January 31, 2009
TEXT OF A PAPER PRESENTED BY CHUKA, OBELE-CHUKA ON THE 5TH RALPH OPARA MEMORIAL LECTURE ORGANIZED BY THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF SEADOGS {PYRATES CONFRATERNITY} HELD AT THE WOMEN DEVELOPMENT CENTRE, AWKA ON 31ST DAY OF OCTOBER 2008
Can anyone begin a presentation to a gathering by the Seadogs to honour one of its very Original 7 without expressing gratitude for being considered worthy to be the guest speaker on this 5th Ralph Chukwuemeka Opara Memorial lecture? None I believe.
I will, therefore, convey my appreciation for being chosen even in the midst of several others - more qualified persons within and outside the Seadogs Confraternity.
Although, I must confess that I did not know this member of the Original 7 until the Memorial Lectures started. But I know he must have been greatly endowed to have belonged to the Original Deck.
As an undergraduate in the 1980s, I witnessed the proliferation of Campus cult-groups which sought to thread the path of the Pyrates Confraternity but lacked the requisite vision, values and intellectual depth of the Seadogs. What ensued thereafter was an elevation of uncontrolled violence of the crude murderous type as a tool of asserting leadership in an unnecessary rivalry that had less to do with the attainment of objectives of the various groups to protect the dignity of man, “black” and “white”. The resort to uncontrolled violence was, in my view, symptomatic of a self-inflicted inferiority complex on the part of the groups whose existence started and ended in the campuses.
Perhaps, today’s occasion presents me with an opportunity to state that I never belonged to any of the groups - Pyrates and all. The closest I came was when a group claiming a mission to protect the dignity of men came to campus and solicited membership. Believing in its professed Pan–Africanist ideology, I attended its inaugural meeting only to discover - and to my utter chagrin - that all the facilitators knew next to nothing about Pan Africanism. I withdrew. That was the beginning and the end of a-would-have-been association with the campus groups. Even when the Seadogs came, I saw them as birds of similar plumage. And I kept my distance from all. I was, therefore, never on Deck, nor am I now anchoring. But the truth must be stated; the NAS had a vision abnitio, and has had, until date, an unmatched record of intellectually-driven discipline and community service.
But the NAS must, however, continue to share in the blame for the blood-cuddling orgy of violence that enveloped our campuses in the 1980s. I lost over 10 acquaintances in my four years in campus. Eight were shot dead. One became a physically challenged person following gun-shot injuries. One took to madness and eventually died in the notorious Lagos Refuse Dumps.
Now to the business of the day: There is, perhaps, no topic more poignant than this year’s Ralph Chukwuemeka Opara’s Memorial Lecture. Particularly, as the President of our Republic, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yardua in his inaugural speech following his oath of office, declared his intention to be a Servant Leader. But is he? Would he, or can he? Do we have any Servant Leader across the 3 tiers of our government? I believe that the answers to these and more questions would be found in the course of this paper. But first, we shall find what Servant Leadership is.
Servant Leadership:
Modern Concept
The modern concept of Servant Leadership as a leadership developmental approach took root in 1970s with the writings of the American-born Robert K. Greenleaf who after over forty years of research discovered that the power-centered leadership styles as found in many American institutions were authoritarian and ineffective. He advanced the concept and philosophy of leadership in which the driving force is the person who literally serves the rest. After the publication of his book “The Servant as Leader” in 1970, the concept was advanced thereafter by such authors as Ken Blanchard and Peter Senge.
Ancient Origin
The origin of the concept can, however, be traced many thousands of years before Greenleaf and Company. In about 600 B.C., the Chinese Sage, Lao Tzu wrote a strategic treatise on Servant Leadership, The Tao Te Ching thus:
“The greatest leader forgets himself. And attends to the development of others. Good leaders support the excellent workers. Great leaders know that the diamond in the rough is always found in the rough”.
In the Fourth Century, B. C. Chanakya, the famous strategic thinker from ancient lndia wrote in his book, Arthashastra:
“The King (i.e. Leader) shall consider as good not what pleases himself but what pleases his subjects (i. e. followers). The King (leader) is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the State together with the people”.
In about 124 B.C., a certain King in a land called Zarahemla as recounted in a Scripture, The Book of Mormon, actually adopted the model of servant leadership in his years of reign over his people. In his account of his stewardship, a State of the Nation address in modern times, delivered on a tower erected around their Temple of worship, the King, named Benjamin, before the multitude of his people who gathered to hear his account revealed that much:
“... I have not commanded you to come up; neither that you should fear me, or that ye should think that I of myself am more than a mortal man. But I am like yourselves subject to all infirmities in body and mind. Yet, I have been chosen by you ….. and suffered by the hand of the Lord that I should be a ruler and a king over you and have been kept and preserved by His matchless power to serve you with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord granted unto me.
I say unto you that I have been suffered to spend my days in your service even up to this time and have not sought gold nor silver nor any manner of riches from you neither have I suffered that ye should be confined in dungeons nor that ye should make slaves one of another.
And even I, myself, have laboured with mine own hands that ye should not be laden with taxes and that there should nothing come upon you which was grievous to be borne – Yet my brethren, I have not done these things that I might boast, neither do I tell these things that, thereby, I might accuse you, but I tell you these things that ye may know that I can answer a clear conscience before God this day. Behold ………… I do not deserve to boast, for I have only been in the service of God. (Mosiah 2: 1 – 41).
Our Messiah, Jesus Christ, also taught his disciples to adopt the servant leadership model adding to it a tinge of divinity. In another Scripture, the Bible, the Messiah brought it home in an unmistakable language in the Book of Mark 10: 42 – 45 thus:
“you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many”.
Simply put, a servant leader serves the people he leads. He is Selfless. An inspiration. A motivator and a good listener. In a broader perspective, the concept of Servant Leadership can be described, in the words of Greenleaf, “as an ethical perspective on leadership that identifies key moral behaviors that a leader must continuously demonstrate”. A Servant Leader is first a servant. And becoming a servant leader “begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is a leader first”. The difference, according to Greenleaf, manifests in the care taken by the servant to ensure first that other people’s highest priority are being served.
Admitted, the concept of servant leadership approach to leadership has its pitfalls. It has been argued by some that shifting from leaders-as-autocrats to leaders-as-servants is going from one extreme to the other. However, the people who canvass this argument are those who see serving other people’s needs as creating the image of being slavish or subservient, and, therefore, not being a positive image for the servant – leader. They are ingrained autocrats who would never “have the natural feeling for service”.
But a Servant Leader does not need to create an image of a slave. But he must slave for others. He is one who challenges the status quo: does the unexpected and make some uncomfortable with the objective of achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Essentially, “servant leadership” emphasizes the leader’s role as steward of the human, financial and other resources provided by or available to the State. He is a revolutionary of some sorts.
One can view the topic at hand from two perspectives: a presumption that we have a sustainable democracy in which we are in search of a leader who would be our servant. The other is that we are in a democracy but in search of a servant leader as well as of a sustainable democracy. I prefer the latter. The reason is not far fetched.. Our country is far removed from the plains of a sustainable democracy.
Democracy
Although many definitions of democracy abound in our political theories and in practice, the universally accepted one is a form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system. In a more simplistic refrain, a’la the so-called slavery Abolitionist President Abraham Lincoln, a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The characteristics feature of the above definition of democracy is “majority rule” - otherwise, pooh – poohed as the “tyranny of the majority”.
In apparent recognition of the universally accepted definition of democracy, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 in Section 14 proclaimed that:
(a) Sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority.
Sustainable Democracy
There are certain tenets which constitute the pillars on which any Democracy can be nurtured and sustained. These include, but are not limited to, Sovereignty of the people and Government based on the consent of the Governed, Majority Rule and Minority Rights, Free and Fair elections, Rule of Law and Good Governance, and Independent Judiciary.
A perusal of the above pillars which sometimes overlap will readily reveal that most are absent in our country. Can we then, expect a servant leader to emerge from a faulty super-structure? The answer, as we shall quickly show, is in the negative. For a Servant Leader to emerge, the tenets listed above must conterminously exist in the Nigerian State .
Sovereignty of the People and Government Based on Consent of the Governed:
Here, we are not concerned with the characteristics of a Sovereign as one which makes and enforces laws with all the coercive power at its disposal and in which it cannot be legally bound by any other power than itself or with Thomas Hobbes type of Sovereign which he located in the Ruler. But with Rosseau’s Sovereign which is located in the people rather in governments or the Ruler.
