Reading is sometimes the only way to make sense of a national disaster. Nigeria, as it is today, is a disaster and I try to escape this daily affliction of my senses by reading a book. Only this time, the book was not a source of refuge but a confirmation of what is not working with this country: its leaders.
The said book that refused to act as a source of escape for me was Segun Adeniyi’s Against a run of play which chronicles how the first incumbent in Nigeria lost an election. I had put off reading this book for over two years now- each time I begin, I never get past the first chapter, and sometimes, I move around sentences in a paragraph with the same gait the Israelites wandered in the wilderness, only it didn’t take me forty years. The author had previously chronicled a turbulent period in the life of our nascent democracy, focusing on the death of former President Yara’dua and the vultures that hovered over Aso Rock to prevent a constitutional transmission of power. So my lack of interest in his second political blockbuster book was not against his craft but rather because I read reviews which presented the book as a series of interviews with the myrmidons of darkness- this I later discovered was partly true.
But the book is relevant today more than ever before because of the series of political events playing out in the country that bear striking resemblance to the reasons presented in the book for the defeat of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.
Among other things, President’s Jonathan seeming tolerance for corrupt officials in his cabinet, his personal vendetta with Rotimi Amaechi and some other Peoples Democratic Party governors, insecurity in the country and his fixation in the illusory idea that his party will survive the defections that marred it are some of the reasons that the book explores. Missing crude oil proceeds involving former Petroleum minister, Allison Madueke, and the Stella Oduah bulletproof cars scandal writ large in his hubris. But the most poignant of all is his loyalty to these accused ministers. The opposition party then was battle ready at all times to play the foibles of Jonathan’s ministers on the screen of public conscience at all times. Do not add the impropriety of his wife to the pile.
However, there is a replay of some of the flaws that led to the fall of Jonathan. First, the nation is witnessing another era where party in-fighting is taking the centre stage instead of good governance. The Bukola Saraki face-off with the All Progressive Congress and the President Buhari silent involvement in attempts to ensure his impeachment is a chilling reminder of how the federal might was used to ensure that Rotimi Amaechi didn’t get it easy in Rivers State after the fallout with President Jonathan. Under President Buhari, the Nigerian Police has exercised unconstitutional powers by barricading the Assembly Complex to prevent the Senate President from performing his constitutional duties. At the same time, the Police have been accused of also preventing the free movement of the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu who is seen as a staunch loyalty to his boss. As if this wasn’t enough affront on the rule of law, the Department of State Security wasted no time in showing who was making the calls when they decided to station masked uniformed men to prevent senators from sitting- another case of preventing a constitutional duty. But for the intervention of the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, the DSS menace would have gone unhindered.
Likewise, the Buhari administration has not been free from the corruption it has tirelessly claimed to fight. Babachar Lawal, Kemi Adeosun, Abubakar Malaima, and the DG of the National Health Insurance Scheme are people who have been placed on red alert for sharp practices but are still holding their positions or have not been prosecuted. These cases have turned his great fight against corruption into a deodorised bullshit. What we are left with is the pursuit of defected governors from the ruling party by the anti-corruption agency- the same governors who before their defection were not considered corrupt.
What about his promise to combat insecurity? This has almost become a pipedream as under the current administration, BokoHaram has not only continued to thrive but another terror wing has been added to it. The herdsmen crisis has become more than a concern. No other bunch of bandits has committed gross atrocities against the Nigerian state with reckless abandon as much as the herdsmen. It is hard for many not to see them as carrying out their crimes under the state’s protection.
Maybe Segun Adeniyi should consider writing a sequel to his book.
