How low can we go as a nation on the leadership scale – from bad – to worse? Why are we always having leaders in title more than in public perception? Is Nigeria jinxed, ‘cursed or are we the cause’?( apologies to Mr. Peter Obi). The simple answer to the above questions is the reason why, administration after administration, our Presidents – past and present – have plummeted to the lowest rating accorded any modern president in any well-run democratic dispensation. It often troubles the mind why what has worked in other democracies has failed to deliver the same dividends in our own case. Look at it this way: ‘You better learn how to dress like a grown-up’, someone told me, ‘if you believed what President Tinubu told Nigerian workers on May Day’, that their “days of worrying are over”.
Read his lips! It’s only those lacking in emotional intelligence who will believe what Mr President said. He didn’t mean it. He didn’t intend to do what he said. And he will not do it because his policies are aversed to friendly policies that have plunged Nigerians to the lowest wage earners in the world. Contrary to the claims of the vice president, Kassim Shettima, that the economy will soon bounce back, government’s choices have vanquished the poor and set the country on the path of implosion. It’s just a matter of time if the present situation remains the same. You see, when a country is facing turbulent times, with extreme hardship(as Nigerians are going through today) that has affected lives, livelihood and human dignity, when the purchasing power of the citizens can no longer guarantee them a decent meal, no living wage in sight, and cost of essential drugs and prices of food items going beyond the reach of ordinary citizens, that’s when good leadership that can inspire and turn things around, matter.
Not that leadership is a cure, but it is a prerequisite for tackling the national malaise, healing the wound of poor governance and getting the country moving again in the right direction, not top-down , but leadership all round. Hardly anyone is talking about why this President is not measuring up in the leadership scale and the collosal failure to transform the economy, contrary to claims during the electioneering campaign that Nigeria under Tinubu’s leadership has the magic wand to reposition the economy within one year in office. Can you give what you don’t have? Now, it’s a race against time with one year anniversary of his presidency fast approaching.
This much is clear from what Nigerians are facing under the present government: Nigerians are not aberrational, neither are they defeatist, ungenerous or lacking in any of the qualities of citizenship, patriotism or humanity. They have always given every government in power a fair chance to perform, no matter how suspect the process that brought it to power. The hopes of most Nigerians have always been modest. Their fears remain rational. But their disillusionment and suspicion about the performance of government, its officials and the institutions that ought to strengthen our democracy are well-founded. However, make no mistake about it, the patience of Nigerians under the present regime is growing thin every passing day. The unfortunate thing is that some Nigerians (not me), place their trust in a government that lies to them repeatedly and tell the truth selectively as well as fudge facts to accomplish a set agenda.
But no matter how this government and its officials try to misrepresent the facts, where Nigeria is today is such pitiable that not even the most ingenious propaganda or lies will obscure or erase the profound and disturbing questions that Nigerians are asking: Are you better off today than you were a year ago? When will this pain end? Clearly, this is an expression of the popular disaffection of the people with most of government’s policies. It’s not even better at the sub-national level. The welfare of the citizens no longer matters to them. It’s all about starving the people to feed the rich. For days on end, people have been spending endless hours at petrol stations. Perhaps to make matters worse, NNPC is saying that the pain is likely to continue for the next two weeks. People are paying for darkness in the name of electricity supply. It’s never been this hard in Nigeria. The poor live each day as it comes, albeit in extreme agony. Why is the current situation so dire? It is because very so often, Nigerians have encountered not just mediocre but bad and toxic leaders, the kind that have not only failed to match the moment, but have taken the people in the wrong direction.
Nobody is saying that every leader or president is perfect. We all have our faults, flaws, blind spots, and shadow sides, but it appears that it has been the misfortune of Nigeria to have a generation of ‘I don’t -care’ leaders, especially since the present democratic dispensation began in 1999. It gets worse every election cycle. The followers have not been any better too. In his book titled, “Witness to Power”, David Gergen, a veteran senior adviser to four American presidents( both Democrat and Republican), wrote as follows, “most books about leadership tell us what a person ought to do to become effective and powerful. Few tell us what to avoid. But the latter may even be more valuable because many people on the road to success are tripped up by their mistakes and weaknesses”. This also reflects the sad situation of present Nigeria.
