Opinion

Determining Factors For 2023 Contests In APC

Published

4 years ago

April 11, 2021

NewTimes

Salihu Moh. Lukman

Internal Contest and Inconvenient Reality

An inconvenient reality, which every APC leader and member, committed and working to protect the electoral viability of the party, should be worried about is that the strongest opponent of the APC is within the APC. The truth is, other parties, especially the PDP, are shadow opposition whose electoral prospects are largely dependent on the outcome of internal contests in the APC, mainly because of the reckless and undisciplined conducts of some APC leaders.

If anything, the lesson from the 2019 elections, which every APC leader and member should be reminded is that APC was defeated in Rivers, Zamfara, Bauchi, Adamawa, Oyo and many other places by aggrieved APC leaders who worked against candidates or leaders of the party as a result of internal disagreements around candidate selections for governorship of these states. Such internal disagreement almost cost the party the loss of Imo State until the Supreme Court confirmed the victory of the APC. In Ogun, it was a traumatic victory. The Kano State governorship election certainly had its baggage of painful experiences. Lagos State was a shocking narrow victory, no thanks to avoidable challenges. Rambo political contest led to the loss of Edo State in the 2020 governorship election.

APC leaders should also be reminded that it was internal rancorous contest that made APC to lose the 2014 Ekiti governorship election. Similar rancorous contests produced marginal victory for the APC in the 2018 Ekiti and Osun elections. The reality is that if the APC had faced any of the challenges of the governorship elections in Rivers, Zamfara, Bauchi, Adamawa, Oyo, Ogun, Kano, Lagos, Edo, Ekiti and Osun during the 2019 presidential election, winning the election would have been impossible. If anything, the absence of any problem during the internal contest for the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari as the presidential candidate of the party in December 2014 was a major source of electoral strength, which made the party to win elections in virtually all the states it won in 2019, as well as won majority seats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Sustaining Electoral Advantages in 2023

How was the APC able to avoid any of the problems it had in the states it lost during the 2019 governorship elections at the level of the presidential election both in 2015 and 2019? The explanation is simple, it is because of the personal profile of President Buhari. People can say anything about President Buhari, but no one can deny the fact that his electoral strength is more associated with his personality, than any other factor. He is the only personality in the political history of the country, who polled a minimum of 12 million votes in all the elections he contested even as opposition candidate. And he contested elections under three parties – All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in 2003 and 2007, Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in 2011, and APC in 2015 and 2019. This means that no matter the party, his electoral value is constant.

With such reality, it can be concluded therefore, without any dispute, that the electoral advantage of the APC is more on account of the presence of President Buhari in the party. The question, which every APC leader and member need to answer is, will the APC continue to enjoy such electoral advantage when President Buhari is not the presidential candidate of the party? Is there another leader in the APC with the towering electoral profile of President Buhari? These are not easy questions to answer, although it can also be easily expected that every APC leader and member would want APC to continue to have all the electoral advantages associated with President Buhari. Whether there is another leader with the electoral profile of President Buhari, is yet to be seen, at least not based on any electoral evidence.

Therefore, what is it that can be done to ensure that the APC continues to have all the electoral advantages associated with President Buhari? Is it even possible for APC to continue to have the electoral advantages associated with President Buhari? Note that APC was able to manage the internal process of electing President Buhari as the candidate of the party for the 2015 presidential election with very formidable aspirants such as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Governors Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso and Rochas Okorocha, and Mr. Sam Nda Isiah of blessed memory. Also recognise that the internal contest for the emergence of President Buhari as the candidate of the APC for the 2015 presidential election did not produce the conventional leadership disagreements associated with political contests.

Accordingly, part of the landmark contributions made by APC to Nigerian politics, apart from the successful political merger of opposition parties in 2013 and the defeat of the ruling PDP in 2015, was that all those who contested the primary election with President Buhari accepted the results and declared support for his candidature in the 2015 presidential election. In fact, the support of all leaders of the party, including those who contested the primary with him, contributed significantly to make the victory of 2015 election possible.

Once APC can manage the process of internal contest for the emergence of candidates of the party for 2023 elections such that all those who contested with the winners can accept the outcomes as well as support the candidates, it is possible for the party to continue to enjoy all the electoral advantages associated with President Buhari. How the party is able to manage the process of internal contest is now the challenge. The biggest problem in politics, which compromises both leaders and members and weaken capacity to provide generic support to candidates irrespective of who emerges is the personal ambitions of leaders for elective and appointive positions. Most times, leaders and members relate with challenges based on estimation of the potential to win support to access elective and appointive positions. Hardly do leaders and members take initiatives to resolve challenges without some associated expectations, which could be linked to opportunities to access elective and appointive positions.

Partly on account of this reality, almost every position taken by both leaders and members, no matter how objectively presented, is interpreted based on the assessment of corresponding interests to access elective and appointive positions. Somehow, leaders also relate with other leaders and members of the party based on the assessment of the estimation of support or opposition for access to elective and appointive positions. Due to this particular factor, many party leaders and members are reluctant to volunteer suggestions, especially when the suggestions are not likely to be in harmony with the preferences of leaders.

