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The Nigeria question: When will Nigeria take charge of Nigeria? (2)
A lecture by Professor Anya O. Anya under the auspices of the Gindiri Old Boys Association, Hill Station Hotel, Jos, Plateau State on November 6, 2004
THERE is generally a now unanimous agreement that the most fundamental of Nigeria's problems is the failure of leadership. Inadequate and incompetent leadership has accentuated the lack of development while this lack of development, has on its own reinforced the emergence of an environment conducive to poor leadership quality, mediocrity and normlessness. From our survey thus far, there are two problems militating against the emergence of a Nigerian leadership elite with the vision, the values and the ethos that are grounded in the local and national environment. The first is the external orientation of the leadership fostered by the colonial environment and subsequently propagated by the emerging Nigerian leadership, a tendency that has been sustained by the successive military interregnums. The second was the persistent environment of transition and chronic instability fostered by the continuous change of regimes, systems and processes of governance.
All these however, do not explain fully why a leader or a leadership elite has not emerged. Nelson Mandela, a man who should know about leadership has observed that
- A leader is like a shepherd; he stays behind the flock letting the most nimble go ahead whereupon the others follow, not realising that all along they are being directed from behind."
Thus leadership involved the management of people and the circumstance needed to achieve clearly defined goals. It involves mobilising and motivating people. As Maurick has observed, leadership... "is the ability to bring out a number of talents and to operate effectively through other people making them gladly accept your goals while still having the freedom to do things their way ... (the) good leaders understands and meet other peoples positive expectations of how they wish to be led..."
It involves vision as well as the ability to deploy creativity and innovation while recognising this in others who share a "common vision based on knowledge of the big picture, iteration of clear consistent values, crafting a culture and strategy..." it involves the management of change in the organisation or the nation. Organisation change may involve develomental change by building on and improviding the quality of what already exists. Alternatively, it may involve transitional change by managing the transition from one state to another. But it may not change the character of the orgnisation or nation. Fundamentally, it often involves tranformation change in which the organisation changes completely from one state to a different state of being. A post colonial, as indeed, a post military environment obviously requires transformation. Thus, a hierarchical organisational framework with its reliance on class, rank, command and control is clearly inappropriate. What is required is total transformation which involves paradigm shifts driven by changes in mind set.
Leaders who have led successful transformation of their societies have usually been men of exceptional intelligence, knowledge and wisdom anchored on integrity, sensitivity and tenacity of purpose. They are people who have a clear sense of purpose with the uncanny ability to handle the organisation politics of their environment while managing processes to facilitate the desired outcomes. In the pursuit of these ends they develop the capacity to manage resources by recognising when to:
- concentrate resources on key strategic goals
- accumulate resources for greater and directed impact
- complement different kinds of resources to create higher values
- conserve resources when necessary or needful and
- recover resources when vital.
Above all as managers of political processes they have the enhanced capacity to resolve dilemmas, ethical issues and conflicts, as well as to shift paradigms through creative thinking and techniques of persuasion. They are masters in the management of creative tension. These are not average people with average abilities - Lee Kuan Yew, Deng Xiaoping, Mahathir Mohammed, Clinton etc, but larger than life in their telants, drive and will to reshape their environment and the future of their societies. It is also obvious that leadership involves serving people by enlarging their opportunities for choice, the exercise of their freedom and the improvement of their quality of life. Against the background of all these, it seems evident why the leader has not emerged in Nigeria nor is there a leadership class, it seems evident why the leader has not emerged in Nigeria nor is there a leadership class with Nigeria - wide legitimacy and vision.
Issues in Nigerian socio-political and economic development
Ninety years after the amalgamation there are many issues in the socio-political and economic life of the nation that have defied resolution. These have contributed to the exarcerbation of the problem of leadership, of development and of course of national integration. We should take a snap shut view of these in order to better ascertain the state fo the nation and consequently the necessary steps in any effort to ameliorate in the long term these recurring issues.
