Governance and House-keeping: Nigeria’s lingering power vacuum

lightnigeria

Let the race begin

….Every nation gets the government it deserves – and as such, the institutions and processes, the armed forces and law enforcement culture, the highways and byways, the actors and the detractors, the artists and the scientists, and the heroes and the villains that go with it. This is especially so for a democracy.

Easy goes the trick

Every nation covers only the miles it is willing to run. The miles can be likened to our access cards to libraries. Both are free. So why do some nations run while others seem to crawl for miles? Same reason why the library seems like home to some and like another planet to others! It is easy to run and it is also easy to go get a library card. But it is also easy not to run or drive down to the library. Miles of progress are offered…

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NIGERIA’S INDEPENDENCE CHALLENGE CONTINUED…. ….when will the shackles come off for real?

Greatness or nothing

Nationhood and greatness…! At 55, these words constitute the national language every Nigerian public officer needs to learn to speak fluently. This language is all about raising the expectation bar across all platforms of Nigeria’s governance oversight – finance, infrastructure, natural resources, global appeal, security, citizenship, etc. This is about creating and executing a coordinated ground game that makes the country’s largely untapped potential absolutely worthy of full exploration. Particularly, every member of Buhari’s team ought to speak this national language effortlessly – in words and in deeds – or Nigeria’s ship of state will be condemned to a tempestuous journey against the current of steady growth and development. There is hardly any good reason for nationhood if greatness is not the foundation of the union.

While the administration must steadily ramp up speed on the mission of wrestling back Nigeria’s independence from negative forces mostly within, there is one core reason even ordinarily nonchalant citizens must sit up, tune in and begin to take note; to avoid stumbling into the familiar waters of bad history. For all intents and purposes, history holds that Nigeria has mostly been on a pretty convoluted journey in the wilderness of a splintered sense of both self and mission. And we know, still from history, that this voyage may have been rendered mission-impossible by the overarching ubiquity of a woefully flawed leadership operating system (OS). Can you imagine a contaminated OS as the backdrop for your active computer network?

Think of these when you think of what Nigeria’s leadership team must now dump in the thrash site of botched methods in order to begin to right the cumulative wrong of Nigeria’s flawed leadership culture. Think of the percentage of governance institutions and key operatives at all levels that seem at best to have mostly perfected the art of making a caricature of best governance practices, for one thing. Think of year after year of official expenditures and pronouncements against high profile criminality, with laughably few culprits ever found guilty even as high places reek toxically of the poison. Think of what dreams could have come true were the story to have been a little less convoluted. Have you not heard subsequent Nigerian administrations lament past corruption only to deck the halls and celebrate personalities who clearly presided over all the ills they so eloquently condemn?

Think perhaps of blessings remolded as devastating weapons used by the profligate few to impoverish the countless blessed. Think about the extent to which the art of leadership in Nigeria episodically races to the bottom in a costly game of who is able to get away with the most loot, having done the least for the people. Think of what has been serially stolen from the lives of millions of citizens by too many of the men and women they trusted to make a difference. Think of a nation getting functionally poorer as its handlers are steadily getting richer. Can you see how a culture of mercenary stewardship has repeatedly confiscated so much goodness and mostly returned ghastly uninspiring results? Do you see why Nigeria’s fully realized independence is still a desire with no target date in sight? No deep house cleaning is achievable without getting down to root-cause levels? To rise to enviable heights and claim its full independence, Nigeria must first stoop and conquer its deep-seated leadership demons.

President Buhari may only have alluded to this in his independence address, but it is clear that Nigeria’s cumulative leadership scorecard is poor. Really poor and needing some urgent blood transfusion! As we reflect on Nigeria’s 55^th independence anniversary, even the unrelentingly charitable still acknowledge that the nation’s body of accomplishments bears ample historic evidence of criminally culpable bad parenting. While for too many, public office in Nigeria has so far been a guaranteed platform for runaway personal financial success, there is still no subtleness around the fact that in the reality of what most Nigerians live today, there remains trifle to be joyous about, and pretty little to celebrate. Come rain or shine, Nigerians celebrate nonetheless. This is good.