Unity of APC Leaders

Against such a background, it is important to stress that the unity of APC leaders is a fundamental precondition in enabling any capacity for the party to continue to enjoy the electoral advantages associated with President Buhari. The first test of the ability of APC leaders to develop strong unity is when the party organs are able to meet and take decisions. What is very clear is that, from experiences, APC leaders have demonstrated a high level of personal discipline to support decisions of party organs, even when such decisions are opposed to personal preferences of APC leaders. This was very well demonstrated in the case of the dissolution of the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led NWC and the membership registration/revalidation. Although some leaders of the party were opposed to the decision to dissolve the NWC and conduct the membership registration/revalidation, once the NEC met and decided on those two issues, all leaders of the party worked together for the successful implementation of those decisions.

This means very high potential that once appropriate organs of the party are meeting and decisions are being taken in line with the provisions of the party’s constitution, processes of electing standard bearers of the party for the 2023 elections would be acceptable. Party leaders would also accept the result of the election and support the winner. This way the presidential candidate of the party can have a very high probability of being supported by all leaders of the party, including those who may have contested the party primary and lost. Part of the reality of the situations in states, especially where APC lost elections as a result of the poor management of internal processes, is that the operation of organs of the party requires a lot of improvements to guarantee the transparent and fair participation of party members. Often, allegations of manipulations by party leaders, especially around internal processes of candidates’ emergence are the common issues.

A shared expectation therefore among both party leaders and members around the dissolution of the Comrade Oshiomhole-led NWC and the appointment of the APC Caretaker Committee led by His Excellency Mai Mala Buni, was that the conclusion of the work of the Caretaker Committee will produce a new beginning, which may come with strong capacity for the APC to resolve the challenge of manipulating party organs during the election of candidates.

A factor that may be slowing down the process of ensuring that the Caretaker Committee conclude its work and return all organs of the party back to normal operations is the need for strong unity among APC leaders, and by extension members. Unity among party leaders is required to come with all the support needed by the Caretaker Committee to complete its work of returning all organs to normal operations as provided by the constitution of the party.

Noting that the APC Caretaker Committee was never designed to have a tenure longer than six months, the additional six months extension provided by the December 8, 2020 NEC was necessary because of the challenges of producing a credible membership register, which necessitated the membership registration/revalidation . To what extent are leaders of the party cooperating with the Caretaker Committee to ensure that the registration is successful? A source of problem for membership registrations of political parties is always the ambition of leaders. Are APC leaders creating problems by way of blocking so-called perceived opponents from registering as members of the APC?

Once the conventional Nigerian politics is allowed to play out, many APC leaders would attempt to control the membership of the party so that they are able to emerge as candidates for elective offices. How is the Caretaker Committee addressing such challenges? Part of the appeal that must be made to both the Caretaker Committee and all APC leaders is that they need to exercise restraint and ensure that every prospective member of the party is allowed to register. The need to allow every prospective member the opportunity to register is a determining factor in terms of whether APC can continue to enjoy the confidence of Nigerians based on which the party is able to win the votes of Nigerians. The Caretaker Committee and APC leaders must take steps to avoid any situation that could weaken the confidence of Nigerians on the party, which can negatively affect the disposition of Nigerians to vote the party in 2023 elections at all levels.

Blind Trusts and Regulating Conduct of APC Leaders

Perhaps it needs to also be stressed that winning the confidence of Nigerians will be more guaranteed once the Caretaker Committee is able to complete its assignment and return the party to normal operation. Recognising that the Caretaker Committee, especially the Chairman, His Excellency, Mai Mala Buni has already achieved a lot by bringing back sanity into the party, a strong foundation has already been laid for APC to win the confidence of Nigerians. Not only that problems of leadership dispute are minimised, but the party is also becoming more attractive for political leaders of other parties.

This certainly has its problems, which include the need to ensure that appropriate conditions exist to regulate the conduct of political leaders especially elected representatives. Given that APC has become the go-to party in Nigerian politics, the need to regulate the conduct of party leaders is paramount. The inability to develop the capacity to regulate the conducts of party leaders will be injurious to the vision of developing the APC as a truly progressive party. As much as it is a welcome development that the party is winning new members, there must be corresponding effort to regulate the conduct of party leaders, based on which efforts are made to provide new orientation to all party leaders, especially the newcomers.

Beyond the need to regulate the conduct of political leaders, there is also the need to appeal to leaders of the party to rise above the narrow attitude of relating with challenges based on the estimation of support or opposition for ambitions of party leaders. Once political leaders are able to estimate support for their ambitions, what follows is blind trust for both officials of the party and decisions they take even when such decisions are wrong and contravenes provisions of the party’s constitution. The dynamic around the contestations under the Comrade Oshiomhole-led NWC between 2018 and June 2020 was a classic case of how many party leaders overlooked the obstinacies of some actions of the Comrade Oshiomhole led NWC. Had all leaders of the party been able to insist that the Comrade Oshiomhole-led NWC convene meetings of organs of the party where the required decision to resolve issues could have been taken, perhaps even Comrade Oshiomhole himself would have still remained as the National Chairman of the party.

