Power without responsibility

In the last few weeks, the public fallout between the President and his wife has provided some form of political entertainment for Nigerians and a bit of ammunition for the President’s opponents. These, like the Senate President, who’s also fighting for his political life  in the courts, are quick to point to the outburst of the First Lady as vindicating their earlier position that the president has derailed and a cabal is governing the country instead.

But besides the entertainment and the rush to side with either the President or his wife is a more dangerous threat to our nations’ democracy but which is being ignored by virtually everyone or treated as a norm in these climes. It is the capture of state power by shadowy figures, a cabal if we like, who though, unelected, wield untrammelled powers but take absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the powers they exercise. This type of ‘invisible government’ as Kwame Nkrumah describes it, is a loose amorphous grouping of individuals, which in our polity dominated by ethnic politics, is usually coterminous with the leader’s kinsmen or those from his part of the country.

The explosive revelation by Mrs Buhari has put to rest the questions about the existence of such a powerful cabal around the president. The interview showed a clearly frustrated Mrs Buhari unhappy with the direction her husband’s presidency is taking. She conceded that “things are not going the way they should,” and that “nobody thought it’s going to be like this”. She went further to call into question the rationale for the existence and even the loyalty and motives of the cabal: “they don’t know our party manifesto, they don’t know what we campaigned for, they don’t have a mission, they don’t have a vision of our APC!” while declining to mention members of the cabal by name, she indicated that they are known to all within the country who read the papers.

Indeed, as the initial appointments of the president showed, virtually all members of this cabal are from just one section of the country. The president justified this by saying they are people who have been with him through “trying times”, and were being rewarded for their “dedication and suffering”. Again, he said they are people that will work closely with him. But even more unfortunate is the existence of a more powerful individual(s) who holds no formal office but wields perhaps even greater powers than the president himself. These buccaneers, it is claimed with good evidence, have completely walled the President and serve as “gate-keepers” between the president and the country so much so that even ministers cannot have access to the president except through this cabal.

Characteristically, the President sees nothing wrong with this as arrangement. He claimed “superior knowledge” over his wife and the political opposition and urged his wife not to interfere in politics but to go back to the kitchen, the living room and other room where she belongs.  This is vintage Buhari who accepts no criticism and correction!

Irrespective of the motive of Mrs Buhari, her outburst is a public service. She has irrefutably confirmed the suspicion of most informed Nigerians about the existence of such a powerful cabal around the president that wields enormous power without responsibility. It can be recalled that such cabal also held late President Yar’adua hostage and nearly plunged the nation into a serious political crisis by refusing to cede power and control even when the president was incapacitated. As a respected political economist and public commentator asserted recently, “nothing undermines democracy and good governance more than shadowy people who wield so much power but are unaccountable.” In saner climes, parliament, who constitutionally performs oversight functions on the executive, will publicly name and quiz such individuals and protect the Presidency from being hijacked. But how do we expect Nigeria’s two-chamber parliament to perform such functions when even the heads of these chambers are more engrossed in fights to retain their offices and will readily trade the independence and control of the parliament to the presidency just to retain their positions?

However, since our legislators have decided to abdicate their responsibility, the civil society and pressure groups can fill the vacuum by constantly and vociferously demanding for accountability from our elected leaders.