To be optimistic and celebrate life even in the face of intimidating odds is a good thing; at least up to a point. Eventually, odds must be confronted even if to test their seeming invulnerability. What Nigerians must now cease to celebrate, if the march to greatness is to really resurge from the grassroots to the power floors, is the culture of religiously unquestioning tolerance for run-of-the-mill outcomes. Same goes with the tacit respect for unaccountable and largely irresponsible leadership. Nationhood and collective greatness must now come first in Nigeria or the music will remain that of lost opportunity. So far, unearned reverence directed at bad leaders with lots of cash clout and little exportable credibility has served Nigeria only as well as a bad prescription for a very serious ailment.

Essentially, nationhood and greatness constitute the same signature language that powers every focused nation’s ambitions. It is the language Narendra Modi was promoting in India recently, complete with savvy sartorial diplomacy, as he hosted President Buhari and 39 other African leaders, including South Africa’s Jacob Zuma and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. Just as the 3rd India-Africa Summit in New Delhi was about showing Africa and the world what makes Modi’s India tick, what makes Buhari’s Nigeria tick must also be packaged and presented to the world with that come-check-us-out craftsmanship and confidence that makes for bankable national clout.

Growing and substantiating Nigeria’s national worth

To the extent that Buhari’s leadership will make a lasting difference for Nigeria, his language of governance must project outward from the ‘nationhood and greatness’ premise. The measure of relevance of this new deal must then be anchored on essential sector performance metrics that will form the pillars of Nigeria’s appreciating value. This should apply to the agriculture portfolio as it does to the petroleum sector, and it should compel performance in the defense ministry as it does in education. No unit of Nigeria’s governance pillars should be left to just coast along or serve as a leakage point.

While there is good reason to believe that President Buhari gets the need to repackage and re-present a Nigeria that is seriously worth exploring by the rest of the world, there continues to be need for robust messaging on Nigeria. The current default messaging backdrop of corruption, Boko Haram and being broke, does not and should define a richly blessed nation of very industrious and optimistic people. What is the good news in the education or health sector? Who is marketing Nigeria on this front? What of tourism and investment? The focus should be on a recycling avalanche of concrete action, credible results and positive messaging. Nations are not seen as strong until their news headlines begin to sound good; and a nation’s news headlines only begin to sound sustainably good if good things are happening on several fronts.

How does news on Nigeria begin to sound good on a more holistic and sustained basis? First, the administration should get great at communicating what makes Nigeria compelling. This needs to be done loudly and clearly. The administration should then communicate what great things it plans to do with the country’s potential across the entire landscape – agriculture, security, petroleum, infrastructure, defense, education.., everything. Just as important, it must keep communicating what it has done already, and what else it is doing to make the system even more compelling. Finally, the team must keep communicating and celebrating key milestones – the dividend of leadership. What is celebrated must of course speak substance, not empty rhetoric. For instance, if two million more people now have access to good healthcare at home rather than have go to India or South Africa for medical care, that is great news a health minister should be proud to take to the president, the people and the world. If it is truly the case that a particular sector’s leadership has made a verifiable difference, it’s important to tell the world that good things are happening. If on the other hand a particular captain’s tenure is all about ‘no news is good news,’ this should be ground for a change of guard. A strong stewardship showing hits home to the people. This is how a smart leadership builds up a followership of informed and intelligent cheerleaders. In the absence of this, leadership becomes a charade, and corruption becomes its sure outcome.

No such thing as a hero unsung

Since people and businesses (local and international) will happily follow a leadership as soon as they can clearly see that doing so is bound to get them to where they want to go (not necessarily where the leadership itself wants to go), you can never over-communicate the mission, the rules of engagement, what is in it for the audience, and what value you are delivering. Here, there is no such thing as an unsung hero; heroism is itself the song. On the contrary, it remains an awfully bad strategy to keep people guessing or to keep lamenting on what is wrong and why you are not delivering. As long as an entity – company, community or country – is operating below its promise, there is often only one thing wrong; leadership.

