Sunday, 26 May 2013
In Search Of Leadership (1) – Roots Of Historic Crisis By Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai
By Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai
In 2012, President Goodluck Jonathan’s New Year gift to Nigerians was a massive hike in the prices of petroleum products which ultimately translated into a tax of about N4,000 paid during the year by every man, woman and child in our country. The Kolade SURE-P bureaucracy alone consumed nearly over a billion naira of that surreptitious tax on offices, staff, travel and stationery.
In 2013, President Jonathan’s gift was to pollute the highways of Abuja with posters announcing that there would be no vacancy in the Aso Villa in 2015. In other words, the campaign to sustain the unprecedented insecurity, massive corruption, shameless fraud and social divisions that have become the official policies and outcomes of the Jonathan presidency has started – with all of us as spectators.
We all know the modus operandi of the sponsors of those “no vacancy” posters. They intend to take for Jonathan, the PDP nomination by any means necessary, ignore our votes and write the results of the general elections, declare themselves winners by significant margins, and attempt to compromise the Judiciary to uphold the electoral fraud – as they assume we will all sit back and let them. We must not, because if we do, our nation will continue to slide towards piecemeal societal breakdown or total state failure that will end up consuming every one of us.
As the campaign for the Nigerian presidency has started in earnest, it is vital that we give some thought to the issues of leadership, selection process, and credible elections and learn from the mistakes of the past. Over the next two weeks, this column will analyse and summarize the how we lost our way as far from good governance as possible. We will examine the extent of this institutional destruction and how it occurred, amidst the claims of good intention in some cases and complete malevolence in some. The purpose of this is not to apportion blame but to learn from past errors and move our nation forward. We hope to conclude with some thoughts about the issues to look out for in the emerging leaders for Nigeria (and Africa) in the twenty-first century.
We all know that societies make progress when visionary leaders emerge to organize and direct collective actions for peaceful coexistence, with sensible rules, clear incentives and sanctions that enable individuals realize their full potentials. The Nigerian nation first elected its leaders at both national and regional levels in 1960. Around that period, Malaysia, Singapore Botswana and Indonesia had their first set of elected post-colonial leaders going into offices as well. The Japanese had elected the first LDP government five years earlier in the aftermath of the American Occupation. Forty years later, these five nations in Asia and Africa have enjoyed democratic continuity, protection of freedoms and basic rights, rapid economic development and improvement in the quality of life for its citizens. Nigeria has not. What went wrong?
A little over five years into Nigeria's Independence and First Republic, a group of young, misguided and naive military officers wiped out nearly all of the nation's political leadership. The bulk of those murdered on January 15, 1966 were leaders from regions and ethnic groups other than those where the coup plotters hailed from. This coincidence or design of the actions of what I call the Class of 1966 led to mass killings, counter-coups and civil war laid the foundations for Nigeria's unfortunate political, economic and social trajectory for the ensuing forty plus years. And Nigeria's story is typical of most of Africa such that by 2004, five years into our nation's fourth republic, the leading African politics professor at the Harvard Kennedy School published a scathing summary of the leadership failure in Africa in an article published in "Foreign Affairs" :
"Africa has long been saddled with poor, even malevolent, leadership: predatory kleptocrats, military-installed autocrats, economic illiterates, and puffed-up posturers. By far the most egregious examples come from Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zimbabwe -- countries that have been run into the ground despite their abundant natural resources. But these cases are by no means unrepresentative: by some measures, 90 per cent of sub-Saharan African nations have experienced despotic rule in the last three decades.
In what is an accurate description of these despotic and progressively appalling ‘leaders’ that foisted themselves on Africa usually through military coups or rigged elections, Rothberg continued:
“Such leaders use power as an end in itself, rather than for the public good; they are indifferent to the progress of their citizens (although anxious to receive their adulation); they are un-swayed by reason and employ poisonous social or racial ideologies; and they are hypocrites, always shifting blame for their countries' distress."
