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KEYNOTE SPEECH DELIVERED BY H.E BABATUNDE
RAJI FASHOLA, SAN AS GUEST SPEAKER AT THE
NICHE 2022 ANNUAL LECTURE ON THURSDAY
SEPTEMBER 8, 2022 AT THE MUSON CENTRE, LAGOS
The theme chosen by Acclaim Communications Ltd, for this
year’s annual lecture, which is “2023 AND THE FUTURE
OF NIGERIA’S DEMOCRACY” was perhaps too tempting
for me to resist, and the invitation, issued since April 20,
2022, was more than timely, which is not easy to say these
days for some speaking events.
Given that we are 20 Days to the formal commencement of
campaigns for the 2023 general elections, this year’s annual
lecture coming 170 days to the first of the elections in
February 2023 provides a potential platform for many
possibilities.
However, I have elected not to be partisan, and instead
chosen to be even-handed, I believe this is the challenge,
albeit self-imposed that the theme of the lecture now
presents.
Let me start from the beginning about the 2023 general
elections.
Shortly after the announcement of the results of the 2019
General Elections proclaiming the victory of President
Muhammadu Buhari, and whilst the opposition petition in
the election tribunal was still pending, I started hearing talk
of 2023.
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Initially I dismissed it as offhanded or, at the worst, isolated
but it turned out that I was mistaken; it continued.
Therefore, long before the Presidential Election petition was
resolved and before Buhari was sworn in for a second term
in 2019, talk of the 2023 election, especially the presidential
one, had started gathering momentum.
This is the context in which I present my thoughts about the
2023 General Elections and Nigeria’s democracy.
Therefore, you can see that rather than focus on what was
going to happen to our lives as a result of the new mandate,
now clearly won and lost as determined by the Election
Tribunal, some were already thinking about the next
election.
So, it should not surprise anyone when you hear rhetoric
like: “this will be a most defining election,” “this will be an
election like no other,” and so on and so forth.
But truth be told, this rhetoric is common in every
democracy and at the onset of a new election cycle.
This is understandable because no two elections are the
same; and the intensity always varies anyway as indeed the
number of voters and sometimes the number of parties; and
the novelty of some candidates.
Unlike economists who urge the probability that “all things
being the same,” politics and elections draw their oxygen
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from the probability that things will not remain the same,
especially if you are in opposition.
For example, young people who were by age not eligible to
vote in a previous election, would have attained voting age
at the next election cycle and become eligible to vote if they
register.
In our current situation we now have 12,332,336 newly
registered voters for the 2023 election, whereas there were
14,360,053 newly registered voters in 2019, while
6,944,752 registered as new voters in 2015.
So, if the hype about 2023 is anything to go by, the number
of 12,332,366 newly registered voters does not support it,
because it is 2,027,687 less than the 14,360,053 newly
registered voters in 2019.
Obviously, we have seen all the hype before and they
detract from the real question which in my view should be:
how can democracy, especially the 2023 elections, make
our lives better and our country greater?
I think we should focus on this question because we must
remember that democracy is simply concerned about the
popular participation in choosing a leader or set of leaders.
Democracy does not guarantee that the leader or those
leaders will deliver or indeed are able to deliver on what we
want.
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Put conversely, what really is it that we expect from those
we elect and what do they promise to do before we vote,
and what have they done for us?
Did we vote for, or did we collect tricycles, sewing
machines, generators etc. from them?
If we did, can we legitimately expect that the budget from
which these things were procured will also provide
healthcare, drugs and diagnostic equipment in our health
facilities?
If they have sponsored weddings for our families, financed
the burial of our dear departed ones or paid school fees for
a whole community do we understand that these things or
some of them are funded by the budget from which we also
expect good schools, good roads and other public
infrastructure and services upon which our prosperity
depends collectively?
Put differently, how many of us who vote truly understand
how the process works?
How many of our electorate understand what the actual
constitutional roles of our legislators, Local Government
Chairman, Governors, and President are?
These questions may look ordinary, but my experience in
government suggests that they are not. I have been
surprised by how unfamiliar some of us are with the
constitution and our responsibilities, although I must
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concede that we are fairly well acquainted when it comes to
our rights.
Truth be told, elections are only a part of the democratic
process; and this requires not only the successful party to
play their role in the formation and running of government,
but the opposition as watchdog, and government in waiting,
has an equally important role to play in enriching the
process.
Governance in power is not easy, and I daresay opposition
is even more hard work.
Let us ask ourselves when last an opposition party prepared
and detailed an alternative budget to that of the party in
government.
