Getting a Nigerian democracy: the Tinubu's Lagos model

The concept of godfathers and godsons have featured repeatedly in our practice of democracy since 1999. There is a tendency for some departing presidents or governors to want to leave behind godsons.

John 1:45 - 49 " Phillip findeth Nathaniel, and said unto him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph.

“And Nathaniel said unto him, Can there any good come out of Nazareth ? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.

“Jesus saw Nathaniel coming to him and saith of him, behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile?

“Nathaniel answered and saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Phillip called thee, when thou was under the fig tree, I saw thee.

“Nathaniel answered and saith unto him, thou art the son of God, thou are the king in Israel.”

Good things can come from unusual and unexpected places. For Nathaniel it was impossible that God's Messiah will come out of Nazareth, a place of most horrible sins. But as he found out, good things can come from bad people and bad places. That is what we are going to find out in this conversation. We have shown even by a political philosopher, Socrates, that democracy contains a seed that will ultimately destroy it. We have seen that happening in the United States of America and we said it is already happening in Nigeria. We have said that like China, Nigeria must have a home-grown democracy. The Chinese were stuck with communism until Deng Xiaoping came to reform it. China will not let what is popular in the world define her choice. She defined her democracy by her experience with communism. She will not go the way of uncurbed freedom of the west which is nothing but licentiousness. She will not allow the one-man one-vote of the west determine her leadership recruitment and she has by profound progress within a short time proved to the world that western-style democracy is not the best in all situations. While America is struggling and dying, China is rising and providing a viable alternative to America. Even now Europe is deciding on Europe without America. Africa must get her own home defined democracy if she must grow. What we have as direct importation from the West cannot serve us. If that is not apparent to us, them someone must wake us up. We will never make any meaningful progress. We must know that our traditional culture did not allow for a deceptive freedom brought here by our colonial masters. Our kings and chiefs made good progress with the system they developed to govern their peoples. For about 26 years Nigeria has had the singular luck of running the western-style democracy again. Why that democracy has not crashed to the usual cry of "fellow country men" of soldiers-of-fortune who intervene to terminate democracy at the slightest opportunity for their own good and not for the good of the people can only be explained in divine terms because those 26 years have been with very serious strains. There is nothing that happened in the ones that were terminated before it that have not happened even with greater intensity. Perhaps those 26 years are opportunities given to us to think radically and come up with fresh and pragmatic solutions which can sustain us as a nation. A public commentator said at the rate at which we are going we will need the next 300 years to get to our desired goals; another way of saying we will never arrive at those goals.

Many times the solution we are looking for are not too far away from us but we may never see it because we are looking in the wrong direction. We perhaps have looked into known political science theories for too long and they have not helped. Let's for once look at a trend that have repeated itself almost in all states, in all executives and in all legislatures. Our thesis is, once we get our executive and legislature right the judiciary will line up. Once we are able to find a suitable way to get good and disciplined men and women in our executive and legislative arms of government, they will reform the judiciary. We must drive to get good men and women into our legislative houses and the executive who must not have the mentality of winning elections at all costs as we have now, men and women who will accept defeat in good faith, men and women who will not bribe the judiciary to procure false justice in order to be in power, men and women who will put the nation above their narrow ambition in our executive and legislative arms of government. The concept of godfathers and godsons have featured repeatedly in our practice of democracy since 1999. There is a tendency for some departing presidents or governors to want to leave behind godsons. Their motives may not be clean, often people have felt they do this because they want godsons who will cover-up the evil they did in office, mostly the looting of the treasury. This is true in a number of cases. There are others who just want to maintain their political relevance. Nowhere has this tendency been more successful than in Lagos State where the current president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu was governor at the return of the country to democracy in 1999. He was governor till 2007 when he fought tooth and nail to install a successor and a political son, Babatunde Raji Fashola, as governor. Since then Tinubu has been effectively in control of Lagos State. Lagos State is the commercial capital of Nigeria and one of the most complex states where incompetence really shows immediately in consequence. The state has been relatively stable and even though corruption and waste have been rife in the state, it has witnessed relative progress. We have legislators that are recalcitrant who went into those chambers not for the people, however they disguise it but for themselves. How has the Tinubu model been able to rein them in is worthy of a practical study? How has Tinubu been able to make sure the governors that he chose continue in the programme of action he has lined up for them. Raji Fashola, so far, is the most successful of those governors that Tinubu installed and both Tinubu and Fashola agree that Fashola was actually an actualizer doing the things that he met in the files.

