The Dual Mandate

The Dual Mandate

DIALOGUE WITH NIGERIA By AKINOSUNTOKUN, Email: akin.osuntokun@thisdaylive.com

“And here comes in the question whether it is better to be loved rather than feared, or feared rather than loved. It might perhaps be answered that we should wish to be both; but since love and fear can hardly exist together, if we must choose between them, it is far safer to be feared than loved.”— Nicollo Machiavelli

Propounded by the patriarch of British colonialism of Nigeria, Frederick Lugard, the doctrine of the ‘Dual Mandate’ rested on the “premise that the resources of Africa, perceived dormant, could be productively marshalled and utilised by the more technologically advanced imperial nations of Europe for the mutual benefits of the coloniser and the colonised…Britain as a colonising power thus had a dual mandate: first, the exploitation of Africa’s resources for imperial benefit; and second, the development of the continent”. In the idiom of the critique of imperialism and capitalism, this was the self-serving principle of outward expansion of the exploitative capitalism of metropolitan Europe into Africa.

Beyond its original employment in the service of the justification and rationalisation of colonialism in Africa, I propose to adopt and adapt the doctrine of the dual mandate to characterise and interpret the Presidency of Muhammadu Buhari and equally examine the extent to which it is generally applicable in the context of liberal democracy.

For the elected leader, a dual mandate is implied in the allegiance to the partisan political platform — as in political party manifesto on one hand and the imperative of exercising the mandate to govern in an inclusive bipartisan manner (once you are then elected) on another — seeking reconciliation and balance between partisan political leadership of the political party and the non-partisan political leadership of the totality of the electorate (including those who voted against you). This duality is similarly implied in the majoritarian principle of democracy, where, in the common parlance, the minority has its say and the majority has its way.

The leadership obligation of transcending partisanship (once elected) is more categorically stated in the presidential system of government and less so in the Westminster parliamentary model — where institutional opposition is constitutionally recognised and prescribed. The USA and the UK respectively are the prototypes of the two models. Unlike the parliamentary system where the party has the final say on who emerges Prime Minister, presidential democracies require the president to secure a direct national mandate. While the Prime Minister of the UK seeks election from only one electoral constituency (out of over 300 constituencies) the president of the USA must be elected by the entire country.

The movement away from the parliamentary to the presidential model in Nigeria was informed by the desire to have a leader and government with a pan Nigerian outlook and vision. The constitutional provisions of federal character and geopolitical balance were intended to reinforce this nationalist aspiration. Given the core composition of his presidency and the tendency in the appointments made thus far, it will be difficult to ascribe the fulfilment of this aspiration to President Buhari. There is a consistency and continuity in his political behaviour and vision that is easily discernable and identifiable.

In the short span of his presidency, for instance, there have been mutually reinforcing typical indications in such statements and actions in the following: first was the pre-inaugural statement to the effect that the proposal of the formation of a national unity government was unacceptable to him (personally and taken in isolation I do not see anything wrong in this); second was his All Progressives Congress (APC) exclusive selection of the state governors that accompanied him on his official visit to the US which were limited to the governors of Borno, Edo, Nasarawa, Imo, and Oyo States; third, it was in the course of the same visit that he propounded the discriminatory doctrine of favouritism and partiality to those who voted for him against those who did not. This consistency is also inherent in the skewed voter appeal and voting pattern of all his outings in the four presidential elections with a slight winning variation in the last victorious attempt.

To the extent that other Nigerian political leaders such as Obafemi Awolowo and Nnamdi Azikiwe had at one time or another, found the need to primarily identify with their ethno regional base, there is nothing peculiar in ascribing the same parochial tendency to Buhari. Even by the standards of military dictatorship regimes and without prejudice to any merit of his tenure as military head of state, a singular political shortcoming of that regime was an unmistakable violation of geopolitical balance in the profile of its hierachy. Haven served this notice several years back, there was continuity and consistency in the observation that the agent provocateur of Buhari’s entry into electoral politics and subsequent persistence was the power withdrawal syndrome attendant on the compelled power shift to the south in 1999.

