The Imperial President

By

Wada Nas

wada@gamji.com  

http://www.gamji.com/wada.htm

Since the start of this nascent democracy, it has been the deliberate policy thrust of this administration to generate and engineer one crisis after the other seeking all the time to act imperially. We have for instance the one it planted in the National Assembly, with the police directed to invade the official residence of Dr. Chuba Okadigbo, in a manner that lacked any principles of decency. To the delight of the government, it sustained the crisis, enjoying every bit of it, all in attempts to impose “yes men” in the National legislature, for the purpose of acting dictatorially.

After dealing with Okadigbo, it went after the neck of House Speaker, Ghali Na’Abba. Virtually almost all instruments of state were directed to deal with him. At a point, the police thought of the need to way lay, capture and detain him, a move that could have brought chaos into the system. But for the principled leadership of the anti-corruption commission, it too would have attempted what the police did. A section of the media was woken up against him, the same media that kept sealed tips over the Chicago affair but was high tech vocal over that of Salisu Buhari. 

Since the inception of the imperial democratic regime, we have been living with the crisis of non-implementation of the budget with the president telling the nation, recently, that this has been so because there was no revenue to match budget expectations. What this means is that government has not been able to generate about 25% of its revenue estimates since non of the budgets was ever implemented to the level of 25%. The truth of course, as we all know, is that there has never been any fall in oil prices, upon which revenue estimates have been based, below the level of the expectation of the budgets. Indeed, while Mr. President was telling the nation this, he has perhaps forgotten the crisis he had with governors over the non-release of their own share of the oil windfall.

The scrapping of some institutions, without back-up legislation, has also been the imperial style of the administration in generating tension; quite a number of these institution have since gone or merged without enabling acts, which even during military dictatorship was never the case.

Then came the administration with its IMF-inspired university autonomy, a policy not quite well defined in its crudeness and limited concept. As a result, it forced our university staff, who he roundly castigated recently, with the force of imperial voice, into the streets. True, one strike in the universities has been too many costing fortunes to parents. But this ought not have warranted the language Mr. president chose in voicing his feelings against the operators of the system.

Again, in an imperial manner, the President announced increase in salaries and wages for all public sector workers, without consultation with the states who are also stake holders. The consequence was that state government workers threw down their tools when their employers could not meet up with the demand of the new salary structure.

In a unilateral action, without consultation, with even members of his cabinet, he declared May 29, the day he was sworn-in as president, a public holiday. It was after such a declaration that he felt the need for a legislation to support it.

The oil crisis was yet another, where again he acted unilaterally to impose a new price regime on consumers at a time when his administration was enjoying unprecedented oil revenue. The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) took to the streets in protest and it took a long period of labour unrest before matters were resolved. Now, he is poised, once more, to jack up fuel prices by as much about 100% quite unmindful of its serious consequences on the society.

In yet another round of crisis, the nation woke up one day to be told that tokumbo cars, of certain age category, would no longer be allowed in to the country. When you add this up with the planned increase in fuel prices, you can better visualize what would become of a chaotic transport sector, which even presently is almost dead.

In his imperial style of generating crisis, he released about N12 billion to Julius Berger, without legislative action, at a time when others could not secure the payment of about one to ten million of their own money outstanding against the administration.

From the Berger action, he ordered the release of funds for the purchase of ministerial quarters in Abuja, again without legislative support, through anticipatory approval, two, or so, days to the scheduled meeting of the Federal Executive Council. He imperially approved the award of the contract for the Abuja Stadium at a cost of N38 billion. Yet, he was pleased punching Dr. Okadigbo for engaging in anticipatory approval to the tune of a mere N12 million, or so. The Brettonwood institutions have estimated that N16 billion was enough to built the stadium, which the imperial president awarded at N38 billion and which has now jumped to N56 in just less than two years, and yet we are talking of transparency in resource management.

Nigerians have not forgotten the imperial manner Chief Gemade was imposed on the PDP. It was done through some back door dictatorial action that had democratic untransparency as its pillars. Gemade was an imposition of the imperial master. In doing so, he completely forgot how a transparent convention brought him to power in Jos. In the imperial manner he imposed Gemade on the PDP, so did he remove him after using and dumping him. When the Gemade faction of the PDP suspended Anenih, his chief crony, the imperial president swiftly took over the leadership of the party and reversed the decision. Today, Chief Audu Ogbe, undoubtedly a very capable and highly principled person, was equally brought to power through presidential imperial action.