Rotberg went further describing the consequences of this continent-wide failure of leadership as these leaders replaced the colonialists without doing more – but did everything to destroy the bases for economic growth, social equity and fairness in the nations they ruled and ruined:
"Under the stewardship of these leaders, infrastructure in many African countries has fallen into disrepair, currencies have depreciated, and real prices have inflated dramatically, while job availability, health care, education standards, and life expectancy have declined. Ordinary life has become beleaguered: general security has deteriorated, crime and corruption have increased, much-needed public funds have flowed into hidden bank accounts, and officially sanctioned ethnic discrimination -- sometimes resulting in civil war -- has become prevalent"
Long before Rotberg, and nearly 30 years ago, Chinua Achebe observed in his book "The Trouble with Nigeria", that the problem of our nation was fully and squarely the failure of leadership. This remains true today in Nigeria and indeed as Rotberg summarized so succinctly in most of Africa. As observed earlier, leadership is important in any social grouping, but far more central in Africa to the overall success and wealth of nations than anywhere else in the world because we happen to have weak institutions in the continent.
Thanks to malaria, the British never intended to remain in Nigeria for long, investing only in the minimal but necessary institutions and infrastructure to extract, transport and export natural resources to Europe. Contrast our situation with the Caribbean nations, Namibia, South Africa and Kenya for instance, where the more friendly weather and lower malaria intensity persuaded the British colonialists to plan for long-term settlement, and Nigeria’s colonial legacy is more clearly comprehensible.
At independence, our “Founding Fathers” inherited sound but relatively weak institutions, confusing property rights and minimal infrastructure. The new rulers merely supplanted the colonialists and adopted in totality the defective governance structures suited to colonial exploitation, and nothing more. A simple example was (and still remains) the total absence of a mortgage system - which the colonial administrators did not need as they have their mortgages set up in Britain!
None of our founding fathers thought it fit to think of designing and entrenching one with the attendant need to clarify and codify formal property rights! Needless to add that the easiest way of creating a virile middle class is through widespread home ownership, and until we created a pilot mortgage system in the FCT in 2005-2007 to enable public servants and the general public to purchase over 30,000 houses in Abuja, no one bothered to try. Sadly, our successors failed to convert the inchoate pilot into a complete national program of home ownership financing, as envisaged.
In the 1960s and the 1970s, our best and brightest university graduates joined the public service. The honest and those with educational, integrity and leadership pedigree and skills went into politics. Public servants were well paid and assured of their security of tenure. Politics attracted those willing to serve. Political parties were funded by membership contributions. Elections were relatively clean and largely reflected the will of the voters. The coup of 1966 ended these positive trends that would have truly built a democratic, merit-driven federation in the long run.
The murder of political leaders in 1966 without trying them and finding them guilty of any offence, and affording the assassins immunity and protection from court martial by the indecision of the Ironsi administration ensured that coups would remain a recurring decimal in our polity. The coups of 1966 made political assassination a crime without sanctions in Nigeria. It also made politics the vocation of the bold power seeker rather than the honest public servant. The purges of 1975 however well-intentioned were executed in a way that destroyed security of tenure in the public service, and made the best and brightest look for other options to live well, and safely. Illegitimacy and poor economic management gave rise to the endless appeasement of citizens and public servants using salary reviews (Adebo and Udoji by the Gowon Administration alone) and incessant creation of non-viable states which destroyed the basis of our federalism.
Public services and infrastructure provisioning were politicized and thousands hired without regard to quality and standards – and Nigeria became a real rentier state in which those connected to military regimes became rich overnight without any abilities, hard work, innovation or rational basis. Our traditional rulers which supplemented the weak formal governance structures were converted into the tools of the military by compromising them through intimidation and systematic corruption. Independent voices – from civil society, the media and conscientious people like Gani Fawehinmi of blessed memory - were similarly targeted for purchase and conversion, and failing that repeatedly imprisoned.
Our human capital infrastructure – schools and hospitals suffered irreparable damage under the years of misrule. Systematic under-funding, capricious appointments, poor pay and frequent killing of university students led to the collapse of our tertiary educational and health institutions. The leadership had no clear interest in developing the Nigerian state. Their wealth is in Switzerland, France, Germany, Lebanon and Dubai. Back in the 1980s, they began the practice of sending their children abroad for education and healthcare and therefore had no interest in the deteriorating quality of our schools and hospitals. Their holidays are spent in Europe, America and Asia, so felt no need to develop our urban areas or our immense tourism potentials.
