We are already in mid-2017 and very soon the drumbeat of leadership would start and the ethnic, religious and emotional tension would go into full swing. The danger is that Nigeria’s leadership selection process lacks depth in scrutinizing leaders; little wonder we progress at snail speed.
In fairness, leadership is never easy. No matter how effortlessly some leaders appear to manage, the path of a leader is one fraught with constant challenge and surprise. However, the leader is not supposed to face the challenge alone. By definition, a leader has a group of individuals working to meet each challenge and achieve each goal. The leader’s job is not to solve every problem alone, but to inspire those he or she leads to solve the problems.
To this end, good leaders recognise that they do not have all the answers and are constantly reeducating themselves on their businesses and sharpening their leadership skills. Beyond personal qualities such as vision and positive thought, a leader must also take careful steps to communicate with his or her citizens in the best way possible. Formerly rare processes such as goal-setting, constant feedback and a system of rewards are now the norm.
The late Nelson Mandela, who led South Africa from apartheid to democracy, was a humble, eloquent and inspirational figure who advocated peace, democracy and human rights. As far back as 1952 he predicted that: “One day I will be the first black president of South Africa.” Twelve years later – in 1964 – he said: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
His life makes me wonder what drives successful leaders. Leadership is an essential feature of all government and governance. Weak leadership contributes to government failures, and strong leadership is indispensable if the government is to succeed. Wise leadership secures prosperity in the long run; foolhardy leadership may bring about a catastrophe.
Leadership is not historically a concrete phenomenon; that is, its structures and methods change with the passage of time. To influence events and affect outcomes, leaders need to be prepared to abandon policy instruments and ideas that no longer work in a new environment. They need to be able to embrace the new and reevaluate the old, even some of the earlier discarded ideas and methods of adapting to environments, if the circumstances call for it.
A successful leader chooses a particular course of action and then in some way gets others to go along; or more subtly, the leader encourages the led to ‘choose’ the course that the group will follow. The co-determination of the two parts of the leadership–followership system means that leaders are, to a significant extent, created by the led just like we saw with the overwhelming endorsement of a Buhari presidency. In the complex leadership quotient, followers matter a great deal; indeed leadership, as a process, is greatly influenced by following.
Successful leaders are also driven by the introduction of new ideas or novel orientations which often promote major changes in societies. By advancing vision, inspiration, conceptualization of change, articulation of ideological goals and their communication to followers they are able to take their societies to greater heights.
In Nigeria, whenever the word “leadership” is mentioned people conjure a mental image of those few individuals who steer the nation at the helms of power as politicians, bureaucrats, religious leaders and business moguls. This is vertical construction of leadership which is a top-down affair where the fulcrum of power is concentrated at the top of the social, economic, and political hierarchy.
One of the defects of this model is the stifling of grassroots initiatives necessary for social cohesion. Another is that it does not consider how individuals, in collectivist contexts, can exercise leadership that will address problems, create solutions, and benefit the common whole. We need a radical departure from this style.
Successful horizontal leadership, on the other hand, lays emphasis on individuals being empowered to benefit the larger community and ensure basic rights by responding to the dictates of the situation. It recognises the value of individuals beyond mere instruments but instead empowers them in understanding policies and the part they have to play.
This model requires that citizens take responsibility for improving society and at the very least participate in local, state, and national governance. This type of individually empowered leadership fuels the full-spectrum of social change that Nigeria needs at this stage.
Indeed, horizontal leadership is the cultural heritage of Nigeria, embedded in our traditional narratives, myths and civil religion. We have since jettisoned this type of indigenous leadership model but we need to revisit it as a viable vehicle for making institutions accountable to Nigerians and Nigerians accountable to each other.
For the successful leader too education is critical. Without access to education and literacy, the next generation of Nigeria’s leaders would be crippled. Few would doubt that there is a crisis in our education sector. Because our educational system has not kept up with the practical demands of the age, Nigerian graduates are not taught the necessary skills to favourably compete in the marketplace.
Our system produce graduates who can regurgitate information, but not those who can innovate, create, and lead according to the demands of changing times. With this mindset it is not surprising that our schools keep producing job seekers, but we need to produce job creators. Our system must equip students to innovate for the betterment of society. To accomplish this redefinition of the goal of education and reorientation towards viable skills, we need to transform our curriculum.
In developed societies, students are not only engaged in traditional education, they are tasked with solving real-life problems, working in groups to innovate, and provided platforms to implement change. If our education cannot help us live better, we need to change our understanding of what education ought to accomplish. When students are untrained in skills that matter, how can we expect Nigeria’s factories, hospitals and businesses to operate well and employ Nigeria’s people?
Our leadership should be challenged to redefine the objective of our education which should inculcate both formal and informal forms of learning to incorporate more dimensions to convey knowledge. This should meet 21st century needs. It may take time to evolve given the rot in the system, but if we start implementing it in piecemeal, it may end up producing well-rounded graduates who would in turn fulfill the missions of education.
Leadership therefore plays a crucial role in the development of any society, a look at the leadership structure of a society says a whole lot about that society, which is why it is said that everything rises and falls on leadership. Leadership can either move a people forward or backward, it can cause incalculable damage that in some cases may require decades to correct. As a student of history and political economy, I’ve taken the pains to study the critical path of nations, and in my studies and research, I’ve discovered that leadership plays a fundamental role.
Most countries in the advanced world have a laid down blueprint and guideline for leadership grooming and selection – even though no one is going to print out a manual and give to you, nonetheless such things exists -that is why they never have issues in this critical area of progress.
Nigeria’s, and by extension Africa’s leadership crisis is deeply engrained and multifaceted; it is a combination of lack of vision, greed, tribal, religious and sectional affinity and most importantly, the unwillingness to leave the stage when the ovation is loudest. As the drumbeat starts, lets choose leaders that have the capacity to take us into the 21st century.