Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - JONATHANIAN LEADERSHIP LEGACY; NOT BAD FOR NIGERIA - Odia Ofeimun [Who Beats the Drums of Nigerian Politics and Economy?]

Brother Ukaga:

I really doubt that the Buhari administration would be able to deliver the significant improvements in living standards (significantly reducing poverty; improving employment prospects, especially for urban youth; rehabilitating agriculture and reducing the country's food insecurity; cleaning the environment and improving the ecosystem; reducing corruption; providing reliable and reasonably priced infrastructural services; etc.) that the government promised when it came into power. This projected failure has nothing to do with Gen. Buhari's leadership abilities or for that matter, his integrity. The truth of the matter is that no matter who the president of Nigeria is, he or she is not likely to make a significant impact on the country's extreme dysfunction without the appropriate institutions (i.e., those that adequately constrain state custodians (i.e., civil servants and political elites)) and minimize their ability to act with impunity. Without these institutional constraints, impunity will remain the rule, not the exception. 

Leadership is a necessary but not sufficient condition for good governance and inclusive economic growth and development. Sufficiency requires the existence of institutional arrangements that guarantee the rule of law.

Since independence, Nigeria's has been a political economy characterized and undergirded by the "chop dollar/naira" and "connections" mentality--The Government is the "warehouse" and the main objective of any "individual" or "group" (regardless of how groups are defined) is to capture a position in government and hence, directly have access to the warehouse and from there can requisition "goods and services" for direct consumption (i.e., illegally appropriate public resources for private use) or have "connections" to those in government and through this process secure "government contracts" and fleece the public by either providing inferior quality goods and services to fulfill the contracts or not providing anything at all. Hence, the formula since independence has been to view Government as a warehouse from which individuals and groups can enrich themselves, either directly by securing positions in government or by procuring the necessary connections. Government positions (including even that of a janitor at the public hospital) equal to opportunities to directly chop; connections equal to contracts equal to opportunity to embezzle and chop. 

The only solution to this quagmire  is to change the institutional structure and make it much harder for state custodians to act with impunity. So, why is it so hard to engage in the necessary reforms to transform the critical domains and provide governance systems that minimize, for example, engagement by state custodians in corruption and public financial malfeasance?

Digress: When Mandela came to power in South Africa, he stated very clearly that the types of institutional reforms that he and his government were interested in undertaking in the post-apartheid country were those that would constrain all government servants and provide the wherewithal for all individuals and groups (regardless of how these groups are defined) equal opportunity for self-actualization. He and his compatriots had fought to abolish racialism and white supremacy; he was not interested in establishing a system that would promote the oppression of one group by another. Hence, he desired the new South Africa to have institutional arrangements that guaranteed the rule of law, as applicable to all citizens, regardless of race, tribe, or other trait. 

Now, back to Nigeria. After independence from Great Britain in 1960, Nigeria's elites never had the same conversation that Mandela and his ANC compatriots had with respect to governance. There was no effort to engage all relevant stakeholder groups in the then Federal Republic to restructure the critical domains and procure institutional arrangements that guarantee the rule of law. As a result, they ended up with the same dysfunctional institutional arrangements that characterized the colonial order.

Today, individuals and groups complain about the dysfunctional nature of the country's institutional arrangements but are not wiling to support efforts to change them. Why? Those who are in power do not want to lose the wherewithal to chop. Those who are not in power do not want the institutional changes because they believe that one day, they would have their chance to be in charge of the warehouse and when that happens, they would not want to be prevented from choping by the constraints established through institutional reforms. 

Here lies the dilemma. 

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 6:53 AM, Okechukwu Ukaga <ukaga001@umn.edu> wrote:

President Jonathan is by all accounts a good man. And as a Nigerian leader, he did his best and accomplished a number of things. However, after many years under PDP and 6 years of Jonathan's presidency with problems such as insecurity, poverty, and corruption increasing while the rulers and their blind supporters continue to promise "devident of democracy " Nigerians where ready for change. Now we have President Buhari and the APC. Hopefully, they will deliver tangible change as promised. But if problems such as insecurity, poverty and corruption (and padding a new one) continue while the rulers and their blind supporters promise change, they too will eventually suffer similar rejection by Nigerians. There is no substitute for making positive impact. Propaganda can only go so far. God bless Nigeria.
Okey Ukaga

On Mar 29, 2016 7:24 AM, "Oluwatoyin Adepoju" <oluwasrividya@gmail.com> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: 'Okenwa R. Nwosu, M.D.' okenwanwosu@yahoo.com [NaijaPolitics] <NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 29 March 2016 at 00:41
Subject: [NaijaPolitics] JONATHANIAN LEADERSHIP LEGACY; NOT BAD FOR NIGERIA - Odia Ofeimun

 

The good feature about democracy is that it tends to have a life of its own and thus usually moves at its own pace despite the prodding, exhortations or machinations of those who operate it. Odia Ofeimun touched the conscience and sensibilities of his audience when he took out the time to call out on those who opted to deploy sheer raw propaganda, misinformation and lies in order to smother and besmirch the significant accomplishments of the GEJ administration because the president was earmarked for "personal punishment" for stepping outside the umbilical alignment with the West in seeking financial and technical help for Nigeria during his tenure and for disobeying the wishes of the Otta Farmer and his ilk.

 

Clever and catchy terms like "clueless", corrupt, inept etc were deployed by hired "experts" to assail the object of great loathing by an unholy alliance comprising the financiers of the West and the "militicians" that had imposed the 1999 Constitution on Nigeria's 4th Republic. President GEJ was perceived to have committed the unpardonable sins of straying far to the Orient to seek help in revitalizing the moribund Nigeria Railways and for convoking a National Conference to take a close-up at the many inadequacies of the subsisting 1999 Constitution imposed by erstwhile military strongmen. So, the powerful duo had a shared interest to personally punish GEJ for daring to deviate from the established "norms" during his tenure in office........

Deliberate Propaganda Was Used to Smother GEJ's Accomplishments - Odia Ofeimun

 

Jonathanian Leadership Legacy; Not Bad for Nigeria – Odia Ofeimun

 

President Jonathan's greatest contribution to Nigeria's political economy is the heroic effort which his administration made, in spite all the background noise engendered by the opposition, to frontally address the "multiple moralities", which have immensely impeded nation building, through convocation of the 2014 National Conference. This singular brave act must have earned him even greater personal recriminations than he got because of his resistance to unconditional acceptance of dictates by EU financial experts to Nigeria on bilateral trade. President GEJ proceeded to convene a National Conference against the stiff opposition to such an idea mounted by the ruling alliance that had successfully imposed the 1999 Constitution on the Nigerian polity since outset of the 4^th Republic. GEJ's political fate may have been sealed in late 2014 when the offended foreign masters of the West operationally teamed up with the clique of domestic imposers of the 1999 Constitution who funded and configured the nucleus of the entity that metamorphosed into the APC. …………….…read more

LNC-USA.ORG

 

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Posted by: "Okenwa R. Nwosu, M.D." <okenwanwosu@yahoo.com>

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JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
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