In 2013, I was in a leadership
conference in Lagos where Oby Ezekwesili said repeatedly that a leader must
possess three qualities: character, competence and capacity. She mentioned
these very qualities during the APC Summit in 2014 in a paper titled; “The
Uncomfortable Truth of Elusive Economic Development…” The issue with these
qualities is that you cannot possess one, to be sufficiently called a leader. I
was in another leadership summit at Oriental Hotel, Lagos, in 2012, where Pat
Utomi cautioned emerging leaders not to confuse provision of infrastructural
development with good leadership. From the various kinds of corruption listed
by Okonjo Iweala at TEDxEuston in 2014, I cannot but agree with Ezekwesili that
governance does not happen in Nigeria, what happens in Nigeria is ‘massive
business transaction’. For those who have read Marx’s philosophy, you will
understand that he saw a government ruled by the bourgeois and would be
eventually taken over by the proletarians of the society. But have you studied
Nigerian history with the rise of a proletarian in government? Once a man in
the lower class climbs the seat of governance, he becomes a bourgeois and
eventually joins those in the upper class to torment those in the lower class.
The dialectic continues as those in the lower class begin another revolution to
take over government and when a leader eventually emerges from amongst them,
with time, he ceases to identify with those in the lower class and eventually becomes
a bourgeois. We must understand that this is the dialectic of Nigerian
democracy, although with some very few exceptions.
Back to my analysis. I
have studied and carefully concluded that John Major, Bill Gates, Dangote, etc,
spent time developing themselves to be leaders and not necessarily scholars;
John Major therefore, never needed a university degree to rise to the position
of Prime Minister of Britain, he simply grew to a stature of leadership. There
is a lesson to be learnt from their gradual development; leadership is both an
art and a school on its own. At this juncture, I should say that over 50% of
Nigerian politicians never acquired the art and went to the ‘school’ of
leadership. These were people who intended to build a profession of their own,
but ended up in various political offices as ‘accidental leaders’, and it would
be erroneous to expect substantial results from such a process; truly, we can
only achieve accidental results.
Let us take a tour on
Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan based on the yardstick of the
qualities of competence, character and capacity. I prefer to use the titles
‘Gen.’ and ‘Dr.’ to qualify their various professions, because there is nothing
inherent in these two titles that necessarily suggests political leadership. A
professor of zoology will fail in the art of leadership if, outside his
professional discipline, he hasn’t acquired the art of leadership, which is a
school on its own that requires professionalism. Thus, the citizens in such a
system of government will end up being treated like the animals in the zoo of
his profession that he was meant to lead. A military General in his own light
will end up being a dictator of the people he was meant to lead if he hasn’t
acquired the art of leadership. So, a professor and a military general who are
also leadership experts would be better off, than a professor and a military
general who are not specialized in leadership. On the other hand, a high school
graduate who has spent most part of his life acquiring leadership skills
without a university degree, should be more suitable than a university
professor who has not acquired such skills. Eventually, the task of leading a
country transcends academic certificates.
Therefore, on the
question of governance, Nigerians have lived with a misguided promise that a
university don could be the best leader, without taking into cognizance the
intricacies of these qualities, ranging from, character, competence and
capacity. Well, Nigerians have come to see that it is possible for a human
being not to possess one, two or, all three qualities. I have also studied
carefully that citizens who are chanting Buhari’s name as the hope in the next
dispensation, will also still chant his name if he were to be either in Labour
Party, APGA, PDP, etc. What this means for these citizens is that, they prefer
to flow with a man they consider to be a person of character, political party
notwithstanding. I carefully listened to one of the officials of the PDP on Channels
TV as he responds to their choice of gubernatorial candidate for the state and
he said; everyone knows that Enugu State is PDP State. What this implies is
that even if Gen. Sani Abacha rises from the dead and becomes its flag bearer,
PDP would certainly win. To those of you who belong to this category, I welcome
you to kakistocracy and neocolonialism. There is still a third group of people
who appear to be indifferent, but are still actually not conclusive on which
party, or who to vote for, but they would eventually make their conclusions
from developmental strides of each candidate and how well they are convinced to
vote for one party over another. From commentaries and other careful studies,
we would observe that Gen. Obasanjo as President of Nigeria, had competence,
capacity, but had no character. President Jonathan may not be competent and
have the capacity, but he may have the character. On the other hand, Gen.
Buhari may not have the capacity, but he may have the character and competence.
It means that in our evolving democracy, there would still be no perfection,
but we can still have the most preferred (even the most preferred candidate
should still be criticized for us to have progression in democracy).
Finally, as the
pendulum of politics moves and definitely tilts towards one direction, I have
an advice for my fellow citizens: let your pendulum tilt towards a man who has
refused to become a bourgeois to torment those in the lower class because;
Acemoglu and Robinson observed that many countries became rich only when their
citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society where
political rights were broadly distributed, with an accountable government that
was also responsive to the citizens and enabled them to take advantage of
economic possibilities. The reverse has been the case in Egypt and Nigeria that
have been ‘ruled’ by narrow elites who organize the masses to harness resources
for the advantage of the elites.
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