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26 January 2011
By Zulfikar Aliyu Adamu Growing up,
I'd always observed that the ability of a class
captain to write names of all noise makers in his
class depended on his capacity to withstand bullying
and intimidation. A successful class captain was he
who either by virtue of the biceps on his arms or the
fearless spirit in his heart; stood up to the rest of
his classmates, (and called for order) when things got
out of hand. This is leadership at its simplest, but
at that time, I knew it not. Today, it is apparent
that it takes balls of steel for a leader to act right
especially in the kind of sham democracy being
practiced in many parts of Nigeria. It takes a strong
will and an unwavering mind to realise that you are
indeed a leader, and to declare to yourself time and
time again: ‘I shall lead well'. Unfortunately,
like the over-whelming peer pressure in our teenage
years, many a leader in Nigeria is incapable of
resisting the urge to pinch public funds because,
well, it is the only game in town. Besides, a
non-conformist is always out of place and prone to the
overbearing influence of the status quo. Truth is,
when you are for example, a legislator in the national
or state assembly and your colleagues are being
distributed ghana-must-go bags, you would raise plenty
of eyebrows by your mere ‘absence' on such occasions.
You would attract frowns and invite the whispers of
others if you declined a bag. In such cases, like with
the murderous senators who stabbed Julius Caesar, it
is crucial that every conspirator's blade has pierced
the bosom of public funds and is dripping with the
blood of corruption. In other
words, many legislators would find themselves maligned
if they are not aligned with the agents of kleptocracy.
So, such people tend to ‘go with the flow' at the cost
of betraying the expectations of their various
constituencies – and their personal principles, if
they had any. When it comes to state governments, many
governors do not have the guts to take the bull by the
horn, by jettisoning the chains of nepotism and god-fatherism
which restricts and constricts their better judgement.
Maybe it is also because such governors are frozen by
the stupor of fear, which comes from being hounded by
the ghosts of stolen votes. At the peaks
of Aso Rock, many of our presidents have historically
been unable to actualise ten, three or even one-point
agenda because they are either locked in the jaws of a
selfish cabal, or they are too weak to ‘write the
names of noise-makers' so to say. Many presidents have
been bitten and poisoned by the fangs of self-serving
advisors and so they foam at the mouth to the applause
of sycophants, while displaying the epileptic jerks of
the narcist. They are overwhelmed by the paranoia of
impeachment; they salivate from the long-throat of
second/third terms and are paralysed by indifference
towards the gains of a truly federated Nigeria. It is
seemingly easier for our presidents therefore, to dust
the manuals on despotism left behind by Abacha, than
to write a new chapter on national progress. That is
why we are yet to see a president who is ruthlessly
aiming to sanitise even one aspect of our
multi-faceted maladies, with a combination of deep
personal conviction and deft political manoeuvres. We
are yet to see a president who is impatiently tapping
the soles of his feet at the steps of our national
assembly; waiting for people-friendly Bills to be
passed, and implemented. In a nutshell,
what I am implying is that many of our leaders simply
lack courage. But were I to title this article
‘Cowardice of Nigerian Leaders', my passport whose
eagle does not belong to the American species, would
be seized even before my plane descends into Nigeria.
