Restoring Hope By Avoiding Breakdown By: Nasir El-Rufai

In the light of the historic challenges
that have been become part of our
polity, is it easy to restore hope
once lost? Certainly not, but
transformational leadership for
Nigeria can begin the long process.
From my modest experience
spanning a decade in public service,
I am convinced that almost any
human being can excel when a
visionary, disciplined and goal
oriented leader is visible to set
examples – a transformational
leader. Conversely, almost anyone –
however competent or well-meaning
can be a failure under an
unfocused, corrupt and immoral
leader – a transactional leader. It
really all boils down mostly to
quality of leadership. As the
common proverb says, ‘fish starts to
get rotten from the head’.
Another issue is the fact that human
beings are by nature strategic, and
thermometers, will adjust their
behaviour to conform to the
leaderships and their environment.
So, to change their behaviour we
have to change the quality and
style of our nation’s leadership, and
put in place a clear regime of
rewards (for merit and good
conduct) and sanctions (for poor
performance and misconduct).
There is simply no other way to
develop a well-ordered, rules-driven
and progressive society. The
symptoms of Nigeria’s problems are
many but the cure would begin with
just one thing – good leadership by
example.
Coming back to the present, what
we all need to do is to study history
and learn from our past. We would
see that at the point where Nigeria
begins to make progress at good
governance, human progress and
social justice based on hard work,
patience and sacrifice, suddenly,
from nowhere, there comes a false
messiah to offer the people relief
and immediate gratification (like
‘fresh air’) which then stifles
national growth. Since those who
fail to learn from history are doomed
to repeat it, our task is to learn from
the mistakes of 2007-2012, and
avoid being deceived by
transactional leaders who will only
end up making Nigeria poorer even
where we have the natural and
human resources to attain a
reasonable standard of living for all
– not just a declining minority of our
people.
Such false messiahs are easy to
identify – usually they have had no
proper education, no profession, no
national exposure beyond their
narrow provincial circle and no track
record of performance in public
service. They have also never run
businesses employing people,
neither have they any known source
of income to justify their clear
opulence and high standards of
living other than being in low-
paying public service jobs! These
are the sort of “leaders” we must
never have in the future.
We need a paradigm shift in
leadership identification, nurturing
and selection – something new and
something different. We need to
throw up political platforms and
candidates with the knowledge,
skills and proven record of
performance and integrity in public
service to transform our nation. It is
my humble view that we should
scrutinize all those that offer
themselves for leadership bearing in
mind at least the following
parameters:
1. Education, Experience and
Pedigree are Necessary but not
Sufficient
Though our first two university
graduate presidents disappointed
all except their villages, family and
close friends, we must not write off
educational attainment as a
necessary indicator of leadership
effectiveness. Experience that is
relevance to governance – in
managing resources, administering
large, complex organizations, and
mobilizing our nation’s diversity into
inclusive strength matters. The
schools a prospective leader
attended, the alumni network he
can tap on demand, his elders,
family and friends that can look him
in the eye and say “do not let us
down because you represent us” all
contribute to the pressure needed
to make a leader perform with
integrity.
2. Search for Team Players not
Lone Rangers
The burden of governance in a
diverse, ‘post-conflict’ nation like
Nigeria requires more than one
good person, however intelligent,
competent and well-meaning. A
strong, competent and cohesive
team, not a single “strongman” is
needed to transform a nation not in
one or two election cycles but
several. Only a team with clear
succession planning can implement
a long term vision that transforms
nations. It takes a generation to
move any country from Third World
to First like Japan (LDP, 50 years),
Malaysia (Mahathir and UMNO – 25
years) Singapore (Lee Kwan Yew, 33
years), Botswana (BPP, 35 years)
and China (Deng Xiao Ping, CCP, 35
years and counting), and only a
dedicated team sharing a common
vision across parties and platforms
can do it.
3. Bold, Courageous Leaders
with Clear Vision
Transformational leaders are bold
and courageous. They envision and
see what appears impossible to
others, and persuade the followers
that it is not only possible but
attainable, outlining practical steps
to realize the vision. Imagine
meeting the Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh
Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum
30 years ago and listening to his
vision for converting his desert city
wasteland to modern day Dubai.
You would probably laugh and tag
him unrealistic at best, or insane at
worst – but Al-Maktoum persuaded
his cabinet and citizens to believe
and achieve this vision in less than
a generation. That is the power of
visionary leadership – bold,
courageous but realistic and
realizable.
