Buhari eyes 2019: Matters arising

For those who are belly aching over whether President Muhamadu Buhari will seek a second term in office come 2019, they do not have to look further. Several indicators have manifested to clarify that indeed he is not only in the race but is likely to remain the sole candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Among these are various instances including his body language in recent times, utterances by his close associates and the traditional assumption by any elected office holder in Nigeria that a second term in office is a birthright whether the constituents represented like it or not. Beyond the fore going is the recent confirmation that Chibuike Amaechi the Transportation Minister has been appointed the Director General of the Buhari 2019 campaign. It is easily recalled that Amaechi was also the campaign manager for Buhari’s ascent to the Presidency in 2015. Hence it would seem that Amaechi’s appointment is a gathering of sorts for the ‘winning team’ for a repeat performance. 

For Buhari, the reality of his possible return to office in 2019 has generated heated debates across the length and breadth of the country, courtesy of the widespread state of discomfort to which Nigerians are subjected, widely believed to be orchestrated by the failure of his government to fulfill its promises.  Against the backdrop of the copious parade of promises the administration made in 2015 at its inception Nigerians can count on the fingers how many of such have been fulfilled, two full years into the administration’s term. Little wonder that in some opinion circles in the country, the acronym APC for the ruling All Progressives Congress has easily been assigned to the rather pejorative phrase “All Promises Cancelled”.

 Meanwhile, those who believe in the expediency of Buhari’s return to power in 2019, base their argument on the traditional claim of the man’s superlative sense of patriotism, moral uprightness and incorruptibility. Also in the kitty is the less promoted argument that he is the candidate of the North whose turn for the Presidency is now. Granted that these earlier, near divine attributes served their purpose in marketing him for the electoral  victory of 2015, the passage of time with him in the saddle as President has thrown up a complement of incontinences, most of which are attributed to the acts of commission and  or omission by his lieutenants. 

In the other vein, those who are belly aching over his return to office in 2019 pitch their primary peg not necessarily on his person but on the very serial incontinences of his administrative machinery as operated by the same lieutenants as well as his inability to rein them in – due largely to his age, and compromised health condition. He has therefore unwittingly left them to operate as loose cannons as it were, on a rudderless gun boat that is adrift at sea. Disaster remains the sure dividend of such enterprise, and for the administration these have manifested severally, even avoidably.

Yet 2019 elections is not just about Buhari and his personal ambition to rule the country, but largely another opportunity for Nigerians to source a new team of leaders nationwide who will drive the processes of governance. It is therefore rather self-defeatist and a grand distraction for the country to commence rather early in the day, another round of wasteful indulgence around the personality cult of an individual who in this case is Buhari, to the exclusion of addressing the real challenge of the day which is the absence of good governance across the land. Nigeria statutorily has three tiers of governance namely the Federal government at the centre, the thirty six state governments and the 774 local governments at the grass roots. With the avoidable fixation on the fortunes of the Presidency, nd right at the beginning of this new 2018 being the preparatory ground for fast approaching 2019, the country’s focus may have to change to accommodate other equally critical but marginalised factors, especially in the light of the manifest situation whereby all powers do not actually reside in the Presidency. 

The Presidency may be the driving and coordinating arm of governance, but it has diminished Constitutional powers to change much in the other components of the government machinery such as the other arms of government comprising the legislature (National Assembly) and the Judiciary, as well as the state and local government tiers. This situation calls for a broader perspective of the structure and processes of governance in the country, with specific reference to their expected roles in fostering good governance. It is in this respect that the role of the legislature as the primary culprit in the enthronement of failed governance comes into relief. Even the most cursory look at the Constitution will reveal that there are more powers assigned to the legislature at any tier of governance than any other arm. The problem therefore is that the legislative chambers in the country and in particular the National Assembly often cite a reluctance to ignite Constitutional crisis attendant to disagreement with the executive arm, even when the latter is clearly act in breach of the Constitution. 

 This disposition of the legislature to abdicate its responsibilities of standing for the people, and play the ostrich in the face of executive breaches of the tenets of promoting the public weal, remains the most significant drawback that is impeding Nigeria’s march into the more refined levels of democratic governance and meaningful progress for the country. For instance, hardly can any other dispensation accentuate the complacence of the legislature than the ongoing round of voting by state houses of Assembly on the recommendations of the National Assembly in respect of amendments to the Nigerian Constitution. Granted that one of the key recommendations remains the grant of fiscal autonomy to the State Houses of Assembly, it is simply lamentable that the recommendation is suffering an attention blight in the public domain. This is in spite of its critical promise of freeing the state legislatures from the suffocating grip of the state governors. Meanwhile the state governors are neither mincing words nor wavering in their resolve to keep their respective state assemblies leashed as toothless bulldogs.

As the country moves on to 2019 the focus should be less on Buhari’s confirmed bid to return to power in 2019 but more on containing whatever excesses that may be associated with his administration from now on, through the instrumentality of a revived legislative arm. As one popular automobile company says in a commercial message “power without control is dangerous”. In a democracy, control of executive power lies with the legislature. It cannot be otherwise in a democratizing Nigeria.