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Tinubu’s Presidency And The Leadership-Performance Imperative

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Prof. Tunji Olaopa

By Tunji Olaopa

The leadership conundrum on the African continent tells a story about why the continent has remained behind especially in terms of global development, and especially the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions. A very good indicator of this leadership failure is the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) that measures governance performance in Africa. Governance, for this Index, is simply “the provision of political, social, economic and environmental goods that a citizen has the right to expect from their state, and that a state has the responsibility to deliver to its citizens.” In the 2022 report, the ten best scoring states in overall governance are, in decreasing order, Mauritius, Seychelles, Tunisia, Cape Verde, Botswana, South Africa, Ghana, Namibia, Senegal, and Morocco. Nigeria occupies the thirtieth position and is classified under “increasing deterioration.”

There are so many factors that have kept African states and their leadership essentially under-performing since the African year of independence in 1960. We can talk about the global political economy and the structural dependence it engenders for African countries; neo-patrimonial and rentier culture that occasions corruption, patronage and the politics of mediocrity; insecurity and lawlessness; the inverted rule of law, constitutional disorder and the impunity of the political class; and low elite nationalism that fails to instigate a sense of unity and progress in the citizens. In 2007, Lee Iacocca’s bestselling book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? captures the crucial perplexity about leadership around the world, and specifically in Africa. This generic question reverberates loudly as Nigeria looks for a credible pathway that will take the country into 2023 and beyond, especially with the election of a new administration headed by President-elect Tinubu. Let me instantiate this generic question into a few substantive ones. 

One: Why has governance performance been difficult to achieve for successive Nigerian leaders? This question is at the heart of the famous diagnosis of the Nigerian predicament as that of leadership. This question provides the ground for understanding the broken social contract that ensures that Nigerians are disconnected from the governance dynamics the leadership enacts. One can actually point at a collusion of several variables, as we just did. But then, always excusing one’s failure on variables is the height of self-delusion. There are those facing the same sets of limiting variables and making genuine efforts to become developmental.

The second question concerns Nigeria’s perpetual socioeconomic transitions, since independence. What is responsible for such a protracted transition that has failed to add up to a transformative experience in governance and development? To concede, consecutive governments in Nigeria, from independence to date, have tried within the limits of their development vision to enhance the quality of life of Nigerians. And yet, sixty-three years after, we still have not arrived at any significant point at which Nigerians would declare that they have had a good government. And this is where the president-elect is confronted with the instances of real governance performances by leaders who took charge of their political stewardship and raised their governance vision to the level of infrastructural development that undermines all sorts of excuses. 

What lessons can the new administration learn from these examples of leadership performances? First, there is the legendary example of Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew who almost single-handedly transformed Singapore into a first world country from a third world. Singapore has now become a shining example of the singularity of vision and the doggedness of ideological persuasion. What did Lee Kwan Yew do right? The same question can be asked of the other Asian Tigers—Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea. The leadership of these states were clear, at the level of elite nationalism, with what they wanted to do, especially with regard to the ideological tyranny of the neoliberal economic agenda and hegemony. This then gave them the economic autonomy to interrogate every conditionality, aid or grant in terms of what is beneficial and  harmful and so in a position to independently craft their own agenda of development. 

In the United Arab Emirate, the Al-Maktoum family was not tempted by the lure of enormous crude oil under the hot desert. They saw the crude oil and envisioned, through its strategic deployment, a future of an industrialized and tourist-driven creative hub arising out of a total wasteland. The same focused, strategic and intelligent policymaking that transformed the UAE is what post-WWII Japan targeted to offset its war deficits. And like the Asian Tigers, Japan deliberately, through the Ministry for International Trade and Industry (MITI), managed prudently the intrusion of external economic factors and interventions. On the continent, we can mention Botswana and Rwanda and the deliberate political will that pushes through governance agenda facilitated by strategic policy intelligence and disciplined implementation.

