The news in town or one of the few sunny news in town (there are too many bad stories all over the place nowadays) is that Plateau State governor, Barrister Caleb Muftwang has gone for Prof Chris Kwaja, appointing him as “Special Envoy ” on Peace and Security.
The appointment, as explained by Samuel Jatau, the Secretary to the Plateau State Government, “is aimed at strengthening the state’s peace and security infrastructure”. We are also told that Prof Kwaja is expected to work with a wide range of stakeholders to explore mechanisms for sustainable peace and security of the state. And it is wrapped in the typical governmentese: The appointment is with immediate effect.
Prof Kwaja
The SSG probably didn’t need to explain. An office is what a holder makes of it. Two, Plateau State is among the five or so states in the country most in need of peace. A scholar envoy of peace is, in that context, what is most needed because peace is not the opposite of war but just another silly construct. In other words, as Prof Carpentier would say, we invent the enemy or enemies invent us before we or they invent the missiles to strike. That is, neither peace nor war is inevitable. The complexities of constructing peace or war is thus beyond the grasp of a busy politician or mischievous technocrats. In this sense, kudos to Governor Muftwang for simply an apt move.
But we may not get too excited as to forget the paradox of the intellectual in government: while being in government enables him or her to enrich his intellectual exploits, it has its own monkey business dimensions. In all cases, whether an academic in government makes a success of it or fails disastrously depends almost completely on the appointor (which in this case is Mr. Governor). If an appointor (president, governor, Chairman of Board, Local Government Chairman, etc) wants a particular appointee to succeed, that is what will happen. If an appointor doesn’t, failure will follow. This doesn’t mean that there is no room for creativity but it still requires the governor for creativity to be creativity.
It is not in all cases that an appointee had a Babangida, for example, who would call his foreign affairs minister and say, here is a draft letter of congratulation I am asked to send to Reagan. Please, take a look at it. And then to be told, ‘Sir, you can’t send this letter because …”. And for Babangida to say, ah, Prof, then please, save from the mess. Tear the letter or words to that effect. This is a crude reproduction of a Bolaji Akinyemi testimony on his tenure.
Plateau State governor, Caleb Muftwang
Only few appointors who do not have inferiority complex will follow this pathway in relating with an appointee. Whatever we say, mostly against IBB, he didn’t have that problem even as we may not forget that when it was time for Akinyemi to go, IBB’s nuanced ways in relating with appointees could not save the day.
In another case, a Commissioner who was a poster girl of a Government House suddenly found herself being asked to submit her carry-all handbag for security check at the gate. She got the message because as the native wisdom goes, it is with the broom that a young girl says No to a particular suitor. Only a stupid suitor will come back if he found himself being told to repackage his legs so that the girl could sweep the sitting room where he was seated. It is a sophisticated way of saying to such a suitor: go away. Governments operates the same way.
In Nigeria, smiling too much or not smiling at all in a Government House can be a problem. So also working too fast or too slowly. All these because many people are there to hussle. It can be deadly when husslers mix their trade with mischief making.
Thanks to God that Prof Kwaja is not a first timer in government nor is his appointor one of the garrulous elements. A listener who chanced on one of his BBC outings gave him kudos for verbal facility. That capacity is a major deficiency across Nigeria vis-à-vis qualitative governance. A governor or minister without conceptual clarity is already a disaster. There is no cure for that.
A ‘Special Envoy’ on Peace and Security in an invaded ground like Plateau State at a time like this is surely not an enviable job. Intervention will be watching Prof Kwaja’s frame game in the politics of peace and security, two hopelessly hopeless concepts put together and what he could thus bring to the table!