The fact that our Constitution proclaimed that “Sovereignty vests in the people of Nigeria ” does not cure the very fundamental defect that is the Nigeria ’s 1999 Constitution. It was not a document made, enacted or given by the people. It is a document which - everyone is in agreement - tells a lie of itself. At no time did our people gather, much less solemnly reaching a resolution to “live in one indivisible and indissoluble Nation” or “to give ourselves” the provisions of Sections 1 – 318 and its Schedules. We never gave our consent. The document was a concoction of few Generals in Aso Rock assembled by the then departing thieving Generals, led by Abdusalami Abubakar - whose hands remained stained with the blood of the M.K.O. Abiola – and only made known to us after oaths of offices had been administered on those who won elections conducted under the imposed Constitution.
The more worrisome is that the document gave so much power to the President so much so that the President determines who would be members of the Electoral Commission including its Chairman. (Section 154 of the 1999 Constitution). In fact, Section 157 also confers the power of sack of the Chairman and members of the Commission on the President acting on the address of 2/3 majority of the Senate. The President is empowered to appoint the Chief Justice of Nigeria, President of the Court of Appeal etcetera on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council (NJC) subject to the confirmation of the National Assembly and also to sack these judicial officers. The constitution of all the bodies created by Section 153 (1) of the Constitution is virtually vested in the President.
At the State level, by virtue of Section 292 (1) a (ii) our supposed servant leaders in the States are conferred with similar power of appointment and removal of the heads of the Judiciary. This is the same document that permits a Second Term for an Incumbent President and the Governors!
Plebiscites and Referenda as Methods of Seeking Consent:
Except for period of elections, the power of the people to participate and determine leadership of the tiers of government or fundamental policies by way of Referendum or Plebiscite is virtually non-existent in the Constitution nor has the National Assembly considered legislating in that respect to create a sustainable democratic project.
The system of a direct voting in which the entire electorate will be asked to accept or reject a particular policy, decision or an issue must be a fundamental provision of any Constitution that seeks to produce servant leaders. The word “Plebiscite” comes from the Latin words “plebes” meaning the “people” and “scitum” meaning “decree”. It is an effective method of ensuring that the consent of the governed is obtained.
Referenda have been part of the laws of the First to Third-World countries. From the U.S. at State/City levels, and Switzerland , France , Canada , Chile , Brazil and Eritrea at national levels, the sovereignty of the people over fundamental issues are virtually guaranteed.
In Quebec , Referenda have been employed to determine whether Quebec would remain part of Canada . Although, in the last one, held in 1995, the proposal to pull out from Canada was defeated by what was called a “Razor- thin ” margin of 50.58% “No” to 49.42% “Yes”, the point was made that it was the majority decision of the people in a direct vote. Not one executed on their behalf by some delegates in an Assembly who would have been compromised for self – seeking reasons.
The danger of leaving such decisions on fundamental issue such as constitutional review or amendment to a so-called elected delegates or representatives came to the fore during the Obasanjo’s Third-Term Infamy. We saw our co-called representatives voting against the expressed wishes of their constituencies. It took what most patriots saw as a divine intervention for the Obasanjo Infamy to be torpedoed as a whole lot of our so-called representatives appeared determined to snub our sovereignty and hand Obasanjo what was clearly a Life-Tenure.
I had cause to call my representative in our Upper House, who was reported in the media to be one of the “undecided” to convey the resolution of a meeting of a coalition of human rights groups in the constituency urging for a speedy resounding truncation of shameless ambition of the half – schooled man to lord it over us. Our representative refused to take a stand and remained ‘‘undecided’’ until the project came to grief.
In our country, it can be used to determine the continued existence or otherwise of the present Constitution or its amendments, to remove the President, Governor or Local Council Chairman in the event of a failure of the appropriate assemblies to so do.
It follows, therefore, that as there was no consent obtained or given by us, the 1999 Constitution should suffer an accelerated euthanasia to pave way for a Peoples Constitution. How that new Constitution will emerge would be a subject of another discourse. Suffice to restate my long-held view that only a National Conference of all nationalities and special interest groups whose decisions or resolutions would be Sovereign un-reviewable by any other person or organ would usher such a viable and universally accepted grundnorm.
The unacceptable flaws in the present contraption is manifested in the bizarre provisions of Sections 156(1) (a) in which qualification of membership of such bodies created by Section 153(1) (which includes the Electoral Commission, Nigeria Police Council, Police Service Commission) is predicated on qualifications for election as a member of the House of Representatives. By Section 65 (2)(b), the mandatory qualifications for election into the lower House include that such a person must not only be a member of a political party but also sponsored by that party. Does such a document which is totally flawed require an amendment or review? I believe that dissenting voices are now few on the urgency for a brand new Constitution.
Without the structures of a sustainable democracy, can we reasonably expect the emergence of a Servant Leader? Or can President Yaradua achieve the status with the current skewed and fundamentally flawed super-structures?
Libya as a Model:
No matter what the West would want us to believe, the Great Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is a classical example of a Government based on consent of the people and where the real sovereignty inures in them. From its name, Jamahiriya, which means a “State of the Masses”, to the fact that its “Head of State”, Muammar El-Gaddafi holds no public office, but simply accorded the titles of “Brotherly Leader” of the Revolution or “Guide of the Revolution” apart from being the General Secretary of the General Peoples Congress, Libya is, indeed, a Republic ruled by the masses, because it practices a system of Government where people, through various Committees, viz, People’s Committees, People’s Congresses, Unions and Professional Associations and the General People’s Congress, exercise authority. Each Zone, and municipality elects its respective People’s Committees and Basic People’s Congress (BPC) whose principal officers would make up the General People’s Congress. Decisions, laws and resolutions passed at the Basic People’s Congress are implemented. Thus power, on some occasions, flows from down to up in this country that guarantees free education for all its citizens to the university level – as well as free medical care for all.
It is therefore safe to regard Muammar El-Gaddafi as a Servant Leader. As a Colonel and in his late 20s and in company of Major Jalloud and others, he led the Revolution of 1969 that over-threw the monarchical and unitarist dictatorship of King Idris El- Senussi and established themselves as Servant Leaders in theory and practice because until date the Leaders of the 1969 Revolution are yet move up in ranks. No foreign accounts in Switzerland , or Belize Citizenship. No Private Library funded from our commonwealth. No Private University . Little wonder that literacy level in the country is as high as 85 percent.
The Madiba Example
Although the South African Constitution is regarded as a model for a sustainable democracy, with a far reaching progressive provisions, including the right demonstrate, march, and strike and freedom of information, which our “representatives” loathes, Nelson Mandela adopted and exhibited an exemplary personal servant leadership approach when he steered the new Southern African nation from the precipice of a feared disintegration and White backlash, and relinquished power even when there was a profoundly genuine demand for him to serve the constitutionally allowed 2nd term. He left office even without erecting for himself a retirement “befitting” for a man of his stature.
Majority Rule and Minority Rights:
As we had demonstrated earlier in this paper, democracy is a rule by the majority, but in which minority rights are equally protected. This explains why there are laws made in democracy to protect such abuses that may occur in majority rule which abuses may engender a tyranny against the minority. They come in form of Affirmative Actions, Federal Character or Geographical Spread, Quotas, Separation of Powers and Fundamental Rights which inure to each individual or citizen in the State without regard to race, tribe, sex or political leaning.
For instance, under the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy of Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution, Section 14(3) declares, inter- alia.:
“the composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect Federal character”.
Subsection (4) of the same Section has similar injunctions to the States and Local Governments. These are reinforced by Sections 171(5) and 208(4) of the said Constitution. In furtherance of the principle of separation of powers which is aimed at preventing the accumulation of powers by one arm of the Government that may be harmful to democracy, Sections 4, 5, and 6 outlined and apportioned the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the State. In the nation’s education sector, quotas have become a familiar word – albeit in controversial terms.
