Bane refers to anything that is a cause of distress, harm, ruin, annoyance, or death. Fourth republic is really making people annoyed and distressed because it has brought a lot of ruin, pain, and death. Our naira, security, energy, agriculture, and international respect are ruined. Indeed our economic, political, and social life are ruined. As I write, it’s sad enough that a President of Nigeria, the poverty capital of the world, spent N150,000,000,000.00 (one hundred and fifty billion naira) to buy a presidential jet, while people are dying of hunger, it’s annoying that the presidential jets were seized in foreign countries owing to a breach of agreement between Ogun State and a foreign Chinese company – Zhongshang Fucheng Industrial Investment Ltd.
Fourth republic denotes that we have had failed three republics earlier than now. Republic means people oriented. They failed because of certain features which are still prevalent in our midst today. The first republic failed due to failure of the Tafawa Balewa administration to organise free, fair, credible elections particularly in the South-West of the Country which led to uncontrollable violence that instigated the military coup. It must be pointed out that the coup plotters also accused the regime of being corrupt having been collecting 10% bribe from government contractors. Second republic, under Shagari, failed also for exactly same reasons. Violence from the South-West owing to rigged elections and corruption of the politicians. The third republic was still born as President Ibrahim Babangida cancelled the June 12 presidential election won by MKO Abiola from the South-West of Nigeria for no reason whatsoever in a naked display of despotism, dictatorship, and autocracy. The dictatorship continued during Abacha’s regime as the strategy needed to sustain the annulment of June 12. The winner was arrested for declaring himself President and detained until he died during General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s regime, after the mysterious death of General Abacha.
These ugly incidents scared honest men and technocrats from politics. When Abdulsalami took over power and promised to return power to the people through a democratically elected government, many Nigerians believed him not. The election that would have brought the third republic to existence was postponed three times, from 1990 to 1992 to 1993, yet it ended nowhere. By this time three crops of people have emerged. The first were the dictators, represented by the military class which included Abdulsalami, and all the other former military heads of state alive with their military subordinates and surrogates. This class has a lot of impatience and disdain for democratic principles and process. They are used to the unitary command structure where they prefer issuing orders that must be obeyed. They didn’t have the legislature while in office because they made the laws, and they were the sole appointors of judges. Invariably, a military dictator is the head of the executive, the head of the legislature, and the head of the judiciary. There’s no separation of power and only one person is in charge.
The second class of the people are the civilian contractors of the military regime. The military dictators use them to siphon government money in inflated and fake contracts. The contractors are used by the military to steal crude oil, and the money channelled into their accounts. Most military defence contracts went to them. At the commencement of the privatisation programme in Nigeria during the military era, some of the military dictators use these their civilian collaborators to siphon the licences of the sectors and sell some of the companies cheaply to themselves.
The third class of the people are dubious criminals who operated with the tacit approval and connivance of the military juntas of those days. This class accommodated 419 criminals and drug peddlers. When the corruption of the military regime started affecting the economy, the military started allowing Nigerians dabble into 419. This crime was believed to affect foreign entities who were enticed by the Nigerian 419 criminals with money they want to transfer into their foreign accounts but will expect them to pay some amount in tax to facilitate the transfer. When the so called tax is paid, the 419 people vanished with the money. The 419 syndicate soon built departments in all the government agencies with the effect that when the foreign victims made any inquiry from the official agencies of the government, they got approval that the transaction was genuine, leading to their parting with their money which will be shared by all the syndicate members. Some of the foreign victims were even conveyed with dignified official government vehicles with full compliments of security details whenever they were invited to Nigeria to convince them that they were dealing with genuine officials of government which made them get back to their countries and start remitting all their money to the 419 syndicates back in Nigeria. This corrupted our civil service, and this was what the fourth republic inherited. Drug peddling was a criminal venture that was supported by the military to build their financial war chest. It was believed that Dele Giwa, the famous journalist, was killed with letter bomb for daring to want to expose some powerful military men connected with drug peddling. Our youths were throughly corrupted with drug peddling habits.
Basically, the foundation of the fourth republic was dictatorship, corruption, and criminality inherited from the military regime. Unfortunately, Abdulsalami Abubakar’s regime organised the election to bring Obasanjo to power who was one of the dictators but was not part of the corrupt and drug peddling gang because he had left office as military Head of State before the 15-year military stint in politics after the fall of the second republic led by Shehu Shagari. Ceding the presidency to the South-West was to calm the frayed nerves that resulted from the annulment of June 12 election. The dictators released Obasanjo from Abacha’s prison, pardoned him, and persuaded him to run for the presidency with an assurance of victory and they delivered. He was sworn in as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces on May 29, 1999.
The return of democracy to Nigeria in 1999 raised high hopes for the restoration of the dignity of Nigerians and the black race. Obasanjo had gained international reputation as a military leader that voluntarily handed over power to a democratically elected President in October 1, 1979. He used his international stature to improve the economy of Nigeria by saving up foreign exchange received from increased sales in our crude oil and using the increased revenue to negotiate debt forgiveness from our international creditors. He paid them $12b (Twelve billion dollars) and got a forgiveness of $18b (Eighteen billion dollars). This strengthened our naira and gave the much needed macro economic stability.
Obasanjo performed below average in every other venture he undertook in his regime. Electricity continued to be epileptic despite the huge unprofitable investment he ill-advisedly made in that field. He failed to repair our four refineries and ended up wasting much foreign exchange in paying avoidable oil subsidies throughout his regime. He ended up wanting to have a third term for his regime which was roundly defeated and he fled back to Ota, after being alleged of bribing the National Assembly members with N50m and N70m for the House of Representatives and Senate respectively to approve the third term agenda. He failed to work well with the National Assembly or his party leadership because they were not giving him the obeisance which he was used to as a military leader. His government ended up changing the leadership of the Senate and his Party about five times within eight years of his two-term presidency. His worst performance was in organising sham elections in 2003 and 2007 that warranted his successor, President Yar Adua repudiating the election as flawed. Eventually, Obasanjo destroyed the democratic basis of the fourth republic with fraudulent elections and couldn’t ameliorate the triple evil of dictatorship, corruption and criminality.
Yar’Adua tried to build the fourth republic on solid democratic foundation with electoral reforms but he died about two years and half into power. Goodluck Jonathan couldn’t perform very well because he was seen as usurping the position that was supposed to be for the Northerners after the death of Yar’Adua as every sector was entitled to have the power for eight years. He spent most of his administration trying to pacify people from Yar’Adua’s place to remain in power. After his first term in office, his own party, PDP, conspired against him and sold out to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015.
APC came in with only two agenda, search for power and money based on the triple evil of dictatorship, corruption, and criminality already established as the foundation of the fourth republic. They added to the perfidy in propagating the odious principle of emilokan which brandished the highest level of selfishness, nepotism and clanishness. Buhari came in with the appointment of his own section of the people to manage the country and failed woefully. Tinubu took over and placed his family and cronies above the country, and has already failed woefully. With his cronies in charge of the National Assembly, and being the appointor of the judges, Tinubu now controls the executive, legislature, and the judiciary, resulting in full blown dictatorship. The bane of the fourth republic is hunting and haunting the country and if nothing is urgently done may destroy or at least disfigure the country. We must go back to free, fair elections, reasonable fuel price, availability of electricity at reasonable price, making of appointments that reflect the federal character, fighting corruption, ensuring security, assisting agricultural revolution. Nigerians are not asking for free launch, they are simply asking for fair prices and they deserve them. We may not be able to change the past, but we can build a new foundation and choose a different future.