These leaders achieved the successes they did because of their focused elite nationalism. In other words, they damned elite consequences and gambled on development. Gambling on development, within Nigeria, requires that the new administration pay close and urgent attention to three fundamental issues. First, there is the paramount issue of what administrative model the running of government business is going to be hinged on. A bureaucratic system will undermine any vision of a functional and efficient administrative system. On the other hand, democratic service delivery to Nigerians demands, as a matter of imperative, a rethinking of the way MDAs conduct government business so that they will be de-bureaucratized sufficiently, to become strategic in the discharge of their service delivery function. 

The Tinubu administration, in other words, must pursue the reengineering of the MDAs management system, the kernel machinery for government business, into a performance-oriented, technology-enabled and social compact or accountable business model that will ensure that (a) the public service and its MDAs are working at optimal level to achieve the desired objectives; (b) obtain feedback from the system and the employees on progress made; (c) identify competency gaps and training needs of departments and individual staff required to meet current and future responsibilities; (d) generate a plan of action to achieve desired business objectives and individual competency development; (e) involve staff and other stakeholders and promote good communication, amongst them.  

To service the objective of achieving the emergence of a democratic and developmental state, the new administration cannot compromise the goal of a performance-oriented public service that could become functional around a new national service delivery model. This is where a total overhaul and modernizing of the policy architecture becomes critical. We now live in a VUCA — vulnerable, uncertain, complex and ambiguous — environment, where the normal idea of policymaking will no longer make any sense. Strategic policy intelligence must even be reengineered to become pre-emptive in its capacity to anticipate — through an early warning mechanism — policy challenges from fluctuation in oil prices to global economic meltdown.  

Second, we cannot overemphasize the critical need to unbundle the entire cost-of-governance structure, so as to be able to deepen controls over, and enhance the capacity to better deploy, scarce resources which require to be freed up to jumpstart real development. Nigeria’s governance system is one of the most expensive in the world. And the simple implication of this is that by the time recurrent expenditure has eaten a large chunk of the budget, there is barely little left for capital and infrastructural projects that are required to make life easy for Nigerians. Third, the new administration needs to crucially determine the kind of institution and institutional frameworks and dynamics that need to be targeted and reconfigured to enable the administration to deliver a maximum and most efficient quanta of governance impacts that could be game-changing within the period of four short years. Or, on the contrary, what kind of processes and procedures could hamper the delivery of government objectives within the same time space? The administration would want to think in terms of three categories of such institutions and governance frameworks. The three that I consider to be most critical are: institutions that are concerned with the implementation of national priority projects; those that are in charge of regulating rules-based market players like the SMEs; and those that ground the functionality of the rule of law. 

The endgame of the new administration is nothing short of launching a new national productivity paradigm through a productivity audit of the MDAs and the expenditure structure of government. This is with the objective of enabling the business model of the MDAs and each sector of the economy to set and implement productivity targets. Here, performance accountability becomes cogent. And this can be triggered through the activation of the full complement of a revised M&E system that the Ministry for National Planning must of necessity give full attention to. 

In closing, in transforming into the transformational leader all Nigerians are hoping for, President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu has a lot to do that can really be done with sufficient focus and determination—the political will to put together a credible team that can be driven to get the work done, backed by the foundational concern, critical to all good governments, for those who have reposed the political power in the government in the first place to do what should be done to improve the quality of life of the people.  

.Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary, and  Professor of Public Administration.

tolaopa2003@gmail.com

 

 

       

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Opinion

Religious Mumu

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Dele Jegede In Conversation With Prince Yemisi Shyllon
Prof. Toyin Falola

By Toyin Falola

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei

Religion remains a much-debated issue, especially in Africa. It is one of the determining factors of our identity. It determines who we are, our beliefs, actions and reactions, and even our thought processes. Africans had their own culture and traditional religion until the advent of western civilization, which brought with it the ‘gift’ of Abrahamic religions—,Christianity and Islam—and judged African traditional religious practices as evil, pagan practice and witchcraft. The missionaries did a thorough job of making people believe that their religion was superior and righteous. Africans accepted these imported religions, and their traditional beliefs began to fade. Christianity and Islam are now the new order, and people are extremely devoted to these newly found Gods. 

