Thealvinreport.com led a powerful team of 66 delegates pulled in from various sectors of the economy to discuss leadership issues with former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Here is the Editor in Chief of Thealvinreport.com and chief Obasanjo at the summit
Over the course of the last few weeks, Nigerians have seen many politicians make open declarations of their intent to contest in the forthcoming general elections for the office of the President, and we know there will be more as 2023 draws closer. Today, we ask the all-important question: What would you consider when selecting the candidate of your choice – Character or Policy?
As it is common practice, some of us would want to see the intense debate over policy – what they intend to do or not do, why and how – with matters of personality pushed to the background. But personality can also be viewed as a character, and in some ways, character to me is more important than policy in choosing political leaders.
Candidates seeking political office naturally lay out their plans should they win the election. Those plans, which may derive from an ideology or from personal values, represent their public presentation of what they would do if they won office. An ideology is a broadly held system of beliefs – an identifiable intellectual movement with specific positions on a range of topics. Personal values are more idiosyncratic than those derived from an ideology, but both represent a desire to govern from principle and policy.
In many cases, the presentation of intentions has less to do with what candidates would actually do than it does with what they think will persuade the voters to vote for them. But such candidates, possessing personal ambition more than principle, would not be opposed to doing what they said, since it suited the public. They have no plans themself beyond remaining in office.
Then there are those who profoundly believe in their policies. They sincerely intend to govern based on what they have said. This is what many think elections ought to be about: ideas, policies, ideologies, and beliefs. Thus, in the case of the forthcoming general election, many of us are searching for what the candidates believe and asking whether they actually mean what they say.
It isn’t surprising that policy experts often decry the fact that the public frequently appears ignorant of and indifferent to the policies candidates stand for. Nigerian citizens can be driven by fatuous slogans or simply by their perception of the kind of person the candidates are. This “beauty pageant” approach to presidential and governorship elections infuriates ideologues and policy experts who believe that the election should not turn on matters as trivial as personality. They recognize the personal dimension of the campaign but deplore it as being a diversion from the real issues of the day.
But consider the relationships between intentions and outcomes in Nigerian presidencies. During the 2015 campaign, President Buhari made the case for tackling the high rate of insecurity and corruption as well as rebuilding the country’s economy which he believed previous administration – Obasanjo, Yar’adua, and Goodluck administration – failed to address or contributed to. There is every reason to believe that at the time candidates articulated their policies, they meant it and intended to follow it. What they believed and intended turned out to mean very little. Their presidency was determined not by what they intended to do but by something they did not expect nor plan for: The crash in the global price of crude oil, economic recession, covid-19, kidnapping, banditry, herders/farmers conflict, etc.
This is not unique to President Buhari. Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, in terms of foreign policy, as defined by the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon, Goodluck Jonathan by terrorism and insurgency in the North East. None of these presidents expected their presidency to be focused on these things, although perhaps they should have. And these were only the major themes. They had no policies, plans, or ideological guidelines for the hundreds of lesser issues and decisions that constitute the fabric of a presidency.
Frequently, candidates’ campaign policy papers seem to imply that they are simply in control of events. All too often, events control the candidates, defining his agenda and limiting his choices. Sometimes, as with the Covid-19 or Kidnapping and Banditry, it is a matter of the unexpected redefining the presidency. In other cases, it is the unintended and unexpected consequences of a policy that redefine what the presidency is about. Jonathan’s presidency is perhaps the best-case study for this: His policy or approach toward curbing terrorism and insurgency grew far beyond what he anticipated and overwhelmed his intentions for his time in office. No Nigerian president has had a clearer set of policy intentions, none was more initially successful in adhering to those intentions and few have so quickly lost control of the presidency when unintended consequences took over.
Machiavelli argues in The Prince that political life is divided between Fortuna, the unexpected event that must be dealt with, and virtu, not the virtue of the religious – the virtue of abstinence from sin – but rather the virtue of the cunning man who knows how to deal with the unexpected. None can deal with Fortuna completely, but some can control, shape, and mitigate it. These are the best princes. The worst are simply overwhelmed by the unexpected.
Nigerians who are concerned with policies assume two things. The first is that the political landscape is benign and will allow the leader the time to do what he or she wishes. The second is that should the terrain shift, the leader will have time to plan, to think through what ought to be done. Ideally, that would be the case, but frequently the unexpected must be dealt with in its own time frame. Crises frequently force a leader to go in directions other than he planned to or even opposite to what he wanted.
Policies – and ideology – are testaments to what aspiring leaders wish to do. Fortune determines the degree to which they will get to do it. If they want to pursue their policies, their political virtue – understood as cunning, will, and the ability to cope with the unexpected – are far better indicators of what will happen under a leader than his intentions.
Policies and ideology are, in my view, the wrong place for Nigerians to evaluate an aspiring candidate. First, the cunning candidate is the one least likely to take his policy statements and ideology seriously. He or she is saying what he or she thinks he or she needs to say in order to be elected. Second, the likelihood that he or she will get the opportunity to pursue his or her policies – that they are anything more than a wish list casually attached to reality – is low. Whether or not Nigerian voters agree with aspiring candidates’ ideology and policies, it is unlikely that the candidate-turned-leader will have the opportunity to pursue them.
Some leaders may want to focus on domestic, not foreign policy when they get into office. Fortune may tell them that they are not going to get that choice, and the beliefs they had about foreign policy – such as nation-building – were irrelevant. Some may want to focus on positioning the country as a regional power but be overwhelmed by domestic challenges that need all their attention. In the end, their presidencies would or may resemble their campaign policies only incidentally. There will be no connection, neither would things go as they expected.
When Hillary Clinton was competing with Obama for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, she ran a television commercial depicting a 3 a.m. phone call to the White House about an unexpected foreign crisis. They claim Clinton was making was that Obama did not have the experience to answer the phone. Whether the charge was valid or not is the voter’s responsibility to answer. However, implicit in the ad was an important point, which was that the character of a candidate was more important than his policy position. When woken in the middle of the night by a crisis, policies are irrelevant. Character is everything.
I will make no serious effort to define character, but to me, it comprises the ability to dissect a problem with extreme speed, to make a decision and live with it, and to have principles (as opposed to policies) that cannot be violated but a cold-blooded will to do his duty in the face of those principles. For me, the character is the competition within a leader who both wants power and wants something more.
If this is vague and contradictory, it is not because I haven’t thought about it. Rather, of all of the political issues, there is the nature of the character, and how to recognize it is least clear. It is like love: inescapable when you encounter it, fragile over time, indispensable for fully human life. Recognizing character in a leader would appear to be the fundamental responsibility of a voter.
The idea that you should vote for a leader based on his policy intentions is, I think, inherently flawed. Fortune moots the most deeply held policies and the finest leader may not reveal his intentions. For example, Lincoln hid his intentions on slavery during his1860 campaign. German Chancellor Angela Merkel never imagined the crisis she is faced when she ran for office. Intentions are hard to discern and rarely determine what will happen.
The issues that George W. Bush and Barack Obama had to deal with as US president were not the ones they expected. Therefore, paying attention to their intentions told American voters little about what either would do. That was a matter of character, of facing the unexpected by reaching into his soul to find the strength and wisdom to do what must be done and abandon what he thought he would be doing. The grace and resolution with which a leader does this define him.
I think that those who obsess over policies and ideologies are not wrong, but they will always be disappointed. They will always be let down by the candidate they supported – and the greater their initial excitement, the deeper their inevitable disappointment. It is necessary to realize that a leader of any sort cannot win through policy and ideology, and certainly not govern through them unless he is extraordinarily fortunate. Few are. Most leaders govern as they must, and identifying leaders who know what they must do is essential.
As to the question of who has the greatest character among candidates who have so far declared their intent to occupy key political offices in 2023, I have no greater expertise than any of you (my readers). There is no major in character at any university, nor a section on the character in newspapers. The truth of democracy is that on this matter, none of us is wiser than any other.
Whether character or policy, just remember to choose wisely. 2023 is a defining year for all of us.
In my last media intervention during the last week of December 2021, titled “Electoral Act Amendment Bill: Interrogating The Ogbanje/Abiku Element”, which was widely published in the mass media, I tried to decipher the reasons for the killing of the electoral act amendment bill five (5) times under the watch of the incumbent government at the centre. In the article, I speculated that President Mohammadu Buhari, as commander-in-chief of Nigeria’s armed forces, knew what you and I did not, and thus rejected the bill, which he basically informed us contained anti-democracy elements.
Here is how I put it:
“That is perhaps owed to the fact that in his position as the president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria, he knows what we all do not know, so he has his reasons which he has tried to put across to us.”
Fellow Nigerians, I can testify that I now know what Mr. President knows about the potential inequity that the clause in the rejected bill mandating political parties to produce candidates for general elections only through direct primaries would foist on the political class. It is information that is not in the public space.
While I was also perplexed as to why the outgoing governors, who will be exiting the powerful governors’ forum, were empowering a forum of which they would cease to be members from May 29, 2023, the puzzle is now solved as the pressure mounted by governors on President Buhari not to append his signature to the rejected bill was beyond the selfish interest of leaders of government at state levels. So, I am no longer confounded about the reasoning behind the governors’ interest in allegedly prevailing on President Buhari not to append his signature to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2021, which had direct primaries as the only process of producing candidates for general elections.
And I will throw more light on that shortly.
Before then, here is how I wondered aloud about why governors were interested in sustaining indirect primaries in the same earlier cited piece:
“I am expressing that curiosity because it is basically through indirect primaries that governors can wield influence in determining who becomes the president, senator, or house of representatives member.”
“As most of the current governors are in the terminal stages of their tenure, after which some of them may not make it as the President, Vice President of Nigeria or party chairman end up as senators, it does not add up that they want to bestow so much power on the governors, a power block that they will not be part of in 2023.”
As evidenced by the conclusion above, I suspected that there was a catch for governors supporting a cause that they do not stand to profit from directly.
