COMMENDATION FROM KADUNA

BOLAJI ADEBIYI notes that the Sir Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation’s government-citizen engagement demonstrates the power of information

It was democracy in action in Kaduna, the crocodile city, on Tuesday. It represented an interaction between the governors and the governed over the crucial issue of the North’s progress under Bola Tinubu’s leadership, who has been in power for the past two years. It was a significant gathering that emphasised the direction Nigeria’s democracy should follow.

Sometime in 2022, Tinubu, who had secured the presidential candidature of the ruling All Progressives Congress, approached the Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation for support. Founded in 2009, the Foundation aimed to preserve the legacies of the late Premier of the former Northern Region and Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello. Although a non-political and non-religious organisation, its objectives and promoters give it a level of legitimacy that any politician seeking support from the region must acknowledge.

It was in pursuit of this goal that Tinubu approached the organisation, an adjunct of the equally influential Arewa Consultative Forum. Unsurprisingly, the presidential flagbearer was asked to address some concerns of the region and commit to resolving them.

Two years into his tenure, the Foundation deemed it appropriate for Tinubu to come and account for his stewardship, especially regarding the electoral promises he made three years earlier. The request was a necessary enforcement of democratic accountability, particularly at a time when some of the region’s leaders believed that the administration it helped establish was underperforming and working against the zone’s interests.  

It is a well-known fact that most politicians in the country do not feel responsible to the electorate. Once elected or appointed, they largely vanish from their constituency and become unreachable. Such an approach creates a communication gap, which fosters a negative perception of the government and its activities. Consequently, there are no feedback mechanisms, or, in a few cases, poor communication of the government’s policies and programmes.

In these circumstances, Tinubu deserves praise for his comprehensive response to the questions from some Northern leaders and the Foundation’s call for transparency. It is mistaken to see his deployment of over 60 senior officials to address the valid concerns of his North-based constituents as panic-stricken. After all, as rightly posited by the Northern leaders, he made it to the presidency with 64% of the votes cast in the region. So, would it be politically correct to ignore the concerns of even a fraction of such an influential electoral bloc?

If anyone doubted the communication gap between the Tinubu administration and the North’s thought leaders, the recently concluded conversations in Kaduna should have dispelled that doubt. What began as Tinubu-bashing ended with praise for his administration. Despite the impressive keynote address by Tijjani Bande, an accomplished professor of Political Science, diplomat, and former president of the United Nations General Assembly, which emphasised the importance of size, skills, and unity as factors of state power and a deterrent to external harassment in international politics, and the appeal by Babangida Aliyu, two-term governor of Niger State and the Foundation’s Board of Trustees chairman, the initial comments by thought leaders were adversarial.

Bashir Dalhatu, a notable lawyer and the ACF chairman, opened the floodgate, contending that despite contributing 64% of the votes that secured the presidency for Tinubu, his administration had marginalised the North. He said the principal concerns in the region, including security, agriculture, infrastructure, and key appointments, had been neglected to the detriment of the area. Ango Abdullahi, a professor of agroeconomics and former vice-chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, was similarly persuaded. He was especially unhappy about the North’s army of out-of-school children, arguing that if the federal government had allocated more funds to education, the situation would have been different.

These were not fresh complaints, though. A few weeks before the Kaduna engagement, some notable Northern politicians, including Rabiu Kwankwaso, former minister and two-term Kano State governor, and his Kaduna State counterpart, Nasir el-Rufai, had raised similar concerns. Although the presidency spokespersons dismissed them as ranting, disgruntled politicians, they nevertheless reeled out statistics and data that showed the federal government’s programs and projects in the North since Tinubu took power in 2023. The persistence of these complaints despite presidential rebuttal probably justifies the heavy deployment of senior officials in the Kaduna conversations. Looking at the outcome of the engagement, the president must praise his judgment in taking seriously the Foundation’s call for accountability.

Led by George Akume, a two-term governor, three-term senator, and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, the administration’s team addressed the complaints with facts and figures. The star witnesses and defendants were Nuhu Ribadu, the national security adviser; Chris Musa, a four-star general and chief of defence staff; Abubakar Bagudu, a two-term governor, two-term senator, and minister of Budget and Economic Planning; Ali Pate, a professor of Medical Sciences and coordinating minister of Health and Social Welfare; and Sabi Abdullahi, a two-term senator and minister of state for Agriculture.      

Before Tinubu’s officials rendered an account of his midterm stewardship, the Northern governors, represented by their chairman, Yahaya Inuwa, who governs Gombe State, and Uba Sani, a one-term senator and host of the engagement, reported the cooperation and support they had received from the president. Sani, especially, argued that it was unfair to hold Tinubu responsible for the decades of neglect, contending that the president had fulfilled his electioneering promises to the region.

Ribadu and Musa reported that Tinubu’s efforts to tackle security challenges in the region have made the North safer, following the security forces’ efforts to destabilise violent non-state groups by neutralising their leaders and killing thousands of their followers. It remains a work in progress, they stated, calling on stakeholders to support the security forces in driving out the criminal elements among them.

Bagudu, responsible for budgeting and economic planning, provided a more detailed overview of his boss’s fulfilment of campaign promises. He stated that the president’s bold economic reforms had freed trillions of Naira, which had been made available to subnational governments to carry out infrastructural projects that would promote sustainable growth and inclusive development in their states. He highlighted the infrastructural projects undertaken by the president in the region as part of his Renewed Hope legacy programmes. Pate and Abdullahi, along with others of Northern origin, did the same for health, agriculture, and other areas of concern.

What became clearer by the end of the conversations was that the idea of marginalisation was more a political perception, driven by either a communication gap or outright bias rather than reality. The Foundation’s communiqué at the end of the dialogue captured this succinctly when it said a case was “made for institutionalised periodic government-citizen dialogue platforms at the national and state levels.”

More importantly, is the pass mark that Tinubu achieved. His men, like the Biblical Daniel, essentially entered the lion’s den and emerged unscathed. If anyone doubts this outcome, portions of the communique should clear the doubt. “The government demonstrated openness to dialogue and continuous citizen engagement,” it stated, adding, “The summit concluded that Northern Nigeria acknowledges and commends the administration’s high performance in fulfilling its electoral promises in many areas and also appreciates subsisting challenges.”

Adebiyi is the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Bagudu