Time to track President Tinubu, governors’ campaign promises

Politicians campaign in poetry, but they govern in prose – Mario Cuomo, 52nd Governor of New York

President Bola Tinubu and 28 governors have been in office for barely one week and what a baptism of fire it has been for some of them. As predicted, there has been no honeymoon period for the newly inaugurated political leaders of the world’s largest black nation and Africa’s biggest economy. For the President, he has been slow in appointments but has been busy meeting different stakeholders as part of attempts to resolve the country’s hydra-headed challenges. He has met with security chiefs, ordering them to deal decisively with oil thieves and bandits.

Unfortunately, at least 78 Nigerians have been killed and 12 abducted in violent attacks across the country in the first week of the President in office. The incidents happened in Rivers, Zamfara, Kaduna, Ogun, Sokoto, and the Federal Capital Territory. This was contained in data obtained from the Nigeria Security Tracker, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations. Will these bloodletting ever abate?

On the economic front, the discontinuance of subsidy on premium motor spirit better known as petrol has led to economic hardships for poor and vulnerable Nigerians as the product now sells for between N488 and N600. This has made the cost of goods and services rise astronomically. Labour unions especially the Nigeria Labour Congress had declared indefinite strike and mass protests from today. However, the Federal Government was wise enough to thwart that move by securing an ex-parte order of the National Industrial Court to stop NLC from carrying out its threat. Series of meetings have been held between the labour unions and the Federal Government team and the purported strike has been suspended.

In terms of appointment, the President has only made three new appointments which were last Friday’s announcement of the Speaker of House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila as his new Chief of Staff, former Deputy Governor of Jigawa State, Senator Ibrahim Hadejia as Deputy Chief of Staff while former Benue State governor and minister, Senator George Akume, was appointed as the new Secretary to the Federal Government. The appointments take effect from June 14 obviously to allow Gbajabiamila to serve out his tenure as the Speaker of the 9th House of Representatives.  I hope Akume will not court the controversy of abuse of office that led to the removal of Babachir Lawal from the same exalted office and that Gbajabiamila will not grow wings like the late Abba Kyari when he served in that position to former President Muhammadu Buhari.

I have tried to summarise what President Tinubu has done in his first week in office. However, there is a need for the media and civil society groups to take up the challenge of a more structured tracking of performance of campaign promises of the new president and the governors. That is the global best practices now because as I said in the opening quote of this piece, politicians are wont to campaigning in poetry and governing in prose by giving mega excuses why they could not fulfil their campaign pledges. Imagine the situation in Nigeria, our politicians still campaign on provision of roads, electricity and water, things already taken for granted in other climes.

Interestingly, there is a legal basis for the media and civil society to track performance of our new set of political leaders. The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as altered, in section 22, enjoined us to hold the government to account. Other ancillary provisions are to be found in the following areas: Section 42 – Right to freedom from discrimination. Section 14 (1) – The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a state based on the principles of democracy and social justice. S. 14(2)(b) – “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government S. 14(4) – “The composition of the Government of a State , a Local Government Council, or any agencies of such govt. or council, and the conduct of the affairs of the govt. or council or such agencies shall be carried out in such manner as to recognise the diversity of the people within its area of authority and the need to promote a sense of belonging and loyalty among all the peoples of the Federation” and lastly, S. 15(5) – “The State shall abolish corrupt practices and abuse of power.”

Tracking implementation of campaign promises is not new in Nigeria nor is peculiar to this country. Organisation known as POLITIFACT (The Poynter Institute) has been tracking campaign promises of American presidents and congress from the time of President Barack Obama. According to its website, it has thus far developed the following: Obameter (Tracking of President Barack Obama’s campaign promises); GOP Pledge-O-Meter (Tracking the promises of the GOP Leadership in Congress). Trump-O-Meter (Tracking President Donald Trump’s campaign promises.)

The Institute is currently tracking President Joe Biden’s performance in office. According to its website, “The Biden Promise Tracker monitors the 100 most important campaign promises of President Joseph R. Biden, elected in November 2020. Biden said his top priorities were fighting the coronavirus, improving the economy, responding to calls for racial justice and combating climate change. For each campaign promise, our reporters research the issue and then rate it based on whether the promise was achieved: Promise Kept, Promise Broken, Compromise, Stalled, In the Works or Not Yet Rated.”

In September 2017, the Centre for Democracy and Development set up Buharimeter. According to information gleaned from its website, #Buharimeter (www.buharimeter.ng) is a monitoring tool that enables Nigerians around the globe to keep tabs on the status of implementation of over 200 campaign promises of former President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress. “The initiative was aimed to address the challenges of governance, civic participation and effective service delivery in Nigeria by ensuring that the government was held accountable to its campaign promises. It is an independent, unbiased and non-political monitoring platform and provides alternative opinions about government policy, where necessary. By analysing data gathered through tracking of media reports; policy analysis; opinion polling; and rating government performance, we hope to empower Nigerians to take an active role in making the APC-led government live up to its campaign promises.”

Are we likely going to see Tinubumeter? That’s what I am advocating. In October 2022 Asiwaju Bola Tinubu presidential campaign committee released an 80-page policy document that highlights an eight-point agenda. Top on his priority lists of action plans were national security, economy, agriculture, power, oil and gas, transportation and education. The document is titled “Renewed Hope 2023 – Action Plan for a Better Nigeria.” Now is the time to track the implementation of this codified campaign pledge.

Interestingly, Television Continental popularly known as TVC owned by the President, has kick started 100 days in office tracking of the president’s performance. It is heart-warming to learn that the Transition Monitoring Group has inaugurated a compendium to track the campaign promises of the new president too.  According to Daily Trust of May 31, 2023, “Speaking at the launch of the document in Abuja, the Chairman of TMG and Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, Mallam Auwal Rafsanjani, said the document was published to ensure that politicians respected and implemented the commitments they made to Nigerians and for the citizens to hold them to account.”

Many more media and civil society organisations should follow the gestures of TVC and TMG. There should be those that will track the performance of campaign promises of governors of the 36 states. Some of the modalities of holding the president and governors to account include: developing a scorecard; organising town-hall meetings with government officials responsible for implementing the President  or governor’s campaign promises; phone-in on live radio and television programmes to ask questions from government officials on state of implementation of the campaign promises; Using the Freedom of Information Act  to demand from government officials the state of implementation of certain policies and programmes promised during political campaigns; advocacy visits to the President or governor and his lieutenants to demand implementation of pledges made during campaigns and public-interest litigation.