What I could not figure out at that time is that the APC governors were collectively fighting for the soul of the ruling party to prevent it, and to some extent, the entire Nigerian political system, from being hijacked by those who could attract and mobilize more members for the party in their respective states.
Ideally, attracting and registering more members for the party and leveraging the number to one’s advantage should not be such an anathema. That is because it is in consonance with the democracy dictum: the majority carries the vote. But just like the free market can not be without some level of regulations, the majority carries the vote principle of democracy and can not be unmoderated. Hence, the free rein that direct primaries could have engendered is being managed for the good of the ruling party at the center and, hopefully, for the Nigerian political class as a whole.
In light of the foregoing, I reasoned in the earlier-mentioned piece that the ruling party could have facilitated a settlement agreement between the presidency and its legislators before President Buhari rejected the bill.
The assertion above is underscored by the fact that the party at the center, APC, controls a majority of the members in both the senate and House of Representatives, hence it has been able to convert the electoral act amendment bill 2021 debate into a “family affair.”
As we all know, converting an official matter to a family affair is a euphemism for a resort to the compromise of the ethos of democracy or applying a “political solution” as opposed to adhering to the spirit and letter of the principles of democracy. So, it was sheer foolhardiness on my path to deign to assume that the legislators would suddenly grow from boys to men and override the president’s veto, as the previous NASS did with the NDDC bill that became an act after then president Olusegun Obasanjo’s veto was discountenanced or set aside by NASS during his reign.
In the instant case, the executive arm has captured the legislative and judiciary arms of the government through a series of radical actions against former CJN, Walter Onoghen, and ex-senate president, Bukola Saraki, who were considered a torn on the flesh of the executive arm and were literarily neutralized by being booted out of their roles where they were more or less seen to be like sentinels during the first term of the incumbent administration.
These actions, which some have averred as being unwholesome and inimical practices that portend danger to democracy, took place mostly in the course of the first term of President Buhari’s presidency, which was turbulent in terms of relations between the three arms of government. Those behind-the-scenes arm twisting maneuvers no doubt stymied the counter-balancing powers of the three other arms of government, which is considered an anathema in a true democracy. But the coming together of the executive and legislative arms as a force of the common good to disallow direct primaries as the only option for producing candidates that are deemed as a common threat to both the executive and legislative arms of government, bordering on political hijack, is a positive development.
As such, it is not surprising that the collective effort of both the executive and legislative arms of government to kill the resort to direct primaries is being welcomed by a broad spectrum of Nigerians, including the clergyman, Hassan Kukah, and some civil society organizations that had initially kicked against it when it was viewed from a narrow perspective.
With hindsight benefit, I realized that all the time that senators from the opposition party, PDP, were shouting themselves hoarse that the 73 votes (signatures) required to override the president’s veto had been secured, Aso Rock Villa must have been laughing in vernacular-apologies to ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, who is a veteran of such derisive laughter.
That is simply because, following the discovery of the negative value intrinsic in the resort to the application of only direct primaries in producing candidates, the ruling party at the centre, APC, converting the matter into a family affair, took it out of the orbit and influence of the main opposition party, PDP.
In any case, other legislators from the parties must have by now been apprised of the truth about the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2021, and some of its toxic contents. Given that this period of being on recess by NASS is an opportunity for respite via back channels horse trading by the lawmakers, I suspect that by now, the much vaunted 73 signatures of senators purportedly gathered to override the president’s veto must be down to nearly zero.
So, as the popular saying goes, by killing the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2021, without any furore in NASS, the APC might have literarily killed a rat without spilling its blood, metaphorically.
If President Buhari’s veto stands, the critically important electoral act amendment bill, 2021, that has the capacity to give the growth of democracy in our country a quantum leap, and which could have been another opportunity to deepen democracy in our country, which was on the cusp of an evolution through direct primaries, has been sacrificed on the alter of narrow interests premised on the belief that Nigeria is not ripe for such practice. That is one way of looking at the presidential veto.
As pragmatic as that assessment may be, there is
Another school of thought, which is of the belief that at such a critical juncture in the life of our country, our leaders should be patriotic by taking a wholistic and altruistic approach to nation-building. But the highly partisan NASS, dominated by the APC, which is monolithic, is working assiduously to stamp out the opportunity to make our democracy more representative.
Such an attitude of often meeting public expectations is not peculiar to Nigerian politicians. In fact, it is an attribute that mimics the Republican Party in the USA, which is increasingly looking like a cult group and a torn in the flesh of the ruling Democratic Party, by constituting itself into a sentinel of sorts, determined to thwart the lofty plans of US president Joe Biden, such as his building back better infrastructure bill stuck in legislative pipelines. Given the nature of politics and what we can observe and learn from the USA, where Nigeria borrowed the presidential system of governance, we need no enlightenment by any soothe sayer before understanding that the electoral act amendment bill 2021 would likely continuously be an Ogbanje/Abiku (be born and get killed) as long as it is in any shape or form that is in conflict with the narrow interests of the ruling party, APC, or is considered to have the capacity to imperil the political system.
In the course of digging deep into why the electoral act amendment bill, 2021, was not accented by President Buhari, I have also come to know that the reason the executive and legislative arms of government seem to be working together without friction under the watch of President Buhari is that the leadership under Senate president, Ahmed Lawan, and House of Representatives speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, has entered into a sort of pact with the executive arm of government to work together without antagonizing each other, as was the case with the 8th assembly that was at daggers drawn with the executive arm.
What that means is that there is a deliberate effort by both arms to function more cooperatively by having standing committees with members from both the executive and legislative arms of government, along with the primary agency that would implement the policy-end user also being a member of the cohort.
For instance, in the case of the electoral act amendment bill, INEC, which is the end user or implementing agency, is part of the standing committee.
I understand that it is one of the methods that NASS and the presidency adopted with the aim of being on the same page when policies or bills are being prepared from infancy to maturity. A similar strategy was applied to resolve the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, now Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, that had been on the drawing board since the return of multi-party democracy in 1999, the 4th republic.
That strategy, if I may refer to it as such, is supposed to be proof that the NASS is not a mere rubber stamp, as the legislators have been coming across to most observers, since they appear to be looking like yes men and women by not being seen to be scrutinizing proposals floated by the presidency via critical debates on them, as they should.
Similarly, the judiciary appears to be in acquiescence or hand in glove with the presidency, as it is not known to have barked, how much more bites the executive branch of government?
As a democracy advocate, it appears to me that such special arrangements are tending towards a dereliction of duty on the part of all the arms of government.
Put succinctly, the three arms of government appear to be reducing their constitutional role that made it obligatory for each of them to counterbalance each other to a mere perfunctory activity. As such, instead of strengthening democracy by strictly observing the tenets, the special arrangements may be watering down the benefits of the separation of powers that is the bulwark of democracy.
Whatever the case may be, it is debatable whether such arrangements that whittle down the principle of separation of powers, which is a canon of democracy, are beneficial to us as a nation or only serve the selfish political interests of the current political leadership of our country. In any case, it is another kettle of fish for interrogation on another date.
Nevertheless, any country operating a democratic system is at liberty to tweak the original system to suit its peculiar needs, depending on the national interest, local dynamics, and circumstances in the climate.
However, we must all be wary and vigilant about the potential corrosive effects of such practices or innovations on the fundamentals of democracy.
And the intervention via this essay is to awaken the senses of fellow democracy advocates to the danger that such compromise arrangements portend for our nascent democracy.
Before proceeding further, it is apropos at this juncture to point out that, contrary to the statement credited to the newly minted PDP chairman, senator, Iyochia Ayu, that the ruling party at the center, APC, plans to rig the 2023 presidential election, hence President Buhari failed to advance the Electoral Act Amendment bill 2021 into law, I would like to announce that it is much deeper than that.
In fact, it is for APC’s own internal reasons that the restriction of the process of choosing contestants for political offices by political parties strictly via direct primaries, instead of the freedom to choose from the three options of direct, indirect, and consensus, is rejected by President Buhari.
Unlike when my analysis was based on conventional wisdom, hence I was astounded by the befuddling conclusions from my trend analysis that are in tandem with most of the excuses advertised as the reasons that weighed down President Buhari’s hand, hence he was unable to sign the bill into law; I am now in a better position to share with readers the real and weighty debilities (if any) of President Buhari.
may refer to them as such) that compelled Mr. President not to assent to the bill that was transmitted to him on the 19th of November, 2021.
At this juncture, allow me to do so by putting some meat on the bone:
It may be recalled that the ruling APC, under the chairmanship of former governor of Edo state, Adams Oshiomole, embarked on a membership drive.
It was an initiative hailed by most pundits.
But the motive for the initiative was not really altruistic.
Rather, it is self-serving for particular interest groups.
With the introduction of technology into the election process, ballot box snatching and stuffing, as well as the writing of election results even before they were held, using alternative result sheets, which was once in vogue, have become obsolete.
But since human beings must keep trying to find ways to circumvent the rules by bending without breaking them, no matter how ironclad the rules are, new strategies that are more sophisticated are usually devised to breach the system.
And so it happened that the tactics of leveraging a larger membership base to gain an advantage in producing candidates using direct primaries, deemed in some quarters as a sophisticated way of rigging at the internal party level, almost slipped through the system to become law. It was executed through some clever maneuvering in the House of Representatives.
It was killed after it had landed on the desk of President Buhari in Aso Rock Villa.
If President Buhari had signed the electoral act amendment bill in 2021 with the clause prohibiting other options other than direct primaries as the only process of producing candidates by political parties, the ruling party at the center, the APC, would have been in for a surprise, as he would not have had a say in who becomes the next president after him.
That is simply because, for instance, at
At the end of the membership registration exercise, Lagos state had registered 4.5 million members, Kano state recorded 4.2 million members, while Delta state garnered a paltry 350,000 members and so on and so forth.
For the purpose of this analysis, I would confine myself to sharing with readers the APC membership registration figures for the three states listed above.
