Opinion
Adamu Adamu’s Choleric Reticence
Published
7 months agoon

By Tony Afejuku
Adamu Adamu is the current minister of education of the Federation – as everybody who is conversant with our education problems knows. And anyone who tried a little to follow his mind since he became the minister of education would not find it impossible to regard him as a reticent polished peasant in that ministry that should be run by the super-cultivated mind of one who is not a stranger to extraordinary labour of articulation and great technical and scholarly accomplishment. In fact, a peculiar ministry that is responsible for the processes of society which constitute education for everyone ranging from the ordinary man to the extraordinary fellow should be under the positive administration and control of the super-cultivated man of honour and of peculiar honesty.
Our central education ministry is not under the firm grip of such a fellow. The question of the circumstances that concurred to permit Adamu Adamu to be appointed into the education ministry as its premier minister is the circumstances that define his limitations. The trouble-and-problem tertiary institutions and universities in particular have been having derives from the person of Adamu Adamu who invents himself in the image of “Mallam” and wants the world to see and recognize him as such. But a “Mallam” in the strictest usage or application or meaning of the term is a well-endowed teacher and scholar and personage of honour, and whose every word or action is devoid of deceit. Even his silence or reticence is always and at all times viewed or must or ought to be viewed and seen and interpreted positively as something of honour. So “Mallam” (like” Mr.”) is a title of honour used before the name of a man of honour – like Mallam Aminu Kano – under normal usage. Ironically today, every fellow wants to be referred to as “Mallam” or “Mr.”! Now Adamu Adamu wants us to see and call him “Mallam Adamu Adamu” which he relishes even though this former peasant from backwater Daura who has been treating ASUU maliciously underground, that is, clandestinely, pretends to be the union’s admirer and leading supporter! His reticence all the while until very, very recently was misinterpreted in several circles as positive reticence. But I had on a number of occasions hinted and told some ASUU personages and central negotiators that the “Mallam’s” reticence was choleric reticence. Sooner or later he would show his hidden nature. His choleric reticence sold the world the dummy that Chris Ngige was the real demon against ASUU. At a time the impression as created was that even Emeka Nwajiuba, the former minister of state in the education ministry, was a proper dim-witted spokesman who was an incorrigible lambaster of ASUU. Why could the chap not be a healthy controller of his own big mouth? Could he not borrow a leaf from his own master called “Mallam” Adamu Adamu? As a humble junior minister who was not a humble junior minister, did he not have another social or political career open to him? The young chap read our minds and disappeared from the “Mallam’s” clutches when the chance to do so opened before him. He entered it and fled and flew! But I am digressing. I know, dear, dear readers.
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How did the “Mallam” of choleric reticence become a minister who is today our universities’ most malicious destroyer and demolisher? I will offer my readers only a tiny bit of all I know. The “Mallam” swept the northern intelligentsia, particularly the university-based group and ASUU-diehards in a particular north west university, with his much referred to 2013 essay in Daily Trust. In the essay, he vigorously engraved his peasant polish and self on the consciousness of the goodness and patriotism of the highly educated and intellectual community especially of the north-west university that I am deliberately with-holding its identity because I respect its right of anonymousness. That essay coupled with his Daura connection with Buhari with whom, as fellow kith-and-kin, he very well bonded honestly conspired as circumstances that concurred to recommend him highly for his ministerial post to the education ministry. What a great irony that a “Mallam” of honour has turned out to be the capital opposite of what his patriotic backers expected from him. I am requesting my readers to go read Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent. The main character Mr. Adolf Verloc in that novel is a double agent who is fondly called by “Mr.” that precedes his name. The “Mallam” of choleric reticence we are dealing with is of the same mold even though this one is a triple or quadruple agent whose peculiar honesty and honour in a society such as ours that is too frightened to be honest and honourable and truthful is peculiarly terrifying. How was our “Mallam” able to deceive his intellectual political backers, his journalistic-social careerists and ASUU wise ones and vice-chancellors and varsity pro-chancellors this long? Our great Mallam of promise and of real cleverness reveals himself recently, however, as a dim-witted fascist and dissembler – unlike Conrad’s “Mr.” Verloc.
A “Mallam” of Honour who is expected to be a Mallam of Integrity gives us cause to be happy when we can answer the following questions in the affirmative: If he gives us his word, can we count on it? Is he un-afraid to defend what is right? Does he set the same standards for himself as he sets for others and live by them? Does he condemn opaqueness and respect transparency and accountability which he believes in? Does he give praise or credit where it is due and deserved? Does he accept his errors without blinking and ever ready to make amends? Is he trustworthy in every way? I am keeping my answers to these questions for another time.