The Toyin Falola Interviews recently played host to music composer and songwriter, Beautiful Nubia. The question of Beautiful Nubia’s stance on religion pops up during the interview. He is known to promote African spirituality but has also defended foreign religions as advantageous. In response, he talks about his ancestral line: his paternal family were Olu Orogbo devotees (the Yoruba god of letters), and his maternal family were Ifa priests and Esu devotees. He said, “religion has always fascinated me like it gets people’s minds.”  He opines that spirituality ties into what gets people so much into religion. Although he no longer practices religion, he affirms that these religions have positively influenced people to do good and show kindness to their fellow human beings.

He states, “Any organized religion has a set of dogma or doctrines they use to guide you to put you in there. You are there; it is like a strait jacket to keep you on the straight and narrow. Why I said religion is a good thing is because the purpose of this is to ensure that you stay on the straight and narrow, that you do good things.” We can agree that religion has contributed to the rise of morals to a certain extent, as the fear of God keeps many people from doing evil. It has curbed wickedness and negative traits inherent in humans and made many people see the world in a new light. Religion has spread the message of doing good and becoming a better human being.

                                        Beautiful  Nubia

The issue, however, is not the practice of these religions but the ability of leaders to sway people easily. Although imported religions have helped to stop the extremities of African religious practices, it has only accentuated people’s gullibility. Beautiful Nubia further states, “What is wrong with religion is that it gives certain people the power to use their followers. It is not the religion itself; it is the human beings who run these religious organizations who use their power to extract money from them and push them in the wrong direction.” Owning a church is one of the easiest and quickest ways to get rich, particularly in Nigeria. All that is needed to succeed in this business is to be a good actor, have nice clothes (suits, particularly), can win people over with words and give yourself an extraordinary title such as Rabbi

It is common knowledge that the major reason why people attend church and Jumat services religiously are that they seek solutions to their problems. As much bad governance is enough to seek God’s intervention for various human issues ranging from terminal illnesses, protection, promotion, unhappiness, barrenness, unemployment, and marital problems, to poverty, which is an average African’s motivation to seek God’s face, also cause people to become staunch believers. To get swift, miraculous answers to these problems, many people fall prey to the traps of “men of God”, who only look to fill their pockets and bellies. This explains why a “pastor” would shut down his church after winning a 100 million Naira bet.

Pastors and Muslim clerics are considered mini gods who can do no wrong. The Bible verse, “touch not my anointed and do my prophet no harm,” is an ever-ready response by Christians in defense of their highly revered pastors who would not think twice before taking advantage of their desperation to get their problems solved. They forget that a “man of God” is first a man. Religion has rendered humans gullible to the extent that they excuse things their religious leaders do that are not even in tune with what is written in the Holy books. How do you explain a pastor who sleeps with a woman looking for the fruit of the womb and says his sperm is the anointing that will cause her to have her child? What do we say to a pastor who instructs his congregation to bring a greater percentage of their salaries to him so that God can answer their prayers? Should the man who claims to be an alfa but has exploited so many people in the name of being a ‘wonder healer’ be left alone? Churches and mosques nowadays see the desperation of people and feed off it. Many people come to church for prosperity and get ripped off the little they have, all in the name of miracles, signs and wonders. You could be in a church service and then suddenly hear the pastor say, “I see seven stars. I need seven people who will give the Lord Seven Hundred Thousand to come out now at the count of seven. One, Two…Seven!” You will be amazed at the number of people who will run to the altar to give the ‘Lord’ that amount of money in this present economy. Unsurprisingly, some borrow money to give to their pastors to receive blessings, then struggle to pay back the borrowed money. Monkey dey work, Baboon dey chop.

These men of God add false doctrines to their fraudulent, shady activities. Beautiful Nubia quotes his mother, a Christian singer, as saying, ” any church where they are a lot of people there, you know there are telling them lies there.” He made an example of a Muslim cleric who tells his followers that every other person is evil, an infidel and a pastor who tells his congregation that their Jesus is not a Jesus of poverty, that He died for them to be wealthy. It is now rare to find churches that preach about the kingdom of God and how to live a life that pleases God. Churches today entice and then mislead people.

