Few hours back, one of Nigeria’s most incompetent and dictatorial civilian presidents who is the immediate past president, retired Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, made some incoherent statements regarding how complex governing Nigeria is and although his ramblings were vexatious and incoherent, there is however a scenario that could be deciphered from those illogical statements.

Buhari, who was in the mid-1980’s a military dictator, said Nigeria was a difficult country to govern because of its complexities, and tasked the leaders on transparency and accountability.

The former president said most Nigerians were unaware of the administrative challenges involved in governing the country, but simply blamed their leaders during and after their tenures.

Buhari said, in Hausa, “Nigeria is a difficult country to govern, but most Nigerians are unaware. Until you find yourself in the administrative position of the country, if not, you will not understand the complexities.

“I look much better and healthier now than when I was the president of the country. Anybody that sees me now acknowledges that I look better than before.”

He explained that he did not corruptly enrich himself with the country’s wealth during his eight years as president.

Buhari, who was visibly excited, added that nobody could blackmail him for illicit enrichment while in office.

He disclosed that he had only three houses in his native Daura, Katsina State, and Kaduna State.

He said, “After my eight years as a civil president, I have only three houses; one in Daura and two in Kaduna. I have given one out for renting where I get money for feeding.”

Buhari urged Nigerian leaders to adopt transparency and accountability as guiding principles while in office.

In Buhari’s illogical and incoherent ramblings emerged a scenario which merits extensive research by political scientists because of its uniqueness and peculiarity to our genre of politics in Nigeria.

The scenario is that in Nigeria,  politics and politicians have made very simple things to appear too complex so much so that you would wonder why this is so.

It is only in Nigeria that motor park touts with no known academic credentials nor any implementable blueprints for Nigeria, can be railroaded to the prestigious positions of federal legislators or governors.

Nigeria is the only country in the modern era, in which politicking is a multi billion enterprise that is conducted without adherence to any known laws or ethics just as the claim of a practice of constitutional democracy is just a ruse and comical at best.

This is because, in Nigeria, the institutions put in place to safeguard sanity and accountability in politics, have all been manipulated and made dysfunctional. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are staffed by some Nigerians whose core values are simply to line their pockets with filthy lucre. Most of the National Commissioners appointed by a deeply partisan president, are individuals already tasked with fixing some predetermined persons into political offices. By this distortion of the electoral system, the country’s politics become very toxic and dirty and the contestation for political power is therefore reduced into a mini war by different mafia groups angling for political privileges and state capture.

Besides, Nigeria has been reduced to a playground of political drama in which what matters most, are not actually what politicians are working to achieve. What I mean is this, all over the World, the responsibility of government first and foremost, is to institutionalise respect for the rule of law, the operationalization of laws that regulate the conduct of government business in such ways as not to allow for corruption.

Government do exists to promote and protect the human rights of citizens and to adequately protect the sovereign territory of the nation state.

Put differently,  Government exists to ensure that there are legal frameworks that promote principles of transparency and accountability. Government do exists to promote equality of rights of all citizens,  equity, and equitable redistribution of national wealth to create happiness for the largest percentage of the citizens and shouldn’t become a business by cabals or mafia gangs. The hallmark of constitutional democracy is the promulgation of practices and laws that safeguards good governance.

Those who know, have told us that governance is a concept that has been around for years and is commonly used by many people. There is almost no consensus on the official definition of governance because its use often depends on the intended purpose, the people involved, and the socio-political environment of the term.

According to the United Nations (UN), governance refers to the activities of all political and administrative authorities to govern their country. Meanwhile, as stated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), governance is a concept in which a country is managed, including economic, policy, and legal aspects.

Thus, in general, governance has the meaning: the decision-making process and the process of determining which policies will be implemented and not implemented.

 Defining good governance

In the 1990s, the World Bank became the first international institution to adopt the concept of good governance into lending arrangements for developing countries and introduce the idea to the general public. In its 1992 report entitled “Governance and Development”, the notion of good governance was written as the way in which power is used to regulate the economic and social resources of a country for development.

Now, the term good governance has often been used by national and international organisations. Good governance aims to minimise corruption, take into account the opinions of minorities, listen to the voices of the oppressed people in the decision-making process, and respond actively to the needs of the community now and in the future. When politics are guided by the principles underpinning good governance such as transparency,  accountability, zero-tolerance to corruption and obedience to the rule of law, then governance would not be so complex as wrongly stated by the immediate past president.

Buhari says governance is a complex engagement.  But he lied. Governance can only be complex if the right steps are not followed and if the politicians cut corners to obtain political offices. Governance is not complex but those who are not qualified in the first instance to be in politics, have emerged as today’s political leaders.  This is why many scholars think that Plato’s Republic in which he canvassed government by philosopher kings make a whole lot of meaning in today’s badly governed Nigeria. I will return towards the conclusion to explain what Plato said. But permit me to categorically state that governing Nigeria is not complex but unprincipled politicians holding Nigerian state hostage, have made simple things to look so complex which is the school of thought of the former president Muhammadu Buhari. Governing Nigeria was complex to Buhari because he lacked any form of profound knowledge of the socio-economic dynamics of Nigeria.

This is why a person of Muhammadu Buhari’s pedigree with no definitive developmental blueprints for the entirety of Nigeria, was aided by a corrupt electoral system to emerge as the elected president in the year 2015 even after he was one of the military dictators that violated the constitution of Nigeria by seizing political power making use of the barrels of the gun.