While representative democracy entails rule by Majority, to avoid the pitfalls of a tyranny of majority, such individual rights are enshrined and guaranteed in Chapter IV of our Constitution or in South Africa’s and Bolivia’s Bill of Rights to safeguard minorities of all types and stations of life. In the case of Bolivia , the Bill of Rights contained in the new Constitution which is expected to be accepted in the proposed Referendum has specific provisions to protect over 30 indigenous peoples of Bolivia . In the 1960s America , John F. Kennedy initiated Affirmative Actions to promote more access to employment, housing education among disadvantaged minorities. By further virtue of Section 17(3)(a) and (e) of the 1999 Constitution, discrimination is also abolished. As in Section 9 of South Africa’s Bill of Rights, equality of all and freedom from discrimination on account of any ground are equally guaranteed. But when will our nation depart from the twin monsters of “Indigene” and “Abandoned property?
Free and Fair Elections:
Election is an indispensable method, like Referendum or plebiscite, through which citizens establish or concretize their claim to sovereignty.
In Nigeria where Referenda or plebiscites are non-existent, election is the only method for our citizens to express and actualize their political choices. Aside the aborted June 12, 1993 general election, all the elections in post-independent Nigeria have been marred with irregularities and rigging. However, none compares in the magnitude of fraud, debauchery and brazen breach of all known electoral laws and procedures as that of April 14-28, 2007 .
This was how the International Herald Tribune a U.S based Newspaper saw it:
“Measured one way, Nigeria’s democracy took a giant step backward (in her April 2007 Election). It’s state and national election displayed a disastrous mix of fraud and bungling, even worse, by most accounts, than the seriously marred elections of 1999 and 2003”… Observers from European Union said the elections were not credible. Nigerian observers demanded, for (cancellation and a re-run).
A key actor in the country’s electoral reforms process summed it up thus: “Elections in Nigeria are organized are as a criminal activity led by State actors and characterized by corruption, intimidation and violence. Our people have lost their (only) sovereignty to organized criminal syndicates some of whom are emboldened by a strange religious belief that God gives power to whomever he chooses”. Our servant leader President remains the greatest beneficiary of the electoral brigandage of our Prof. Maurice Iwu’s INEC. By all accounts, Prof Iwu acted in a manner that evidenced he was given a mandate by his party (PDP) leader, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to return candidates of his choice in breach of all known laws. Rather than being in jail, the man continues to mock us, daring us to do our worst while our servant leader watch in ostensible glee. It has been argued by some political scholars that once we get our electoral process right, that we are on a fast – track to a sustainable democracy. And I agree. The Consequences of Manipulated Elections:
Our history is replete with litany of avoidable violence, destruction of lives and property that have attended successive manipulated or rigged elections. In the First Republic, it was operation “we -tie”, a violent, albeit justified, response to the election rigging in the South West that eventually became the last straw that brought that Republic to an end. In the 2nd, the South West boiled again with the bloody fall out over another of the ruling party’s electoral landslides across the country. Again, the Republic failed as a result thereof. In 2003, a new twist of violence erupted among those accomplices who collaborated to despoil our people of their electoral choices. The struggle over the stolen electoral booty blew into a bloody internecine war between the God-father and his political son in Anambra State . Our polity was scandalized. The rest, as it is said, is history.
Any leadership that emerged from a manipulated process does not owe its life or tenure to the people and does not see any need to accord the people their sovereignty in subsequent elections and would therefore not be accountable to the people. Dividends of democracy would be but a refrain only to be trumpeted in the media. The only exception was the case of Anambra State in 2003 Gubernatorial Election in which an accomplice and the ultimate beneficiary of the electoral banditry against our people turned round to do the extraordinary by delivering on the people’s desires and priorities that he literally legitimized the fraudulent process that brought him to power. A touch of Divinity was added to his emergence. The vast majority of the people attributed the criminal usurpation of their sovereignty by the Godson as having been hatched by the Creator in heaven! But his was an exception. And it is one that will certainly require a special study by political scientists.
A total unbundling of the INEC has been proposed that would remove the appointment of Chairman and members of the Commission from the President and hand same over to the political parties, and other organized bodies as the labour, civil society organizations, while the approving authority for the appointments save the Chairman shall be the National Assembly.
It is further suggested that: petitioners in an election petition should be relieved the burden imposed on them by virtue of Section 138 of the Evidence Act and shift same to the Electoral Commission: that printing of ballot papers and voters registers be removed from the Commission and placed under the authority of another independent agency, while each polling booth or ward would have a determinable number of serialized ballot papers assigned to it with the certified list of such booths or wards and the assigned serialized ballot papers numbers given to all the political parties and deposited with such institution as the National Judicial Council. This will in no small measure strengthen the justice system of recovering stolen mandates and flush out usurpers of our collective sovereignty. To further transform the Commission and secure its independence for a free and fair election its funding must be one of the first line charges on the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
It follows therefore that the restoration of the sovereignty of the people to choose their leaders and representatives is the corner stone of building a sustainable democracy.
Rule of Law and Good Governance:The rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is exercised only in accordance with written and publicly known laws enforced in accordance with established procedural steps otherwise referred to as due process. It is a bullwark against arbitrary governance whether in a democracy or any other form of government. It means that our laws, rather than the whims and caprices of the leader, are the dominant force. It further connotes equality before the law as provided in Section 17(2)(a) of the 1999 Constitution, Article 5 of the Libyan Constitutional Proclamation of 1969 and Section 9 of Chapter 2 of the South African Constitution
Good governance has several characteristics. Apart from being participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, it must as a necessity follow the rule of law. Good governance entails also the reduction of corruption, and consideration of the views of minorities in decision-making process.
The resultant effect of these is that the leader uses the resources of his people to achieve or produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Not to feather his personal or business interest – or even political interest such as using the resources of the State only when election date is around the corner in order to achieve a 2nd term ambition. Or plunging the State into joint projects with foreign partners who are, in deed, his proxies.
A servant leader must ensure that processes and institutions produce results that meet the needs of society, while making the best use of resources at his disposal to meet the needs of his people within a particular period of time.
How do we describe our servant leader who was said to have saved and left billions of naira in the account of the State where he ruled for 8 years? A State bereft of infrastructural development?
Or a governor who is busy allegedly saving tens of billions of naira for our children’s children while our already born citizens are choking in economic anguish, unemployment, as a result of total embargo on employment, and total infrastructure collapse? On a daily basis, our people, whether in Onitsha, Awka, Nnewi, Ozubulu or Adazi, Ihiala, Awkuzu, or Nkpor and Obosi or Awada or Awka-Etiti are trapped in nasty traffic snarls caused by an uninterrupted 3 years of neglect of our roads. When road construction or rehabilitation is not only the easiest job of any leader but one of the most pivotal factor for economic development of today’s Nigeria.
Goods estimated to be worth over 3billion naira have been lost by citizens on transit as a result of the craters-infested M.C.C Junction - Army Barracks road, Onitsha and Afor Igwe Ogidi – Abagana road! Yet, hundreds of millions of naira of our collective patrimony have been, and continues to be, wasted in erecting huge or gigantic billboards, printing millions of pamphlets, and brochures, buying up newspaper spaces, and painting campaign vehicles with all manner of slogans and advertisement, sponsoring hatchet writers and creating propaganda websites to celebrate non-existent achievements or what are, at best, patently White-Elephant projects – all geared towards a personal ambition for 2nd term in office. Even signboards are being erected eulogizing our servant leader for completing – even in a half haphazard manner - roads started by previous leaders!
The current total infrastructural collapse in the State, with the excruciating regime of taxes and levies, in my mind, constitute sufficient provocation for our people to march peacefully to their government house to demand and ensure the ouster of our servant leader from office. We are justified under the law to cause an overthrow of any government by constitutional means.
A Servant leader need not laden his people with increased taxes and levies in order to deploy the commonwealth of his people to their benefit: as exemplified by King Benjamin in the ancient times.
The Governor Mitt Romney’s Modern Example
In the American State of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, an astute player in international economy, was elected the Governor of Massachusetts under the Republican Party platform in 2002. This is how a newsmedia told the Romney story:
"Prior to his election, Mitt Romney enjoyed a successful career helping businesses grow and improve their operations. From 1978 to 1984, Mr. Romney was a Vice President at Bain & Company, Inc., a leading management consulting firm. In 1984, Romney founded Bain Capital, one of the nation's most successful venture capital and investment companies. Bain Capital helped guide hundreds of companies on a successful course, including Staples, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Sealy, Brookstone, and The Sports Authority. He was asked to return to Bain & Company as CEO several years later in order to lead a financial restructuring of the organization.
