Comment
Avoid The 'Yes-Men'
Everybody is trying to outdo somebody else in sounding a greater supporter. For a group that has proclaimed that it was moved to act because the former leadership would not listen, there is a definite obligation to listen.
But then there are only 24 hours in any day and time is not on the side of General Babangida and his colleagues. and to be able to make any impact at all on the problems that face them they will have to be selective in who they listen to.
All the messages of unflinching support, they need not spend much time on, indeed there is every reason to be very wary of those who are overly loud in announcing their support and as for the praise singers there should be no time for them.
Those who come offering advice and at the end mention ever so casually a 'small favour' that they need ought to be avoided. And those who only discovered that there was tyranny and oppression after Buhari, Idiagbon and Rafindadi had been removed do not deserve to be listened to.
It is even more important that the new rulers do not also become captive to a fresh set of interest groups who will arrive to moan about how they suffered under the old dispensation. There is no point in alienating a new group of people. Should that happen, one set of oppressors would only have been replaced with another and Gen. Babangida would have betrayed the hopes that he has raised in millions of Nigerians.
In trying to ensure fairness and to respect the human rights of his fellow citizens, Gen. Babangida will soon discover that he will be facing his greatest challenges.
He will be told by those who claim to know that 'security’ should receive the greatest attention and the survival instinct in every human being and the responsibilities and fears of being a target will make him listen. The security people will then proceed to play on those instincts to raise the spectre of imaginary enemies.
There are always those in any society who want to create chaos and every society has a right to defend itself against such people. The difficulty lies in striking a humane balance between the needs of state security and the freedom and liberties of the individual. The easier and cowardly way is to run a police state and completely closed society where informants and security goons reign supreme. It is not only citizenry that is intimidated, invariably the head himself becomes a prisoner to the security.
Luckily, Gen. Babangida has already repudiated this method and it will not hurt to always remember that those who have nothing to hide are well able to dispense with unnecessary "security protection". And as has been proved over and over again, the best security for an African government is an open and clean government.
There is another group of people whose advice Gen. Babangida will have to seek and it is heartening that he already appears to have a clear perspective of whatever advice will be offered to him.
Speaking to a group of senior civil servants in Lagos, Gen. Babangida said among other things, "in all cases, the civil service has been responsible for giving government the professional advice and for implementing the decision of government. The service cannot, therefore, dissociate itself entirely from the success and failures of government." Thus when the bureaucrats are loud in condemning Buhari and generous in their welcome of the new administration, it should never be forgotten that not many of them ever considered it important to take a stand against what was going on.
It is in the institutions and services that should support government that Nigeria and other African countries have been ill-served. There are, for example, bureaucrats who are paid to ensure that people pay their taxes, others who are paid to ensure that contracts are only given to the most competent contenders and others who are supposed to earn their living by ensuring the proper allocation of facilities.
The police and security agencies are all supposed to operate within laid down rules and regulations and Gen. Babangida will be well-advised to insist that these bureaucrats do not escape their obligations by blaming their non-performance or corner cutting on "the old regime".
Too many civil servants and public officers are willing to avoid their responsibilities and explain their failings off later on with claims of impotence in the face of political power. There should be no place for 'yes-men' and a fair share of the blame for what went wrong ought to be placed on those who either kept quiet or actively collaborated.
But then for people in a hurry, what went wrong should not detain them unduly, only long enough as to identify the causes and prevent their future recurrence.
Gen. Buhari appeared convinced that "accountability was a concept that applied only to those who have fallen out of power, and even within this narrowest of interpretations, his determination to conduct the investigations and trials of former politicians in secret meant that people were never convinced that justice was being done
Again, the security services in trying to broaden their sphere of influence will argue for secrecy, but it is in the interest of the government and the country as a whole that these matters are conducted in public, that people know their accusers and are tried in the open and have an opportunity to defend themselves.
But more important, the people should be shown that their current rulers are also accountable to them. They deserve to know which import licences have been issued and who the beneficiaries are; it protects the authorities from accusations of partisanship and corruption; it also ensures that those who receive the licences use them judiciously.
Those who are arrested ought to be told quickly what their offences are and the liberty of the individual should be tempered with the greatest caution.
In much the same way as an atmosphere of repression stiffles discussion and growth, freedom has a dynamism all of its own which will generate growth.
The release of the detainees is particularly welcome and it is hoped that the window of goodwill that is necessary is taken up by the regime