Take note that in a direct primary option, the registered members of the party are the delegates. That is contrary to the process of indirect primaries, whereby only party executives, elected representatives, and government appointees from wards to local government and state levels are delegates. Naturally, where there is no higher elected or appointed person in the state, the governor is the leader. But where there is a higher authority, that person is the leader of the state, and he or she controls the delegates.
When the conduct of indirect primaries is applied, the number of delegates from all the states is near parity.
On the contrary, where direct primaries are adopted, the more members a state can mobilize on its membership list, the higher the number of delegates that it would present at a national convention to elect a presidential candidate in party primaries. Consider a hypothetical scenario whereby the leader of APC in Lagos state decides to run for the presidency and chooses the leader of APC in Kano state, who is the current governor, as his running mate. Between the two of them, they can muster about 8.5 million votes.
If that happens, winning the primaries would be a fait accompli for the candidates from the states with the two highest numbers of registered voters—Lagos and Kano—if they decide to team up. Thus, the next presidential candidate of the APC could emerge without the input of the president, who is supposed to be the leader of the party.
In effect, President Buhari would be undermined or undercut as he would have no say on who succeeds him as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria if direct primaries were to be adopted as enshrined in the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 2021, that President Buhari vetoed on December 21, 2021.
That is simply because even the whole of the states in the south-south and south-east may not be able to generate the votes that could match the number of votes coming from just the two states of Lagos and Kano.
In the event that such happens, assuming the option of direct primaries was adopted as it was captured in the rejected bill, President Buhari would not be able to realize his plan of determining who would be the next president, a person whom he stated in a recent Channels television interview that he already knows and prefers to hold back the identity because he does not want the person eliminated.
According to President Buhari in the earlier referenced TV interview, “I will not tell you (who the next president will be) because he may be eliminated if I mention his name.”
Even as I do not intend to go into further details at this point, it is manifestly clear from the comment above that President Buhari already has in mind who would be the APC presidential candidate in 2023.
Lt. Col. Babangida, the former military president, previously shared his thoughts on who should be the next president on Arise TV.However, LB’s view is not as weighty as that of the incumbent president, Buhari, who is the current holder of the lever of political power.
So dear readers, the real reason that the electoral act amendment bill, 2021, has been guillotined is that direct primaries would make President Buhari lose control of the party, such that he would not be able to have any influence or control over who succeeds him as president in 2023, since rogue elements in his party would have literarily pulled the carpet from under his feet.
That, in my view, is not a space that any leader would like to be in.
Other reasons advanced include the notion that direct primaries violate the ethos of democracy, which is about freedom of choice; direct primaries are too expensive to fund in light of the government’s dwindling financial resources (despite the CBN resorting to printing money); and the ministry of finance increasing VAT rates and introducing new taxes (sugar tax), as well as the proposed increase in fuel pump price.
Price, which is certain to overburden the already overburdened citizens.
By the way, the aforementioned pernicious taxes are being imposed to support big government as opposed to doing the ideal thing, which is streamlining Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) that are throwing up humongous overhead costs, hence very little is left to fund capital projects, which are basically infrastructure, such as roads, rail and electricity, which are basically employment-generating activities that President Buhari appears to be very determined to score high points on before his exit from Aso Rock villa in 2023.
The other reason touted to justify President Buhari‘s decision not to sign off on the bill, as presented by NASS, is that it is too dangerous to risk the lives of voters, as they may be exposed to the danger of being attacked by bandits, recently designated as terrorists.
On that last point, I would like to point out that it may be hypocritical since the same voters being considered too endangered to queue up to vote during party primaries would be expected to queue up to vote in general elections as they have done in 2015 and 2019.
The truth is that the foregoing excuses are merely what is usually referred to in the world of business as “corporate speak.”
It does not necessarily mean it is the true position of things.
That is to say that the above advertised reasons for rejecting the bill as contained in President Buhari’s memo of December 21, 2021 to the National Assembly, NASS can be classified as an official APC party position aimed at hoodwinking the undiscerning.
If the “political coup” of making the process of political parties producing contestants exclusively via direct primaries had materialized, it would have been akin to what happened to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, OBJ, who lost control of the party and political system after the governor’s checkmated him, some say for not keeping to the bargain that he made with them for both president and governor to get a third term in office. It may be recalled that the governors worked with lawmakers from their respective states to pull the plug on the then president’s proposed third term agenda exclusively for the office of the president, which then senate president Ken Nnamani executed perfectly by ensuring that the bill failed to sail through, and which was to the shock and chagrin of President Obasanjo, who did not see it coming as he thought he had the deal sealed without being cognizant of the fact that politics is about interests which are never permanent.
The OBJ debacle occurred during the same lame duck period as the current attempted “political coup” against Buhari, who is only 17 months from the end of his tenure.
Another point which needs to be made is that if President Buhari and the APC are so keen on complying with democratic ethos, hence they are insisting that the electoral act amendment bill, 2021 must reflect freedom of choice by giving political parties the three options of direct, indirect, and consensus, how come the conduct of a referendum, which is a critical component of democracy being agitated for by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, is not accepted? For the sake of equity and justice, the application or observance of democratic tenets should not be selective. So, as Mr. President is currently insisting that the three options of direct, indirect, and consensus options must be applied in political party primaries for the sake of upholding the tenets of democracy, is it not curious that rather than accepting that a referendum, which is a fundamental component of democracy, should be conducted, lPOB was proscribed and thousands of lgbo youths involved in the struggle have been sent to their early graves by government security forces, and their leader, Nnamdi Kanu, is langu, is langu, is languys
Sunday lgboho, another crusader for the creation of the Oduduwa nation exclusively for the Yoruba ethnic nationality, feels the same way.
For the umpteenth time, let me restate that I don’t subscribe to the splitting up of our beloved country, which is the mission of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho. And I can even go further to wager that if a referendum on Biafra or Oduduwa nations were to be allowed to be conducted, voters on the side of Nigeria’s remaining one indivisible country would prevail.
That is because the lgbos, Yorubas, and Hausa/Fulani require a large market to sell in.
They and their wares are aware that it is in their best interest to remain in Nigeria. I mean, it is a settled belief amongst globalists that the bigger a country is, the better the opportunities for its citizens. China and India, the two biggest countries population-wise, are good reference points.
And in the case of the place of lgbos in Nigeria, which is peculiar because they have literally been in the cold since they were defeated in a civil war that ended in 1970, they need to be given a sense of belonging by offering them the chance to take a shot at the presidency, as was the case in 1999 when both Olusegun Obasanjo of the PDP and Olu Falae of the APP, both of whom are of Yoruba origin, were allowed, with the exclusion of other nationalities, to contest for the presidency.
It is needless to restate the fact that the gesture assuaged the pain of the Yoruba nation arising from the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election acclaimed to have been won by the amiable and popular philanthropist and business mogul turned politician, MKO Abiola, who also lost his life in the ensuing struggle to claim his mandate.
In terms of the Yoruba quest for Oduduwa nation, as I understand it, lgboho is fighting polity inequality bordering on hegemony by a particular ethnic group over other members of the Nigerian union, and he is also aiming to protect Yoruba forests from bandits, violent herdsmen, and other criminal elements that have taken over similar forests in our country’s northern parts.
On the challenge of finding suitable presidential candidates and in a situation where there is an apparent dearth of ideal presidential candidates
Based on some universal minimum requirements, I proposed to the main opposition party, PDP, a hybrid or a short-cut pathway to the presidency for the lgbo through a unique partnership with former Vice President Abubakar Atiku, Turaki Adamawa, who has the political clout and financial muscle (a successful businessman/politician who has vied for the presidency up to four times in nearly three decades), and thus has the momentum to build upon.
Unfortunately, that formula-Atiku presidency with lgbo Vice President-is currently facing headwinds as PDP governors are said to be in a quandary as to whether or not to adjust their position in the light of the prevailing political dynamics in the country, which compels the return of presidential power from the north to the south. The good news is that politicians on both the northern and southern divides appear to be poised to return power to the south, and President Buhari’s body language tends to suggest that he would like to hand over to someone from the south east.
In my assessment, that person is unlikely to be a professional politician or a core LBNO person.
That is all I can say for now, as other details will unfold during the much delayed APC convention, if it is held next month or in the weeks and months ahead.
Meanwhile, Nigerians are holding their breath as politics takes the center stage and governance recedes beginning from now to May 29, 2023.
Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, development strategist, alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from Lagos.
To continue with this conversation, please visit www.magnum.ng
Perhaps, being a pragmatist who has weighed all the odds against the concept of direct primaries for the nomination of candidates for political offices by parties, such as the humungous cost of executing the task and the risk posed to the lives of potential voters owing to the alarming level of insecurity in lives in the polity, as well as the undemocratic element in the bill that smacks of imposition, amongst other reasons, President Mohammadu Buhari had to demurn
It is a document that he has five (5) times sent back to the sender; hence, I have named it Ogbanje/Abiku.
I will elucidate on that aspect later because it is the easy part.
The hard part that President Buhari is confronted with is the challenge of convincing the majority of Nigerians that his actions are altruistic and not hypocritical. But how can what was transmitted from Aso Rock Villa via a memo to the Senate on Monday, the 21st day of December 2021 not be hypocrisy and bad news for democracy in the optics of the long-suffering Nigerian electorate that has been dying for the day that their votes would start counting?
Of course, President Mohammadu Buhari does not share their sentiments, hence he withheld his assent to the Electoral Act Amendment bill, 2021, as passed by NASS.
That is perhaps owed to the fact that in his position as the president and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Nigeria, he knows what we all do not know, so he has his reasons, which he has tried to put across to us.
And the justifications are that direct primaries are an undemocratic practice as it would be tantamount to an imposition on political parties; it is too expensive-lNEC already has a budget proposal of not less than N305b excluding the cost of direct primaries; and the high level of insecurity,
(driven by terrorism), particularly in the entire northern region of our country at this point in time, would disenfranchise folks who may be unable to go out and queue up in the open for direct primaries since it would expose them to potential terrorist attacks, etc.
