Ja'faru Adamu

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As a nation, we are not short of excellent men and women. Obasanjo’s administration has thrown up quite a few brilliant examples. Okonjo-Iweala, Soludo, EL- Rufai, Ezekwelesi, Ribadu, to mention just a few. We can boast of literary giants like Soyinka, Achebe and Okri, intellectual stalwarts like Ake and Emegwali, young, brilliant technocrats like Utomi exemplary businessmen like Dantata, Otedola and Adenuga and statesmen of every conceivable ideology from the pan- Africanist politics of Zik, to the regional politics of Awolowo, to the grassroots politics of Aminu Kano, the modernizing politics of our military leaders like Babangida, to the labor politics of Pa Imodu carried on today by men like Oshiomole. We have certainly never lacked leaders.

 

But, the evidence of history and the steady deterioration in every facet of public life in Nigeria testifies to the fact that we have lacked something as a nation. Something other than the availability of men and women of character and skill, dedicated to the notion of a great Nigeria. Something else is to blame for our past failures. That “something is” is the lack, not of individual leadership, but of institutionalized leadership.

 

I want to make this quite simple and plain so I will dispense of long and difficult words. We have often exhibited a “savior” mentality in Nigeria. Too often we have looked to single individuals to “save’ the nation. It is a perception of leadership that was described by Max Weber as “charismatic”.

 

This attitude has spawned a political culture that too easily produces leaders that are perceived as irreplaceable and, even worse, indispensable; leaders who, too often, feel inclined and are infact encouraged by the pack of praise singers of which we never seem to be in lack, to build systems of administration around their persons, rather than principles. Of course, the most dramatic example of this was the “Two Million man March” affirmation of Abacha as the only man fit to rule Nigeria back in 1998.

 

The result of this political culture is two fold. Firstly, it produces a crisis of change. Individualized leadership i.e. leadership based on the person of the leader is highly resistant to passing the baton. Based on the belief that only that particular person can be effective in that particular position, the tendency is to perpetuate that person in that position for as long as possible or to allow that person to hand pick and teleguide his successor. This has of course, been the practice in Nigerian politics. We saw calls for Obasanjo to be given a third term. Within such a political culture, change of government is always charged with tension because the tussle for power is, invariably a tussle for political survival.

 

Secondly, it limits the achievement of any leader to the lifetime of his administration. When a man’s vision is too strongly tied to his person, it will die with him. An administrative system that is directly driven by the very person of a leader will fall apart when that leader is no longer there. Again, this is a trend we are very familiar with in Nigeria. Every new leader sweeps away everything done by his predecessor and re-starts the process of “saving” Nigeria. There is never any continuity simply because of the strong focus on personalities rather than principles. To build an administrative system that would out last him, a leader must evolve his manner of leadership from being “charismatic” i.e. based on his very person, to being what Max Weber termed as “rational” i.e. based on impersonal principles or rules that are internalized by his followers.

 

Any one person will not save Nigeria. Nigeria will be saved by a system, by a culture that supports rule-based leadership so that leadership is consistent and continuous no matter the person of the particular leader at any particular point in time. The difference between individualized leadership and institutional leadership can be illustrated by the difference between the Greek and the Roman Empires. The former was glorious, but short, falling to pieces with the death of Alexander. The Roman Empire, however, endured for a much longer period of time. One of the reasons for this was because it had evolved a system of administration that was more rule-based.

 

A key reason why rule based leadership is more likely to endure is because, its focus is on principles rather than the persons, allows for the continuous grooming of new leaders of a particular mould. A successful nation does not only boast of one or two exceptional leaders. It boasts a system that produces leaders of a certain minimum standard on a regular basis. This is what we must aspire to in the Nigerian polity. Not just an Akunyuli in NAFDAC or an Okonjo-Iweala in the Ministry of Finance but a culture that will pressure anyone who occupies the top seat is it in NAFDAC or the Ministry of Finance to be as effective as Akunyuli or Okonjo-Iweala. This is an efficiency that is driven by an impersonal system rather than the personal drive of an individual.

 

How can we evolve towards such a system of leadership? Well first of all we must discard the notion of the salvation of Nigeria being tied to any ONE person, it is not. Nobody should think it is his task to save Nigeria once and for all times. The task of every leader is commensurate to the task of the King, Hezekiah of Biblical Israel, i.e. to ensure peace within his own times, or generation, or in our modern democratic language, his tenure. A leader’s responsibility must be delineated by time. In simple English, every leader should try to do what he can within the time that he has, with the view of passing the torch on to someone else. It is a system of consistent leadership, not any one great leader that will save the nation.

 

Secondly, we must all become more conscious citizens. Rule based administration depends very largely on what many have termed “civil society”. Civil society means more than Non Governmental Organizations (N.G.O.’s) and Labour Organizations. It means everyday people. It means you and I. It is our apathy that creates the vacuum eagerly filled by an individualized style of leadership.