Democracy, Not Demo-Crazy

A video clip that went viral in January 2020 could have given an insight into the level of indulgent despondency some federal legislators in Nigeria might have sunk into during the second tenure of the General Buhari-led government of All Progressives Congress, APC.

In the video, Hon. Alhassan Ado Garba, representing Doguwa/Tundun Wada Federal Constituency of Kano State and fondly called ‘Ado Doguwa’ by his admirers, was introducing his four wives to his parliamentary colleagues. About his wives, he said “when members call me a powerful man on the floor of the House, I am also powerful at home. I deal with four wives. And these four wives have produced 27 children for me.”

What could possibly ever be a justifiable political reason for that kind of introduction? How did that sort of introduction represent the problems the people of Doguwa/Tundun Wada constituency were facing at the time? These are questions that yawn for answers from members of the House of Representatives who allowed the eagle to land to be shot at.

Of course, there is a possibility that the law maker must have been induced to show off his wives to his parliamentary colleagues and to actually impress the women that he was their strong man, perhaps to boost their confidence so they could deal ‘more effectively’ with other women in their husband’s constituency. If that was the case, it was tantamount to vain gloriousness. It immediately sent the wrong signals to members of Doguwa/Tundun Wada constituency. First is the signal that it was right and befitting to marry many wives, even if there was no money to maintain them. And then its sequence that it was also a thing of pride to father as many as 27 children, even if they had to be denied the benefit of good education. When we flash back to the recent lamentation of the Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, that poverty and lack of education were progressively ravaging Kano and most of the northern states, it becomes obvious that some of the northern leaders have become so carried away by the flamboyance of their public offices that they are no longer in touch with the very people they were supposed to represent in government.

Hon. Alhassan had been a distinguished member of the Federal House for long enough to be regarded as ‘powerful’ by his parliamentary colleagues. And perhaps that was the only reason none of them had the effrontery to call him to order when the introduction of his wives on the floor of the House became his political priority and his obsession.

To his colleagues as they sat complacently smiling at his theatricals , it may have looked like a huge joke, but to the international community, always watching democracy as it grows in Nigeria and assessing its slant in nation building, the interpretation was that Nigerian legislators were indulgent, idle, myopic and pompous – that they earned fat sums of money for which they showed little or nothing as work and yet were not bothered about what other Nigerians who elected them into public offices would say or do about their general behaviour.

Alhassan, a stalwart of the ruling APC was a first class graduate of Mass Communication from Bayero University, Kano and Chief Whip of the Federal House of Representatives. Said to be a focused personality, he joined politics immediately after graduation and was elected member of the House of Representatives under the defunct Social Democratic Party in 1992, at the young age of 27. So, one would have expected, rightly or wrongly, that this law maker could have been one of the shepherds that would use his wealth of experience over the years in the legislature to help shape Nigerian democratic vision and commitment. But what did we have?

At a time Nigeria was faced with serious security and other challenges, especially in the north, some of its law makers who should have had sleepless nights thinking about the desperate conditions of their people were light-heartedly introducing their wives to their parliamentary colleagues and bragging about how “strong” they were at home, and possibly in bed.

Many Nigerians still think that the video clip and that of senators sleeping and snoring on the floor of the hallowed chamber should call for constituency reviews on the roles members of the two chambers are actually playing in the democratic process.

Northern Nigeria is facing a plethora of socio-economic problems. Many people in and out of the country have criticized the government of President Buhari of ineptitude in dealing with, especially, the consistently deteriorating security situation in the country. But security is not the only problem of the north. There are massive problems in education, national integration, political behaviour and goal, the judiciary and the use of judicial technicalities to decide cases that touch citizen’s hearts, among so many others.

It is my intention in the next few articles to take a critical look at these problems one after the other, and possibly alert the federal government to also take another look at the problems from the angle they can now see the weaknesses of these problems and the ability of Nigerian law makers to deal them a sustained blow.

In terms of security, there are many fronts to tackle, especially in the northern parts of the country. In the north, there is recurrent violence between Muslim and Christian communities on the one hand, the farmer-herdsmen conflict that has taken so many lives and displaced so many northerners from their ancestral homes on the other hand, and the menace of insurgents who want secession for the north to enable their people live by and fully practice Sharia Laws.

Considering the situation of things in the north after a string of attacks were launched on Christians by Islamist groups, a prominent northern Catholic bishop suggested that government was the one creating conditions for terror groups to flourish in the country. For example, on the eve of Christmas in 2019, Boko Haram slaughtered seven citizens in a bloody attack on a Christian village in northern Nigeria. That incident was followed by a video released on Boxing Day by the Islamic State of West Africa Province, (ISWAP) which showed the gory beheading of ten Christians and the shooting of one Muslim on Christmas Day.