As cogent as President Buhari’s reasons appear on face value, to most Nigerians, the failure to assent to the bill that would allow direct primaries, which could have enabled the masses to have more say in who governs them, as opposed to the current process of vesting such powers on delegates that are susceptible to manipulation by the governors who appoint them, is simply terrible news that was broken to them on the 21st day of December, of the 21st year in the 21st century.
To me, it is certainly a lost opportunity for President Buhari to write his name in gold by being the one who moved the process of electioneering in Nigeria a few notches higher than when he assumed power as president.
The singular act of signing that bill into law had the capacity to erase all the negative actions and inactions attributed to President Buhari from the first time he served in a political role as governor of the northeastern state (1975-76), federal commissioner (minister) of petroleum resources, (1976-78), military head of state (1983-85), chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF (1994-99), and his current position as president of the federal republic of Nigeria since 2015.
The assertion above is validated by the fact that it is the critical efforts made by his predecessors, particularly on the reform of the electoral process, that elevated them to the high esteem in which Nigerians currently hold them.
Particularly worthy of mention is the late president, Umaru Yar’adua (2007–2010), who laid the foundation by setting up the Justice Lawal Uwais committee on electoral reforms after he admitted that the process that ushered him into power in 2007 might have been flawed. Credit also goes to his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, who took over from him as president and implemented some of the Uwais committee’s reformative recommendations that culminated in the electoral law of 2010, which is currently in the process of amendment.
Given the narrative above, it behooves President Buhari to take the electoral process to the next level, which is the mantra of the ruling party at the center, APC, when it was campaigning for the re-election of President Buhari in 2019.
Before dwelling further on the political nitty-gritty, let us examine some issues in leadership from the optics of the private sector to see if we can make some extrapolations for the political arena.
And I would like to commence by posing the question: what are the authentic and altruistic reasons that drive people into aspiring to occupy office (public or private) if not to take the entity higher to levels beyond the point at which they took over the mantle?
As a Chief Executive Officer or CEO of a bank, oil and gas exploration firm, consumer goods manufacturing company, or telecoms outfit, one’s goal is to leave the organization with a better and bigger balance sheet and profit, producing more barrels of oil and gas at less cost, churning out more fast-moving consumer goods to cover a larger market size and leveraging robust network infrastructure to expand into a wider market size by onboarding more subscribers to grow the base, as the case may be.
What would be the equivalent deliverables in the world of politicians?
I would assume that it is the provision of the proverbial dividends of democracy. And this entails services such as good roads for ease of transportation, abundant and affordable houses to enable more people to have roofs over their heads, an adequate supply of potable water for sustenance of health and avoidance of water-borne diseases, well-equipped hospitals for improved public health care and longer life expectancy, and finally, high-quality educational institutions at all levels for the acquisition and spread of better knowledge in society, amongst others.
And all the outlined dividends of democracy can only be made possible within the framework of a thriving liberal democracy, which can only be obtainable if the democratic space is made more open and transparent.
And one of the ways of making the political atmosphere more friendly and less fractious is through increased citizen participation in the process of choosing their leaders. Which is what direct primaries by political parties for choosing their candidates would engender.
Given the dwindling turnout of voters in elections, such as the Anambra state gubernatorial election held barely a month ago, where only about 10% of registered voters turned out to vote (a clear indicator of the electorate’s waning interest in engaging in the civic responsibility of voting), it is clear that public interest in the political process of electioneering needs to be bolstered.
The experience in Edo state about a year prior to the Anambra state governorship contest, which is not significantly different, simply demonstrates that there is a pattern of low voter turnout reflecting apathy by potential but reluctant voters in Nigeria who are skeptical of the process of elections.
And the adoption of direct primaries in the manner that candidates would emerge from within the parties could have given Nigerians the desired shot in the arm that could have spurred more interest in politics.
It is a no-brainer to identify the culprit for the dwindling number of Nigerians going to the polls as partly the lack of transparency in the electoral process that is mired in violence and therefore off-putting to the majority of the electorate. It is also the reason that high-caliber personalities that abound in our country and would have loved to be candidates in political contests, since they are competent, have been giving politics a wide berth.
Now, allow me to return to why I have dubbed that piece of legislation causing a ruckus in the polity, Ogbanje/Abiku.
The fact that the electoral act amendment bill is a piece of legislation that has five (5) times been sent back and forth between the legislative and executive arms of government, makes it an Abiku to the Yoruba people, or Ogbanje in LGBo land.
For the benefit of those not familiar with African mythology, it is about a child born with predestination to die each time he/she is born. The fact that the electoral act amendment bill has been tagged Ogbanje or Abiku is due to the fact that NASS has conceived and given birth to the bill and sent it five times to President Buhari, who has also returned it five times.
How else can one characterize a process that should have given a new lease on life to a political system that is currently defined by opacity, particularly with regard to elections and internal democracy within political parties, but instead has been shot down by the same president a record five times?
So, while the electoral system remains obfuscated through continued prevarications by the political class under the watch of the current leadership in Aso Rock Villa, fewer Nigerians will engage in the chore of voting as long as they believe that their votes will not count. That simply implies that democracy would either stand still or recede.
That is not a place where our democracy should be, especially after 21 years of continuous practice.
Hence, I wondered aloud in a previous article published by the cable on January 4, 2016, and subsequently on other mass media platforms with the title: “Are Elections Giving Democracy A Bad Name in Nigeria?”
Permit me to reproduce an excerpt.
Given the unprecedented spate of violence in the 2015 general elections that ushered in a change of rulership to an opposition political party in Nigeria and the brigandage that eclipsed recent elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states, leading to inconclusive governorship elections, all arms of government in Nigeria need to rethink the role of violence viz-a-viz the integrity of elections in our fragile democracy.
According to Kofi Annan, a former UN scribe, one of the most striking developments of the last quarter of a century is the spread of elections. In his view, “Commonwealth was both a witness and an agent of this remarkable phenomenon.” When it adopted the Harare Declaration in 1991, nine of its members were under military or one-party rule. By 1999, all had become “multiparty democracies”.
Annan’s analogy reflects exactly the situation in Nigeria because in 1991, our country was under the yoke of a military jackboot but by 1999, multi-party democracy had returned and it has consistently remained back-to-back for an unbroken sixteen years. “
Going further, the former UN scribe lamented, “Unfortunately, after the initial period of genuine change, rulers learned that elections did not necessarily have to mean democracy: elections could be gamed to remain in power, sometimes indefinitely.”
Sadly, the scenario described above by Annan generally reflects the state of affairs in the Nigerian political space, which is now characterized by deadly battles to supplant popular votes with the imposition of candidates using the force of violence by elements in and out of government that are undemocratic.
Most striking is Annan’s conclusion that when elections are rigged, it does three things to democracy: firstly, it confuses legality with illegitimacy; secondly, it confuses repression with stability; and thirdly, it confuses an electoral mandate with a blank cheque.
The former United Nations UN scribe, Annan’s conclusion is damning and disconcerting. More so, because the current faulty electoral process in Nigeria that direct primaries could rectify is an archetype of what Annan was referring to.
So, restoring confidence in the sanctity of our political parties’ process of electing candidates into public office is one sure way of curing the malaise of voter apathy that the adoption of direct primaries, amongst other provisions, could have engendered, thus conferring integrity on elections so that it would no longer give democracy a bad name, as Kofi Annan queried. Unfortunately, the opportunity has been lost one more time on December 21, 2021.
That is ostensibly due to some elements embodied in the bill deemed to be undemocratic by the powers that be; the high cost of conducting direct primaries in an economy where authorities are struggling to pay civil servants’ salaries; and a country that is experiencing very disturbing levels of insecurity of lives and properties in most parts, making life look like hell on earth.
At least, the above is my understanding of the official reason adduced by Mr. President in his 21/12/21 memo to the NASS.
Let us not forget that a similar chance to do the needful (as the youths would put it) was also lost in 2018 — patently because the passage of the bill, according to Aso Rock demagogues, was too close to the date of the 2019 general elections.
Although both reasons for bucking in 2018 and 2021 appear to be absurd to most Nigerians outside the orbit of Aso Rock Villa, the ball, as the saying goes, ends at the president’s table.
Vox populi, vox dei is a Latin proverb that translates as “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Mr. President appears not to be a fan of that aphorism as he seems ready to shake off the flak being generated by his decision not to harken to the voice of the people as dexterously as a duck would feel at home inside a lake.
Otherwise, he may find himself looking like a fish out of water when the chips are down and he incurs the ire of the people via the heightened activities of civil society advocacy groups currently urging the National Assembly (NASS) to override the president by activating the relevant portions of the constitution that empower it to so do.
It is not surprising that those who are dissatisfied with President Buhari’s decision to withhold assent to the bill believe there is more to it than meets the eye.
Firstly, it is argued that the long-term benefits of the decision to sign the bill into law for the purpose of deepening democracy far outweigh the short-term benefits of yielding to the antics of those who want to maintain the status quo ante by wiping up fear and panic sentiments that might have tied the hands of President Buhari.
On the issue of fear-mongering, Mr. President might have been told that approving direct primaries, which was incidentally the process applied during the party primaries that earned him the opportunity of being the APC flag bearer in 2015, would expose the party to the type of defeat which it suffered in recent elections in both Edo and Anambra state gubernatorial elections when technology was leveraged.
Secondly, the hawks around Mr. President might have also rationalized to him that in the event that the ruling party at the center, APC, suffers a loss to the main opposition party, PDP, in 2023, President Buhari may not have a restful retirement at his farm in Daura, which he has stated multiple times in various fora that he is looking forward to.
But, applying trend analysis in assessing the fear that might have been sewn into the mind of President Buhari, the chances of the president going to jail after he exits office in 2023 on account of his stewardship is near zero.
