To succeed, Buhari should emphasize transparency, justice — Prof Adamu
Professor Adamu Ahmed is of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria. He leads an advocacy group known as Scholars for Good Governance. In this interview he spoke on a number of issues that border on good governance, the role of intellectuals in politics, the need to factor cities into national planning for sustainable development and other national issues.
YBy Musbahu Bashir
ou have been in the forefront of criticising scholars’ indifference to matters of governance and politics. And your group has been seeking to reverse this. Where is the prompting for this coming from?
It started from a concern for the continued decline in the standard of living of Nigerians due to bad governance. It was easy then, as it is now, to see how poverty and lack of decent job opportunities, including access to basic services, were gradually fuelling deviant behaviours and terror that were steadily eating into the social fabric of the society. As we searched for solutions each day, we reasoned that they were products of bad policies and ineffective governance. But we were always quick to also reason that we would only be talking to ourselves if we couldn’t inspire change. The formation of the group therefore, was simply to give traction to the call for a more proactive engagement of scholars with matters of governance and politics. Today, our membership cuts across disciplines and has cross-cutting interests.
What is the experience of the group so far in this election?
It has been very informing and interesting, but also frustrating. What we have learnt is that a huge number of academics are unfortunately oblivious of events around them, and many are simply naïve. Talking around issues of governance doesn’t simply make sense to them. But the most annoying group is those who, instead of engaging in rationale thinking, have relegated that function to others, especially when it comes to decisions. I mean it is simply weird to see some intellectuals reducing choice to religious, regional or tribal considerations. Overall, however, I would say that we have made significant progress in getting many people conscious and involved.
Where specifically is the connection between scholars and governance?
Intellectuals are specialists in the creation of ideas and have a calling to expose myths and demystify illusions, to also let the people and their oppressors have some fresh perspective. They are people whose opinion or interpretation of issues is worthy of special regard. The intellectual who becomes seduced betrays this calling and leaves both the people and the oppressors vulnerable to self destruction.
Passivity, indifference and complicity are vices of the intellectual, and silence cannot therefore be golden. Of course, throughout history, healthy public criticisms have involved close connections between the academic community and the society. And high profile critics have frequently been university professors. In Nigeria, I can say that the age of the intellectual as the arbiter for public taste has unfortunately weakened drastically.
Let’s go back to your original concern with poor governance as it relates to the handling of cities and matters of growing poverty.
The point is that we can easily improve the standard of living of our growing urban population if we make the right choices because cities also can be assets to national development. The poor choices we have been making had to do with our failure to take advantage of the benefits of scale economies and deep labour markets that cities offer, which are critical to economic growth.
My point here is that nations that will record higher economic growth will be those able to take care of their cities and able to exploit the opportunities of scale economies and agglomeration offered by their cities.
My worry has been that as a nation, we have not been relating to these issues sufficiently as other countries have. China, for instance, has adopted pro-urbanisation policies to move 220 people out of poverty in 25 years. This is an urban century dominated by cities, and for obvious reasons, human destiny will increasingly be defined by the way cities are handled.
You are also saying that there has been bad governance from the point of view of economic planning?
Yes, very much so. There are all sorts of indicators in the economy of bad governance from pervasive poverty to corruption and inequality. Bad governance has created limited economic opportunities which have influenced crime. We very often run away from the fact that violence is rooted in poverty and inequality, which is a response to the frustration caused by the difference between what people have and what they think they are entitled to.
It is the moral outrage that some members of the society are getting richer while others are denied even the basics of life. The choices we have made with our economy have also basically been bad. We have opened up our economy and left it with no protection. Most of all, we have failed to build a well diversified and flexible economy, and because of that we have not been resilient to unexpected events and shocks like the recent downward spiral in oil price.
Like many analysts have observed, we have been looking at the superficialities rather than the fundamentals, which should be about job creation and poverty reduction. The other unfortunate development is the damage we have done to our peasant agriculture which has been eroded over time by deregulation. Of course, sadly, corruption has been very thick. We simply have not been efficient or effective with spending.
What would you say of politicians and governance so far?
The problem is that most politicians hold a view of governance as an enterprise. The politicisation of crime, religion and ethnicity have been their low points, and the de-legitimisation of the state’s role as social provider and protector has left citizens to seek for alternative methods of survival, conflict resolution and security at the expense of national stability. The most irritating is the misrepresentation of Nigeria. How? Some politicians are deliberately and systematically misrepresenting the nature and politics of Nigeria. They have also shamelessly used religious leaders as apologists for their wickedness, when in reality all of us are in pain, whether as Muslims or Christians.
As scholars, we are also in pain, teaching young men when we know that when they leave the university most of them will not be able to use what they spent five years trying to learn. And each day, you continue to act as though everything is okay. It’s really sad. Certainly, that was not the way we wanted our country to be governed. But the good thing is that Nigerians will, as always, unite when you actually least expect them to.
Where is your optimism coming from?
Well, it has already been proven with Buhari’s election. One thing for sure is that Nigeria is not an incoherent state. Ordinary Nigerians have a common sense of nationhood, and more than anything, they recognise their fraternity. They will choose a different path from the so-called advocates of doom. The struggle for independence, after all, was conducted not by ethnic or religious groups, but by Nigerian nationalist groups.
What is the way forward for leadership in the country?
It was obvious from developments that Nigerians have simply become sufficiently demoralised, dispirited and disenchanted with the kind of governance they have gotten, and this showed up with the kind of support that Buhari has received. Those who managed us all this while were reckless with our trust. Certainly, we are somewhere now; we need someone to repair our broken heads and hearts.
What should be the focus of governance in the next dispensation?
Prudence, accountability, transparency and justice should be the focus. But we are also in need of sound economic policies. Current global challenges make it imperative that we sit to plan far ahead for our survival and progress. We need to create a favourable environment for entrepreneurship to thrive. We need to make production efficient, whether from home, in the street, in open spaces, etc.
What message do you have for your colleagues in the academia?
As the portal of knowledge, enlightened and most conscious members of any community in the world, it is important that scholars use their endowed and rare weapon of intellect and awareness to take the lead in preaching and working hard to bring about the expected development that every progressive, patriotic and discerning Nigerian is seriously craving for. Of recent, we have seen the very impressive handwork of people like Prof Mahmoud Yakub at TETfund, and now, the good work of Prof Jega in supervising the delivery of credible and transparent elections in the country. There are also many emerging politicians from the academia with impeccable character. The reality is that the era of scholars’ indifference in the matter of governance has actually passed, especially given the wind of change that is blowing in every corner of the world today.