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Changing of the Guard: The Development of Democracy in Nigeria

An Assessment of the Obasanjo Era

By Obi. O. Akwani
MGV Editor

Posted May 24, 2007

On May 29, 2007, Olusegun Obasanjo steps down as president of Nigeria. The person stepping up to the podium in his place is a man of the president’s own choosing, former governor of Katsina State, now president-elect, Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua.

President Olusegun Obasanjo Vertical Integration in politics did not help democracy

The changeover is widely touted as the first ever successful democratic transition in Nigeria’s 47 years of independence where one leader willingly hands over the reigns of government to another. Going along with what is possibly only enthusiastic media cant, one can (tongue in cheek) borrow from American astronaut, Neil Armstrong, and describe the transition as “one small step for democracy, but a giant step for Nigeria.”

But is it?
As much as the 2007 elections in Nigeria is looked upon by its architects as a mile-stone of major political significance – in as much as it has ended with a successful constitutional transition of power – yet its significance in terms of political development in the country can not, objectively, be adjudged to be that good. Instead, the insistent praise of the elections outcome by the government is seen in some quarters as a case of putting the best possible face on a bad situation.

President-elect, Umaru Musa Yar' Adua. Many Nigerians are not happy the way he was elected, but they hope he will do better than his mentor, Obasanjo.

Apart from the attendant government propaganda trumpeting it as an unprecedented achievement, very little indeed marks the 2007 transition apart from previous blighted political transitions in the country. In fact, the similarities among them are striking.

Comparing 2007 with Previous Elections

The first post independence election which took place in 1964 was every bit as successful (in as much as it was concluded and the results not jettisoned) and controversial as the 2007 elections. It had all the elements – rigging, ballot stuffing and voter intimidation – that bedevilled the current election. In 1964, as in 2007, the election was condemned by the opposition and observers as fraudulent, yet it was the basis for the re-election of the sitting prime minister to another four-year term. The Constitution, in 1964, did not provide for term limits for the office of prime minister, therefore ostensibly Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa could have continued to run and be re-elected in this manner for as long as it suited him and his political party, the Northern People’s Congress. But he never got a third chance. Widespread dissatisfaction with the conduct of that 1964 election contributed to the first ever military coup d’etat in Nigeria less than two years later, in 1966.

In 1983 there was another transition, which saw the re-election of incumbent President Shehu Shagari despite general dissatisfaction with the performance of his government over the previous four years. It was during Shagari’s time that open runs on the public treasury were made the norm. Government made policy, but it was only on paper as public officials seized every opportunity to make profit at public expense.

A good example is Umaru Dikko, one of Shagari’s special ministers at the time who, contrary to the government’s agriculture policy, had decided, apparently on his own, to import massive amounts of rice into the country. The agriculture policy was the backbone of a “green revolution” designed to help the domestic industry grow. Because of it, imported rice had become a scarce commodity. The situation was, to Dikko, an opportunity to reap tremendous profits. He was incredibly able to over-ride all policy considerations to import ship-loads of rice for eager consumers and that was the end of Shagari’s “green revolution”.

Voters line up in Kubwa, a suburb of Abuja, for the Nigerian presidential election April 21, 2007

Elected and unelected public officials were shifting so much public funds to their personal bank accounts overseas that within three years of Shagari’s first mandate, a strong Naira had suddenly lost more than 60 percent of its value. In July 1980, one US dollar was worth 0.809 Naira; by 1982, the same US dollar could fetch 1.4 Naira and the exchange continued downhill from there. Public unhappiness with Shagari’s woeful government (fiscal and monetary irresponsibility) was directly responsible for the coup that toppled him less than a year into his second term in office.

In both cases (1964 and 1983) the incumbents had managed to get themselves re-elected despite public dissatisfaction with the performance of their governments. Observers, including this writer, attribute those unlikely outcomes to what Nigerians dub the “incumbent factor” – the almost certain ability of sitting presidents or governors to obtain for themselves a “win” at the polls despite public disaffection with their previous performances. (We will be touching on this “incumbent factor” later in this article.) The result of that failure to hearken to the public mood and heed public opinion was forcible ouster of the government – something not only devastating to the government and politicians but still more devastating to the nation.