Unfortunately, factors of blind trust by many party leaders which produced inconsiderate tolerance for wrong actions became the case. The truth is also that Comrade Oshiomhole and many members of the dissolved NWC became emboldened by the awareness of a divided APC leadership. So long as APC leaders are divided, the potential that elected officials who will emerge in the reconstituted NWC will take advantage of such divisions to manipulate internal processes and in some cases, members of the new NWC may also become part of the problem of the party, in the same way that Comrade Oshiomhole led NWC was, if not worse.

Part of the requirement for APC to be able to retain the electoral advantage of President Buhari is that factors of blind trusts in the party must be eliminate. No matter the estimation of support or opposition of members of the new NWC to the ambitions of leaders, APC leaders must have a very high moral credentials such that when the NWC erred, they are not beyond correction. Or at least they should not be allowed to be emboldened by any division in the rank of leadership of the party to block interventions by statutory organs of the party to resolve problems.

Similarly, members of the party must not relate with ambitions of party leaders based on blind trust. Members should be able to speak out and critically engage party leaders. While there is no guarantee that critical positions of party members will not become the source of disqualification for consideration to appointive and elective positions, it is important that it is recognised that no matter what, it is better to be members of a party in power working to develop Nigeria than to be governed by any party whose mission is adversative to Nigeria’s development.

The other related issue is that when all leaders of the party relate with elected representatives based on demands for appointive positions in whatever form, it also weakens the capacity of party leaders to influence the initiatives of elected representatives. Part of it also is that once leaders prioritise issues of securing appointments as the basis of relationship with elected representatives, rather than acting as sources of support for elected leaders, they become sources of distraction. This is a dynamic, which played out in APC in 2015. Moving towards 2023, this needs to be rectified.

Resolving the Challenge of Bad Public Image

All leaders and members of the APC should also recognise that being members of the party in power come with enormous responsibility. The bad political culture in Nigeria is that membership of political parties is primarily about accessing opportunities for elective and appointive positions. Once members of the party are not part of government with reference to access to elective and appointive positions, many become detached and, in most cases, become part of internal opposition, which often become more vicious than the external opposition from other parties.

Part of why the conduct of party leaders must be regulated has to do with the need to ensure respect for minimum standards of internal political contests. Many political leaders especially people who contested primary elections with successful party candidates expect some level of compensation by way of accessing other positions in government especially appointive positions. Part of the reality also is that access to elective and appointive positions become both a source of advantage to serve and also a source of strength for rebellion. The dynamics of such reality is that every leader in politics is suspicious, which makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to differentiate members and leaders of the party making genuine criticisms so that elected representatives of the party are able to resolve challenges.

Once internal dynamics is such that criticism within the party equates to rebellion, it can only amplify the voices of political opposition located in other parties, especially the PDP. As a result, therefore, it become a case of the voice of internal opposition providing all the legitimacy for the damaging campaigns of external opposition. This is the reality facing APC, which requires some urgent response by both the party and governments it controls, especially at federal level. This is a function more about strengthening capacity for public communication, which should prioritise engaging Nigerians and strategically getting citizens to support and own initiatives of governments. This is not just about propaganda but about creating the needed space for government representatives to listen to Nigerians.

At the level of APC, it is important that leaders of the party are able to also listen to party members. A situation whereby party leaders only relate with members remotely through rallies during electoral campaigns, is inadequate and must be expanded to cover sessions where leaders are able to interact with party members to review challenges facing the party and initiatives being taken to address these challenges. An important precondition for this to happen is the confidence of leaders. The reality is that many leaders could be uncomfortable with having to sit in sessions where they are criticised and sometimes abused. Leaders should be able to develop both the capacity to control public sessions and ensure that they produce outcomes as well as also develop the needed thick skin to deal with criticism positively.

It is only when leaders are able to develop the needed thick skin that they could be able to make better use of public criticisms. Otherwise, it will be a case of dismissing every criticism. Once the attitude of leaders is about dismissing criticisms, an important leadership quality would have been lost, which is being able to recognise that actions of leaders are always contentious and hardly popular. And given Nigerian political reality whereby everybody relates with political leaders based on one form of expectation or the other, no matter what, no leader can meet all the expectations of citizens. Inability to meet expectations strengthens probability of resentment. The requirement therefore of responding to expectations based on assessment of what is needed and capacity of individuals to competently support the execution of tasks to achieve the set outcomes should be the consideration of leaders.

Being a party with a vision of progressive politics, there is the need to appeal to APC leaders to depart from the conventional approaches of determining who merit appointment in government based largely on factors of loyalty, which can be attributed to blind trust. In many cases, this has created a situation whereby many political appointees especially at federal level, instead of being drivers of government initiatives based on which they are competently facilitating public engagements and winning the support of citizens, they have become passengers.