So I thread softly, after all, I am not Okey Ndibe and
solidarity statements would not be issued by global
voices, if I got detained in an airport. So, by all
means let us be allowed to criticise our leaders and
leadership, but we should do so constructively and not
for the sake of criticism itself. Better yet, instead
of just criticising, why don't we (the followers) also
‘suggest ways forward' or ‘proffer solutions' and
‘contribute ideas'? Has it occurred to you that many
of our leaders may simply be suffering from mediocrity
complex? It is so easy to point fingers at ‘that man'
in Aso Rock or Government House for every single
national mishap. As bad as leadership has been in
Nigeria over the years, many of us followers can be
found wanting as well, in simple everyday matters. The
president does not have to be an angel before you as a
person realise that corruption is bad. Your effort to
live a life free of crime and sin should not be
dependent on the holiness of your local pastor or
imam. On a scale of 1 to 10, (with 10 being excellent)
methinks that many of us will score less than 3 in
personal effort to change Nigeria. It is always
someone else's fault that Nigeria is at best stagnant,
or at worst backwards. About 200
years of independence and democracy separates us from
the United States, and if you add technological gaps,
we are light years behind them; but nevertheless, let
us make an elementary comparison. When America was
saddled with the imbecilic regime of George Bush Jnr.,
did their citizens equally behave stupidly? Were
ordinary Americans not coming out to demonstrate en
masse against the lies which probably increased
America's insecurity and cost the lives of soldiers in
their thousands? Did the American people just sit
back, fold their arms and blame leadership all the
time, like we do in Nigeria? When they had the chance,
did they not vote for a black man for the first time
in their history, in the midst of a financial crisis-
all in the expectation of hope and change? You see,
bringing about an internal regime change was something
many of them (as individual Americans) believed that
they could, and eventually, they did. It started with
individual belief and manifested as individual votes;
and the rest is history as they say. Obama is
president. In stark
contrast, many of us Nigerians refuse to aim the
flashlight of progress inward by questioning our very
existence and essence as citizens of our country. Many
do not understand or care about basic community or
civic responsibilities. When 33 miners got stuck in a
tunnel for over 2 months last year, the leadership
skills of Luis Urzua, their supervisor was critical to
their escape from the very belly of death itself. But
for the sake of survival, each and every one of the
miners had to play his role, and tomorrow, one of
these ordinary miners would become a shift supervisor.
His experience of being a good follower of Luis Urzua
is the single most important asset he will take with
him as a supervisor, every time he goes to work. While
our collective patience as Nigerians is infinitely
elastic, on substance, many of us don't measure up to
the very ideals which we expect our leaders to live
by. And because tomorrow, one of us will receive a
baton of leadership somewhere in Nigeria, herein lies
the real obstacle for us to break free, from the
cyclic yoke of ineptitude which chokes us. Despite his
perceived personal shortcomings, I was touched by the
gesture of humility exhibited by President Jonathan,
who took part in a book reading session for school
children. This he did in the company of Africa's first
Nobel Laureate in Literature, Prof. Wole Soyinka on
the 20th of December, 2010. Now, do you have any idea
what this ‘presidential reading' in the company of a
literary icon would mean to the 400 kids that were
present? It is the equivalent of me and my childhood
friends in primary three, listening to passages of our
textbook being read by President Shagari in 1982, in
the company of Chinua Achebe or Prof. Chike Obi. Well,
Shagari was neither inspired nor advised to do so, but
if he had, one of us may have been on the way to a
Nobel Prize in Literature, Physics or something like
that by now. The inspiration would have been
life-changing and long-lasting. Our heads would
‘swell' for months and we'd be motivated by an
insatiable hunger to read, and read, and then read
some more. The mere presence of a Prof. Chike Obi
would not only help dilute our fear of arithmetic, it
could have also triggered a mathematical genius among
us. As quoted by
234Next.com, President Jonathan while summarising the
morals of Achebe's ‘Chike and the River' told the
children: ‘you don't have to go the South East to
know about the place, you can read about it'. The
president then led a recitation of passages
from the book, to the awe of attentive children who
followed him word by word, line by line. You see,
leadership begins with self-realisation and simple
acts that would inspire others. Some might not
see the big deal in what President Jonathan did. But
in his reaction to President Jonathan's reading
campaign, Odia Ofeimun stated rightly that "this is
the first time a national leader at the apex of
decision making would be identifying with the campaign
for the development of a reading culture, without
minding the cynicism of those who believe the
situation is too far gone to be remedied." Truer
words were never spoken. The culture of reading has
been dying in Nigeria because it has been stabbed by
the nonchalance of many parents and teachers alike. So
kudos for this presidential initiative to ‘Bring Back
The Book'. In essence, we
should never underestimate the power of ‘I'. And I am
talking about the ‘I' in initiative, the ‘I' in
inspiration, the ‘I' in integrity and the ‘I' in
ingenuity. I am referring to the very simple ‘I' in
‘Yes, I can do it!' I am also referring to the
more complex ‘I' in ‘I am the President of
Nigeria, and today I am
going to read to 400 school children'.