Upon his election as Governor, Romney presided over a dramatic reversal of state fortunes and a period of sustained economic expansion in Massachusetts. Without raising taxes or increasing debt, Governor Romney balanced the budget every year of his administration, closing a nearly $3 billion budget gap inherited when he took office. By eliminating waste, streamlining the government, and enacting comprehensive economic reforms to stimulate growth in Massachusetts, Romney got the economy moving again and transformed deficits into surpluses". Without adding a dime on any tax!
In fact today, Republicans are regretting Senator John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as their GOP’s Party running mate, believing that Romney’s economic miracle in Massachusetts would have provided the answer to the Democratic Party’s much touted economic magic wand to the looming recession in America .
The Nigerian Examples
The fad in our country is for successive governments to raise taxes and levies payable by the citizens. The frequent increments in the prices of petroleum products have become the past time of all our leaders that people are beginning to enquire if it is a curse that our Creator endowed us with such a rich natural resource. Social Amenities are non existent. Collapsed road network everywhere. Decaying health and education system that will in no distant future raise our illiteracy level to alarming proportion as only the super rich can afford to acquire education. To acquire a university education in a federal university today will cost a citizen over N5million - a citizen whose, or whose parents’ minimum wage is N5,500. Electric Power is still epileptic. High unemployment rate: comparable to the Zimbabwean rate. No social security or safety net for the unemployed. Absence of security, for both lives and properties..
It is only, perhaps, in Nigeria that all former Heads of State who stole the country to stupor are blissfully enjoying their loot. From the U.S to Thailand , from the Philippines to Indonesia and Pakistan and to our neighboring African nation of Zambia , some of their former presidents have come under the sanctions of the law for corrupt practices or other abuse of office.
With a population of over 7 million people, only next to Kano and Lagos , Anambra State has been blighted, since creation, by years of misgovernance, both from the Jackboots of military junta and their minions and the Slip-ons of their civilian counterparts. Save for Governor Chukwuemeka Ezeife whose tenure was shortened, and Dr. Ngige’s illegitimate interregnum which raised, for the first - and last time - the bar of governance, it has been stories of squandered goodwill and dashed hopes. Today, over 18 workers and pensioners of the State Water Corporation have been reported dead between April 2006 till date having paid only 2months salary since the present Government came into being. One was said to have starved to death inside his one room apartment. Iyiagu Awka Floodwater/ Environmental Menace and the Pedestrian Overhead Pass only started receiving attention just the other day, (inspite of the enormous pressure mounted by the Environment Watch group since 2006) after about 6 students and 4 Artisans have been swept into oblivion by the floods or killed in auto crashes between May 2006 and early this year. I believe that it is same story every where in Nigeria save for a few places.. Perhaps, in Sullivan Chime’s Enugu State ?
By obedience to the rule of law, corruption and arbitrariness in the system will be stemmed. But the mantra of rule of law appears in the current political lexicon to be a euphemism to shield those tarred with high corruption which is violation of the provision of Section 15(5) of the Constitution which states thus:
"15(5): The State shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power."
Yet we are told that files of corrupt governors in the custody of the Anti Graft Commission developed wings and took flight from its office as if there were no duplicates in the same office or ones sent to the then President, Attorney General of the Federation, the State Security Services (SSS) and the INEC. As if the files are difficult to compile again. or the evidence of these financial crimes against our collective patrimony do not stare us all in the face.
If we are governed by a servant leader, Mr. Jonathan Elendu of Elendureports.com web site would have no business being in the unlawful custody of the SSS or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The arrest and continued detention of the journalist is a crude act of arbitrariness in a country where the courts have nullified the offence of sedition and where there is a Constitution that prohibits detention of a person for more than twenty four hours. The detention is a throwback to the monstrous days of the goggled Maximum Tyrant.
I must therefore condemn both the president’s plan to hike the prices of petroleum products as well as weakening the anti graft war and the decision by the servant leader at Awka to impose and collect all manner of imaginable taxes and levies including road taxes on tollgates to be erected on various roads in the State. Our people would be called upon at the appropriate time to mount a legitimate resistance to such taxes and levies.
Independent Judiciary:
This is one very critical pillar for any democracy project. Under Section 6 of our Constitution, it is the arm of government vested with carrying out all judicial functions of the State. It can strike down the acts of the other two arms as being unlawful, ultra vires or unconstitutional. The power to appoint and remove the heads of this arm at the federal and State levels is left in the hands of politicians who populate the executive and the legislative arms. Some have argued that such power enhances the checks and balances that the Constitution seeks to promote. But the specter of the abuse to which the power has been subjected to in some States in Nigeria calls for an expedited removal of such power from the politicians. The Judiciary, I assert, remains the most disciplined of all the arms of government with institutionalized capacity to purge itself of its bad eggs. Save that the NJC must at all times send home any judge found wanting in his office in ignominy – without the benefit of a retirement.
Mode of Appointment of Judges
In an essay titled Creating a Sane Society; Imperatives of Good Governance and the Rule of Law, the gadfly and tormentor of successive autocratic and anti-people governments and a legal giant, Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAN canvassed that the secret nature of appointment of judges and other members of the bench be discarded. His words:
“Apart from the stipulated qualifications and the prescribed authority for appointment of our Judges, Nigerians know little about those to be appointed. This process must change. Every prospective appointee must be published in a gazette before the appointment is made. Details of credentials and curriculum vitae about such prospective appointee must be published in a gazette and in the media, preferably in the print media to enable Nigerians make their comments, recommendations or condemnation to the National Judicial Council (NJC)… Even lawyers wake up to hear the appointment of some Judges they believe could not have been appointed. The present system of secretive mechanism of appointing Judges must stop and change”
Besides suggesting a jury system, all made up of the legal profession, to ensure the tyranny of a single judge court system is checked, need we say more on this point?
Financial Independence
Although the Constitution provides for the financial independence of the Judiciary even at State level in Section 121(3) of the Constitution, our Servant Leaders thereat still revel in compelling the heads of the Judiciary undertake visits, repeatedly, to their offices, cap in hand, to beg of funds. In Anambra State , the financial independence of the judiciary is further guaranteed by the State Judiciary (Self Accounting) Law of the State. But rather than pay in the funds appropriated or accruing to the Judiciary to its account as required by the combined effect of Section 14(2) and (3) of the Self-Accounting Law, tokens are taken therefrom to build wagon houses in the name of court halls and Judiciary Quarters.
I must urge the Head and other judicial officers, including members of the lower bench, not to allow themselves to be ridiculed again by any servant leader who will use part of funds accruing to them to buy brand new cars and order them out, sometimes under an inclement weather, to pose for photographs with the new cars, with the keys dangling from their hands, as required by these unscrupulous governors, to celebrate an achievement (which strictly speaking is a constitutional breach and a gross misconduct) by a governor whose objective is to use the public ceremonies as an instrument of campaign for a 2nd term ambition. It is my further hope that Nigeria Bar Association will very soon test the provision of Section 121(3) of the Constitution and the State Self-Accounting Law in the law courts with a view to securing an order mandating the Governor to pay in accruing judicial funds into its account.
A truly independent judiciary can with the security of its tenure and funding be trusted at all times to wield the cudgel against any tyrannical, unlawful, unconstitutional acts of the other two arms without equivocation. In the desperate days President Yar’adua’s predecessor, to metamorphose into a perpetual Servant Leader, and illegally removed his Vice, the Supreme Court called the bluff of the marauding bull thereby pulling our country away from a status of a Banana Republic.
Achieving these tasks is, without doubt, herculean. But we must set out now if we are to secure such a sustainable democracy that will breed Servant Leaders in the future. Should the forces of autocracy which are hell-bent on maintaining the status quo continue to be clogs, we shall have no alternative but to call for a People’s revolt to overthrow, by any means necessary, the old order.
Am done, Seadogs. Ahoy!
Chuka, obele-chuka Esq.-An Attorney at Law and former Chairman of Nigerian Bar Association Onitsha Branch delivered this paper as a Guest Lecturer during the Ralph Opara Memorial Lecture at Women Development Centre Awka on 31st october 2008.
