It is generally the case that the citizenry tends to thrive when the nation’s central government does well, political and ideological leanings notwithstanding. In essence, good government is good for legitimate business all round. In the same vein, it is fundamentally in the interest of all Nigerians and many others for the current government of Africa’s most populous nation to do well. That said, in order for the Buhari administration to be successful in the most important ways a modern era government can be said to be successful, it needs to first succeed at priority listing. For a good starting point, there are perhaps four priority goals that internal and external watchers need to be able to check ‘well done’ on when all is said and done:
First, whether the army general turned politician forms his full cabinet this September or a little later, one question will be frontal, especially to voters who badly needed to be rid of the glaring impunity of the PDP incumbency. Will Buhari’s job hiring instincts and marching orders clearly speak of both an enlightened focus on competence and national (rather than sectional) outlook? In order words, if he is to make a respectable difference, Buhari must appoint his senior officers clearly for know-how and results. And he must be seen to have sourced talent from across the entire national landscape, and not just primarily from his own social, economic or tribal comfort zone.
The second question is equally fundamental. Will Buhari invest the breadth and depth oversight it will take to elevate Nigeria’s much talked about (but often half-baked) war against corruption above the current catch and release drama of “pay the cops and auditors to conjure up some magic after iniquity has brazenly ravaged the land”? In other words, he must go for smart gate-keeping in order to free Nigeria’s ship of state from the stranglehold of formidable inner-circle pirates. Here, Buhari needs to work extra hours to instill some underpinning philosophical sanity into Nigeria’s asset protection working model. Nigeria badly needs processes and controls that do not crumble willy-nilly under the obese overhang of personality and influence. Yes, Nigeria urgently needs an accountability regimen where the state gets out of the unholy business of selectively bankrolling the estate of a few individuals, and where you don’t get to retire from a lifelong career in government service as a millionaire/billionaire, with no teachable clarity as to the source of such stupendous wealth.
On the third flank, to the extent that Buhari himself does not run the risk of setting himself up to become power drunk, he should find the courage to go for some degree of power dilution across all levels of the political stewardship framework. Will Buhari’s reforms reduce the real, even if unintended, overconcentration of transactional authority in the hands of top political players with outsized penchant for bluster and highly desensitized nerves for due process? This may be the recipe for greater operational transparency and service above self. Buhari needs to quickly come to terms with the reality that the Nigerian system needs to be revved up with the capacity to stop highly placed individuals from repeatedly doing wrong at massive public expense. This way, Nigerians can be spared the revolving drama of paying new sets of captains and crews to go through the rowdy and largely ineffectual motions of ‘arresting and prosecuting’ friends and godfathers. Such recurring high stakes play acting episodes have tended to roundly ridicule the real business of public accountability in Nigeria. Seems kind of silly when you think of it, doesn’t’ it? Here is why this medicine doesn’t work?
After-the-fact policing is easily the most expensive, and yet ineffective, way to fight corruption. The reason is that now you are fighting a well entrenched, well-funded and sometimes well-celebrated foe. Not only is this fight often executed with relatively meager resources, more importantly, outcomes are also largely guaranteed to be suspect since too many in the audience are sure to be convinced that it is all smoke and mirrors. Besides, citizens are not that well served by a token offering of a few temporarily ostracized big shots in jails where they are still clearly treated as celebrities, albeit on unplanned detours. Nigerians will be much better served by a system that is effective at keeping itchy fat fingers away from their cash till in the first place.
Finally, there is the question of destination leadership. Will Buhari seek to model a dynamic and inclusive Nigeria where every citizen feels fully Nigerian everywhere in Nigeria? Forget the North, East, West, South carry-go politics of weak links and misplaced loyalties, if Buhari invests astutely in a model of Nigeria that radically begins to cease to be tethered by the combined toxicity of greed and ethno-religious predictabilities, he would have significantly raised the bar for good governance in Nigeria for all time. On this score, Buhari will do well to pen down two or three countries Nigeria must ambitiously begin to work to be like when she grows up. Without some success-case role modeling to focus Nigeria on a path, the country’s road to its best self will remain a personality-centered, cash and carry, circular adventure of missed opportunity, with little or no directional horsepower and lots of resources perennially lost to entrenched leadership infidelity.
Not surprising, a parallel survey of Nigerians reveals a public catalog of expectations of the Buhari administration that can be said to be an intimidating and understandingly urgent one. On the every-day citizen level, Nigerians, almost all 170 million strong (or ‘weak’ perhaps) badly need to see and experience the vision of better days under Buhari. In the marketplace, businesses and the underlying economy need some level of policy certainty. On the global front too, the world is watching for indications that beyond the usual cosmetics of the changing of the guard, this time will be different.
While Nigerians may have adjusted somewhat to the gradual cranking up of the new administration’s governance engine, they have their own checklist too. On the whole, it would seem that most are on the same page, and for good reasons, on the expectation that the Buhari government must as of immediate necessity focus on certain key areas, including:
1. Edit Nigeria’s second-rate story of adulthood and radically write-in the acceleration of the pace of national progress away from governance mediocrity and organized criminality in high public office. It is feared that as much as 35% of Nigeria’s resources consistently dissolve into this massive accountability deficit sinkhole.
2. Checkmate the potency of the twin plague of a dominantly stubborn feature of dismal return on financial investments and the somewhat celebrated culture of corrupting influences in high and low places. There is very little hidden about corruption in Nigeria, yet there has been more play-acting than credible crime fighting in this regard.
3. Save citizens from the strange and menacing reality of extreme sectionalism and religious dead-ending. Wherever in the world they exist today, tribal pigeon hole living and religious extremism serve only to divide people and splinter a nation’s energy from focus on collective progress. Citizens are thus held hostage to hatred, poverty and ignorance, rather than be freed and empowered to become hosts to knowledge, fellowship and progress.
4. Banish mass poverty to oblivion, forcing it into the lagoon with a demonstrable aversion for poverty-minded lieutenants and a clear preference for the rule of law. Nothing wrestles down poverty as effectively as justice well practiced across the legal, social and economic spheres.
5. Elevate transparency in the Nigerian system to the much desired status of a process-based civil society. Transparency demystifies governance, forces office holders to become smarter, and radically reduces the cost of policing both the system and those institutions set up to do the policing.
6. Forge local and international partnerships and alliances of strength rather those of low standards and a mutual race to the bottom. Systems that are significantly corrupt tend to attract partnerships and contracts that are that much corrupting, much to the detriment of the nation and its least powerful majority.
Here then is the September morning question for Buhari and his team. Will this time be demonstrably different, or are Nigerians once again embarking on a journey across another bridge to nowhere?
lightnigeria 