True enough, we hear criticisms of what the party in
Government is not doing or getting right; but when I ask,
can you recall an opposition party offering a credible and
alternative solution to what the party in Government has
done wrong.
To be fair I must acknowledge the generalizations such as
we will do this and do that, but very often that is where it
ends.
On the question of revenue or lack thereof for example and
the borrowing by Government, apart from the legitimate
concerns about borrowing which are rightfully expressed, I
have challenged the critics to provide the alternative; and I
am still awaiting a response.
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If you listen to any of the several Morning shows the issue
will come up and you will hear the criticisms, which are
legitimate, but you will not get any credible answer to the
question – what are the alternatives?
The answer must lie somewhere between cutting waste,
reducing the size of Government, raising taxes, stopping
some programmes, projects or policies.
But who is ready to have these conversations in real
politics?
This is something we must demand in the run up to the
2023 General Elections in order to sustain the future of our
democracy.
Yes, democracy heralds freedoms including the freedom to
speak. But what kind of speeches are we engaging in?
Heckling, online trolling, hate and in person verbal abuse in
some cases or talk about ethnicity or religion.
How do we resolve the revenue problem we have with fuel
subsidy without leading to social unrest which the two
dominant parties have not yet resolved, and the other
contenders remain quiet about.
Why has parliament, where all the people of Nigeria are
represented, not taken a bipartisan position on the matter
after consulting with their constituents, the Nigerian people,
and say that we have your mandate to do this or that about
the subsidy.
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Why can we not have a voting process that shows how
each legislator voted, to show that the vote was the result of
consultation with the constituents and ensure that they will
re-elect the legislator again.
Why is it not a stipulation that our elected representatives
live in our constituency so that they understand what we
experience and present it for government attention.
Is this type of hands-on representation less important than
the occasional goodies shared at seasonal meetings by
absentee representatives?
When the campaigns for election to executive office starts
and we hear of free this and free that, do we engage in a
conversation about how much it would cost and where the
money will come from?
After all, to use the cliche nothing is free even in Freetown.
When those promises do not materialize, are we complicit in
their stillbirth by the lack of engagement or the quality of
engagement.
Let me segue to another issue, to which perhaps we should
pay attention, and this is the Federal Government.
In particular, I seek to highlight what I perceive to be a lack
of appreciation of what constitutes the Federal Government
and what her role is.
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To start with, there is a lie that is being told and repeated
and some are beginning to believe it, that we do not have a
Federal type of constitutional governance partly because
they think our Federation is not perfect which I agree with,
but an imperfect federation is not the same thing as a non-
existent Federation.
The truth is that the imperfection is probably one of the
reasons why there are provisions for amendments in the
constitution.
If a constitution provides that the federal, state and local
governments have different responsibilities and some
shared responsibilities as our constitution does in the
exclusive and concurrent list of the second schedule and
the fourth schedule, I think the minimum requirements of
federalism have been met.
Whether the states or local governments should get more
powers, lies with us to exercise the amendment in a
process requiring federal legislators to initiate it and 2/3 of
the states to concur with it.
If that has not happened, it seems to me that it does not
extinguish the existence of a federal arrangement, neither is
it solely the fault of one person such as the president or the
federal government.
This brings me to the heart of the matter about our
understanding of the Federal Government.
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Not infrequently, I have heard some federal legislators
laying the blame of some failing or the other on the “Federal
Government,” when in fact what they probably intended is
the “Federal Executive” arm of the Federal Government.
The fact is that the federal judiciary, legislative and
executive all constitutes one Federal Government operating
in three arms.
If we decompose the constituents of the federal
government, it will become obvious that it is all of us, the
states, through our representatives who make up the
federal government.
For example, in the Federal Executive arm of Government,
the election of the president and vice president only
represents a partial composition of the federal executive. By
virtue of section 147 (3) of the constitution, ministers must
be appointed from each of the 36 states before the federal
executive is probably properly constituted.
In effect, each of our states makes up the much-vilified
Federal Executive because the ministers represent us
there.
On the federal legislative side of the federal government,
the 109 senators and 360 representatives are elected to
represent us from senatorial districts and federal
constituencies created within our states.
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The same is true in the federal judiciary at least at the
Federal High Court level and largely so at the Appeal court,
except for the supreme court that does not have 36 seats.
The point I seek to make therefore is that it is the
representatives of the 36 states who truly constitute the
federal government rather than any behemoth or entity.
So, if we agree for example to amend the constitution to
allow state policing, I don’t see who can stop it. But do we
have a consensus on this matter?
