Imperial Governors On The Rampage — The PUNCH Editorial

From Benin to Akure, and Abeokuta, state governors are exhibiting their accustomed high-handedness. Phillip Shaibu, Deputy Governor of Edo State, was locked out of his office on Monday as Governor Godwin Obaseki revved up his war against him; the Ondo State House of Assembly on Wednesday commenced impeachment processes against the Deputy Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, following distrust between him and Governor Rotimi Akeredolu. Ijebu North-East Local Government legislators impeached its Chairman, Wale Adedayo, who had accused Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, of denying LGs their statutory funds.

This is a disturbingly repetitive pattern in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. State governors are notoriously intolerant of opposing views and demand military-style unquestioning obedience.

From their deputies, derisively called “spare tires” in reference to their powerlessness under the 1999 Constitution, state governors demand obsequious submissiveness. Ambition is viewed as rebellion to be crushed with all the instruments of state power wielded within and outside the law.

This obey-me-or-else culture applies to the state legislatures and the LGs. For most governors, they hold office solely at the pleasure of their imperial gubernatorial personage. They are not permitted to hold different views or challenge them.

Their victims are often no saints either, being products of the besmirched system, but decorum should rule in the public space even when disagreements arise.

Everywhere else, democracy thrives on debates, free interplay of divergent views and competition for elective offices. Furthermore, the principle of the separation and independence of powers – executive, legislative, and judicial – is an inconvenience for Nigeria’s governors. Control of the state legislatures and LGs is for them, a matter of survival.

Aiyedatiwa’s predicament is put down to ambition. Though accused by state legislators of “gross misconduct,” his real offence, allege supporters, is his suspected desire to succeed Akeredolu who went on a medical leave between June 13 and September 9, this year.

Shaibu’s travails are similarly rooted, as publicly confirmed by Obaseki, in his alleged “desperation to succeed me.” He has been serially subjected to humiliations and indignities.

For daring to file a petition alleging Abiodun’s withholding of funds accruing to the state’s 20 LGs, Adedayo has been detained by the secret police, and disowned by other state LG bosses and his own councillors.

While he was governor of Lagos 1997-2007, Bola Tinubu, now president, two deputy governors in succession were forced out. When the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, held sway as Katsina State governor 1999-2007, two successive deputies under him also were evicted. In February 2020, a court quashed the October 2019 impeachment of Simon Achuba as the Deputy Governor of Kogi by state legislators acting in support of Governor Yahaya Bello.

In Zamfara, Mahdi Gusau was removed as deputy governor after refusing to follow then Governor Bello Matawalle to defect from their party to another party.

In 2018, the Imo State Deputy Governor, Eze Madumere, was impeached by the Imo State House of Assembly following a clash with then Governor Rochas Okorocha over his ambition to succeed him, when the governor was rooting for his son-in-law. Like in Ondo State, where Akeredolu’s first deputy, Agboola Ajayi, was forced out, Okorocha’s first deputy, Jude Agbaso, had suffered a similar fate.

Democracy is farcical in Nigeria. Instead of vibrant lawmaking and oversight, the state legislatures are ‘rubber stamps.’ The few who exhibit some ‘spunk’ are dutifully removed by their colleagues to please the governors. State governors dissolve elected LGs in defiance of a Supreme Court ruling and the constitution. They insist on handpicking their successors thereby provoking tension and bitter divisions.

Nigeria desperately needs legislators and politicians that understand the critical role of diverse views and independent parliaments in building a truly functional democracy.

Elections need to be cleaned up to facilitate the emergence of the people’s choice as opposed to the handpicked choices of governors and ‘godfathers.’ Internal democracy, currently largely absent, should be entrenched in the political parties.

Lovers of liberal democracy should work towards creating a policy that permits both opposing views and the free exercise of legitimate ambition.

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