Every president that comes seems to be worse than the one he succeeded, not learning from the mistakes of his predecessor, and even worse, not recognising his own weaknesses, but blaming his mistakes and missteps on his predecessor for the challenges he faces, as if he sought power and got it to stay in the cozy presidential Villa to eat ‘amala and ewedu’, to paraphrase the words of one author, Jorge Cuervor, to be a ‘Command-and-Control’ President. Truth is, bad leadership comes in various degrees, starting with a leader lacking empathy, desirable behaviour, and moving to missing the essential elements, and falling off a cliff when it matters most. Didn’t we see that with ex-presidents Obasanjo, Yar’adua, Jonathan, and Buhari? Maybe, Tinubu is about beating them all when it comes to toxic leadership. That is the point Robert Greenleaf, emphasizes in his best-selling book, “Servant Leadership”. He says that a leader’s essential role should be to serve the people. At its best, it involves listening to the yearnings of the people, having compassion, persuasion, stewardship, commitment to citizens’ growth, among other things that require his urgent attention.
It is in the same vein that James Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of “Leadership Challenge”, assert that people want a leader they believe is honest with himself and with his compatriots, competent, inspiring and forward-looking. Look around the country, the states and the National Assembly, what do you see? You answer. According to the authors, honesty emerges as the single -most important factor in the leadership-constituent relationship, and credibility the foundation of leadership, wherein, people must be able, above all else, believe in what their leader tells them. Can we say the same about the present leadership in our country? Given the nature of power, and the complexity of ambition, and the nuanced picture of Nigeria’s leadership at the highest level, anyone waiting to see an empathetic president, with people-friendly policies should better wait for Godot.
For this government, one is yet to see any deliberate effort to tack back to the centre. That is where the poor, suffering masses are. Their suffering seems to be government’s gratification. It’s not just at the federal level, state governments appear even more callous. Their inordinate drive for power is inseparable from what they wanted power for all along. It means acquiring more and wealth for themselves, and their families that they can’t finish in their lifetime, at the expense of the people.
If you are looking for examples, the story of ex-governors comes handy. If in doubt, ask Yahaya Bello, immediate past Governor of poor Kogi state. Bello, a former level 12 officer in the federal civil service is today reportedly richer than Kogi state. Isn’t that unbelievable? That’s how sad politics in Nigeria has become. But, Bello is not alone, they are legion yet to face prosecution. Last week, I stumbled upon some of the books on ‘Bad Leadership’, written by Barbara Kellerman, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy school, USA. Bad leadership, she says, gets worse if allowed to fester. “We need to act decisively before it spirals into greater destruction”, she warns. Official corruption in Nigeria is spiralling out of control because we have failed as a nation to act decisively.
Sometimes, officials of the anti-graft agency have compromised themselves. The Chairman of EFCC, Ola Olukayode admitted that much recently. We hope the renewed commitment of the agency will not fade away anytime soon. But, on the other side of a decaying society is the problem of the followers. Imagine the protests last week, in Abuja, by hired supporters of ex-governor That’s why Kellerman stresses the importance of followers before they drag the country down. Every country, she argues, is as good or bad as the followers of the leader in power. She cites the example of Adolf Hitler, and said, “so far, as we know, Hitler never himself killed a single Jew. Some six million Jews died because others, Hitler’s followers, were willing to do his dirty work for him”. Isn’t that instructive to what is going on in our politics today?
Just last week, the troubled National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje was all over himself, saying “No vacancy in Ask Rock in 2027”. Why can’t our politicians learn from history? Remember late Chief Tony Anenih(“Mr. fix-it”) and Vincent Ogbulafor. They did exactly the same thing during Obasanjo presidency when they were in the commanding heights of the PDP as the party in power then. Ogbulafor and Anenih were merely trying to please the President. Recall that Ogbulafor was the fellow who boasted that PDP would be in power for sixty unbroken years. On his path, Anenih once said that Obasanjo was the “Messiah” Nigerians had been waiting for. When the economy began to go bad, he defiantly asked: “have Nigerians started fighting themselves on the streets”?
What happened to both men later? Ogbulafor was thrown under the bus, and Anenih never recovered from his quarrel with Obasanjo. The same fate may befall Ganduje. It’s a matter of time. That indeed, makes our politicians and politics a fun to follow. You know why? Power reveals. As history teaches, when a president gets enough power, when he feels he doesn’t need ‘yes men’ around him anymore, then we can see how he wants to treat people. That’s when you can see that power can be used for very large purposes, depending on what the man with the levers of power wants to do with the awesome authority at his disposal. I have this hunch that, in the fullness of time, Ganduje, already troubled on all sides, may not be an exception to the rule. Watch out! All things shall pass. Power is transient.