Here is why: neither ex-presidents Olusegun Obasanjo nor Goodluck Jonathan (two of the surviving presidents since the return of multi-party democracy in 1999) is in jail.
Furthermore, vice presidents under the aforementioned presidents, Abubakar Atiku and Namadi Sambo, are not imprisoned.
Even the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF (Ufot Ekaete, Babagana Kingibe, Anyim Pius Anyim) during any of the aforementioned administrations is not imprisoned for what they did or did not do while in those roles or capacities.
Yes, there is usually public opprobrium for poor performance in office. But there is also evidence that those who leave positive legacies end up having good footprints in the sands of time.
In the realm of those who left positive legacies is the likes of Umaru Yar’adua, who is currently being applauded for the electoral reforms that he introduced and which the current administration has been unable to build upon.
Incidentally, President Buhari is a beneficiary of Yar’adua’s positive legacy of reform introduced into the process of elections. That is simply because it would have been impossible for an opposition candidate to have won the presidency in 2015 were it not for the card reader machines and biometric accreditation systems introduced and used for that election.
Furthermore, although the relationship between ex-presidents Obasanjo and Buhari is now frosty, the former is on record as having been the latter’s cheer leader during the 2015 presidential contest. What is more, ex-president Jonathan, who lost power to the incumbent, is now such a big deal to the current president to the extent that he and the party that kicked Jonathan out are being rumored to be considering the former president as the next president when Buhari quits the stage in 2023.
In light of the scenario above, it has been established that there is camaraderie amongst the past and present presidents of Nigeria.
So, if anyone or group of people told President Buhari the lie that his freedom would be in jeopardy when he leaves office, he should make it impossible for the ruling party to be defeated (except he is caught with his fingers in the cookie jar, which is unlikely, as stealing is not one of his vices), he should figure out that they are doing so in pursuit of their personal or group agendas that are not necessarily in the best interest of our beloved country.
And Nigeria is bigger than them.
One clear fact that everybody should be cognizant of is that Nigeria is unlike South Africa, where ex-president Jacob Zuma is currently in jail.
So, contrary to the situation in South Africa, our past presidents appear to be protected and insulated from being sent to the penitentiary for the actions that they took or did not take while in office because there may be an unwritten pact to that effect, just like the rotation of the presidency between the north and south, hashed out during the 1994/5 Abacha-convened constitutional conference.
My guess is that the esprit de corps among current and former presidents not to imprison each other after leaving office was woven or hashed out during council of state meetings that feature ex-heads of government at the center—military and civilians alike.
So, why should President Buhari be frightened, assuming one is correct in the notion that it is one of the underlying reasons for demurring from signing the bill as it was presented with a direct primaries mandate contained in it?
Once again, I would like to crave the indulgence of readers to allow me to share my understanding of President Buhari’s expressed concerns about the electoral act amendment bill, 2021 in his now-famous correspondence with the NASS, one-by-one, with the hope that it might create further illumination on the matter from President Buhari’s optics using the prism of a democracy enthusiast like me.
On the fear of insecurity, my take is that if folks are expected to vote in the general elections, they can vote during direct primaries.
So, although the fear of disenfranchisement of people in the violence-stricken areas is real, the challenge can be dealt with in the same manner it was handled during the 2019 general elections. Why is it suddenly anathema to hold direct primaries in crisis-prone areas and expect to hold general elections in the same place?
On the high cost of conducting the elections, my take is that if the president can authorize the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to commit an estimated N1.3 trillion to intervene in a variety of sectors of the economy, why not make similar investments towards reforming the electoral system, which is the very foundation on which a new Nigeria could be built, as such reforms have the ability and capacity to shift our country from third to the first world, as was the case with Singapore when Lee Luan Yew carried out extensive reforms that literarily overhauled the country.
In a worst-case scenario, the present price tag of N305 billion for the annual budget of INEC could be doubled to accommodate direct primaries and it would still be less than the over one trillion nairas that President Buhari, through the Nigerian National National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), spends on subsidizing fuel pump prices year-on-year.
On the question of whether direct primaries should be applied in shortlisting candidates for political office contests by the parties which Mr. President deems as a possible infraction of some principles of democracy, my take is that given that it is the preference of the critical mass of Nigerians to adopt the direct primaries system that worked for President Buhari in 2015, why not allow it to be incorporated into the statutes book since it has been proven to work better than the current system that is being resented by the electorate to the extent that it has triggered voter apathy?
If you ask me, Mr. President’s non-acceptance of direct primaries (as enshrined in the bill passed by NASS), ostensibly because the rule is undemocratic, would be tantamount to crying more than the bereaved, simply because Nigerians prefer it, as demonstrated by the hue and cry in the polity after he failed to assent to the direct primaries component.
Ideally, the current uproar against his decision to veto the bill should guide Mr. President.
Given the opportunity to choose between removing fuel subsidies and direct primaries, I can wager a bet that Nigerians would choose to forgo fuel subsidies for robust electoral reform. If in doubt, President Buhari should try conducting that referendum as former military president Ibrahim Babangida did with the Structural Adjustment Program, or SAP, which he threw open in July 1986 for public debate by Nigerians before its adoption.
In any case, what do I know?
After all, I am only being patriotic and intellectual on the matter, rather than being politically correct in a system that runs on the currency of selfish and group interests.
Apart from the minister of justice and attorney general of the federation, Abubakar Malami, and INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, whom President Buhari acknowledged as those he sought their opinion on the matter, pundits have accused governors of influencing the president’s decision to reject the bill.
Tellingly, governors and legislators had drawn a battle line on who would outwit each other on the question of whether direct primaries should be enshrined in the electoral act in the process of amendment. With President Buhari finally withholding his assent, the leaders of the sub-national entities seem to have triumphed over the legislators.
Uncharacteristically, the governors are appearing to be humble in victory by being reticent since 21/12/2021, when President Buhari communicated his refusal to append his signature to the document that had been subjected to a series of back and forth movements between the upper and lower chambers of NASS.
Does the muteness of the governors suggest that their victory may be pyrrhic? Considering the outrage of Nigerians when they kicked against the expunging of electronic transmission of election results from the polling units to the collation centers, introduced by the lower chamber, but which was watered down by the upper chamber, by basically stripping INEC of its independence, before it was finally restored in the current bill rejected by President Buhari, the legislature should be leaking its wound.
It may be recalled that NASS had transmitted the bill to the president on November 19th with a December 19th (one month long) deadline for him to sign-off on it, or his failure to give consent may be vetoed by NASS by passing the act into law if it feels strongly that a majority of Nigerians are in support of it.
Being a product of a consensus of opinion and therefore the desire of a broad spectrum of Nigerians, the bill truly commands mass appeal.
But the NASS is unlikely to veto President Buhari’s rejection of the bill (as presented) because it is beholden to the presidency, which is another evidence of the general perception of the convergence of the executive, legislative, and judicial arms of government that, in a truly democratic system, are supposed to be independent of each other.
The first and only time that NASS exercised its power of veto since the return of multi-party democracy in Nigeria in 1999 was with the Niger Delta Development Corporation (NDDC) bill under the watch of then-president Olusegun Obasanjo and during the senate presidency of Anyim Pius Anyim.
The NDDC bill only became law after Niger Delta state governors (whose interests were at stake) encouraged their lawmakers in NASS to mobilize the support of their colleagues from other regions in order to garner the 2/3 majority votes of members in both the red and green chambers required to overrule the president by vetoing him.
Today, the reality is different.
Whose overall interest is at stake or who will benefit if the concept of direct primaries is introduced into the statute book? the masses.
Who is supposed to protect their interests? their elected representatives in NASS.
But the passage or otherwise of the Electoral Act Amendment bill is
It is being treated as a family affair by the party at the center, APC, which is clearly monolithic and does not only have control of both the Senate and House of Representatives but also boasts the highest number of governors in the country, so it takes no prisoners.
In broad terms, in the present circumstances, the governors are with the president, so who is on the side of the electorate that would galvanize the legislature into transforming itself from boys to men?
One thing that is curious to me and which has remained a sort of puzzle is that most of the governors allegedly pushing the agenda for indirect primaries that would enable them to continue to control the political parties for which they are basically the piggy banks or Automated Teller Machines, or ATMs, is that most of them are exiting the stage as governors in 2023. With the exception of governor-elect Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra, Godwin Obaseki of Edo, Gboyega Oyetola of Osun, and Abdulahi Sule of Nasarawa states, as well as Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of Kwara state, not forgetting Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo state and Babagana Umara Zulum, the rest of the governors are completing their second terms in 2023.
So, I am intrigued as to how the current crop of governors will profit from the control of the political parties by the governors that would succeed them.
I’m curious because governors can essentially influence who becomes president, senator, or member of the House of Representatives through indirect primaries.
As most of the current governors are in the terminal stages of their tenure, after which some of them may not make it as the President, Vice President of Nigeria or party chairman, end up as senators, it does not add up that they want to bestow so much power on the governors, a power block that they will be exiting in 2023.
But then, politics and politics are never straightforward calculations.
As such, whatever the agenda may be, hopefully, President Buhari will sign the reworked bill into law early in January after NASS might have extracted the portion that is not acceptable to the president, which to the best of my knowledge is the compulsory conduct of direct primaries by political parties.
It is critically important that the legislators make haste so that the amended electoral act may not become too late to be applied in the fast-approaching 2023 general elections, which is the reason the bill was passed by NASS but not signed into law by President Buhari in 2018.
As things currently stand, the prayer point of all Nigerian men and women of goodwill as we cross over into the new year by God’s grace, should be that the electoral act amendment bill, 2021, would not become an Ogbanje or Abiku in 2022.
Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, development strategist, an alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, and a former commissioner in the Delta State government, sent this piece from Lagos.
