Op-Ed

The Political Economy Of The “Sixteenth” Presidency: A Comparative Approach

by Omoaholo Omoakhalen

Interrogating the “Sixteenth”

On Monday, May 29, 2023, the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari came to an end and Bola Ahmed Tinubu was sworn in as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Political commentators and media channels have repeatedly described President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as “Nigeria’s 16^th President.” Following the February 25 elections, the president had, in his acceptance speech as president-elect, thanked Nigerians for electing him to serve as “the 16^th president…”^[1] However, this description is rather subjective and debatable owing to a couple of historical facts. In its “Chronologies of Past Presidents and Heads of States,”^[2] the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) in the Buhari administration listed Chief Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe as Nigeria’s second leader. Azikiwe, a founding father of Nigeria, had been Nigeria’s president, albeit ceremonially, between October 1, 1960 and January 16, 1966. Nevertheless,  being a ceremonial president, Chief Azikiwe lacked executive powers since such powers were vested in the then Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa, who is listed as Nigeria’s first leader in the OSGF records. On this official list, with the inclusion of Dr. Nnamdi Aikiwe, the immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari, is listed as Nigeria’s 16^th leader.

Furthermore, on October 17, 1993, a Lagos High Court declared the Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan illegal because, according to the presiding judge, late Justice Dolapo Akinsanya, former military president, Ibrahim Babangida had “no legitimate power to sign a decree after August 26, 1993, after his exit,” hence, the decree by which he instituted the interim government after his famous stepping aside was “void and of no effect.”^[3] This, therefore, casts a legal shadow on the listing of Chief Shonekan as one of Nigeria’s past leaders and, as such, further raises a question as to who actually was, or is, or will be, Nigeria’s 16^th leader. Given these factors and variables, the Tinubu presidency would have to edit the current narrative of history by deleting from the list of past Heads of State either Nigeria’s first Prime Minister, Tafawa Balewa (because he was head of a parliamentary government) or Nigeria’s first and only ceremonial president, Nnamdi Azikiwe (because he lacked executive powers and was Balewa’s contemporary in government), or the former Head of the Interim National Government, Chief Ernest Shonekan (because his tenure was nullified by the court) , for President Tinubu to be conveniently listed as Nigeria’s 16^th leader. Delisting two or all three of these would make Tinubu Nigeria’s 15^th or 14^th leader as the case may be.

Moreover, the notion of Bola Tinubu as “Nigeria’s 16th President” is, at best, romanticised because most of Nigeria’s past leaders were not officially recognised as “President.” With the exception of Ibrahim Babangida who chose to be addressed as such reportedly with a view to portray a more humane face than his predecessor,  Nigeria’s past military leaders were mostly addressed officially as “Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces” or by such titles as “Chairman of the Supreme Military Council.”  Nigeria had no executive president until the Second Republic, between 1979 and 1983, when the presidential system of government was adopted and Alhaji Shehu Shagari became Nigeria’s first executive president. Therefore, the culture of celebrated enumeration of presidents is largely new to the Nigerian political space as hardly were former presidents, Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari projected or celebrated by the media or political commentators as the 12^th, 13^th, 14^th or 15^th presidents respectively. Why then has the notion of Nigeria’s “16^th President” become so emphasised with the emergence of President Bola Tinubu? Although this new development has a local political underbelly, the focus of this article is not the immediate politics of Nigeria’s “sixteenth presidency” but on the international comparative politics of it. With parallels from the United States of America, this article dissects the rising interplay of power between business, politics and institutions in the Nigerian context and in this period of the nation’s history.

The American Model

The remote cause of the romanticising of the 16^th presidency in the Tinubu era may not be unconnected to the legendary status of Abraham Lincoln, America’s 16^th president, who is rated the greatest president in America’s history by most scholar surveys, from the C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership^[4] to the survey by the American Political Science Association (APSA).^[5] Regarded as the last strong American president of the 19^th century, Lincoln inherited a nation divided along North and South by the contentious question of slavery. His election in 1860 proved further divisive as he won less than 40% of the popular votes cast while his opponents together recorded almost a million more votes than he did, though he won the Electoral College votes. Incensed by his emergence due to his known stance against slavery, the Southern States, led by South Carolina and followed by six more states, seceded from the Union, leading to the American Civil War. In response, Abraham Lincoln assumed an expanded interpretation of the role of the presidency through the presidential “war powers” doctrine^[6] by which he pushed the boundaries of his powers as president by reason of necessity, overriding Congress, the Supreme Court, and the civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, an interpretation which, though contested by Congress and the judiciary, enabled Lincoln to win the war and safeguard the Union. In addition, he moved his country closer to institutional inclusiveness through the Emancipation Proclamation followed by the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution, thus abolishing slavery. His assassination on April 15th, 1865, two weeks after winning the war, sealed his ascendance to the realm of legend as America’s greatest president.