You can fault him on how he reacts to bomb blasts, but
the foresight of President Jonathan regarding the
impact and import of reading on children, is worthy of
commendation and emulation. If the President could
read out to school children, then what about you the
parent? When was the last time YOU sat your children
down and read them a good book? When your kids pick up
incorrect oral skills from the streets and call you
‘fada' or ‘moda'; do you stick out your tongue and
show them how to make the ‘th' sound in ‘father' or
‘mother'? Do you even care to notice how well they
speak at all, or is it the concern of school teachers
alone? Most parents of today fall short in this
regard, and that is the God-honest truth if I ever
spoke one. We would
rather sit back on the couch, switch channels on our
remote controls and insult pictures of the legislators
on AIT; blame every governor that shows his face on
NTA and condemn the President when he appears on CNN.
Yes, many of our leaders deserve to be told off, but
not at the expense of individual responsibilities.
Each and every one of us was, is or could be a leader
some day, so leadership is not the exclusive reserve
of aliens from planet Mars. How prepared we are for
the big stage of tomorrow, is directly proportional to
how well we play small leadership roles today whether
as school prefects, as parents, or as matrons in
hospital wards. So, many of us
find it easier to ‘go with the flow' and blame leaders
and leadership for all our problems: from the bites of
a mosquito to the catarrh in our nose. But then, only
helpless blades of grass and leaves in a river go with
the flow. Strong people resist, and that is why the
true hero is the soldier who charges in the opposite
direction to his fleeing compatriots. In other words,
even when a river is flowing fast and furiously with
the turbulent currents of corruption, it requires a
noble sense of individual heroism to grab the branch
of integrity, and hang on as if your life depended on
it. But at the rate we are going, we would find
ourselves perpetually on the losing side of the blame
game. It takes the
power of ‘I' for an incumbent to rise above the
tendency to make an enemy of every critic and every
political opponent. It takes the power of ‘I' to agree
that people will disagree with our goals, our visions
and our political directions. It takes the power of
‘I' to tolerate other religions and other ethnicities-
to walk side by side and treat as equals, people who
eat, talk and dress differently from yourself. It
takes the power of ‘I' for a law maker to resist the
temptation to sell his/her conscience and the future
of the unborn at the price of a ghana-must-go. But it
is the same power of ‘I' that is also required for the
office manager to resist a brown envelope in order to
push a contractor's file. Without the power of 'I' the
policeman is unable to ignore the folded palms and
insist on searching a vehicle, no matter who is in
it. I have a
strong personal conviction that although Nigeria has
chronic leadership problems, yet it is not an ‘US'
versus ‘THEM' thing. I always say that those who
encourage, siddon-look or participate in either
rigging of elections; in sharing of looted funds; in
supporting despotism or in upholding the banners of
tribalism; such people have no business asking for
good roads, clean water or reliable health care. Good
leadership is not automatic, and it does not occur by
default. In fact, I make bold to state that it is a
despicable felony and a sacrilegious crime, for any
Nigerian to expect good leadership if his mind or his
hands are soiled as a willing accessory to the murder
of progress. Such is the
power of ‘I' that many of us underestimate every
single day. Nigeria is in dire need of individuals,
who would be a hero to someone, to anyone: a hero to
your wife or to your child; a hero to your colleagues
or to your subordinates; a hero to your state or to
your country. There are a few such heroes in Nigeria
today, so we need many more. You don't have to be
called a ‘leader' to realise that you can be the
source of inspiration and direction to those around
you. The power of ‘I' is therefore about you pointing
your forefinger backwards and telling yourself to act
right. They say if
you believe that you can, then it is possible that you
can; but if you believe that you cannot, then you are
damn right- you cannot! There is an old man that I
know, who applied the slogan ‘yes you can' in
his everyday life, long before Obama ever dreamt of
being president. This article is therefore dedicated
to that man, my father: a self-taught man in many
respects, a man wealthier in more ways than he ever
realised, who taught me to believe that I could. You are not a
helpless blade of grass, so do not ‘go with the flow'.
Look inside, and celebrate the power of ‘I' that is
wasting in you. Zulfikar
Aliyu Adamu
Loughborough, United Kingdom.
zulfikar.aliyu@gmail.com |
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