References;
1. Substance of Politics –A. Appadorai
2. On the rule of Law, History, Politics and Theory – Brian Z. Tamanahar.
3. United Nations Education and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific Newsletter
4. Democratization – B.O. Nwabueze
5. Famous Mormons
6. Sustainable Democracy – Adam Przeworski
7. Essentials - Robert GreenLeaf
8. Robert GreenLeaf
9. The Book of Mormon; Another Testament of Jesus Christ
10. The Bible
Can anyone begin a presentation to a gathering by the Seadogs to honour one of its very Original 7 without expressing gratitude for being considered worthy to be the guest speaker on this 5th Ralph Chukwuemeka Opara Memorial lecture? None I believe.
I will, therefore, convey my appreciation for being chosen even in the midst of several others - more qualified persons within and outside the Seadogs Confraternity.
Although, I must confess that I did not know this member of the Original 7 until the Memorial Lectures started. But I know he must have been greatly endowed to have belonged to the Original Deck.
As an undergraduate in the 1980s, I witnessed the proliferation of Campus cult-groups which sought to thread the path of the Pyrates Confraternity but lacked the requisite vision, values and intellectual depth of the Seadogs. What ensued thereafter was an elevation of uncontrolled violence of the crude murderous type as a tool of asserting leadership in an unnecessary rivalry that had less to do with the attainment of objectives of the various groups to protect the dignity of man, “black” and “white”. The resort to uncontrolled violence was, in my view, symptomatic of a self-inflicted inferiority complex on the part of the groups whose existence started and ended in the campuses.
Perhaps, today’s occasion presents me with an opportunity to state that I never belonged to any of the groups - Pyrates and all. The closest I came was when a group claiming a mission to protect the dignity of men came to campus and solicited membership. Believing in its professed Pan–Africanist ideology, I attended its inaugural meeting only to discover - and to my utter chagrin - that all the facilitators knew next to nothing about Pan Africanism. I withdrew. That was the beginning and the end of a-would-have-been association with the campus groups. Even when the Seadogs came, I saw them as birds of similar plumage. And I kept my distance from all. I was, therefore, never on Deck, nor am I now anchoring. But the truth must be stated; the NAS had a vision abnitio, and has had, until date, an unmatched record of intellectually-driven discipline and community service.
But the NAS must, however, continue to share in the blame for the blood-cuddling orgy of violence that enveloped our campuses in the 1980s. I lost over 10 acquaintances in my four years in campus. Eight were shot dead. One became a physically challenged person following gun-shot injuries. One took to madness and eventually died in the notorious Lagos Refuse Dumps.
Now to the business of the day: There is, perhaps, no topic more poignant than this year’s Ralph Chukwuemeka Opara’s Memorial Lecture. Particularly, as the President of our Republic, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yardua in his inaugural speech following his oath of office, declared his intention to be a Servant Leader. But is he? Would he, or can he? Do we have any Servant Leader across the 3 tiers of our government? I believe that the answers to these and more questions would be found in the course of this paper. But first, we shall find what Servant Leadership is.
Servant Leadership:
Modern Concept
The modern concept of Servant Leadership as a leadership developmental approach took root in 1970s with the writings of the American-born Robert K. Greenleaf who after over forty years of research discovered that the power-centered leadership styles as found in many American institutions were authoritarian and ineffective. He advanced the concept and philosophy of leadership in which the driving force is the person who literally serves the rest. After the publication of his book “The Servant as Leader” in 1970, the concept was advanced thereafter by such authors as Ken Blanchard and Peter Senge.
Ancient Origin
The origin of the concept can, however, be traced many thousands of years before Greenleaf and Company. In about 600 B.C., the Chinese Sage, Lao Tzu wrote a strategic treatise on Servant Leadership, The Tao Te Ching thus:
“The greatest leader forgets himself. And attends to the development of others. Good leaders support the excellent workers. Great leaders know that the diamond in the rough is always found in the rough”.
In the Fourth Century, B. C. Chanakya, the famous strategic thinker from ancient lndia wrote in his book, Arthashastra:
“The King (i.e. Leader) shall consider as good not what pleases himself but what pleases his subjects (i. e. followers). The King (leader) is a paid servant and enjoys the resources of the State together with the people”.
In about 124 B.C., a certain King in a land called Zarahemla as recounted in a Scripture, The Book of Mormon, actually adopted the model of servant leadership in his years of reign over his people. In his account of his stewardship, a State of the Nation address in modern times, delivered on a tower erected around their Temple of worship, the King, named Benjamin, before the multitude of his people who gathered to hear his account revealed that much:
“... I have not commanded you to come up; neither that you should fear me, or that ye should think that I of myself am more than a mortal man. But I am like yourselves subject to all infirmities in body and mind. Yet, I have been chosen by you ….. and suffered by the hand of the Lord that I should be a ruler and a king over you and have been kept and preserved by His matchless power to serve you with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord granted unto me.
I say unto you that I have been suffered to spend my days in your service even up to this time and have not sought gold nor silver nor any manner of riches from you neither have I suffered that ye should be confined in dungeons nor that ye should make slaves one of another.
And even I, myself, have laboured with mine own hands that ye should not be laden with taxes and that there should nothing come upon you which was grievous to be borne – Yet my brethren, I have not done these things that I might boast, neither do I tell these things that, thereby, I might accuse you, but I tell you these things that ye may know that I can answer a clear conscience before God this day. Behold ………… I do not deserve to boast, for I have only been in the service of God. (Mosiah 2: 1 – 41).
Our Messiah, Jesus Christ, also taught his disciples to adopt the servant leadership model adding to it a tinge of divinity. In another Scripture, the Bible, the Messiah brought it home in an unmistakable language in the Book of Mark 10: 42 – 45 thus:
“you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many”.
Simply put, a servant leader serves the people he leads. He is Selfless. An inspiration. A motivator and a good listener. In a broader perspective, the concept of Servant Leadership can be described, in the words of Greenleaf, “as an ethical perspective on leadership that identifies key moral behaviors that a leader must continuously demonstrate”. A Servant Leader is first a servant. And becoming a servant leader “begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is a leader first”. The difference, according to Greenleaf, manifests in the care taken by the servant to ensure first that other people’s highest priority are being served.
Admitted, the concept of servant leadership approach to leadership has its pitfalls. It has been argued by some that shifting from leaders-as-autocrats to leaders-as-servants is going from one extreme to the other. However, the people who canvass this argument are those who see serving other people’s needs as creating the image of being slavish or subservient, and, therefore, not being a positive image for the servant – leader. They are ingrained autocrats who would never “have the natural feeling for service”.
But a Servant Leader does not need to create an image of a slave. But he must slave for others. He is one who challenges the status quo: does the unexpected and make some uncomfortable with the objective of achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Essentially, “servant leadership” emphasizes the leader’s role as steward of the human, financial and other resources provided by or available to the State. He is a revolutionary of some sorts.
One can view the topic at hand from two perspectives: a presumption that we have a sustainable democracy in which we are in search of a leader who would be our servant. The other is that we are in a democracy but in search of a servant leader as well as of a sustainable democracy. I prefer the latter. The reason is not far fetched.. Our country is far removed from the plains of a sustainable democracy.
Democracy
Although many definitions of democracy abound in our political theories and in practice, the universally accepted one is a form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system. In a more simplistic refrain, a’la the so-called slavery Abolitionist President Abraham Lincoln, a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The characteristics feature of the above definition of democracy is “majority rule” - otherwise, pooh – poohed as the “tyranny of the majority”.
In apparent recognition of the universally accepted definition of democracy, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 in Section 14 proclaimed that:
(a) Sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority.
Sustainable Democracy
There are certain tenets which constitute the pillars on which any Democracy can be nurtured and sustained. These include, but are not limited to, Sovereignty of the people and Government based on the consent of the Governed, Majority Rule and Minority Rights, Free and Fair elections, Rule of Law and Good Governance, and Independent Judiciary.
A perusal of the above pillars which sometimes overlap will readily reveal that most are absent in our country. Can we then, expect a servant leader to emerge from a faulty super-structure? The answer, as we shall quickly show, is in the negative. For a Servant Leader to emerge, the tenets listed above must conterminously exist in the Nigerian State .
Sovereignty of the People and Government Based on Consent of the Governed:
Here, we are not concerned with the characteristics of a Sovereign as one which makes and enforces laws with all the coercive power at its disposal and in which it cannot be legally bound by any other power than itself or with Thomas Hobbes type of Sovereign which he located in the Ruler. But with Rosseau’s Sovereign which is located in the people rather in governments or the Ruler.
