Daily Independent Online.
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Tuesday, August 10, 2004.
Jakande: Between good governance and dirty politics
By Bolaji Adepegba
Senior
Correspondent, Lagos
The Deputy
Governor of Lagos State, Femi Pedro, counted it all joy that his boss, Bola
Ahmed Tinubu, was out of town on Thursday, 22, July, when “Legacies of
Leadership” a biography of the first executive governor of Lagos State,
Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande was launched.
His reason, he
confessed, was that the presence of the governor would have, without ado, meant
his own absence from an event that he would have hated to miss. Tinubu was the
chief host of the book launch, organised to mark the 75th birthday of Jakande.
“We need to
invite the whole of Lagos to celebrate LKJ’s life. I have the
governor’s message here but I will also take full advantage of my
presence to pay homage to the great man who has attained the age of 75,”
Pedro said.
He therefore used
the opportunity to change an age-long appellation of Baba kekere (the younger
father), as Jakande used to be called in the days of Chief Obafemi Awolowo
whose right-hand-man he was, to Baba Agba (the patriarch), before proceeding to
deliver his principal’s message to the jam-packed hall.
A quick glance at
the high table of the event revealed to an onlooker that the social and
political paradigms that Jakande epitomized contrasted sharply with the
realities surrounding the lives of all the dignitaries present to pay homage to
him. Yet, the one who was being feted was the most sparsely dressed at the
occasion. But the metaphor of the life of Alhaji Jakande, as the last-man-standing,
literally speaking, of the Second Republic governors of the Unity Party of
Nigeria (UPN), which compares fittingly with the position of the state he
administered, Lagos, as the only Alliance for Democracy (AD) state, standing as
AD after the April 2003 general elections, gave speakers the opportunity to
compare the Second Republic with the current dispensation.
Tinubu would not
be outdone. Here him: “The point must be made that the achievement of the
UPN governors in the Second Republic were recorded despite the fact that the
country’s federal system had by then been badly distorted. In the First
Republic, the country operated a genuine federal structure. True federalism was
in practice. The regions retained a considerable bulk of the resources derived
from their area, thus enabling them to achieve rapid development. By the Second
Republic, things had changed considerably. The over centralization of the
Nigerian polity had reached an advanced stage.
“The
situation worsened further when the governors of the Alliance for Democracy
(AD) assumed office in 1999. The polity was even more centralised. The share of
revenue accruing to the states had shrunk even more while that of the federal
government increased considerably. Yet the burden of development at the
grassroots continues to rest largely on the states. In spite of this AD, strove
hard to continue to maintain the welfarist legacy traditionally associated with
the South West. But the truth is that the current political structure in
Nigeria is a veritable roadblock on the path of progress.”
This summation
was visible in the testimony of Chief Ebenezer Babatope, who proposed the toast
of the patriarch at the launch as a great administrator by quoting copiously
from the speech of Jakande, the
administrator on assumption of office on October 1st 1979.
The speech goes
in part: “We shall model our government after the government of the
Western Region of Nigeria from 1952 to 1959 headed by Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
That government was the most efficient, the most dynamic and the most
responsive of all governments of the federation.
“That
government was the country’s pace setter, the first to do all good things
that others copied. There has never been a government like it in Africa before
or since. And we know that in giving us their massive votes, the good people of
Lagos state were influenced by their memories of the good old days of Awolowo
government. We shall live up to their high expectations as Chief Awolowo is
still very much around…”
And Jakande
delivered. In fact Babatope reminded the audience that when the coupists of
1983 under the leadership of Muhammadu Buhari, who contested the presidency
with President Olusegun Obasanjo on the platform of the All Nigerian Peoples
Party came to arrest Jakande, they found him at 4.a.m in his study, working on
government papers.
Interestingly,
the chairman of the launch, Chief Tunde Fanimokun was an aide to Jakande when
he was governor. In his inside-knowledge-based testimony of the former
governor, he gave accounts of the challenges that he faced as governor of a
state, whose party did not hold power at the centre. He reminded the public
how, like Tinubu, Jakande as the then landlord of the federal government of the
defunct National Party of Nigeria created 23 local government councils from the
original eight and was frustrated through court cases by his detractors. He
said that Jakande unfazed by the politicking still achieved his development
goals, using the blocked councils as area offices. He used the opportunity to praise
the creation of 57 new local governments, which is still a bone of contention
between Lagos and the Federal Government.
