The President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress came into power driving on the back of the philosophical horse of change. The essentialist underpinnings of the change idea is the need to dismantle the hitherto existing malfunctional foundational structures and organizational schema of governance culture, public affairs, and civic ethics, among other critical issues that were adjudged to be the bane of Nigeria’s development. The landslide victory of the APC in the last election is a clear testimony of the ideological hunger of Nigerians for a new paradigm of engaging the questions of development.
It is therefore needful, that after almost five months in the saddle of democratic governance, a look is cast on the journey so far. Perhaps, we should state upfront, that this piece is not so much concern with appraisal of the change philosophy as it is with delineating its trajectories of policy engagements. If the envisaged transformative benefits of the change philosophy are to be conceptually consolidated, no time could be more propitious.
I will for ease of conceptual analysis, divide the change philosophy into two major components: one, soft ware change, and two; hard ware change. The items on the menu of the soft ware change are largely psychological and sociological. This menu deals with issues such as attitudinal change, ethnicity, religion, values, and ethics among others. On the flip side is the hard ware menu where issues of economic development, infrastructure development, terrorism, so on and so forth predominates. The soft ware change elements are operationally fluid in character and on account of this can easily penetrate and permeate the hard ware tissues. For instance, nepotism, a soft ware tissue, can easily influence the citing of a public university.
Both forms of the embodiments of the change philosophy are very important in the task of nation and state building in Nigeria. And as such it is important that they are both prioritized and mainstreamed in the formulation and implementation of public policy under this administration. However, in terms of chronological importance and policy immediacy, the soft change component ranks first. In my readings of the administration policy direction, it appears accent is on the hard ware change component to the neglect of the soft ware. The preferment for the soft ware change component is recourse to institutionalism and gradualism.
The ideological provenance of this institutionalist/gradualist approach to governance is derived from the commitment of the President to lead based on the finest traditions of democratic governance in order not to be accused of authoritarianism as his traducers had sought to present him to the electorates in the period preceding the last presidential election. We have no issues with this. However, embarking on this policy course in no way invalidates the urgency and immediacy of radically engaging with the issues of soft ware change.
Let me practically illustrate the points with three examples. One, Office of Aide de Camp. The president should change the operations of the ADC. I am not calling for the scrapping of the office of the ADC. Not at all. The office is very important. Rather than have an ADC following the President in military uniform, he should be sartorially civilianized. This is the best practice. And besides, it brings more dignity and grace to the President. Should the president do this, imagine the domino effect it would cause in the country. All the governors would follow suit, all traditional rulers carrying police and paramilitary servicemen, as ADC would follow suit. In the event, the democratic public space would become less militarized.
Two, the use of siren. The President should immediately place a ban on the use of siren by public officers in Nigeria. And this ban should be enforced to the latter. The use of sirens has been bastardized in Nigeria. So bad is it that expatriate staff are now chauffer driven to construction sites amidst the blaring of sirens and road gymnastics by Nigerian security personnel. Add this to the hordes of other nondescript users of siren and the crisis of siren becomes clear: environmental pollution and psychic overload.
Three, change of government business. The president should also change the operations of government business. For instance, last week, the President of the Senate personally took the list of confirmed ministerial nominees to the President in Aso Villa. This is a very laughable exercise. The president ought not to have received his parliamentary guest. On the contrary, he should have delegated his chief of staff or the permanent secretary state house to receive the document. The message would have been very clear: if you are idle, I am busy. And next time, such petty official errand would be rightfully channeled.
Whereas the hard wares change like roads and economic boom may take two to three years in coming, the software component of change is doable now. Eventually, these small changes are what give an administration its ideological and philosophical identity.
Pine writes from Department of Political Science, Benue State University Makurdi.