Buhari on Institutional Reform

*NB: This section could have been spread into the four constituent parts as it is in the manifesto, but then these sections would have scored very poorly in all categories*

Awareness

This section of the manifesto is wide reaching in terms of the institutions that it tends to reform – the Judiciary; all Law Enforcement; all Regulatory Agencies, Government Bodies and Professional bodies created by law; and all democratic institutions. In regard to each of these institutions the plan does well to allude to the problems which are currently plaguing them. However, in a section labelled institutional reform it fails to explicitly talk about constitutional reform, the one set of reforms that would adequately encompass all the aforementioned.

Ambition

The plan reads as very ambitious in this section, it plans to review all of the judiciary, all law enforcement etc. Even if that is merely an academic or theoretical review of all these institutions it will be epic. This review will not only encompass the legal system and the police force but presumably it will include bodies such as INEC, EFCC and ICPC. Many of the described institutions are in such a decrepit state that it will be difficult to revitalize them to the levels described in the document, and it will be even more difficult to do these reforms concurrently.  Any possible change will come up against stiff opposition from those who have entrenched interests in the status quo and as such will require a tremendous amount of political capital and will.

Detail

There is much detail given about the goals of all the reforms and from this there is a fair amount of implicit detail given about the current state of affairs. However, there is no detail given about the process of reform, how it will be made consultative, how long will any consultation take place, who are the relevant stake holders that will be consulted, how many decisions will be made at the federal and how many at the state level. There are a number of logistic issues that will arise if the institutions are to be reformed supposedly while they are still carrying out their functions and these issues are not addressed.

My View

The current constitution of Nigeria was hastily put together in the transition to civilian rule in 1999. It largely rehashed previous constitutions and there was almost no consultative process in its creation and was passed by military decree (i.e. no referendum, not even a sitting of the house of assembly). Like it or not this constitution is flawed and much of the reason why the institutions of state do not work is because the constitution itself doesn’t work. What Buhari and the CPC is proposing here is constitutional change even though they do not want to call it that. They plan to ‘review and reform’ almost every institution that is created by the constitution, when the more sensible approach would be to ‘review and reform’ the whole constitution. If we are going to start ‘reviewing and reforming’ the constitution, why not just start again from scratch with a real consultative process and a referendum for Nigerians to decide the social contract under which they plan to live?

I like the intent of this section, but I would have liked for it to have been bolder and come out and said what a lot of people are thinking.

Scores (Out of 5)

Awareness: 4.0

Ambition: 4.25

Detail: 2.25

My View: 3.75

Ribadu on Corruption

Awareness
We have to take it as a given that he is aware of the nature, causes and implication of corruption in Nigeria due to his previous role. However, the manifesto doesn't detail the nature or indeed the scale of corruption in Nigeria and perhaps this is needed. Ho does do well to show that corruption in the private sector is also important and that corruption in general is bad for democracy.

Ambition
Perhaps due to his previous role, expectations were raised as to how he was going to fight corruption. There is no new initiative, no new hardline, no new taskforce. Instead what he is suggesting is that the system as a whole is made to work properly. However, given the current state that the three branches of the state -legislative, executive and judiciary - are in , restoring them to the right level of accountability is in itself ambitious. Also increased regulation of private markets is a controversial topic all over the world and so any move to do so will also be ambitious.

Detail
The plan for fighting corruption seems to be to strengthen the existing counter-corruption institutions, but no solid details on how this will be done are given. Will it be through increased funding, increased powers or consolidation of agencies. There is mention of regular training for legislature and judiciary and there is mention of citizen empowerment but again there fails to be any concrete policy plans to back this up.

My view
This section of the plan disappointed me. I thought the man who was the infamous anti-corruption tsar would come out with a detailed and forceful plan bursting with new policies and initiatives on how to fight corruption in all its guises. There is no mention of simple initiatives like digitalizing government accounts (moving away from cash) or like sterner punishments for officials who mis-declare their wealth (or at least some punishment). Something, anything for people to hold on to and say under this candidate things might actually change and this wasn't forthcoming. Even the rhetoric is tame and maybe this was deliberately done so as not to alienate him from the political class. But all in all on every front the section on corruption and governance left a lot to be desired.

Scores (Out of 5)
Awareness: 2.5
Ambition: 2.75
Detail: 1.0
My View: 1.0