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Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba, two weekends ago reiterated what is universally acknowledged in these parts, that Nigerian presidents and heads of state assumed office unprepared for governance. Though he limited his conclusions to his observation of the period between 1999 and 2017, nothing in the country’s history contradicts the fact that since independence, no Nigerian leader had come into office prepared, not even President Muhammadu Buhari whose spokesmen solemnly insisted last week was different on account of the efforts he expended in the four times he struggled to get elected as president.
Hon Na’Abba drew his conclusions while speaking in Abuja at the 2016/2017 Matriculation and Fellowship Endowment Ceremony of the National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS)/University of Benin Postgraduate Programme. According to him, “It is a sad commentary on our political life that today recruitment into leadership has been subverted by a few politicians because they deny Nigerians opportunity to contest elections and achieve their aspirations through the systematic appropriation of political parties to themselves.” He goes on: “These politicians have stopped the growth of democracy. And it is true that unless democracy is allowed to grow, we cannot achieve the desired political growth, we cannot achieve the desired economic growth and we can also not achieve the desired social growth in our country. That is why we are still in political, economic and social doldrums. We have been having successive accidental leaders since 1999.”
It is impossible for instance that ex-president Goodluck Jonathan would argue that he got into office prepared. Not only did he never expect to be governor of his home state, Bayelsa, considering how brusquely the governor to whom he was deputy, the late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, was impeached in violation of the constitution, neither he nor anyone else ever expected that he had done enough to be later drafted as presidential running mate to the ailing and generally debilitated Umaru Yar’Adua, now deceased. Dr Jonathan took nothing into governance, brought nothing by way of substance and reflection out of it, and imported nothing extraordinary into the presidency when ex-president Yar’Adua died in office. There was no occasion where the schemer, ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, who plotted the young man’s meteoric rise into prominence ever indicated that he helped Dr Jonathan along on account of his exemplary conduct, intelligence, intuition or good judgement.
In completing President Yar’Adua’s first term, however, it was expected that Dr Jonathan would spend that one year and more bonus in office to acculturate to the presidency and seize some quality moments to reflect on the demands of high office and the histories and expectations of the peoples of Nigeria. His full term in office, which began in 2011 and was run awkwardly for the next four years, gave no indication whatsoever that his learning as a PhD holder was of any consideration. In fact every succeeding year between 2011 and 2015 saw him obscenely elevate ad hocism to dizzying heights, demonstrate none of the logical and philosophical exertions expected of someone educated to the highest tertiary level, and give no proof that even if he found himself thrust prematurely into the highest office by fate, he possessed the temper, inquisitiveness and quick-wittedness anyone who had ever truly written a dissertation and internalised its methodologies was capable of.
The late ex-president Yar’Adua was too hobbled by poor health to lend his presidency to a fair analysis of what he was capable of. But it takes nothing away from Hon Na’Abba’s summation that even he too came into office unprepared. He had frugally run Katsina State, showed some sparks, and with genial and glacial expression nearly put the state to sleep. But that almost religiously and ethnically homogenous state is not as complex and as exacting as Nigeria with its more than 350 ethnic groups and mutually suspicious religious groups turned into major adversaries. He was a teacher of Chemistry, holding a Master’s degree in Analytical Chemistry, but there were no early indications that he would bring to bear a methodical mind on Nigeria’s seething groups and competing interests. He showed early in the day — and quite contrary to the expectations of Chief Obasanjo who foisted him on the nation — that he could call his soul his own. But beyond that, and as the laissez faire attitude he either instituted or sustained in Katsina and his lack of vibrancy and profundity, he didn’t seem at all prepared for high, complex office, nor for the expansiveness and competitiveness the Nigerian people are capable of.
Some Nigerians are often tempted to view a few of the achievements of Chief Obasanjo, including his first time as military head of state, as proof that by and large he was prepared for office. But not only was he unprepared for office as head of state, he was even more unprepared as an elected president. No one who has carefully considered his so-called accomplishments, including his resolution of the $30bn debt crisis, can fail to be shocked by his inurement to sensible and far-sighted policies, whether as military head of state or elected president, nor by his unquestionable lack of capacity in laying a solid foundation for Nigeria’s fourth attempt at democracy. He was of course more tolerant of dissent than President Muhammadu Buhari, but he was still nevertheless generally intolerant, unsophisticated despite his massive exposure to other standards, values and civilisations, and quite unable to envision on a consistent and coherent basis a great society where justice is anchored on development, a re-engineered polity, and practice of democratic values. It was tragic in the end that he allowed self-interest and short-termism to trump the higher ideals of society.
But might President Buhari be the sole exception to Hon Na’Abba’s theory of accidental presidents? Both Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, the president’s spokesmen, argue that the All Progressives Congress (APC) manifesto, which in their view is being faithfully implemented, and the president’s three failed attempts at winning the presidency were strong indications that he was well prepared for office. Despite their shortcomings, Dr Jonathan, Mallam Yar’Adua, and Chief Obasanjo largely honoured their party’s manifesto and ideology. In fact, these somewhat reactionary ex-presidents even honoured their party’s conservative ideology more than President Buhari has given any indication of ideologically toeing the line of his progressive party’s position domestically and internationally.
However, being president, as the president and his spokesmen should know, is obviously much more than simply implementing a party’s manifesto. More than two years after he assumed the presidency, it is enough time to know whether President Buhari was prepared, whether he had lofty views on democracy and the rule of law — which are clearly not incompatible with his party’s ideas and programmes — whether he had an idea of the cultures, proclivities and divisions of the peoples of Nigeria, and whether he was prepared to unify rather than divide. Nothing he has done or said so far, not even his so-called body language, nor any of his reactions to the country’s existential challenges, give any indications that he was prepared to govern a very complex society like Nigeria. Nothing, regardless of the valiant efforts of his spokesmen and their unconvincing reasoning and defence.
Indeed, the tragedy of Nigeria is that those who prepare themselves mentally and ideologically to lead Nigeria rarely get the chance. Obafemi Awolowo is widely believed to have prepared himself, but was unable to take the plum post. In the past one decade or so, no one seemed as well prepared for the top job as Abubakar Atiku, former vice president, but the prize seems even farther away from him than ever. It was at first widely believed that President Buhari was indeed well prepared for the job, having attempted it three times. When finally he won the presidency, his months of dilly-dallying before he formed his cabinet, his disquieting view of the roles and functions of a cabinet, his even more disconcerting approach to democracy and rule of law, his cavalier treatment of those who repudiated him in 2015, and his strange indifference to the atrocities committed by herdsmen purporting to revenge attacks and soldiers claiming to impose law and order, do not sustain the proposition that he had definite, uplifting ideas of a prepared and equipped presidency.
However, it is not certain that next year is enough time for Nigerians, who are themselves as much a part of the problem of leadership recruitment process as their failed leaders, to make amends. If they manage to do what is right next year as they prepare for the 2019 polls, it is unlikely they will agree to be dictated to, or fail to finally by one superhuman effort back only those who have definite ideas of running an inclusive government based on inspiring ideas and a firm understanding of the histories and cultures of Nigeria. Hopefully, 2019 will not turn out to be a chimera.
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