There is no reason why APC and its controlled federal government under President Buhari should be having bad public image given all the infrastructural developments, social investment programmes and agricultural initiatives being implemented. Combinations of internal disagreements within the APC, very weak public engagement by appointees of federal government and also weak membership engagement by the APC leadership are contributing to the sad reality whereby false allegations against APC federal government are made to appear legitimate.

Designated federal government appointees need to produce assessments of comparative scorecards of accomplishments made under six years of APC controlled federal government as compared to sixteen years of PDP administration. Under no circumstances should APC leaders allow a situation whereby the campaigns for 2023 is not based on empirical evidence of work done. For instance, how many kilometers of road was constructed under six years of APC administration as compared to sixteen years of PDP? What was the status of execution of rail development throughout sixteen years of PDP? What is the status of rail development in the country after six years of APC? If the anchor borrower initiatives of the APC controlled federal government has produced rice pyramids in Kebbi and Gombe States, what is the corresponding scorecard of the sixteen years of PDP in the agricultural sector?

Every ministry and agency of government should produce similar scorecard and both the government, and the party must take the appropriate steps to popularise the scorecard as part of the strategy to resolve the current bad public image associated with the APC and its governments. Any Minister or head of agency who is not able to produce a comparative scorecard ahead of the commencement of the 2023 campaigns, or use the scorecard to effectively engage Nigerians, such a person should be blacklisted by the party based on which he or she is disqualified from any consideration for accessing any elective or appointive position.

Conclusion

It is conventional to all democracies that parties in power always have the higher advantage of winning elections. To that extent, APC has all the advantage of winning the 2023 elections. The big challenge is whether APC leaders will take the necessary steps to retain all the towering electoral advantages of President Buhari, which will require first and foremost that the Caretaker Committee is able to complete its tasks of returning party organs to normal operations in line with provisions of the APC Constitution. This should be followed by allowing organs of the party to take decisions, which should be the basis for the unity of all leaders of the party.

There is also the need to depart from the political convention in Nigeria whereby leaders relate with everyone based on estimation of support or opposition of ambitions to access appointive and elective positions. This create the problem of blind trusts, which in turn can lead to a situation whereby appointed officials of governments controlled by the party are more or less passengers. Once appointed official become passengers, the capacity of the party and governments it controls to engage Nigerians and win public support will be weak. This can produce the unacceptable reality whereby both the party and governments it controls face challenges of bad public image.

Taking every step to ensure that conducts of party leaders are regulated to conform to minimum standards is therefore necessary to ensure that all appointive officials of the APC-controlled government are able to develop comparative scorecards ahead of the 2023 elections. APC must take all the necessary steps to ensure that campaigns for 2023 are based on assessment of empirical evidence of performance and not perception.

Dr Lukman is the Director-general,Progressive Governors Forum, Abuja. His position here does not represent the view of any APC governor or the Progressive Governors Forum.

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Opinion

Reading List For Public Servants And Reform Managers

Published

3 hours ago

February 5, 2025

NewTimes

Prof. Tunji Olaopa

By Tunji Olaopa

Since its inauguration many decades ago, public administration has generated a permanent discursive framework that ensures that it has the theoretical and practical contents to sustain the professionalism and efficiency that the public service requires to complement the state everywhere. This becomes even more critical given that the democratic imperative keeps articulating and aggregating the significant political preferences of a citizenry that knows what it wants from a leadership and its administrative apparatuses. This therefore means that for public administration to fully and adequately complement the democratic imperative—for the public service to optimally aid democratic governance in any state—the public administrative discourse must always be in full swing to ensure it is not outstripped by the discourse on democracy.

This, I suspect, is not the real challenge. This is because the public administration discourse has remained fundamentally fecund in terms of its inner dynamics of responding to the challenges that confront public administration and the public service over the decades. From Max Weber to Woodrow Wilson, and from the new public management (NPM) to the new governance theory, public administration has kept up with the changing dynamics of the times that enables it to overcome critical hindrances and challenges from the first to the fourth industrial revolutions to the transformation of the nature of the state, and from artificial intelligences to the new normal instigated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the polycrises that have engulfed the world.

The real challenge, I think, derives from the capacity of public servants to keep up their intelligence quotient with the vast array of discourses that public administration throws up. The twenty-first century demands a public servant that is knowledgeable, intelligent, adaptable and a transformative leader with the preemptive capacity to articulate a vision, design a strategy and get things done. This challenge to the intelligent quotient of the public servant, like most issues, is again more crucial once we begin to speak about the postcolonial public servant caught within the dysfunctional grip of a postcolonial public service like Nigeria’s. This puts a double bind on such a public servant to do more in order to be able to live up to the national and global expectations of a twenty-first century public servant charged with the fundamental responsibility of crafting and implementing public policies with the tools of modern decision science.