The Obasanjo Legacy

This legacy of failure in democratic practice is something that Obasanjo was meant to overcome. President Obasanjo came into office promising to help build, defend and shore-up democracy in Nigeria. And circumstances did connive in his favour in this regard. He came into office in an era when democracy was the watchword in every realm, from the United States of America to Europe, to Russia, to Nigeria and even in China where the adoption of the free market system had brought a measure choice to its people. But along the line the president exhibited much of the unsavoury tendencies of previous leaders of this country. He had discovered that he could extend his own power as president by exploiting the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the system and he spared nothing and no one to exploit those weaknesses. Throughout his first mandate, from 1999 to 2002, Obasanjo played havoc with a legislature thoroughly uncertain of itself. He saw that he could manipulate the choice of who became leader – President of the Senate or Speaker of the House – and he ruthlessly exploited that advantage. He was well into doing the same during his second mandate before his personally selected and unelected Senate President, Adolphus Wagbara, bombed out in a corruption scandal.

Foreign Observers talking to women at the polling station during the 2007 Nigerian presidential election

In a world of the survival of the fittest or the most ruthless, such a tactic is perhaps well acceptable. But in a budding democracy, still seeking to find its feet, where the focus is supposed to be on strengthening the system, such behaviour coming from those entrusted with the power to guide or mid-wife that democracy, can only lead to further confusion of values and priorities. This is what we continue to suffer today in Nigeria – continued confusion of priorities and values and consequent lack of or disregard for standards in values and performance. It is not hard to see, this lack of standards in Nigeria even after eight years of democratic rule. Public utilities and service in 2007 remain as poor as they were before Obasanjo took over in 1999. most cities lack functional public water works or waste disposal systems. Those like Abuja where such services may exist, delivery is intermittent and unreliable. The electricity today is as bad (and some times worse) as it was eight years ago.

Obasanjo’s term as president is limited by the Constitution to two four-year terms. He used up the eight years and still sought to stay longer by attempting to push through a constitutional amendment. In that, he was being true to form as far as political leadership in the country is concerned. No major Nigerian politician has ever given up power willingly. In this case it does not appear that the president or his advisers considered the fact that one of the legacies he hoped to leave for Nigeria is for the nation to remember him as one of the leaders that best advanced the cause of democracy in this country. I doubt that seeking a constitutional amendment in such a hasty and self-interested manner helps Obasanjo in that quest for a good legacy in this particular case. Fortunately for us, he was, in this case, successfully resisted by the legislature. However, he succeeded in doing the next best thing by handpicking his own successor from his own People’s Democratic Party and promising that the ensuing electoral contest would be a “do-or-die” affair.

This “do-or-die” statement and the quest for term elongation do not suggest a mindset or the actions of a democracy-builder – at least not in the context of our nation’s current circumstances. Such statements are better suited to a single-minded pugilist, without regard for finer considerations. After his first mandate in 2003, Obasanjo seemed to get right into the populist parochial spirit of things, especially as he geared up for the elections; and in so doing he failed to provide the kind of leadership Nigeria needed for shoring up her young democracy.

Role of Regionalism

In taking the course he did in 2003, President Obasanjo seems to have been steered by regionalist considerations in order to correct his failure to carry his own Western region in 1999. His fellow Yoruba of the west had sided with the regionalist Alliance for Democracy (AD) party in 1999,but by 2003 he had convinced the AD leaders that their interests could be well represented and satisfied in the PDP. The price the president had to pay for attracting and holding the Yorubas was a modification of his nationalist perspective, such as it was. The result was a reactionary rather than a visionary kind of politics, on the president’s part. It kept Obasanjo ensnared in the traditional handicaps of Nigerian politics.

Democracy in Nigerian politics is seriously handicapped by regionalism. Objective voter choices are invariably subverted to suit regionalist interests. And because those regionalist interests are intrinsically divisive, they make it impossible to attain true national consensus in anything, including election results championed through political parties built on the basis of regional interests. These conditions make such political parties the means through which democracy is cheated.

This should have been understandable to a chief executive, like Obasanjo, who declares his intention to be a champion of democracy. But the president had himself surrounded by too many people who saw the country through the regionalist prism. Thus he failed to see his way through in all the political manoeuvrings. In the end, he played to the gallery of regionalists. He defied all other odds (and accepted democratic options) to hand-pick his successor and candidate for president from the north. While the political leaders of the southern part of the country were clamouring to retain the presidency, he surprised them all (some say he was compelled) by picking Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua, the governor of Katsina State and a northern Muslim to be the PDP presidential flag bearer. After a highly controversial presidential election on the 21st of April, Yar’ Adua was declared the winner a few days later.

