RABI’UL-THANI 23, 1429 A.H
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30 2008
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Leadership challenges in Nigeria (II)
By Father Matthew Hassan Kukah
The history of the nation or his period is the story of his life and times and he is seen as the maker and moulder of all around him. The words used for him or them are, founding fathers or father of the nation.
Let me restate that: There is nothing in these random categorizations that is final or full proofed as I have noted. However, what we have tried to do is to provide a random paradigm for our analysis.
The next challenge is, how does all this talk to us in Nigeria and how does it all fit into our quest for a better society? To appreciate this, we probably need to, at least briefly see where we are coming from so we can attempt to understand why the Nigerian situation has been so problematic.
Leadership: Review of our Assumptions
As with all post colonial states, the theme of Leadership has dominated our discussions, regarding the future of our country. This is because Leaders were supposed to be the great men and women, capable of galvanizing their people into a new EI Dorado as the rosy post independence picture was painted. For us in Nigeria, Our situation was a bit peculiar and there is need for us to appreciate these circumstances before we begin to balance ourselves as to why we have not made so much progress. Commentators have tended to sound nostalgic as to why we never had the likes of Gandhi, Nehru or the Mandela’s in Nigeria. The argument around these ideas have tended to be a bit specious because they have not paid much attention to the peculiar nature of our environment.
Nigeria seems to lose sense of the fact that the idea of a one, united Nigeria was not at the heart of British colonialism. The enterprise was purely an economic adventure to enhance the British empire. Even the design of the architecture of post colonial power gave pre-eminance to this idealogy.This is why the British reacted nervously when the nationalist sought to claim the land of their people back from colonial rule.
Looking back, we realize that after the conquest of the various city state or communities that finally made up Nigeria, the state of the Nigerian project in the colonial imagination remained very unclear. The result is that we have had speculations as to motif and so on. But, it will seem too much to expect that at that time in history, the British would have been so clear about the future of the country, given the complexity of the cultural map, the space of the land in question and their limited knowledge of the areas and peoples. However, we can at least appreciate the fact that the time the British depated, they had attempted to weld together various peoples, first as emirates, Kingdoms, Regions, communities and so on. By independence, the regions had grown apart, each with its values and priorities. At independence new leadership had emerged, at their only main rallying cry had been to drive back the British and take back their country.
Each Regional leaders sentiments had focused on trying to do well for his people, to outpace the other regions. The new elites were compelled to try and find consensus around some shared values, but as the Sardauna and Zik anecdote recall, the leader felt that it was probably better to understand the differences and work to accommodate them, rather than seek unity, it seems therefore, that rather than lampoon colonial elite, it may be a bit fair to commend them for struggling to find consensus under the circumstances especially in the light of the new facts that have been emerging as to the fact that the British did not really hope that a strong, united Nigeria would emerge.
Either way, the leadership of post colonial states was preoccupied with the construction of the nation state and its modernization. This is why the post colonial literature referred to the generation of leaders as the modernizing elites. The state was seen as the platform, the instrument for the modernization of the new state and modernization was by and large to be measured in keeping with the principles and ideals that had guided the philosophy of British imperialism under the banner of a civilizing mission. This is why the British insisted that despite the end of colonial rule, they wished to be seen always as friends as the title of one colonial officer’s memoirs suggested. The key words were modernization, Progress, Development, National Unity etc.
No sooner had the ship set sail than it entered stormy waters. The fissures had begun to show and the nation would later pay the price with a civil war. The succeeding elite had paid little attention to institutionalizing checks and balances in the system and also opening up the political space for the attainment of Constitutional rile. Unprepared for the future, the citizens emerging from the colonial state expected their so called leaders to be Messiahs, most capable to lift them out of the shackles of poverty and squalor. The result was anomic. We have witnessed the destruction of the sense of nationhood through coups and counter coups as means of providing leadership in Nigeria. After series of failed and successful coups, the military destroyed itself and today, its project of offering patriotic leadership lies in ruins. The return to democracy is to be as an exercise in reconstructing and rebuilding the deserted village.