Sometimes, people realize all these things are wrong but lack the courage to question these atrocities. According to Beautiful Nubia, “…as a child, you are fully indoctrinated, and as an adult, you are scared to question these beliefs.” Asking a pastor why he preaches only prosperity and how to get rich as a Christian would be considered as seeking the wrath of God because the pastor can call down fire to consume his ‘enemy’. Questioning an Imam on why he sleeps with young girls will only attract curses from the Quran on such a person, followed by “who are you to question God’s prophet? The ways and dealings of God are mysterious”. Really, who dares question these men of God? The fear that has been unconsciously programmed into your mind from a very young age holds your voice and makes you look away from the evils of these religious leaders.

This is not to say that there are no genuine men of God, but there is a plague of greedy religious leaders who, because of their power over their members, influence them to bend to their will while satisfying their greed and lust. “We should not focus too much on religion being our enemy. We need to focus more on ourselves, fix ourselves, and we can use traditional wisdom to do that”, says Nubia. The way we question and demand accountability from the government should be the same way we question our religious leaders. Not every “God says” is true. The Bible in 1 John 4:1 says, “Beloved , believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” Many religious leaders are gods of their bellies and are only out to exploit people to put food in their fat stomachs and live expensive lifestyles with their poor congregation’s money. Child of God, shine ya eye!

This is Part 1 of the report on the interview with Beautiful on March 19, 2023. The extensive interview, which has received millions of views across different platforms, talks about the role of music in society. For the transcripts, see:

YouTube

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7fyHlf1QIsI

Facebook

https://fb.watch/jn7id9OeYd/

 

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Opinion

Death At Dawn, Rebirth At Dusk 

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Dele Jegede In Conversation With Prince Yemisi Shyllon
Prof. Toyin Falola

By Toyin Falola

 

I

Death

Twilight-zone, Afterlife, What-Mays, and Whatnots;

Questions that transcend mortal thoughts.

Uncertainties plucked by the hands of certainty

pondering life beyond the galaxy.

 

Philosophies, religions, and sciences; 

Ancient lenses to dissect and ponder.

Beliefs, opinions, and standpoints in their multiplicities;

Scalpels that open the heart of certain death

Blazing free the skins of uncertainty.

 

Science, a nobility I revere,

But it stammers answering to the afterlife.

For science is knowledge and knowledge from experience 

But the dead neither speak, nor take records.

 

Their journeys, ordeals, triumphs or woes?

No one bears witness.

But as dead, we must all be witnesses;

witnesses that testify not.

So, for now, we survive the knowledge of death.

 

II

On my Agbàlàgbà head lies my Ọ́kpụ́ Ágwụ́

With eagle feathers, rare and honorable

Adorning it for three scores, a decade, and some more days.

I had flipped my Kente given by the Gaa

And danced to crescendos from Gàngàn drums

 

I have been celebrated and celebrating 

For the miracles, I have worked with pen, paper, keyboard, and brain

I have taken the tales we tell in my village square beyond the Atlantic

Changed the songs that disdain us into appraisals

I have called my brothers not to point to our fathers’ house with their left hands

 

I have honed Africa and beyond

To answer the calls of the people’s need

I have reached the thinkable and done the unthinkable

So, I danced and keep dancing. 

 

Suddenly, I felt a touch on my host?

Electrifying my hand, leg, brain, and my whole

Telling me that my jur from the Dinka people awaits me.

That my hourglass tells of crossing the bar.

 

I thought I knew what it was like,

But my grasping convictions of approaching jur were perceptions

Just surviving the death of the knowledge of death

So, arms wide open ready to abound

 

What was there to fear?

No catacomb of secrets

No palm oil-drenched white garments

I have taken many to my gourmet

To feast and to see.

 

What was there not to fear?

With medicine men and women,

Syringes, lights, water, ECG, Oximeters, voices, and touches

Hovering around me like a sacred etutu

Making conversations with me and beyond

 

I was thrown into a pool of reminiscence

one leg and a part of me were already in the boat

It beckoned but I heard another. 

 

A loud voice like my mother’s.

Who takes a journey without locking his home?

Who takes the jur with unpatched palm fronds on his hut?

While the thunder rages up the sky?

The walls are broken and Balogun journeys?

So, I left the sea to clear the cobwebs and light up the night lamb.