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Last week’s Thursday night was one pathetic night I will not forget in a hurry. The Mallam of Mallams was on Channels and other television stations to give ASUU what the president of the most patriotic union in the land rightly has since called “miserable” concessions that are nothing short of fascist concessions – which are not concessions in a land of true freedom. Clearly, the six-month old strike will continue. Let the Mallam who is not a Mallam do his worst. What enervated me on that pathetic night was Mallam the Mallam’s dark image of Ngige, his fellow demigod of darkness whom he called a bloody liar. “He lied” was what the obviously wild and choleric Mallam of bilious temperament said of his cabinet fellow way-farer when asked a question pertaining to the two weeks deadline Buhari gave the Mallam to resolve the ASUU conundrum, which Ngige reported with, for once, I thought, was that man’s patriotic sense of duty. That night Mallam’s reticence strangely evaporated and the peculiarity of his demeanour and bilious jackboot were exposed with the peculiarity of bareness. He went a step further to call on Nigerian students to sue ASUU. In Nigeria your country my country our country strangeness that loses its peculiar strangeness happens every day. Since when did Mallam of choleric reticence become firm friends with Nigerian students he in untamed anger walked out on the other day? And the adored Mallam openly dared to incite them against their academic teachers and surrogate parents fighting for the academic system that will benefit them and your country my country our country.
I will stop here for now. ASUU, great patriots and master negotiators are meeting this weekend to review/renew their strategy. I definitely will be astonishingly astonished if each member that will attend the NEC meeting will not dazzle with the brilliance of his argument and shrewdness and generosity of strategy to continue the strike totally and indefinitely until Mallam becomes the Mallam of compassion, truth, kindness, honour, generosity and humanity. If an indefinite and total strike will compel Mallam to be the Mallam to regain his lost virtues that he must regain within his human heart so that our universities should reopen in freedom and justice to our students and academics, so must it be. To ASUU, I say blessed be. Several claps for Thunder!!! Blessed be.
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.
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By Hope Nwawolo
Despite the hues and cries that greeted the results of the 2023 elections, what if the court’s pendulum stays or swings otherwise in the expected litigations?
What will it teach our inquisitive young children?
What will it do to the hopes and dreams of the youths?
What will it do to the mind set of those in diaspora, waiting and hoping to return?
How will it affect our heroes still alive and yearning for the good old times?
One basic fact is that no matter where the pendulum swings, something new has started in the political sphere of Nigeria. And because it was unexpected, it has become almost impossible to strangulate it.
In every competition, there is an expectation that the best man will win. That may not always be in politics, particularly, in Nigeria…where the winner may not be the best man or even the better man. And when it is said that politics is a game of numbers, sometimes, the actual numbers may not be visible to determine the end result. It becomes a case of the more you look the less you see; until interpreted by respected learned men with high integrity.
Politics, they say is a dirty game, where money speaks and promises made are broken without an iota of guilt. Where the gullible minds of the masses are deceived, with as little as a box of indomie. Where some vibrant but jobless youths are brainwashed to risk their lives to snatch ballot boxes for the politicians who do not know them beyond giving them stipends through some third parties. Where market women are forced to come out for rallies and campaigns because they cannot afford the fine that will be imposed on them if they failed to participate. They also do not want the harassment of the market leaders.
In politics, fear is palpable in the air, before, during and after elections. The 2023 elections recently carried out, depicted these more than expected in both the politicians and electorate. What started like the usual political pattern took a drastic turn about nine months to the first elections and though it was said to be only a social media affair, it got everyone sitting upright and tightening his seat belt, particularly after the first elections.
Now, there is a generational shift, a new awakening, a new dawn and a new political birth, waiting to happen. To wherever the pendulum turns; where the court stands, it will make a turnaround in Nigeria. It may be turbulent at the beginning, it may be emotionally draining and psychologically traumatizing, but it will point to light at the end of the tunnel.
There is a new hope backed by a high spirit of determination. An unexplainable faith in many people for that newness of existence and purpose. An unprecedented emotional and psychological strength in the youths not to give up on their dreams. An unquenchable desire to keep praying. Soon a newness will break forth to calm all nerves and dry all tears.
A newness that will permeate conflicts and hatred,
A newness that will dissipate unnecessary anger,
A newness that will usher in unquestionable and transparent political systems in future elections,
A newness of freedom to choose a candidate without coercion or molestation
A newness of jubilation after the announcement of election results.
