Boateng’s homily to Nigeria’s leadership

However the 2014 edition being the sixth in the series, could not have been more timely. This is just as the message to Nigerian leaders by the guest speaker Lord Paul Boateng, the Ghana born, first ever African British peer, could not have been more instructive.Dwelling on foundational four traits  of enlightened leadership (also referred […]

However the 2014 edition being the sixth in the series, could not have been more timely. This is just as the message to Nigerian leaders by the guest speaker Lord Paul Boateng, the Ghana born, first ever African British peer, could not have been more instructive.
Dwelling on foundational four traits  of enlightened leadership (also referred to as the Four ‘C’s of leadership), namely Calling, Competence, Courage and Character, Boateng’s homily called on Nigerians to identify these in the leaders we choose henceforth, especially as the country embarks on the forthcoming general elections come 2015. The forthcoming dispensation is expected to avail the country a new set of leaders at both state and national levels.
For amplification while the trait of ‘calling’ defines what a leader sets out to achieve in public office, ‘competence’ is about the innate ability to perform and deliver on the mission. ‘Courage’ requires the person to rise up to the challenges of office and take right decisions based on conviction and public interest, while the “character’ tells the real person on the stage.  
It is not far- fetched to contend that we, the ordinary Nigerians, take the issue of leadership too casually. Yet hardly does any other factor determine our individual and collective destinies more directly. From the traditional setting of pristine communal life where leadership is represented by elders and chiefs who owe their position to claims based on ancestry, age and social standing, to the statutory framework where potentates are expected to emerge as per formally defined processes which are driven by supposedly popular choice, the criteria for admitting incumbents into leadership do not routinely demand verification of the traits as outlined above. Little wonder that we elevate unto the stage of public office leadership, persons who often prove to be misfits in positions of responsibility.
During this author’s sojourn at the Queens College of the ,University of Cambridge, the erudite Indian professor emeritus in economics, P K Basu vented his frustration over the failure of developing societies (including Nigeria) to place adequate premium on the competencies and dispositions of leaders in public life. In a private discussion with him, the great Basu had asked “what is a man who cannot read a balance sheet, be doing with public funds as a president of a country, governor of a state or chief executive of a public sector agency? He will either steal or waste such resources”. It was difficult not to think of Nigeria at that point!
To make matters more graphic Basu exploded further by declaring that “the third world has a lot of problems. It is the only place in the world where a fool joins a system at the bottom, and rises to the very top, only by being docile”. Haba, Basu!
Domesticating the contemplations of Boateng and Basu in the Nigerian society, especially with respect to the mill that furnishes us with leaders, popular concepts such as ‘adoption of consensus candidates’ who are often unknown to the electorate and ‘zoning of electoral offices’, both of which effectively emasculate the electorate from even picking the ‘grain from the chaff’ among candidates, come into focus. Yet without special vehicles like them, equity in the distribution of common resources including political offices cannot be guaranteed in a plural society like ours, with component entities of varying populations and different socio cultural identities.
That is the conundrum that is the Nigerian society. Yet we cannot dispense with the need to scrutinize our candidates for leadership at the point of entry, like now. It was the failure to do so in the past that infested our political terrain with leaders that redefined and vitiated the essence of public service to suit their whims and caprices.
For instance we now have governors who are virtual emperors exercising power over life and death in the states they govern, and in which no whimper of opposition is tolerated, even when they are unmistakably derailing. There are local government chairmen and councilors who appear at their offices only when the monthly allocation from Abuja is to be shared. What of ministers, commissioners, permanent secretaries and directors who funnel government contracts to phony companies owned by them and ensure upfront payment to same, even when the jobs are not intended to be executed.
As if that is not enough there are officers who have grafted the cost of their personal challenges in health and other areas unto the public largesse, and end up dying in active service even if it is after long periods of sterile occupation of sensitive positions. Economists argue that the perennial preponderance of recurrent components in the nation’s budget, is not due to salaries and wages, but to other expenditure items that often have little bearing to the direct welfare of rank and file staff of the public service.  
Lamentably however, from all indications not much will change in a hurry, as the atmosphere for the miraculous transformation (apologies to TAN), of our society may be manifesting, but slower than expected, courtesy of our respect for traditions and culture.
 In the circumstance, not a few Nigerians are ruing the painful misfortune, of their inability to prevent the inevitable ascendancy of some individuals, who are accomplished misfits that lack the calling, competence, courage and character, for active and useful roles in positions of leadership.