Lincoln was succeeded by a retinue of relatively weak presidents, from Andrew Johnson to Grover Cleveland, under whose tenures power shifted from the political class to the industrial class with business leading the nation’s advance. This era saw the likes of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the rail “Commodore” who became America’s richest man till he died in 1877; Andrew Carnegie, the steel giant who, after the sale of Carnegie Steel Company, became the richest American; John D. Rockefeller, the oil magnate who is considered the richest American ever; and J.P. Morgan, the financial colossus, who was famous for bailing out the United States and who, as a private citizen with many gold reserves, forced President Glover Cleveland into a deal that saved the United States Treasury from default during the Panic of 1893.

The cutthroat competition among these industrialists, including hostile takeover moves, though brutal and ruthless, positioned America to maximise the First Industrial Revolution, enabled rapid industrialisation and facilitated infrastructural development, thereby spurring economic growth, with an estimated GDP rise from between $125 and $135 per Capita in 1860^[7]  to about $4,091 per Capita in 1900.^[8]  As an attestation to the power of business in the polity, the United States Supreme Court ascribed to the corporation in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) the legal rights conferred on a person by the Fourth Amendment. Furthermore, the industrialists became so powerful that, in the 1896 elections, they coalesced to put in power a business-friendly Republican candidate, William McKinley, the 25^th president of the United States, ensuring that he beat the populist Democrat, William Jennings Brian, whose policy stance posed a threat to big business.

Four years later, in the 1900 election, in order to curtail the ambitious political rise of Theodore Roosevelt, the political class, in collaboration with big business, convinced McKinley to adopt Roosevelt as running mate, concluding that the vice presidency was a political cul-de-sac that would end Roosevelt’s political career. However, McKinley’s assassination in 1901 promoted Roosevelt to the presidency, thus ushering in a strong president who proceeded to burst the monopolies of big business through aggressive anti-thrust laws.  This trajectory - from strong politics to big business back to strong politics - paved the way for America’s leadership in the Second Industrial Revolution especially through the disruption spearheaded by Henry Ford, the automobile industry leader, whose innovations facilitated the democratisation of access to an otherwise exclusive good. This intersection of political and economic forces also cumulatively ushered America into global political power as the country emerged from its isolationist Monroe Doctrine to become a game-changer in the First and Second World Wars under the leadership of two strong presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt respectively. By the end of the Second World War, America emerged as a 20th-century world power.

The Nigerian Parallel

Politically, Nigeria has been divided along Northern and Southern interests and tendencies since independence and even prior. Strongly connected to regional division is the religious component which roughly finds expression along North-South delineations. These two divisive expressions have often been interwoven with the partisan divide, with this intersection of divisions imposed on the Nigerian map at every presidential election since 2011. The 2011 election result map divided Nigeria into two main portions with Muhammadu Buhari’s party,  the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), winning the majority of the Northern States while the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) won most of the states in the South.^[9] In 2015, Buhari’s new party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) won most of the Northern States while the PDP won the South. In 2019, the APC won most of the North as well as the South-West while the PDP won the South-East and the South-South.

While the 2023 election results show a more variegated map reflecting the emergence of a third force (the Labour Party), the result of the election as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is being challenged and is set to follow the tradition of 6 out of 10 of Nigeria’s previous elections since 1979 which were decided in the courts. While it would be subjudice to discuss the facts of the case, the fact remains that the judicial contestation of the election of a president who has already been sworn in could potentially weaken the presidency.  This is compounded by doubts on the veracity of the election results among segments of the electorate and by local and international observers as well as the fact that the declared winner scored less than 40% of total votes cast, as did Abraham Lincoln in 1860. These factors could cumulatively pose a legitimacy challenge to a sitting president. Conversely, these factors could also compel the president to assume enormous extra-presidential powers including tampering with the democratic doctrine of separation of powers or judicial independence to safeguard his contested mandate and see through his program agenda. These are some of the political factors and variables shaping Nigeria’s “sixteenth” presidency, remotely mirroring those of the United States in the 19^th century.

On the economic side, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari was characterized by a strong government presence in the economy with such policies as border closure, infrastructure financing by means of government debt, exchange rate controls, subsidized consumption, price fixing and regulation, and selection of champions through targeted policies such as selective access to foreign exchange as well as minimization of competition in key sectors such as fertilizer and energy. These were some of the imprimaturs of a command economy that defined the Buhari administration. Following this restrictive era,  a new era of business-led growth seems to be on the horizon even as the leading contenders in the 2023 elections espoused pro-business agendas albeit in varying ratios of public-private investment leanings. This pro-business posture was reiterated in President Tinubu’s inauguration speech with the new president describing some of his predecessor’s policies as “anti-investment inhibitions.”