The presidential elections were preceded by states’ governorship polls on April 14th. People were disappointed and disillusioned by what happened during the governorship vote. There were apparently a lot of irregularities – from ballot box stuffing, to hijacking of ballot boxes in many areas, to total absence of any voting in other areas. The announcement of surprising and unexpected results in favour of Obasanjo’s PDP in some states – like Edo where popular labour leader, Adams Oshiomhole, candidate for rival Action Congress was expected to win the gubernatorial race with a landslide – led to vastly reduced enthusiasm and lower voter turn-out for the presidential polls. Most Nigerians had gained the impression that it was not going to be a fair contest and stayed away. The disillusionment had reached a point that some unidentified people, seemingly taking the president at his word, had decided that the election was indeed a “do-or-die” affair and attempted to roll an explosives-loaded fuel tanker into the Independent National Electoral Commission building in Abuja on the morning of the April 21st election.

Where is the Difference?

The difference between the 2007 election and the two previous elections in 1983 and 1964 rests only in the fact that a different man rather than the incumbent is taking over executive control of the nation. In every other respect things have remained the same. The incumbent party has retained power. Without the constitutionally set term limit and the spirited resistance of the National Assembly, Obasanjo may well have succeeded in remaining president of Nigeria beyond May 29, 2007.

The 2007 polls share one vital similarity with 1983, different from 1964. The PDP and the NPN are political parties formed as national organisations while the NPC in 1964 was an avowed regionalist organisation. Since 1979 it has proven impossible for such clearly regionalist groupings as the NPC to gain control at the centre. Instead, regionalists are having to channel their efforts through the more acceptable national parties such as the PDP (2007) and NPN (1983).

Condition for National Survival

If this nation is to survive and thrive, closet regionalists, or pretend nationalists in other words, can not be allowed to continue to hijack the national agenda. They already understand that Nigerians will not buy whatever they have to sell through their tribal or regional parties; therefore they are finding their way to national power by blackmail and every other means possible. Curbing them and limiting their nation-retarding influences and other damages they can do to the Nigerian nation is the job of the persons and institutions entrusted with national leadership.

Continuity in Reform Measures

One of President Obasanjo’s often-stated reasons for wanting to stay on in power was “continuity”. He wanted to be around to continue pushing through and sustaining the economic and social reforms his government had introduced. A lot of the Obasanjo policies were good and should somehow be sustained. For example, his government’s fiscal and monetary responsibility (his has been more responsible than any previous government) accounted for an unprecedented build-up of foreign reserves and discharge of most domestic and foreign debts. Earlier on in his administration Obasanjo successfully resisted the National Assembly’s eager push for ever increasing budget deficits. By these measures, his government was a departure from past practices of mismanagement. But despite these positive gains, the Obasanjo regime was not able to raise the standard of living for the average Nigerian for several reasons. The Obasanjo government has been unable to maintain or supply adequate public services such as electricity and water. One direct reason for stagnated standard of living is failure of the government to raise income for the average worker.

The Obasanjo government has demonstrated that it is possible to build and maintain a healthy foreign reserve balance. It now remains for the next government to show how it can best be leveraged to improve our domestic standard of living, reduce the propensity to rely on easy-to-obtain but hard-to-pay-back international credit and advance our economic and political image abroad.

Millennium Development Goals

President Obasanjo’s government had stayed faithfully within parameters for meeting the internationally set Millennium Development Goals in its social and economic policy development. Following that guideline helped the president a lot in his areas of success. His much touted National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) program is built on this MDG foundation. But in areas where the MDG is silent or doesn’t provide specific guidelines, Obasanjo largely failed to perform credibly. This is especially true in the management of domestic projects and systems.

Obasanjo performed well in areas of direct interest to the international business community. He has been able to embark on large-scale projects such as giving the country a brand new railway system and building new sophisticated electricity generation plants. These are projects requiring large scale infusions of cash, a lot of which comes directly from development partners like the United Nations, the European Union and China. But his management of existing systems lacked vision.

In 1999, the newly elected President Obasanjo promised to tackle the problem of electricity supply in the country. At the time, Nigeria was struggling to maintain a daily power generation capacity of about 3000 Megawatts and power shortages were rampant. The president promised that he would make power shortages a thing of the past within six months. Four years later the country was still struggling with 3000 to 4000 megawatts, where it needed at least 10,000 Megawatts to meet current needs. By the end of Obasanjo’s tenure in 2007 power generation in the country dropped to about 1000 Megawatts for a few months when the Egbin power station went off-line.

The problem with power generation in Nigeria is not just that NEPA (renamed PHCN) is not generating enough electricity to serve the nation. More than inadequate power generation, the utility’s problem lies in the management’s inability to manage what is available and provide stop-gap measures to cover for shortfalls in its installed capacity. Careful management of existing resources, power importation and investment in temporary emergency power systems would be far less costly (at least 50% less so) than the existing situation where most industries and small businesses are not able to compete due largely to inadequate power supply.

