize a people-first approach that underscores democratic governance, as well as offer new and measurable governance roadmap. The New Tribe must also tackle Nigeria’s assorted unmet basic needs and challenges, which are metamorphosing fast into an inter-generational conflict.
The present leadership, which should be considered supernumerary and transitional to a New Nigeria, may do well to glean from conventional wisdom. Social scientists and those long immersed in variegated partisan politics, espouse a standing doctrine: “An iron principle of politics is that you must do swiftly what you will eventually be forced to do.” The present leadership hasn’t done much; and the honeymoon with Nigerians ended a long time ago. Now it’s time for reality check as reality begins to bite deep.
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Obaze is MD/CEO, Selonnes Consult – a policy, governance and management consulting firm in Awka.