This pro-business era is emerging alongside the rising power of corporate industrial giants, the likes of Aliko Dangote of Dangote Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu of Bua Group, Femi Otedola of Forte Oil, Tony Elumelu of Transcorp, among others. A similitude of the American post-Lincoln industrialist wars has also been observed among these corporate giants, between Dangote and Rabiu with regard to cement production licensing as well as sugar pricing, and, more recently, between Otedola and Elumelu around the shares of Transcorp in what could have resulted in a hostile takeover.

Nevertheless, compared to the American case which saw industry leaders wield enormous influence on the state in relation to the political class in the later half of the 19^th century, the extent to which a competitive industrial class can influence the policy or political space is limited due to, among other factors, the capture of the state by opaque political interests. Unlike Nigeria’s business leaders whose wealth valuations are available to the public, Nigeria’s ruling political elite control undeclared assets which are largely beyond public scrutiny due to constitutional provisions that do not mandate public declaration of assets. Due to access to such inscrutable wealth, Nigeria’s political class is largely independent of the business or industrial class for political survival, thus limiting the extent to which business can disrupt politics.  As a matter of fact, in Nigeria, business relies on the government to survive, and not the other way around.

Opportunities for Accelerated Growth and Development

Nevertheless, Nigeria can evolve a growth and development-oriented political economy by opening up for competition hitherto closed or selectively open sectors such as petroleum refinery, cement production, agricultural input production, and the entire electricity value chain, from generation to transmission to distribution. Furthermore, policy and legislative measures must be targeted at creating adjacencies and linkages between big businesses and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), thus cascading business-led growth. Such economic remodeling must be orchestrated on a foundation of emancipatory constitutional reforms that would empower subnationals and remove inhibitions to private property and investments such as the Land Use Act.

Unlike 19^th to 20^th century America, Nigeria does not need decades to maximize her industrial potential nor does she necessarily need to go through the phases from big government to big business back to big government and then to disruptive business to emerge as a political-economic power. This is due to the exponential and leap-frogging effect of technology especially in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As a result of the marginal cost of growth as well as the potential for democratization of access to social, mobile, analytics, and cloud technologies, startups are the real potential disruptors. Hence, strategic partnerships between startups and emerging political leaders can, in the mid-to-long term, effect positive disruption in the Nigerian political-economic ecosystem.

Finally, whether the Tinubu presidency is listed 14^th, 15^th, 16^th, or 17^th or whether the current presidency is best described as the 6th presidency of the 4th Republic and the 7th executive presidency in Nigeria’s history, fostering a business-enabling as well as growth and development-oriented climate is a challenge that the Nigerian government must rise to.

Omoaholo Omoakhalen
SPPG Pioneer Class

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Omoaholo Omoakhalen (@debateromo) is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Remake Africa Consulting as well as the Founder of the Imagine Nigeria 2050 Initiative. He is also a policy analyst at the International Centre for Reconstruction and Development (ICRD). He was a member of the Pioneer Class of the School of Politics, Policy, and Governance (SPPG) as well as a pioneer fellow of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) Bridge Fellowship.

^[1] “For the Record: Acceptance Speech by President-Elect Bola Tinubu.” Premium Times Nigeria, 1 Mar. 2023, www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/585475-for-the-record-acceptance-speech-by-president-elect-bola-tinubu.html. Accessed 30 May 2023.

^[2] “Past Presidents and Heads of State.” Office of the Secretary General of the Federation, The Presidency, 2015, www.osgf.gov.ng/about-us/history/past-presidents-and-heads-state.

^[3] “Nigeria Ruled Illegally, Says Judge.” Washington Post, www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/11/11/nigeria-ruled-illegally-says-judge/c81a51e2-2b54-4ca5-a2bd-0d1c74aa9093/. Accessed 30 May 2023.

^[4] “Total Scores/Overall Rankings: C-SPAN Survey on Presidents 2021 .” C-Span, 2021, www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall.

^[5] See Rottinghaus, Brandon, and Justin S. Vaughn. “Presidential Greatness and Political Science: Assessing the 2014 APSA Presidents and Executive Politics Section Presidential Greatness Survey.” PS: Political Science & Politics, vol. 50, no. 03, 12 June 2017, pp. 824–830, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1049096517000671. Accessed 13 Nov. 2018.

^[6] Guelzo, Allen. Abraham Lincoln and the Development of the “War Powers” of the Presidency. The Cupola, 2007.

^[7] Gallman, Robert, and John Wallis. “U. S. Labor Force Estimates and Economic Growth, 1800-1860.” American Economic Growth and Standards of Living before the Civil War, 1990, p. 27, www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c8007/c8007.pdf.

^[8] How Was Life? Edited by Jan Luiten van Zanden et al., OECD, 2 Oct. 2014, p. 67.

^[9] See for instance, Ibrahim, Jibrin , and Clement Nwankwo. “Civil Society Election Situation Room: Final Statement on the Presidential Election | Sahara Reporters.” Sahara Reporters, 19 Apr. 2011, saharareporters.com/2011/04/19/civil-society-election-situation-room-final-statement-presidential-election. Accessed 30 May 2023.

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