President-elect Yar’ Adua has to keep these things in mind as he sets his priorities for the next four years. More than anything else, Yar’ Adua cannot adopt Obasanjo’s style of democratic leadership. He must do better if the foundations of democracy are to be strengthened in this country.

National Leadership Style

Much of the reasons why the current conditions persist lie with the style of leadership the country has received since independence in 1960. Leadership in Nigeria lacks vision for the nation. Its main concern has always been to retain power, and its primary reason for wanting power is the protection of ethnic tuffs. The leadership’s primary pre-occupation in power has been the business of managing ethnic or regional demands. No Nigerian leader has ever been able to break away from that paradigm. And that has translated to a high degree of provincialism in Nigerian leadership. Nigerian leaders tend to try to keep as many strands of the strings of power within their personal grip. This tendency often exacerbates inefficiencies and corruption in the system.

In Obasanjo’s case, his desire to retain as much power as possible led him to break many of the salient rules of democratic practice. President Obasanjo had come on board promising to support the entrenchment of democratic rule in the country, yet his efforts to shore-up his own presidential powers became inimical to the democratic health of the nation. It began with his scheming to oust independents and install amenable leaders in both the House and the Senate. To achieve this end, it is usually necessary to bribe legislators, most of who had arrived to the legislature through corrupt political machines and therefore owe their positions to the party leadership. The first Senate president, the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, was ousted in this way. It continued with the president’s total control over the PDP, the party that brought him to power. Party chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, lost his position and place in the party when he dared to call the president to order on his role in the crisis engulfing Anambra State in 2005.

The 2005 crisis in Anambra State further highlighted serious flaws in the president’s method of leadership. The crisis had begun when Governor Chris Ngige refused to toe the president’s line in his administration of the state. Almost immediately following Ngige’s election, the president’s point man in the state – the thuggish millionaire and self-styled “godfather” of Anambra politics – Chris Uba, had attempted to assert control over the newly elected governor. Uba had openly claimed that it was he who had bankrolled Ngige’s election. He also claimed that Ngige had not actually won the election, but that he, Chris Uba, had rigged it to make Ngige the winner! For these stunning revelations, Uba felt entitled to a stipulated portion of the state’s treasury. President Obasanjo had intervened directly by inviting Ngige and Uba to Aso Rock, his official residence in Abuja. There, he apparently brokered peace between the two and persuaded Ngige to accept some presidential appointees as “advisers” to be paid and financed directly from the presidency. Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the president can appoint advisers for, or have any role to play in the government of a state.

Ngige had not objected to the suggestions while before the president in Abuja, but he rightfully ignored the “advisers” as soon as they were posted to his state. President Obasanjo was reportedly miffed by this “slight” and Uba soon began a renewed reign of terror on the state and its beleaguered governor. The governor’s security detail was removed; there was a clumsy attempt to impeach him in the State legislature; on several occasions, hired thugs rampaged through the State capital, Awka and the commercial centre, Onitsha, terrorizing people and burning government property. All of these happened under the apparent indulgent gaze and tacit support of the Federal Government. Chris Uba was never arrested or even questioned for his actions which in some quarters would be considered treasonable. Instead he was made a member of the PDP board of Trustees, even after revealing that he had rigged the 2003 election in favour of Chris Ngige.

That these things could happen without adverse repercussions for their perpetrators points to the peculiar nature of power as adopted by the Nigerian elite. The cause of them goes back many decades to 1950-51 the period when the colonists organized and conducted the first general elections in Nigeria. Those elections were organized to counter the challenge of the rising popularity of the nationalists under their political vehicle, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). It began with a referendum to change the constitution which a few years earlier, in 1947, colonial authorities had insisted – against the demands of the nationalists for a new constitution – that the existing one, introduced in 1946, had to be worked for at least a decade before any thoughts of amending it can be entertained. The referendum and ensuing elections were tightly controlled to produce the results envisaged by colonists. The referendum was not so much controlled as its results were altered in places in order to give the colonists their desired outcome. For instance, Lagos which was always a federal territory was for the first time made to come under regional control despite the people’s desire, expressed through the referendum, to retain the city as a federal territory. That was the beginning of corruption of our electoral processes. The colonists had a long-term view to keep the nationalists out of Nigerian politics. The ensuing elections to populate the National Assembly were tightly controlled to ensure that regional interests (as opposed to nationalist pan-Nigerian interests) carried the day.