These ‘prestigious’ practices of depending on foreign schools and clinics then assumed the status of national culture of the successful so virtually every middle class family now strives to copy these ‘standard operating procedures’ of the ruling elite. On the positive side, the ruling elite kept our nation united after the first Class of 1966 had plunged us into a needless civil war. The Murtala-Obasanjo administration gave us a presidential constitution, a local government system, the Land Use Act and the new federal capital of Abuja. The Buhari-Idiagbon regime rekindled our notions of patriotism and discipline, and showed the will to try the ruling elite for corruption without fear or favour.
However, the sum total of these is a country that is over 52 years old but not yet a nation. We have a generation of Nigerians who have never known when the Nigerian state functioned, and served the people. We have young people – about 5 million achieve the voting age of 18 every year – that think they can only pass exams through cheating, paying or sleeping with their teachers. And even if they are qualified and passed the job interview, they can only get a job when they have a godfather to intervene. Merit, performance or hard work as ingredients of success, are totally unknown to this generation.
The ruling elite have given birth not to Generation Next but one of “Anything Goes” – a generation without hope, with bewildered parents unable to understand them and give them succour. And only a courageous, focused and inspiring leadership can change them and give back hope to the nation.
Many of us that are older than 40 years of age are part of this chequered history, and therefore must take full or partial responsibility for the current state of affairs either by our acts of commission or omission. As Edmund Burke observed, all that is required for evil to thrive is for good people to do nothing.
Many of us have done nothing thereby encouraging the growth of evil in our land. We have a choice of ending this by standing up to the ruling party and what it represents or accelerating towards complete breakdown of order in our nation and respective communities. How do we restore hope in our younger generation, our nation and democracy? We will attempt an answer next Friday.
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Buhari to hand over to tiv el rufai b4 2015
Submitted by alabi (not verified) on January 20, 2013 - 11:35.
CPC led by Buhari and the leaders of ACN, have agreed on the sharing of party and political offices and that Buhari might have tacitly given indication of withdrawing from the 2015 race.It was gathered that the former head of state had agreed with Tinubu to play the godfather role to the planned coalition and that the emerging party would then search for a younger element to carry the flag. Sources, however, said that Tinubu is planning to contest the presidential election, while he would also consider a running mate position if he loses the race for the ticket of the proposed party. However, contrary to public pronouncements which indicated that all was well with the merger effort, it emerged that formation of the mega opposition party is still facing serious hitches arising from personality clashes among key opposition leaders.
U are also part of Nigeria's prblms
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 20, 2013 - 05:35.
As rufai said, we are nt here to aportion blames rather to think of the way 4ward 4 9ja bc we sincerely need 2 move ahead.
Lets be united and 4get abt d past so that we can focus on the future bc it pays to listen 2 ur enemy if he is saying the fact.
Osiris, you are a true
Submitted by Nuhu (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 19:05.
Osiris, you are a true African. El Rufai is too corrupt to join the anticorruption fight.
Mallam el-Rufai is a FRAUD in
Submitted by Wole (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 17:52.
Mallam el-Rufai is a FRAUD in CAPS
Before the 2007 elections, he wrote a strategy paper for the PDP which among several other unbelievable things outlined how the PDP should use the security agencies to suppress voter turn out in opposition strongholds. That's called systemic rigging. He also proposed soft landing for powerful PDP governors who were indicted for corruption along the lines of giving them ambassadorial appointments and allowing them keep the loot. This paper was on his website for a long time but he has of course taken it down since he lost out of the PDP power play and turned opposition.
Mallam now wants us to believe he is the best thing to have happened to democratic activism since Martin Luther King junior.
Only in Naija.
Buhari to hand over power to tinubu and el rufai in 2015
Submitted by DERI (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 17:21.
