By Sunny Awhefeada,
Much of what we call politics and governance in Nigeria is actually in the realm of puppetry, a dramatic genre that is beholden to absurdity.
The events that recently played out in the Lagos State House of Assembly attest to the reality of politics as puppetry especially in Nigeria’s, presumably, most sophisticated state, Lagos.
The sorry state of affairs in Nigeria speaks to the sad reality and the ugly truth that our beloved country is a victim of state capture.
The experience and reality of state capture is not new to Nigeria, but at no time in our chequered history was it this vicious. Students of Nigerian history would recall that Nigeria’s first and only Prime Minister in the person of Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa actually held that office in proxy for the powerful Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the great grandson of Sheik Usman Dan Fodio.
Ahmadu Bello was the leader of the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) that formed the government of the First Republic in alliance with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC). Ahmadu Bello thought that it was in the best of the North for him to remain as the Premier of Northern Nigeria.
He was also the Sardauna of Sokoto Caliphate, the only caliphate in Saharan Africa. He then thought it wise to send Balewa to be Nigeria’s Prime Minister in Lagos. Whenever Balewa spoke, he merely echoed the thoughts of Ahmadu Bello. Brilliant and profound as he was, and despite being the golden voice of Africa, Balewa was a puppet with Ahmadu Bello as his puppeteer.
The 1970s or perhaps before that decade saw the emergence of a shadowy club called the Kaduna mafia.
We were told that military officers, politicians, businessmen, journalists, academics and lawyers number among its members. In fact it was an elite cohort of Northern intelligentsia that was adept at political manipulation.
They decided who got what and when. In the countdown to the commencement of the Second Republic, two brilliant Northerners in Adamu Ciroma and Yusuf Maitama Sule were the most eligible Northern presidential candidates for the presidency. But the Kaduna mafia bypassed the duo and went for an uninspiring and barely knowledgeable Alhaji Shehu Shagari who won the presidential primaries of the Northern oriented National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
At the presidential poll, Shagari got a controversial victory which although was challenged in court still remained in his favour and even went on to win a second term until he was kicked out in a military coup where the Kaduna mafia also showed its decisive hand.
The mafia did Nigeria grave injustice by sidestepping Ciroma and Sule, two well-honed politicians and public servants, in favour of Shagari who could hardly understand the intricacies of governance and economics. That Shagari defeated Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the presidential candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), during the 1979 presidential election also had the imprimatur of the Kaduna mafia.
They were unseen, but they were everywhere. They were puppeteers who installed puppets. The complex vagaries that attended the late 1980s and the turmoil of the 1990s, especially the Abacha years were to neutralize the influence of the Kaduna mafia. Somehow, they bounced back after Abacha’s death and played their game until they eventually fizzled out.
What Lagos State has experienced since 1999 can be described as deft political manipulation that equates puppetry. While the state prides itself as the “centre of excellence” with a huge economic base and sophisticated workforce and voters, it has come under the rule of fascists led by one man. The state and its citizens now gasp in the vice grip of an oligarch donning democratic garbs.
The sad irony of the tale of Lagos inheres in its being the bastion of the resistance against dictatorship in Nigeria. The state has also led progressive movements such as Occupy Lagos in 2012, ENDSARS in 2020 and the recent ENDBADGOVERNANCE protest.
The head of the oligarchs holding down Lagos lost the state in the presidential election of 2023 and the incumbent governor who is holding the state in trust for him won narrowly. The dust raised by the electoral campaign of 2023 almost subjected the oligarchs to erasure. But they came back fighting and sparing nothing to retain the state. Since 2007, the state has been a puppet state run by puppet regimes.
Two former governors who tried to undo the apron strings saw hell. One of them was lucky enough to get a second term, but the other one was not so lucky. He kissed politics and public office goodbye. The present occupant of the office is a “perfect” good boy who has observed excellent table manners and so he got a pat on the back to continue on the saddle.
The most telling moment of political puppeteering so far revolves around the ouster and reinstatement of the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly within one month.
The farce saw the lawmakers making all sorts of allegations against the Speaker and justifying his removal while he was out of the country. A new Speaker that was hailed as the first woman to occupy the exalted office was sworn in and received with a lot of fanfare.
Then the deposed Speaker returned and insisted that he was still the Speaker. The House of Assembly was invaded twice or so and in a volte face that was only possible in an unrealistic plot the deposed Speaker that was accused of every sin under the sun was re-elected as Speaker. He was sworn in and took his seat as Mr. Speaker.
The one that was hailed as the first female occupant of that office just about one month ago was relegated to the office of Deputy Speaker and was subjected to an oath of office. A fellow lawmaker instantly described her as the “hero of democracy”, what a silly thing to say.
What played out in Lagos has equivalents in many of the States in Nigeria where the lawmakers are essentially errand boys to sitting governors.
There is hardly any House of Assembly in Nigeria since 1999 that has dared to question or query a governor. The ongoing ruckus in Rivers State is an exception and it is being powered by another puppeteer. The Rivers’ lawmakers’ sabre-rattling is akin to a bird dancing in the middle of the road because its drummer is in the nearby bush.
The grandstanding, the utterances, the body language, and all other acts incidental to the Rivers scenario reflect the fancy of the puppeteer. The people must step forward and reclaim the real essence of politics which is about them the people. The political space must desist from being a stage where puppets dance to the whim and caprice of one man or a few.
That will not serve the essence of good governance of which Nigeria stands in dire need. What we must yearn for henceforth is a new kind of thinking that will make us the people become the most important factor in politics and governance.
The time to be indolent and indifferent is long gone. Before us is a new ship loaded with our future and headed for an unknown destination. The people must rise to the occasion now and not only define the destination, but steer the ship towards it. The time is now. Let us divorce politics from puppeteering. We need to make progress instead of continuously waking up from one cycle of farce to another. No nation can make progress that way. The present puppeteering has made us to cry instead of making us laugh even if it was a polite chuckle. It is sardonic. Let us undo this vicious cycle enabled by puppets, puppeteers and puppeteering.