One significant way, and a most difficult one at that, by which a postcolonial public servant and public manager in a country like Nigeria can keep abreast of the public administration discourse and the challenges of remaining effective sufficiently to man the new public service is to have an up-to-date reading list of books that embody the trajectories of the challenges, triumphs and directions of the public administration apparatuses, especially within a specific context. What I want to do within the limited space of this piece is to outline a few critical books that speak to how far public administration and the public service have advanced. And the methodology is to combine books that provide both global and national perspectives. This speaks to the necessity of inserting a public manager within a global-local context of operation that ensures that such a public manager can think globally and act locally with the discursive resources garnered from such critical intellectual and theoretical-practical resources.

The first book on my list is Zeger van der Wal’s The 21st Century Public Manager (2017). The book is fundamental because it is sufficiently situated in a time that captures the fundamental challenges of public administration in times of crisis (except that it is three years shy of one of the most fundamental challenges to humanity and public administration, the COVID-19 pandemic). However, the book recognizes that we live in a VUCA—volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous—time; a VUCA environment that was aggravated by the pandemic and polycrisis the world, and public administration, are currently confronting. The author was motivated to write a book that demonstrates that “public administration matters.” It is a book that was “hands-on, actor-driven, and speaking to the daily life of public managers who often operate in tough circumstances.” And with the book, the author meant to “speak to (aspiring) public managers across the globe. A book that would take their issues, pains, and challenges but also their optimism, clever solutions, and coping mechanisms as a starting point…. A book, above all, that would take senior practitioners seriously by providing them with examples, perspectives, and strategies grounded in the latest research evidence and best practices while being accessible and actor-driven at the same time. A book, lastly, that would be relevant and timely to public managers in the developing as well as the developed world, in the West and the non-West.”

In chapter four, van der Wal enumerates what he calls the “seven clusters of demands, dilemmas and opportunities” that public managers need to think through to operate optimally within the VUCA administrative environment. The first demand is that of “managing stakeholder multiplicity.” The new governance space now carries the burden of a multitude of stakeholders with diverse and often ambiguous demands, attitudes and styles. The dilemma is how to design and deliver a coherent administrative and managerial vision to such a diverse audience. The opportunity however derives from the benefits of leveraging the unlimited channels and supports that come from such diverse audiences to push through policy goals. The second demand is “Managing authority turbulence.” This implies that an average public manager is caught within an authority matrix that limits her capacity to utilize her formal power to enact critical decisions. The dilemma for the public manager is that of how to demonstrate collaborative capacity, even with those lacking the requisite skills while still holding on to critical authority. And yet, there is the opportunity of shared accountability that comes from the collective ownership of policies and programmes. The third demand for the twenty-first century public manager is “managing the new work(force)”. The public manager is confronted with the changing nature of work itself, and with an emergent workforce that incorporates new workforce, new worldviews and new generations, from Gen Z to Generation Alpha. This new workforce consists of a young, educated, knowledgeable, tech-savvy and assertive citizenry with a mind of its own. The dilemma is that of how to accommodate this new idea of work(force) while pushing it efficiently to achieve service delivery. The opportunity comes from the ability to remove bureaucratic constraints while achieving performance and productivity.

The fourth demand is that of “managing innovation forces.” Innovation forces are the critical resources, especially innovative technologies, that a public manager requires to keep the public service system as optimal and efficient as possible. The challenge however is that of being as innovative and entrepreneurial as possible within the ambit of budgetary limitations and ambiguous expectations from the politicians and the public. The opportunity that faces the public manager is that of experimenting with newer and developing innovation to achieve effective policies. The fifth demand is “managing ethical complexities.” Public administration is now embroiled within a global ethical governance framework that is enhanced by digital technologies and the need for accountability and transparency. The public manager therefore faces pressure from politicians, citizens, global innovations, and so on. The challenge is that of how to manage the public service ethically while facing enormous scrutiny from multiple publics with competing value sets. The opportunity comes from leading ethically in ways that achieve bureaucratic legitimacy for the state. The sixth demand comes from “managing short versus long time horizons.” This situates the public manager within the need to respond to the need for short-term goals by politicians and long-term planning for overall institutional resilience. The opportunity is that of deploying scenario-building techniques and technologies to anticipate future challenges.

The last demand is “managing cross-sectoral collaboration.” This is demanded by the new governance space that involves new and multiple stakeholders and non-state actors. The public manager needs to mediate this space to achieve extensive buy-in and ownership of ideas and policies, generate financial assistances and expertise, and tap into innovative ideas. The dilemma is how to balance this partnership while managing trust and power relations.

In Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector (1992), David Osborne and Teed Gaebler make the critical case that government can follow the logic of performance that have transformed capitalist corporation into performing better and achieving more efficient productivity result. And to make government work more efficiently and productively, the authors argue that government needs to be reinvented through the sweeping away of all bureaucratic bottlenecks that had made government too cumbersome to achieve democratic governance. An entrepreneurial government, as they call it, envisions some broad social goals and objectives, put in place performance management systems that strategize about these objectives, and employ people to sign performance contract to achieve the goals.