Did Buhari not know that the Igbos were tribalist b4 he pleaded with Ume Zeoke and Okadigbo to become his VPs? Stated severally that, rogues from the fulani north, only align with the Ibos when it concerns the game of numbers-to attract votes to dem camp period! And not because d Tuaregs from Mali, presently operating in Boko haram with Buhari their leaders has any love for the Ibo nation. The fulanis have little or no regard for the Ibos as indicated by el rufai in this his kunu article. What type of leadership is he talking about when Zik threw in his lot with Balewa instead of Awo. Yet a thief like El rufai, who is supposed to be in jail, is here attempting to re-write history for us-out of our shaky 52 yrs of freedom, the fulanis ruled 9ja for 40 plus yrs! Let them show us the progress made with the 55 trillion they stole from the SS. Only an insane youth will allow this rubbish to filter into his brains!
El-Rufa'si write-up
Submitted by Nigerian (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 13:46.
when life turn completly opposit what is meant for, good thing mischieviously paited and presented bad and repulsiive, virtue mechanically turned to vice, good leaders are charecter assasinated and the whole system is collapsing and acters are claiming progress, what hope does a society has?
hmmmmmm quite touching
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 13:07.
I stand for change cause am a young Nigerian,like Mallam El-rufai is passionate about Nigeria.My friends and I who are fans of Sahara reporters are thinking of how we can print these articles and give to youths around us to read and pass on,youths who are weary by the trend of activities in our dear beloved Nigeria.Who knows,a piece of document like this,so passionately written can stire a revolution for change.Thanks Mallam El-rufai and may God preserve you,I stand with you.
Nigerian Born Judge Beaten and Arrested in Gambia
Submitted by Andrew Peters (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 11:57.
Dear sirs,
The Nigerian born President of the Gambian Court of appeal Honourable Justice Joseph Wowo was beaten up and arrested yesterday (18/1/2013)in Gambian by the Gambian authorities.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201301181300.html
Justice Wowo who trained as a lawyer at the university of Nigeria, graduating in 1990, has lived in Gambia where he has been a judge for more that 15 years.
There is very little information reaching his friends and family at the moment and the Gambian authorities are not allowing access to him.
The Nigerian Embassy in Banjul, Gambia is also not taking any steps to secure his release or access to his lawyers and doctors.
Please also note that the Chief Justice of Gambia is also a Nigerian.
Please help
Andrew
RUFAI AGAIN.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 11:42.
Nasir Rufai, Have you ever looked at yourself and your actions whilst in Government. To assert that the coup was tribal is beggars belief.The 66 coup leaders Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna where free thinkers and had no element of Tribalism in them-How could they? They were Anioma indigenes that grew up in the North and the West and unlike most Nigerians did not accept being Ibo,Hausa or Yoruba before being Nigerians.
Nigeria of today which Rufai has contributed to destroying is much worse than 66 Nigeria and its beggars belief that Rufai with all his ill gotten money stashed in London can profess morality.
Nice piece Mr El-Rufai. But
Submitted by M.Mahmud (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 10:11.
Nice piece Mr El-Rufai. But don't be a hypocrate, you're part and parcel of Nigeria's current predicaments. Atone to your many sins first. We are not so gullible, please.
Well-researched analysis of the Nigerian state! (5)
Submitted by Okwuchukwu Ezeanyika (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 07:28.
Aremu Obasanjo from the SOUTH had ruled for 8 years. Ebele Jonathan from the SOUTH wants to rule for 12 years consecutively and we are not even certain if we, the people, allow this injustice to the NORTH, that he would not play the "Aremu-game" of clamouring for a third term because our Presidents behave/act like Emperors with absolute powers and there is a saying that absolute powers corrupt absolutely.
Hence I agree with Pastor Tunde Bakare that 2014 would usher in cataclysm in the country that the elections of 2015 would not hold. The mayhem would commence when Ebele tells the Nigerian public that he is "offering himself in the continued SERVICE(?) of Nigeria to contest the Presidential elections in 2015." Ebele's greed/selfishness would take Nigeria to another destructive level in the same manner the action of Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna drove Nigeria to Armageddon for 46 years now. Happy weekend to El-Rufai and friends on SR. END.
