Getting a Nigerian Democracy: the Tinubu's Lagos model - 2

Bola Tinubu is not the only one to have initiated the concept of godfather and godson politics in Nigeria but he is the only that has been successful with it.

We keep at the back of our minds that we are looking for a model that will Nigerianize democracy and help the nation to overcome the inherent deficiency of democracy. We must bear it in mind that Nigeria due to our peculiarity because of our complex diversity and a deliberate design of colonial Britian has suffered so much leadership deficiency making it almost impossible to solve our many problems. We are so poor and in spite of availability of mineral resources, especially oil, many of our peoples are still not literate. We live in poor environment and many are homeless. We have concluded that democracy, the westernstyle has allowed the worst of us to rule the best of us. Thuggery is rife in our politics and only moneybags can hope for a headway. People come to our politics with money secured from shady deals such as drugs, financial scams or money stolen from government as civil servants or from the private sector, especially banks. We are a nation in a hurry to catch up with nations such as Singapore and South Korea that started at the same time with us at independence. We are a nation that knows that if every available naira we earn can be effectively mobilized and invested in our people in human capital development, even the sky will not be the limit to our growth. But corruption and bad leadership stand between us and our great potential.

How did President Bola Ahmed Tinubu hold a complex state like Lagos together for about 25 years in stability and progress? How did he become the power centre of that state that plays host to Nigerians from different backgrounds. Bola Tinubu is not breaching the constitution but has used acceptable and developing conventions to hold that state together. All politicians, all traditional rulers, all civil servants, business leaders and settlers from different parts of Nigeria admit his leadership ability and yet he had no formal legal backings behind him, especially after he left office as governor of the state of aquatic splendour. Bola Tinubu is not the only one to have initiated the concept of godfather and godson politics in Nigeria but he is the only that has been successful with it. In Edo State after initial success with ex-governor Lucky Igbinedion, late Edo State political icon, Tony Anenih, was successfully challenged and defeated by ex-labour leader, Adams Oshiomole who came under the banner of Tinubu's ACN party to become the governor. Adams Oshiomole failed as a godfather with Godwin Obaseki, a man he appointed into his Cabinet and also installed as succeeding governor. Obaseki broke ranks with Oshiomole and defected to PDP and ruled for eight years keeping Oshiomole at bay. There is a new and ongoing experiment with the new governor in Edo State, Monday Okpebholo and Adams Oshiomhole, now a senator. Godfather, godson relationship failed in Anambra where a godfather Chris Uba, arranged through illegal police connivance to kidnap godson, former governor Chris Ngige away from his seat as impeached. Ngige overcame the illegality and returned to his office. It failed in Oyo state where former governor, Rasidi Ladoja was not able to have a control on Seyi Makinde, the current governor of the state.

Another godfather, Lamidi Adedibu of Ibadan, Oyo state who at different times used thugs to remove and install governors was not successfull. Even though he got Rasidi Ladoja removed by a thug who presided as the Speaker of the State's House of Assembly and pronounced Rasidi Ladoja impeached during a rowdy shoot out, Ladoja was eventually returned to power by the Supreme Court. Also the arrangement failed between Rabiu Kwankwaso and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje in Kano State. Kwankwaso could not maintain hold on Ganduje who succeeded him as governor. The fight which has divided the ancient city into two emirates both of which are claiming to be legal is still on. In Rivers state the struggle for supremacy between strongman Nyesom Wike and his supposed godson Siminalayi Fubara is still raging with the balance tilting towards Wike. Godfather and godson relationship between strongman and reformist technocrat, Nasir El-Rufai and his long time friend and godson, Uba Sani shattered as soon as Uba Sani was sworn in as governor in Kaduna state. But Bola Tinubu has been successful, so far, for about 26 years. What principles can we learn from him and the Lagos model? Can those principles be turned into legal provisions to achieve similar peace and progress in other parts of the country? Can it recruit good leadership into our politics which is crying for good men and women?