This is the new Nigeria that is awaiting delivery…
Nwawolo, PhD, writes from Lagos.
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Opinion
Overcoming Policy Execution Trap As Nigeria’s Development Challenge
Published
1 day agoon
March 21, 2023
By Tunji Olaopa
If I am asked to give a succinct and apt summary of the entire challenge faced by the Nigerian state in terms of her policy architecture and development management, in spite of contestation in the development literature, I will not hesitate in stating clearly and unambiguously that it is the challenge of policy implementation; the whole dynamics of getting things done. By elimination, the implication is that the challenge cannot be located as that of the dearth of development ideas, insights, models and paradigms. Right from her independence, Nigeria has been inundated with several ideas, both local and global, about development policy and frameworks. And yet, policy outcomes keep getting bogged down in the murky waters of political shenanigans. This means that the new administration of Bola Ahmed Tinubu has its challenge mapped out, in red, for it.
There is no shying away from this postcolonial predicament that has limited and kept limiting Nigeria’s capacity to honour the terms of her social contract with Nigerians. Hence, the Tinubu government will soon be inundated with the impatient agitations of Nigerians for a quick and tangible fix that will address their sufferings. And they are justified since they have not been given any real deal for the past sixty-three years of sovereign independence. And the new administration is obligated because that is the reason for seeking office in the first place.
Prof. Olaopa’s new book on public policy and development challenges
How then can we begin to understand this policy execution challenge? It is simple: how can an administration in Nigeria transition from governance vision and policy intention to policy outcomes that elevate and transform the quality of life of its citizens? Failure to understand and give critical and political attention to this question lies at the heart of the governance failures of successive Nigerian administrations. The new Tinubu administration cannot afford such a glaring mistake. And so, a fundamental case must be made out of the question of how policy intentions get circumscribed in the dynamics of policy execution that occasions policy failures in past administrations.
Modern states all across the world are distinguished by the traditional four functions they discharge as part of their administrative responsibilities—security i.e. securing the sovereign territory against lawlessness, policy formulation and implementation, governance regulation and service delivery.The capacity to perform each and all of these functions very well within an integrated framework in the governance context is what delivers the dividends of democratic governance to the citizens, and it enhances the state’s competitive and human development rating in global reckoning. With these functions, we have the metrics to differentiate between high-performing states like China, India, the United States,Botswana, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirate, Germany, Rwanda and the Asian Tigers (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea), and low- or even under-performing countries like Nigeria that is still cluelessly stuck within a dysfunctional vicious cycle within her arrested development.
From the perspective of governance, there must be something these states are getting right in the connection between leadership, politics, and policy articulation. For instance, there is a trajectory of relationship that links elite bargains to development bargains. In other words, development is a
function of elite nationalism and the extent to which the political class of a state can commit elite suicide and gamble on development on behalf of the people they are leading. In Nigeria, low
manifestation of elite nationalism has made it really difficult for the political class to set aside their personal and egoistic class interests in ways that enable them to clearly and ideologically discern and navigate the deadly developmental landmines strewn all over our governance landscape by the
neoliberal implication of ideological apparatuses and frameworks to which Nigeria is beholden. And here, the factor of development gamble of the Asian Tigers’ elites comes into bold relief. From within the ideological ambit of the developmental state, the leadership of the Asian Tigers were able to define a policy space that consciously and critically weighed the benefits and shortfalls of external influences, especially the type that came from the World Bank, IMF and the other cohorts of the neoliberal policy dynamics. Their developmental circumspection paid off!
Since we cannot argue that Nigeria has been stumped by the lack of vision documents, development plans and blueprints, or even policy expertise, the locus of the new administration’s focus must be directed at the possibility of mustering the political will to undermine the mystified Nigerian Factor, and face the global neoliberal consensus in order to begin the crafting of an enabling policy architecture to drive development. And to achieve this translates to creating the delicate balance between ‘doing the right things’ (a function of decision making quotient) and ‘doing it right’(project and change management effectiveness), and overcoming the various political, cultural, structural and systemic constraints that trapped past well-meaning policies and intentions of Nigerian leaders in the dynamics of implementation.
There is first the conspiracy of elitist interest that ensures there is a poor resource allocation that focuses on elite bargain than development calculations and taking care of the national interest. Other constraints follow: (a) the disconnect between policy design and implementation due to weak implementation planning, risk assessment and incompetent change management strategies; (b) unstable and poorly managed macroeconomic policies; (c) policy and project discontinuity; (d) public service low capability readiness; (e) political interference; and finally (f) deep-seated political and bureaucratic corruption. In essence, development has failed not because Nigeria lacks the blueprint or paradigms to make it happen, but due to the dynamics of the politics that the political elite plays with Nigeria’s development potential.