RE: IN SEARCH OF LEADERSHIP
Submitted by Nuhu (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 07:12.
el Rufai talks well, unfortunately, we have heard this before. Those in the opposition like him are worse than the people in government. Nothing can erase from my mind the image of a retired Appeal Court President surrounded by his luggages, holding all the required papers for his house, and a court order halting the demolition of the house. The shocking surprise is that el Rufai and his boss Obasanjo, in arrogance, ordered the demolition.
We pray that God will change Nigeria for good but without merciless tyrants like obasanjo, el Rufai and Buhari.
Well-researched analysis of the Nigerian state! (4)
Submitted by Okwuchukwu Ezeanyika (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 07:08.
The same mindset displayed by Nzeogwu/Ifeajuna about the Janary 15, 1966, coup that the rest of Nigeria SHOULD understand their objectives of organizing a coup and wiping the core civilian and military leaders from one section of the country, is at play here in those who probably owing to cronyism or are enveloped by convoluted sense of idealism believe that ZONING should not be allowed in our political milieu. They forget that Nigeria is not a developed country such as the United States and Canada.
And why is Ebele so fixated on being a President? Simple! This is because in Nigeria even when a simpleton mounts the saddle of Presidential leadership by any means, he arrogates to himself the belief that he is the wisest and smartest Nigerian ever. Please, note I have not commented on Ebele's lack of accomplishments because they are beside the point I make here.
Well-researched analysis of the Nigerian state! (3)
Submitted by Okwuchukwu Ezeanyika (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 06:49.
After Aremu began his 8 years leadership, the party that brought him to power evolved an arrangement of ZONING the Presidency and other major political positions. Following the death of Yar'Adua and Ebele's subsequent ascension as the Acting President, the party's then National Chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor, publicly commented that Ebele Jonathan would abide by the party's zoning arrangement. This statement was sufficient to so much infuriate Ebele that he immediately sought the removal of Ogbulafor as party's Chairman and to trump bribery charges against him.
The same Ebele's cronies are at it again, jostling and insisting he has "legal rights" to contest for a second term. Thus, after serving in four years of Yar'Ada ticket, he would serve 4 years and another assured 4 years as second term. Then, altogether he would have "served" 12 years. We feign oblivious that this period is the slot the party zoned for a Presidential candidate from the North.
Well-researched analysis of the Nigerian state! (2)
Submitted by Okwuchukwu Ezeanyika (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 06:35.
I believe though that if there was no military incursion into political leadership, Nigeria by now would have solved some of their economic and social challenges such as the electricity power mirage. Rather, we were led to war, then military governments which totally neglected infrastructural developments and further, compleely destroyed our national ethos.
From 1970 we have had leaders who believed and acted as if they owe no obligation to the citizens of the country. We can forgive Aremu's leadership of 1999 to 2007 becase he was once a soldier. However, it is inexcusable that Ebele Jonathan would mount the saddle and display worse attitdinal propensity/disposition towards the citizens in his various policy decisions and utterances, even worse than exhibited by the military leaders.
Well-researched introduction, analysis and conclusion! (1)
Submitted by Okwuchukwu Ezeanyika (not verified) on January 19, 2013 - 06:20.
I want to commend Mallam El-Rufai for this mature understanding and analysis of the situation of the Nigerian state from the 1960s to date. I have maintained that the rot in Nigeria commenced with the senseless military coup of Nzeogwu and Ifeajuna. The two who are Igbo, led a military coup of majority Igbo and in their warped reasoning, believed the rest of Nigeria would clap for them that they have altruistic motives. No! Of course, the rest of Nigeria saw it differently, as Igbo coup.
An Igbo friend the other remarked that the Nigeria-Biafra War originated from that coup of January 15, 1966, and therefore that the Igbo started the war and I agreed completely. However, I disagree with El-Rufai's view that if Ironsi had gathered all the coup plotters and executed them it would assuage the North. The harm had been done by this duo.
Childish Rufai; Before 1966, ur Fulan been murdering easterners
Submitted by Manny (not verified) on January 18, 2013 - 23:59.
el-Rufai, Why can't your lot accept others being at the helm in Nigeria? Your lot formed Boko Haram immediately after OBJ became president to destabilize his presidency. Please stop crying over spilled milk. Before the military coup of 1966 which you brand Igbo coup, HAUSA/FULANI PEOPLE HAD INDULGED IN MURDERING PEOPLES OF THE OLD SOUTHEAST IN THE NORTH. This your tactless machination to form a coalition with the Yoruba and the rest against the Igbo aimed at surrendering political power to your lot in the next dispensation stinks. The Yoruba are not fools, nor are others. No more use and dump. The 1966 coup and the murderous reaction of the Hausa/Fulani against people of old southeast were another of those symptoms that prove that Nigeria cannot be a nation. If you had written for once to condemn your kinsmen who still indulge in murdering other Nigerians till today, and thus set the country's reputation to an all time low and in its economy in tatters.
el rufai can only fool himself, boko haram and buhari not 9jas
Submitted by DERI (not verified) on January 18, 2013 - 22:55.
Buhari was not in jail-when musicians were brought in from Mali to organize a multi million dollar matcher in support of abacha! Buhari did not resign when Abacha tried to recycle himself. If Buhari had any conscience left in him, he would have told us that he was quitting! He never did. Rather he encouraged Abacha to give PTF more money than the ministry of health and works-put together-it was while buhari was with abacha that chief Gani was locked up in bauchi prison for 10 months-buhari never opened his mouth to plead with abacha to spare the life of ken saro wiwa-and abiola! it was buhari who said in Benin that, if he is elected president of the Fulani north, he would stop the south south from having their 13 percent statutory allocation-now the fulani North says even the 10% requested for the oil bearing enclaves would not be allowed if he becomes president! So who is fulani dan el rufai fooling here himself or 9jas?
Nothing for boko haram pa buhari pikin
Submitted by deri (not verified) on January 18, 2013 - 22:38.
Perhaps Marcus Garvey had thieves like elrufai of the American embassy wikileak fame, when he described critics like him as fellows who think they know more than anyone else in the Fulani North. Yet remain the biggest fools! of all thinking foolishly that the world ends and starts with them--look at the first para concerning the fuel subsidy rubbish which IBB introduced over 25yrs ago-compare that to the sack of over one million civil servants by Buhari-to celebrate his one year in office-hardly are 9jas told that it was while Buhari was with Abacha that the bombing of Ikeja army brracks escalated-similar to the ongoing killings by boko haram in the fulani North. That was when late Chief Ganis was locked up in the gulag of abacha-the hanging of kensarowiwa, the arrest and murder of abiola-if 9jas want more of that draconian era where 9jas had to queue for rice, gari, cooking oil, milk and sugar-then so be it.
Mr El-Rufai, why didn't you
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 18, 2013 - 22:22.
Mr El-Rufai, why didn't you mention the Babangida regime that institutionized corruption after Buhari?
THE EL-RUFAIS ARE THE BLACKMAN`S TROUBLE!
Submitted by OSIRIS, Ramses (not verified) on January 18, 2013 - 21:03.
Each time this Arab clone opens his mouth, I want to puke!
He´s largely responsible for creating 10 million Almajiris by importing
Sharia (according to his own confession) from Sudan and Pakistan!!
We have not forgotten the land he misappropriated for his baby children,
saying they as Nigerians are also entitled to land!
This mental slave - who now thinks Africans cannot survive without Arabs and Europeans - doesn´t know that Europeans were - in the words of the French
Egyptologist, JEAN CHAMPOLLION Jr.- "VERITABLE SAVAGES", when Africans were calling the shots! "VERITABLE SAVAGES" whom we civilized!
He reeks of inferiority complex - just like his twin brother, Alhaji ALIYU TILDE! How can Africa develop when Arab ABD like El-Rufai and his Boko Haram brethren are literally and mentally bombing us to Thy Kingdom Come?
He should read my article: "AFRICANS ARE THE MOST SUPERIOR RACE". Maybe, he might learn something.
Or else, he should SHUT UP AND GO TO AFGHANISTAN!!
