Interview

Things Buhari’s successor must do in his first 100days to ease tension in Nigeria —Aiyede

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2 years ago

As Nigerians await the announcement of winner of the presidential election, the head, Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan (UI), Professor Remi Aiyede, speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI on what the elected president must do immediately after his inauguration to lift the country out of its present socio-economic problems.

The presidential candidates signed a peace accord to accept the result of the poll irrespective of whichever direction it swings towards. But going by their body languages, do you think any of the presidential candidates will easily concede defeat?

I think the candidates should have to concede defeat, no matter what. There may be some upheavals in the first few days, but I think it will eventually settle down, because if you look at the way things have gone, take for instance, if the result goes to the Labour Party, the result will only be fulfilling the whole idea of micro-zoning and if it goes to Tinubu, that means he must have gone across the country, because he cannot win by South-West votes alone. And if Atiku also wins, he wouldn’t have done that with the North-East votes alone. The votes must be from across the board, as I don’t think there is a huge room for rigging. And with the naira crunch and the whole controversy surrounding old naira notes, it will be very difficult to do massive vote-buying as the process may appear very controversial and challenging. So, I believe that in the end, anyone who wins would have done that fairly and freely. So the result will largely be accepted, though there might be some reactions. Meanwhile, I believe each of the four leading candidates has a strong sense of running an inclusive government and I believe they will take deliberate steps to douse any kind of tension that the outcome of the poll may trigger.

But how should the government tackle the issue should any of these candidates choose the path of total disavowal of the entire process which could lead to chaos?

Well, I don’t see any escalation of riot. Though there might be, it is not likely to escalate to the level that will become unmanageable. If you look at the 2011 presidential election, you will recall that after former President Goodluck Jonathan, won, there were riots in some parts of the North. But the riots didn’t last long as they were quickly quelled by the security forces. And before we knew what was happened, the riots were over.

The problem that we have has been reconfigured in a manner that it is almost always obvious that it is intra-ethnic conflict. So the people are more likely to call one another and resolve it than allow it to escalate, because they have too much at stake for them to allow the country to be at war. I think this is my basic understanding of the situation. So I don’t really foresee a situation where there will be riots across the country. If there will be riot anywhere after the poll, it will be confined to some locations and it will quickly be quelled by the security operatives.

And again, you know, even if you disagree with the outcome of an election, you know where to go, which is the court. So no one is expected to take the laws into his or her own hands. So, I don’t really see the possibility of having a massive post-election violence. This is also because people will be more concerned now with their daily survival needs in view of the harsh economic challenge gripping the country at the moment. For instance, look at the number of Nigerians that are multi-dimensionally poor. So, is it the middle class, who are trying to eke out a living and understand politics that will go out on the street for riots? It is definitely the poor people and they will not be able to riot for too long, because they will be hungry. And that is why some people talk about activism or demonstration fatigue in Nigeria. Even for the naira notes scarcity, you saw some pockets of reactions in Oyo State; you saw what happened in Sagamu, Ogun State and you likewise see the ones in some parts of Lagos. And you didn’t really see the learned and middle class being at the centre of the riots, but the poor people though we had the learned being parts of the EndSARS protests. But I don’t really think we will likely have that kind of EndSARS riot again in the post-election era, except if people will be provoked and extremely pushed to the wall, like during the EndSARS days.

But in the event that the riots broke out upon the announcement of the presidential election results, what do you think the security agencies can further do?

The security operatives are already doing what is expected of them. Just as you know, what the security does when election is approaching is to identify the troubled areas in different parts of the country and the likely instigators of violence in the area. The police know these persons and all they do is to take them out of circulation. The police know the leaders of the political thugs that can be used to foment trouble or during the election. So, all they need do is to take up these persons and keep them in their custody.

But when one of the candidates eventually emerges as the next Nigeria’s president, what are the basic socio-political and economic reforms you expect from him and the new government?

There will be tension in the initial stage. So, the first thing the person will have to do is to pacify every segment of the Nigerian populace. He must make every of the major ethnic groups and even the minor ones feel that sense of importance and belonging. He must make them feel loved and he must include them in his government. Secondly, he must address this issue of naira scarcity and poverty gripping the country. This is because Nigerians have had a very rough time occasioned by the naira problem and fuel scarcity. These are the immediate things that must be addressed. So ultimately, the incoming president will have to deal with the problem of the economy, not just in terms of diversification, but by ensuring that production is being given a massive boost, while the peoples’ purchasing power is also increased. Otherwise, we will just be moving from one crisis to the other.

