By Ebube Bruno
Former Cross River Governor and presidential candidate of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), Donald Duke, joined fellow 2027 aspirants in the Social Democratic Congress (SDC) and civil society at the ongoing Annual Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), in Port Harcourt, where leading presidential candidates were challenged to soft-pedal on politicking and focus on governance, policy drive and consistency.
The Director-General of Good Governance Advocacy International, Leonard Anyogo Esq., issued the challenge while addressing panelists at the conference, calling for robust, functional institutions driven by dedicated public servants. He said Nigerian politicians do not seem to know when election cycles should end to make way for governance.
“In Nigeria, it seems that it’s all politics without governance. We don’t know when politics should stop and governance should begin. Year in, year out, we always ask for change,” Anyogo said. “What change in particular? What change, what policy drive, what consistency are we bringing to the table other than winning elections?”
Responding to the challenge, the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party SDP, Adewole Adebayo, claimed that no Nigerian government since the return to democracy in 1999 has governed according to the dictates of the constitution.
Adebayo, while noting that it was okay for politicians to disagree, said the country can only get it right if leaders and their parties are compelled to govern according to the constitution.
“The only way we can get it right is to govern according to the constitution of Nigeria. It is not an individual thing, it is a process thing,” he said.
The lawyer added: “The nature of politics is that politicians and political parties will disagree on policies. But there are three things you cannot disagree on — the method of forming a government, by democratic elections; governing according to the law, appropriations act must be obeyed, the priorities in Chapter 2 of the Constitution must be obeyed. And there must be accountability and running away from corruption.”
He warned that if these things are not the criteria of leaders and electorates, the same problems of poverty, institutional failure and policy somersault will be carried over every electoral cycle.
For his part, Duke said political, ethnic and religious competition would ease considerably if the country’s resources were mobilized to adequately cater for its citizens.
“The fundamental problem with Nigeria is leadership. If we get the leadership right, everything will fall into place,” he said. “We need to ask ourselves: what is the fundamental essence of government? It is the optimal productivity of its citizens within a safe and orderly environment. If that is the mission statement of every government, then it leads to the next question — ethnicity. We don’t hate ourselves. The issue is inadequacy. When there’s not enough to go around, I have to use what I have to get what I want. So in the face of broad, general inadequacy in our society, I’m going to pick my tribe at an advantage over yours, or my religion, over my competitor’s. If we’re able to build a country that can adequately cater for all of us, nobody will care where you come from or the religion you belong to — that becomes private to you.”
Drawing on his home state’s experience, Duke added: “In my state, Cross River, there are 29 ethnic groups, and they play each other because there’s not enough to go around.”
Anyogo’s intervention at the panel session echoed remarks he had earlier made at the conference’s opening ceremony, where he emphasized the need for the legal profession to actively pursue substantive, manifest justice, rather than over-relying on technical justice. Observers say that call for substance over form in the courtroom mirrors the same challenge he later put to the presidential candidates: that Nigeria’s politics has too often rewarded procedural wins, like winning elections, over the substantive work of governing.
As the 2027 race takes shape, the NBA conference has positioned itself as an early forum testing where the leading candidates stand on that distinction.