Bola Tinubu didn't just assume influence overnight. He worked hard over a long period. He was successful as governor between 1999 and 2007. He has things to show for his reign. He had assembled technocrats from within and outside the state to draw up a development plan in all areas for the state. He knew one governor could not finish the assignment. He fought so hard for the man, Raji Fashola he picked to succeed him. Fashola had worked with him as his Chief-of-Staff when he was governor and had successfully passed a test Tinubu set for him without knowing it was a test. Tinubu went to all corners of Lagos state to campaign for Fashola. He campaigned so hard that he became lean. Opposition party, PDP gave him a good fight but he also fought back. Fashola won and became even more successful implementing all the programmes Tinubu had delineated. The success of Fashola gave Tinubu greater acceptability as a godfather that can be trusted. Tinubu did not look for a pushover who will just be a "yes" man, he got a Fashola who is good and passionate for Lagos state. There is another ongoing successful godfather-godson relationship between Vice President Kashim Shettima and Professor Umara Zulum. Zulum was the last person who wanted to be governor. He did not lobby for it as a commissioner in the cabinet of Kashim Shettima as governor. There were many others who lobbied to be but Shettima found Zulum so qualified that he decided not only to put him forward but to also finance his campaign when Zulum said he had no money. So far, Zulum has been a successful and performing governor. Another principle for success of the model is merit in the choice of the godson. The godfather must earn the respect of the godson and the respect of the people. Tinubu is said to be generous. He has helped many people out of problems. He has sponsored many abroad for medical attention. That generosity has endeared him to many people. This people-centered heart was used extensively during his 2023 campaign for the presidency which he won. Tinubu knows how to assemble a crack-team of technocrats who can get the job done. He is quick to forgive and quick to reconcile. He is known to have given a cabinet job to a person who was his critic only because that person is competent. The absence of these qualities in some others who have attempted godfatherism may have explained why they failed.

Tinubu was sponsored as governor in 1999 under the platform of Alliance for Democracy, AD, the party formed by the loyalists of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Tinubu tried to use the AD but he saw early that the struggle for influence among the key elders of the Afenifere who controlled the party will not help his design. It was reported that three of those leaders got plots of land in a choice area of Lagos from him and that one of them actually pestered him to help build the house which he did. The leader concerned denied but the attitude deficit shows that those who want to play the godfather role successfully must shun greed. Greedy men and women can't be godfathers and mothers. Possibly seeing this deficit, Tinubu left the AD and formed his the ACN where he was the alpha and omega. This move says a lot about the model we are examining. Tinubu is farsighted. He saw quite early that those elders of Afenifere will not go too far and he left them. Today AD is dead and Afenifere is in tatters. This development should help the nation in its thinking about political party formation, structuring and organizing. The way political parties are regulated by so many laws cannot help the development and discipline of the parties. Almost all the parties have the same structure. The law did not give room for individual creativity and vision in the formation and development of the parties. This is why almost all of them are in the courts contesting one thing or the other. The courts had to help them to decide how to run their parties. Now the courts because of this attitude decides who rules and not the electorate. The Supreme Court recently ruled out Julius Abure as chairman of Labour Party that fielded Peter Obi as its presidential candidate in 2023. This frequent court interventions in political party affairs did not happen in Nigeria's first and second republics, not even in sloppy NPN era.