The 2021 financial window is fast winding down, it has been a calendar of mixed fortunes on the back of a post-COVID-19 pandemic and an economic crunch that hit the top and bottom end of the pyramid. As it stands, Nigeria’s middle class is fast eroding with the craze for migration abroad to seek greener pastures on the front burner. The 2022 Budget appropriation will be the last full-year budget to be implemented by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives-led administration. It’s a window that Africa’s most populous nation must get right in economic and political terms. These Siamese twins work hand in hand and it’s imperative to get it right to make things happen. This article seeks to gaze through the crystal ball to highlight ten factors that will influence the 2022 fiscal year.
As electioneering campaigns dominate the landscape from the center to the federating units. Nineteen State Governors are about to conclude their tenure while twelve State Governors are eligible for the second tenure. It’s a colossal headache, as most helmsmen don’t have any visible succession plan in place to drive the wheels of governance. Public policy affects all and sundry. It’s an albatross of sorts
If this important wheel of progress is enmeshed a pot pouri of selection drawbacks. The choices of the new crop of leaders emerge via the internal mechanisms of democratic platforms christened political parties. It remains to be seen how the political gladiators will meander through this potential landmine of sorts as the momentum towards 2023 continues to gather steam. Like the old mantra: “All politics is local”. The consultation(s), nocturnal visits, alignment, and re-alignment have begun in earnest as political aspirants are in the trenches to bring their political ambition to fruition.
Eyeball to eyeball with firearms drawn between the federal government of Nigeria and its citizenry over the removal of petrol subsidies – Prices of goods and services will skyrocket beyond the ceiling. The Federal Ministry of Finance led by Honourable Minister; Dr. Shamsuna Zainab Ahmed has proven so far to be bereft of the requisite economic and fiscal engineering to take Nigeria out of this logjam and quagmire. The ripple effects will be felt far and wide with the citizenry gnashing their teeth under the excruciating economic conditions. The proposed plan to cushion the effects doesn’t look promising with a 5,000 Naira bailout plan for 40 million poor Nigerians? – The question(s) that spring up are: Will the said palliative be disbursed on a monthly, quarterly, or per annum basis? Who are the poor in the political contraption christened Nigeria? At 5,000 Naira, it amounts to a drop in the ocean with 161.29 Naira per day estimation.
Hands down – Aliko Dangote is the Man of the Year as the much-awaited Dangote Refinery comes on stream baring any unforeseen circumstances or project delays. Nigeria’s apex bank CBN and DMB’s will stop issuing LC’s to petroleum marketers who seek to import petroleum products into our dear Nation Nigeria. The bets are off for the largest private sector-driven project that will save Africa’s most populous nation the much-needed FDI for its ailing economy that yearning for the giddy heights of excellence. Trust me, Nigeria’s banking czar, Emiefele will not spare the rod to ensure that all and sundry tow the line of patronizing the refinery nestled in the Lekki axis of Lagos State.
4. Nigeria’s next President must be a candidate who will give his sweat, blood, and tears. The books are in a bad shape and it will take a yeoman’s job to put the economy back to the giddy heights it attained after the return to democratic rule in 1999. The All Progressives Congress, the ruling party, and the main opposition party, the Peoples Ruling Party (PDP) must wear the sleeves and shop for candidates with a thinking cap to move Nigeria forward amidst the myriad challenges bedeviling various sectors of the economy.
The proposed Revenue and Expenditure budgets for the 2022 fiscal year are ₦10.13 trillion and ₦16.39 trillion, respectively, resulting in a ₦6.26 trillion fiscal deficit. The appropriation for the key sectors of education amounts to N1.29 trillion (7.9%), and health N820 billion (5%) respectively. The inventory of universities and teaching hospitals that populate the landscape in Nigeria are yearning for more funding. The elephant in the room question that’s now a recurring decimal is that where will the funding comes from. Affordable education and health is such a far cry, as these key services cost an arm and a leg. It’s lacuna created by the inefficiencies of the public education and health institutions that have created a huge avenue for private-driven health and education entities to thrive in the land. Nigeria’s public health and education sector managers must be innovative, creative with break the box initiatives, break and stretch the boundaries to achieve a near utopian status for the huge population that abounds in Nigeria. The naysayers and fifth columnists might beg to disagree that reverse is the case, but most private-sector education and health institutions are serviced by public sector practitioners. It’s now like a death sentence of sorts to patronize public education and health windows that were once the envy of all and sundry in the years gone by. Think University of Ibadan, UCH, Ahmadu Bello University, ABUTH, University of Nigeria, et all of yore. They could hold their own against the best in the world, but alas these institutions have gone to the dogs (No pun intended).
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari cleared the way for the launch of an infrastructure company with an initial seed capital of a trillion naira ($2.4 billion) as Africa’s largest oil producer attempts to steer itself out of a likely economic contraction.
The company, christened Infraco, which is being set up in partnership with the private sector, is expected to grow its capital and assets to 15 trillion nairas over time to fund public projects like roads, rails, and power that are craving for amelioration from the colonial relic state bequeathed a long while ago. The government of Africa’s most populous country is seeking to expand investments to stimulate recovery in an economy facing its second recession in four years. Nigeria requires at least $3 trillion over 30 years to close its infrastructure deficit, Moody’s Investors Service said in a November report.
The start-up funding will come from the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, and the Africa Finance Corporation. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will head a committee charged with getting the company started, while CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele will chair Infraco. The managing director of the NSIA, the president of the AFC, representatives of the Nigerian Governors Forum, and the ministry of finance will also help form the board, along with three independent directors from the private sector. Let’s hope that these gladiators don’t muddle up this epic milestone that’s meant to elevate Nigeria’s economy to an enviable status. The old mantra: “Too many cooks spoil the broth” comes to mind readily for this scenario.
The banking industry in Nigeria remains an attractive sector, with over $9 billion in value pools, but despite high levels of competition, the vast majority of consumers are underserved. Lack of access to services, especially in rural areas, issues of affordability, and poor user experience all contribute to the frustration consumers experience right across the customer spectrum.
This has created an opening that fintech entities have been quick to take advantage of, with many stepping up to develop enhanced propositions across the economic value chain to address pain points in affordable payments, quick loans, and flexible savings and investments, among others
A youthful population bursting to the seams, increasing smartphone and data penetration, and a focused regulatory drive to increase financial inclusion and cashless payments, are combining to create the perfect recipe for a thriving fintech sector. However, the sector is still relatively young. As Africa’s largest economy and with a population of 200 million—40 percent of which is financially excluded—Nigeria offers significant opportunities for fintech across the consumer spectrum, notably within the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) and affluent segments and, increasingly, in the mass-market segment.
Digitally savvy, middle-aged, and young affluent individuals face poor user experience on products and find the value-add from using financial products underwhelming. Currently, there are three unicorns with a market valuation of over 1 billion US Dollars each in Nigeria’s fintech industry. That’s a huge boost in comparison to tech-savvy economies like South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt.
8. The ruling party, APC, and the main opposition party, PDP have no choice other than to elect a viable candidate to rescue the political contraption christened Nigeria. They would be pressed to the wall to deliver a candidate that appeals to the electorate to rescue the nation from the precipice.
9. The chase for much-cherished forex will hit the high heavens, as politicians mop cash for their campaign drive across the nation. It’s a battle for the gauntlet between politicians, businessmen, medical tourism, foreign education, and supply chain demands.
10. The first FIFA World Cup to hold on Christmas in Qatar will come alive. Will Nigeria grace the Holy Grail of soccer in the first extravaganza to be hosted in the Middle East? Time will tell as the current managerial imbroglio that has pitched the football federation, NFF, and German gaffer, Gernot Rohr continues to fester. If Nigeria’s Super Eagles must be counted in the league of the world’s best, it must put its house in order to reach the zenith.
Let’s SHIFT…..
Think SHIFT……..
I know some of you will now say, why Gabriel. What about this man that gets the duke so giddy? Well, I must say that Mr. Ogbechie encapsulates very perfectly the vision that is Nigeria. His vision, passion for the country, and unique abilities in building and sustaining an institution despite heavy regulatory headwinds continue to inspire and push the boundaries.
Getting him to sit down with thealvinreport Editors was herculean. Normally getting Gabriel who runs one of the biggest Oil and gas concerns in the country is somewhat herculean but this time you multiply the effort by over 500% because he is currently at Harvard trying to round up an Owner President management Programme of something of nature.
As he sits down to the zoom session after a series of postponements, I notice how fresh and relaxed he was looking, he should. He had just completed one of the most strategic transactions this year in the space. His RainOil’s acquisition of Eterna Oil opens him up to the lubricant market in a very aggressive manner. His route of the sector end to end is on the verge of completion with this acquisition. He is happy but still hungry.
I fired the first salvo, why Eterna at this point. He opens up with the kind of clarity that I have come to know with him. Eterna had been within his sights for a bit and the urge to diversify had peaked so why not. As he spoke, I listened intently. Talk with Ogbechie is usually a lecture. It’s no surprise he is very popular on the lecture circuit with a full speaking calendar.
My colleague Cees who heads our Strategy and Research unit fired several salvos. The questions and responses take us through power, Leadership, Finance, and obviously the Oil industry.
In responding to regulatory challenges, Ogbechie opined that he was not deterred by it. The vision must continue to find its expressions despite the slow grinding bureaucracy that governs the marketplace. He intoned that he would not be deterred by that and would also expect every Nigerian with a passion to do the same.
Rainoil as early as 2014 had begun to look into sustainability as against profitability after attaining a certain market positioning. He brought in internationally recognized consultants who looked into their processes, strengthened corporate governance, and put in place a value-driven succession plan which saw the devolvement of clear pathways to leadership for young and strong minds.
A thirty-minute discussion with Gabriel would never be thirty minutes. I would have fainted if that had happened. So in between technology glitches, the conversation continued for upwards of one hour forty minutes. I asked, ‘Gabriel are you diversified? And he dropped the bomb.