One of the most terrible strains of Nigeria's current democracy is the tendency for succeeding governors or presidents to reverse what his predecessor did. Good example is Umar Yar’adua who was brought in when the third-term agenda of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo failed. People have said Umaru Yar’adua, known for his weakness and incompetence was brought in because Obasanjo wanted someone he could control to continue his programmes. He chose also for him a deputy known for weakness and incompetence. As it turned out Umaru Yar’adua for the years he was healthy succeeded only in reversing everything Obasanjo did and indeed banished him from Aso Rock, the seat of power. After Yar’adua died in office and was succeeded by Goodluck Jonathan, he too rejected Obasanjo’s overbearing influence in his incompetent administration and he almost ruined the nation in unabashed tribalism and cluelessness. Currently in Rivers State we see a strain between godfather, Nyesom Wike and godson Siminalayi Fubara who are at daggers drawn. The clash of the two for control of the politics of the usually volatile Rivers State is threatening the economy of the entire country which depend on oil resources based in Rivers and other Niger Delta states. It is alleged that Sim Fubara bombed the House of Assembly building to prevent impeachment threats against him by the majority legislators, 27 of them, who are loyal to Nyesom Wike who President Bola Tinubu appointed as Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, despite not being a member of his party, APC. If Fubara did as alleged, he was taking a cue from Godwin Obaseki, the former governor of Edo State who had removed the roof of the state’s Assembly building in the name of renovating it, but in real sense was to prevent that Assembly from seating to impeach him. The Assembly was loyal to Adams Oshiomole, the governor that handed over to Obaseki. President Bola Tinubu because of this crisis has clamped an emergency rule on Rivers State. Whether he could rightly suspend the governor and the House of Assembly as he did is now a case before the court filed by the PDP governors forum for judicial decision. It was alleged that to get the required two-thirds vote in both the Senate and the House of Representatives to support the Attorney-General of the federation, Lateef Fagbemi’s, interpretation of section 305 of the Constitution, about $75,000 exchanged hands as bribe. How do we get a House of Representatives and Senate that will not demand bribe to do their jobs? A member of the House of Representatives has denied they got bribe but that he got $5000 dollars as Sallah gift. He didn't tell the nation who gave the gift or whether it was in the budget of the National Assembly. It is reported that the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, a Christian invited senators to Iftar, the breaking of fast by Muslims, in his house where the gift for senators was distributed. The motion sailed through in both houses, at the Senate in secrecy and at the House of Representatives by a voice vote that has generated controversy among critics who felt such a very important and controversial motion shouldn't have been decided by a voice vote.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu has survived two strains on his model. First was in the tenure of ex-governor Akinwunmi Ambode who decided to be his own man executing programmes that are out of sync with the ones that the state had outlined. The effect of this became immediately noticeable, especially in a dirtier Lagos after the mode of refuse collection and clearing changed in Lagos. Tinubu waited for Ambode to continue until the end of his first four year term when he chose another person, Babajide Sanwoolu and called for a primary of their party, ACN. It was obvious to Ambode he could not beat the Tinubu political machine in Lagos. He lost massively to Babajide Sanwoolu who eventually won the governorship election and replaced Akinwunmi Ambode. The second strain is the imbroglio between Governor Sanwoolu on one had and the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Mudasiru Obasa, and members of the Assembly who impeached him for some alleged infractions, on the other hand. Despite the listed infractions, it was felt that it was more a fight caused by a visible arrogance of Mudasiru Obasa, most especially against Governor Babajide Sanwoolu. Why Bola Tinubu did not know of the brewing intrigue until it got to the impeachment of Speaker Mudasiru Obasa is not known but despite the successful impeachment, when Bola Tinubu stepped in, he got the speaker restored and Mojisola Meranda who had been installed as replacement for Obasa to resign. Although it was reported that Obasa’s suit challenging his removal is still in court, Tinubu has once again proved his dexterity in Lagos politics and the efficiency of his model to ensure orderly government in a developing nation. People have correctly observed that Tinubu has been in control for reasons that are purely selfish but the fact that it effectively combines selection with election and helps overcome the usual indiscipline among politicians recommends it. It could be improved upon and placed in the hands of not just one person as is done in the Tinubu model but in the hands of more carefully selected leaders in a way that will be enunciated as we proceed. In the current crisis in Lagos State, it became widely known that there is a Governorship Advisory Council (GAC) that consists of selected politicians who advise the governor on policies. This means the governor is not left solely to his own devices, he listens to some other persons apart from the legislators. This is not a constitutional arrangement but an extra-legal arrangement, a developing convention to ensure peace and progress. It was when the GAC could not resolve the fight in the Assembly because they themselves are politicians that the main godfather stepped in and everybody lined up and peace was restored. How can the GAC be improved upon that the body is made a body of detached observers whose decision will carry authority among the executive and the legislators will be considered. Why did the attempt fail in the case of late Chief Tony Anenih of Edo State and in the Adams Oshiomole and Godwin Obaseki experience and the ongoing Nyesom Wike and Sim Fubara experience in Rivers State; why did it fail in the case of Seyi Makinde and Rasidi Ladoja, one-time governor of Oyo State will definitely help us in improving on this model for national acceptance. This will be the focus of the next instalment.

Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos