The insincerity of Nigeria’s state actors

It is becoming worrisome and indeed scary that the country’s political scene is now populated by charlatans many of whose interests obviously run counter to the values, desires and aspirations of the nation’s founding fathers thus culminating in a dangerous slide to anarchy and excruciating suffering.

A situation where political appointments and political appointees are fast becoming products of extraneous factors other than merit and national interest is fast dragging the country to the cliff with its catastrophic consequences.

We note with serious concern the recent declaration by the newly appointed Minister of Housing and Urban Development Arc Ahmed Dangiwa that his primary mandate in the cabinet of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is to deliver Kano State to the All Progressives Congress (APC) during Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid as president.

This declaration which was made during his first visit to Kano after being sworn in as minister sets the tone for disaster amidst perfunctory service to the Nigerian people against the uncharitable announcement that he was drafted to serve the political interest and selfish ambition of his paymaster.

We strongly condemn the emerging system where state actors no longer look at the larger picture of safeguarding the interest of the nation and that of her citizens but rather perceive Nigeria as an article of trade where the sole determinant of their success margins is their capacity to serve regional, partisan and personal interests as opposed to initiating and enforcing long term growth trajectories and objectives upon which successive administrations will build on in delivering a country which generations yet unborn will be proud of.

For us, it is inconceivable that at a time when food inflation has hit 49 per cent, when the health sector is in a gory state as exemplified in the University College Hospital Ibadan been in darkness for over six months when Nigerians are paying rent to bandits for them to access their farms on account of the rising wave of insecurity, state actors who have lost shame are busy stock piling funds and plotting ingenious strategies on how to win the next elections to the extent that no Ministry, Agency or Department records more than 20 per cent implementation of their annual capital budget projections.

It is in pursuing the kind of mandate which government functionaries like the Minister of Housing and Urban Development that it is becoming increasingly difficult for the nation to assess the performance of cabinet ministers under President Tinubu to the extent that nearly two years in the saddle many Nigerians don’t know the names of Tinubu’s ministers or the portfolios they occupy simply because many of them are on personal assignment- that of securing victory for the president in an election which is to hold in far away 2027.

What had perhaps happened in Tinubu’s minor cabinet reshuffle was to sack those who may not have been doing well as political foot soldiers and replacing them with the likes of Musa who will be more focused in pumping time and resources in plotting for a re-election project.

It is consequent upon Ahmed Dangiwa’s confession of his real roles in Tinubu’s faltering and fumbling team that we make bold to conclude that the lingering crisis in Rivers State where Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nysom Wike and the state Governor Siminalayi Fubara are fighting for the control of the state’s political structure is all about the politics of 2027 considering that Rivers State is as important as Kano State in Nigeria’s political calculations.

With Lagos effectively conquered by the APC, the battle ground remains the nation’s swing states of Kano and Rivers hence the presidency’s nonchalant attitude to the shenanigans taking place in those two states even as the Minister of the FCT is further allowed to preside over the nation’s capital territory like a captured zone as he sagaciously goes about allocating prime national assets carelessly and deciding who gets what without regards to the sensitivities of the populace, the most recent been his donation of houses to serving judges not minding that the judiciary should in no way be made to be seen as an appendage of the executive.

Today, no person sees anything wrong in judges, not in the least the Chief Justice of Nigeria, attending parties and dancing in night clubs in an open show of political affinity, patronage and apparent canvassing of favours in total neglect of the long-standing convention of the bench demonstrating high-level independence if only to avoid undue compromise. A review and reflections on outcomes of landmark judicial rulings of most post-election litigations in the country leave more to be desired of the independence of the judiciary.

It is high time that state actors who are been sustained and serviced with state resources should begin to see themselves as servants of the state as opposed to leaning towards appeasing and derogatorily massaging the ego of their presumed benefactors. Nigerian people should be seen as more important at every score.

There should be no gods, whether thin or bold in our polity. The statement credited to the National Security Adviser, NSA,  Mallam Nuhu Ribadu that nobody has dared President Tinubu before and survived it remains one of those careless and regrettable comments in recent times since Mr. President should not suddenly be seen as a dinosaur. It would have been more institutional and patriotic had Ribadu talked about nobody daring the Nigerian Army and not the person of the president except to say that the lives of the ordinary Nigerian do not matter anymore.

It is our considered opinion that Tinubu should immediately bring his cabinet members into a room and educate them on the focus of his Renewed Hope Agenda in order to correct the present situation where every participant appears to be pulling from different ends to the detriment of the whole.

Appointments should not be reward for loyalty as presently conceived but a call to national service hence it must be based on capacity and not emotions and sentiments. It is apparent that many of Tinubu’s appointees do not yet understand their roles in the structure. Hulling insults on individuals and institutions in the pretense of defending principal officers should not be a measure of loyalty to a pay master. The situation whereby three out of every five appointments is zoned to the South West smacks of ethnic bigotry that characterized the immediate past administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.

We reiterate our position on the restructuring of Nigeria in a manner that will make room for regions to indulge in healthy mutual competition as a catalyst to ensure faster growth and development of the country. Such restructuring should include the adoption of a single tenure for elected officers as a prelude to reducing the prevailing high cost of governance.

The cost of financing short-term election cycles and the commitment of huge human and material resources to re-election bids have continued to reduce the time and resources allocated to real governance while the physical and infrastructural development of the country suffer the most. To know that the core mandate of government appointees is primarily to work towards the re-election of the government in power is, to say the least disheartening and runs counter to the question of loyalty to the fatherland.