Real or imagined, the specifics of this syndrome consist of, at best, perceived insensitivity and indifference to the prospects of the Muslim north and at worst a deliberate subversion of northern hegemony in Nigerian politics by the inheritor president of power shift to the south. At the personal level, the syndrome was reinforced by the disbandment and probe of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) by the Olusegun Obasanjo government. In the virtual search for the chief protagonist of its cause, the Muslim north struck gold in Buhari. And herein lies the vice and virtue of his leadership. His reputation for discipline, integrity and single minded commitment to his cause marks him out as a credible leadership material but the inability to transcend his provincial limitations and grapple with the cosmopolitan canvass of Nigeria remains his abiding vice.

He has a vision of Nigeria that is characterised by the imperialism of a virtuous Fulani ruling class attributable with the qualities of relative discipline, integrity and aloofness — as in the personality cult leadership model of Usman Dan Fodio and to a lesser extent Ahmadu Bello. The theory of this leadership model is articulated by Dr Mahmud Tukur in his authoritative book “Leadership and Governance in Nigeria: The Relevance of values”, (Hodder & Stroughton, 1999).

As encapsulated in a scholarly review by the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II: “The book is arguably the first attempt at an articulation of the philosophical underpinnings of the Sokoto caliphate, with specific emphasis on the ethics of public policy… First, it tells us, in effect, what constituted the ‘manifesto’ of the Sokoto caliphate and presents a coherent framework for grasping their ethical theory. Tukur classifies these values, which he calls ‘Caliphal’ values, into three. Leadership values are: Justice; Honesty and Integrity; Ease and Kindness; Abstinence, Moderation and Asceticism; and Service to the Community. Process values are: Consultation, Advice and Consent; Obedience; and Privacy. Finally, Community values are: Unity and Consensus; The Primacy of Public Interest; and Welfare and social Justice. These were identified and properly annotated by Tukur from writings of the triumvirate dated almost a full century before the arrival of the colonialist. In so presenting them, Tukur makes two fundamental points. He establishes the historical truth that the Sokoto Caliphate did not come into contact with these values through colonialism. They were part of its Islamic Heritage. He also offers as a panacea to our national problems a return to those values as a Code of Conduct for Public Officers, especially those in positions of leadership.”

And Buhari is one with the Sardauna in the strategic thinking that northern hegemony can generally dispense with input from the south but cannot be recreated and sustained without the political unity of the Christian and Muslim north. The lopsided trend of his appointments and patronage suggests that he remains wedded to the notion that the north has suffered marginalisation (or more accurately, a reversal of fortunes), since the inception of the fourth republic which requires symbolic and substantial redress and rectification. In this notion and the understanding of the Boko Haran insurgency as a derivative (epiphenomenon) of this marginalisation the rehabilitation of the North-east, in particular, will be the cardinal aspect of his political agenda.

The more significant interpretation of the lop-sidedness is that it is “deliberate and well calculated”. And the point was overstated in the trenchant criticism of Professor Ben Nwabueze that “given that he knows of the restraints which the Constitution of the country he desperately wants to rule, imposes on the way and manner the powers of the presidential office are to be exercised, and that his disregard of them is deliberate and well-calculated, the intriguing question arising from his disregard of the constitutional restraints concerns the reasons or motives for it. The reasons or motives may reasonably be inferred from his statements and actions/conduct as well as from events generally, and these suggest that the disregard is done in furtherance of a pre-determined Islamisation/ Northernisation agenda”.

More or less the same remark was raised by Mahmud Jega albeit in a mellowed and even tempered tone “Appointment of men and women to occupy key offices in the new administration was delayed for three months ‘in order to get it right’ and also ‘to avoid making mistakes,’ as President Muhammadu Buhari variously explained. In the event, as soon as he appointed a Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Chief of Staff and four other important officials last Thursday, a storm of social media criticism greeted the appointments... A man who gets to become an elected president of a populous country such as Nigeria should know enough people all over the place that can be trusted to hold important posts. This is especially true of Buhari who was a soldier for 32 years, was military governor of a very large state, was minister in charge of the richest Federal Ministry, was a military Head of State and who has also been in politics for 13 years now. If that experience was not enough to know good people all over Nigeria, I don’t know what else is”.