The fact that our Constitution proclaimed that “Sovereignty vests in the people of Nigeria ” does not cure the very fundamental defect that is the Nigeria ’s 1999 Constitution. It was not a document made, enacted or given by the people. It is a document which - everyone is in agreement - tells a lie of itself. At no time did our people gather, much less solemnly reaching a resolution to “live in one indivisible and indissoluble Nation” or “to give ourselves” the provisions of Sections 1 – 318 and its Schedules. We never gave our consent. The document was a concoction of few Generals in Aso Rock assembled by the then departing thieving Generals, led by Abdusalami Abubakar - whose hands remained stained with the blood of the M.K.O. Abiola – and only made known to us after oaths of offices had been administered on those who won elections conducted under the imposed Constitution.
The more worrisome is that the document gave so much power to the President so much so that the President determines who would be members of the Electoral Commission including its Chairman. (Section 154 of the 1999 Constitution). In fact, Section 157 also confers the power of sack of the Chairman and members of the Commission on the President acting on the address of 2/3 majority of the Senate. The President is empowered to appoint the Chief Justice of Nigeria, President of the Court of Appeal etcetera on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council (NJC) subject to the confirmation of the National Assembly and also to sack these judicial officers. The constitution of all the bodies created by Section 153 (1) of the Constitution is virtually vested in the President.
At the State level, by virtue of Section 292 (1) a (ii) our supposed servant leaders in the States are conferred with similar power of appointment and removal of the heads of the Judiciary. This is the same document that permits a Second Term for an Incumbent President and the Governors!
Plebiscites and Referenda as Methods of Seeking Consent:
Except for period of elections, the power of the people to participate and determine leadership of the tiers of government or fundamental policies by way of Referendum or Plebiscite is virtually non-existent in the Constitution nor has the National Assembly considered legislating in that respect to create a sustainable democratic project.
The system of a direct voting in which the entire electorate will be asked to accept or reject a particular policy, decision or an issue must be a fundamental provision of any Constitution that seeks to produce servant leaders. The word “Plebiscite” comes from the Latin words “plebes” meaning the “people” and “scitum” meaning “decree”. It is an effective method of ensuring that the consent of the governed is obtained.
Referenda have been part of the laws of the First to Third-World countries. From the U.S. at State/City levels, and Switzerland , France , Canada , Chile , Brazil and Eritrea at national levels, the sovereignty of the people over fundamental issues are virtually guaranteed.
In Quebec , Referenda have been employed to determine whether Quebec would remain part of Canada . Although, in the last one, held in 1995, the proposal to pull out from Canada was defeated by what was called a “Razor- thin ” margin of 50.58% “No” to 49.42% “Yes”, the point was made that it was the majority decision of the people in a direct vote. Not one executed on their behalf by some delegates in an Assembly who would have been compromised for self – seeking reasons.
The danger of leaving such decisions on fundamental issue such as constitutional review or amendment to a so-called elected delegates or representatives came to the fore during the Obasanjo’s Third-Term Infamy. We saw our co-called representatives voting against the expressed wishes of their constituencies. It took what most patriots saw as a divine intervention for the Obasanjo Infamy to be torpedoed as a whole lot of our so-called representatives appeared determined to snub our sovereignty and hand Obasanjo what was clearly a Life-Tenure.
I had cause to call my representative in our Upper House, who was reported in the media to be one of the “undecided” to convey the resolution of a meeting of a coalition of human rights groups in the constituency urging for a speedy resounding truncation of shameless ambition of the half – schooled man to lord it over us. Our representative refused to take a stand and remained ‘‘undecided’’ until the project came to grief.
In our country, it can be used to determine the continued existence or otherwise of the present Constitution or its amendments, to remove the President, Governor or Local Council Chairman in the event of a failure of the appropriate assemblies to so do.
It follows, therefore, that as there was no consent obtained or given by us, the 1999 Constitution should suffer an accelerated euthanasia to pave way for a Peoples Constitution. How that new Constitution will emerge would be a subject of another discourse. Suffice to restate my long-held view that only a National Conference of all nationalities and special interest groups whose decisions or resolutions would be Sovereign un-reviewable by any other person or organ would usher such a viable and universally accepted grundnorm.
The unacceptable flaws in the present contraption is manifested in the bizarre provisions of Sections 156(1) (a) in which qualification of membership of such bodies created by Section 153(1) (which includes the Electoral Commission, Nigeria Police Council, Police Service Commission) is predicated on qualifications for election as a member of the House of Representatives. By Section 65 (2)(b), the mandatory qualifications for election into the lower House include that such a person must not only be a member of a political party but also sponsored by that party. Does such a document which is totally flawed require an amendment or review? I believe that dissenting voices are now few on the urgency for a brand new Constitution.
Without the structures of a sustainable democracy, can we reasonably expect the emergence of a Servant Leader? Or can President Yaradua achieve the status with the current skewed and fundamentally flawed super-structures?
Libya as a Model:
No matter what the West would want us to believe, the Great Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is a classical example of a Government based on consent of the people and where the real sovereignty inures in them. From its name, Jamahiriya, which means a “State of the Masses”, to the fact that its “Head of State”, Muammar El-Gaddafi holds no public office, but simply accorded the titles of “Brotherly Leader” of the Revolution or “Guide of the Revolution” apart from being the General Secretary of the General Peoples Congress, Libya is, indeed, a Republic ruled by the masses, because it practices a system of Government where people, through various Committees, viz, People’s Committees, People’s Congresses, Unions and Professional Associations and the General People’s Congress, exercise authority. Each Zone, and municipality elects its respective People’s Committees and Basic People’s Congress (BPC) whose principal officers would make up the General People’s Congress. Decisions, laws and resolutions passed at the Basic People’s Congress are implemented. Thus power, on some occasions, flows from down to up in this country that guarantees free education for all its citizens to the university level – as well as free medical care for all.
It is therefore safe to regard Muammar El-Gaddafi as a Servant Leader. As a Colonel and in his late 20s and in company of Major Jalloud and others, he led the Revolution of 1969 that over-threw the monarchical and unitarist dictatorship of King Idris El- Senussi and established themselves as Servant Leaders in theory and practice because until date the Leaders of the 1969 Revolution are yet move up in ranks. No foreign accounts in Switzerland , or Belize Citizenship. No Private Library funded from our commonwealth. No Private University . Little wonder that literacy level in the country is as high as 85 percent.
The Madiba Example
Although the South African Constitution is regarded as a model for a sustainable democracy, with a far reaching progressive provisions, including the right demonstrate, march, and strike and freedom of information, which our “representatives” loathes, Nelson Mandela adopted and exhibited an exemplary personal servant leadership approach when he steered the new Southern African nation from the precipice of a feared disintegration and White backlash, and relinquished power even when there was a profoundly genuine demand for him to serve the constitutionally allowed 2nd term. He left office even without erecting for himself a retirement “befitting” for a man of his stature.
Majority Rule and Minority Rights:
As we had demonstrated earlier in this paper, democracy is a rule by the majority, but in which minority rights are equally protected. This explains why there are laws made in democracy to protect such abuses that may occur in majority rule which abuses may engender a tyranny against the minority. They come in form of Affirmative Actions, Federal Character or Geographical Spread, Quotas, Separation of Powers and Fundamental Rights which inure to each individual or citizen in the State without regard to race, tribe, sex or political leaning.
For instance, under the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy of Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution, Section 14(3) declares, inter- alia.:
“the composition of the Government of the Federation or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect Federal character”.
Subsection (4) of the same Section has similar injunctions to the States and Local Governments. These are reinforced by Sections 171(5) and 208(4) of the said Constitution. In furtherance of the principle of separation of powers which is aimed at preventing the accumulation of powers by one arm of the Government that may be harmful to democracy, Sections 4, 5, and 6 outlined and apportioned the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the State. In the nation’s education sector, quotas have become a familiar word – albeit in controversial terms.
While representative democracy entails rule by Majority, to avoid the pitfalls of a tyranny of majority, such individual rights are enshrined and guaranteed in Chapter IV of our Constitution or in South Africa’s and Bolivia’s Bill of Rights to safeguard minorities of all types and stations of life. In the case of Bolivia , the Bill of Rights contained in the new Constitution which is expected to be accepted in the proposed Referendum has specific provisions to protect over 30 indigenous peoples of Bolivia . In the 1960s America , John F. Kennedy initiated Affirmative Actions to promote more access to employment, housing education among disadvantaged minorities. By further virtue of Section 17(3)(a) and (e) of the 1999 Constitution, discrimination is also abolished. As in Section 9 of South Africa’s Bill of Rights, equality of all and freedom from discrimination on account of any ground are equally guaranteed. But when will our nation depart from the twin monsters of “Indigene” and “Abandoned property?