The bishop spoke the minds of many Christians across the country and in the Diaspora when he expressed his disgust with the Nigerian government of General Buhari, who had in the past called for the implementation of Muslim religious laws across the entire country. He argued that the government was using the levers of power to secure the supremacy of Islam in the country, which consequently gave more weight to the idea that winding up the country could be achieved by violence. Given this perception, the bishop noted that it would be difficult to see the moral basis on which government could predicate the defeat of Boko Haram, pointing out that the only difference between the government and Boko Haram was that the latter had the bomb.

The Bishop affirmed the importance of Christian voices in avoiding another civil war and working towards a peaceful resolution, but was not optimistic about the road ahead: “Any resolution depends on how Christians decide to react. If they won’t use violence, what should they do?” he wondered.

Simple! They should recognize and affirm that since leaders must lead by example, there was something wrong in the Nigerian understanding of ‘leadership’ and ‘followership’. Nigerians need to do some research to determine if they actually had leaders they trusted and could emulate or whether the so-called leaders were mere figure-heads no one cared to follow in their footsteps.

In the circumstance, the prevailing question should be: if the two topmost leaders in the country could work harmoniously, why can’t their followers do the same and follow in the footsteps of their leaders? If Gen. Buhari, a Muslim President of the country and Professor Osinbajo, a Christian Vice President can work smoothly, why was it that their leadership-style is not making the required impact on the rest of the Nigerian population who are their followers? This is a sore point the law makers should look into as the key to solve the problems of the farmer/herdsmen conflict, the Muslim/Christian violence and even the bloody menace of the insurgents. Leaders must lead by example and followers must follow in the example set by their leaders. Or is there anything else the public needs to know that it hasn’t already known?

Indeed, some Nigerians believe there is a hidden agenda by the authorities to Islamize the country. But that can only be the dream of a hallucinated man. Even in northern Nigeria, there are so many Christians who are willing to die for their faith, and if Nigerian jihadists cannot totally Islamize the north, what is the possibility of Islamizing the entire country? But that is the dilemma of northern Nigerian youths, many of who are driven out of their homes by frustration and want and drift to the south in search of greener pasture. They drift to the south in search of jobs, mainly as security guards. It is better for them that way than for them to roam the streets of the north, lured by hard drugs and crime.

The strong propaganda being created by some tribalists is that the Fulani would trick their way and gradually settle in the south to learn every escape route and all that, and by the time you know it, they would have started their Jihad and over-run the country. That anti-nationalistic assertion is also costing young northerners who came to the south in search of jobs their chances. And that is not helping matters by any stretch of the imagination.

I am employing one of the northern youths as security guard for my country home and he is very happy staying with me. But what would happen if I was afraid that someday he would invite his brother Fulani and they would “capture” my country home and drive me away, perhaps back to the UK, my adopted country?

The young man would, of course, remain jobless and probably walk the streets, begging as he was doing in his original Adamawa state. But now he is settled. He has his own sitting room and bedroom in the Boys’ Quarters, has his own kitchen and private toilet and is very happy. He even told me recently I should help him marry the wife of his childhood and I said I would do that for him. So, we have lived together without a rift because we are not thinking about hurting each other. We know there would be no need for such a thing. There are other northern boys employed by my cousins and my brothers. But you never see them hanging out together. They only hang out with our village boys.

I have also heard people say that the problem with good people is that they always think everybody is as good as they are and by the time they know the truth, some damage may have been done. I don’t know. What I know is that it always pays to be good. Only two days ago, my daughter left the UK to go bring the nanny of her two kids from Lagos, Nigeria. The young girl is from Plateau state in northern Nigeria. She was good to my daughter and her children and when they relocated to the UK and my daughter found it difficult to cope with looking after the two kids and doing some work, she flew down to Nigeria and arranged for a working visa for the nanny and today she is here in the UK with my family. She may never have dreamt of living in the UK any time in her life, not even if she walked through Sahara desert, but here she is – because she was good to the family she served. She is a northerner, working for a southern family and she is absolutely happy and her employers are happy too.

And come to think of it: Nigeria is only freshening from a fratricidal civil war of three years that cost it nearly 3 million citizens and trillions of pounds in damage. It cannot afford another war on so many fronts at the same time. So, those dreaming of Islamizing Nigeria had better been advised that only a fool rushes into a battle he is sure to lose.

Nigeria can actually become a lively beautiful country and gateway to the African economy if their legislators were a little bit more committed to the development of the country. The amazing thing is that it is not so difficult to fix Nigeria’s problems if only the legislators had the political will to do so.

‘Political will’ would imply a total reversal of the values Nigerians placed on the acquisition of money, whether such money was made by fair or foul means. ‘Political will’ would imply a more serious commitment of the law makers to the welfare of members of their constituencies and not only that of their private families. ‘Political will’ would involve discouraging ethnic leaderships and encouraging nationalists and pan- Africanists to come forward and be counted.