Don’t forget that we also have the security issue on one side. So these are the issues and they are fundamental problems, because when you want to address them, they will cut across all sections of the country. What this means is that you have to support the growth of the private sector. You will also have to look into educational advancement and health. Meanwhile, the universities are still not settled as the various problems with states and federal government still persists. The face-off the government had with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is also still richly there. So there is a sufficient agenda for the incoming government to address. But how it is going to do it is actually what we don’t know. This is because if you look at the whole manifestoes offered by the candidates, there is a lot of sloganeering there and there has been no concrete evidence that the candidates even understand what is on the ground currently in the country. Oftentimes, they don’t even speak from the policy documents they have prepared as their blueprint to lead the country. Even if they do, the fact is once any one of them gets there, he will understand the true state of things in the country. He will meet some very cogent challenges that he will have to first settle before starting implementing the programmes he has set out in his policy documents.

But with the way the country is at the moment, how do you think the incoming president can manage the expectations of Nigerians within his first few months in office?

The first question is: how did Buhari manage the expectations of Nigerians? You see, the current administration has brought governance to a level that we are now thinking of giving up on the country. So we don’t expect any leader to come and fold his arms. We expect the incoming president to be faster than Buhari, who took many months in 2015 before he could even appoint his ministers. But I don’t see any of the present candidates following the same path Buhari tread. In fact, I see anyone of them showing more energy than what we have seen from Buhari so far. Given the experience and the caliber of persons they are, it is not likely that anyone that emerges among the candidates will take several months before bringing people onboard and making decisive moves that will collectively impact Nigerians and the country.

Secondly, the whole economic challenges of Nigeria are not something that can be solved in the first 100 days in office. So these initial first three months will be for the new president to demonstrate goodwill and prove to Nigerians that he is committed to the national agenda and run an all inclusive government with an inclusive cabinets.

The period will also be to give assurances to the various segments of the country that you are not taking them for granted and that their interests, problems and pains will be effectively addressed by your government. These basic symbolic things are what the incoming president will have to immediately do in the first 100 days. And he can even start doing some of these things once he is declared elected. This will help to create a patriotic image for his government before Nigerians even before he assumes office. By and large, I want the incoming president to make efforts to have some semblance of stability in the country by making every ethnic group have that sense of belonging, which hasn’t been entirely there under the present administration. The incoming president will not even have another choice other than to do these, given the keenness of the contest and the map of the divide, anyone who wins will surely carry the burden of creating an image of a unifier as he wouldn’t have won the election with the votes of only the part of the country, where he hails from. The incoming president just has to firstly demonstrate that readiness and compassion for the pains Nigerians have gone through in recent times as the social condition of the country has become very bad and the crisis caused by the scarcity of fuel and the redesign of the naira has already created all kinds of tension in the polity. So, the first immediate task will be to ease the tension around.

But what about the economic burden…?

Yes, I have said it that you can’t expect that to be lifted in two days or months. In fact, it is not something the incoming president will be able to solve wholly in his first 100 days. What he can only do is to begin putting foundations in place for those things to be effectively addressed. And this will partly start through the opening speech of the president. But in terms of complete transformation, it can’t happen overnight. In fact, if the incoming president was able to lift the economic burden considerably in his first year in office, he would have made a very good effort.

You have said the incoming president should first endeavour to address the fuel and naira scarcity, but what are other immediate tasks you want the incoming administration to look into?

Well, I have said that the social condition of the country has been very bad. And poverty has also been a major problem in the country. So, it will be very good if he can make efforts to reduce some of the bad economic indicators like hyper inflation, instead of degenerating badly than they are. So, I expect the incoming president to quickly take advantage of the honeymoon period to quickly make and implement some cogent economic decisions and policies that will gradually ease off the tension and pains in the country.

What other pieces of advice do you have for the incoming administration?

Well, I have already made some points in terms of taking immediate steps to show to the entirety of Nigerians that he is for everybody, regardless of which parts of the country he comes from. And then again, he will need to address the ASUU lingering problem and ensure the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) release more naira notes into circulation and creditably fight hoarding of the notes. I know the president will also be faced with taming Nigeria’s worsening security woes, but all other problems are there and they have all assumed a complex dimension, such that they can’t be solved in months or days. But what one can do is to make symbolic efforts that will make Nigerians believe that you are committed to addressing them.

So like how many months or years do you think Nigerians will take before they start assessing the performance of the new administration?

The people will not have to wait for a year to start assessing the new president. In fact, they will start assessing him from his first day in the office. And that was what happened to Buhari. People started calling him Mr Go-slow when he dilly-dallied so long before he could even appoint his ministers. So the people’s expectation is immediate. And that is why the new president must be very mindful of his first major broadcast, because it will show the programmes and agenda his administration will pursue. For me, I will want the new president to not be slow like Buhari and even take a cue from the late [Umaru] Yar’Adua, who in his first few months in office reduced the pump price of fuel and immediately set up viable committees, whose efforts improved the country economically for Nigerians.

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