Essential Shagari @ 90

In term of quantity, I don’t know of any African country with as many as five retired but not tired Heads of State and countless governors and legislators.Former President Shehu Shagari, Turakin Sakkwato last Wednesday reached the milestone year of 90. Happy birthday to His Excellency! The national acknowledgement of the leadership qualities of the […]

In term of quantity, I don’t know of any African country with as many as five retired but not tired Heads of State and countless governors and legislators.
Former President Shehu Shagari, Turakin Sakkwato last Wednesday reached the milestone year of 90. Happy birthday to His Excellency! The national acknowledgement of the leadership qualities of the former President shows that the problem with Nigeria may not necessarily be absence of leadership but lack of acknowledgement of some worthy leadership qualities.
One essential quality of Shagari is dignity and humbleness with power. In his autobiography, Shehu Shagari; Beckoned To Serve, citing the enormous powers vested in the Commander in Chief by 1979 construction, he observed that there ‘…is thus some truth in the view that the President’s powers were considerable…. such that most people tended to think that all I needed to get things done was simply to issue a command’. He however added that any President would prefer such simplistic exercise of power but the reality is that there are personal, intuitional and socio-economic factors that constraint absolutist exercise of constitutional powers. Indeed Shagari noted that effective leadership is not in some King Kong’s dispositions but in constructive cooperation with the legislature, ‘one’s own colleagues, staff and political party as well’. The truth is that subsequent leaders after Shagari carried on as if they had absolutist powers, as if colleagues don’t matter (and with pointed military dictatorship), as if the nation does not matter.
The other important attribute of Shagari’s leadership is his remarkable singular ability to acknowledge the efforts and contributions of predecessors even while he did not agree with some of their policies. For instance he unquestionably conceded credits to Obasanjo’s administration for the ‘foresight in starting steel plants’ even as the regime’s Land Use decree constrained Green revolution policy of his administration. In his words; ‘the Obasanjo Administration did a good job in planning and constructing a modern sea-port at Tin Can Island’ even as he had cause to reverse the regime’s forced relocation of Abuja’s inhabitants and Obasanjo’s notorious policy of wage freeze! Thus Shagari shows that nothing was personal; give credit where it was due and then move on to govern based on your own policies. The truth of the matter is that this rare quality in governance as a continuity started and ended with Alhaji Shehu Shagari as subsequent regimes kept undoing all works (including good works) of their predecessors denying them credits they deserve attributing all that is good to themselves and by precedence, waiting to be discredited once they live office. To show that President Shagari decried vindictiveness in governance even to foreign government, witness how he courageously took an exception to the ‘arrogance and vindictiveness of the administration of President Ronald Reagan’. The latter denied Nigeria’s US Cargo planes to airlift some communication equipments (in the wake 1983 NITEL fire) just because the ‘Nigerian foreign Minister had previously publicly attacked the US foreign policy on Angola’. By the way the latter-day distortionist who presented late Ronald Reagan as friend of Africa should better ask Shagari who presided during Reagan years.
The most remarkable attribute of Shagari is horizontal and vertical consensus building and tolerance in a polity rooted in acrimony and mutual war of attrition. For instance, Shagari ably backed Lagos metro-line project notwithstanding that Governor Lateef Jakande was from the ‘vicious’ opposition party. He exercised considerable Presidential restraint in the face of provocation of the Oyo state government whose officials demolished NPN houses. Today there is considerable war of attrition between Federal and Lagos state government over issues which called for inter-governmental cooperation and solidarity calling to question the wisdom in official celebration of Shagari leadership without following his method.
As a comrade I give it to the former President Shehu Shagari that he was truly labour-friendly. The labour dimension of Shagari administration was remarkable. Shagari leadership shared same perception with most Nigerian leadership which tended to see all trade unionists’ actions as being ‘politically motivated’ as if contested government policies are less politically motivated. What however distinguished Shagari leadership was his power of delegation, persuasion and negotiation. He reached a number of agreements with labour over wide range of issues that included minimum wage review, car and leave allowances, provident fund and decent work in general. History will credit the former President Shagari for being the first democratically elected President to sign into law the first national Minimum Wage Act in Nigeria.  
It will be recalled that NLC under its founding President, Comrade Hassan Sunmonu demanded and led a national strike for national minimum wage in 1981 during the administration of former President Shehu Shagari. NLC has improved in minimum wage since then. It is to the eternal credit of Shagari’ tenure and his team (the notable being Alhaji Shehu Musa) that there was only one national strike which lasted one day during the second Republic dispensation. According to President Shehu Shagari, in ‘…one particular instance in March 1982 I personally intervened to stop a major strike threat’. Which Heads of State since Shagari have not personally provoked major strikes? In a country in which some former heads of states remain partisans on the barricades and one recently unacceptably tore his party membership card (instead of returning it!) Alhaji Shehu Shagari is truly a living symbol of civility, forgiveness and statesmanship.