Let me outline what we can regard as the “politics of policy implementation” that Nigeria has played for many years, a politics the new administration must take into serious consideration if it
does not want to fall into the category of failed administration right before it commences. This politics throws Nigeria’s development and policy non-performance right into the frame of the 2005 World Bank review findings about policy and development projects in Africa. According to the finding, 29% of development projects ever get completed, 45% of on-going projects are rated as satisfactory, while 26% of such projects invariably get cancelled. Such a review can never backstop a solid development project of a developmental state.
The politics of policy implementation in
Nigeria is founded on the following assumptions and practices. One: there is that dangerous presumption, that the new administration must resist, that once policies and development plan are designed, they are automatically implemented by the public service. And such a presumption is against the background of a scant investment in implementation analysis and planning, as well as the failure to facilitate the capability review, determine public
administration system’s capability readiness, and strengthening of the MDAs as the powerhouse of government administrative functionality. The MDAs, that is, are not working according to any
specific theories or praxis of change that can guide the functional integration of blueprints or paradigms. This kind of policy inattention draws attention to the policy contradiction: launching a
national development plan and strategy that are not implementation- ready in terms of adequate capability review of the MDAs integral to ensuring implementation success. Two: this
presumption is compounded by the uncritical reliance of past governments on policy experts and consulting firms who are tasked with designing high-end policies that are then dumped on MDAs whose capability reviews and implementation readiness have been neglected in the first place. The
extroversion of the policy design is then compromised by poor functional integration. The truth is that most of these consulting firms lack the appropriate deep content and solution frameworks that are in tandem with the context of policy dysfunction they are supposed to work with. Three: governance policy or project are hardly subjected to feasibility test determined in terms of scope and expectation that are captured by their framework of time, cost and risk assessments before
they are pushed into implementation. This makes it very difficult to benchmark funding projections for these policies and projects against revenue estimations, as well as facilitating in-built flexibilities that enable the policies and projects to adjust to volatilities and contingencies.
All the issues raised above constitute binding constraint that will undermine any governance possibilities the new administration requires to make a success of democratic governance. Undermining the binding constraints demands returning to the fundamentals. The first and most significant is that the new administration needs to interrogate the framework of how government business is currently being conducted. Governance successes are necessarily a function of how government business engages the complexities of the policy design and execution processes within a results-oriented frame. And that entails undermining the structural gaps between policy objectives, development strategies and policy outcomes. This demands second, setting the public service on a performance curve with the institution of a performance management system. This means that the public service must, for example, unfailingly now deploy KPI-based metrics to replace the cumbersome annual performance evaluation report (APER). And at the backend, it becomes imperative to have a monitoring and evaluation system supported by databases that enable staff and program continuous assessment, human resource development rooted in iterativep performance gap identification, supervisors-staff dialogue and multisource feedback mechanismsf for overall national development policy tracking and reporting.
The governance mantra must be on getting the balance between doing the right things and doing it right. And this cannot be achieved through the wanton multiplication or even duplication of
governance plans, programs and blueprints. What is needed is sequencing the blueprints into a coherent and feasible implementation programme, with the right amount of political will behind it. This gives the success of democratic governance a 95% chance of succeeding. The new administration needs that fighting chance!
. Olaopa, a retired Federal Permanent Secretary, and Professor of Public Administration .
tolaopa2003@gmail.com
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Rigged Elections And The Moral Burden Of Illegitimacy
Published
3 days agoon
March 20, 2023
By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha
Adamu: A man who rigs his way to power carries a moral burden!
Orezime: A moral what?
Adamu: You heard me, didn’t you?
Orezime: I’m not sure I heard you right. Moral what you said?
Adamu: A moral burden, I said!
Orezime: Hahahahahahaha! You make me laugh! Are you from the moon?
Gani: Or Mars?
Emeka: In which country? In Nigeria? That principle does not apply in Nigeria! There is no moral burden on anybody in this country! The election which produced Bubu in 2015 was rigged. Where are the two million voters from Kano State who voted in 2015? Was an INEC official not burnt alive after that election? The one which brought Obj to power was also rigged by the forces which wanted him to ease the tension of the Abiola tragedy on the Yoruba people. Yet those men had the temerity to preach against corruption!
Orezime: The international community winked at the whole exercise.