Osborne and Gaebler envision the responsibility of government as that of steering and not rowing; government’s responsibility is not to deliver services, but to articulate strategies that will enable the service delivery function to be outsourced to private contractors. Reinventing Government follows up on the managerial revolution brought about by the new public management and the objective of making government more flexible, lean and effective for the sake of performance. It demands that the public manager must be more than a thermostatic administrator who is merely gauging the institutional temperature of the public service. She must be more of a leader; a manager who anticipates challenges and coaxes the public service into more entrepreneurial and innovative performances.

In the 2007 book, The End of Government…As We Know It: Making Public Policy Work, Elaine Kamarck takes on the thread of the need to rethink how government business should be pursued for better result. The end of government as we know it is the end of the idea of government circumscribed by a bureaucracy that encumbers government from performing. It is the end of the traditional Weberian framework of government and its deadweights of hierarchies and red tapes. In the post-bureaucratic state, argues Kamarck, government needs to get tools that will facilitate the right connection between policy design and implementation. These tools are categorized into three: reinvented government, government by network and government by market. All three are meant to get the public sector to work in ways that involve externalities and outsourcing modalities that enable government to achieve efficient performance.

In its 2011 publication, The Future of Government, the World Economic Forum provides more recent contents that sum up the institutional reform objective of bringing the idea of government up to the requirement of the twenty-first century. What the managerial revolution demands is that government must be FAST—flatter, agile, streamlined and tech-enabled. The traditional structure of the bureaucracy, being rigid, inward-looking and founded on outdated competencies, must be modernized in ways that make it more collaborative, transparent, flexible and participatory. In other words, government and its public service must reflect the demands articulated by van der Wal in The 21st Century Public Manager.

The key issue that links all the preceding publications is that of public value that the new public service must create as a response to citizens’ informed demands. This is the focus of Mark H. Moore’s Creating Public Value (1995). In the book, Moore “sets out a philosophy of public management—an idea of what we citizens should expect of public managers, the ethical responsibilities they assume in taking offices, and what constitutes virtue in the execution of their offices.” Within the new managerial imagination, the public manager is more than an administrator who is supposed to look downward in terms of “the reliable control of organizational operations; she is rather meant to look outwards “towards the achievements of valuable results” or upwards “towards renegotiated policy mandates.” A public manager therefore becomes an explorer who is concerned with discovering, defining and producing public value.

These preceding books and publications sum up the global dimension of the materials that ground the postcolonial public managers and the public servants, especially within the Nigerian public service system, within the demands of public administration as a universal endeavor concerned with what the government does and the paradigms, trajectories of discourses and methodologies by which government can become more efficient and more productive. However, this global managerial imagination must be reckoned within the context of the inherited public service system Britain bequeathed to Nigeria. In my inaugural lecture, Big Bad Bureaucracy: Reinventing the Bureaucracy as a New Public Service in Nigeria (2018), I took all these preceding books, as well as my many years as a critical insider in the dysfunctional public service system in Nigeria seriously. The publication therefore becomes a critical leeway into how the Nigerian civil service system, founded on the traditional Weberian institution, works in stimulating what I have called bureau-pathologies that have compromised the search for a workable developmental state in Nigeria, post-independence. And how an insider perspective could enable a proper understanding of what ails the system, what needed to be done and how to go about reinventing the government from an approach that is not just universal, like Osborne and Gaebler’s, or Kamarck’s or Moore’s; but one that is rooted in contextual administrative dynamics. This provides a situational context by which public managers in Nigeria could begin to relate to what these non-Nigerian administrative theorists are saying about the nature of government and the reinvented mandates of the public manager.

This therefore makes even more fundamental the administrative memoir as a cogent introduction to how Nigerian public managers and public servants navigated the dysfunctionality of the postcolonial system while striving for a more efficient and optimal public service that will instigate developmental planning and democratic governance. Two of such memoirs are crucial, in my reckoning: Chief Simeon Adebo’s Our Unforgettable Years (1984) and Tunji Olaopa’s The Unending Quest for Reform (2023). Simeon Adebo represents a critical administrative figure in the emergence and consolidation of the public service and public administration discourse in Nigeria. He was one of the founding pioneers that ushered in what has been called the golden age of public administration in Nigeria. Indeed, his administrative commitment in the old western region led to the formulation of the Awolowo-Adebo paradigm of the politics-administration dichotomy, one of the defining dichotomies around which public administration emerged. Adebo’s public service reform efforts constitute a key framework for rethinking the institutional rehabilitating and reinvention of the civil service system in Nigeria. On the other hand, The Unending Quest for Reform articulates a challenging reaction to the bureau-pathologies that ate up the civil service system after the pioneering efforts of Adebo and his cohorts unfortunately went into critical debilitation. The Unending Quest for Reform serves the function of outlining what I consider a philosophy of institutional reform founded on many years of not only participating in the dysfunction of the civil service system, but also researching its root causes and administrative and political trajectories from pre-independence to date.