Incidentally, when the trouble is with leadership, it is only a radical shift in the leadership mindset that can right the wrong. All in all, to substantiate national worth, there has to be much to show in concrete terms and less to explain away by way of awkward apologies and recurring throw backs to the past. Not only will the ‘talk and walk’ of Buhari’s leadership team hand the global market the metrics with which to compute Nigeria’s national worth and brand Nigeria on the international scale of ‘who is who’, it will also give investment capital actionable insight into what the nation is and is becoming; the signal to get involved or to run for cover.

Nothing challenged, nothing changed

The starting point of enhancing national worth is of course full scoping and transparency. By this we mean that every Nigerian governance space and underlying statistics should be public property. If leadership performance stats stay in the public domain, they will keep being challenged, no doubt. And if results are constantly challenged, they will keep getting better. This is the beauty of democracy; it can be messy for sure, but if it stays in the open, it often gets better for being challenged. Remember the ‘good, better, best’ idea? You never let it rest until your good becomes your better, and your better becomes your best.

Here are a few pointers to what the leadership of increasing national worth amounts to. In summary, it is the challenge for value and growth inherent in asking questions. You can certainly form your own questions from any angle of Nigeria’s social or economic landscape:

• Who is Boko Haram and what motivates this group? How many Nigerians have been slaughtered by this group in the last few months, and how is the government winning this very traumatizing battle? There should be cohesive national answers to these questions. This is as good for education as it is for national security.
• How many Nigerians anxiously head overseas each year for medical treatment? How much does this cost in foreign exchange demand, and how are things getting better today on this front? These questions are as good for national planning as they are for foreign exchange management.
• How often today does a Nigerian pay more than the official fee for the national passport, for import duty, or for some other government service? What is happening today to change things for the better?
• How many Nigerians spend countless hours on the road just to travel from Lagos to Onitsha, or from any other point A to point B? Why should the issue of dangerously bad roads remain such a gaping resource drain after so much money has left the federal coffers in its name? What government plan is in place now to change this in the next several months?
• Why are basic services such as air-conditioning and clean bathrooms such an intractable challenge for the nation’s airports? What is locally useful about this Local Government office? What operatives are still getting paid in spite of these obvious fidelity and competence gaps?

 These are questions that need to become central to the Buhari strategy. They are today’s powerful questions for Nigeria’s stewardship re-orientation. More importantly, these are urgent leadership questions that need to be asked and explored now. Nigeria’s best future lies in what its leadership does well with such questions in the here and now; not tomorrow and not the year after. Indeed, Nigeria’s future is now.

 Heights begging to be climbed

From the Rivers/Anambra axis to the Katsina/Jigawa fronts, and from the Yobe/Adamawa corridors to the Lagos/Kwara flanks, Nigerians need to begin to see their country’s pillars of greatness going up without the familiar ‘one step up, two steps down’ dance of drunken indifference. Think about this! Just between the Babangida and Jonathan years, a countless number of Nigerians have grown into adulthood without feeling any single vibe of Nigeria’s potential greatness. Not from national infrastructure that is getting better, not from sustained innovation and transparency in national wealth management, and certainly not from ‘great lofty heights attained’ in healthcare, political leadership, education, security or what have you. Little wonder that Nigerians are hungry for a nation where the dominant stories are no longer revolving perennially around what could have been and ‘who took the cookie from the cookie jar?’

Nigerians want to return to national conversations that are intelligently structured around heights to be attained through great service and innovation. As they thirst for cashable leadership commitment as the key value promise of every public office, they can’t wait to be rid of the culture of depraved pursuit of self interest in public office, too often bordering on blatant disregard for life, God and country. While the former is the open secret to boosting both employment and foreign investments flow to a country, the latter could be seen as the perfect recipe for national worth self sabotage. Painting this picture in practical terms would perhaps give a more familiar flavor to what is at stake here. For instance, if a country has the best holiday resorts but is also reputed for poor work ethics, further complicated by uncomplimentary transportation and security standards, tourism dollars will be shy to visit. And if the underpinnings of its healthcare and education systems are weak, citizens’ demand for foreign exchange to be used to fund hospitals and schools abroad will be high. Either way, confidence vote is outward rather than inward, and the first to head abroad are often the leaders delivering bad returns to the people. And where confidence goes, so goes resource flow! As is thus apparent, national greatness is not a nebulous quantity to be sung and danced just in anthems and matras; it must crystallize and translate into tangible assets that are actively boosting overall quality of life and attracting asset multipliers.

