First and foremost, I wish to thank the FEMI OYEBANJO FOUNDATION for the great honour and privilege of asking me to give this birthday lecture in honour of Chief Femi Oyebanjo, the Aro of Oke-Oro, Ekiti, a man I have always held in great awe and respect. The Aro and I came a long way and for over three decades I have been more than privileged to learn at his feet. I first met Chief Oyebanjo in 1981 during the calm that preceded the tempestuous 2nd Republic politics in Ondo state. (We will henceforth omit all reference to Chief Oyebanjo as events conspired to ensure that the lecture, God willing, will now be given on the occasion of his 90 birthday. Amen).
This recall, therefore, is only a precursor to articles which will soon appear on this column in answer to some of the questions that have arisen since the emergence of Prof (Senator) Banji Akintoye as the YORUBA LEADER. As is usual with the Yoruba, the articles will be handled syllogically; that is, applying deductive reasoning to arrive at conclusions so there would be no need for any abuses, whatever, from any quarters.
The title, lest I have got you carried you away is: Leadership, Democracy and Good Governance: Challenges and Prospects.
In full disclosure, let me quickly make a confession. I could not have been luckier in drawing this topic. Why, you’d ask? I am particularly blessed that a John, not the Baptist, preceded me in interrogating the very issues I have been asked to deal with here today. I refer here to Dr John Kayode Fayemi, a Development Scholar, solid academician and governor of our dear state who, only last month at the CHATAM HOUSE, London, gave a lecture on Democratisation, Development and Good Governance. Though today’s topic is not on all fours with what he dealt with, he said enough, for me to leverage on.
What then is LEADERSHIP? Leadership has been variously defined down the ages, but for o purpose today, I shall adopt the simple Microsoft Encarta dictionary definition of Leadership as the ability to guide, direct, or influence people because it is in these very areas that Nigeria, as a country, has so lagged behind that people have questioned what type of leaders God gave Nigeria. Many here, I suspect, must have heard the apocryphal story of the visit of the U.S President, the British Prime Minister, the German Chancellor and of course, their Russian counterpart to God to complain about the excessive human and natural resources He endowed Nigeria with. God was reported to have laughed heartily; agreed He was favourably disposed to Nigeria but wondered aloud whether His August visitors have ever bothered to interrogate the type of leaders He gave her.
What then are the essential ingredients of leadership, and which one world leader, past or present, can we use to demonstrate them?
I proceed, here under to list them just as I shall be using the truly unique British Prime Minister, the indomitable War hero and statesman, Sir Winston Churchill to demonstrate each.
INTEGRITY:
A leader must have unimpeachable integrity. He must have unshakeable moral values. Sir Winston Churchill was voted in a recent BBC poll as the Greatest Briton ever in history. Even in war time he never once understated the hard facts of the consequences of the war. Rather he promised Britons sweat, blood and tears. This rallied, rather than cow, the British since they trusted and respected him greatly.
CONSISTENCY:
Churchill was consistent. He had spent years warning of the ever growing Nazi threat. For some time his warnings went unheeded. He was, in fact, dubbed a warmonger. When the sitting Prime Minister was keen on appeasing Hitler, he stuck to his cause, rather than give in to the naysayers. For him, Hitler was a demon and the Nazis were too evil to be trusted about anything. He would later be called upon to lead the nation and his consistency redounded well to the benefit of Britain and humanity.
EXPERIENCE
Experience is key to leadership. Churchill had been a Member of Parliament for nearly 40 years by the time he was made Prime Minister. For 25 years he had held high ministerial office in a wide range of departments. He had been in the government and served on the front line during the First World War. He had seen action, was captured and escaped from a prisoner of war camp. All these were crucial in his leadership role during the horrifying war years when hordes of German planes were daily pounding London.
HARD WORKING
He had an incredible work ethic and was a perfectionist. He demanded much from those around him – but more from himself of the extreme high standards he had set. He was, for instance, quoted as saying “Each night before I go to bed, I try myself by Court Martial to see if I have done something really effective during the day – I don’t mean merely pawing the ground, anyone can go through the motions, but something really effective.”
