“Dear Opeyemi,...As usual I enjoyed reading you yesterday on the back page of Businessday-and I am in full agreement with you, except that I think you ran out of space before you could “complete” your argument. True, leadership is in short supply, but what should the followership do about it? My main distress is that the people in their 30s, 40s, seem to assume that we have to live with leadership delinquency. My view is that Nigeria, like nature should abhor this vacuum and find a way to mobilize the intelligence, energy, commitment and effort of the people at the peak of their life cycle to take responsibility for devising a creative thrust towards shaping the future. Maybe you want to think about this and if you agree, try to bring your “What do we lack?” to a challenging conclusion….Christopher Kolade.
I have published Dr Kolade’s e-mail because I know he would have no objection and secondly I agree entirely with him. Incidentally Dr Kolade was not the only reader who sent responses highlighting the followership dimension. Another “Chris” (Adedipe) made a similar point. Their point is valid-okay so we have a leadership problem, but didn’t the followership in other societies faced with similar circumstances rise up through new and emergent leaders to salvage their nation?
Didn’t Ghana for instance throw up a Jerry Rawlings who swept away Ghana’s wayward and corrupt leaders and set Ghana on the path to reform, growth and democracy? Didn’t Nelson Mandela and his colleagues on the ANC Youth Wing rise up to challenge South Africa’s apartheid leadership even upon pain of imprisonment? Didn’t Deng Xiaoping rise to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and then unleash a reform process that has transformed China into a global economic power in just thirty years? Didn’t Lee Kwuan Yew as a 30 year old accept the responsibility of taking Singapore from third world to first in just three decades? Don’t countries regularly demonstrate that the people are not powerless in the face of leadership-Ukraine, Czech, Thailand, Madagascar, in recent memory?
Didn’t American voters and society demonstrate just recently their willingness to challenge and replace the inept leadership provided by Bush, Dick Cheney and the Republican Party? Indeed the Republicans reminded us that leaders anywhere can drift into error if they are not restrained by the people. What are we Nigerians doing to restrain, challenge or replace bad leadership? If our national government is too remote for us to put pressure on and demand better performance from, what about the state and local governments, and national legislators who live amongst us? What about the commissioners and house of assembly members who stay in our communities? Why are Nigerians so willing to bend over backwards perhaps until we break?
We have to re-invent society itself! We need a new activist civic mentality that is willing to challenge abuse of power and demand accountability from elected officials. Even where they have rigged themselves into office, we must insist that they have merely forcefully submitted to our authority. Nigerians must realise that we are the bosses, not those who are supposed to serve us. That is why they are called “public servants”, “civil servants”, “representatives” or “ministers” and not Kings, Queens or Lords! We need a sense of community in which everyone recognises our mutual inter-dependence. Society cannot function when everyone acts in pursuit of his or her own self-interest and self-preservation without regard to the common good. Unfortunately like Fela sang (“I no wan die, papa dey for house, mama dey for house, I wan build house, my pikin still young….”), our people fear death and danger, not realising that the value of life consists of what you do with it, and we end up deferring all the problems of society to the next generation, except that by then, the problem has degenerated many times over!
As I close however I must return to President Yar’adua’s basic enquiry, “what do we lack?” My answers have focused on fundamental causes-leadership, elite consensus, national identity and purpose, a progressive value system and social ethos, resourcefulness and productivity in public life, an activist civic citizenry etc. But all of these do not explain why President Obasanjo used to be invited to G8 meetings and Yar’adua is not invited to an enlarged G20 summit. So we must seek specific reasons for our exclusion from this G20 meeting. I think there are three-the elections that brought Yar’adua to power lacked credibility and legitimacy highlighting the critical need for electoral reform.
Secondly the world believes the current regime has abandoned its commitment to fight corruption with the treatment of Nuhu Ribadu and inaction on the corruption front-the remedy to that is also clear. The final point is that we have basically abandoned economic reforms-why invite a government whose economic policy is unclear to a summit focused on resolving a global financial and economic crisis? Moreover, we have compounded these factors with our voluntary withdrawal from the world stage. Those are the reasons, Mr President. May God give you the will and the power to do what is required.
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