Governors and threat to democracy ( 1)
TODAY, a number of governors will vacate office. Their tenure( s) have lapsed according to Section 180 of the 1999 Constitution, after eight arduous years, for some. They are handing over to successors this morning.
They are leaving us with sundry memories of service to themselves and humanity. We’ll sure miss them. In the absence of functional local governments, states have become closest to the people and daily, we encounter governors in different ways.
Since 1999, governors have forced us to look their ways, whether we like it or not. They have been described as the most potent set of political operators in the Fourth Republic, individually and collectively. When they band together, they can make a lot of difference. In 2003, governors of that era made President Obasanjo sweat a bit over his second term bid.
In states, most governors operate like emperors because they dominate the political space, even trampling on that which belongs to the two other arms - Legislature and the Judiciary. The misfortune of the legislature is more pitiable. The Legislature is the place where the peoples’ power actually resides. But governors, in their deft power play have appropriated the levers. They have rendered their legislatures impotent. They did this by stealing the Appropriation power in Section 120 of the Constitution, which belongs to the House of Assembly.
With their control over public fund, some governors have assumed they also have power over life and death. In their delusion, some have acted that way, but it’s only for eight ‘ fleeting’ years. Yesterday, they had all the powers, but by this evening, they will become sober. It’s time for that vintage whiskey to expire. Absolute power intoxicates.
And the real concern is this: as the years of democracy begin to add up, the institutions of democracy have refused to transform. And the situation in states is where the real trouble is, where governors operate fascistic regimes. They orchestrate impeachment of Speakers of their legislature at the slightest opposition or provocation. To survive, one governor issued a proclamation to convoke his state legislature in the dead of the night. And elected representatives who were destined and programmed not to hear the summons were locked out of the Assembly for the better part of that legislative year. And the heavens did not fall.
We have seen governors pull down homes of opposition members in the name of town planning; and that’s the end of it. We have seen state governors tongue- lash traditional rulers like school children and that became normal. Governors decide when to hold local government elections and they anoint candidates for the election. They also appoint members of state electoral bodies to conduct council elections. So, governors own states the way emperors own empires. All of these acts threaten democratic rule.
And if we have details of the brigandage governors orchestrate during elections, we should be bothered for this democracy.
If memory serves us well, even in military regimes, administrators who did not have the mandate to rule, so to say, still managed to apply some sensitivity in dealing with citizens. But today, because we have surrendered to the conspiracy that the worst in our democracy is acceptable and more rewarding than the best of the other type, we are stuck with elected emperors in our states. We are stuck with governors we cannot interrogate at town halls because there are no town halls. Our representatives who should speak for us have become timid and gutless. They now represent themselves and their families.
Democracy has become an alibi for failure of good governance. Citizens have been conditioned to accept that it has come to stay and that it’s forever a learning process. So, we fabricate our standards and blackmail friends and allies to attend May 29 inauguration ceremonies. Every four or eight years, citizens get repeatedly violated and their electoral powers are abridged and stolen. Operators – legislators, governors - luxuriate in this fraudulent system while defenders and funders of democracy in the international community continue to look the other way until something terrible happens.
Notwithstanding the lamentations, we have some outstanding governors who are leaving office and they’ve done very well. Many have won multiple media awards and we have a random sampling of them here for readers to verify.
There is one Professor in Cross River State called Ben Ayade. From a distance, you cannot but admire his calm disposition. His yearly budget presentations were done with a difference, appropriately christened for maximum appeal. The one for this year is called Budget of Quantum Infinitum, whatever that meant. What’s important is that N330 billion will be spent in the course of the year. But his successor could do a supplementary budget.
Ayade’s estimates are always well beyond the revenue generation capacity of the state. But that’s not a problem. After all, the budget itself is just an estimate and it is not compulsory to meet the target.
While in office, the man promised a special type of rice but I haven’t seen it in the market. Maybe it is produced for export, unlike ubiquitous Abakaliki rice. The man promised a deep- sea port, a super highway and many good things for his people. I know some environmentalists made things difficult for him when he ventured to deploy bulldozers into the forests. I’m sure all that will be explained in his handover notes. His successor will complete all abandoned projects as usual.
I challenge budget trackers to look out for next year’s budget of Cross River State. I look forward to improvement in the state’s Internally Generated Revenue ( IGR), because some of the investment Ayade made, should start producing and generating revenue. It’s most unfortunate that all that investment in TINAPA by the previous governments did not amount to much. Equally unfortunate is the fact that since 1999, governors of that state could not make Obudu Cattle Ranch and Resort a befitting haven for a president- elect to observe some rest, instead of going to France to waste scarce forex.
Politically, Ayade’s tenure was a success. He abandoned his original party and installed a successor from his new party. Shame on PDP.
There is another former governor in Zamfara called Bello Matawalle. The man was denied second term and he’s been crying blue murder. He said it was because he took the Federal Government to court over the currency redesign policy and for such effrontery, military deployment for the elections was skewed to deny him victory. The man had been damn lucky. He didn’t win in 2019, but was allocated the mandate by the court. He benefitted from the crisis in the All Progressives Congress ( APC) and reaped where he did not sow. Lucky guy.
He inherited an unsafe state and couldn’t do much to reverse that. He was unequally yoked with Gen. Buhari, under whose nose bandits seized swathes of territory in the Northwest and terrorized communities and schools. Matawalle’s most outstanding contribution for which he will be remembered for a long time is his uncommon courage to call out the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC), Abdulrasheed Bawa, for allegedly requesting $ 2 million bribe from him.
“If he exits office, people will surely know he is not an honest person. I have evidence against him. Let him vacate office, I am telling you within 10 seconds probably more than 200 people will bring evidences of bribe he collected from them. He knows what he requested from me but I declined.
“He requested a bribe of $ 2 million from me and I have evidence of this. He knows the house we met, he invited me and told me the conditions. He told me governors were going to his office but I did not. If I don’t have evidence, I won’t say this,” Matawalle alleged. Very weighty allegation the new administration should not attempt to sweep under the carpet.
The EFCC has said the allegation is another attempt by corruption to fight back. We know, but we are not interested in media trial. Let them go to court.
In Kaduna, citizens will remember Nasir el Rufai for a long time to come. By last week, when he should have concluded his handover note, he was still pulling down houses of citizens, some of whom are political opponents, others being members of the Shiite sect. In eight years, the man never suffered fools gladly. He was too impatient for that.
El Rufai is only concerned with law and order, just the way he operated at the FCT, where he was minister. It seemed easier for him to pull down than build. I don’t know how many units of social housing he left behind for the ordinary people of Kaduna State, especially in these tough times.
He once ordered beggars and street urchins to vacate the streets of Kaduna metropolis. He needed to modernize the city and there was no provision in the master plan for the wretched of the earth.
Communities in Southern Kaduna will remember the last eight years as the most agonising. From available records they have never been so decimated, plundered and ravaged by organised terrorists and bandits in their homelands. And their plight is so familiar, systematic, scorching asphyxiation. The Shiites too.
And the State is helpless!
If memory serves us well, even in military regimes, administrators who did not have the mandate to rule, so to say, still managed to apply some sensitivity in dealing with citizens. But today, because we have surrendered to the conspiracy that the worst in our democracy is acceptable and more rewarding than the best of the other type, we are stuck with elected emperors in our states. We are stuck with governors we cannot interrogate at town halls because there are no town halls. Our representatives who should speak for us have become timid and gutless. They now represent themselves and their families.