A Nigerian democracy: godfather and godson – 4 by Tunde Akande

We have justified the godfather and godson concept. We have also noticed that it is not a system without flaws.

The desire for a return to parliamentary democracy must be discountenanced in Nigeria. It didn't work in the first republic because it is not suitable for a diverse polity like ours. The British imposed it to divide and enslave us forever. First and only prime minister, Tafawa Balewa was a man of character who could have ran a good government but parliamentary democracy hampered him.

An example is when a member of his cabinet from an ethnicity stole and the prime minister could not prosecute him because three prominent members of the minister's tribe, all of them top businessmen went to demand of the prime minister that he should not prosecute the thief until he had gotten one each from the two other prominent ethnicities to prosecute too. The prime minister told late Dr. Omololu Olunloyo, world acclaimed mathematician, as a result of this experience that it was difficult to govern Nigeria. The difficulty was that his political party was in coalition with the political party of the minister that stole and if he should go ahead to enforce discipline, the coalition will crumble and the government will fail. Parliamentary system encourages coalition which solves the problem of a single party not being able to win majority votes but it is weak in the sense that coalition weakens government. That weakness in Nigeria began Nigeria's political tumoil that led to the first coup and the eventual civil war in Nigeria. We must avoid it for that reason. If it failed in the first republic it will always fail us.

Moreover, in parliamentary democracy the prime minister faces only his consistuency in election. That is good where the nation is running a unitary system but in a federation of diverse ethnic groups, it is only good for the central ruler to be accepted by a good crosssection of the nation. Where the prime minister has to face his constituency only, other constituencies may not be significant to him or her, he concentrates development in his constituency leaving others. That is a recipe of crisis. Even under the presidential system we have been running, we have examples of presidents who have concentrated development only in their areas. Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria's president between 2015 and 2023 is a typical example. Though he was helped to victory by Bola Tinubu and his party the ACN which merged with Buhari's CPC to form APC which won the 2015 presidency, Buhari soon sidelined Bola Tinubu and became a Fulani president. Buhari is ethnic Fulani. He told a visiting World Bank president to concentrate projects in his north. This record is available in the public domain. Bola Tinubu himself fought tooth and nail to win the 2023 election despite Buhari's open opposition because he wanted another northerner, Ahmed Lawan to succeed him, yet Tinubu won. But Bola Tinubu himself has not changed much from the nepotistic appointments of Buhari. Most of his appointments are from his adopted state of Lagos and from his ancestral state of Osun. If this happens in a presidential system which is regulated to spread appointments to reflect the diverse nature of the country, how worse will it be in a parliamentary system when the prime minister only contests in his constituency during elections. Again, term ceiling may be difficult in a parliamentary system. As long as the prime minister continues to win elections in his constituency and continues to be the head of his political party he can rule for as long as he has life. This is the wisdom of the Rotimi William's committee of fifty wise men that gave us the presidential system and in all sincerity it must be retained. What we need now is to improve upon it with the opportunity of experience we have had with it in the last 25 uninterrupted years of democracy and to look inward to be creative with our democracy along with what we have in our traditional societies. We know our problems and we will be naive to look for any so called "international best practices." Why don't we create systems that will become "international best." We are not inferior to any nation. Democracy is no longer as it is practiced in the West, since China describes its own as democratic, so also Russia. Singapore has its version which is based on a combination of selection and election. Selection and election seems to be gaining traction now. When China assumes the full leadership of the world as it certainly will, selection and election will be the democracy practiced worldwide.

We have justified the godfather and godson concept. We have also noticed that it is not a system without flaws. The Oyomesi kingmakers has flaws for example. The Governorship Advisory Council, GAC, a kind of godfather-godson system put together by Bola Tinubu in Lagos could not resolve the dispute in the state’s House of Assembly which led to the sudden removal of Mudasiru Obasa as speaker. The GAC itself broke into factions. The reason is because members of the GAC are politicians. Some of them have children who are members of the Lagos Assembly, some have their children in different appointments in Lagos civil and public services who got in by reason of their fathers' political influence. Therefore they couldn't be neutral. They took sides between the contenders. That experience gives us our first condition necessary to constitute the godfathers. We are seeing the failure and the consequences of the godfather and godson in the conflict between Nyesom Wike and his godson in Rivers State. Godfathers should have a neutral disposition in politics. They must be statesmen and women who are not just interested in the next election but in the next generation. They must be accomplished men and women who have vision of helping the nation to accomplish its great potential. They must be men and women of noble disposition, of intense dignity, of impeccable character well acknowledged in society, men and women who have keen interest of the nation at heart and have left behind them a good record of credible service wherever they had served.

