I met recently with some young men and women to brainstorm about some of Nigeria’s intractable problems. On the table was leadership in its entirety, corruption, federalism, farmers/herdsmen conflict, kidnapping, terrorism, militancy, unemployment, state police etc. If given the opportunity, how would they do things differently and proffer solutions to these and other knotty problems? But as it often turns out in discussions of this nature, we ended up discussing only about leadership, barely touching other issues.
The session was indeed an eye opener for me even though I had always known that a large number of our so called leaders of tomorrow know so little about their country and the complexity of ruling a multicultural and multiethnic entity like Nigeria. The argument some of them put forward are sometimes pedestal and calls for serious concern. However, there are some bright ones whose grasp of issues are highly commendable; these give me hope that all may not be lost after all.
We made headway by first looking at leadership. I set the ball rolling by going back in time to pre-colonial times. During this period, the success of a leader – be it family, clan, or kingdom head – lay in his capacity to listen well and to put the community’s interest first. Future heads/chiefs were taught and groomed to examine social issues and their effects on the community. Each clan leader enjoyed a certain amount of autonomy. They learned from experience how to represent and defend community interests without provoking the anger of the people they govern.
Fast forward to post-colonial 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.
Horizontal leadership, on the other hand, lays emphasis on individuals being empowered to benefit the larger community and ensure basic human rights by responding to the dictates of the situation. It recognises the value of individuals beyond mere instruments for turning profit – as Western leadership models do – and instead empower individuals to implement leadership at the grass-roots levels to make necessary changes by identifying opportunities and putting them to effective use.
We all agreed that this model best suits our country because it requires that each Nigerian take responsibility for improving society. This type of individually empowered leadership will fuel the full-spectrum of social change that Nigeria needs, from the base of the pyramid to the apex. Indeed, horizontal leadership is the cultural heritage of Nigeria, embedded in Nigeria’s traditional narratives, myths and civil religion. We jettisoned this type of indigenous leadership theory but need to revisit it as a viable vehicle for making institutions accountable to Nigerians and Nigerians accountable to each other.
This then translate to the fact that we need new “toolkits” of leadership, particularly leadership education. Without access to quality education, the next generation of Nigeria’s leaders would be crippled. Because our educational system has not kept pace with the practical demands of the world, our graduates are not fully equipped with the necessary skills and tools to favourably compete with their peers elsewhere.
Our educational system produce graduates who can regurgitate information, but not those who can innovate, create, and lead according to dictates and demands of changing times. Going forward, our system must equip students to solve problems through innovation 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. But in Nigeria, if education in its current state 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 Nigerians? The byproduct will always be unnecessary conflicts.
Teaching skills that will enable students to proffer solutions to issues is critical. Engaging them to tackle lack of clean water, fix dilapidated roads, organise mock local government administration, or source for funding to build community centres will ultimately prepare them for leadership roles in future. I have participated in sessions where students are given real live issues – both locally and internationally – to crack and the results were astounding as each student reaches to the recess of his or her mind to seek for answers.
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 John Maxwell said 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, I’ve studied the critical path of nations, and in my studies and research, leadership plays a fundamental role.
Let’s take three Southern African nations as a brief case study to drive this point home. South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia all share a common thread of history; they were at a point ruled by whites with vocal and militant black opposition movements in tow. In South Africa we have the ANC, in Namibia there is the SWAPO and in Zimbabwe there is ZANU-PF. All these liberation movements later transformed into political parties after self-rule was actualized. They still govern to date.
While South Africa and Namibia were able to rise above the bitterness and oppression of colonial rule and domination to make headway into the 21st century, Zimbabwe remains a basket case of monumental failure; at a time having the highest inflationary rate in the world! South Africa and Namibia had leaders in late Nelson Mandela and Sam Nujoma, who were willing to forgive and move on while Robert Mugabe’s stock in trade is to stoke the spirit of revenge and bitterness in his people and whip them to a state of “patriotic” frenzy in his determination to cling to power perpetually.
So, there is no doubt in my mind that a perennial challenge faced by any political system remains political leadership. Get ten Nigerians into a room and allow them to start talking and it wouldn’t surprise you that eight would most probably talk about the failure of leadership in the country. While most advanced countries have a somewhat unwritten laid down criteria and blueprint for leadership grooming and selection such cannot be said about ours and most of Africa.
I love the Chinese model and would readily recommend it. Under the model, the process of grooming of leaders has two dimensions: First is the active participation of young persons in existing governance structures, particularly on matters which directly affect them. This takes place through appropriate representation of youth bodies and young persons in agencies of government and public enterprises. Second is a deliberate grooming through the political and administrative systems, for youth participation in politics and administration now and for the future.
Leadership selection and grooming is planned and serious nations embark on it to ensure continuity of socio-economic and political progress that serves the common good. China, even though some will say runs a political system that is not “democratic” in western sense, still has lessons to teach Nigeria on leadership. Why is this huge country courted by the west though it runs an “oppressive” socialist system? What is China doing right that we can learn from? With a large rural population, what are some of the lessons in poverty reduction we can imbibe from China?
