- Written by Rufus Akinyooye
UNDER the American style presidential system of government adopted by Nigeria, the president is the single most powerful person in his country. He alone is as powerful as the hundreds of representatives that make up the National Assembly. His power is also equal to that of the Judiciary consisting of all the judges from the Magistrates to the Supreme Court. While all these institutions are spread or represented all over the country, however, the president has just one office that also doubles as his residence, call it the White House or Aso Rock. Because this enormous power is vested in only his person, he needs people around him to execute it effectively in order to fulfil his campaign promises. This is why he is expected to be given a free hand to choose them because they must be people that shared his ideals and he is comfortable working with. They must first and foremost be card carrying loyal members of his political party because they must share the same ideology; he cannot afford a mole in his Cabinet. This is why President Jimmy Carter filled his White House with his Southern Baptist Democrats friends and political associates, Ronald Reagan with his rich WASP, Republican Conservative friends. Ditto for all the rest including the sitting President Barack Obama who is being accused presently of presiding over an all-male Cabinet. He is working with his friends and party members and that is why there has been no crack.
When it comes to political ideology in the United States, the difference between a Republican and a Democrat is so glaring that none can wake up one morning and declare for the other. Voting is another kettle of fish because it is secret, but then a Republican can see something good in a Democrat candidate and vote for him and vice-versa. That does not make him a member of that party.
A Republican believes in the Protestant work ethic of Work and Pray. This means you must work first for survival, otherwise you can “go and die” to use the words of a famous Governor. The Republicans would want to cut taxes and reduce welfare benefits under the social welfare scheme.
A Democrat on the other hand would want taxes increased and welfare scheme increased. The rift generated by these conflicting ideologies caused the shutdown of the United States government sometime in 2013.
Republicans believe that less government intervention is more beneficial to the people and commerce while Democrats believe the government should always be available to wait on the people hand and foot.
Democrats are made up of the working class especially blacks who ostensibly constituted the 47% that Republican Mitt Romney mentioned during his campaign for the presidency of the United States . The rural South are predominantly Democrats so are the poor across the board. They are usually on the dole or believe it must always be there for them in case of need.
Republicans are made up of the rich and famous predominantly WASP (White, Anglo Saxon, Protestant). They are captains of industries and entrepreneurs. They are the main employers of labour who expectedly are Democrats.
Political parties in Nigeria have no clear cut ideology. The country looks to me like a double-headed giant; one head facing the East, the other facing the West. As far as our Northern compatriots are concerned, the East is the right place where spiritual development should be achieved before economic development. The head facing the West is the Southern one that believes economic development should come first.
Political parties here are to put foods on our tables, they stand for nothing and this is where I sympathize with President Goodluck Jonathan. He seems not to be surrounded with people that shared his ideals.
Ostensibly uppermost in his mind when he became president was the deregulation of the down-stream oil sector, and the privatization of the power sector both of which would be considered a Republican ideal in a U.S. setting.
Now let’s take a look at the people surrounding him to achieve these objectives:
His Minister of Information was said to be vehemently opposed to the removal of fuel subsidy in his days at the university, ditto for his Presidential Adviser on Media Relations when he was the Chairman of the Editorial Board of a flagship newspaper in the country. His colleagues in the newspaper industry consider him a turncoat and seem not to be co-operating with him. They are in bed with the opposition and are making a mess of the Presidency he was expected to be protecting. In an apparent effort to placate them he said recently in an interview that his mindset has not changed, only the observatory has. In effect the Presidency could be “sleeping with the enemy.”
And then his Minister of Finance, a product of some of the most prestigious Ivy League universities in the United States and our share in the trained World Bank Young Managers scheme expected to guide us in Developmental Economics in our journey to the Promised Land. Lo and behold, she is busy here doling out fuel subsidies, an anathema to all the World Bank stands for and had apparently trained her in. All over the civilized world, petrol is among the most taxed items, along with liquor and cosmetics because they are considered luxurious items. According to reports, Nigeria accounts for more than two-thirds of the fuel subsidies granted all over the world, the rest being in stupendously rich little countries in the Arab Emirates where the king can wake up one day and order all the houses in the country painted, free of charge to the people. Here we are in Nigeria subsidizing the petrol consumed by the Aliko Dangotes of this world rich enough to buy the country while the Kerosene used chiefly by the masses is more expensive than their petrol. The Minister of Finance is not happy with the huge profits she thinks the banks are making and is suggesting that a money pavilion should be set up to distribute money to poor people, a socialist (Democrats) idea in a U.S. setting. Ditto for the Energy Minister who single-handedly bungled the attempt to remove fuel subsidy in 2012 by going on the air unauthorised to announce the drying up of the subsidy account in the absence of the Finance Minister.
Removal of fuel subsidy has since become a flashpoint in our national affairs as the opposition sees it as the easiest way to bring down this government through organised civil unrest. With ubiquitous Lamido Sanusi as his CBN Governor, who needs an enemy? The President has been checkmated, he is a Republican surrounded by die-hard Democrats.
From the look of things today, the attempted privatization of the power sector seems not to be the change- for- the- better that Nigerians are expecting. It seems as if the powers that be in the generator and diesel selling world are the same that purchased the unbundled PHCN and are now eating their cake and still having it. The days of PHCN are now starting to look like the good old days. They now decide when to give us light and by implication when our generators should take over. We are at their mercy and as a Yoruba saying goes “a ti ti oruka bo orisa lowo, o ku baba eniti yio bo” meaning we have placed the ring on the finger of the idol, we wait to see who would dare remove it.
So Goodluck would be when the President works with like-minds and I can’t see it this term, so next term maybe. Good luck.
• Dr. Akinyooye lives in Ibadan.
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