What is so complex in governing Nigeria if politics are played in strict compliance with the rules of the game? What is complex in governing Nigeria if the best first eleven in every political parties are put forward to contest for political offices? Governing Nigeria is not a rocket science but since what matters to those who get into politics, is to satisfy their pecuniary interests and not necessarily to build a national economy anchored on the correct fiscal policies that would ultimately make Nigeria a highly industrialised nation.

Let us even look at how so difficult for the Nigerian armed forces with a self acclaimed reputation as the biggest military in Africa, but these military formations are unable to defend the territorial integrity of Nigeria and effectively put an end to the incessant infiltration of armed terrorists and freelance armed marauders who at a particular time, controlled the large chunk of Borno State but the capital which is Maiduguri.

The incapacity of the contemporary Nigerian military institutions to adequately protect Nigeria, is blamed on corruption, compromises by the military elites and procurement corruption which weakened the capacity and fighting ability of the men and women of the armed forces of Nigeria.

Let us also look at how so easy it is for smugglers to bring in assorted military grade weapons into Nigeria whereas as a Sovereign nation, Nigeria should and must possess the physical, technological, and military hardware to keep at bay, armed terrorists terrorising Nigerians from across our neighbouring nations of Niger, Mali, Chad and Cameroon.

Has anyone ever wondered why things as simple as fixing the potholes on our roads takes a lot of time to achieve at very exorbitant costs. Have we ever wondered why Nigeria is one of the largest producers of crude oil, but yet the government allowed publicly funded refineries to become dilapidated, dysfunctional and moribund even as several billions of dollars have disappeared under the guise of embarking on turning around maintenance of these publicly owned refineries? Have we ever wondered why Nigeria can’t effectively transport gas and refined fuel through the pipelines but transports them by road and then due to poor road maintenance,  and the use of dilapidated tankers, these combustibles are allowed to explode at the middle of the populated streets, killing hundreds of citizens?

Then we are told that bunkerers wouldn’t let the crude oil pipelines to work optimally but frequently breach these pipelines to siphon and scoop fuel to sell in the black markets just as intelligence has emerged that top military officers are behind these heists of our national wealth. All these manifestations of social evils are happening because we have allowed loafers to hijack political offices and they have converted governance to gangsters’ fiefdom.

Then again, Nigerians have had to endure funding a bulky, largely inefficient and ineffective policing institution whose hierarchy and operatives are mostly in service because they have no other career path to pursue but had enlisted in the Nigeria Police Force as their last hope for survival.

This is why, even with the presence of police operatives everywhere in Nigeria, sophisticated crimes have become a commonplace and citizens who are not permitted and licensed to bear guns to protect their precious lives and property, are left to die in the hands of all kinds of organised and well coordinated criminal gangsters. Nigeria, of course is the only country with a police force whose statistical data of the staff strength is shrouded in secrecy and as expected, massive corruption and things like ghost workers are actually diverting the financial resources that ought to be channelled towards running a functional policing institution.

To get it right, Nigeria needs to have the right atmosphere for a free, fair, transparent elections and there has to be ample legal safeguards to stop gangsters from hijacking elections and also the courts must be sanitised and merits,  competences and record of meritorious services should become the qualitative attributes that we should expect from the judges. Elections should be conducted and all cases determined before the winners are inaugurated so we do not reduce the courtrooms to avenues for negotiated procurement of election results as is the case in Nigeria now whereby elections are manipulated, sold and bought by moneybags and the corrupt court system puts stamp of approval to these electoral heists. Institutions such as the armed forces and police must be made up of trained, and patriotic Nigerians who would not compromise the national security interest in service of their ethnicity or religious affiliations. Then I ask, why are Nigerians not going for knowledgeable people to fix the collapsing nation? Put in another way, can give the concept of philosopher king a chance to govern Nigeria?

philosopher king, idea according to which the best form of government is that in which philosophers rule. The ideal of a philosopher king was born in Plato’s dialogue Republic as part of the vision of a just city. It was influential in the Roman Empire and was revived in European political thought in the age of absolutist monarchs. It has also been more loosely influential in modern political movements claiming an infallible ruling elite.

In Plato’s Republic the leading character, Socrates, proposes the design of an ideal city as a model for how to order the individual soul. Such a just city will require specialized military “guards,” divided subsequently into two groups—rulers who will be “guards” in the sense of guardians, dedicated to what is good for the city rather than for themselves, and soldiers who will be their “auxiliaries.” Already at this stage of the Republic it is stressed that the guardians must be virtuous and selfless, living simply and communally as do soldiers in their camps, and Socrates proposes that even wives and children should be in common.

At the outset of Book V, Socrates is challenged by his interlocutors to explain this last proposal. In response, Socrates expounds three controversial claims, which he acknowledges will expose him to ridicule. The first is that the guardians should include qualified women as well as men; thus, the group that will become known as “philosopher kings” will also include “philosopher queens.” The second claim is that these ruling men and women should mate and reproduce on the city’s orders, raising their children communally to consider all guardians as parents rather than attach themselves to a private family household. Those children, together with those of the artisan class, will be tested, and only the most virtuous and capable will become rulers. Thus, the group to become known as “philosopher kings” will be reproduced by merit rather than simply by birth. Finally, Socrates declares that these rulers must in fact be philosophers: