I read with the greatest delight Prof. Peter Adeniyi’s high-level treatise that was a response to mine earlier. It has taken me some time to react because I did not just read it, I studied it. It was a masterpiece. Without any doubt, it will qualify as the Manifesto of any progressive party with very little adaptation. A key message discernible from the very elaborate disquisition on the political and economic development of Nigeria is that Tinubu’s legacy following his second term must be to aim to leave office with durable institutions and systems beyond his tenure. This will be realised by the kind of foundation he lays. Truly, the inquiry made by Prof. Adeniyi is very profound and all–encompassing.
I want to offer some additional perspective and I will surely be interested in a discussion on this issue. Every society that will survive truly needs to have institutions that are strong, robust and enduring. But here I hold the view that it is people that make up institutions and determine the credibility and effectiveness of every institution. Also, institutions are founded, and thrive on the defense of shared values. When the American electoral system came under the Trumpian threat in 2020, it took the likes of a Brad Raffensperger of Georgia State to uphold the integrity of the office of Secretary of State by denying Donald Trump of his direct request to rig the election. Raffensperger ultimately came under intense personal pressure for preserving the integrity of his office. He survived because the people of Georgia shared the value of electoral integrity with him.
In 2001 when Senators Dosumu, Obanikoro and Ogunlewe of Lagos State wanted to decamp from AD to PDP, if President Obasanjo had opted to defend the integrity of our electoral system by insisting on revalidation of the mandate they were holding on behalf of their party before the electorate, carpet crossing by our elected officials would not have become the norm (and I dare say vice) it is today and our political system would have stabilized more. Yet we know that in the in the United States, it is primarily the names of the individual candidates that appear on the ballot and it is usually accompanied by the political party they represent in a partisan election like the President, Senate, Congress, Governors, etc. Which means in the United States, the electoral mandate belongs primarily to the individual elected candidate, not to the political party that sponsored or nominated that candidate. In Nigeria, it is the political party that is on the ballot, not the candidate. It simply should mean that it is the party that holds the mandate, not the individual. If therefore an elected official in Nigeria wants to leave his party by which he was elected for another party, he ought to drop the mandate of the office he is holding as it properly belongs to the party that was originally on the ballot.
I have used these two examples to show that it is people that make up institutions and determine the integrity, effectiveness and durability of such institutions. But there can be no institutions before the existence of shared values to which we, or at least all those in authority, are committed to and are prepared to defend. It is very clear that defending the integrity of institutions can sometimes be costly with severe consequences for the individual at least in the short term.
Values must be articulated, defined and ingrained in our subconscious, become instinctive and natural in our adherence to them before we can say they are truly shared. Then all those who will go into our public space must be those who are committed to defending those values beyond their personal interest and without caring whose ox is gored. Herein lies part of the challenges facing Nigeria. We have not really defined our value choices, talk less of having universally shared values. Everything is still seeing through the ethno-religious prism. Our ethno-religious divide also happens to coincide with our geopolitical and linguistic divide. It is also along these lines that we have very many value conflicts that constantly undermine good governance and the unity we talk so much about that has also remained so elusive. But this is also part of the case for true federalism along the six geopolitical lines.
My proposition is that it is far easier to achieve consensus on value choices along our ethno-religious line. We have different histories and origins and these contribute to the evolution of values especially at socio-cultural levels. Different values exist at different levels. There are personal, moral social, cultural, religious, political, economic and philosophical values. In general, values can be defined as the fundamental principles, beliefs, standards and ideals that individuals, groups or societies consider important and worthwhile, and which guide their decisions, behaviour, relationships and way of life. Given the varying nature of values, without conscious, deliberate efforts at national orientation and leadership examples, consensus on these values to the point of being shared cannot be a easy task. However, the burden is substantially reduced by the existence of some commonalities in linguistics, culture, antecedents and historical experiences.
I fully endorse all the recommendations made by Prof. Adeniyi for good governance and sustained socio-economic development backed by strong institutions. My one major concern is that the phase of societal reorganization and ordering cannot be omitted if we are to succeed. I guess this will have to be part of the foundation President Tinubu must lay in his second term. This our society needs to be reorganized and re-ordered based on clear values at all levels around which consensus has been built. Reordering of society based on consensual values will lead to strong commitment to uphold those values. Commitment to upholding agreed values and norms will lead to the emergence of strong institutions and greater development. Without this, we will continue to oscillate between progression and regression.
For all said above, one or two regional comparisons might be good for illustration. Responsible parentage! We all know that Nigeria’s population has been exploding without the establishment of any commensurate social infrastructure, certainly no increase in land size and space. While in some places, individuals have self-imposed birth control to ensure their children are well trained and catered for, going mostly for three or maximum four, in other places, the number is more than fifty with the claim that it is supported by their religion. In the end, most of the children from the large families are thrown into the streets to fend for themselves. This is the almajiri mentality reflecting the different regional perspectives to education.
In some religion, the adherents believe they must “fight”, the more violent the better, if possible, kill for their god to receive them into his kingdom and reward them abundantly. In another the adherents believe it is their god that fights for them. Some individuals who don’t really care about any of these religions believe that earthly relationships should be rationally and logically worked out as the framework for our legal system. In other words, leave earth to earth and heaven to heaven with the firm understanding that our relationships exist only here and that is all we reasonably know. Yet many would ask why any sane person would fight for a god that is so incapable of self-defence? That in itself to many people is a negation of faith and the presumed supremacy of the almighty.
Nevertheless, while we are still seeking to establish the common values, there are some that are independent of ethnic or religious consideration. Justice, Equity, Honesty, Integrity, are examples. Corruption is a vice. Parochialism, nepotism and isms of their kind are vices that make progress and development impossible. Some of the essential values to inculcate in the citizen are contained in Prof. Adeniyi’s paper. I strongly believe that social re-engineering that will lead to better organized society and less chaotic social order are very essential to warrant President Tinubu to focus on in his second term. The pain associated with this process will just be as tough as with the economic reforms Notwithstanding, such pains will be necessary for good foundation for the future and leaving a legacy that moves Nigeria towards sustained good governance and sustained development. This should be part of a comprehensive plan for the future.