This attitude began in the Second Republic when the defunct National Party of Nigeria, NPN was formed. NPN was an allcomers party formed just to include everybody who needed a place. It was rudderless and lacking discipline. All it wanted was to win election. It had nothing in its heart for the development of the citizens. In the First Republic, each of the three main parties was associated with a political icon who was the visioner of it. Up North, the NPC though was formed by somebody else was given to Sir Ahmadu Bello who arranged the party around his vision for the North. Majority in the North joined. The NCNC though started by Herbert Macaulay was taken over by Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe who became the visioner. Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a gifted organizer and thinker organized and defined the vison of the Action Group, AG. He led it even when it transmuted to the UPN and till the polical icon died. What is the teaching of this principle? Political parties must be built by and around visioners and not an allcomers thing. Leaders are born, they are not made. The idea to move away from this time-tested principle started in the time of Ibrahim Babangida, self-declared military president who through his political theorists turned the nation into one large political laboratory testing all kinds of theories. They thought wrongly that the first and the second republics failed because the parties were arranged after men. They created two government parties, the Social Democratic Party, SDP and the National Republican Convention, NRC. SDP was supposed to be welfarist but its presidential candidate, MKO Abiola, was one of the richest black men then and an unapologetic capitalist. What an irony? On its part, NRC was an amalgam of men and women who just wanted a platform to win election.

Men and women who think alike must be allowed to form a party freely and expound their philosophy in the party where men and women of like minds will draw to them. Only few regulations are necessary; parties must not be regional, they must spread round the entire nation, they must be free to choose their structure only informing the electoral body of that status and who is running and how those running it are to be chosen. It must not be the business of anybody to impose any form of internal democracy. We have said consistently that democracy only get the worst to rule the best. We cannot afford that any longer in Nigeria. It is the reason our politics is populated by thieves and why our legislators and executives are only in power for their own interests. Let the men and women who are motivated and passionate about their ideas get together. This is what Bola Tinubu did when he saw the AD was not going to help him to push his ideas. With the ACN firmly in his hand and directing it in a public worthy direction he became a political icon first in Lagos and now the president of Nigeria. Tinubu's ACN later teamed up with Muhammadu Buhari's Congress for Progressive Change, CPC and some other legacy parties to dislodge the behemoth PDP from power in 2015.

One thing must be made compulsory for all the parties that will be formed and that derives from the serious problems the country is in; the problem of deep poverty and misery. Nigeria must be constitutionally declared to be welfarist state. And the welfarist provisions must be justiceable. Any Nigerian must be able to sue the government for denying him or her any of the welfare provisions. Government also must be able to sue anybody who is not enjoying the welfare provisions or is not allowing his children or wife enjoy them. Education must be free and of quality at all levels. In the same vein, health insurance must be provided for all Nigerians, and there must be affordable accommodation for all Nigerians, there must be one meal per students of primary and secondary schools, there must be welfare money given to all citizens who are above 18-years-old. Nigerians must not be identified by tribes but by regions of origin and region of residence. Nigerians must be entitled to two plots of land, one in their region of origin and one in their region of residence. It must not be denied to them. All Nigerians who are in school from primary to university level must be mobilized for productive and mechanized agriculture. Population must be controlled and the control must be legislated. Parties can only bring in creativity in other areas of welfare that are not mentioned and those mentioned. It will not be an excuse for any party that there is no money to finance them. That is why it is very important that good and patriotic leaders must be sought who can make sacrifices. I'm convinced that if all the monies that are being looted, that go into buying cars and provide lavish accommodation for leaders, or monies that are being spent on religion or monies spent to go on jamboree abroad in the name of economic tours or any learning are mopped up, there will be enough to provide these welfare programmes. If a governor knows that he or she will have to provide for all citizens in his or her domain, then he or she will most likely support regulations that reduce population and stop spendings on non-productive religious ventures. This will cut short the number of parties that will show up knowing government is no longer for the lily-livered and lazy looters. It is also important to warn that Nigeria has gotten to a place where a revolution may breakout. The leaders have taken the people for granted for so long a time. Poverty has radicalized many Nigerians and they are ready to unleash their anger on leaders. This must be avoided.

Crucial to this thinking is the concept of godfather and godson. Where are the godfathers? Where are the godsons? How will they be sought out? Are they going to be politicians like Tinubu? Are they going to be constitutionally empowered? These and many others will be answered in the next instalment. Please be on the lookout.

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