On Friday, numerous stakeholders from the three tiers of Government, civil society, trade unions, the academia and the organised private sector participated in a validation meeting to consider and make their input into the draft report of the Second Peer Review of Nigeria. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was inaugurated on 9 March 2003 by African leaders within the context of their initiative – the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as an instrument for self-monitoring for good governance in all its ramifications. The APRM has, at its fulcrum, the deepening of democratic and development practices and covers four themes: Democracy and Good Political Governance, Economic Governance and Management, Corporate Governance and Socio-Economic Development.
The Report of the 2nd Peer Review of Nigeria was prepared in respect of Nigeria’s engagement following the base review carried out in 2008 and the National Plan of Action, which committed Nigeria to regular review reports of progress in implementation of the National Plan of Action. The process of conducting the Second Peer Review is anchored in a National Steering Committee (NSC) chaired by Senator Ken Nnamani, former Senate President. The NSC was established in 2013 for the purpose of conducting the review due to a Nigerian problem. The body that was to carry out the assignment was the National Council on APRM established in 2009 to oversee the implementation of the recommendations of the first review. Following our inauguration by Yayale Ahmed, then Secretary to the Government, we had elected Bamanga Tukur as our Chairman. He was then a civil society activist representing the African Business Round Table. By the time the Second Review came however, he was Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and the continental secretariat made it clear that they could not accept as legitimate a review conducted by the Chair of the country’s ruling party. What should have happened then was for Bamanga Tukur to resign, he did not. The second option was to remove him but the bureaucrats argued that you couldn’t remove the Chair of a ruling party. It was in that context that Anyim Pius Anyim as Focal Point and Secretary to Government created the National Steering Committee as a parallel body to conduct the review. Meanwhile, Bamanga Tukur was too busy fighting numerous intra-party battles to even ask why his Council was no longer meeting. It was not a neat solution but we as a nation often have problems doing the right thing, which would have been to tell Bamanga Tukur to resign his chairmanship.
The validation meeting for the report of the second review took place at the Yar’Adua Centre on Friday and in his welcome address, the Chairman of the National Steering Committee, Ken Nnamani was categorical in asserting that Nigeria has made significant progress in all aspects of governance in spite of the challenges and some emerging issues. In his goodwill message, the representative of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice C. C. Nwaeze referred to the APRM as a ground-breaking initiative for African development. He also added that separation of powers and independence of the judiciary is vital for consolidation of democracy. These comments might not be unconnected to the on-going conflict between the President and the National Assembly over the 4th Alteration of the Constitution in which the Supreme Court has intervened stopping the National Assembly from overriding the Presidential veto on the bill.
The Second Report sets out to institutionalize the APRM system and appraise progress in the implementation of the National Plan of Action. The Nigeria Country Review Report (CRR) of 2008 reviewed the political system and noted that there were the many flaws in Nigeria’s electoral process that needed to be addressed. Following the report of the Uwais Electoral Reform Committee and a number of constitutional and electoral law reforms and the reconstitution of the Electoral Commission, most of those flaws were addressed between 2010 and 2015. INEC was able to make considerable progress in improving the integrity of the 2011 and 2015 general elections. The report drew attention to the following innovations, which helped in preparing Nigeria to hold successful elections in 2015. The issuance of permanent voter cards to the electorate that enabled INEC to ensure that only genuine voters had access to polling stations. The use of the card reader that made it possible to ascertain that the voter presenting themselves are the real owners of the cards and also established the total number of accredited voters in each polling unit.
The use of technology made the voting process so transparent and credible that the outcome of the elections was clear to all. It was in this context that the successful general elections were able to produce the first alternation of power in Nigerian history. Following the elections, President Goodluck Jonathan called and congratulated his opponent for winning in a free and fair election and graciously wished him the best of luck. These elections have entered the annals of African history as an indication of the maturity and consolidation of Nigerian democracy.
On the issue of violent conflicts, the report highlighted the increase of various types of types of conflicts confronting Nigeria: They include the indigeneship/settler and other forms of communal conflicts, rural banditry and cattle rustling and the Boko Haram insurgency which have added to the Niger Delta conflicts highlighted in the 2008 First Review. Nigeria’s capacity to manage its internal conflicts has been undermined and moving forward, it is imperative that new and more effective approaches to managing conflicts must be developed.
The APRM Country Review Report of Nigeria described the country as having a paradox of extreme riches as well as mass poverty. In spite of the abundance of rich natural resources, the country’s over-reliance on its rich oil resource base has had an adverse effect on its economy, resulting in the neglect of other sectors, high levels of corruption and rent seeking, poverty, high unemployment rates, poor infrastructure, low growth rates, and widespread insecurity and crime. President Jonathan’s transformation agenda which is a 5-year development plan 2011-2015, focused on three key areas (a) strong, inclusive and non-inflationary growth; (b) employment generation and poverty alleviation; and (c) value re-orientation of the citizenry. While the plan looked good on paper, it has not succeeded in producing significant improvement. Indeed, corruption has worsened over the past five years.
The validation meeting emphasised that it is imperative that Nigeria consolidates its efforts towards: diversification of the economy to reduce the impact of external shocks, encourage private sector-led development, improve infrastructure to create a conducive environment for business development, reduce youth unemployment, right-size and transform the civil-service and combat corruption more decisively and aggressively. It is hoped that the in-coming administration would take up these challenges.
One positive element of the report is the recognition that Nigeria is now Africa’s largest economy. The rebasing of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in April 2014 to better reflect the structure of the economy saw it surge ahead of South Africa to become Africa’s largest economy with a reviewed GDP estimate of $454 billion in 2012 and $510 billion in 2013 (compared with $259 billion and $270 billion that were reported previously). The rebased data reveals a more diversified economy than previously thought. However, the rebasing also indicated that the Nigerian economy is transforming from an agrarian economy to a tertiary service economy, without going through the intermediate stage of industrialization. This atypical transition poses challenges for the sustainability and inclusiveness of economic growth.
The validation meeting focused on one of the challenges before the country, which is the collapse of the public educational system in a context in which the majority cannot afford access to expensive private education, which is of higher quality. There was extensive discussion on recommendations for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the educational sector such as developing effective mechanisms to ensure that all stakeholders participate more in developing, implementing and monitoring education policies and programmes; mobilizing religious and traditional leaders, among others, for sustained sensitization campaign to promote the access of women and girls education; developing an effective nationwide advocacy campaign to support and increase the number of ‘special schools’ for married girls and young mothers, and include a quality curriculum and crèches for these schools.
Finally, the validation meeting argued that as Nigeria engages in the transition from a ruling party to the opposition party taking over power, it’s imperative that that governance becomes more participatory and inclusive. Citizens’ must have ownership as an equal partner in the country’s governance processes. There is the need for the adoption of a clear model of citizen engagement. First, government must commit to providing information rather than propaganda to citizens. Secondly, government must develop the habit of genuine consultations with the people so that they know their real concerns. Finally, the views of citizens must be integrated into the policy formulation and implementation process. It is now the responsibility of the in-coming Buhari Administration to carry forward the process of the second review.