National greatness must also translate into a growth mindset in which what is rewarded is honest and uncommon effort rather than personal relationships. In other words, rather than give the coveted job to your relative or friend just on account of this fact alone, give it to the person you know will outwork these people. This is how you embed pride and substance into leadership outcomes, growing the nation’s wealth as you do so. And this is how assets, systems and informed leaderships must perpetually work together in order to ruggedly promote liberty and the pursuit of worthy goals, safeguard lives and property, and boost national worth. The hope is of course that Buhari’s ministers, whenever they ease into their specific portfolios, are charged with going for value in this clear and concise way. Even the thought of this alone is exciting.

The road ahead

If we agree that “great lofty heights” summarizes Nigeria’s ambitions and that these ambitions mean as much in Akwa Ibom as they do in Sokoto, perhaps we can also agree that time is indeed of the essence. It is thus time to launch upward with some sustained traction. The agreement here is about a reality check so Nigeria’s tomorrows are not mere regurgitations of its past. This paradigm shift is vital since Nigeria’s march to where it had boldly professed to be going every time the band has rallied has so far substantially been a turbulent march around insubstantial heights? Course correction would seem to be the reason President Buhari is big on taking another look at processes and methods. As part of this re-launch plan, he must also seek to dismantle sacred temples of corrupting influences? The hope is that he succeeds, for the sake of so many.

Although Nigeria remains the poster child for a gifted child let down by severe parental dysfunction, having turned 55, the story is no longer one of infancy. For one thing, Nigerians do not need for their leaders to continue to be their ‘ogas’ in high offices. Nigeria is sure to get nowhere great with know-it-all bosses in expensive gears, travelling through town with village-size entourages. Even when these folks travel in bullet-proof jeeps shooting through space and time at movie-style speed, they still travel on fast-lanes of chaos as long as citizens remain victims of their bad choices. Growing pains must now give way to the clarity of purpose generally ascribed to informed adulthood. Nigerians need less of entitled and hands-off bosses and more of engaged Process Excellence Officers travelling the same lanes as their people, leading effective teams, and actively championing best-practice teamwork. Yes Nigerians need result oriented leaders with a strong sense of mission; leaders who see and treat their benefactors as an adult population of intelligent people. We want to believe that Buhari understands this need too. “Let us remind ourselves of the gifts God has given us,” encouraged the president in his Independence Day address.

And so Nigerians must stand reminded.

Of gifts, indeed Nigeria has plenty. There is the gift of people; the gift of being the seventh most populous country on planet earth? There is also the gift of being the proud land of plentiful supply of oil and gas. How about swats of other priceless endowments, from solid minerals to water resources? Those too! Can you see why getting the Nigerian social and economic engine to hum is a leadership thing? Do you see that this will take uncommon commitment from a team that really seeks to do it right? Rebuilding a fallen house, as is arguably recommended in the case of the Nigerian house, is not a cosmetic affair; some deep digging is warranted so the pillars of shared proprietary interest and institutional integrity can firmly secure the structure on all fronts.

Reinventing Nigeria’s purpose-deprived unity

At 55, Nigeria needs to retire the infant muscles it has so far deployed haphazardly for fighting the giant realities that need to be wrestled down as it seeks to grow and prosper as an independent and emerging nation of consequence. Low national ambitions, fixed leadership mindsets, high corruption tolerance, disempowered citizens, and lack of institutional independence are just a few of the telling signs of prolonged infancy. Just as with former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s political prisoner-to-presidency second act, President Buhari’s second coming presents another unique opportunity to pause and think hard and smart about how best to get Nigeria marching consistently in the direction of its Promised Land? In one of the most informative highlights of his Independent Day address, President Buhari aptly regretted that “We are not there yet because the one commodity we have been unable to exploit to the fullest is unity of purpose.”