If the Government is not giving us what we expect, I think
we should all look in the mirror and ask ourselves what we
have put into it, because we are the ones who constitute it.
I must emphasize that democracy works when a working
majority exists. Without a working majority in parliament, the
work of the executive becomes more difficult.
Therefore, I fail to understand why a party that has a
Legislative majority is accused without more, of being a
Rubber Stamp.
They are not elected to “fight” the executive especially of
their own party, and they are expected to use their majority
to push their Party and government agenda through.
That is why elective seats are hotly contested and won. But
I find it even stranger and inexplicable that a party that have
won legislative majority then literally surrenders its mandate
in the parliament by handing over not just Committee
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Chairmanship seats to the minority, but also committees
that are critical in the party’s agenda.
Apart from Public Accounts and probably Ethics, minority
should not chair a committee.
Of course, if only briefly I cannot but point out the fact that
there are things we expect from different levels of
government and legislators that are not their constitutional
responsibilities. We would do well to read our constitution
before the campaign starts and before we vote.
(EXAMPLES ORALLY).
It is these things that should shape the future of our
democracy in 2023 and beyond.
These things require us to focus on the kind of people we
will elect to states and federal constituencies because it is
those people who will determine many things that will affect
us.
The kind of people we elect for example to the Senate, will
determine what kind of people they will confirm to become
ministers, heads of parastatals and so on, which will
determine the quality of service we get.
The kind of people we elect, will determine the quality of
policies, budgets, programmes and projects that are
designed and delivered to us.
The local elections, to elect people to serve in the local
governments, as state legislators and as governors are
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extremely important to our quality of life and deserve that
we pay the utmost attention to them without losing sight of
the federal elections.
Issues like water supply, rent, land acquisition, building
permits, refuse management, sanitation, traffic
management, primary health and education, community
development are local and not federal issues.
As a small business operator, you need more support from
your State Governments than the Federal (save for fiscal
and monetary issues) in order for your business to thrive.
I have spoken to the freedoms that democracy offers and
the freedom of speech in relation to our rhetoric. The other
side of the coin is the role of the press.
While I respect and understand the responsibility to report
the news, I hold the view that the press has a big
responsibility in shaping the news.
Before I am misunderstood, let me explain.
While they have done a good job serving us with the
developments relating to fallout from the choice of running
mates and even the purported suspension of a presidential
candidate, they can do more to focus on conversations that
affect the majority of potential voters.
I am certain you agree with me that the majority of potential
voters will be more likely interested to know if there is any
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plan to improve their children’s education and access to
healthcare.
They certainly will be interested to know if something will be
done to bring water to their taps at home and what the plans
for more reliable electricity will be.
You can bet that those who pay 2 to 3 years rent in advance
will be interested to know if anything can be done about it
and what that would be.
These are examples of conversations that I think the media
can focus on and thereby shape the news.
While there is a lot of work still to be done, it is proper at this
point to also highlight the successes our democracy has
delivered because the democratic experience since 1999
came at great cost.
Therefore, before I close, let me remind us about some of
the things our democracy has delivered since 1999 so that
we keep stock, and we believe and reaffirm our commitment
to the choice that democracy offer is us and we remain
faithful to its ideals.
Our democracy has delivered an interstate train service, the
first and only one since the one built by the colonial
government.
Our democracy is delivering solutions to problems that
seem to have defied solutions, like a road and bridge
network to Bonny Island, like the Second Niger Bridge and
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the reconstruction of the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway,
Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, Kano-Maiduguri Expressway
and an extensive broadband rollout nationwide.
And lest I forget, our democracy delivered access to
telephone service for many Nigerians.
Our democracy has delivered an increasing reliance on Tax
revenue as the basis of Government expenditure.
This is important because it increases the focus on
representation.
While there is still a lot to do, these are building blocks of
hope around which to build our prosperity.
They represent critical items of infrastructure and fiscal
options about our current and future livelihoods around
which to frame the issue for 2023 elections and plan the
future of Nigeria’s democracy.
Therefore, let me close by saying that we can win elections
without exaggerating our problems. We can do so by
offering credible service and well thought out solutions.
We can win elections without disrobing our country before
the global community.
We can do so by valorising Nigeria’s possibilities and not by
widening her fault lines.
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Elections and Democracy must represent for us a feast of
ideas and choices that bring out the best of us and the best
of our country.
Thank you for inviting me, and thank you for listening.
Babatunde Raji Fashola SAN
Honourable Minister of Works and Housing
