NIGERIA AND THE QUEST FOR CREDIBLE LEADERSHIP: BEING A PAPER DELIVERED BY DISTINGUISHED SENATOR BUHARI ABDULFATAI AT THE NIGERIA UNION OF JOURNALISTS OYO STATE COUNCIL 2016 PRESS WEEK
PROTOCOL
It is with great pleasure that I stand before you today to discuss the major problem facing our dear country Nigeria. I must appreciate the organizers for coming up with this theme at this crucial stage in the history of our country. What responsibility could be more important than leadership and development of people? Without leadership, a state is only a confusion of people and resources. Paradoxically speaking, Nigeria is inundated with rich human and natural resources begging to be harvested by purposeful, creative and innovative leadership.
Good leadership is incontrovertibly the engine that drives the state progressively. The role of credible leadership cannot be overemphasized in any country. This why the faith of a county and its citizenry depends solely on the quality and credibility of the available leadership. It is important to note that the growth and development of a state is contingent upon the manner in which the government of the state sets the platform for effective and proper discharge of authority and control. The essentiality of good leadership is crucial to realizing any giant stride taken in pursuit of development anywhere in the world and Nigeria is not an exception.
Credible leadership is a necessary condition for not only sustaining democracy but for producing the dividends of democracy for the masses to see and feel. These are essential and necessary conditions for a progressive nation.
Good leadership transforms a potential into reality. It is the ultimate act that brings to success all potential that is in a state and its people. Hence, good leadership is so important to state accomplishment that people have been so concerned about it since the beginning of recorded history.
Since the flag of political independence in the 1960 to the current democratic dispensation most of the problems battling our dear country Nigeria is often associated with bad leadership and corruption. Leadership at all forms and ramification is supposedly a tool of effective, positive, impartation, organization, visionary projections, information, education and good policy implementation. Unfortunately, leadership in Nigeria has been far from these. Rather leadership position is utilized by many as a means of self-aggrandizement, imposition, and actualization of self-interest, victimization, embezzlement of public funds, hunting of enemies, impoverishment of the masses and clientelism. It is very glaring that Nigerian socio political leadership has failed in the basic responsibilities owing to the corrupt, non- altruistic, egoistic, and ethno- centric behavior of most of its leaders, things have fallen apart and the center cannot hold, apology to Chinua Achebe of the blessed memory.
The absence of good leadership in Nigeria seems reoccurring and persisting. The reverberation effects of the failure of good leadership, corruption and bad governance are visible and being felt across all sectors and segments of the Nigeria society. Successive governments and their regimes have been deeply engrossed in excessive acts of corruption and bad governance which have precipitated social dislocation, insecurity, violence, abject poverty, social, economic and political instability. Presently the economy is in recession, inflation rate at the highest ever, people are losing their jobs on daily basis, unemployment very high, twenty-seven (27) states owing backlogs of salaries, security challenges across the length and breadth of the country etc. In the recent past, it was believed that bad governance in Nigeria was associated with the several years of military rule. But to the contrary, since the transition to democratic rule some 17 years ago, there has hardly been any significant improvement in terms of good governance in the country.
Leadership crises in Nigeria is majorly occasioned by lack of intellectual training and discipline on the part of most of the leaders. Honestly speaking without requisite training, discipline and knowledge no leader will be able to govern well and impact on the lives of the citizens. Good leadership requires unusual virtue, intelligence, education, discipline, selflessness and a great deal of experience.
Bad leadership has remained the major obstacle to the emergence of a just Nigeria society. The degree of systemic and pervasive bad rulings in the country has continually drifted the nation into an abyss of poor institutional and infrastructural decadence. It is perhaps the major explanatory factor responsible for the deepening poverty and worsening insecurity in the Nigeria society.
Indeed, it is a paradox that Nigeria, the world’s eighth largest exporter of crude oil, a country endowed with abundant human and natural resources, still has more than 70 percent of its population living below the poverty line as a result of corruption, inconsistence policies and economic mismanagement. Pathetically, the logic of the Nigerian political leadership class has been that of self-service as some of the leaders are mired in the pursuit of selfish and personal goals at the expense of broader national interests.
Most often, people seem to narrowly focus on the leadership at the federal level, which appears to obscure the larger issue of at every level of the society. Leadership at the state and local levels is as important as the one at the center. The governments that make direct and most impact on the masses are local and state. For the dividends of democracy to be seen and felt by the masses, local and state governments must be at their best they must produce leadership that will execute growth and human-oriented policies effectively. Unfortunately, leadership without ideology has permeated the fabric of Nigerian culture to the extent that it stretches beyond the public sector and across the private sector where low productivity has become common place as the call for increased productivity in government and leadership without reproach continues to echo unabated.