In the course of the year, Mr. President took over some of the functions of the federal civil service commission that of the power to discipline civil servants. With the police at his beck and call, the National Assembly subdued, the party reduced to a parastatal, and the other parties ineffectual to give an articulated opposition, the civil service was brought in under his firm ambit, all in attempts to build a firm imperial base on the platform of a shaky democratic order.

What remains is the judiciary to complete the circle. In one of its recent editions, the Nigerian Tribune, a paper believed to be very close to the presidency, came out with a front page report that the president had written the Chief Justice of Nigeria complaining about a particular judge who, in the president’s view, is fond of giving judgement against the federal government.

Now, having captured the police, reduced the National Assembly, especially the senate, to a mere rubber stamp, which is what it has become since the exit of Okadigbo, taken effective control of the ruling party, after reducing the opposition to ashes, with a chorus media in tow, and now a subtle  attempt to control the judiciary, we are indeed on the road to dictatorial democracy under an imperial president.

It is not just that he has rubber stamps elsewhere, but also that he is gradually attempting to take over the actual act of legislation, by his imperial insertion of a clause in to the recently passed electoral act, a grievous danger to the practice of separation of power, which unfortunately and quite painfully some elements in the senate are up defending without minding their own integrity. The serious danger which our nascent democracy faces today is that we have an imperial president who is seeking to be the lord king of dictatorship, in a democratic order, by plotting to effectively control all other organs of the democratic order, such as the party system, the judiciary, the legislature and the police, in such a manner that we would be left with an imperial monarch handling and mismanaging our democratic affairs. It is worse for a dictator to take control of a democratic order acting under the pretax of democracy while in actual fact practising dictatorship in a covered style. This is the reality we are facing today, which for long we have been complaining about but all to be called names. The unilateral injection of a clause in the electoral act by the president is a serious democratic misnomer done not in the larger interest of the society but for the reason of seeking to remain in 2003 at all costs. President Obasanjo is sending signals to Nigerians that come 2003, he would not tolerate any opposition in his drive to remain in Aso Rock post 2003. The writing is there on the wall for all to see. This is the focus in which we need to situate this anti democratic action by the president, his attempts and plots to be the sole presidential candidate in 2003 and to win by whatever means possible.

Now, here we are faced with a situation where the chief symbol of our democracy is practising the game in the breach and outside its rules, at a time when he is seeking our votes for a second term. What would happen when he finally gets the votes and he has no any other thing again at stake? How would he run the democratic order particularly as he has been telling us that nobody can impeach him? As at August last year, some members of the National Assembly told the nation that President Obasanjo, within such a short period, committed 28 impeachable offences, which means he violated the constitution 28 times, obviously in his drive to mount an imperial chair of an imperfect democracy. We don’t know how many such offences he has committed since then. What we know for sure, however, is that presently we are dealing with an imperial dictator and a dictatorial monarch after 2003. We must fear this possibility and we must worry that it does not offer us hopes to be optimistic of an endearing and lasting democracy. Eight years on the imperial throne of democracy in 2007 may leave us without a democratic direction. This is what we must worry about. The PDP administration of General Obasanjo is certainly not laying, for us, a solid foundation for an enduring democracy. It is painful that we have to say this after the hopes placed in it by Nigerians. We must worry, as a nation, not because we don’t like the PDP but because we like an enduring democracy more in Nigeria. If the PDP changes gear to show us the true democratic path, we would follow it even blindly. Unfortunately, it has not proved to us that it has the torchlight to lead us through the dark tunnel.

We perhaps need to remind some of our senators that they were not elected by Obasanjo but by us and also that the desire for self succession was never the reason for our electing them. A few senators have been betraying Nigerian people over time, in a manner so disappointing of the high esteem we hold them. I have not heard of one member of the House of Representative in support of the injection of that foreign clause in to the electoral act. Its chorus singers have been the president and his tiny handful of senators, the Obasanjo senators. Nigerians are watching. In managing our national affairs, let president Obasanjo take time to reflect on the past, appreciate the dynamics of historical forces and focus on his future role in history. The future has more in its glory than the present. The lure of the present must not blind us in seeking a historical role for ourselves. When we are blinded by the fault of today we forget the lessons of yesterday and disregard the validity of tomorrow.

Finally the new electoral act is an imperialist invasion of the nations terrain for the purpose of imposing colonialism on our democracy. And colonialism is the worse form of dictatorship.