Prebendalism: Tinubu is ‘governing’ for the few, not the many! By Olu Fasan

Nigeria has never had a president like Bola Ahmed Tinubu. For the first time in its recent political history, Nigeria has a president whose standards of political morality can be described as utterly amoral in the sense that he subscribes to the cynical saying, attributed to Vladimir Lenin, that “there are no morals in politics.” Indeed, recently, Tinubu described politics as a “game”. And because he sees politics as a game, his approach to it is purely game-theoretic, self-interested, calculative; in other words, wholly devoid of virtuousness and a moral anchor.  

That’s why he is turning Nigeria into an electoral autocracy by luring virtually every opposition state governor into his party ahead of next year’s presidential election to present the camouflage image of invincibility. That’s why he hastily signed into law a deeply controversial electoral bill that distorts the level-playing field and casts a shadow over the transparency and credibility of next year’s presidential poll. And that’s why, since he became president, he has perfected the prebendal practice of doling out public offices as rewards and patronages to party loyalists, cronies, political jobbers, ethnic affiliates and other clients, always prioritising personal fealty over integrity. 

As someone who has devoted considerable time and effort to thinking and writing about Nigeria, I am compelled to address this issue because a nation without a soul, without a moral compass, has a bleak future. As a person has a soul, so does a city, says Plato in the Republic. Thus, just as a bad soul makes a bad person, a bad soul makes a bad nation, resulting in bad governance and a nation adrift. Sadly, Nigeria lacks a healthy soul, lacks a sense of right and wrong, lacks a value system. For Plato, it should be a leader’s aim to instil virtue into his city; “a painter working on the canvas of his citizens’ characters.” But to do this, a leader must lead by example through values-based narratives and actions. However, if a leader is amoral, agnostic about moral issues and believes that anyone, just anyone, is fit for public office regardless of their pedigree, then, he won’t only fail to instil virtue in his citizens, he would also fuel decadent influences in the general culture of his nation.

But every nation needs social guardrails. As the American sociologist Marcus Felson points out, a society is more prone to be virtuous where there are credible pillars of integrity, such as religious leaders, traditional rulers and elder statesmen, that can act as the conscience of a nation and shape its moral fabric. But where are the credible pillars of integrity in Nigeria? Sadly, they are far and few between. The allure of proximity to the corridors of power is too strong and irresistible for most of Nigeria’s traditional rulers, religious leaders and elder statesmen. Hence, they ingratiate themselves with any incumbent president, any government in power, rather than speak truth to power. 

The Bible says: “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil” (Isaiah 5.20). But in Nigeria, most of those who should be pillars of integrity and conscience of the nation call evil good, and good evil! Frequently, religious leaders, traditional rulers, former heads of state and other prominent Nigerians flock to Aso Rock and proclaim from the rooftops that President Tinubu is doing a great job, that he is a godsend to Nigeria, that he’s the country’s saviour. They conveniently ignore the abject absence of security, stability and social harmony in Nigeria, and the deepening poverty and inequality.

Of course, Tinubu understands the Nigerian psychology. He knows that Nigerians are deeply self-interested; that virtually everyone has a price point, a point at which they can be compromised and coopted into anything. It was precisely that price point that made Bala Mohammed, governor of Bauchi state, to abandon his dogged fight to stay in the PDP and, as reported, decide to join the ruling party, APC. The logic is simple: if you can’t beat them, join them; furthermore, whatever your sins, even allegations of grand corruption by the EFCC, they will be forgiven and forgotten once you join the APC. The same triumph of self-interest over the public good underpinned the defections of other PDP governors who have joined the APC. So, without a doubt, President Tinubu is Nigeria’s political grandmaster, he’s Nigeria’s Supreme Leader. Except that, unlike the Ayatollah, the traditional supreme leader, Tinubu is not keen on providing values-driven moral leadership.  

Take his appointments to public offices. With just 36.6 per cent of the popular vote in the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu’s mandate was clearly not to govern with arrogance as if he won with a landslide victory. Rather, he was expected to show humility and bring some of the best and the brightest Nigerians across the country into his government. But, alas, Tinubu’s cabinet and government were drawn from a narrow pool of people with whom he shared party, personal and ethnic affinities. Of Tinubu’s appointees to date, at least 95 per cent fall into those three categories. Some say he was only motivated by competence, but in a country endowed with great human talent, only a strange president would find competence only within his ethnic group, among his party’s political deadwood and hirelings and from his longstanding associates and cronies. 

But a key test of leadership is judgement. Surely, the recent international embarrassment inflicted on Nigeria by Daniel Bwala is another evidence of the poor judgement and moral vacuity demonstrated by Tinubu in most of his appointments. Here was someone who launched vicious personalised attacks on Tinubu during the 2023 presidential election but just because he later ate his words and showed “loyalty” was brought into government as the president’s Special Adviser on Policy Communication. However, recently, when challenged by Mehdi Hassan on his Al Jazeera’s “Head to Head” programme, Bwala dissembled, indulged in bare-faced casuistry and thoroughly embarrassed his principal and Nigeria. What qualified such a political jobber as a presidential aide, paid from the public purse?

Yet even worse are Tinubu’s appointees as Nigerian ambassadors. Most of the appointments are utterly embarrassing and betray a gross insult on the intelligence of Nigerians and a total belittling of Nigeria. I challenge anyone to watch videos of Reno Omokri’s diatribe and incendiary comments against Tinubu before the 2023 president election and be unoffended that President Tinubu even considered it appropriate to appoint Omokri as an ambassador let alone send him to an important country like Mexico. What about Femi Fani-Kayode? Is there anyone who knows anything about diplomacy who really thinks he is an ambassadorial material, and should be Nigeria’s ambassador to Germany? Too many people with questionable pedigree and characters were designated as Nigerian ambassadors to important countries and international bodies. President Tinubu certainly does not care about the reputational risks those appointments pose to Nigeria. Why? Well, because being a prebendal president, he sees the diplomatic appointments, just as the political ones, as rewards for personal fealty, thereby dispensing state resources to a small group of favoured individuals. 

The utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill has at its core “the greatest good for the greatest number of people”. But not for Tinubu, a self-professed “progressive”. Under his government, the politically connected rich are extremely richer through state patronage, the poor are extremely poorer through state neglect. Nigeria has become deeply entrenched as an extractive state, where wealth is concentrated in few hands. Tinubu’s fellow feeling with the crony billionaires he is further enriching is not shared with the public. With politics and the economy so devoid of morality and captured by patronage networks, it is clear who Tinubu is governing for: the few, not the many!  

*Dr Fasan is the author of ‘In The National Interest: The Road to Nigeria’s Political, Economic and Social Transformation’, available at RovingHeights bookstores.

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