Fashola’s Perverse Doctrine: Performance Trumps Integrity In Politics!

 By Olu Fasan

Babatunde Fashola, SAN,  former governor of Lagos State and outgoing Minister of Works and Housing, has a reputation for erudition and a knack for memorable turns of phrase. Recently, Professor Wole Soyinka credited him with what he called “the Fashola Dictum”, based on his saying that elections should be “carnivals and festivals”, not wars. Yet, sometimes, Fashola’s logic is flawed and, sometimes, his views are warped. Take his recent apologia for Bola Tinubu, his former boss and predecessor as Lagos State governor. 

*Fashola

In an interview on Channels TV, Fashola was asked about Tinubu’s integrity. He ducked and dived. He was so slippery that pinning him down was like nailing jelly to the wall. Eventually, he delivered an appalling apologia. Allow me to quote the words verbatim. 

Seun Okinbaloye (Channels TV): “You were Tinubu’s chief of staff. Why is it that the man has so much controversy around him? There’s controversy about his true age, controversy about his true educational status, controversy about his name; in fact, there are controversies about whether or not he has dual citizenship, controversy about his past life in the United States. Can you clear the air about this man?”

Fashola: “I think that’s what makes it the more interesting. And I think those issues have been ventilated sufficiently, and, you know what, the Nigerian people have decided those issues don’t matter. That’s what they have said by this vote.”

Really? Which vote? Even going by INEC’s figures, 25 million Nigerians voted in the presidential election; 8.8m voted for Tinubu, 16.4 million voted against him. If Fashola knows anything about democratic legitimacy, rather than mere constitutional technicality, he won’t imply that the votes of 8.8 million people are more important than those of 16.4 million. If the election was a referendum on Tinubu’s character and integrity, 16.4 million out of 25 million voters rejected him. 

So, who were “the Nigerian people” who “decided those issues don’t matter”?  Strangely, Fashola, who repeatedly said religion shouldn’t be brought into politics, brought God into the issue. “I think now that Tinubu has surmounted all of these hurdles,” he said, “maybe there’s a divine purpose for it.” Divine purpose? That’s a pathetic transcendental apologetics. And it’s the surest route to destroying what’s left of Nigeria’s democracy: any fraudulent election can be justified on the basis that “there’s a divine purpose for it”. 

Recently, Premium Times, the independent media outfit, known for its investigative journalism, said its analysis of the results posted on the INEC Results Viewing portal, IReV, shows that Peter Obi, not Tinubu, won in Rivers State. Similar discrepancies, showing inflated votes for Tinubu, are reported in Lagos and several other states. Surely, God doesn’t need an acutely flawed person and, in my opinion, a fraudulent election to achieve His purpose for Nigeria. Does He? 

Fashola suggests God does, and has a theory, a dictum, to support his view! I call it Fashola’s perverse doctrine! In the Channels TV interview, Fashola said: “Governance is not about integrity, it’s not about sainthood, it’s about efficiency, it’s about performance, it’s about delivery.” He admitted that “there’s a level of integrity to which you should never compromise”, but insisted government is about “getting the results”, not about looking for a saint! Of course, leaders are not saints. But are the level and nature of controversies swirling around Tinubu acceptable? The issues transcend Nigeria. 

Recently, a foreign newspaper quoted a foreign diplomat as saying: “Tinubu’s personal story is remarkable. His age, place of birth and education are the subject of speculation.” Should anyone trivialise or justify that? Think about it. Tinubu’s interview with The Guardian newspaper in October 1998 recently went viral. The interview started thus: “Senator Bola Tinubu, 52, returned from self-exile recently.” 

If Tinubu was 52 in 1998, how could he be 71 in 2023? And how could a biological son of the famous Tinubu family in Lagos be so indigent that he couldn’t go to primary and secondary schools, as Tinubu claims? Didn’t Tinubu himself admit to forfeiting $460,000 to settle a drug-trafficking case in America? Of course, he did! And what’s his relationship with Guinea that he obtained the country’s passport? A president with dual citizenship?

Anyone who says these integrity issues do not matter is unpatriotic, an enemy of Nigeria. Honesty and integrity matter in politics, and a president without integrity imperils democracy. Furthermore, performance and integrity are intertwined in democratic governance, and can never be separated. Let’s consider two examples: one from Britain, where performance and integrity go hand-in-hand; the other in Nigeria, where they don’t. Take Britain. 

In 2000, Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, introduced the “congestion charge” to tackle the unbearable traffic in London. The charge reduced traffic and generated huge revenue for the London government. Here’s the point. Livingstone had absolutely no commercial interest in the company collecting the congestion charge or, indeed, in any company collecting tolls in London. So, performance and integrity were in tandem!

But consider Nigeria. As governor, Tinubu raised the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, of Lagos State from N600million per month to over N7billion (estimated to be worth about N50billion today). However, it has long been widely speculated that he has interest, albeit concealed, in the company, Alpha-Beta, that collects the taxes and IGR for the Lagos State government. 

Going by Fashola’s doctrine, the increased IGR (performance) trumps the alleged conflict of interest and unjust enrichment (integrity issues). Indeed, that was the view of Dele Alake, a top Tinubu aide, when asked about Alpha-Beta on Channels TV. “Does Tinubu own Alpha-Beta,” Alake was asked. “I don’t know, and I don’t care who owns it,” he replied, adding: “As far as I’m concerned Alpha-Beta is delivering on its objectives and that’s enough for me.” So, like Fashola, Alake believes performance trumps integrity!

But no serious nation decouples integrity from performance. Sadly, neither exists in Nigeria. Where’s performance when 133million Nigerians are multidimensionally poor? When Nigerians lack basic amenities? In 2018, Fashola infamously said: “If you don’t have power, it’s not the government’s problem.” 

Fashola was saying Nigerians shouldn’t expect delivery; now, he’s saying they shouldn’t demand integrity either. Yet, if Nigeria must succeed, performance and integrity must be two sides of the same coin, totally inseparable! Fashola’sdoctrine is perverse: performance doesn’t trump integrity!

*Fasan is a commentator on public issues