’The most successful politicians are tightrope walkers, not geniuses.’’
By Jimanze Ego-Alowes
TUE, OCT 23 2018-theG&BJournal-There has been a lot of misconceptions about the prerogative or otherwise of a presidential, etc. candidate to choose his deputy.
Those who canvass it’s a candidate’s sole right, end up mismatching the internal coherence of their logic. Representatively, a senior journalist at a television program, 17/10/18, was illustrating with examples why a governor/president hopeful should hold the full reins over who becomes his vice.
He began his illustrations with Bola Tinubu. But like all such rigged arguments he skipped some of the facts. He stated, perhaps correctly, that Ms Kofo Bucknor-Akerel, Tinubu’s 1st Deputy Governor, was imposed on Tinubu, and that they later had issues. And the lady was later shown the way out, paving the way for Femi Pedro. But our TV hero forgot to mention that Femi Pedro was a choice of Tinubu. And he also skipped to tell that Pedro was messily pushed out of office just like Akerele before him. That is to say Tinubu had issues with the deputies that 1. was imposed on him and 2. that he chose himself.
If we looked further afield, there is the case of the governor who invented iberiberism as a political lexicon. He, like Tinubu sacked his first deputy and is now at war with the one he personally chose. The new deputy, Eze Madumere, happens to have been his ”best friend forever”, until now. The point is, Rochas Okorocha for such is his name, and Tinubu are just examples of a near universal order observable across the known world.
Thus we can safely say, the personalized choice of a deputy is not a pointer to a cordial working relationship. And the basis of this is simple. First, friendships and relationships are organic things, that is open to growth or decay. And the fact of this is hinged on two variables, the parties in issue and the changing circumstances. A man is a compound of whoever he is, plus his circumstances, to quote an insightful Spaniard, Ortega.
To put it concretely, any two or more men who hold relationships outside of power or affluence, are not the same persons when they come into power or affluence. That is to say that the relationships between candidates Tinubu/Iberiberism Okorocha and Pedro/Madumere on one hand is not the same, perhaps is not related to the relationship between Governors Tinubu/Okorocha and Deputy Governors Pedro/Madumere on the other. And this makes sense. In the end a man is just a bundle of information. A man acts according to his perceptions and interpretations of the powers at his disposals. That is a man is nothing other than his interpretation of his own powers in contradiction or cooperation with others he comes in conflict or contact with. So, if these powers change in substantive terms, a man reinterprets and recalibrates himself and his relationships appropriately. In other words, it is meaningless to project a relationship into a future of power from a past of powerlessness, as it were. At best such choices are gambles. That is why the old saw endures: a friend in power is a friend lost.
Immediately the issue of the alleged efficacy of personal choices is dismissed as irrelevant, the real issues are these. The presidency etc. is an institutional office. It is thus constructed to be independent of persons. It is true our personal proclivities affect how we interpret these powers and offices, but the fact is that public office is a commons, is a public trust. In so being, public office is thus not tailored to suit persons no matter how well meaning. If this is taken, it thus follows that a prospective potentate in wanting to win or after winning, cannot unilaterally choose who he wills to be his deputy. The powers in high offices therein are not his by inheritance, are not a part of his father’s private estate.
In other words, in wanting in on the commons, that is public office, the prospective president, etc. must chose whom the stakeholder publics will he chooses. The caveat is that if he dares otherwise he will pay terrible costs. My Oru people have a world best characterization of the fact: agba wo dike izu agba ya ngba nawo. If you excluded a substantive stakeholder, you must reverse yourself to include him. This is an iron lore, writ large in Tokyo, Washington or Abuja.
Before we go further let us state as follows. All societies are by definition fractionalized. In fact, politics is nothing other than bewitching the fractions and factions of powers to come to dinner and not eat themselves. That’s why the most successful politicians are tightrope walkers, not geniuses.