As indicated earlier, the pattern of the colonial intrusion into the area that became Nigeria never afforded the opportunituy for the consultation of the indigenous peoples on their governance or their expectations or their future aspiration as individuals and as peoples. This immediately raises the issue of where sovereignty should reside. In the colonial period, it was assumed to reside with the metropolitan power symbolised by the British monarch. With independence and implied democratisation, sovereignty is presumed to reside with the people. In a multi-ethnic and plural society, the issue of sovereignty and its location in the polity cannot be examined out of the context of the principle of self-determination. In other words, the varied peoples of Nigeria have an inherent right to self-determination and if sovereignty resides with them as a collective, such sovereignty can only be exercised through their mutually agreed political arrangements. This explains why at independence the preferred political arrangement was based on the federal concept. The bastardisation of the federal concept by the various military arrangements that occupied Nigeria through the progressive centralisation of institutions and power relationships undermined autonomy and local initiative in leadership and development. The consequence has been the progressive repudiation of responsibility at all levels of governance and with it the severance of the privileges of leadership from the obligations and responsibilities.
While centralisation and the tendency towards unitarianism in governance may accord with the concepts of unified command and hierarchy in the military it is inimical to the exercise of autonomy and self-determination which alone assures participation and a sense of self awareness and identity to all formations in the polity. The seeds of rebellion and assertiveness that has overtaken various sections of the Nigerian family has its roots in this over centralisation of institutions, processes and procedures. As a consequence, the emphathic distance between the rulers and the ruled is lengthened. In a multi-ethnic, diverse and plural society, decentralisation and devolution are unavoidable as the preferred organisational framework. Until this basic principle is recognised and adhered to faithfully and fairly, Nigeria is unlikely to know sustainable development or peace.
As we saw earlier, an important benchmark for the successful leader is the aggregation and management of resoruces. If politics is the process which determines who gets what, when and how, then resources, its source, its appropriation and its disbursement and distribution are important issues in the political discourse in any nation. This is why the controversy over resources control is such an emotive issue in the Nigerian context. It is the measure of the depth of our failure in the process of national integration. And it is particularly contentions given the historical basis of the amalgamation - the equalisation of surplus from one area with deficits from another. It is also an index of the lack of development in the various geopolitical regions of Nigeria.
Within the framework of decentralisation and devolution and given the wide acceptance of the fact that sovereignty resides with the people only, the recognition that this sovereignty subsists on the valid acceptance of the concept of self-determination, the practice of democracy becomes vital as the basis for the reconciliation of pluralism and diversity with the logic of national integration and national unity. Neither national unity nor democracy can be given unfettered opportunity to take root and flourish in a multi-ethnic and plural society unless these twin concepts of sovereignty and self-determination are entrenched in the constitutional and legal framework of a plural society.
This is why the greatest damage that has been done to the democratic transition in Nigeria and hence to the cause of national integration has been the subversion of the democratic rights of the people to select their leaders and representatives through the electoral process. The politicians may have sown the whirlwind through the subordination of the peoples choice but it is the nation which may pay the unaffordable price of lawlessness and in some causes mindless violence. The increasing divisiveness and legalised chaos which is becoming apparent with the assassinations and local insurrections in different parts of the country is the harbinger of the more dangerous times initiated by the loss of confidence of the people in government and the processes of governance. In such circumstances, no viable programme of development can be pursued.
This brings us to the lack of development in the Nigerian situation. It has been said that the discovery of oil was responsible for our abandonment of sustainable development options. This is a simplistic evaluation of the situation. Countries are known where sudden surpluses were creatively applied to other development needs of the economy to catalyse accelerated growth and development. Such examples as Botswana and Singapore come to mind and just in case we want to use the fact of our multi-ethnic condition as an alibi, Malaysia and China are there to give the lie to any such contention. The truth of the matter is that leadership is the key and Nigeria has been mocked with a succession of low quality leadership, military and civilian.
The process of wealth creation depends in the mobilisation and strategic deployment of resources material and human. Since it involves the harnessing of the entrepreneurial talent and technical skills of the human capital and its strategic deployment of these, coupled with the creative and targeted application of initiative and the progressive application of innovation, this makes possible the creation of additional value in the production process. An organisational framework that enhances decentralisation and devolution makes for easier mobilisation of talents and resources. This is why a regional approach to development in which different regions concentrate on the segments of the economy where they have a comparative and competitive advantage pays greater dividends in the long term in any given national situation. Britain after the 1970s learnt this lesson the hard way. It was only after they embraced regionalisation (not regionalism) in their economic planning process that they could arrest the progressive decline of the British economy. Why did Britain, for example, devolve powers to Scotland and Wales after nearly 500 years of travelling together, not always harmoniously, down the road of unitary government? They were responding to the imperative logic of decentralisation and devolution, and necessary basis for developing efficiency and competence for more successful competition in a global world.