Vertical Integration in Politics

Those 1951 elections introduced a kind of vertical integration into the conduct of politics in Nigeria. Vertical integration in politics is a situation where those with the means to control the political machinery arrange things so that they control every step in the process thus ensuring that the outcome will always be in their favour. Other political operators since 1951 have consistently applied this model of vertical integration to the conduct of politics in the country and Nigerians have come to know it as the “incumbent factor”. Vertical integration in politics defeats the democratic ideal because it removes the element of free choice from the electorate. It is in itself corruption in politics. It does not allow the best possible candidate or the most popular one to emerge. Only candidates approved of by the owner or owners of the political machine may emerge.

After he came to power in 1999, promising to promote democracy in Nigeria, President Obasanjo nevertheless employed the vertical-integration-in-politics model extensively in establishing and extending his political hold. He did not countenance any opposition to his own choices for action and direction in the People’s Democratic Party; and neither did he tolerate such in his role as president. Such qualities have their advantages in situations that relate strictly to the president’s executive role, especially when the presidential decision is the correct one. For example, Obasanjo appointed a number of super ministers and directors-general who have done and are doing very well in their roles – people like Dora Akunyili in NAFDAC; Nuhu Ribadu in EFCC; and El Rufail, Minister for the National Capital Territory.

On the organizational level a modified approach was needed to secure a fragile democracy, yet the president did not seem to appreciate the need to champion the formulation of such a modified approach. He made no attempt to reform the PDP political party structure, which was inimical to true democracy, but took advantage of it to secure and advance his own power within the party and beyond. It was a short-sighted choice that, in the long run, caused democracy to suffer in Nigeria and it, ironically, ultimately increased the president’s own frustrations in government administration.

Vertical integration enabled the president, through the PDP political machine, to exert tremendous influence and control over the federal legislature for a long time. Beyond the PDP political machine, vertical integration also meant a high degree of inter-dependency between national institutions. It kept power concentrated in the centre or at the federal level and made things convenient for the president in terms of acquiring and extending his own power. It enabled the president to keep a tab on, and wring concessions out of the governors. Those governors who refused to go along with the president’s program, like Ngige in Anambra State, paid dearly for that streak of independence. All the governors, in turn, adopted the same system of vertical integration to keep firm control over all the people and institutions below them. It enabled them, most especially, to keep tight control over local government affairs.

Vertical integration engendered corruption in the system. The president recognized this as far as the local governments were concerned because he saw clearly the resulting corruption that it caused. But he failed to recognize the same phenomenon in his own relationships with the governors and other branches of the government.

It was a frustrated President Obasanjo therefore who, soon after his re-election in 2003, convened the Council of State to obtain agreement for dismantling the local government council system. The president’s frustrations stemmed from the limitations placed on him by the constitution in connection with the situation in the local government system.

The scandalous situation in the local government system was exemplified by what manifested in Ekiti State around 2002. The PDP government in that state, in collaboration with a dominant clique in the state legislature, had suspended local government elections and instead appointed an administrator for each local government there. Each month these administrators, who owed their office to the government and clique in the legislature, were blackmailed into paying large chunks of their budget to the legislators. Those who resisted making the payment were threatened with dismissal from their appointed positions. Many local government chairmen had been sacked in this manner previously; therefore those who survived were rather inclined to collaborate with the legislators.

The scandal broke in Ekiti, but the problem was nationwide. The federal government was pumping an average of N80 million a month into each local government in the country, but widespread misappropriation and misuse of local government budgets were making the local governments unable to function properly. The Ekiti affair clearly exemplified the top-down nature of systemic corruption in Nigeria.

Federal Government responsibility for local governments’ budgets is constitutionally enshrined. But in order to provide adequate oversight at the state level, the governors are also empowered to manage the disbursement of local government funds. This arrangement, a system designed to give the local governments a degree of freedom and independence in their ability to design and initiate grassroots development programs, incidentally has provided a loophole for politicians eager to gain power and control over the affairs of state. It gives those politicians who rely on party political machines and the patronage system a tremendous leverage in their ability to control the affairs of state.

In order to advance democracy in Nigeria, the president needed to steer the game away from the vertical integration model which, though it makes things easier for him and for a lot of other politicians, tends to exacerbate the unintended weaknesses within the system. But as we see through this local governments’ budget issue and as is also apparent in the Anambra State crisis, President Obasanjo did the very opposite; he pushed the country deeper into vertical integration in politics.

Thus in the local governments’ budget issue the solution he sought was one that would strengthen his own vertical integration set-up but cut away the same advantage for the governors. He wanted to eliminate the local government system altogether. It was a desperate, short-sighted choice. We wrote at the time that the move to abolish the local governments was ill-advised and cynical – a low road to national vivisection. We would like to think that our views on the issue contributed to the government’s decision to drop the move to eliminate local governments.