A change of the system that makes money all there is to desire in the Nigerian context may seem to be the most vexatious issue the government would have to deal with. But that should not be so. The important thing is for every Nigerian to recognize that nation-building implies continuity and that a new government must start from wherever its predecessor stopped. In this context, there would be a need for law makers to emphasize service to community rather than self-aggrandizement among their constituency members. For instance, law makers should impress it upon their constituents to appreciate and respect those who contribute meaningfully to the upliftment of their society more than those who accumulate money for their families and associates. But to do this, they need to have properly equipped constituency offices. And that is very important.

It is common knowledge that some Nigerian politicians collect constituency allowances but have no constituency offices. Their parties and party leaderships must ensure that they represent the party well by having well defined and easily locatable constituency offices in their operational cities. Not only that. They should also map out a surgery day in the week when they would meet with their constituents who need support, whether such assistance is financial, psychological, emotional, medical or similar personal problems. The constituents sit with their representatives, discuss the issues that bother them most and come to an agreement. In some cases that might need parliamentary support, the legislator takes the matter up with his parliamentary colleagues, lobbies them for support and gets the chamber to enable him represent his people well.

During these interactions with constituents, the law maker would then take the opportunity to educate them on the need to shun money bags who are not contributing to the welfare of their communities and to better recognize those that care about the less privileged in their society.

It will definitely take time to sink and to be generally assimilated as a way of life, but obviously the constituency members will get there once it is the instruction from their legislator. Government may change hands but the idea remains fixated and by the time you know it, the entire country would have been dancing to the same drum beat.

The issue of the falling standards of education, especially in the same northern Nigeria is another sore area that needs immediate attention by the law makers. It did not start with the Buhari government and would definitely not end with it.

Formal education was started in Nigeria in 1842 by British Christian missionaries who managed the educational system according to their perception. The Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) started several schools in Nigeria by this time. From then until the 1960s, the Nigerian government was not seriously involved in the education of its citizens. Education was completely left in the hands of voluntary organizations and they set the standards which were internationally commended.

According to Nicholas Nwagwu in the Journal of Educational Administration published on 1st January 1979, after the Nigerian civil war in 1970, some state governments took over the complete ownership and control of all educational institutions in their areas of jurisdiction. The educational policies and practices of the voluntary agencies were condemned as foreign‐oriented, irrelevant to Nigeria's needs at the time and divisive in the sense that denominational schools encouraged religious and tribal bigotry that resulted in unhealthy rivalry among citizens. It was also argued that state take‐over of all schools would enable the government to plan the education system as part of the national integrated plan for socio-economic development. Voluntary agencies and private individuals were, however, allowed to compete with government to own and manage their own schools completely at their own expense within the broad framework of government regulations.

Many Nigerians objected to the seizure and control of church and private schools by the government. People argued that it was illegal to dispossess the voluntary agencies of schools they built mostly with their own resources without working out an agreement with them which should include adequate compensation in the first place. For instance, on 24 October 2016, the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Ekiti, Most Rev Christopher Omotunde, called on the Ekiti state government to without delay return schools established by the Church for effective management and to boost the standard of education in the state. Describing the take-over of the schools by government as ‘an act of robbery’, the Bishop pointed out that the decadence and nosedived standard in the quality of education being witnessed in the country could have been averted, if the schools were still under the management of the churches and voluntary agencies.

The Bishop said: “Government acted like armed robbers by taking over schools they didn’t know the vision behind its establishment. Governments are bad managers and you can see the damage they have done to schools established by missionaries across Nigeria.”

Many people in the country and out of it are looking up to the Buhari administration to do something to salvage the quality of education in Nigeria. The law makers should begin to think of how they can give education back to voluntary agencies, totally hands off the management of education and allow the ministry of education to perform only in a supervisory capacity.

Indeed, one fact to consider here is that the Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT, has always believed in its capacity to arm-twist the government to bow to its financial demands for its employers. But we now see that we cannot continue like this. Since government took over control of education in the country, the standards have continued to fall in such a disgraceful manner that some so-called Nigerian university graduates cannot even speak ordinary good English.

Some cannot spell very simple words. The situation is compounded by the fact that employers are known to look out for certificates and not the skills education endowed on applicants. So, we have a situation we dealt with recently, where teachers in higher institutions ask to sleep with their students for grades leading to certificate acquisition and the country compromising its educational standards.

The NUT has a duty to the country. They cannot continue to extort money from government to make teachers who are not seriously committed to the upbringing of Nigerian children to live fat on. Any such thing will be a travesty of justice and should be resisted by parents and school governing bodies. So, the legislators should better begin to think of handing back education to the private sector as the first step towards bringing back sanity into the education sector.

It is encouraging to learn from Professor Kingsley Moghalu that the Senate is embarking on serious electoral reforms he had been so worried about. Apart from electoral reforms, Nigeria needs other reforms that I will address in subsequent articles. Nigerian people should build up democracy, not demo-crazy.