Unity of purpose! What a brilliant idea! On what should Nigerians unite once and for all? What is the rallying purpose that is at once weighty and agile enough to serve as the vehicle for fast-tracking the Nigerian racehorse to where it really needs to be? Let us go back to the ‘nationhood and greatness’ mission. To get Nigeria there, President Buhari’s challenge, which is really Nigeria’s independence challenge, can be repurposed to fit into the below short to-do list:

• Elevate the national brand above the stranglehold of elite-financing process corruption.
• Elevate the operating service expectation above the current state of socially accepted mediocrity.
• Raise the expected return on every level of leadership and curb the excesses of public office.
• Call criminality in leadership what it is and fight it with rule of law rather than with fleeting words.
• Rally Nigeria’s tremendous potential around a singular national identity – process excellence.
• Stop feeding the currently thriving socio-ethnic silos of tunnel-visions and hostilities.
• Make Nigeria attractive to foreign capital, from schools to hospitals, and from security to the overall ease of doing business.

If President Buhari can make some respectable dents on the seven fronts above before Nigeria’s 56^th independence anniversary, there would be much cashable dividend for citizens to celebrate, and much fewer worthless IOUs to saddle the people with. He would thus have unshackled Nigeria and Nigerians from the post independence homemade chains of recycling poor showing.

NIGERIA’S INDEPENDENCE CHALLENGE: when will the shackles come off for real?

With duty in mind

We know the drill don’t we? The ceremonial pigeon gets released, set free to rocket into the boundless sky. The weather plays the generous event host of the day, and the crisply uniformed honor guard passes the command inspection one more time. The overall ambience is of course never more colorful. In the breasts of the children, as in those of the grownups, hope springs eternal. There is a palpable sense of possibility and promise. Oh my! It’s another independence anniversary!

Beyond all the economic, political and homeland security ups and downs, and beyond the ‘politricks’ of campaigns, elections and post election juggling, Nigeria is a year older this uncharacteristically rainy October month. And amidst the glories and hard knocks of nationhood, the country is still kicking, even if not waxing strong as repeated analysis of its blessings would predict. Viva Nigeria?

Happy independence and long live the dream of a great Nigeria!

Dutifully at the helm this 55^th installment, President Buhari is chief servant-leader with the great honor of wearing the commander-in-chief hat. Being also the eye-on-the-prize hunter who never stopped shooting, he is now the second-time owner of the stress-and-sweat mixed title of commander/healer in chief of the afflicted land of an estimated 172 million underserved and yet very undeterred people. Buhari swears he is no miracle maker, but the hope is that he’s just being modest; he did after all vigorously seek the job. If the president intends for the majority of his citizens living the hellish consequences of cumulative bad leadership to breathe some relief soon, he’d better begin to whip up some miraculous human ingenuity.

Poor President Buhari!

 So many lost miles! So much expected! Such little time! But “nothing spoil,” said the Lagos taxi driver as we zigzagged through traffic. “Man no die, man no rotten.” So lead on Mr. President! There has to be light somewhere in the tunnel – the reason you are looking hard for the right people to help find it perhaps.

As the new honcho charged with dismantling and reconfiguring Nigeria’s largely ineffectual story of 55 years of post-independence perpetual infancy, President Buhari is off to a race with promise and posterity. How he runs and with whom he runs is bound to make or break the race. Will Buhari run to win for Nigeria, and so for posterity? That would be awesome, wouldn’t you say? If he chooses to run otherwise, Nigerians vehemently hope not, will he stealthily circle round to ease into the same rambling narrative of public-fund-for-private-jet leadership with no accountability saga? For instance, will the president effectively shut down a significant portion of even the most obvious Nigerian respect-resource leakage points or largely play safe and keep Nigeria and Nigerians in a sorry state after all is said and done?

The high road this time?

Will the president’s focus lead to the recovery of lots and lots of Nigeria’s misappropriated riches carted away with the typical see-nothing-hear-nothing syndrome? Or will he leave Nigerians still pointlessly looking for missing wealth after he has danced out his hour upon the stage, even though the V.V.I.Ps (Very Very Important Personalities) who have bankrupted the country are bagging new titles and dancing all the way to banks on distant shores. For Nigeria’s diverse praying types, what prayer points and styles will help ensure that the president’s team leads for positive impact, and not for the same old song and dance? How does the team work to stay squarely on the business of doing the people’s business when the heat and stress of national office trades tackles with the rough elbows of high street hustle? Hard to know, but we must root for a Buhari big win for Nigeria, even if for this one reason alone. Nigeria urgently needs a more lucid, forward thinking national narrative. The stakes have never been higher!

