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LEADERSHIP IN NATIONHOOD: THE NIGERIAN EXPERIENCE BY
Nigeria will soon observe 43 years of existence as a sovereign state. However, it is quite unfortunate that the most populous black nation on earth is endowed with both natural and human resources and potentials, yet is still struggling with the question of true leadership 4 decades after independence.
We easily blame the instability and general rot in the polity on military interventions. Yes, no doubt, the truncation of the first republic by the military set the nation into a spiral of gun power tussle for the nation's leadership. This cycle of military dictatorship left us with a poor model of leadership and almost nothing about followership since dictators and despots don't bother about if they have followers. 43 years of independence, about 30 years military rule under 7 military rulers have left us with nothing but abysmal despair and total hopelessness.
It was during this period that our definition of leadership became distorted. A man becomes a Nigerian leader by superior gun power, he breaks into the corridors of power and assumes a responsibility of leading a people he hardly knows and will never know what they want. Some other military leaders only had to wake up one morning to discover that the seat is vacant and they mount on it hardly knowing where they are going. At this point, followership as a concept is practically non-existing, but the dictators had a way of pushing the people around.
This is because; you can only command followership from a people that gave you the mandate to lead them. That is why August Blanqui stated that " a majority acquired by the by terror or gag rule is no majority of citizens but a herd of slaves." The reason Nigeria may continue to experience bad leadership even in this democratic dispensation is that as long as leaders do not emerge through the popular will of the people, they won't command followership, rather they will attract sycophants, they will won't even bother to hear what the people are saying because it is never the people that put them there, and ultimately they won't perform in office because they have no mandate.
Followership is derived from mandate, and mandate goes with responsibilities and commitment. As long as a selected group of people who lay claim to power continues to assume popular mandate and reserve the right to give it to whosoever they desire, we will continue going the round the circle. Any leader that is a product of any fraternal political entity will primarily be subject to that entity, serving their interests and implementing their self-serving agenda at the expense of the masses. I also believe that despite the rot of the military days, the civilian "rules" had never fared better in providing dynamic and visionary leadership.
Outside the first republic that was a product of the colonialists, every other civil rule has been a mal-formed baby of the military. The process that started in 1999 is at best a neo-military approximation of democracy, the way the Ota farmer made his journey from prison to Aso Rock and how he has run the affairs of the state only shows that we are still in transition, the 2003 election is a further proof of that. In Nigeria, leadership is becoming an end in itself and a means to providing responsible governance.
How can you steal a people's mandate and yet claim that you are representing the people? The desperation that that characterized the elections only confirms to the people of Nigeria that these office seekers are on their own, they don't need popular will to win an election and definitely, they rule without any reference to popular needs and demands. They are civilian dictators who don't even respect their own procedures. They do what they want do and how they want it. To further their interests, they can doctor legislative bills overnight without any regards to public opinion. For the Nigerian people who are supposed to the followers in this case of leadership misadventure, it is a hopeless situation.
The profile of the oppressors keeps rising as they acquire, more political grounds with each dubious conquest, and the people are perpetually intimidated and disillusioned. The elitist minority keeps flourishing and increasing in accumulation of private capital while the majority of the people wallow in abject poverty and peasantry. This situation has polarized the people into two different line of action, viz, the loot-sharers and the petionists.
The loot- sharers are actually those that has vowed to do anything possible to participate in the game, these set of people can easily play thugs, turn-coats, sycophants and apologists. They mortgage their conscience to service their greed; truth to them is defined in terms of personal benefits. The second group on the hand is those that have actually acknowledged the imbalance in the system and decided that only the intervention of the supreme one that can settle the matter. No doubt, this is a good way to think, but resigning to a supernatural event to address such a pressing burden as leadership leaves much to be desired.
Given that the spiritual controls the physical and granted that God makes rulers and kings, it is very important that we exhaust human capability in dealing with the problem before making a higher appeal to the extent of being hopeless about any earthly solution. The Obasanjo's Government has really been a burden to the people of Nigeria, here is a leader without any tangible blueprint or vision for the nation he claims to lead, the man is literally out of touch with the realities of the yearnings of the people. Obasanjo had never had the mandate of the people, never will.
In 1999, he was picked from prison, polished by the northern oligargy and presented to Nigerians hoping he will still serve their interests. They failed to understand that, having discovered that "his hands were tied" (according to him) during his first coming as military leader, the man has undergone a kind of change that has awoken in him the embers of aristocracy and authoritarianism. The result is that they imposed on Nigeria an inherently and chronically despotic and dictatorial leader who lacks understanding of the purpose of leadership; a man that does not really represents the true the picture of the dynamic and articulate Nigerian.
A vindictive leader who does not have any patience for anybody holding contrary opinion, and judges people on the basis of their previous positions without any attempt to find out if they have anything to offer. Obasanjo is a leader so flawed in all regards, yet his strongest point remains the self-will that has reduced the nation to the machinations of the small mind of only one man.
May 2003 . |