Nigeria-Going Forward
We have heard a lot in recent times about economic reforms and there is no doubt that a lot of good work has started being done in the economic sphere of our national life. But economic reforms without commensurate reforms in the socio-political processes of the nation run the risk that the more successful the economic reforms are, the greater the tensions they will generate in the socio-political arena, for example, by widening the gap in income distribution without adequate safety nets. Such tensions may just trip the nation over the edge unless greater evidence of skillful management and leadership is forthcoming that we have seen in the last 44 years including the last five.
We need to cultivate a new mind set that accepts the logic of transformation or as I had put it in the 1995 Awolowo Memorial Lecture "Reinventing Nigeria" as an unavoidable first step in our efforts to rebuild. We must be humble enough to return to the basics. The Nigerian people were not consulted at the birth of their nation in 1914. They need to be consulted now if we are to move forward as fast as our potential dictates in the global world of the 21st century. This is the basis and the logic for the clamour for the National Conference. Neither the British nor the military consulted the Nigerian peoples in designing the framework for their interaction and inter-relationship one with another.
Admittedly, there is the fear that the convocation of such a conference is the prelude to the disintegration of the Nigeria project. Without any shadow of doubt, I can assert that such an eventuality is out of the question and the logic for this position is simple; in a globalised world, even if hypothetically, the various Nigerian peoples were to go their separate ways they would be forced by the logic of interdependence fostered by globalisation to design new structures for mutual cooperation. It would still be Nigeria by another name.
An important and useful spin off of such a conference is the fact that not only the socio-political agenda can be crafted by such a conference but the economic vision of what kind of society we intend to build (including NEEDS and the various SEEDS) can be the basis of dialogue, reconciliation and new vision for a new Nigeria. It is feasible and doable and there is really no alternative. It is gratifying that weightier voices such as the Vice President and Chief Emeka Anyaoku have also called for the National Conference.
The stabilisation and deepening of the anchors of the democratisation process is also vital. Unless the citizenry have confidence that a fair and just aggregation of their choices, in terms of their leaders and their representation, channelled the democratic process can change the quality and acceptability of the successful leaders and representatives no progress towards stability of the political system is possible. In this regard, the monetisation of the political process must be tackled and the level of corruption and commercialisation considerably reduced.
In the political domain, the adoption of the independent candidate option will be a worthwhile change in the right direction. It will expand the peoples� choices while serving to recruit better quality candidates into the political process. For one, it will attract representatives who are known by their people and thus improve the level of interaction between the representatives who are known by their people and thus improve the level of interaction between the representatives and their constituents. The current dependence on the dictation of every element of the political process by the political parties disenfranchises the greater majority of Nigerians who are willing and desirous of serving their people but are not prepared for the shenanigan that goes for politicking in Nigeria. If truth must be told, the shameful sore on the body politick that is Anambra State was made possible by the ruling party - the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It was neither democratic nor did it accord ownership to its people as the name would have suggested. It is good that the former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar has added his weighty voice to this call for independent candidature.
That brings us to the emotive issue of the 36 state structure. It is neither affordable nor has it necessarily brought government nearer to the people. The truth of the matter is that the greater majority of these states are unviable in economic terms. What is more, in a federal system they are too small and too fragemented to serve as sufficient counter-weight to the almighty Federal Centre. Of course, there are too many vested interests to expect their abolition even if that were the rational thing to do - what with the army of governors with their dark-tinted and glassed entourages and the motley crowd of civil servants and parasitic hangers-on in all the state capitals. So we cannot abolish the states. But in our search for political compromises we have hit on an innovation that properly institutionalised and organised can serve the purpose of devolution and decentralisation better than the currently unviable states. Here, I am referring to the six geo-political zones which if given constitutional roles by transferring some of the inter-state responsibilities to them can serve more adequately as viable centres of development, the aggregation of political interests and a more effective counterpoise to the federal centre.