I am recommending these books—of course there are more—as the first level of challenging the intellectual acumen of any public manager who is willing to place herself within the VUCA and postcolonial environments of the public service in Nigeria, and dare to be critical sufficiently to become a significant part of the reinvention of the new public service as a world-class institution for making democratic governance productive for Nigerians. It is best to end this reflection about public administration discourse and the books public servants could start reading with Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet-diplomat and politician: “The books that help you most are those which make you think that most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.”

. Olaopa, Professor of Public Administration, is the Chairman,
Federal Civil Service Commission,
Abuja.

Opinion

Act Now To End Witchcraft Accusations And Ritual Attacks

Published

5 days ago

January 31, 2025

NewTimes

Witch Burning, Impunity And Abuses Linked to Witchcraft Beliefs In Benue State

Dr Leo Igwe

Dear Sirs/Madams,

This is an open letter to you, Emeritus Professors, Professors, Senior and junior lecturers, deans of faculties, heads of departments, and school teachers. I am writing because I feel heartbroken, disappointed, and betrayed. I write you because I believe, as educators, we are failing in our duty and obligation. I am writing to draw your attention to a disturbing and dangerous trend in our country: witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks. These practices are an ill wind that blows nobody any good. I urge you all to get involved in addressing this menace, campaigning against these harmful practices, and educating and enlightening the public. As you may have noticed, recently, our society has been witnessing a growing wave of attacks and killings linked to witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks. The situation is getting out of hand.

There have been rampant cases of abuse, savage acts, murder of suspected witches, and horrific killing of other human beings by ritualists. Men and women, youths and adults, children and elderly persons have been victims. The perpetrators have mainly been youths. These revulsive acts are motivated by misconceptions about nature and how nature works, by irrational and superstitious beliefs about causes of illnesses, death, and other misfortunes. These barbaric killings are motivated by mistaken ideas about wealth and riches, about how to make money or become successful. Witch hunting and ritual attacks persist because many people are deluded and have refused to confront and combat their delusions and superstitions. Witch hunting persists because many people believe strongly that human beings can turn into birds and cats, that human beings can harm others, and cause accidents and death through spiritual, magical, or supernatural means. These are nonsensical ideas, aren’t they? Ritual attacks take place in our society because many people believe in the potency and efficacy of ritual sacrifice of humans and animals. A notion that is outright hogwash!

Distinguished colleagues, you would agree with me that witch-hunting and ritual attacks persist due to the failure of our schools and teachers to educate and reorient the minds of our students, youths, and other members of society. We must admit that we have failed in our duty as educators and enlighteners of students and society. But we can rectify this failure, fix this problem, and combat the menace of witch hunts. Unfortunately, many lecturers and teachers hold and enable these superstitious beliefs. They reinforce these misconceptions in the minds of their students. Many lecturers are witch hunters; they are witchcraft imputing and exorcising pastors/imams or members of witch-hunting churches/mosques and shrines. Many teachers believe in ritual money, engage in ritual sacrifice, or sanction ritual beliefs and practices. They defend witch hunting and ritual sacrifice of humans and animals as a part of African culture. As intellectuals, we are complicit in this social menace. And our complicity constitutes a betrayal of intellectual and moral trust.

So, I urge you to have a change of heart and mind because our society is smoldering away due to superstitious nonsense. As intellectuals in a country like Nigeria, you are the people’s last and best hope. I urge you all to step forward and provide the intellectual and moral leadership that the situation urgently requires and help get our society out of this mess and danger.

There are two ways you can do this. First, before every lecture or class, remind your students that no one can harm or kill them through spiritual and supernatural means. Tell them nobody turns into a bird and flies out at night to harm others. Tell them that ritual money is fiction and has no basis in reason or reality. Second, liaise with the Advocacy for Alleged Witches to organize a seminar or a debate on witchcraft and ritual beliefs in your institution. Create opportunities for your students to discuss, challenge, and interrogate witchcraft and ritual narratives, exchange ideas, and share experiences.

Please, let’s begin to push back. Let’s start reorienting our students and youths for a better tomorrow.

Treat as urgent

Sincerely

Leo Igwe Ph.D (Bayreuth), Director, Advocacy for Alleged Witches, Affiliate Researcher, Institute of African and Diaspora Studies, University of Lagos. Research fellow, Institute for Policy Research and Integration in Africa, Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Tel 08130593605

Opinion

Ritual Killings: Resurgence And Need For Urgent Action In Nigeria

Published

5 days ago

January 31, 2025

NewTimes

Dooyum Dominic Ingye

By Dooyum Dominic Ingye

Before the end of last year, I watched several video clips on TikTok in which some Nigerian youths boasted about engaging in money rituals to get rich. I vividly remember a video showing several young people gathered in the home of a traditional priest for consultation on money rituals. Furthermore, the internet was flooded with videos of young Nigerians declaring, “As 2024 no work for me, na rituals we go do for 2025.” These were disturbing signs of the events that would later define 2025.