Nigeria calls! From Sokoto to Delta, and from Borno to Bayelsa, Nigeria calls for a better way. There has to be a better way. But, no, this is not an ethnic or religious rallying call to battle. Those who quickly reduce national discourse to an ethno-religious side track, do so only for personal gain, and roundly miss the point. It is also not a class call. None of these perennial self serving clarion calls will do now. The Nigerian 21^st century call is a socially liberating national call for conscious re-engagement and for the demolition of divisive and pickpocket strongholds; the only path that makes sense if the goal is to stir the ship of state into a great socio-economic, nationalistically invigorating, dock. This call has to become Buhari’s only call, and Buhari’s call has to become every Nigerian’s call.

Effective May 29^th, 2015, Buhari has won his much sought-after crown of being another second-time-around leader of Nigeria. If anybody is well placed to understand the challenges that have been so intricately woven into the country’s  economic, security, housekeeping, etcetera, etcetera spheres, largely as a result of a legendry level of attention deficit issues, he will make the very short list:

1. Big money management headache.

2.   Folks who make the heavens look really bad by making the mass murdering of their brethren their raison d’être.

3.   A house perennially haunted and ravaged from its most hallowed offices.

You can of course recast the challenge as you see fit, but for the purpose of this piece, we’ll stay with the simplified triple challenge of resource generation and management, terrorism and fidelity. What a challenge this is! How badly Nigerians have longed for a leadership culture and teams with the clarity, courage and commitment to make a difference on this front!

What is Buhari Cooking?

The story goes thus. Having languished for far too long in the wilderness of creepy lead actors and awful dramas, Nigerians want names and resumes (of the dream team), and they want these fast. No less urgent, the people seem pretty hungry for the details on Buhari’s dream for a greater and brighter Nigeria, as well as the roadmap to the Promised Land. They have every reason to. All told, Nigerians seem to be long done with appetizers and small talk; they seem now to be surveying the kitchen for signs that the main course is on its way. How has the head chef’s response resonated thus far? Mostly mixed but thankfully tilting toward somewhat respectable!

Slowed perhaps by the enormity of the task on hand, the president prescribes patience. Patience for the suffocating patient? Hopefully it is not as bad as it sounds. Challenged by the raucous nature of the entrenched transactional politics of means and ends with a center that is yet to weld together to form a cohesive national engine for steady progress, Buhari seems hard at work on the math of political balancing and priority setting. While he plots his strategy though, the punditry circle periodically becomes animated with answers to questions that have yet to be asked or even clearly articulated. One such interesting answer seems to suggest that Cabinet ministers are not that important to the president, but it is not clear how come or why. We do know that it has taken the president almost as much time to find good men and women in a nation of an estimated over 172 million good people, as it would take China to build a small city. This hurts the citizenship pride big time; and it hurts the nation’s larger cause of being taken seriously by the rest of the world.

When a seemingly forthright Nigerian leader seems to be having a hard time finding honest and competent Nigerians to mind Nigeria’s business, this sends the most uncomplimentary signal to the rest of the world. Let’s make an important distinction at this point. When the local media and every-day Nigerians complain about corruption in their country’s leadership/stewardship culture, they are asking for solutions. They are giving the administration – national, state and local – vital tips on what mess they need fixed as of priority, or else be counted in as its orchestrators. On the other hand, when key government actors complain about corruption without actively and clearly backing up such concerns with sanitized processes and significant culprits in handcuffs on their way to jail, they are ostensibly asking the world not to take both the system and the country serious. To reverse this, the administration should talk less on this front and do more, much more. There are millions of Nigerians across the world that can help on the do-more side, and it need not take that much time to find and deploy them. All in all, the president’s voice comes across less than upbeat as he restates his theme call on citizens restless for momentum to invest more wait time.

