Spain’s Puente And Africa’s Elusive ‘Political Dignity’

By Mobolaji Sanusi

“The first requirement of a sound body politic is that there should be public integrity; and next, that there should be personal dignity.”
—-Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)

Oscar Puente, Spain’s Minister of Transport, was largely unknown outside his home country until a little over a week ago. He came into the international limelight after at least 69 people died and dozens more were injured in a high-speed train collision in his country. He was not the driver of the train, nor has it been officially established that he was negligent in the accident.

But six days after the collision, he took responsibility as the man in charge of the ministry and voluntarily resigned. At his appearance before his country’s Congress to give evidence about last week’s disaster near the town of Adamuz, south of the capital, Madrid, where a moving train smashed into the back of a stationary train, he announced his decision to resign.

That collision involved a train run by the state-owned operator Renfe, with 397 passengers on board, and a stationary train run by a private operator named Iryo that was carrying 147 passengers. The accident reportedly stemmed from an issue with the automatic signalling system, a computer failure that forced all trains to halt on the affected stretch. Another appointee seeking to evade responsibility would have blamed unforeseen technical glitches beyond human control.

He did not filibuster before Congress but simply resigned in a manner that exemplified a touch of patriotic courage when he declared: “A transport minister in a country like Spain cannot remain in office after two accidents of this seriousness in less than a year.” The first crash under his watch happened on the same line in January this year and left 46 people dead.

He did not just resign; he stated that he was also withdrawing his name from “the lists for the early legislative elections” scheduled for November 29. Sadly, Spain’s train crash last week was described as one of the worst rail disasters in modern European history, and the country’s worst since 2013. Rescue operations deployed heavy lifting equipment to access derailed carriages where passengers were trapped.

No wonder Puente’s position came under immediate scrutiny after the crash. The main conservative opposition People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox party called for his resignation. Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez admitted that public trust in the credibility of the high-speed rail system had been “broken.” But Puente resigned because he wanted to, not because of any opposition pressure, which is particularly dignified considering the incident’s closeness to an imminent election.

Puente’s act, which he described as being done for the sake of “political dignity,” is worthy of emulation. Prime Minister Sánchez was proud of him when he said that he “faced up to the situation, provided answers and solutions, and then stepped aside… out of dignity. Of his own accord. Out of respect for the victims.”

When juxtaposed with the public service attitude across the Black man’s continent, political office is largely misconstrued as a personal reward rather than a public trust. When disaster strikes, when a grid collapses, or when a flood that was clearly made worse by years of neglected drainage occurs, the routine response from the appointees in charge is not resignation, but inexcusable explanations.

Such an appointee’s responsibility is diffused until it is effaced by time, since our people are believed to have a short institutional memory. Usually, on our continent, when disasters or accidents happen, condolences are issued, a committee is set up, and the minister or other such appointees remain in office to supervise the committee investigating their own ministry or agency.

The reports of such committees are submitted only to gather dust on shelves in offices, like in the instance of the latest report of the inquiry into the deaths of miners in Niger State while in the custody of the civil defence corps. No one will eventually be sanctioned for treating the lives of (illegal) miners so shabbily. Even the current Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa, sometime ago reportedly confessed in the media that NECO examination papers leaked, with no heads rolling, voluntarily or otherwise, for the poor handling of such examination papers. This is why “political dignity” remains so elusive on our continent.

Even in clear instances of underperformance, appointees in our clime find it difficult to resign voluntarily from their appointments. This administration, and even the one before it, have had to send some ministers packing. Examples abound, including Prof. Tahir Mamman, former Minister of Education, who was dismissed by President Bola Tinubu on October 23, 2024, for underperformance.

Barrister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, then Minister of Women Affairs, was removed on October 23, 2024, because her tenure was marred by avoidable altercations that hampered the ministry’s operations. Also, Lola Ade-John, former Minister of Tourism, was relieved of her position due to poor performance. The same applied to Dr. Jamila Bio Ibrahim, former Minister of Youth Development. Both were relieved of their duties on October 23, 2024.

In addition, Betta Edu, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation under this administration, was suspended in January 2024 following public outcry over a controversial transfer of ₦585 million into a private account. She failed to resign voluntarily before she was suspended, after which her position was filled.

Adebayo Adelabu, former Minister of Power, despite severe criticism for repeated collapses of the national electricity grid and chronic power outages, stayed put in office until the electoral timeline for political party primaries compelled his departure.

The head of the previous administration, former President Muhammadu Buhari, sacked Sabo Nanono, his Minister of Agriculture, and Saleh Mamman, Minister of Power, on the same day in September 2021 for failing to meet the operational expectations of his administration. Despite glaring signals that they were performing below par, the aforementioned appointees failed to throw in the towel voluntarily.

Under the same Buhari administration, Adamu Adamu, the Minister of Education, served out the tenure of that government despite his inept handling of protracted strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that paralysed the tertiary education system. His subsequent confession at the end of his tenure that he knew nothing about education-sector management and had refused to resign confirmed the alien nature of voluntary resignation among political appointees in this part of the world.

However, Puente could voluntarily resign because, in Spain, the system allowed him to. His prime minister could accept his resignation without it looking like a confession of guilt for the entire government, while a credible press of that country treated the victims as more important than the minister’s political future. No cover-up. Resignation under such institutional circumstances should be understood for what it is: it should not be seen as a criminal admission but as an acceptance of political responsibility. On our continent, including in Nigeria, these conditions barely exist because loyalty is largely personal with no iota of consideration for institutional sanctity.

A minister on our continent owes their appointment to a political godfather or a president, not to the public. To resign voluntarily is therefore read as disloyalty or betrayal, and most of the time with serious communal consequences for toeing the path of honour.

So, clinging to office is perceived as a form of self-defence. For example, Hope Uzodimma, incumbent governor of Imo state, and others perceive the National Assembly as a retirement home because there are no institutional checks for overstaying in power even without commensurate achievements. The only consequence is that the public is temporarily outraged, while the opposition remains largely disunited and institutional pressure remains persistently weak due to corruption and affinity for impunity.

Men like Puente are in short supply on the African continent, and the few available ones are always afraid to act for the sake of institutional growth because our system punishes honour and rewards graft. The bar of public service overseas is high but not because the whites are from a different planet. The Europeans who colonised and committed the worst atrocities against Black people and mankind are not more moral than we are. It is just that their culture promotes political dignity and a political culture that largely embodies institutional dignity.

In their clime, public office is seen as stewardship, where the parliament actually checks power, the judiciary truly resolves conflicts impartially, and stepping aside out of respect for victims is understood as strength, not a weakness. Such resignations on our continent should be made normal by developing a political culture that makes loyalty to the public outweigh loyalty to the appointing authority.
As rightly pointed out by the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, attaining a sound body politic requires “public integrity… and personal dignity.” And despite the riotous political quagmire that Roosevelt’s country is currently experiencing under President Donald Trump, there are inbuilt institutional checks to correct such.

Until we separate political responsibility from criminal guilt on our continent as well, we will continue to watch from afar as others show us what “I take responsibility” truly means. I hereby rest my case for this week.

•Sanusi, former MD/CEO of the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency, is currently Managing Partner at AMS RELIABLE SOLICITORS. (WhatsApp only: 07011117777)