Let's notice as we have said that these men and women will have no constitutional backing and will be selected by different political parties who are interested to adopt this recommendation. Political parties as we have said will be left almost free to pursue their methodologies and goals. They will not be fettered in their choices. So it will not be compulsory for any party to choose this path. The only thing compulsory for all parties is that they must have ideological foundations. Because of the extreme poverty in the nation and the urgent need to confront and solve poverty, the welfare ideology must be enshrined and made rigid in the constitution. There are different levels of welfarism but some important levels like free eduction at all levels, insurance backed health for all Nigerians, social insurance benefits for all Nigerians, affordable housing for all Nigerian adults and affordable mass-transit must be made rigid in the constitution. Others aspects of welfarism may be made optional for the parties. This is huge but it will impose discipline on the parties. No party will be allowed to give lack of resources as excuse for not embarking on the welfare programmes or abandoning any of the programmes. By making the ideology a human-right issue, continuity will be compelled as different parties win elections at different times. Cost of governance in Nigeria is too huge and while Nigerians have complained about this often and again, various political parties have been unwilling to do anything about it because they spend government resources on themselves rather than the people for who governance is meant. Politics is a means of acquiring wealth without working and at the expense of the people. It is thought that those who are ready to enter the fray will be scared because of the huge financial demand of these compulsory welfare programmes and only those who are willing to strain themselves and curb cost of government and stealing will dare or ready to face the consequence of many law suits for which they will pay a fortune in compensation and still enforce the human-rights as enuciated will enter the ring. Nigerians have been too divided on account of religion and ethnicity to enforce this by reason of collective resistance and so, therefore, this provision will make these basic welfare programmes the constitutional right of all Nigerians. A Nigerian can got to court to have this right enforced for him or her. Government can also go to court to compel a Nigerian to enjoy the right, for example free education.

A party that opts to go the way of godfather-godson concept will have these chosen, this specially selected men and women, who are statesmen and stateswomen at the top echelon of the party. They will be the powerbrokers of the political party. Once constituted, they will formulate rules for their operations and for rejuvenating the body. For example, how do they choose replacements for dead or sick members. They must never be politicians whether current or past. How useful again can this concept be? Chief Obafemi Awolowo is acknowledged to be in a class of his own, even his enemies acknowledge his brilliance, dedication, devotion and boldness. But in spite of these great talents, Awolowo himself named late Adesoji Aderemi, Ooni of Ife and late Adeola Odutola, a business mogul as his mentors who he went to for advise or consultation before taking difficult decisions. I may not know them but I'm very sure the Premier of the defunct Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe also had their own mentors. Such are the men and women this thought is suggesting. They will appoint all other officers of the party. They will decide how to raise funds for the party. The party's fund will be used to finance all candidates. This will solve the problem of moneybag politics. Anybody chosen by these godfathers will be sure to be backed by the party for funding. This was done in the early years of the Israeli democracy, by Mapai, Labor Zionist and democratic socialist political party in Israel, which had a strong link to the Histadrut, the labor group. Mapai had a business concern whose profit financed the candidates. It was said that a candidate so backed by the party and so funded was sure of winning because of massive financial support. The AG of Chief Obafemi Awolowo copied this system.

If Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe had agreed to be fathers of the nation, the three of them in concert would have played this role excellently and Nigeria would have been the envy of the world now. But one was only ready to negotiate all top positions for his ethnicity while another was interested in furthering religious interest. They didn't see the opportunity of gathering a nation of great potential. Can you imagine Ahmadu Bello as the prime minister, Nnamdi Azikiwe as the titular president and Obafemi Awolowo as the minister of finance and their chosen men to run the three regions as premiers under strict instruction of a manifesto? After they had successfully ran the country for some time they would retire and become godfathers overseeing godsons. This is what Mahatma Ghandi did in India. Ghandi was the godfather while Pandit Nehru was the godson and the ruler of the nation. The seed of what India is today was sewn in those days. This is what Lee Kuan Yew did in Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew fathered Singapore. It is late in Nigeria but we still have an opportunity to do it if we will act fast before we mutually destroy ourselves in ethnic and religious bickerings. This stage of the godfather-godson will be the stage of our selection of credible and brilliant candidates for election. The election stage will engage our attention in the fifth part. How will our elections be made free? How will thuggery and violence be removed from our elections? How will corruption be stamped out from our nation? How will we build a voice, a nation out of the current cacophony of voices? How do we get a disciplined democracy?

To be continued in part 5

First Published in METRO

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Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos.