Democracy And Leadership In Nigeria By Salihu Moh. Lukman

By Salihu Moh. Lukman
In his book, The Age of Turbulence, economists and former Chairman of
US Federal Reserve (1987 – 2006), Alan Greenspan asked the question,
"How do we reform government and return money and power back to the
American people". This question is perhaps more valid today in Nigeria
than could have been the case in the United States in 2006. Probably
in response, President Obama while visiting South Africa remarked that
"terrorism is more likely to succeed incountries that are not
delivering for their people and where there are areas of conflict and
underlying frustrations that have not been adequately dealt with".
The question of delivery is certainly about the existence of
opportunities, how citizens are able to access them and convert into
income or welfare benefits. Unfortunately, in our case, there has been
systematic contraction of available opportunities, access has been
privatised and virtually restricted to functionaries of government and
therefore capacity to earn income or enjoy any form of welfare benefit
is correlated with access to government.
This has consistently been the situation perhaps since the days of
military rule, from the mid-1980s. The coming of democracy in 1999
could have altered this but sadly has been very slow if not strongly
enforcing situations of denial for most citizens. It could be argued
that this is very subjective. With prohibitive levels of poverty,
which the National Bureau ofStatistics (NBS) estimate at an average of
69% and unemployment ofabout 24%, the question will be what is being
done to ameliorate the situation.
It could be justified that it should not be the sole responsibility of
government to ameliorate this unfavourably bad situation. However, to
the extent that government responsibilities include public services
and guaranteeing economic stability, government's capacity to come
with initiatives that create opportunities and widen access for
citizens become important.
Two fundamental preconditions for this to successfully take place are
leadership astuteness on the one hand and right sets of actions or
programmes, on the other. In summary the competence of our leaders to
be able to drive governance process to produce desired results –
improved welfare and higher living conditions for citizens. Issues of
knowledge and experience supposedly play central roles and in a
democracy whereby citizens elect their leaders, these should have been
the guide.
With largely money and other sentiments, cheaply ethnicity and
religion, becoming primary, the possibility of leaders emerging
without any understanding of the problems facing society and
thereforeincapable of initiating any action or programme is very
common. In fact, the dominant perception among contemporary Nigerian
leaders is thatthe country is endowed with all the needed resources.
The major problem therefore is the share of it that gets to them,
whether at the federal, state, local government or even
nongovernmental organisations. This then means that preoccupation of
government excludes issues of wealth creation.
On account of this, citizens are regarded as liabilities and parasites
and exclusive in discussing resources of the country. This is informed
by an ideological mindset that is revisionistand departs from the
classical economic dictum that identified land, labour, capital and
entrepreneurs as the four factors of production. In the Nigerian case,
the only factor of production is land largely limited to the oil
producing communities which is the one that generate virtually all the
resources of government.
With the high foreign content of the oil sector, capital and
entrepreneur are hardly Nigerian. This reduced Nigerian citizens and
nearly all other parts outside oil producing areas as imaginary in the
psyche of our leaders. To realise the much talked about government
revenue, our leaders really don't need much in Nigeria beyond the oil
producing land.
In the circumstance, all the priorities of our leaders are reduced to
simplified projects that hardly go beyond buildings and physical
installations without necessarily paying attention to issues of human
development focusing on education and healthcare services. Classrooms
and schools get constructed that way without worrying about or
recruiting teachers that can use the classrooms and schools to teach
pupils and students. Hospitals, clinics and primary healthcare centres
are built without concern for doctors, nurses and other medical staff
to use the structures to attend to patients.
With this strongly perverted capitalistideological bent influenced by
wrong application of IMF/World Bank prescriptions, which emphasises
deregulation of public services and increased role of private sector,
the dominant approach is to surrender key functions of government to
private operators. Through that, public resources get diverted to
so-called private operators with zerovalue input. In terms of
qualification, the most important factor is relationship with
functionaries of government. Knowledge is immaterial. Thus, the resort
to coercion is easy and almost given. Citizens' willingness to respect
the conduct of these so-called private operators is not stimulated by
the services they provide but out of compulsion.
Yet, as citizens, we continue to hear statements about dividend of
democracy and performance of governments. How can anyone be talking
about dividend of democracy or performance when poverty has increased
from an average of 54% in 1999 to 69% today? Where is the dividend or
performance when the reward to citizens for living in a country that
its government recordedincreased revenue from N8 trn between 2002 and
2006 to N8 trn annually today is increased poverty and unemployment?
However considered the situation simply alienates citizens and
translate to outright denial. Almost allthe resources of society
become controlled by the few functionaries of government and their
hangers on. Citizens have very little influence, if any at all. It has
been our national reality since the period of military rule and our
democracy is yet to produce any alternative.
The hope of many Nigerians is that the birth of APC should translate
into an alternative – the emergence of competent leaders with clear
knowledge and good initiative. Should APC reduce the challenge of
leadership to simple issues of ethno-religious factors, its capacity
to respond effectively to the task of returning money (resources) and
power to Nigerian people would havebeen weakened. The reality is that
once ethno-religious factors are the most important qualifications,
the loudest of those demanding for leadership will be empty and all
they will be aspiring for is simply access these resources that are in
the custody of government and covert them to privatised use.
Nigerians are hungry for knowledgeable leaders coming with good
initiatives to produce a new beginning for the country. A new
beginning that translates into government at all levels emerging as
strong facilitators for economic activities with democratised access
toopportunities for all citizens irrespective of religion, ethnicity
or any other form of differences. The primacy of knowledge and
experience should therefore replace ethno-religious consideration.
Our democracy should begin to produce a shift in the way leaders
emerge in Nigeria from cheap ethno-religious to the primacy of
knowledge.
smlukman@gmail.com