He wasn’t sure if he should mention it but still did, ‘I am a major player in Finance. I am on the Board of Globus Bank and am a keen player in First Bank. We are pushing a huge Palm Oil Plantation amongst other key investments spread across the economy’ he mentioned showing his very strong confidence in not only the economy but also in the country as a strong and indivisible entity.
As Cees fired on, I took my mind back to my very first meeting with Mr. Ogbechie. It was in the foyer of FCMB’s Primrose Towers. I was walking out and he was walking in. I knew the face as one I had seen around the Lagos Business School community but could not place it. As he walked past, I asked my colleague, who was that and he said Gabriel Ogbechie RainOil. I said, ‘hmmm’.
Then the following week, I found myself seated beside his wife, Godrey in class at the same Lagos Business school and I said, ‘ Godrey, is Gabriel your brother?
That started what has now become a very special relationship as I stand back and watch one of the most inspiring stories to come out of Nigeria. By the way, did you know all these started with just N300,000?
Watch out for the full complimentary story in this discussion with Mr. Gabriel Ogbechie written by Cees Hamilton will be published on thealvinreport.com
The notion of politics as a game is as old as politics itself. As most of us already know, politics originated in ancient Greece with the philosopher Plato who wrote about the nature of justice, what constitutes good government and what is best for humanity.
Subsequently, another philosopher earned the title: father of politics when he elaborated on politics through his writings focused on citizenship and forms of government as well as constitutionalism, etc.
Somehow, the game of politics can be likened to Ludo which is a strategy board game for two to four players, aimed at one person defeating opponents by racing their token from start to finish after rolling the dice with a view to earning higher numbers in the bid to advance his/her token over and above other players in the game.
Like politics, Ludo is a game of tactics, strategies, probabilities, and counting. And like Ludo, politics is played by deploying all the aforementioned tools for winning in contests so that ultimately the fellow who scores the highest number at the polls, would finish ahead of competitors and thus win the contest.
Charles Chukwuma Soludo (an ex-university don and central bank governor) entered the Anambra state governorship race in 2021 with as many as 17 other contenders.
He was particularly pitched against three other very formidable competitors-Andy Uba, (political denizen)
Valentine Ozigbo,(high corporate world high flyer) and Ifeanyi Uba (business tycoon)with himself as the fourth in what looked like a game of Ludo as earlier described.
And after a hard-fought battle of tactical maneuvers, strategic deployment of resources to garner votes for himself, and counting the votes on election day, Soludo prevailed.
But the egghead and public policy wonk had previously failed in the game of politics in Anambra state.
It would be recalled that in 2009, after exiting the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN where he had served as governor, (2004-2009) Soludo got into the murky waters of politics by joining the ruling party at the federal government level, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Thereafter, he vied for the governorship of Anambra state in 2009 on the platform of PDP and failed to win against Peter Obi, then incumbent governor and the flag bearer of APGA.
Learning very quickly to dexterously play politics which is clearly like the game of Ludo, Soludo figured out that he was in the wrong party if his mission to govern Anambra state was to be accomplished. He then tactically switched platforms to APGA, the party where the political hearts and souls of Anambra people apparently reside.
The bond between APGA and Anambrarians, is in part, inspired by the spirit of the founder of the party, late Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, who is one of the greatest leaders from the east of the Niger, and perhaps the most charismatic personality of his time from Igbo land.
Given that Peter Obi who had served as a two-term governor of Anambra State on the platform of APGA, failed twice to determine who became the governor of the state when he switched to the PDP and fielded or backed candidates of his new party twice against his successor and former mentee, Willie Obiano flying the flag of APGA (pronounced, APUGA by Anambrarians) with Oseloka Obazee, defeated by Obiano in 2017 and Valentine Ozigbo again losing in 2021 to Soludo who is another APGA candidate, by now it might have dawned on most people that it is the platform of the party, in this case, APGA, that Anambra people vote for, not necessarily, the individuals.
That is most likely the underpinning reason for, Soludo, as an astute strategist, to review (with the aim of cracking the code) his first failed attempt at becoming the new occupant of governor’s mansion in the state capital, Awka, and got defeated by Peter Obi, also known as okute- rock in Igbo dialect.
Having figured out that the point at which he fell short is that he engaged in the contest on the platform of PDP which is the second-best party to the people of Anambra, Soludo quickly and tactically pivoted his political career into APGA by identifying with the party that is presumably Anambra’s preferred platform and evidently the numero uno for producing the state’s governors in nearly two decades.
Although he failed to win in APGA’s primary election the first time he made an attempt at clinching the ticket in 2013, he persevered until he finally succeeded in being APGA’s flag bearer in the 2021 gubernatorial contest.
And as the saying goes: the rest is now history as Soludo is currently the governor-elect of Anambra state and has duly received the certificate of return from INEC.
In an opinion piece titled: Anambra Elections: “When Losing Means Winning For APC” which l wrote and published widely in both traditional and new media platforms immediately after the 2017 gubernatorial elections that were won by Willie Obiano of APGA with Tony Nwoye of APC in the second position, ahead of PDP’s Oseloka Obazee, l highlighted the fact that electing APC candidate as Anambra state governor was an equivalent of the biblical metaphor of passing the camel’s head through the eye of the needle.
Since that theorem was propounded in 2017, the outcome of the 2021 election currently under scrutiny clearly indicates that nothing has changed significantly in Anambra politics.
Certainly, it took the man, Soludo a lot of gumption and chutzpah to doggedly pursue his dream of leading Anambra state in spite of the odds stacked against him that included escaping death by hair’s breadth which was an attempt by his political rivals to cow, intimidate and possibly scare him out of participating in the electioneering process. Apart from the naked act of intimidation against Soludo by merchants of death, the schism within APGA, allegedly fueled by the numerous conflicts between the outgoing governor, Obiano, and some foundation leaders of the party owing to some perceived irreconcilable differences bothering on his overbearing nature, was also a significant factor that militated against the emergence of Soludo as governor.
But the scaremongering conveyed via the shooting to death of three policemen attached to him during a town hall meeting was in futility as he had passed through such treacherous paths in the past, and came out triumphant, when he served as CBN governor and ruffled feathers by consolidating the number of banks whose number was over 100, post-consolidation, into less than 25, after the exercise.
As it may be recalled: “Soludo, Banking ls No Ludo,” is the comical title of a caustic opinion piece published in the mass media, denouncing Soludo’s sweeping reforms following the radical changes that he has made in the financial services sector targeted at consolidating the number of banks in Nigeria.
The highly abrasive essay aimed at generating public opprobrium towards Soludo as CBN governor was influenced by aggrieved stakeholders in the banking sector who were being compelled to merge or give up their banking licenses when the minimum share capital of banks was jacked up from N2b to N100b in compliance with Soludo’s new policy as head of the apex bank, CBN.
After defying and weathering the initial resistance by bankers and bank owners reflected by the uproar in the public arena, what seemed like an impossibility turned out to be the best thing that happened to Nigeria’s banking sector.
That is evidenced by the fact that banking is currently one of Nigeria’s greatest exports to Africa and indeed the world; spreading from west, central, and East Africa, to the Southern African region all the way to UAE, China, and even Europe as well as the USA.
This is in addition to the fact that the better-capitalized banks which have become the norm rather than the exception in Nigeria’s financial services landscape have become an effective antidote to the scourge of distress in the banking sector that was a sort of albatross on Nigerians who had huge sums of their hard-earned funds trapped in failed banks.
What the bold initiative of Soludo in the banking sector and the salutary outcome of his revolutionary policy signpost, is that he is a visionary, goal-getter, and high achiever.
And that is why there is ample confidence amongst the majority of Nigerians that the ex CBN governor is most likely to repeat the feat that he achieved as ‘governor of money when he assumes duty as the governor of the good people of Anambra state from March next year.
Such optimism being expressed by a broad spectrum of Nigerians is not misplaced because, the state is now like a new canvass for Soludo, (in a literary sense) to deploy his uncommon gift of socioeconomic, human, and material resource management as well as leadership wizardry that he dexterously applied in the banking sector, by painting his own equivalent of Mona Lisa, in Anambra state, (development-wise) as the legendary artist, Leonardo Da Vinci did, when he created the iconic Mona Lisa work of art.
As March 2022 beckons for Soludo to take over the mantle of leadership in Anambra state, it would not be surprising if another screaming headline in the media such as: “Soludo Governance Is No Ludo”, surfaces in parody, as he embarks on the new journey in the political leadership of a state.
But hopefully, as he did when he was the helmsman at the CBN by being a positive game-changer, perhaps before his first term in office as Anambra state governor runs out, Soludo whose penchant for making high impact changes in any endeavor that he engages in, may trigger a positive paradigm shift in governance at the state level in Nigeria.
So fingers are crossed.
If Soludo meets the high expectations that he has set in his numerous speeches and action, maybe more Soludos would sprout across the country to fill
the national political space as more professionals with proven track records of success in their chosen careers would become motivated to join the political fray.
Amongst the multiple positive developments in the political process in Nigeria’s democracy in the past 21 years that may be pulling more professionals into party politics, is the incremental improvements in the electioneering process leveraging technology.
It is indeed heartwarming that the application of technology in service delivery that has proven to be an efficacious tool against fraud in all its ramifications is slowly but surely being adopted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Initiatives such as the introduction of Permanent Voters Card, PVC, Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS and the new electoral amendment bill 2021 passed by the National Assembly, NASS authorizing electronic transmission of election results, (awaiting presidential assent) are some of the harbingers of higher integrity in the electoral process that may lure into party politics, more professionals who would have loved to serve, but lack the skills to handle the rough and tumble endemic in the political environment in Nigeria.
Two more clogs that need to be removed for further improvements in our political office election process are:
(1)votes buying which are increasing rather than abating nationwide, (but which was admirably shunned by Anambra women as evidenced by a video that was trending on the social media )
(2) the vice grip of the judiciary on the electioneering process as the onus of elected public office holders has inadvertently been shifting from the masses to the judges and their cohorts that keep rendering judgments that are at variance with the will of the electorate.