4. Democrats in Words,
Actions and Practice
It is one thing for aspiring leaders to
talk repeatedly about democracy,
but another to practice it. We
should scrutinize our leaders’ words,
actions and practices to ensure that
there are no disconnects between
all three. People driven by the
politics of personal interest and
primitive accumulation do not
believe in democracy nor are they
capable of practicing it in
governance. They neither believe in
social justice and equal opportunity
for citizens. By nature, they are
capricious and seek to exercise
power singularly for private
accumulation, not for general
welfare, service and public good.
They therefore have no regard for
people capable of independent
thought, merit and performance, so
they inadvertently put blind loyalty
above the Constitution.
5. Public Service Skills and
Performance
Public service experience
particularly at Federal level is
essential for effective future public
leadership at that level. Similarly,
any person aspiring to leadership at
state or local government level
ought to show some understanding
of, experience in and exposure to
that level of governance. Private
sector success helps but is not a
conclusive indicator of future public
sector performance. In any case,
there is a huge difference between
the skill sets required for politics
and governance because often
persons that get a government
elected are not the best persons to
help it govern.
6. Strong, Dedicated Advisers
and Inner Circle
There is a Nigerian proverb which
translated is “there is no wicked
ruler without wicked advisers”.
Effective leaders usually have a
team of advisers that are brighter,
more experienced and exposed
than they are. Self-confident leaders
identify their personal skills and
experience gap and choose staff to
furnish what is missing. A leader,
however brilliant, who is surrounded
by an inner circle of insecure,
incompetent and mediocre people,
often comes to grief. A leader,
whose family is unable to keep away
from affairs of state, and thereby fail
to keep him grounded to the
realities of leadership, often goes
astray.
7. Bridging Regional and
Religious Divides
Nigeria’s diversity, history and
recent experiences require leaders
that build bridges across our
genders, ethnic groups, regions and
religions. No one should be elected
to national leadership unless by
expressions, actions and practices
that have shown this capacity not to
discriminate, but to unite, integrate
and include every Nigerian of
whatever background in his inner
circle, comfortably. Careful scrutiny
of the track record of any
prospective leader in his or her past
public and private life would show
how diversely they recruited their
staff, picked advisers and made
decisions on siting of projects and
programs. This principle can be
applied to aspirants even seeking
office at state and local government
levels in a careful and discerning
manner.
8. Recognition for the
Imbalance in our Federalism
Nigeria’s federal structure exists
only in the official name of our
nation. Years of administrative
centralization by the military has
created distortions and imbalances
in our federalism. This needs to be
recognized by our prospective
leaders. We must raise this debate
on federal imbalance to put on hold
the senseless quest for the creation
of more states, demand the
legislation of State and Federal
crimes and cause the amendment
of our Constitution to enable States
and Local Governments establish
community-level security agencies
to address our disparate internal
security needs. We must encourage
inter-state competition by devolving
more powers and responsibilities to
lower tiers of government and
reducing the scope and scale of
Federal encroachment into the daily
lives of our citizens.
The leadership parameters listed
above are derived from limited
experience and detached
observation and therefore neither
exhaustive nor silver bullets. As in
everything in human affairs, there
will be exceptional persons that may
not meet all the requirements listed
and still turn out to be effective.
However, assuming that will be
relying on chance – those ‘divine
interventions’ that we pray and wait
for instead of taking our destiny in
our hands. I am a firm believer of
the saying that “fate is what God
gives you, and destiny is what you
do with it.”
It is time for Nigerians to stop
passing the buck to God, or waste
energy on the needless blaming of
everyone other than ourselves or
those we like. By failing to stand up
to resist bad rulers, we abdicated
our destinies to the shameless
criminals that permeate our political
space and the public service. Our
fate is the endowment that God
gave us. It cannot be our destiny to
continue to have bad leaders by
selection or election. It is time to say
‘enough is enough’ and choose
right.
As the world moves firmly into the
21st Century, we must firmly reject
those that want Nigeria to remain in
the dark ages – and move forward
to restore dignity and hope in our
younger generation. They must see
a country that can work in their
lifetimes – where electricity is stable,
crimes are solved and criminals
brought to justice – a Nigeria where
capability and hard work are the
primary tools for success in life.
Failing to do that within the next
decade will lead to the breakdown of
our society if not the total failure of
the Nigerian state. We will not be
able to handle the influx of 5 million
hopeless and angry 18 year olds
added every year during the
ensuing period to our army of the
under-educated and under-
employed. In this avoidable
scenario, none of our great grand-
children may have the opportunity
of seeing Nigeria celebrating its
century of Independence. That will
be a sad indictment on us all,
particularly those born just before or
around the end of colonization.