Governing in peotry: The limits of propaganda

Mario Cuomo, the veteran Democratic politician and former governor of New York, told his audience in 1985, in a speech at Yale University that “We campaign in poetry, but when we’re elected we’re forced to govern in prose.” Probably by poetry Cuomo meant language that plays upon the affective domain by conjuring up images and sensations in connection with intended goals. It could also mean an effective tool for demonizing and manipulating. Whichever it is, Cuomo, who died last year, often repeated that statement throughout his public life and many political actors and analysts have come to realise the truth in the statement.  Not many people were surprised therefore that Barak Obama settled down to real governance (govern in prose that is) after his most colourful campaign and electoral victory in 2007. Obama subsequently put his great lyrical talent in the drawer for much of his presidency, rolled up his sleeves and got down to the difficult task of governance for which he was elected. This got folks complaining, especially during the worst years of Obama’s presidency urging him to reach out for some words that will inspire Americans to believe and that will also outlive him. They argued, after all that “This guy can write and he can speak…”

Our own APC here also campaigned mainly in poetry. They waxed lyrical about freeing us from corruption and insecurity and revamping the economy. They promised us heaven and earth – to create three million jobs per year, resuscitate the Ajaokuta steel company, make the economy the fastest-growing emerging economies in the world with a real GDP growth averaging 10 percent annually, provide free and quality education while feeding the school children, revamp and build world-class infrastructure etc.

Even during the campaigns, many informed analysts were so horrified by the share scale of the promises being made and attempted putting figures to them. They immediately dismissed the campaign promises as unrealisable. Olu Fasan, a respected columnist with BusinessDay dismissed the party’s manifesto as “…full of half-baked ideas that shouldn’t be part of a credible programme for government”. But the APC was adamant its campaign promises were realisable and would be funded from savings from blocking leakages and “proceeds recovered from corruption.”

 

To make matters worse, the PDP wasn’t a credible option. The Jonathan regime especially, was most inept and permitted the massive looting of the treasury. So most people who voted for Buhari did not even know the specifics of what the APC promised or would offer. They just wanted the PDP out of government.

 

However, since coming to power, the APC has shown no inclination to switch over to prose. They have continued as if they were campaigning or in opposition. They have continued to make needless and vague promises and when results aren’t quick in coming, they just blame the previous government for anything that goes wrong. The Jonathan government, according to the APC, was responsible for the fuel scarcity of the past months. The Jonathan government was responsible for the declining economy due to its refusal to save when oil price was high. They conveniently forgot however that its members prominent among which are Fashola and Amaechi, were the most vociferous opponents of the Jonathan’s administration’s decision to save some of the oil wealth by creating the Sovereign Wealth Fund. They insisted that the constitution explicitly provided for the sharing of all revenues accruing to the federation and even took the matter to the Supreme Court for a definitive ruling. They also got the House of Representative, in 2012, to declare the Excess Crude Account illegal. They went further in 2014 when the APC members in the House of Representatives approached a Federal High Court to issue a perpetual injunction restraining the government from operating the ECA and to pay all the proceeds of that account into the federation account for sharing among the three tiers of government.

 

Over the last year, it appears the APC devoted more time to blaming the Jonathan government than in doing the work for which it was elected. The government went to sleep immediately after its inauguration and allowed the economy to continue to drift aimlessly. Nigeria’s descent into recession was therefore inevitable especially with the government’s archaic ‘command and control’ economic policy that is no longer relevant even in Moscow, the home of socialism. Instead of concrete economic policies and directions, what the government continues to serve the people are doses of propaganda while waiting for oil prices to pick up.

 

But propaganda can only carry the government so far. The economy is virtually collapsing; inflation is at an all-time high of 13.17 percent; factories are shutting down or producing at minimal capacities; the economy is shading jobs like never before. The government is fast exhausting its goodwill and the patience of the people is also running out. Its propaganda is already sounding hollow. Like John Burroughs avers, “a man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else. The Buhari government needs to begin to take responsibility for its disastrous management of the economy and consequent suffering it is causing the people.

 

Christopher Akor