Free and Fair Elections:
Election is an indispensable method, like Referendum or plebiscite, through which citizens establish or concretize their claim to sovereignty.
In Nigeria where Referenda or plebiscites are non-existent, election is the only method for our citizens to express and actualize their political choices. Aside the aborted June 12, 1993 general election, all the elections in post-independent Nigeria have been marred with irregularities and rigging. However, none compares in the magnitude of fraud, debauchery and brazen breach of all known electoral laws and procedures as that of April 14-28, 2007 .
This was how the International Herald Tribune a U.S based Newspaper saw it:
“Measured one way, Nigeria’s democracy took a giant step backward (in her April 2007 Election). It’s state and national election displayed a disastrous mix of fraud and bungling, even worse, by most accounts, than the seriously marred elections of 1999 and 2003”… Observers from European Union said the elections were not credible. Nigerian observers demanded, for (cancellation and a re-run).
A key actor in the country’s electoral reforms process summed it up thus: “Elections in Nigeria are organized are as a criminal activity led by State actors and characterized by corruption, intimidation and violence. Our people have lost their (only) sovereignty to organized criminal syndicates some of whom are emboldened by a strange religious belief that God gives power to whomever he chooses”. Our servant leader President remains the greatest beneficiary of the electoral brigandage of our Prof. Maurice Iwu’s INEC. By all accounts, Prof Iwu acted in a manner that evidenced he was given a mandate by his party (PDP) leader, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to return candidates of his choice in breach of all known laws. Rather than being in jail, the man continues to mock us, daring us to do our worst while our servant leader watch in ostensible glee. It has been argued by some political scholars that once we get our electoral process right, that we are on a fast – track to a sustainable democracy. And I agree. The Consequences of Manipulated Elections:
Our history is replete with litany of avoidable violence, destruction of lives and property that have attended successive manipulated or rigged elections. In the First Republic, it was operation “we -tie”, a violent, albeit justified, response to the election rigging in the South West that eventually became the last straw that brought that Republic to an end. In the 2nd, the South West boiled again with the bloody fall out over another of the ruling party’s electoral landslides across the country. Again, the Republic failed as a result thereof. In 2003, a new twist of violence erupted among those accomplices who collaborated to despoil our people of their electoral choices. The struggle over the stolen electoral booty blew into a bloody internecine war between the God-father and his political son in Anambra State . Our polity was scandalized. The rest, as it is said, is history.
Any leadership that emerged from a manipulated process does not owe its life or tenure to the people and does not see any need to accord the people their sovereignty in subsequent elections and would therefore not be accountable to the people. Dividends of democracy would be but a refrain only to be trumpeted in the media. The only exception was the case of Anambra State in 2003 Gubernatorial Election in which an accomplice and the ultimate beneficiary of the electoral banditry against our people turned round to do the extraordinary by delivering on the people’s desires and priorities that he literally legitimized the fraudulent process that brought him to power. A touch of Divinity was added to his emergence. The vast majority of the people attributed the criminal usurpation of their sovereignty by the Godson as having been hatched by the Creator in heaven! But his was an exception. And it is one that will certainly require a special study by political scientists.
A total unbundling of the INEC has been proposed that would remove the appointment of Chairman and members of the Commission from the President and hand same over to the political parties, and other organized bodies as the labour, civil society organizations, while the approving authority for the appointments save the Chairman shall be the National Assembly.
It is further suggested that: petitioners in an election petition should be relieved the burden imposed on them by virtue of Section 138 of the Evidence Act and shift same to the Electoral Commission: that printing of ballot papers and voters registers be removed from the Commission and placed under the authority of another independent agency, while each polling booth or ward would have a determinable number of serialized ballot papers assigned to it with the certified list of such booths or wards and the assigned serialized ballot papers numbers given to all the political parties and deposited with such institution as the National Judicial Council. This will in no small measure strengthen the justice system of recovering stolen mandates and flush out usurpers of our collective sovereignty. To further transform the Commission and secure its independence for a free and fair election its funding must be one of the first line charges on the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
It follows therefore that the restoration of the sovereignty of the people to choose their leaders and representatives is the corner stone of building a sustainable democracy.
Rule of Law and Good Governance:The rule of law is the principle that governmental authority is exercised only in accordance with written and publicly known laws enforced in accordance with established procedural steps otherwise referred to as due process. It is a bullwark against arbitrary governance whether in a democracy or any other form of government. It means that our laws, rather than the whims and caprices of the leader, are the dominant force. It further connotes equality before the law as provided in Section 17(2)(a) of the 1999 Constitution, Article 5 of the Libyan Constitutional Proclamation of 1969 and Section 9 of Chapter 2 of the South African Constitution
Good governance has several characteristics. Apart from being participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, it must as a necessity follow the rule of law. Good governance entails also the reduction of corruption, and consideration of the views of minorities in decision-making process.
The resultant effect of these is that the leader uses the resources of his people to achieve or produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Not to feather his personal or business interest – or even political interest such as using the resources of the State only when election date is around the corner in order to achieve a 2nd term ambition. Or plunging the State into joint projects with foreign partners who are, in deed, his proxies.
A servant leader must ensure that processes and institutions produce results that meet the needs of society, while making the best use of resources at his disposal to meet the needs of his people within a particular period of time.
How do we describe our servant leader who was said to have saved and left billions of naira in the account of the State where he ruled for 8 years? A State bereft of infrastructural development?
Or a governor who is busy allegedly saving tens of billions of naira for our children’s children while our already born citizens are choking in economic anguish, unemployment, as a result of total embargo on employment, and total infrastructure collapse? On a daily basis, our people, whether in Onitsha, Awka, Nnewi, Ozubulu or Adazi, Ihiala, Awkuzu, or Nkpor and Obosi or Awada or Awka-Etiti are trapped in nasty traffic snarls caused by an uninterrupted 3 years of neglect of our roads. When road construction or rehabilitation is not only the easiest job of any leader but one of the most pivotal factor for economic development of today’s Nigeria.
Goods estimated to be worth over 3billion naira have been lost by citizens on transit as a result of the craters-infested M.C.C Junction - Army Barracks road, Onitsha and Afor Igwe Ogidi – Abagana road! Yet, hundreds of millions of naira of our collective patrimony have been, and continues to be, wasted in erecting huge or gigantic billboards, printing millions of pamphlets, and brochures, buying up newspaper spaces, and painting campaign vehicles with all manner of slogans and advertisement, sponsoring hatchet writers and creating propaganda websites to celebrate non-existent achievements or what are, at best, patently White-Elephant projects – all geared towards a personal ambition for 2nd term in office. Even signboards are being erected eulogizing our servant leader for completing – even in a half haphazard manner - roads started by previous leaders!
The current total infrastructural collapse in the State, with the excruciating regime of taxes and levies, in my mind, constitute sufficient provocation for our people to march peacefully to their government house to demand and ensure the ouster of our servant leader from office. We are justified under the law to cause an overthrow of any government by constitutional means.
A Servant leader need not laden his people with increased taxes and levies in order to deploy the commonwealth of his people to their benefit: as exemplified by King Benjamin in the ancient times.
The Governor Mitt Romney’s Modern Example
In the American State of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, an astute player in international economy, was elected the Governor of Massachusetts under the Republican Party platform in 2002. This is how a newsmedia told the Romney story:
"Prior to his election, Mitt Romney enjoyed a successful career helping businesses grow and improve their operations. From 1978 to 1984, Mr. Romney was a Vice President at Bain & Company, Inc., a leading management consulting firm. In 1984, Romney founded Bain Capital, one of the nation's most successful venture capital and investment companies. Bain Capital helped guide hundreds of companies on a successful course, including Staples, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, Sealy, Brookstone, and The Sports Authority. He was asked to return to Bain & Company as CEO several years later in order to lead a financial restructuring of the organization.
Upon his election as Governor, Romney presided over a dramatic reversal of state fortunes and a period of sustained economic expansion in Massachusetts. Without raising taxes or increasing debt, Governor Romney balanced the budget every year of his administration, closing a nearly $3 billion budget gap inherited when he took office. By eliminating waste, streamlining the government, and enacting comprehensive economic reforms to stimulate growth in Massachusetts, Romney got the economy moving again and transformed deficits into surpluses". Without adding a dime on any tax!
