The APC manifesto identified that ‘the challenge facing us as Nigerians is whether we have the will and the courage to unite to radically reform, modernise and move our nation forward – not looking back to the failed policies and practices of the past.
It is no longer a question of choice but of will and courage.’ In his campaign document, ‘Renewed Hope 2023 – Action Plan for Better Nigeria’, President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, took this forward when he identified that ‘the structural model upon which our national economy has always been based needs major reform.
Our economy is unhelpfully designed to export raw materials and import increasingly expensive finished products. Crude oil still provides most of our foreign exchange and represents the primary source of Federal Government revenues.
Over the long-term, the revenues from these natural resources export will prove insufficient to meet rising costs of imports let alone support the fiscal obligations demanded by modern democratic governance.’
More than anything, the issue of fuel subsidy tests the commitment of President Tinubu and the APC in terms of whether new initiatives will be introduced to courageously unite Nigerians ‘to radically reform, modernise and move our nation forward’.
It is about whether we want to continue to spend about 30 per cent of our total revenue as a subsidy for the importation of fuel. For instance, under the 2023 Federal Government budget, for the first six months, January – June, N3.36trn was provided.
Between 2017 and 2022, more than N5trn was expended on subsidies for the importation of fuel. In 2017, it cost the country N144.5bn. The cost increased to N722.3bn in 2018, N551.2bn in 2019, N102bn in 2020, N1.780bn in 2021, and N2.042bn in 2022.
It is projected that between 2017 and June 2023, Nigeria would have expended 26.06 per cent of its revenue on fuel subsidy payments.
Nigeria’s 2023 budget is N21.83trn. This means that oil subsidy for the first six months already accounted for about 15 per cent of the Federal Government’s budget and if it is to continue, it will account for nothing less than 30 per cent of the Federal Government’s budget by December 2023.
The reality, therefore, is that the challenge of managing the astronomical cost of fuel subsidy payment is the first test of whether President Tinubu’s government will operate based on the commitment to deliver on his campaign promises to Nigerians of initiating reform of the economy so that revenues accruing to the government can ‘support the fiscal obligations demanded by modern democratic governance.’
Certainly, this will require bold and courageous decisions. But perhaps, more than that, it will require being able to mobilise Nigerians to support the initiative of the government.
Mobilising Nigerians to support the initiatives of the government is a function of engagements and negotiations to win agreements that will strategically commit citizens to both support the initiatives of the government as well as discharge complementary responsibilities.
This is more about the relationship that exists between government and citizens, which often is taken for granted. If anything, part of the reason why relations between government and citizens are most times tense is the absence of a functional framework to facilitate engagements and negotiations with Nigerians on policy issues. It all comes down to questions of representation and responsiveness.
Theoretically, representation and responsiveness are more about how different interests are accommodated and promoted in the policies of the government. Somehow, these are issues that are yet to be reflected in the ways our political parties are organised.
None of our registered parties can claim to have developed structures that allow for caucusing such that blocs of interests can strategise within the structures of the political party on how to promote their interests.
Through caucusing within the structures of the party, interest blocs can, for instance, sponsor and promote candidates and use the structures of the party to negotiate policy priorities to be adopted by governments produced by the party.
This presupposes that our parties will respect and allow structures provided in their constitution to operate. In our case in APC, for instance, with a conservative and reactionary leadership that is lawless and believes that statutory structures of the party can only meet at its discretion, it will be a pipe dream to expect that they will allow caucuses to emerge in the first place, not to talk of allowing the caucuses to use the structures of the party to negotiate policies.
Aside from the fact that the APC constitution provided for the existence of the National Advisory Council (NAC), National Executive Committee (NEC), and National Caucus whose membership is diverse and could be adjudged to reflect various interests, these organs have been rendered idle, if not irrelevant.
In their place, the National Chairman of the party, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu takes decisions on issues that the APC constitution mandated these organs to discharge as he deems fit. Occasionally, he invites the National Working Committee (NWC), to legitimise some of his decisions, which by the provisions of the APC constitution is supposed to be an administrative organ.
In addition to these organs (NAC, NEC, and National Caucus), the amended APC constitution created three new structures, namely the Women’s Wing, Youth Wing, and Persons Living with Disability Wing.
These are structures that are expected to function as autonomous bodies within the APC structures with their constitutions, and regulations, which should not conflict with the constitution, guidelines, and policies of the APC.
Outside the initiatives of the presiding officers of these three structures – National Women’s Leader, National Youth Leader, and National Leader of Persons Living with Disabilities, since April 2022 following the assumption of office of the Sen. Abdullahi Adamu-led NWC, nothing has been done to organise the Women’s, Youth and Persons Living with Disability Wings. Yet, these are potential structures that could facilitate effective representation of critical categories of interests that are adjudged marginalised groups in Nigerian politics.
Beyond these structures, the APC constitution also requires the establishment of five Standing Committees, namely, Establishment, Finance, Publicity, Intergovernmental, and Conflict and Reconciliation Committees.
None of these committees have been established so far. Part of the logic behind establishing these Standing Committees is to broaden membership participation by ensuring that more leaders of the party take responsibility for managing the affairs of the party.
Through meetings of all these structures of the party, it should be possible for the party to exercise strong influence in the initiatives of governments it controls. The other advantage is that the party would be able to hold the governments it produces and its appointees accountable.
The inability to ensure that party organs as provided in the APC constitution meets has created a situation whereby governments produced by the APC have weak or no relationship with the party and appointees are highly unaccountable. And during the 2023 elections, for instance, there were many alleged cases of anti-party activities by very highly placed government appointees.
The case of the naira redesign policy is only possible because of a disconnect between the APC Federal Government of former President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC as a political party. Otherwise, how can it be explained that a party interested in winning the 2023 elections will allow a government it controls to roll out such a draconian policy that would confiscate citizens’ hard-earned money about six months before a general election?
Therefore, without doubt, part of the challenges of both implementing the APC Manifesto and President Tinubu’s campaign promises is to also prioritise the reform of APC so that it truly becomes a progressive party led by progressive leaders, or at the minimum democrats who are law-abiding and would run the affairs of the party based on the provisions of the APC constitution and not personal discretions.
As a party envisioned to be progressive, APC should be developed to grow beyond being an electoral vehicle producing only candidates for elections. APC must in this respect seek to broaden its structures to allow for the participation of diverse groups of interests. Already, this is a source of frustration in the country, in which political opportunists are taking advantage and unfortunately deceiving Nigerians.
The popularity of Labour Party during the 2023 elections is partly a reflection of the frustration of Nigerians with our political parties, including the APC. Nigerians are looking for parties with vibrant structures whose internal debates and contestations would aggregate the diverse interests of Nigerians.
Aggregating the diverse interests of Nigerians is about representation and responsiveness, which is what is required to affirm that ‘sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through the constitution derives all powers and authority’ and ‘participation by the people in their government shall be ensured under the provisions of the constitution as provided in section 14 (2) (a and c) of the 1999 Nigerian constitution as amended.
The challenge of giving practical expression to these provisions of the Nigerian constitution is about providing the much-needed leadership to change Nigerian politics.
This is about whether the APC government of President Tinubu will come up with initiatives that will result in increased participation of Nigerians in the process of governance. Unlike what obtained in the past, whereby elected leaders run governments based on old conventions and, therefore, have weak commitment to new political initiatives, which may be necessary for Nigeria’s democratic development, President Tinubu’s APC government should be able to summon the courage to break the jinx of managing the business of government almost to the exclusion of Nigerians.
*Salihu Lukman is of the North-West Zonal Office of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna
