Governance In Nigeria: Trick or Treat? -By Jide Omotinugbon

Jide Omotinugbon

I do not believe I spend as much time on Facebook as my wife alleges. I agreed though, that I spend much time online reading other stuff I consider knowledgeable. As for Facebook, there are some people’s write-ups that one looks out for. There are some nauseating things that show up on your wall just because you are “friends” with such people. I wish there are ways to filter what one wants to appear on one’s wall. And sometimes, there are some fables that actually make sense. Consider this somewhat embellished story about a wife putting her husband to a test, asking him to move to the left when she mentions a colour and to move to the right whenever she mentions a fruit. And that if the husband makes a wrong move, he would be her subject forever! And you want to ask yourself: what has a fruit got to do with colour? Well, there seems to be because the first thing mentioned by the fox-lady was “orange.” Imagine where to move to when you cannot read someone’s mind.

After reading the above, I tried to put my teenage daughter to a test on Halloween day after she came home with a bag full of candy. I proposed that I would add five dollar to her bag if she could pass the test I was going to give her and if she failed, I was going to take her bag full of candy. She hesitated and finally asked if there was any trick involved. Of course, there was. After all, Halloween is about trick or treat. She opted out because I guess she would rather have her bag full of candy than running after my five dollar.

Governance in our beloved country seems to have been turned into a trick or treat thing. When they mentioned “change” during the campaign, many of us were expecting some fundamental differences in the way of governance. Only Mama Peace asked the question then (derisively, of course) whether we be conductors wey dey ask for change? Sounded funny then but on hindsight, I no longer consider it funny.

In any little gathering I found myself in the past, I always pleaded that change takes time to become tangible. As we used to hear while growing up however, you begin to know of a weekend that would be a good one beginning from Friday. I do not know how long I will be able to defend a government whose actions we do not know whether it is a treat or some kinds of trick.

First, the corruption fight seems to have lost the initial shock of exposing individuals who have illegally cornered millions/billions of naira of public funds for their personal use. All we have now are the selective leakages by the EFCC regarding money stolen by and/or recovered from some individuals. It is no longer shocking to hear such news. I guess the shock would be back when there is an actual conviction that is not perceived as tainted.

Second, there seems to be no attempt at institutional change or even any pretense to that effect. It is just a question of replacing those who lost out with those who are close to those who won. Granted, there are some institutional changes that would require constitutional amendments, which may not be feasible in the interim. But how about making some idealistic appointments? We have had cause to write somewhere that the Awolowos, Sardaunas, Azikiwes, Enahoros, etc. were in their forties and thirties when they were attending constitutional conferences for the nation’s independence. How about looking for some idealistic intellectuals to be in charge of re-orientating the country and bringing us at par to the twenty first century?

For some of us who have the privilege of knowing what government should be because of firsthand experience across the Atlantic, it is sad when one reads about what governance has been reduced to in our beloved country. The United States of America and Canada, as well as the European countries, for example, already have set goals. The difference between the political gladiators is just how to get there, which accounts for the mostly two party systems of a little to the left or a little to the right (what Tunde Asaju called Babangidance!) I hope we would not use eternity in fighting corruption on the pages of newspapers.

Prior to President Buhari’s appointment of his ministers, and while justifying the delay in announcing members of his cabinet, he saw ministers as “noise makers” which probably explains why most of them are not talking about what they are actually doing. When there is a dearth of information on what you are actually doing, no one would know if you are actually doing anything. Where there is half information dished out, we would not know if it is a treat or some kinds of trick. That is not how a government should be run. Special advisers on information or press secretaries’ roles seem to have been reduced to the rebuttal of negative news reports. In the United States, the White House press secretary holds a daily conversation with the White House press corps on topical issues of the day. I already imagine someone reading this piece saying we are not there yet. So, when are we going to get there?

The president wanted and thus requested for approval of some external loans in the billions and wrote a letter to the legislative arm for the same. One arm (the Senate) said no on “technical ground”, while the other arm (House of Representatives) said it would approve the request. So all it takes to mortgage the nation’s future is a page or so letter without any debate on the appropriateness or otherwise of such contemplated loan. Separation of powers in elementary government class does not mean no engagement with the other arms of government, although our idea of engagement might be different from how other successful democracies are operating. Ours is about greasing someone’s palm. Governance requires engaging and educating the citizenry on what it is doing or what its plans are. After all, two good heads are said to be better than one. Please engage the citizens – and at all levels for that matter. The dearth of information breeds rumours about what the government is up to: giving us a treat or just tricking us?

Jide Omotinugbon, jideo18@yahoo.com, writes from Louisville, KY, USA.