KNOW YOUR PEOPLE
Finally, a leader must know the people he leads, or indeed, wants to lead. He must show empathy and identify with the yearnings of the people. He must, at all times, demonstrate leadership traits that are worthy of his place in society.
Britons, even in the agonising war felt close to Churchill. He was very sympathetic to their cause. His speeches touched everyone’s heart. He was a natural communicator, had no airs and was seen as an open book by his compatriots. Everyone knew where they were with Churchill.
Shall we then take a quick look at Democracy and then, Good Governance, without which a country, state or even local government will be in great peril.
Some 55 odd years ago in 1957, at the United School, Are-Afao Ekiti, my class teacher, Mr Fajana, later Chief, defined democracy for us as ‘the government of the people, for the people and by the people’. Events in the last half a century in Africa have strenuously questioned that definition of democracy. But our governor, to whose lecture I referred earlier, has done some good work of defining levels of democratisation in Africa.
He identified three broad categories.
I quote him: “First, I think we all need a typology of Africa’s democratisation that further interrogates the broad categories away from the Manichean divide – of success and failure, pessimism and optimism, sub-optimal performance and unprecedented progress – which is possible and indeed, necessary because of its practical implications for policy choices by African citizens, their governments and development partners. In this vein, one could clearly talk about five strands and even within them, experiences remain mixed and non-linear. One, there are states in the process of consolidating democracy and achieving better governance due to more legitimate and accountable governance, reformist economic management, rights based agenda, and a more active and demanding citizenry among other critical success factors – Botswana, Benin, Ghana will qualify here. Second are states in various stages of transitions – Kenya, Senegal, South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania. Third, are states in conflict or emerging out of conflict – DRC, Cote D’Ivoire, Mali, Liberia, Sierra Leone. Fourth are states in relapse or re-militarization – Comoros, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar and Mauritania and fifth, in my view, are out rightly authoritarian states”.
What I understand Dr Fayemi as saying here is that the type of democracy in place in each category has determined to a significant level, to what extent Good Governance, in its proper essence, can be delivered to the peoples of these countries.
What then is good governance?
Modern economies are not built with capital or labour as much as by ideas. Put differently, wars are won in the map room. To talk about Good Governance, therefore, is obviously not to re-invent the wheel since the subject has agitated the minds of scholars for long, but much more seriously within the past decade as a result of the concern, worldwide, for best practices. Good governance, as terminology, is used in describing the desired objectives of a nation-state or a geo-political zone, as we are in South-West, Nigeria. Put simply, it is anti-corruption, i.e a system in which the government and its institutions are accountable, effective, efficient, participatory, transparent, responsive, consensual and equitable. Once a system meets these stated desiderata, the end is what the Avatar, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, described as the raison detre of any government, i.e catering to the happiness of the greater majority of the people.
At the 2005 World Summit, leaders across the world concluded that good governance is integral to economic growth; to the eradication of poverty and hunger and towards ensuring sustainable development. Good Governance, the summit observed, ensures that the views of the most at risk segments of society, the oppressed: women, youth and the poor, are reckoned with because they suffer the most from the consequences of lack of good governance.
The Independent Commission on Good Governance in public services established in the UK in 2004 by the Office For Public Management (OPM) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, whose primary aim was to develop a common code and set of principles for good governance across public services to serve as a guide, came up with six core principles. These are:
- Focus: good governance means focusing on the organisation’s purpose and their outcome for the citizenry.
- Effective performance in defined roles.
- Promotion of values.
- Taking informed transparent decisions.
- Developing capacity and capability for effective governance, and,
- Engaging stakeholders and making accountability real.
Having thus laid the philosophical underpinning of our core categories, let us now take a quick look at the challenges and prospects which Leadership, Democracy and Good Governance pose for us as a geo-political zone or as a state.
SETTING GOOD GOVERNANCE AGENDA FOR YORUBALAND
The desideratum for good governance is peace; political as well as social peace. We need to, first of all, examine the sources of conflict and the structures available for conflict resolution in Yorubaland. The major source of political conflict in Yoruba land in the last twelve years or so has been the marginalisation of the Yoruba nation in the political scheme which came to a head with the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, the war of attrition that followed the annulment, with the consequent decimation of the cultural and political leadership of the Yorubas. This led to the mainstreaming agenda which dislocated our political and social life.
With Yoruba land back in the progressive political platform, an agenda for good governance becomes a sine qua non. It is, therefore, a time for rebuilding; a time for working out a blueprint for sustained social, political and economic development of Yoruba land.
Leadership in Yorubaland
Our leadership tradition is two-tier, i.e cultural and political but with both merging a-times. The Egbe Omo Oduduwa and Afenifere provided cultural cum political leadership; Obasanjo’s mainstreaming agenda created an out-rightly unpopular splinter group led by the Yoruba Council of Elders and the Akinfenwa AD as arrow heads. For the current political peace and harmony to be sustainable, our public office holders must be seen to perform optimally to the satisfaction of the citizenry as well as create a cultural leadership in its own image taking cognisance of the generational shift of the new political class. A Pan-Yoruba cultural organisation into which a lot of work has gone for the past five years with a thriving secretariat – THE AGBAJO YORUBA AGBAIYE- can, with judicious re-engineering, adequately fit the bill. It is led by Lt. Gen Alani Akinrinade, one of Yoruba’s finest specimens. It is my hope that the South-West governors’ forum can lead the charge here. It will not conflict with the new and improved ARG which is strictly political, and in my view, its Yoruba Academy is to serve as the intellectual power house for Yoruba land.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
The Yoruba race is one that inherited a good tradition of good governance in Nigeria. The high level of education of our political progenitors created a milieu that we can always look back to today to shape our political future. The question does not arise, therefore, as to what good governance is all about for our new leaders.
I proceed, therefore, to spell out the dividends that the new progressive governments should deliver to our people in the geo-political zone.
Agenda for Good Governance
- The development of the Southwest must be done along regional lines, i.e regional integration. Fortunately, this is the trend that our new political leaders are already charting. The region is an economic block, and as such, a regional approach will be cost-effective and economically viable especially in the areas of infrastructure procurement, industrialization, commerce, the environment, and agriculture.
Education: Given the anti-intellectual posture of the PDP which would rather ravage resources, our education is in the doldrums but it is obvious the governors have taken education as a major priority of their government. For instance, I served on the Ekiti state Education/Visitation Panel set up by Governor Kayode Fayemi and chaired the Communique Committee at the subsequent Ekiti Education Summit. Similar summits have been held in other states in the region. There is a gaping need for increased attention to be paid to technical education, with particular emphasis on skills acquisition through the formal school system – trade centres, vocational schools, traditional apprenticeship, reinvigorated Polytechnics etc. The gigantic work of development cannot be accomplished with a top-heavy technocratic class without a competent class of those who translate dreams into reality. This restructuring will benefit the entire regional economy.
Agriculture: All the states have potentials for agricultural development but this must be harmonised to take care of areas of comparative advantage in food and cash crop production. Food storage, preservation and processing industries should also be established, as well as, harmonised to avoid artificial glut. Agriculture should be used as a means of youth empowerment.
While mechanisation is the ultimate for mass production, the consequences on the environment should be taken into consideration. Peasant agriculture should still be given attention because it has sustained us for a long time and a huge percentage of our farmers are engaged in it. Agriculture should also be used for women empowerment.
Agro forestry: The Governments should go back to the preservation of our forest resources and also the afforestation and reforestation of overused land. There should be uniform laws to curb unauthorised logging, bush burning, poaching of wild animals etc because the entire region has the same forest resources. The youths should be massively involved in a forestation programmes across the region as a means of employment.
Industrialisation: Industries are cited where the raw materials are available. Good transportation in the region can bridge the disadvantage of access to the market. Major industries should be jointly-owned to ensure viability.
THE ROAD NETWORK:
Here is one area where the main streamers, under the lead of Ogagun Olusegun Obasanjo, has hurt us the most and there is no gain-saying its critical imperativeness.
Luckily we have as governors, highly committed young men who know exactly how to tap into development partners and approach institutions like the IDA to come rescue us because roads are key to all our developmental plans. They should also find PPP -Public Private Partnership, attractive, with a strong regulatory frame-work to manage it.
I haven’t the slightest doubt that we are poised for a very challenging but extremely exciting period of renewal in Yoruba land.
A ju se. Odua a gbe wa.
Congratulations Sir. Many happy returns.
