Nigeria And The Politics of the “Least Awful”

My book, “A Jar of Clay, Part 1: Made In Nigeria”, is set in Nigeria. It explores how easy it is to stick to your moral compass when you have desires that are contrary and live in an environment that pose significant challenges. A big factor that influences the environment in which we live is the leadership of a nation. Leadership plays a big part in setting what is morally acceptable in a nation or not. The political and military leadership in Nigeria during 1971 to 1987 played a big role in the life of Dejo, the main character. The question is this: has much changed in the intervening years?

In the run up to the 2015 general election in Nigeria, the economist dedicated an article to Nigeria. You can read the article here. I hope every Nigerian will take time to read the article. Here is a quote from the article:

SOMETIMES there are no good options. Nigeria goes to the polls on February 14th to elect the next president, who will face problems so large—from rampant corruption to a jihadist insurgency—that they could break the country apart, with dire consequences for Nigerians and the world.

And yet, as Africa’s biggest economy stages its most important election since the restoration of civilian rule in 1999, and perhaps since the civil war four decades ago, Nigerians must pick between the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, who has proved an utter failure, and the opposition leader, Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator with blood on his hands (see article). The candidates stand as symbols of a broken political system that makes all Nigeria’s problems even more intractable.

The caption of the Economist’s article was “The Least Awful” and the respected publication concluded that all Nigerians could do was to choose whichever leader was considered as least awful.

Fast forward the clock to 2018 (or 2019). Has anything changed? I don’t think so. General Buhari will no doubt fly the flag for APC. If the politics of the Nigerian nation was not that of the “least awful”, we should be thinking about how well Buhari, the least awful candidate in 2015, performed in the subsequent four years.

Unfortunately, we have no such luxury in Nigeria. Instead we have to think about the likely candidates for the other major party, PDP. When Nigerians look at the PDP candidates, it may be an underwhelming experience. The major contenders are Kwankwaso, Sola Saraki and Atiku.

Kwankwaso! What can we say about him? People from his state (including pensioners) petitioned EFCC to investigate how he managed billions of Naira in pension fund. That case somehow went away. More stories have reappeared since April this year, before he defected to the PDP and it looks like the EFCC has an active interest in him (read more here).

Sola Saraki? His travails are well covered in our newspapers.  Which one do you want to check out? Panama Papers? Paradise Papers? Yes, storing money in tax havens is not in itself a crime, but what about those assets not showing up in your declaration of assets? If not because of the politics of the least awful, those findings should have put an end to his tenure as Speaker of the Senate. Yet, Dr Saraki is seeking promotion to the highest office in the land.

What about Atiku? Here is a report from the US Senate titled “Keeping Foreign Corruption Out of the United States: Four Cases In History”. It is worth reading the first few pages. Atiku’s name appeared 60 times in this document.  Pages 173 to 242 were dedicated to Atiku and captioned “ABUBAKAR CASE STUDY: USING OFFSHORE COMPANIES TO BRING SUSPECT FUNDS INTO THE UNITED STATE”. If you don’t have the appetite to read around 70 pages, the executive summary (from Page 5) may suffice:

Offshore Corporations. Jennifer Douglas, a PEP through her marriage to Atiku
Abubakar, former Vice President of Nigeria, used a series of U.S. bank accounts to
bring over $25 million in suspect funds into the United States via wire transfers
from offshore corporations

By the way, PEP stands for “Politically Exposed Person”.  25 million dollars is equivalent to around 9 billion Naira. As Nigerians are so used to astonishing amount of pilfering from the national purse, this amount may sound trivial. Let’s put it into a format that is easier to visualise.

Nigeria has a minimum wage of 18,000 naira. So in a year the lowest paid worker will have a gross salary of 216,000 Naira. What the American government documented as suspect fund from Mt Atiku will pay 1,012 low paid workers for forty years.

The Labour unions in Nigeria are agitating for a rise in minimum wage to 58,000 Naira. This “suspect fund” (not my words, but US Senate’s) will pay 314 low paid workers on minimum wage for forty years.

The problems arising from the “politics of the least awful” is very clear. Nigerians face a choice between Buhari, who was the least awful choice four years ago and whoever emerge for PDP from Atiku, Saraki and Kwankwaso. Despite his colourful past, many Nigerians had no choice but to opt for Buhari because of the inept performance of the sitting incumbent at that time, Goodluck Jonathan.

Buhari has not had a stellar performance, but the Nigerian political problems remains the same, Nigerians will go to the poll once again, seeking the least awful alternative.

How do we break out of this cycle of “least awful”?