As our country continues to strive to deepen the democratic process with the introduction of the much sought internal democracy within the political parties, hopefully, the process of selecting candidates transparently would be less rancorous and acrimonious as winners and losers in both primary and main elections would be easily and transparently determined.
If the current positive evolution of politics in Nigeria persists and gathers momentum, the dirty aspects of the game of politics such as under-the-table deals packaged during nocturnal meetings to upturn popular decisions would ultimately be consigned to history.
And the welcome development of people of high integrity and accomplished professionals throwing their hats into the ring is already manifesting from Akwa Ibom to Edo, Anambra, and even Nasarawa states, where non-professional politicians have supplanted professional politicians. Those who recently got catapulted from the private sector into the role of governor without first of all serving in an active capacity in public office are Willie Obiano, Godwin Obaseki, Abdullahi Sule, and now Chukwuma Soludo amongst others who are currently in the saddle as governors of their respective states.
However, the jury is still out on whether or not there has been a difference in the performance of the aforementioned non-professional politicians in office compared to their predecessors that are professional politicians.
In that regard, all eyes are currently on Soludo to see if he would spur development or leapfrog the economy of Anambra state which has the potential of being Nigeria’s industrial hub, leveraging the bevy of industries in Awka and Nnewi axis of the state.
His scorecard after the first term in office would surely give insight into whether or not the entrant of non-professional politicians into political governance space in Nigeria would usher in prosperity for the critical mass of Nigerians, assuming they are able to convert the theories that they have been propounding into practice.
By the way, do folks realize who Soludo’s running mate is?
His name is Onyekachukwu Ibezim.
A medical doctor and the younger brother to the Archbishop, province of the Niger, and Bishop of Awka Diocese of the Anglican Church, Reverend, Alexander Ibezim.
In a state like Anambra where Christianity is a strong motivator for voting and bishops are deemed to be next to God, it is safe to conclude that it must be a combination of both the spirit of Odimegwu Ojukwu, the founder of APGA, and God’s grace that have made Chukwuma Soludo, governor.
ONYIBE, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, development strategist, an alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from Lagos.
The conversation continues on Magnum.ng
What you should be pushing is a change in these nuances. MDs who run their companies as fiefdoms aren’t the leadership we need for sustainable development. The world is quickly adapting flatter org structures, flexible work models, and collaborative decision making. Under 25’s are making these decisions, empowered to manage budgets, and fail forward as companies foster innovation and inclusion as keys to their survival.
The Nigerian leader regresses, by centralizing rather than devolving institutional power. Resorting to running kingdom/subject models rather than corporations is what results in the analogy you just made. Does not serve anyone in the long run. From subjective employment decisions to cut off a crucial part of employee gratification – the power to act in decision-making roles, in their areas of technical capability. What is the strategy behind that? Those companies will be handed over to people who have no decision-making acumen. it serves no one. That should be your message.
Corporate partnerships should not be the MD’s way of hobnobbing. Nor should it be decided on the basis of relationships and social class. Figurehead roles exist when roles aren’t mapped to industry and sectoral needs. Why maintain a role if you consider it obsolete or irrelevant to your sector in the first place? If the banking industry does not consider Corporate Comms roles to be strategic, then those roles should be mapped accordingly. There are ways to build mutual-disciplinary capabilities that contribute to business bottom lines holistically. Finance should take a leaf from the tech industry, where roles require multidisciplinary capabilities.
Corporate culture in Nigeria is soo culturally nuanced, and most visible within MD/Founder orgs. I doubt we will see real progress with those. The will to change just isn’t there.
IZIN AKIOYA MCIM
Chartered Post Graduate Diploma Marketing (CIM UK)
Bsc. Economics (University of Lagos)
Other Courses @
UPenn
Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy
Award-winning Multidisciplinary Marketing/Commercial Leader and Trainer
Faculty: Simon Page College of Marketing
Social impact strategy, government relations/ policy advocacy expert
Proficient at complex, multi-stakeholder, projects and programs
Spokesperson, Saleswoman personality, Fashionista
Ex. British American Tobacco Nigeria
Ex. Insight Communications Group
Ex. Nigeria Economic Summit Group
eNaira is a new digital version of the Naira released by the central bank in October 2021 to facilitate the digital economy in Nigeria under the watchful eye of the CBN. It is not crypto-currency, it is Naira but it is a digital account maintained in the CBN through your bank.
Most notably China implemented theirs in April 2020, European Central Bank is working on theirs while the US Federal Reserve is starting research on the digital dollar, in fact, 20% of the world countries by population are at different stages of implementing a national digital currency and I think it is commendable that Nigeria is not coming late to this party. I commend the CBN generally because even though they don’t often originate ideas, they are quick to implement global innovations that have been proven by other central banks, and Nigeria today is enjoying one of the most vibrant payment ecosystems in the world.
In short, yes, it is a very good idea because it levels the playing field for new fintech innovations. Your eNaira is backed by the CBN itself rather than your bank, access to such money is centralized by the CBN, and that levels the playing field. The CBN is doing this probably to get ahead of the curve of payment evolution which can be uncontrollable as the volatility of bitcoin and other forms of digital money have shown recently.
Today the banking system regulated by the CBN is old and based on very old ideas about money. Banks take deposits from the public and put up an array of assurances to ensure liquidity and access to the money they’ve taken. It’s a very big and complicated system that also depends on some global giants for easy access to money. When you deposit money in Nigeria and want to send it electronically which is increasing by the day, you have to use a card issued by a bank under a card scheme like VISA, MasterCard, or Verve. These networks are controlling electronic access to money in bank accounts around the world and enable you to spend your money anywhere anytime. You can deposit Naira in cash in Lagos and spend GBP in London or USD in New York on any currency online. This is made possible by the card schemes. Within Nigeria, you can use Verve but it may not work in all countries because that form of payment has not yet achieved global acceptance. It is in this area of digital access that eNaira plays, it bypasses your bank when it is time to access your money, you deal directly with the CBN behind the scenes. Your money is stored in CBN digitally and so can be more easily accessed. It won’t matter anymore which bank you deposited through, access is simple and even throughout Nigeria.
The main benefit of eNaira is the innovation it will unleash. It is not immediately apparent upfront but once you have a national digital currency with the needed infrastructure, payment service providers have universal access through CBN to provide new innovations on payment technologies. Someone can do QR Codes that target the payer’s eNaira account. It becomes a universal wallet which can replace the current trend of each digital solution having its own wallet system. Everyone can just utilize the eNaira. eNaira can be the new mobile money like MPESA, a central store of value that can be securely accessed for making and receiving payments. It’s potentially a game-changer.
For fintech, it solves the problem of unequal access to deposited funds for the purpose of payments, they no longer need to go from bank to bank begging them to integrate, once CBN endorses their solution, it is over. For the CBN, It gives real-time visibility and control into payments and movement of money within the economy which can be analyzed for planning and national/international statistics. For consumers, it reduces the cost of transactions, it assures the safety of funds, and easy access to your money from an ever-increasing array of payment options. For the country, it could unleash more economic growth as payment becomes easier just like M-PESA did in Kenya.
Well, not much, you won’t lose your money by CBN folding up or becoming insolvent, that is not possible. The main risk is that of identity theft and it already exists with your card and internet banking today. I believe the eNaira will be more secure simply because it is being run by the CBN with almost endless resources and prosecutorial powers than your bank or card network who may be compromised by their own insiders. The trend of fraud in Nigeria today shows that bank and telco insiders are the biggest weaknesses of the payment system. The CBN will not cut corners on security since they’re not even profit-oriented. The other risk is too much security or lack of innovation by the CBN which may stifle the potential of the eNaira.
I woke up this morning to the breaking news of the emergence of Charles Soludo of APGA as the eventual winner of the Anambra State Gubernatorial elections. Although not yet official, it has become very obvious that barring any mischief from INEC which is not expected, he would be officially crowned as the next Executive Governor of that wonderful state.
This election in particular has shown me that we can indeed have a new Nigeria. From the campaigns at least closer to the elections, we saw a matured and determined electorate who is tired of the rolly polly nature of the system decided to use their votes as a veritable weapon of change.
We saw videos of women refusing to sell their votes, we witnessed very incisive and decidedly deep debates and we saw candidates who by their very essence and outlook would not stoop low to the shenanigans of the average politician.
It is indeed to the eternal gratitude of the candidates especially the eventual winner Dr. Soludo and young but visionary Valentine that we must lay the maturity that enveloped the whole exercise on. I do not see any of these two agreeing to the underhand practices like vote-buying, stealing of ballot boxes, and the violence that usually accompanies these things.
What this tells us is the need to devise a system that would throw up credible candidates and not ‘jobmen’, who would do anything it takes to emerge and thereafter go on a joyride at the expense of the people.
Prof Soludo has a very rich and experienced pedigree. His stints at the Central Bank are still well talked about. His clarity as to the economic issues that affect not only his state but the Nation is well documented and we expect his voice at the Centre to be really loud.
Anambra is the economic capital of the South East, his tenure should see a revival of sorts in the economy of the state and an engagement of the economic forces in a bid to empower and engage the people thereby redirecting the energies currently thrown at violence and other such anti-state activities into a palpable force for justice and empowerment.
Observers like the author although would have preferred a much younger Valentine who although inexperienced in the ways of the public sector would have been in a better position to galvanize private wealth and resources towards remodeling the traditionally very vibrant economic structures of the state into a major force.
Soludo is not such a far-off alternative. The risk of being aloof and too theoretical in engagement especially with a community that may not mostly rise to his level of intellectualism being a possible threat still does not deter the optimism that comes with this win.
Let me at this point also commend INEC for a job well-done, the Federal Government by extension for superintending this almost perfect exercise, Anambrarians for showing courage, and Nigerians for witnessing this.
Some people have said, this is a precursor to the general elections and we pray that it is truly a precursor for nothing would be more exciting than a general election that mirrors what just happened in Anambra.
God is on the throne.