Lai Mohammed This is what happens when the ruling class is older than everyone else
60% of Nigeria’s 200 million people are younger than 30, but the
Information Minister’s strategy suggests little regard for how young
people find information, or do anything at all.
Minister for Information and Communication, Lai Mohammed briefs Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari (Press)
From the moment Lai Mohammed
was screened by the National Assembly to be the nation’s new
Information Minister, he faced one simple yet daunting task; providing
Nigeria’s citizens with credible and timely information on government
activities, programs and initiatives.
The minister
has chosen to discharge that duty by questionable means. The results
have been largely uninspiring, so much that poor communication is now
accepted as one of the biggest failings of the Buhari administration.
Since the earliest months, two main themes have become obvious in Mohammed’s press conferences and statements.
When backed into a tight corner, he is quick to pass the blame and play the victim.
In
the months since he took on the role, his major points of call have
been the presidency’s performance in key areas and the president’s
health.
While the economy still tries to emerge from its first depression in 25 years, President Muhammadu Buhari
has spent a large part of the last five months on medical leave in
London as he tries to recover from a mystery illness. In both regards,
there are serious questions to answer.
Instead, in
press conferences and interviews, when asked for comments on these
issues, Mohammed suggests a picture where the opposition and its
supporters are the enemy and the members of the Buhari administration
are saints, complete with halos and golden robes.
Minister for Information and Communication, Lai Mohammed briefs Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari (Press)
Minister for Information and Communication, Lai Mohammed briefs Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari (Press)
He answers questions
with rhetorical pleas for mercy, whether he’s asking why the media
ignores the factors that the administration blames for its poor start or
explaining how questions about the president's health are a
distraction.
A good example is when a delegation of the National Council of Women’s Societies visited him at his office in Abuja. When asked questions about the welfare of the nation’s citizens, he answered simply, “We
are very concerned about the welfare of Nigerians and we are not
sleeping; many of our critics have been unfair to us because many of
them know that we did not invent the problems we are facing today”
In other situations, Mohammed makes veiled attempts at inspiring or appealing to populist sentiments.
Where
he has the opportunity to clear the air with facts and credible, timely
information, he tries to curry favour with the masses by saying things
that suggest that they are being manipulated or misinformed by the media
and everyone except the Buhari administration.
Lai
Mohammed's rhetoric is designed to suggest that the government has a
monopoly of affection; that it is the only entity, human or otherwise,
that cares and knows what is best for Nigeria and its people.
Others
like every political entity in the opposition are either part of the
problem or like the media, sensationalists who only start conversations
regarding the presidency's actions to create a distraction from the work
in progress.
It sounds too much like the early stages of an abusive relationship.
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The
minister's rhetoric plays on government policies and popular sentiment
to suggest a simple message; a Nigeria for Nigerians, to the exclusion
of those who question the process or show a lack of belief (Press)
In November 2015, when the Treasury Single Account
was launched, it met criticism from a large number of people who did
not understand the need or the idea behind unifying the government’s
accounts.
To clear the air, Mohammed issued a statement, saying “it
is understandable that the psyche of those who are making the frivolous
allegations concerning the TSA has been badly affected by the impunity
that permeated the country under the immediate past administration”
“But the lies that have been wilfully disseminated by scandalmongers over the TSA cannot and will not fly", he added, "because
it was precise to put an end to such impunity that Nigerians voted
massively for President Muhammadu Buhari, who has an unblemished
reputation for integrity, due process, transparency and the rule of law”
It would have been easier to just explain what the TSA was and why Nigeria needed it at that point in time.
Mohammed
occupies a position where, thanks to Buhari’s absence, he has become
the main mouthpiece of this administration. The manner he has chosen,
however, shows something more than ineptitude.
In a
nation where more than half the population is under the age of 30, it
shows a lack of understanding of how young people acquire information in
the digital age and how that access to information is inspiring a level
of enlightenment that has increased what people expect of their
leaders.
This, in itself, goes to a larger problem
that has been the bane of successive administrations and is a cross
that Nigerians have had to bear for decades.
An
Information Minister like Lai Mohammed is what happens when the ruling
class personalises their claim to power, over too many years.
As the world has learned and (continues to see) in the case of Donald Trump,
a lack of experience can be disastrous when one holds important
political office. But you find that age is not experience, and knowledge
quickly becomes obsolete if one does not stay updated and in touch with
things.
And no, appointing 17 30-year-old Special Assistants does not count.
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Despite
promises to change the old guard, President Buhari's cabinet is mostly
made up of the same politicians who have been in the national
conversation since 1999 (Press)
There’s also a sense
of aloofness; a tendency to act as if being in office or the political
class gives you access to some truths or secrets of the world that
remain the same, regardless of quickly the world develops.
It is why the Minister for Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu
thinks it’s a good idea to appear in front of pressmen with little more
than the news that Nigeria will begin to manufacture match-sticks and
pencils in two years.
It is why with the president
away with doctors in London, Mohammed thinks it is fine to give
non-answers and vague statements as if it is the responsibility of the
populace to prove or discover the true state of the president’s health
and not the other way around.