The quest for good leadership in Nigeria cannot be discredited. Good leadership is needed to achieve the universal goal of development, that is, the pursuit of peoples’ material welfare and well-being. That is why the utilitarian philosophers argued that a good government is the government that gives the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. A society like ours, that is unjust and devoid of equity and equality will inherently be unstable. To therefore create a just society, devoid of inequality, there is need for good leadership in Nigeria.
Better leaders develop better citizens and the two together develop better society, therefore good leaders contribute more to society and gain a chance to develop the society economically, politically and socially. In other words, the quest for good leadership is not just verbally important but socially, politically, economically, practically and pragmatically important. History has shown that no nation of the world grew and enjoyed steady development in virtually all spheres of its national life without experiencing good and selfless political leadership. This is largely because qualitative growth and development has always been an outcome of good governance.
Be as it may, for Nigeria to move forward and for the citizens to enjoy good life. Nigeria needs not just leaders but participative and free-rein leaders. The trend all over the world is forward wider use of participative practices because they are consistent with supportive model of societal behavior. While on the other hand, free- rein leaders avoid power. They depend largely upon the people to establish their own goals and work out their own their own problems. In this dispensation, state members train themselves and provide their own needs.
Also, Nigeria needs credible leadership for maintenance of corrupt free environment and sustenance of democracy. The country needs leadership grounded in ideological underpinnings at every level (Federal, State and Local), More so, the country needs selfless and honest leaders at every branch, every layer and level including in the Ministries, Departments and Agencies to effectively carry out public policies professionally.
It is in this light I want to call on all incorruptible, selfless, honest, mature, God fearing and experienced professional members of the public who can turn this country into a great one to join the government, work together in other to move it out of this present mess and to the next level. We are all leaders in our respective divides or prospective one, so we must not see leadership as the sole job of the select few i.e the politicians.
The leadership that the country needs at this moment is the one that is inspiring, creative, selfless, and the one who will use his head and heart not lungs and hands. The creative leader builds a group spirit and a sense of humility, so that it is seldom necessary for him to give orders. When orders are needed, they are given as instructions and explanations. Indeed, the creative leader does not confuse interference with influence. He has detailed planning to do himself, so he has stimulated the individuals to plan for themselves, hence people willingly give him authority to lead them.
There should be a real change in the culture of Nigerian leadership. In order to turn the corner, we must methodically start creating and restoring a sense of common purpose, fomenting ideological formation, and engaging young people in politics and public service. It’s also critical that every action must meet with an equal consequence. Bad leadership should not be rewarded. It’s imperative that the country should change its political culture by increasing the level of political maturity and rapid filling of the leadership vacuum.
In as much the Nigerian leaders take the greater blame for leadership failure in the country, the led also have a share of the blame for their various ways of encouraging bad leadership because of selfish interest and gain. Also the non-participation of most professional elite in the political process is another way we have encouraged bad leadership in the country. The mass media that serves as gateway of information between the government and the general public are also enjoined to be neutral, impartial, objective and professional in reportage of all political happenings and government policies in the country. We are aware as human being most of you have your biases, sentiments and sponsors. However, been reasonably fair in your reports will go a long way in moulding peoples’ opinion and help in moving the country forward.
On a final note, I want to categorically state that as people of this country we must all insist on good leadership by resisting bad leadership at all cost not on pages of newspaper, social media platforms (twitter, facebook, Instagram etc) but through participation during election by voting for the best candidates. Presently there is a bill (Nigeria Political Debate Commission) at the senate that had passed second reading and at committee level for further legislative input at the moment, if passed into law. The bill will mandate debates for all candidates to the office of the president, vice president, governor and deputy governor. It is our hope that this bill will afford the general public opportunity to ask candidates myriad of questions on plans they have got for their states and country and test their intellectual capability.
To cap it off, let me reiterate that the quest for good leadership should be taken seriously by all of us. This is because with effective leadership eradication or minimization of corruption to the barest minimum as well as good governance will be achievable and the Nigeria state will be able to perform the onus and function of a normal state.
I want to thank the leadership of National Union of Journalist, Oyo State Council for the invitation and thank you all for listening.
God bless Nigeria Union of Journalists.
God bless Oyo North Senatorial District.
God bless Oyo State.
God bless Nigeria.
Senator Buhari Abdulfatai Ph.D
