Of Ideas and Manifestoes

By Kayode Komolafe

0805 500 1974

A few weeks ago, President Muhammadu Buhari made the following observation in Owerri, Imo state: “In terms of time and resources, this administration has done extremely well. I have to say it because those who are supposed to say are not saying it. I don’t know why.”

Incidentally, Buhari was in Owerri to commission some projects executed by the government of Governor Hope Uzodinma of Imo State. Remarkably, the President referred to, among other things, the infrastructural projects of his administration such as roads, bridges and railways. The Second Niger Bridge was conspicuous in the list of projects credited to the Buhari administration on that occasion in the southeast. Buhari didn’t mention the names of “those who are supposed to say” something about his administration’s programmes. Apart from the ministers who are the officers in charge of executing the programmes, it should be the business of Buhari’s party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), to explain and defend the implementation of the programmes.

What Buhari said in Owerri is a consequence of the typical dissonance between the party and the candidate during campaigns on the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes. Given a synchrony of purpose between the administration and the party in power, there should be no such expression of regret by a president.

It is, however, not surprising that the President made the statement. From its inception, the APC has not been held together by any ideological glue. The party seems to exist for virtually electoral purpose. Take a sample. Not a few leaders of the party initially derided the idea of the social investment which has turned out to be a signature policy of the Buhari administration. Some dismissed it as “unproductive” and that it could engender laziness. For some APC elements, the programme was reminiscent of “the poverty alleviation” programme in which billions of naira were sunk with no significant impact during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

The Buhari social investment programme has not been sufficiently articulated. Hence, critics see it as an opaque policy. Yet for a party that should be socio-democratic in orientation, an efficiently run social investment should be a prominent feature of its policy agenda.

The articulation of the manifestoes of a presidential or gubernatorial candidate could be more effective during campaigns if the programmes were owned by the political party and not just the candidate. Party leaders and members should be educated on the basic ideas underlying the policies and programmes being sold to the electorate. There should be clarity of purpose on the basic idea. In fact, it is this basic idea that is the common thing that party leaders ought to share in giving direction to their organisation as it seeks power.

However the relegation of the concept of the political party in this political dispensation has made matters more problematic. The practice in Nigeria upends what should be the ideal in a multi-party democracy. The political parties have virtually no input into the conceptualisation of policies which their candidates are expected to implement if they win elections. Political parties are not identified by the strategies of development which they passionately defend. Instead political parties tag along with their candidates on matters of policies and programmes in the course of campaigns for election.

For instance, the economy is an issue for the 2023 election. The principles informing the policy choices of each presidential candidate should be visible in the various agendas being unfolded. The role of government in economic management is a matter of principle that should be settled in putting together the manifestoes.

The electoral process in particular and indeed democratic practice in general are more than balloting. The casting of ballot is a stage that should be necessarily preceded by a thorough popularisation of the party policies and programmes. A 19th Century editor of London newspaper The Economist, Walter Bagehot, described democracy as “government by discussion.” This description accentuates the importance of reason in the democratic process.

For instance if the thoughts behind the preferred approach in formulating economic policies were discussed by party members before the election, it would be expected that the party would defend the implementation of the policies. It is not enough for the experts who put together the drafts of the competing manifestoes to say that it does not matter if the origins of the ideas informing the policy options could be traced to the left, right or centre in ideological terms.

Indeed, ideas have different loci in the ideological spectrum. Raising or cutting taxes is a deeply ideological question even among liberals. By the way, the denial of the ideological origin of an idea is in itself ideological. Although the “practical” politicians are wont to scoff at the suggestion of ideological politics, yet the fact is that the absence of ideology partly explains the political underdevelopment of the country and hence poor governance. If you don’t like left or right politics you are bound to be saddled with north or south options in balloting. If the agenda of a party and its candidate is not to be examined for its social democratic or neo-liberal content, the election would be reduced to a contest between a Christian and a Muslim. Yet the ethnicity, region or religion of a president or a governor is not the determinant of the workability of security policies or socio-economic programmes. Part of the problems of the polity is the lack of popular participation as reflected, at least , in low voter turnouts in the previous elections. Well, the prognosis for next year’s election is brighter because of the of the upsurge in the registration of voters especially young people. It would be a good development if the trend of voter apathy could be reversed in the 2023 elections.

Perhaps, the examination of the ideas informing the policy choices could be a good preface to the discussion of the manifesto of each candidate. With a clear understanding of the ideas forming the basis a policy, the criticism of the president or the governor when he gets into power would be better informed. The yardstick for measuring success in the course of implementation would be well defined.

Can the campaigns towards the 2023 election be a turning point in which the political landscape is delineated by the philosophy underpinning the manifesto of each political party?

Time will tell, as they say.

Amechi and the Forgotten Heroes

The life and times of Chief Mbazulike Amechi, the notable nationalist who died yesterday, represented the heroic story of a generation that contributed immensely into the making of Nigeria. Aged 93, he hailed from Ukpor in Nnewi Local Government Area of Anambra State.

Amechi was a member of the Zikist movement, an organisation of youths inspired by the first President of Nigeria, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, during the anti-colonial struggle. Amechi later became aviation minister in the First Republic.

One of Amechi’s last major interventions in public affairs was his leading a delegation of Igbo leaders to discuss a political solution to the matter of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Unfortunately, such a solution seemed far to seek as at yesterday when Amechi died.

The essential Amechi, however, was the young radical who along with other members of his generation made the struggle for national freedom their career. The Amechi generation dreamt of a just, united and prosperous nation. The youthful nationalists performed the historic roles in the 1940s and 1950s, at a time many of them were younger than some of those agitating for the sovereign state of Biafra, Odua Nation or any other separatist formation today.

However, the roles of many of these anti-colonial nationalists have not been sufficiently applauded. The matter is worsened in an age in which history is treated with utter contempt.

This point is well made by Amechi himself in his 1985 booklet entitled The Forgotten Heroes of Nigerian Independence as follows:

“It is not correct to say that Nigeria was granted independence by Britain ‘on a platter of gold.’ We fought for our independence and won. The battle might not have been as bloody and intensive as that of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) or Algeria or Kenya; but we shed blood. Many youths and trade union leaders suffered unjust imprisonment, banishment and other indignities. Racial segregation or discrimination was deeply entrenched in Nigeria, but people fought to reverse the order. We now talk about ‘sharing the national cake.’ Whether the cake is still there or has been badly dismembered by rats, we hardly ponder for a moment that the recipe for the cake was gathered with the blood and sweat of some nationalist heroes some of whom have bowed out to commune with our ancestors…

“I am in position to testify that none of the eight governments (as at 1985) we have had since independence has done anything to show a simple appreciation of the role which these gallant Nigerians played in our struggle for nationhood.”

Amechi lamented that when two of his comrades – Raji Abdalla and Oged Macaulay- died they were virtually unsung by a nation that couldn’t identify its genuine heroes. He said successive governments had failed to honour the memories of the youth that fought for independence.

The story of the Amechi generation is also a proof that the role of the youths has always been central to the evolution of the Nigerian nation. So there is no point making a fetish of age. Of course, age is biologically a dynamic thing. Nigeria has been built since the colonial days largely with the energies of youths. At various stages of the nation’s history, relatively young people have determined the direction. Here we are talking persons in their 20s and 30s. May the memory of the great sacrifices of the Amechi generation inspire the contemporary youths to embrace nation-building based on social justice.