Due to the number of ritual killings recorded in 2025, Nigeria’s House of Representatives urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency. This was partly in response to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which indicated that over 150 ritual killing cases linked to young people seeking quick wealth had been recorded in the six months leading up to January 2025. Many of these cases occurred in the western part of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory.

For those wondering, ritual killings have always been practiced in Nigeria—from the Ogbuefi and Otu-Edo ritual killings in pre-colonial times to the Otokoto ritual killings in post-independence Nigeria. In 1910, British High Commissioner Sir Hugh Clifford documented various ritual killings in Southern Nigeria. Essentially, where superstitious traditional beliefs held sway, ritual killings were practised.

Prior to Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, most ritual killings were performed for so-called traditional religious purposes. However, contemporary Nigeria is characterized by exploitative ritual killings driven by superstition, greed, and power. Vulnerable people—such as women, children, and the elderly—are the primary targets.

Many youths who engage in money rituals today likely grew up in the early 1990s and 2000s, a period when Nollywood movies and the media romanticized or sensationalized money rituals. Films such as Living in Bondage (1992), Circle of Doom (1993), Idejimba (1995), Blood Money (1997), Rituals (1997), and Last Burial (2000) effectively promoted ritual themes that not only evoked strong catharsis in viewers but also solidified their belief in rituals and other superstitious nonsense.

During this period, Nigerians were still reeling from the effects of the Structural Adjustment Program, which caused widespread hardship and suffering. Many saw these movies as validation of the effectiveness of rituals, believing that they could be used to escape poverty. These fictional narratives became ingrained in the minds of children who grew up admiring actors such as Kanayo O. Kanayo, Clem Ohameze, Kenneth Okonkwo, Pete Edochie, and others as classic examples of the success of rituals. They aspired to become like the fictional characters these actors played.

Similarly, the release of Isakaba in 2001 actively promoted the belief in magical powers, particularly Odeshi—the belief that certain charms can make the human body impervious to bullets and machetes. Isakaba depicted a society plagued by crime, where the policing system had failed. The introduction of the Isakaba Boys, who possessed magical powers to apprehend and kill criminals, was portrayed as a welcome solution.

The impact of this movie was profound: it resonated with Nigerians’ real-life experiences, and many wished for a real-life Isakaba to deal with criminals. As a result, many Nigerians grew up believing that certain rituals could make them invincible.

Furthermore, Nigeria’s weak law enforcement system has allowed ritualists to operate freely. Corruption and lack of consequences have emboldened those who engage in money rituals, as they see no one willing or able to stop or prosecute them.

Coupled with increased economic hardship—especially in the last two years—and social media pressure, many young people have been driven to kill others for ritual purposes. In a country where wealth is glorified without question, where education lacks critical thinking, and where social values are eroded, the belief that human body parts can be used to attain wealth or power reigns supreme.

These beliefs have led to the deaths of many young Nigerians with promising futures.

For instance, in January 2025 in Ogun State, four teenagers were arrested for the murder of 20-year-old Sofiat Kehinde. They allegedly decapitated her and burned her head, intending to use it in a money-making ritual. In Ushata village, Nasarawa State, a suspect was arrested for allegedly killing his friend’s seven-year-old son for ritual purposes. The arrest followed a report by the boy’s father regarding his son’s disappearance. In Kwara State, Ismaila Saliu, a 25-year-old herbalist, and an accomplice were arrested by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps for allegedly murdering Saliu’s 14-year-old brother for a money ritual. Reports indicate that he conspired with another herbalist and an accomplice to commit the act. In Abeokuta last month, Taiwo Yemitan was arrested by the Ogun State Police Command for possessing a fresh human head and dismembered body parts of a female victim. Last year, in Isua Akoko, Ondo State, Yusuf Adinohi was apprehended for allegedly possessing eight human skulls.

These killings have created fear and paranoia in communities. Feelings of trust and friendship have been completely eroded. Women and girls, who are often the victims, increasingly see men as dangerous predators. Worse still, ritual killings are now so rampant that ritualists kill their own wives and children, believing that sacrificing their loved ones will bring them wealth. The most sought-after human body parts for rituals include private parts, eyes, breasts, hearts, heads, tongues, and hands.

To address these issues, the government, as the major stakeholder, must take a decisive action by creating jobs and youth empowerment programmes to reduce desperation for quick wealth. There is a need to introduce stricter punishments for ritual-related crimes to deter offenders and to sponsor national awareness campaigns that educate Nigerians on the dangers of ritual killings. It is also necessary to address misconceptions around wealth and superstition by partnering with organizations such as the Advocacy for Alleged Witches (AfAW), which has spent the last four years addressing witchcraft accusations and ritual killings in Nigeria.

This year, AfAW launched the “Stop Witchcraft Accusations and Ritual Killings” campaign to tackle witch hunts and ritual killings by teenagers. Now is the right time for the government to support AfAW and end this menace once and for all.

Dooyum Dominic Ingye is the Program Manager of the Advocacy for Alleged Witches.