Still on the social political front, a controversial issue going forward is the proliferation of past military leaders who would want to be civilianised. As discussed earlier, Nigeria needs transformational leadership not another transitional leadership which can assure the stability of the cemetery. The command and control temper of the military however disguised is ill-equipped to deal with the problems of Nigeria at this juncture of our history. Given the past experience of Nigeria under their leadership, a recourse to leaders with a past in the military can only portray us a necessary sense of history or lacking a national collective memory or charitably as plainly unserious. The kind of emergency that requires the military mind has long past -and it was a nightmare. The nation is yet to recover and needs to move forward-fast. The reflexes of the past are inappropriate and inimical to the creative stimules of the present.
On the socio-economic front there is a plethora of socio-economic issues that need to be tackled urgently for they constitute incipient time bombs in our pursuit of a stable polity within a restructured and sustainable economic system. These are:
- the lack of appropriate social safety nets given the collapsing traditional extended family systems hastened by the money economy and the hordes of migrants from the rural economy to the overburdened and unplanned urban centres,
- the ogre of unemployment that threatens to waste a whole generation of our educated youth and
- the burgeoning pension debts that has thrown a generation of our most active and achieved professionals from the public service into a life of misery and deprivation as if this was their reward for their faithful and often exemplary service in the schools, hospitals and workshops of the nation.
These problems project us most vividly in a most unflattering light as a most callous and uncaring people. What has happened to the virtue of compassion amongst us you might ask?
CONCLUDING REMARKS
As one surveys the socio-political landscape of the area called Nigeria, one cannot help but apprehend the dreams that remain unfulfilled, the visions that remains unacknowledged and abandoned. As one revisits with the inner eye of insight and introspection, the overwhelming sense of a blighted wasteland with a plenitude of aborted plans and programmes is overpowering. Why such waste given such amazing potential for greatness? Yes, the leadership was not up to scratch but that is insufficient as an alibi given the possibilities of the environment. Yes, the development projections have been inexplicably less than expected or less than was envisaged; blame the planners we may chorus. But that again is inadequate as a rationalisation even if it is after the facts.
As one casts around the world of the 21st century with all its threats and its opportunities and gazes ever so jealously of South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and now China - all behind Nigeria 40 years ago - the question arises why such colossal failure in the midst of such promise? The question posed by V.K. insistently demands as answer. Yes, the promise of Nigeria remains unfulfilled because there are no Nigerians to build Nigeria. Ever so fleetingly we saunter from the safety of our ethnic or religious ramparts to cast our eyes longingly even if enviously on what could have been: a first world economy and society where diversity and pluralism can be the anchors of the nations' strength and continuing relevance. That explains why we mimic America ever so persistently! Of all our national failure-incompetent leadership with less than compelling visions, planners who could not see the forest because of the trees, local warriors and chieftains who were too afraid to venture beyond their enclaves, the most fundamental that has confined us to the same spot or worse these last 40 years has been the desecration and trivialisation of merit and excellence.
It was merit that built Gindiri, Barewa, Hope Waddell, King's etc. Without merit, a leadership that can inspire, capture, enthrall, direct, cajole and push its peoples towards a bright and alluring future of possibilities - possibilities designed by the mind of man and envisioned into reality by the indomitable spirit of man cannot overcome the incalculable odds in development. That is the missing link in the Nigerian story - leadership that transforms through the sheer power of mind and spirit, of knowledge and wisdom emboldened and empowered by a wholesome integrity and flint-like tenacity of purpose. Yes, merit abhors the quota mentality!
Yes, he will come, that leader, in God's time, but not in the present pack. As we wait, there is work to do - back-breaking work of tearing down and repositioning for the new Nigerians. Yes they are coming if only ...
Ask Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Pat Utomi, Bunmi Oni, el-Rufai, Jim Ovia, Aliko Dangote, Atedo Peterside, Mohammed Hayatudeen, Ifueko Omoigui, Leo Stan Ekeh and a host of others who will dare to build and to be Nigerian. Thank you for your patience and gracious attention. God bless you and our country Nigeria - despite all the wrong turns, we have no other country.
- Prof. Anya, National President, Hope Waddell Old Students Association, (HWOSA) is chairman, governing board, the Nigerian National Merit Award
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