The Nigerian ruling
class, in 2017, discharges their duties by doing the exact same things
that their peers did in the decades before them. It would seem that for
them, the biggest evidence of staying abreast of the times is opening a
twitter account.
Nigeria's biggest problem is the culture of political actors in the corridors of power.
The
simple reason why every successive government seems eerily like the one
before them is because the same set of people have been in those
corridors since a few years after the nation gained its independence.
This group of people is referred to by most political scholars and commentators as the class of 1966.
In January 1966, 22 notable Nigerian leaders including the Prime Minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, the Premiers of the Northern and Western Regions, Ahmadu Bello and Samuel Ladoke Akintola were killed in a coup led by a majority of mutinous soldiers, led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna.
A
number of soldiers, particularly from the Northern Region, were not
enthused about this and in July 1966, they launched the counter-coup
that put Yakubu Gowon in power.
Of the 32 soldiers that planned and executed that coup, four became head of state in the years that followed; General Sani Abacha, General Ibrahim Babangida, Brigadier-General Murtala Mohammed and Muhammadu Buhari, (twice as a general in 1984 and a civilian in 2015).
Although he was not a part of the team, a certain Olusegun Obasanjo was a friend of that class, and in time, after Murtala Mohammed, he got his own taste of power.
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Soldiers of Fortune: General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida and General Sani Abacha (Archive)
There are familiar names among the remaining officers. Many like John Shagaya, Paul Tarfa, John Nanven Garba and the more prominent Theophilus Danjuma
have held various senior executive and legislative posts in successive
governments; the rest have spread their tentacles and established
themselves in various levels of power.
The team that plotted the coup on July 29, 1966, has not left the corridors of power since then.
Renowned economics professor and former Presidential candidate, Pat Utomi
chooses to explain that they got into power with a huntsman mentality; a
view that led them to view the coup as a triumph that they were
entitled to.
“Nigeria has suffered state
capture since 1966 and the group of soldiers who ceased the Nigerian
state that year, retain a firm grip 50 years after”, he writes in the Sahel Standard.
“The
culture of the class of 66 drove us, first hesitantly, then with
deliberate speed into the cusp of a failing state… In my view, the class
of 1966 cannot help itself. It was socialised into a view of triumph as
the Hunt. The hunter mindset is kill and share”
For them, the benefit of that victory was to divide and conquer with this new power that they had acquired.
The class of 1966 has never given room for any disruption or change in the power system or how it is distributed.
Save
for military coups that were literally power plays between its members,
any signs of disruption in the power system have been few and far
between. Access to power has been so stringently restricted that a place
at the federal seat is only possible on their terms.
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Renowned Economics Professor, Pat Utomi ran for the office of the President in the 2011 general elections. (Patito's Blog)
This is not to say
there have been no crises of legitimacy, but where they have threatened
the existing order, powers in the back seat have installed fillers or at
least, influenced the election of more familiar surrogates — Shehu Shagari in 1979, Umar Musa Yar’adua in 2007 and Goodluck Jonathan in 2011.
For context, it’s been 51 years since that day in July.
The
worldview and how things work have changed vastly in that time; while
each member of that class, their ideals, power blocs, policies and
objectives have stayed with them, as half a century has passed by.
It
is no coincidence that most of the country’s most ‘ambitious’ projects
became par for the course in other countries decades ago.
In
recent years, Nigeria has shown bright signs in certain fields largely
thanks to the tenacity and hard work of young people. There is much
expectation for the role that the young generation, particularly
millennials, can play in the nation’s growth.
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The
suburb of Yaba is home to startups, platforms and accelerators that have
led the emergence of a technology scene that is attracting attention
and support from around the world (Techpoint)
One problem, however,
is that the almost ever-present nature of the class of ’66 has created a
fear to speak truth to power and a generation that will rather look
away in hope than fight for change.
Massive
internet penetration among the youth population and the quick adoption
of social media also mean that a majority of young people are simply
more capable of creating hashtags on Twitter than making practical moves
towards demanding greater inclusion and a say in how they are governed.
President
Buhari’s health and the absence of any clear alternatives in 2019 have
set the scenes for a power struggle between the familiar suspects. Such
that in the past few days, various rumours, including some that feature a
coup, have circulated online and offline.
Regardless
of what happens in the lead up to the next presidential elections,
there is an ideological void that will be filled by whoever steps up to
the plate.
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Babangida, Obasanjo, Buhari; it is absurd to expect change when power has remained in the hands of a select few (Press)
As things stand, the Nigerian political scene offers very limited options. Since the ruling All Progressives Congress got out of the opposition and into power in 2015, the People's Democratic Party
that it made the swap with has become all but a shell of itself,
destroyed from within by power struggles, decampment, scandals and
finger-pointing.
With it, other parties have faded
into limited relevance. The implication that there are no alternative
ideologies or beliefs that the disgruntled, dissatisfied or those with
the desire to upset the existing structure can pitch their tents to.
It
is clear that there are young Nigerians who can take up the mantle at
various levels of government to inject much-needed stimulus, and
innovation into the country’s systems and structures.
The
need for them to demand control of their future and have a say in the
Nigerian government is desperately obvious, now more than ever.
