Nigeria @ 49: Lack of Credible Leadership, Bane of Our Development - Bala Yahaya

Ours is a richly blessed country.  The Almighty has, in His wisdom, endowed us with abundant natural and human resources ranging from fertile soil for large scale agricultural production, petroleum resources, gold, favourable climatic conditions, etc.  In human capital we are no less endowed with highly skilled professionals that can compete favourably in the global labour market.  These are among the major ingredients required by any serious nation to attain great heights economically and otherwise.

However, 49 years after independence, we are still grappling with basic issues of infrastructural inadequacy, high level corruption, crumbling educational system, collapsing health care sector, shrinking national values among many other societal ills that continue to drag us backward in our march to nationhood.  All these are products of bad leadership.  This is because with the right leadership, the aforementioned endowments can be well-harnessed to trigger positive national development. 

Historically, we started on a right footing with a crop of credible and selfless regional and national leaders who were not only bent on service delivery but even put their lives on the line for the common good of the country.  To them national interests supercede personal interests.  Healthy competition for regional development among the three Premiers saw to the establishment of enduring legacies that have withstood the test of time.  Primitive accumulation of personal wealth was not in their agenda.  Consequent upon this, common wealth was optimally utilised for common good.  Had we continued on the path charted by these ever-shining icons, we would not only have attained lofty heights domestically but internationally too.

It is in this regard, that in this article I intend to examine some of the impediments that have continuously being constituting clogs in the wheel of our progress. 

One of the major problems bedeviling our development today is the issue of policy misconception, inconsistency, and lack of continuity.  Most policies are ill-conceived from the outset such that there are no clear-cut strategies for their implementation, monitoring and evaluation.  To initiate a policy without due regard to these vital indices is like building a house on a faulty foundation.   Such a house is bound to end in disaster sooner or later and with devastating consequences too. 

Take for instance, the Late Abacha’s Vision 2010 economic blue print designed to take us to the Promised Land by the year 2010.  This is a document put together by some of the brightest minds in the country assembled by the then Federal Government.  Unfortunately, there was no wholehearted commitment to implement its recommendations even by the same government that initiated it in the first place. And when a new government with a king size grudge against the Abacha junta took over the reins of power, the document was thrown into the dustbin along with almost any other  positive thing initiated by that government including the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) – a case of throwing away the baby with the bathwater if you like.

Fourteen years after, Dr. Shamsudeen, the present Minister of National Planning was on AIT saying that that blue print was the masterpiece that would have ensured our development had it been followed to the letter.   That was not done, but in its place the Vision 2015 document was instituted in line with the United Nations MDGs and while we are battling to realize some of these goals, we are at the same time talking about 20-20-20 which means we want to be among the 20 leading world economies by the year 2020.  But with our negative culture of inconsistency and lack of direction, how are we sure that we will be truly committed to it and not jettison it midstream as we did others before it?

Furthermore, it is believed that one of the major impediments that affected our growth negatively was successive military interventions in our politics.  It is often argued that the same military guys are the ones that institutionalized corruption in this country taking advantage of a system that lacked accountability and checks and balances in power relations.  Thus, when, in 1999, the bastion of power finally returned to the politicians we all celebrated that we had finally reached the light at the end of the long, tortuous tunnel of military misrule.   And now we have arrived in a new dawn that will not only usher in good governance but that which will also ensure accelerated and sustainable economic growth and development.

Unfortunately, our experiences have proved wrong our early optimism about democracy as it affects our polity.  To start with, the electoral system which is supposed to serve as the bedrock of any democracy has been grossly manipulated and bastardized such that the votes of the electorates that are suppose to replace the gun in conferring legitimacy to those in authority no longer count.  The coupists’ guns have today been replaced by formidable electoral rigging machines that ensure that only those anointed by the power brokers get to positions of authority.  When therefore, such people get to public offices their allegiance is not to the people but to their godfathers.