He bore testimony
to the opening up of the Lekki Peninsular and some part of Victoria Island,
which turned out to become a great source of income to the Lagos State
government under Jakande. He spoke glowingly about the unassuming way Jakande
arrived at making money through the policy of lump sum allocation of land in
Lagos and the committee the former governor set up to open up the peninsular.
“We constructed the Lagos-Epe road without borrowing a kobo”, he
said.
Fanimokun who
said that the author of “Legacies of Leadership” had beaten him to
a book on Jakandeism of which he was the first disciple spoke with admiration
of the simple lifestyle of Jakande, which the latter did not allow to interfere
with the lofty goals of his administration, resulting in innumerable
achievements.
Chief Achike
Udenwa, the governor of Imo state, in a message he sent to the book launch
through his Commissioner for Public Utilities, Noel Agwuocha-Chukwukadibia also
testified.to this spartan way of life: “I recollect with nostalgia and a
good sense of humour how Alhaji operated from his personal residence and was
driven in his personal Toyota Crown vehicle all through the period he was an
executive governor. What mattered to Alhaji Jakande was service delivery and
conscious effort to civilize the polity through a deliberate policy of
socialization and provision of infrastructural facilities. These efforts opened
the eyes of discerning members of the society to the merits inherent in the
practice of democracy,” he said.
Service delivery,
civilized polity and merits of democracy: the conflicts among these values
associated by Udenwa to Jakande, unfortunately came to define the perception of
a section of the society of the former governor. Jakande the politician became
an apostle of a political tradition that takes no prisoners as far as dissent
in ideologies or mere thought pattern is concerned. But he became its victim.
And this was
visible at the book launch. Conspicuously absent at the occasion were all the
avowed Awolowo disciples especially of the Afenifere stock with whom Jakande
had fallen out as a result of his participation in the government of the late General
Sani Abacha after the annulment of the June 12 1993 election and the
incarceration of the winner, Bashorun Moshood Abiola.
While the Abacha
junta was shopping for relevance during a period in the country’s history
that was full of uncertainties, leaders of thought of the South West were ready
target for either appeasement or attack. Jakande joined the Abacha government
and a crack went through the Awo political machine, which had been readily
offered to Abiola to use for the struggle against the annulment.
The popular
consensus was that the Abacha government should be shunned but a voice of
dissent, which Jakande and Babatope, the former national director of
organisation of the UPN represented by joining the government, was rather too
loud for the South West establishment. And Jakande was roundly criticised.
But Tinubu told
him in his tribute: “Even those who disagree with your politics
particularly after the June 12 1993, must still agree that you are a man of
your conviction. You have the courage to abide by your belief even if it is not
popular view.”
But
Jakande’s politics, as attested to by Babatope, was not allowed to
becloud his sense of mission as an administrator.
“When
Alhaji Lateef Kayode Jakande was appointed the Federal Minister of Works in the
first cabinet of the late General Sani Abacha administration, he immediately
became the cynosure of all eyes in that government. He headed the Finance and
Economic Committee of the government that in five months balanced the budget of
the government - a situation that had nearly crippled Nigeria in previous
administrations,” Babatope said, adding: “Let me say it here and in
all humility that we of the Awo political family led by Alhaji Jakande left
that government without infringing on the Awo teachings of what a politician
must do while serving the people.”
Among the
teachings, Babatope said, was: “Do not enjoy in government what you
cannot provide for yourself in your private life.”
Long after the
Abacha experience, the politics of Jakande is still being held against him by
his former colleagues of the Action Group (AG) who prefer to look the other way
from the feats he performed as a deliverer of good governance. The same
sentiment prevailed when the late Chief Bola Ige joined the government of
President Obasanjo before he was assassinated. Putting the cart of party
affiliation before the horse of good governance has remained the bane of the
current republic. A government like the one in power today would have gained a
lot from the experience of the likes of Jakande. But again, he belongs to the
wrong party. That, unfortunately is the bane of the brand of democracy that we
have foisted on ourselves.