Gani: Yes! That’s why those two could only preach; they couldn’t really act decisively. A moral burden? They spoke from both sides of their mouths on the issue of corruption. The late President Yar Adua confessed that the election which produced him was compromised. An honest man, he didn’t live long enough to right the wrong of the period!
Orezime: That’s why I laughed when Adamu talked about a moral burden arising from rigged elections.
Bankole: In the ideal world, any power that is stolen and acquired through a dubious means imposes a moral burden on the power holder. No matter what the person does, that power remains stained.
Orezime: What does that amount to in our country? Even the brigands who shot their way to power in the notorious days of military misadventure in Nigeria soon became legitimate.
Emeka: You are going too far in our history. See what happened in Lagos State in the governorship elections of March 18. Ethnic jingoists went about preaching hatred against Igbo people and warned them against coming out to exercise their constitutional rights. Security officials looked the other way when ballot boxes were snatched in broad daylight in places where the opposition was leading.
Gani: A serving state governor personally went about snatching ballot boxes and threatened to shoot whoever got in his way. The same governor declared somebody wanted without recourse to the Inspector General of Police! He worked against the party on which platform he won the seat to spite the party hierarchy!
Adamu: And to think that this is the President-elect’s state. He kept mute through the horrendous attacks on Igbo people in Lagos State just the way the incumbent president has looked the other way when herdsmen went on the loose!
Bankole: Rigged elections are so familiar yet notorious in our land. It was the main trigger to the crisis in the Western Region in the First Republic because the people reacted when they saw a rape of their rights and wishes! It soon snowballed into a conflagration that consumed the nation in the late 1960s. Already, the youths are talking about a protest in the ENDSARSNOW# manner. I hope it doesn’t result in disaster. We have lost too many lives already!
Orezime: What I fear is the rise of ethnic profiling in a supposedly democratic society. To be sure, Governor Sanwo-Olu and the party hierarchy did not single out any ethnic group for verbal attacks. They even courted them. Yet they didn’t caution their followers to stop the degeneration into ethnic hatred. It is a dangerous curve what is happening in Lagos. I don’t subscribe to the Lagos is no man’s land nonsense which some misguided fellows are spewing, but threatening anybody not to vote their candidate is a new low! Can a Sanwo-Olu victory be said to be legitimate if a significant percentage of the electorate is disenfranchised?
Emeka: Good question. They did not stop there. They rolled out the culturally dreaded Oro rituals on election night. Come on! Who is fooling who? The Oro festival was designed to drive fear into non-Yoruba in Lagos. In the 21st Century?
Gani: I am sure the reports from election observers will be damning.
Bankole: I don’t care about those biased observers.
Adamu: Where are we headed in this country?
Orezime: We are on the road to Kigali!
Bankole: May we not travel that route!
Orezime: It’s a good prayer. But what are we doing to avoid the descent into anarchy? Nothing. Those monkeys are simply interested in acquiring power.
Gani: The Obedient Movement seems to have lost steam once it was misbranded as an ethnic agenda to grab power at the national level. Peter Obi needs to tread carefully so he doesn’t become another June 12! Some people are egging him on to challenge INEC through protests.
Orezime: If he decides to lead a protest, it would be within his constitutional right to do so, especially as INEC is stalling on the issue of inspecting elections materials despite an order from the courts. Peaceful protests are guaranteed by the Constitution.
Adamu: No one can be sure whether a peaceful protest will remain peaceful after it starts. That’s the experience the ENDSARS people had.
Gani: It’s not enough to stop people from taking to the streets. Protests are fundamental to democracy.
Adamu: We do not want dead heroes! Mark my words.
Bankole: That’s ominous!
Emeka: It means nothing. Nigeria must change. We cannot go on like this forever! Things are just going down. No cash. No fuel. No power supply. No security. No nothing. Peter Obi gave a glimmer of hope. Now that has been dashed to the ground.
Adamu: Rigging will remain a moral burden each time our President-elect travels outside the country, each time he meets foreign observers, especially those ones who have a dossier on him. History will also judge him and assess how he came to power. This applies to all the states as well where some politicians have turned themselves into demigods and have compromised poor INEC officials with mouthwatering sums. This is not how to build a democracy. The votes must be counted and must count. Seventeen people have their lives during the governorship and House of Assembly elections. We are supposed to count ballot papers, not bodies. Sad!
Bankole: The moral burden of rigged elections is on all of us. Without our connivance there would be no rigging. We can only hope that this will end some day!
Emeka: Tough luck!
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