Governance and leadership redefined

Good governance is an intermediate term used in international development literature to describe various normative accounts of how public institutions ought to conduct public affairs and manage public resources. These normative accounts are most often justified on the grounds that are thought to be conducive to economic ends such as the eradication of poverty. In […]

Good governance is an intermediate term used in international development literature to describe various normative accounts of how public institutions ought to conduct public affairs and manage public resources. These normative accounts are most often justified on the grounds that are thought to be conducive to economic ends such as the eradication of poverty. In a more germane language, the World Bank defines good governance as ‘the manner in which power is exercised in the management of country’s economic and social resources for development’.
Leadership, on the other hand, is one must important component of governance. Good leadership leads to good governance just as bad leadership leads to bad governance, and by extension failure of the entire political system. One of the harbingers of doom is to place leadership authority in wrong hands. Good leaders persuade and do not command; they pull and do not push. Bad leaders by contrast manipulate their followers. Manipulation involves getting a person to do what they are either not aware of or do not ordinarily want to do. True leadership is more of service than domination. A good leader serves his followers, not himself; organises his followers and does not agonise them; mobilises his followers and does not manipulate them; provides services and does not withhold them.
The concept of governance and leadership as defined in the preceding paragraphs is what we used to know of governance and leaders in Nigeria. Before the past three and half decades, leadership as experienced under the country’s First Republic leaders meant responsibility. Leaders of yester-years remained very sensitive to the feelings, aspirations and basic needs of the people. They ensured that education remained an essential social service. They also gave health the attention it deserved; made agriculture a sustainable source of national income and job creation; allowed justice and rule of law to prevail over injustice and criminality; ensured security of lives and property; and worked for the common good of their people without prejudice to religion or tribe.
In the education sector under those foremost leaders, for instance, all the de rigueur facilities necessary for effective teaching and learning were provided in schools. My parents paid no fees throughout my primary education. Government gave us textbooks, exercise books, pencils (in primary 1-2), ink pens (primary 3-6), drawing papers, crayons, balls, bean bags, skittles and ropes for Physical Education (PE); all for free. The only thing I took to school from home was the class uniform which every parent sewed for his school child/children. At the teachers’ training college I attended, notebooks, textbooks, two sets each of class uniform, outing wear, sportswear, and one set each of blanket and mosquito net were also distributed to us for free at the beginning of each academic session for the five years period we spent in the college.
On a weekly basis too, we received a big tin of butter (the Blue Band brand); two tablets of toilet soap, a stick of bar soap and two pieces of toilet tissue paper. Teaching was made attractive and teachers remained dedicated on the job. By the time we became teachers after graduation in 1979, those of us posted outside the local government headquarters to teach received ‘Bush Allowance’. It was for these and other reasons that we did not in our primary and post-primary days hear of words like extra-lessons; ‘private’ teachers, miracle centres, etc; at least in the northern part of Nigeria.
This is just a small fraction of what some of us that saw the dusk of the second republic enjoyed. Others who saw and experienced the noon or the morning of the good old days of governance and leadership in Nigeria’s political history may have more and even better stories to recount in other sectors. However, the narrative gradually changed over the years but worsened in the past few years of the country’s decade-old democratic experience. Most leaders Nigerians had in recent times have re-defined governance and leadership for the present generation of children and youths in a perspective that has made the exception (bad governance) to replace the norm (good governance).
The crop of today’s leaders in Nigeria have partly succeeded in destroying the true meaning and application of leadership and good governance for contemporary Nigerian youths who are the country’s future leaders. In other words, they have re-defined the two concepts. As a consequence of bad governance, leadership or public office is now misconstrued by many young Nigerians who never enjoyed most or none of what my generation benefitted from as school children to mean self enhancement at the expense of public interest. Nigerian children (and their parents as well) are so humiliated that they do not consider themselves as an age-group with any rights, fundamental or secondary!  
Today’s youths in Nigeria are made to believe that it is normal to steal public funds and only abnormal to be accountable; normal to work for and serve personal interest and only abnormal to work for and serve public interest in public office; normal to get in to elective positions through fraudulent elections and only abnormal to win elections credibly; normal to engage in corrupt practices including cheating, forgery, misappropriation of public funds, etc; and only abnormal to be responsible and law abiding. What I find more disturbing is the misconception infused into our youths by the body language of our leaders that it is not worth achieving success through hard work and integrity; teaching them that it pays more to be smart! If this is what our present leaders have taught our youths to believe in, I am afraid of the kind of future that awaits this and un-born generation of Nigerians.
This wrong definition of leadership is largely informed by the presence of bad leaders in positions of responsibility. Imam Bukhari relates on the authority of Abu Hurayrah (RA) that the Prophet (SAW) was once asked about the Hour (i.e. the Last Day) and he replied, ‘When honesty is lost, then wait for the hour’. The man asked further, ‘How will that be lost?’ The Prophet (SAW) said, ‘When power or authority falls in to the hands of persons unfit for it, then wait for the Hour’. May Allah (SWT) deliver this country from the clutches of wicked leaders, amin.