This problem of electoral system manipulation is tied to yet another cancerous problem that has eaten deep into the fabric of our society over the years i.e. corruption.  It is on record that this country made the highest revenue between 1999 and 2007.  Thus, with a so-called democratic government in place, the upward price fluctuations in the global oil market had given us, on a platter of gold, the leverage that would have served as a springboard for unprecedented economic growth and development.  However, the windfall came and went and left us where it met us with epileptic power supply, bad roads, failing industries, insecurity, collapsing educational and health care systems, etc.  Perhaps, the only value it added to us – if you want to call it that – is a new tribe of fronting billionaires that at the slightest opportunity flaunt their ill-gotten wealth in our faces and of course, giant financial institutions with feet of clay.

It is often said that bad leadership breeds bad followership.  Successive years of bad leadership have also infected the followership.  This is the most dangerous phenomenon of all.  The reason for this is that as the society imbibes negative values, the circle of producing bad leaders becomes a cul-de-sac.  This is because the leaders we are today complaining about did not drop from space.  They are products of our society.  Thus what we need to emphasis on is positive attitudinal change within us as individuals, and at peer group, community, local government, state and national levels.

The much touted re-branding campaign of Aunty Dora must therefore start from here.  For the fact remains that without self-purification, fear of God and commitment to sound cultural and religious values, the campaign will, at the end of the day, come to naught. It does not therefore suffice to continue taking on people who constructively criticize us like Mrs. Hilary Clinton who, the other day, told us to our faces, that we needed to correct our ways.  Doing this only amounts to sweeping the dirt under the carpet.

Having identified some of the problems that have retarded our development over the years, there is the need to identify the way out of the quagmire.  First and foremost in this regard we need to reinvent our electoral system to become very transparent and capable of conducting free and fair elections in the true sense of the phrase.  This is the only way through which leaders will be truly accountable to those who put them in office.  To achieve this, we must adopt wholesale, the recommendations of Justice Uwais Report on electoral reforms.  We must as well flush our Electoral Commission of controversial characters whose actions/inactions continue to be a source of national shame.  The Ekiti re-run elections for instance, was a sore thumb in our electoral history and so long as we don’t avoid such indecent and audacious abuse of system, the world will continue to see us in bad light.

Secondly, we must take the war against corruption more seriously.  The EFCC and other anti-corruption agencies must be fully revived and manned with people who are not only courageous, honest, fearless and sincerely committed to the cause but also who have the zeal, willpower, and the necessary intellect to successfully prosecute the task.  Today China is one of the greatest countries in the world and is even on the verge of becoming the world’s super power.  This is in spite of the disadvantages put at their door steps by the devastations of the World War.  The question is how did they attain this height?  Through consistent, well-thought policies that impact positively on their national economy. The wages of corruption there is not conferment of commercialized chieftaincy titles but death!

Our populace must also rise to the occasion when situation demands to check the excesses of fraudulent governments.  This singular act liberated the votes of Bauchi people when they stood their ground that their votes must count in 2007.  The fact that the beneficiaries of that action betrayed them is a subject of discussion for another day.  In addition to this, we must discard the culture of hero-worshipping corrupt government officials.  Our religious leaders must ostracise people with ill-gotten wealth from their congregations by refusing offerings from such dirty wealth.  A situation where some of the stolen money finds sanctuary in the house of God is most unfortunate as it encourages corruption the more.

Government should as well put in sincere, deliberate and sustained efforts towards creation of employment opportunities for the populace.  Towards this end, efforts must be made towards resuscitation of ailing industries which complement the government in the area of job creation.  To achieve this, we must identify the causes of collapse of these industries such as inadequate power supply, smuggling, excessive taxation, etc. Our educational system must also be retailored from the present state of churning out paper professionals to production of graduates that can be self-sustaining after graduation.  Yes, our students must be equipped with the necessary technical aptitude that will enable them become self-employed even where white collar jobs are not readily available.

In conclusion, it is today very obvious that we are fast losing our clout in international relations and politics with smaller countries like Ghana, South Africa and even Benin Republic overshadowing us at world stage.  Comparatively, they have their economies growing at a steadier pace than ours and with our industries fast relocating to those countries in view of the more favourable investment climate there.  All these are pointers to the fact that if we want to really maintain our position as a giant of Africa, we must change our ways.  With the right leadership and of course, right followership, the sky will be our beginning.