 

The past few weeks have opened new lights of understanding to me. I now see the world from different hills and have helped to reach new resolutions. I know I have written about “transitioning to nothingness,” but my emphasis was on the “nothingness” with lesser attention on “transitioning.” I think we need to continue to ask questions. Philosophies, religion, sociology, psychology, science, and other ramifications are mere perceptions and we are uncertain. The transitioning occurs when death becomes an angel to hug not a beast to fear. We do not know what it entails but one must always endeavor to go with clean hands. 

My recovery from an illness may have offered me a fresh opportunity to shout some more, point to societal needs, and settle unfinished businesses. No, not those caused by my personal undoing, but rather those of the people who would be left unguided, and for matters untold about life, society, and individuals. I can say I have passed through the lessons of tantra transfiguration, to use an elegant phrase that I recently came across, to move from secular to sacred activism. No one survives death because of its finality, but when it seems that you did, it is a renewed quest, offering a new purpose.

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Opinion

Professors On INEC’s Will (3)

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Readers’ Showers Of Encouragement
Prof. Tony Afejuku

By Tony Afejuku

The debate has progressed well so far. Our professors, whose strokes have centred on their fellow professor’s manned INEC have tried as best as they could not to confine their impressions solely to the prism of subjectivity. Even when their impressions seem to be subjective, they still make allowance for contrary views, for opposing views. This obviously gives clarity, objectivity and logic to the subject at hand. Is the will of INEC of a professor minder and mincer of words’ control the will of the people or of the masses? On whose side are the Professors who are as concerned as almost everybody is with what is going – or with what has gone on – primarily about our Presidential 2023 elections? Our Professors who are debating the subject constitute the courageous and prophetic Nigerian voices of our day. Their authentic and responsible thoughts are not restricted to the local or regional. They are also not confined to electoral duties and responsibilities expected of the umpire and the will that belongs elsewhere. The truth about the quality of leadership about our country and elsewhere is also told in the debate of the literati.

Professor (Mrs.) Razinatu Mohamed in her submission, in her salvo-cum-explosion actually, drew attention to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo’s explosive explosion in the presidency. If Professor Osinbajo had provided the right vice-presidential leadership there would not have been the need for him to explode as he did as per a viral video Professor Razinatu Mohamed referred her fellow debaters to. “What has he been doing in the eight years of their administration? Irritated my foot; he is complicit.” Not done, Professor Razinatu drew attention to the kind of leaders that Nigeria and Africa need: “Leaders that understand the rudiments of modern socio-economic development and systems; Leaders that understand the crux of requirements for economic growth. Leaders that could demonstrate to the rest of the world that just as the world needs Africa, African countries need the world in a symbiotic relationship and partnership context where assistance becomes a dual role…..” 

Razinata’s concern is clear. Nothing in Nigeria will climb out of its hollow hole. In fact, the will of the people will remain hollow so long as a hollow mincer and minder is in charge of its electoral affairs. 

Professor Da Sylva perhaps responds better to Professor Razinatu Mohamed’s algebraic stroke. “Unfortunately, Nigeria’s democracy is trapped in its primordial self-made ethnic and religious sentiments and so, standards, merit, competence and pedigrees are measured by their curious divides of religion and ethnic inclinations. Until we all come to realize that heavens help those who help themselves, Nigeria ain’t going no-where – meeen!” 

    But below is Professor Da Sylva’s sledge hammer response to Professor Razinatu Mohamed’s Osinbajo hammer blow:

“Prof Osinbajo’s office demands he does what he did. Besides, it shows maturity and spirit of sportsmanship on his part. Every loser in a game “healthily” contested, is naturally expected to do the same. The only difference which again shows Osinbajo’s magnanimity is that in this context, the contest under reference was neither healthy nor just. The umpire seemed compromised and merely worked to a prepared answer. Yet the gentleman did the needful. I guess, brothers and sisters, that we should put all that behind us, and work for our common good, and the wellbeing of the country, provided the mythical Aso cabal will let the President-elect be, and let the masses be, and as such, they should not create any cause for us to think otherwise, lest they provoke our sense of patriotism to take appropriate action! I guess that those were the reading or feelings of the dirty-minded Aso Villa cabal. People that kill with sword never wish that any folk should pass a sword over their heads, a wise saying goes in Yoruba. The human principalities simply suspected that should they allow PMB to give the VP the intended latitude, they might not be able to control him. I remember on his return from London, he commended the efforts of his VP while he was away. He said he would still continue acting while he would still have some more rest at home. The following day everything changed, PMB decided to take charge as the President. I suspected some back door politics was playing out. My co-debaters, quite naturally, you’ll agree with me that, it is not over-ambition or sheer opportunism as you might insinuate for any deputy in an office to aspire to the next higher office, in a legitimate manner, there is nothing really unusual about it, and it would amount to killing a mosquito with a sledge hammer, should Oshinbajo be crucified for that, if at all. And as for his wishing Buhari’s non-recovery, I think that, again, like my Sister R, is a little unkind and not fair to the gentleman who I know to be a servant of God. He knows as much as I do, by our true Christian orientation and Biblical injunctions that, should he ever wish Buhari’s death or wish him any form of misfortune in those trying periods of the President, God Almighty who we serve would deal mercilessly and ruthlessly with him. That is what Psalm 41:1-13 is all about. So rule that out, because it is not, and could never be in his character. I can vouch for him. Rather, I saw him in those times that he acted for his principal, as someone zealous and appreciative of the trust his principal invested in him, and as such he tried to do his very best to merit the trust and the opportunity! I know and I am also sure that this is what an IBK, or a Razinat, would have done too had they found themselves in a similar situation! It does not amount to wishing one’s principal any evil, not at all. Not everyone can be like Chief Obafemi Awolowo who resigned his position under Gowon when the regime became financially reckless shortly after the civil war. Awolowo also gave very profound argumentation to justify convincingly his actions. He also turned down some other appointments including the “49 Wise Men of the Constitution Drafting Committee.” Oshinbajo couldn’t have resigned, normally, and naturally his principal, PMB should have supported him as a capable successor, but again, the President’s ethnic and religious bigotry took the better part of the President. Besides, PMB’s mind was long poisoned against his VP, a clean job by the Aso Villa cabal. IBK, Lady R, until the faceless cabal is permanently silenced the wheel of Nigeria might continue to go round in a circle, and to nowhere in particular”.

And Professor IBK takes the floor: “Prof. DAO, yours is a powerfully convincing submission, at least in a large measure. Now I am willing to hold a slightly different opinion about Osinbajo. Yet, I cannot fathom why he chose to run against Tinubu, days or weeks after the latter had begun his campaign in the party primaries. There’s much we don’t know about why OSBJ decided to run against BAT. Nothing is wrong with that politically but a little problematic from an Ethical or, at least Moral, point of view. Osinbajo did a poor job of it and came out a distant 4th in the primaries. I think he didn’t read the situation correctly and was probably misled by some cabal of sorts. Either way Osinbajo made a politically fatal error in this regard. Perhaps he must have sensed, or was told, that BAT was not the anointed candidate, or that BAT would be crippled by some ill-health or a medical condition. I remember the party’s screening committee publicly recommending that only younger contestants would be recommended to the NWC or such. Clearly there was an attempt to sideline BAT. Whatever the explanation, Osinbajo make the error in his campaign of promising to be more Buhari than Buhari. A man despised by whole sections of the northern population, a man whose reputation for laziness and incompetence was on the ascendant. Anyway, all is now history and Osinbajo has not given a good account of himself in this particular case. Prof DAO, I think your concept of the Trickster should account for Osinbajo’s situation here. FULL DISCLOSURE: a very close family member of mine was drafted to head Osinbajo’s campaign effort in Kano. We discussed extensively about Osinbajo’s pledge to carry on with Buhari’s policies. There was bewilderment and shock within the members. A week later half of the membership resigned on account of Osinbajo’s increasing identification with Buhari’s policies. Many mistakenly thought that Osinbajo was Buhari’s anointed one! I could go on…”

Interestingly interesting and intriguingly intriguing, dear, dearly dear readers: this debate.

To be terminated by the columnist-terminator and terminator-columnist next week after Professor Olu Obafemi’s summation of the debate he presided over.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

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