Where is President Buhari’s think tank?

The questions of the whereabouts of President Muhammadu Buhari’s think tank, and whether he indeed has one that is up and running were raised by recent events; his December 30, 2015 media chat and the very recent visit of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde.

The media chat unveiled a down-to-earth, articulate President, who is however, driven more by passion and candour than expertise or surefooted knowledge, regarding the complexities of public policy. As several commentators have observed, his confession of ignorance on the Central Bank Foreign Exchange Management Policy which has caused agony to Nigerians at home and abroad, as well as his preemptive remark on the judicial processes regarding former public officials accused of corruption were awkward.

For example, on what is now called
Dasukigate and the simmering controversy over the denial of bail to the immediate past National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, Buhari, in response to a question bristled: “If you see the kind of atrocities people like Dasuki committed, you won’t give them bail.”

Does this remark not usurp the discretion of the courts? Regarding Lagarde’s visit to Nigeria, it probably got more attention than what Bolaji Ogunseye, a Development Studies expert, described as a technical visit. The IMF boss was treated with the pomp nearly equal to what the President of the United States, Barack Obama, would have got if he were visiting Nigeria. In the same vein, it is doubtful if our policy institutions and expertise were sufficiently mobilised to respond to the parade of suggestions by Lagarde, who sometimes sounded like a school master talking down to a bunch of mischievous or wayward students.

To be sure, the allure of expertise especially when legitimated by international institutions, such as the IMF or World Bank, can be quite intimidating as the South Africans discovered some years ago when they were having a dialogue with the IMF. One of the technocrats on the South African side, narrated that “Each time we made a policy suggestion in the direction of the welfare of the people, the IMF experts opened their laptops, shook their heads, and lectured that our propositions were unviable and simply blew us away.” I bring this up to underline the need for Buhari who is regarded as an economic nationalist, almost a term of rebuke or of acid jokes in International Monetary circles, to entrench himself in the kind of intellectual capital, that only a policy think tank can provide. For, obviously, no president, however knowledgeable can have competence on a broad array of policy issues, such as health, environment, crime control, anti-corruption, poverty alleviation among other issues. Before carrying the discourse further however, I crave the reader’s indulgence to digress by offering a short take.

Controversy has trailed the arrest by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of several chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party, in connection with the $2.1bn probe into the diversion of money designated for arms purchase. The arrest on Tuesday of the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, has led to accusations and brickbats regarding what the opposition PDP has described as a plot to check or maroon the party. In the same connection, the Minister for Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, recently denied that Buhari was dictating to the EFCC to selectively target top PDP officials. In point of fact, the nation should be grateful that it has come to know more of the details of massive diversion of funds and outright looting that went on under the Jonathan administration.

It is a different matter however, whether these revelations, shocking as they are, will in the end produce a less corrupt country in the absence of fundamental reforms. There is a sense in which the long running expose of who took money, and from whom, is becoming something of an opera with entertainment value rather than an instructional or edifying drama. There is also the point about whether the culpability or guilt of those involved can be determined on the pages of newspapers in a classic case of trial by media. As this writer has previously suggested, the fight against corruption is too serious to be left to the EFCC, or even to the political class, who may be minded to milk it for political advantage. The civil society, the media, and the expert community ought to be involved in shaping the agenda, and ensuring that it does not become overly partisan, drama driven, or episodic.

For starters, it will be helpful if the EFCC could intersperse its valid preoccupation withDasukigate with other cases of high profile corruption which do not affect the opposition party. On a broader note, Buhari may wish to make clear his template for fighting corruption beyond Dasukigate, so that it will be difficult to sustain a charge of selective prosecution or persecution against his policies.

To get back to the main discourse, it should be noted that the consumption of expert knowledge in the search for policy excellence by our political class has been shallow, fragmentary, and irregular. As far as this columnist remembers, former President Ibrahim Babangida was perhaps the last Nigerian leader in recent times who maintained and cultivated an intellectual class of expert advisers. In the period since 1999, for example, successive presidents had shown little interest in expert advice, policy positions from our intellectuals, or from our admittedly fickle think tanks. Paradoxically, they have appointed a few well-known intellectuals into cabinet positions, but it is open for debate, the extent to which their expertise was systematically harnessed. This was very much unlike an earlier generation of Nigerian leaders illustrated most vividly by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who maintained and drew from the wisdom of a court of intellectuals and thinkers while sitting among them as one of the tribe.

Some of the reasons successive leaders have not consciously nurtured policymaking experts around them, beyond speech writing, are linked to a military mindset that is more aligned to tactics and the capture of power than strategic thinking, fundamental solutions or long term planning. There also is the relegation of the intellectual class, the retreat of knowledge workers in a society whose values are increasingly dictated by commercial factors, as well as the redrawing of the political map of the country in ways that favour the wealthy rather than the knowledgeable.

Looking around the globe, we find that leaders that wish to make a mark in their countries and beyond extend their intellectual imprimatur by drawing upon the wisdom of think tanks. One of the most conspicuous examples in the US is the left leaning Centre for American Progress which has served successive democratic administrations, including that of Obama, and has lent its expertise to Hillary Clinton who is seeking to be the next President of the US on a Democratic Party ticket. Nigeria faces multiple challenges, and there is the need for our leaders, especially Buhari to cultivate an expert class, not just from Western sources, but from Nigerian intellectuals on such issues as anti-corruption, economic diversification, social welfare in a recessive economy, foreign policy, among others in a globalising world.

Source: PUNCH