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Adams Oshiomhole is that rare Nigerian political specimen who managed to climb from factory floor to labour presidency, state house, party chairmanship and the red chamber without the inconvenience of a published higher educational attainment. Self-taught, they say. One imagines him in some dimly lit corner of history, devouring political manuals by candlelight while the rest of his compatriots were busy collecting certificates that later proved about as useful as a raincoat in the Sahara.
In the grand theatre of Nigerian federalism, few performances are more impressive than watching a state government loudly applaud a Supreme Court judgment while simultaneously rewriting the script so the money still ends up in the same old pockets. Anambra’s Local Government Administration Law of 2024 is that performance, complete with standing ovation from the Governor’s Lodge and polite confusion from anyone who actually read the judgment.
It was 2008. The country was being asked to choose a president, and Clinton’s famous campaign advertisement presented the image of sleeping children, a ringing telephone in the White House and a question: Who do you want answering the phone?
The late Sam Mbakwe, first civilian governor of Imo State and a man whose impatience with mediocrity remains legendary, once declared that he would gladly invite the British back to rule Nigeria for another fifty years. Other politicians have echoed the sentiment over the decades, usually after another round of epileptic power, collapsed roads, or the discovery that the latest “transformation agenda” had transformed mainly the bank balances of its authors. The quip is usually delivered with a sigh, half-joke, half-confession: better the colonial taskmaster who at least kept the trains roughly on time than the indigenous ones who treat the national timetable as optional reading.
