IN the circumstance, from a situation where our governments at all levels were ran based on some commitment to national development targets, at least up to 1980, we descended to a situation where propaganda is the development target. Unfortunately, with the rise of oil revenue and government being the sole producer of oil, services as requirement for revenue generation became no longer valid for us in Nigeria. Coupled with a situation where sovereignty was anything but popular, mainly vested in the military command, oil revenue management under military governments became tailored to serve government functionaries, mainly military personnel or their appointees.

This was the reality that ushered in our democratic governance and it is a reality that has not change till today. All our governments have remained weak, deficient and blind to issues of services to citizens in varying degrees. Geometric rise in oil revenue has continued to serve as disincentives for governments to develop the needed capacity for service delivery. Thus the singular most important sector in Nigerian economy today is the oil sector. As a result, other sectors became neglected. Therefore, governance situation in the country has continued to regress and deteriorate from a situation where rulers are expected to serve citizens to a situation where citizens watch rulers serve themselves.

The sad reality is that we are not able to justify democratic governance or federalism with reference to any performance indicator whether with reference to federal or state governments. Our ‘progressive’ state governments have not so far produced any exception. Therefore, against the background of current APC merger negotiations, this needs to be highlighted so that our opposition political leaders are compelled to take some responsibilities and design a new governance template that can guarantee human development for Nigerian people.

There is no debate about the fact of our human development challenges. The question for our Nigerian opposition politicians is what is the response being presented to Nigerians? Should we expect such a response in the manifesto of APC? To what extent will it come with new forms of superior commitment by politicians who will be saddled with the responsibility of managing governments at federal and state levels? In any event, to what extent should Nigerians take it that there is a new consciousness among the leaders of our 11 state governments on account of the new progressive identity, expect that poverty and unemployment rates will be reduced?

These are necessary questions in order to focus Nigerian opposition politicians to issues of human development agenda. These are issues that border on service delivery aimed at enhancing the quality of citizens’ life. They border on the depth and scope of responsibilities of governments to citizens in the area of education, healthcare, social development, etc. Above all, they border on the extent to which Nigerians should expect APC to emerge as a comprehensively competent progressive party managing all its responsibilities and not just that of nominating candidates and conducting political campaigns.

To be objective would be to take our bearing from facts that are steering us in the face as Nigerians. Combinations of huge oil revenue, domineering control of Federal Government, absence of services to citizens and worsening living conditions has created widespread crisis situations in the country. It is a condition that is provoking all sorts of national anger and hatred in varying proportions. Our opposition political leaders need to primarily demonstrate a commitment to create a new framework for the country. Such a framework should be definitive and should not just be simply about condemnation.

A definitive framework should regulate processes of candidates’ selection for instance. APC must have a strategy of sorting and sifting candidates such that there should be strong correlation between candidates’ selection process and the party’s policy commitment. Is it possible to expect a paradigm shift whereby issues of performance, knowledge and experience govern the process of candidates’ selection at all levels? This is important given that it will mean that performance on current and past responsibilities, especially in terms of impact on human welfare issues will be considered. Such a strategy could generate positive competitive practices among our 11 governors aimed at enhancing service delivery. This will greatly eliminate circumstances whereby all candidates need is money and demonstration of loyalty to national leaders. Services resulting in citizens’ support would be the major consideration.

One of the conditions that may potentially assist in ensuring that APC is able to come with some strong commitments to human development agenda could be through the conscious acknowledgement by our 11 state governments that the human development content of our democracy is feeble and require a major boost, on account of which they can set themselves some human development targets and design common policies that would drive service delivery between now and 2015. Practically, this can be achieved without having to wait for the finalization of the APC merger negotiations.

With the organized role of the 11 APC governors so far, it can be correctly argued that in fact the APC governors are the most organized section of the Nigerian opposition politics. The APC merger negotiation is able to make substantial progress on account of the organized role of the state governors. Left in the hands of the leadership of the merging political parties, issues of leadership and potentially candidates’ selection criteria for 2015 would have created dispute situation. Is the organized role of the 11 state governors going to be limited to pushing ACN, ANPP, CPC and Okorocha-led APGA to merge into APC? Or will the organised role of the 11 state governors be strategically expanded to address human development challenges such that their performances between now and 2015 become the moral beacon for APC and more fundamentally a source of APC’s governance and leadership credentials?

Such a moral beacon can also provide qualifying benchmarks for interested serving PDP governors for instance. This would mean that all serving governors aspiring to join our new APC should meet some minimum human development targets. With aspirations to contest for political office being a major driving consideration and given the increasing levels of political insecurity in PDP, simple knowledge of such a qualifying benchmark may just be the needed incentives.

Interestingly, notwithstanding the role of state governments in the APC merger process today, public considerations about potential presidential candidate of APC predominantly ignore all our 11 state governors. Sparingly, Fashola and Adams get some mention, but even then as running mates. Could this be a reflection of poor human development ratings of our 11 state governments? Could the facts of high poverty and unemployment rates in our states be responsible for such poor ratings? If high poverty and unemployment rates are responsible, why should anyone be contemplating GEJ as candidate for 2015?

Certainly, human development issues are not the driving consideration. The main driving considerations are factors that have nothing to do with performance in anyway. It is purely aspiration driven based on individual calculations with virtually zero human development content. This will continue to be so unless there is an organized response. The absence of organized response will continue to erode and undermine capacity for democratic response to distortions and aberrations related to our federalism. Perhaps the facts of our 11 APC governors’ absence in the speculated list of potential presidential candidates for 2015 could be a reflection of the humility and personal loyalty to the leaders of the merging parties. In which case then, could our leaders of the merging parties be so insensitive as to overlook this reality and recklessly go out shopping for candidates from outside the merging parties? Could accomplishments bordering on human development delivery be the attractions?

Be that as it may, the APC merger negotiation needs to provide an effective response to our current human development challenges through reinvention of government’s service delivery functions, starting with the 11 states. The confidence of Nigerians will be strengthened given a positive human development scorecard that translate in lower poverty and unemployment indices arising from policy commitments. This is the needed foundation for service oriented democratic governance and production driven federalism.

Will the organised 11 state governments mainstream this as part of the strategic political engineering for APC? Or will they just continue with the culture of business as usual? This is an opportune moment. The ability of the governors to act with respect to issues of human development challenges facing Nigeria may be what is needed to give APC the progressive identity Nigerians are yearning for. Will the 11 organised governors write their names boldly in the progressive page of Nigerian history or will they simply write it in the common page? Will they place the country on the path of popular sovereignty or will they continue to undermine the power of Nigerians and promote monumental fraud, corruption and shoddy deals in the name of governance? Are they going to resolve our democratic imperfections, remove all distortions and aberrations associated with our federalism or will they continue with the unjust business of short changing Nigerians in the name of democracy and federalism?

• Concluded

• Lukman wrote this as an open memo to Nigerian opposition politicians.