Introduction

Fifty years ago we were immensely proud of our country. Our leaders in those early years were men of true distinction fully able, like their great contemporaries Kenyatta, Luthuli, Nehru and Sukarno, to do battle against foreign rule. Nigerians were united, focused and vigilant. The economy was in good shape with its hard currency earnings from cocoa, groundnuts, palm produce and tin. In the educational upsurge of the 1940’s and 1950’s, there were already the beginnings of an all-round social transfiguration.

A Failed State
But Nigeria today is a failed state. The democratic experiment which started with independence in 1960 was cut short soon afterwards by a revolt of dissatisfied soldiers. And in more than thirty years of successive military seizures of the state, we lost our way. The civilian search for a shared public purpose was succeeded by a culture of vulgar assertion, institutional violence and the collapse of community values. The healing democratic dialogue between zones, states, and different ethnic groups ceased while tensions and hostilities mounted. A crisis of unfulfilled expectations was compounded by a crisis of rising underdevelopment. The economic infrastructure broke down.

Gradually unemployment entered every household even among the skilled and well qualified. The cities became slums of deprivation and crime. Robbers, beggars’ and lunatics crowded the streets. And today young Nigerians have nothing better to dream of than “to check out” to become night guards, street cleaners, drug mules and prostitutes in Italy and the United States.

Poor Leadership
It is generally agreed that the failure of the Nigerian state is primarily the result of a failure of leadership. The Balewa government of the First Republic gave up the objective of creating a national consensus after a couple of years. In doing so, it provoked the regional conflicts which led to the Westen1 crisis of 1965 and the civil war. The military government of General Yakubu Gowon had enough resources after the OPEC revolution to modernize the Nigeria economy. But it lacked both the vision and the savoir-faire to do so. Under successive military rulers, the Nigerian state failed to find a unity of purpose in which the supreme military command, the states, private business, financial institutions, the professions and local communities could work together on an agreed blueprint of national development.

Corruption in High Places
The failure of Nigerian leadership was not, however, just a matter of what it did not do. What it actually did was even more deplorable. The NPN government of the Second Republic was described by a team of the American scholars as a “prebendiary” regime. This is to say that that government was organized to provide unearned incomes for its leaders and their hangers on. Under the military, the same corrupt system was extended beyond those who held public office: cash “settlement” was given to agents, cronies, stooges and flatterers as well as to dangerous opponents. By the time of General Sani Abacha, moral degeneration had gone far beyond mere financial improprieties. The men in power were ready to imprison, mutilate or murder anyone who disputed the absoluteness of their right to indulge their lusts. The irony of the Nigerian situation was that leaders stole billions of dollars and became ship owners and international financiers while the nation over which they presided became bankrupt. The provocation under which the people lived was unbearable.

Beginning Again
Two years ago, we made a new democratic beginning. The Federal Government today is, in effect, a national government. General Abacha’s murder squads have been disgraced. The Justice Oputa Panel has tried to heal some of our wounds with bitter doses of the truth about how we were misgoverned. Elected men and women now exercise authority in all states and local government councils.

But nothing has really changed. Conflict and confusion in the political system have, in fact, increased. There are bitter disagreements about the Federal Constitution and about the constitutional limits in the power of the Presidency, the National Assembly, state assemblies and state governments: and these disputes are before the courts. In almost all organs of the governing party, there is disorder and fictionalization. All three registered political parties seem perilously close to a break-up. In every part of the country, there is deep frustration and a new tone of menace arising from perceived inequalities in the allocation of power and resources. Deregulation and privatization in the economy, a rapidly depreciating naira, a rising cost of living and the retrenchment of workers keep the relationship between government and the people permanently on the boil. Over the last two years, we have had in fact more trade disputes and violent strikes than we ever had before. Instead of finding new remedies to the problems facing the nation, we have apparently only aggravated the old problems.

A Covenant with the People
Surely we cannot go on in this way. Nigeria is potentially a very rich country. From petroleum, we earn more than $50 million a day. Our gas reserves, still to be fully explored, can produce even higher returns. Opportunities in agriculture and solid minerals still lie neglected. We can certainly change our situation. Nigerians have the creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit to compete effectively with anybody in the world. What holds us back are the lack of leadership, the mismanagement of men and resources, an uncreative response to the diversity of our communities and a lack of vision of what we can do in the world.

In the following manifesto, the ALL PROGRESSIVES GRAND ALLIANCE sets out its agenda for the reform of our leadership, politics, economy and civil society. We have no doubt at all that our country can be transformed. We offer this manifesto as a covenant between the All Progressives Grand Alliance and the people of Nigeria and as a binding oath of what we will do if the nation gives us its support.