One of Nigeria's foremost legal minds, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), delivers a masterful structural analysis that illuminates governance dysfunction while curiously avoiding the daily realities that crush ordinary Nigerians. Agbakoba's sophisticated argument—that Tinubu's economic reforms are "technically sound but structurally doomed" due to over-centralised governance—offers brilliant insights about Nigeria's political architecture. Yet this laser focus on constitutional frameworks and multilevel governance remarkably sidesteps the security crisis that has made farming impossible, travel dangerous, and basic economic activity a life-threatening gamble for millions.
Key Insights:
Analytical frameworks inevitably shape what we notice and what remains invisible, even for the most brilliant minds.
- Governance-First Theory Assumes Cascading Solutions: Agbakoba's framework suggests that restructuring the political architecture will naturally resolve security, corruption, and service delivery issues—a compelling but untested theory that positions constitutional reform as the master key to Nigeria's multiple crises, potentially underestimating the need for direct presidential intervention in addressing immediate threats.
- Constitutional Focus Filters Immediate Crisis: Agbakoba's emphasis on "774 local governments as collection points" provides valuable structural insight whilst filtering out how farmers can't access their fields due to bandits, making his governance solutions academically elegant but practically distant from citizen survival needs.
- Economic Theory Meets Security Reality: His comparison with Spain's agricultural success through "multilevel governance" is intellectually compelling; yet, Spanish farmers aren't kidnapped while harvesting crops—a security prerequisite that makes governance structure secondary to physical safety for Nigerian agricultural productivity.
- Elite Analysis Versus Ground Truth: The sophisticated critique of "unwieldy bureaucratic machinery" resonates with business leaders, but ordinary Nigerians facing ransom demands care more about presidential action on security than about constitutional amendments that require decades to implement.
Do Agbakoba's governance insights matter to you, or would you prefer midterm assessments that address today's security and economic realities?
Original article by Dr. Olisa Agbakoba SAN: Two Years Assessment of President Tinubu: The Political Governance Fundamental