It is important to note that we have enough catalogue of leadership woes and failures to last us a life time in Africa. And, let us not deceive ourselves. Our woes are not about to end.. No one believed that Zimbabwe would end up the way it did. No one believed that Nkrumah, the star and epitome of the struggle for Africa would end up the way he did. No one believed that El Bashir would end up as an albatross around the necks of Sudanese. No one expected Meles Zenawi, or a Museveni of Uganda, to turn into the dictatorial tyrants that they have turned into today. But perhaps we should speak in hushed tones because the leaders mentioned above have been on the thrones for the better part of over twenty years and they are still counting .
No one expected that President Obasanjo would be vilified and become such an object of scorn so early in his life. But, either way, our democrats can boast and they have not let us forget that we defeated third term!
It is Yar’adua today and, despite the faltering steps, we are not so sure how it will all end. But, the Messiah is not here yet. And, this is precisely the problem. Nigerians who believe the worst about themselves tend to live in the past. I am not so sure that the abuse of the Obasanjo administration will lead us anywhere. The National Assembly has done well in covering its tracks over the allegations of intense corruption that has trailed that august body from inception. It seems clear that the way that we have framed the problems will get us into deeper waters.
First,we assumed that leaders are at only those who are the top and they are associated with all that has gone wrong in our country. The rest of us are innocent lambs who are slaughtered every day. I wish to argue that we need another strategy for addressing our problems.
Reframing the Issues: Who Leads,Who Follows?
It seems clear to me now frankly,just like a lot of other areas of our national life,we have paid very little or no attention to thinking through more clearly as to the serious issues about Leadership. Let us take a human example. Imagine this scenario. You and your driver are cruising in your new lexus jeep and perhaps watching a movie in the car. All of a sudden, the beautiful car screeches to a stop. What is wrong driver? you ask.
The driver says to you, oga, make I look de engine. He comes down, looks at the engine, fiddles around with a few things and returns to start the vehicle,but nothing happens. It is getting dark and you still have long journey. What do you do. Do you look for the Manufacturer’s manual or do you call the manufacturers themselves?
Perhaps your first reaction is not to pull out your mobile phone to call Tokyo or Detroit, so you can report to the manufacturers that your car has stopped in the middle of nowhere and yu still have along way to go and it is getting dark. There is very little anyone can do for you from far away Tokyo or Detroit. Your first reaction may just be to ask, is there any mechanic around here?
I made the point to under the fact of that leardership must think local and that like everything else,we need to appreciate the peculiar nature of our own history and cultures.There are no perfect leaders out there on shelves for us to merely seek to mimic. Great as the jeffersons, Rosevelts, Kennedys, Lee kwan yews, Churchils and the Mandelas may have been, there were priduct of peculiar historico-cultural formations. So, it is stupid to hear Nigerians seeking their own Mandelas or their Nehrus and so on.
Similarly, the lachrymal exercises that characterized our frequent obsession with the past is another evidence of the sorry state of our affairs. Everyday Northerners gather, the conversation is not complete without their mourning the Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, Aminu Kano and now,the likes of Sunday Awoniyi. The Yorubas gather and lament that things have fallen apart because they have departed from the ways of chief Awolowo. The Igbos have been more circumspect about the great Zik because he was Zik of Africa and not Zik of Igbo man . That is the subject of another debate altogether. But the point is that these tears are mere expressions of hypocrisy and reluctance and the part of those who claimed to have worked with these great men to address the issues of where and why they carelessly dropped the battom. Or perhaps these hypocritical tears would have some meaning, if this individuals did not always seek to use them as mere excuses for doing very little or nothing to take responsibility.
This great men were product of a time that have come and gone. Not only can they not come back,even if they did,there is no way they would exert the same type of influence and hold that they had then. We are grown up, have had our own experiences, are educated, the landscape has changed, population has grown, we have become more sophisticated and so on.
So the first challenge in my view is for us to appreciate the dynamics of the moments.