In fact today, Republicans are regretting Senator John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as their GOP’s Party running mate, believing that Romney’s economic miracle in Massachusetts would have provided the answer to the Democratic Party’s much touted economic magic wand to the looming recession in America .
The Nigerian Examples
The fad in our country is for successive governments to raise taxes and levies payable by the citizens. The frequent increments in the prices of petroleum products have become the past time of all our leaders that people are beginning to enquire if it is a curse that our Creator endowed us with such a rich natural resource. Social Amenities are non existent. Collapsed road network everywhere. Decaying health and education system that will in no distant future raise our illiteracy level to alarming proportion as only the super rich can afford to acquire education. To acquire a university education in a federal university today will cost a citizen over N5million - a citizen whose, or whose parents’ minimum wage is N5,500. Electric Power is still epileptic. High unemployment rate: comparable to the Zimbabwean rate. No social security or safety net for the unemployed. Absence of security, for both lives and properties..
It is only, perhaps, in Nigeria that all former Heads of State who stole the country to stupor are blissfully enjoying their loot. From the U.S to Thailand , from the Philippines to Indonesia and Pakistan and to our neighboring African nation of Zambia , some of their former presidents have come under the sanctions of the law for corrupt practices or other abuse of office.
With a population of over 7 million people, only next to Kano and Lagos , Anambra State has been blighted, since creation, by years of misgovernance, both from the Jackboots of military junta and their minions and the Slip-ons of their civilian counterparts. Save for Governor Chukwuemeka Ezeife whose tenure was shortened, and Dr. Ngige’s illegitimate interregnum which raised, for the first - and last time - the bar of governance, it has been stories of squandered goodwill and dashed hopes. Today, over 18 workers and pensioners of the State Water Corporation have been reported dead between April 2006 till date having paid only 2months salary since the present Government came into being. One was said to have starved to death inside his one room apartment. Iyiagu Awka Floodwater/ Environmental Menace and the Pedestrian Overhead Pass only started receiving attention just the other day, (inspite of the enormous pressure mounted by the Environment Watch group since 2006) after about 6 students and 4 Artisans have been swept into oblivion by the floods or killed in auto crashes between May 2006 and early this year. I believe that it is same story every where in Nigeria save for a few places.. Perhaps, in Sullivan Chime’s Enugu State ?
By obedience to the rule of law, corruption and arbitrariness in the system will be stemmed. But the mantra of rule of law appears in the current political lexicon to be a euphemism to shield those tarred with high corruption which is violation of the provision of Section 15(5) of the Constitution which states thus:
"15(5): The State shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power."
Yet we are told that files of corrupt governors in the custody of the Anti Graft Commission developed wings and took flight from its office as if there were no duplicates in the same office or ones sent to the then President, Attorney General of the Federation, the State Security Services (SSS) and the INEC. As if the files are difficult to compile again. or the evidence of these financial crimes against our collective patrimony do not stare us all in the face.
If we are governed by a servant leader, Mr. Jonathan Elendu of Elendureports.com web site would have no business being in the unlawful custody of the SSS or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The arrest and continued detention of the journalist is a crude act of arbitrariness in a country where the courts have nullified the offence of sedition and where there is a Constitution that prohibits detention of a person for more than twenty four hours. The detention is a throwback to the monstrous days of the goggled Maximum Tyrant.
I must therefore condemn both the president’s plan to hike the prices of petroleum products as well as weakening the anti graft war and the decision by the servant leader at Awka to impose and collect all manner of imaginable taxes and levies including road taxes on tollgates to be erected on various roads in the State. Our people would be called upon at the appropriate time to mount a legitimate resistance to such taxes and levies.
Independent Judiciary:
This is one very critical pillar for any democracy project. Under Section 6 of our Constitution, it is the arm of government vested with carrying out all judicial functions of the State. It can strike down the acts of the other two arms as being unlawful, ultra vires or unconstitutional. The power to appoint and remove the heads of this arm at the federal and State levels is left in the hands of politicians who populate the executive and the legislative arms. Some have argued that such power enhances the checks and balances that the Constitution seeks to promote. But the specter of the abuse to which the power has been subjected to in some States in Nigeria calls for an expedited removal of such power from the politicians. The Judiciary, I assert, remains the most disciplined of all the arms of government with institutionalized capacity to purge itself of its bad eggs. Save that the NJC must at all times send home any judge found wanting in his office in ignominy – without the benefit of a retirement.
Mode of Appointment of Judges
In an essay titled Creating a Sane Society; Imperatives of Good Governance and the Rule of Law, the gadfly and tormentor of successive autocratic and anti-people governments and a legal giant, Chief Gani Fawehinmi SAN canvassed that the secret nature of appointment of judges and other members of the bench be discarded. His words:
“Apart from the stipulated qualifications and the prescribed authority for appointment of our Judges, Nigerians know little about those to be appointed. This process must change. Every prospective appointee must be published in a gazette before the appointment is made. Details of credentials and curriculum vitae about such prospective appointee must be published in a gazette and in the media, preferably in the print media to enable Nigerians make their comments, recommendations or condemnation to the National Judicial Council (NJC)… Even lawyers wake up to hear the appointment of some Judges they believe could not have been appointed. The present system of secretive mechanism of appointing Judges must stop and change”
Besides suggesting a jury system, all made up of the legal profession, to ensure the tyranny of a single judge court system is checked, need we say more on this point?
Financial Independence
Although the Constitution provides for the financial independence of the Judiciary even at State level in Section 121(3) of the Constitution, our Servant Leaders thereat still revel in compelling the heads of the Judiciary undertake visits, repeatedly, to their offices, cap in hand, to beg of funds. In Anambra State , the financial independence of the judiciary is further guaranteed by the State Judiciary (Self Accounting) Law of the State. But rather than pay in the funds appropriated or accruing to the Judiciary to its account as required by the combined effect of Section 14(2) and (3) of the Self-Accounting Law, tokens are taken therefrom to build wagon houses in the name of court halls and Judiciary Quarters.
I must urge the Head and other judicial officers, including members of the lower bench, not to allow themselves to be ridiculed again by any servant leader who will use part of funds accruing to them to buy brand new cars and order them out, sometimes under an inclement weather, to pose for photographs with the new cars, with the keys dangling from their hands, as required by these unscrupulous governors, to celebrate an achievement (which strictly speaking is a constitutional breach and a gross misconduct) by a governor whose objective is to use the public ceremonies as an instrument of campaign for a 2nd term ambition. It is my further hope that Nigeria Bar Association will very soon test the provision of Section 121(3) of the Constitution and the State Self-Accounting Law in the law courts with a view to securing an order mandating the Governor to pay in accruing judicial funds into its account.
A truly independent judiciary can with the security of its tenure and funding be trusted at all times to wield the cudgel against any tyrannical, unlawful, unconstitutional acts of the other two arms without equivocation. In the desperate days President Yar’adua’s predecessor, to metamorphose into a perpetual Servant Leader, and illegally removed his Vice, the Supreme Court called the bluff of the marauding bull thereby pulling our country away from a status of a Banana Republic.
Achieving these tasks is, without doubt, herculean. But we must set out now if we are to secure such a sustainable democracy that will breed Servant Leaders in the future. Should the forces of autocracy which are hell-bent on maintaining the status quo continue to be clogs, we shall have no alternative but to call for a People’s revolt to overthrow, by any means necessary, the old order.
Am done, Seadogs. Ahoy!
Chuka, obele-chuka Esq.-An Attorney at Law and former Chairman of Nigerian Bar Association Onitsha Branch delivered this paper as a Guest Lecturer during the Ralph Opara Memorial Lecture at Women Development Centre Awka on 31st october 2008.
References;
1. Substance of Politics –A. Appadorai
2. On the rule of Law, History, Politics and Theory – Brian Z. Tamanahar.
3. United Nations Education and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific Newsletter
4. Democratization – B.O. Nwabueze
5. Famous Mormons
6. Sustainable Democracy – Adam Przeworski
7. Essentials - Robert GreenLeaf
8. Robert GreenLeaf
9. The Book of Mormon; Another Testament of Jesus Christ
10. The Bible
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