But there are regional differences. Society ”A” may be fractionalized along the lines of ethnicity/Nigeria and income/Mexico and society ”B” along the lines of religion/Burma or language/Canada. The salient points are 1. that they are all made up of contending fractions and factions. 2. and these fractions are hubs around which electoral power and choices are gathered. Whether one fraction is taken as socio-politically pejorative or not is not in issue. That they are fractions is matter enough. The fact is that in the power game no human society is homogenous.
Now what defines democratic or electoral politics is in its representativeness. That is to say, an unrepresentative democracy is a contradiction in terms. So for a society, say America or Nigeria, to be democratically ruled, its representativeness must be expressed in their leadership brackets. Whether it is in America or Abuja, if the sense of representativeness is breached, that government won’t last a day longer than necessary. One may recall Jimmy Carter, America’s former helmsman. His second term bid collapsed because he was too provincial to be representatively American. There was the irredeemable resentment over his Georgia Mafia, running America like it was his Peanut Farm. In fact it was this provinciality or lack of representativeness, that triggered other follow-up failures.
That is the de facto choice and appointment of key/senior personnel in any given administration is not the choice of the prospective or substantive potentate. It is really an imposition by the stakeholders and or factional publics and powers, that is the agbawodikes, on him. It is never a charity handed out by the prospective or substantive leader, if he wins, on the rest of us.
So when Chief Onwuka Ukwa, described as a founding father of APGA expresses some sentiment one wondered if he had his thinking cap on. On Atiku picking Obi he is reported as saying: “It is only in the southeast that a gift from someone should be made an issue.” https://guardian.ng/politics/vp-candidacy-why-choice-of-obi-rankles-southeast-pdp/. That is uninformed, even if well received commentary.
First, the presidency/vice presidency offices are not owned or to be owned by candidate/president Atiku. Thus Atiku cannot gift it or aspects of it out. The two offices belong to Nigerians and to Nigeria. And to be sustainably held the offices must be representative of Nigeria and Nigerians. To say otherwise is to push our democratic leaders into privatizing public power and commons, into electing themselves dictators.
Perhaps, we may remind ourselves as follows. It is this same style misunderstanding, that a leader is at leisure remake the public commons, that puts Nigeria under the Buhari conundrum. Rather than take President Muhammadu Buhari for what he is, that is an out of job politician who successfully begged to be so employed, sycophants etc. are telling he is a special kind, even a gift to Nigeria. So one reads of adult third party Nigerians calling Buhari, a fellow citizen, their father. Or saying he graciously appointed them to ABC offices. If you have such a mindset it is time to let it go. Buhari is neither your father nor is his appointments of fellow Nigerians to offices a matter of grace. He is condemned to so appoint. And what holds true for Buhari holds true for all public office holders.
Why? The democratic diktats are these. We the people, are the dictators to elected leaders. So they are hired to do our will and not to indulge in their own fancies. These leaders whether substantive or prospective, are despite their high stations, hired laborers, at best foremen. They are not missionaries and are not elected to do their wishes. A dictator steals and seizes power to impose his mad obsessions on the people. An elected leader is out in the field to do what he is hired for.
Democracies are about managing factions, it is not about homogenizing a composite system. Thus politics is in the rite of learning to bring your friends close and your enemies even closer. In other words in politics you are condemned to work with whom you must, not whom you like. And smart politicians have learnt to choose their fates, to accept in grace the impositions of the public on them. In fact America’s bellwether presidency was run by a cabinet-team of rivals, an eponymous book tells. And it is worthy to remind ourselves that Obama tellingly acknowledges the same book as the one book he will bet on if he ever was stranded in a desert.
So while the Atiku-Obi ticket is inspired, the following must be understood. That the ticket will win only if it is representative of Nigeria and Nigerians. Two, what they do, whom they appoint if and when they win, will also determine the viability of their government. Ahiazuwa.
Jimanze Ego-Alowes (PhD) is Author and public commentator