Impatience, the unsung virtue

Speed or patience, one wish from the people and the other from their president! The two wishes can of course co-exist in the playing field if need be, but the jury has already returned the verdict on one thing. President Buhari himself, not the citizens who elected him to make miracles, must have to wear the hat of the whiz kid that substantiates dreams, whether as a miracle man or as a maverick. To do this, it seems pretty obvious that he must place significant value in responsible and response-able lieutenants, as democracy compels. On this one, he must be super competent at means and ends calculations or the battle will be lost before the first shot is fired. Cabinet ministers matter, despite the presidential mis-speak in France on the subject, and the president and his nation are best served by ones that are far from brittle when it comes to moral fiber and essential leadership fecundity.

Speed, patience and what have you; all may be in, but only the one that pays the piper has the last say. On this count, Nigerians seem to have found the collective swag to retain the privilege of being judge and jury on what dream teams do or do not come true for them. They now vote their dreams. Former President Jonathan and his friends probably know more about this than anyone else. Don’t get this wrong though.

That President Buhari will need time to service and fully reposition Nigeria’s ship of state for onward progress is something all Nigerians ought to agree on. Even so, having given their successive leaders so much time and banked such pitiful dividends, asking them for more time this time, even from a recharged and reformed comeback kid has a peculiarly lackluster ring to it. So, here is a point of view to consider. While the president angles for more time, he must think fast like a student writing an important exam. Remember, the student must manage time spent on answering each question wisely, such that when the proctor announces “Pens Down!, he/she has not spent all the time on just a few questions.

 Skill sets and all such good stuff

Whether they celebrated the 2015 independence anniversary in Abuja-Nigeria or in Virginia-USA, Nigerians everywhere thirst for good news. And they viscerally wish for a speedy uptake in the pace of governance and policy clarity as they reflect on their 55^th October independence anniversary. The fine details and how long it takes for citizen patience and leadership diligence to dovetail into clear signs of recovered glory must thus not be left to the gods. Communication, candor and mileage must be central to the governor-governed relay race, and this will be more about skill than about patience.

At the very least, Buhari’s success both as a politician with second-look appeal and as a president with an avowed goal of significantly raising Nigeria’s stock price will depend on his resource and time management abilities, and what targets and timeframes he sets for his captains, once he has them on their race tracks. Here, he must consider Cabinet ministers important to his success; else why hire them at all? Here then is a mutual draft contract that seems reasonable. Let President Buhari enjoy the undiluted goodwill of an unusually patient citizenry as he works to understand the fine details of what ails Africa’s most populous nation, and what prescription will make for wholesome cure. And let Nigerians enjoy the rare compliment of, hopefully, a nationally oriented president that is uncharacteristically nimble and time-conscious about their needs and concerns. After all, in leadership as in most worthy endeavors, time is of the essence.

To unshackle or not to…?

Speed – minus recklessness – is the most apt means of courageously orchestrating a beleaguered nation’s escape from a culture of significant leadership fidelity deficit. Speed is how you begin to tackle the avoidable human suffering that a largely unaccountable stewardship culture visits on the majority of citizens. Speed seems to have been the president’s approach to leadership changes at both INEC and NNPC, as well as with regards to public workers’ salary arrears. With regards to NNPC and salary arrears at least, the president’s focus seems to acknowledge the need for speed where speed is warranted. When a system, any living system, keeps citizens shackled while significantly operating below its promise, inspirational impatience is indeed virtuous.

Mark the good news in the above point; regardless of how poorly the president’s handlers packaged his independence messaging on impatience not being a virtue, much of the need for urgency for progress seems to be shared by Aso Rock. As President Buhari himself pointed out, “October 1st is a day for joy and celebrations for us Nigerians….because it is the day, 55 years ago; we liberated ourselves from the shackles of colonialism and began our long march to nationhood and to greatness.”

Aha! Did you read that? Unshackled by way of independence from colonialism, not so? Yes, there is history to prove that Nigerians wanted their independence with nonnegotiable urgency. But then the independence quickly took the wrong turn, as Nigerians got shackled again, this time by a profligate leadership culture with neither the fear of the Crown nor of God? Oh yes, there is in-your-face reality rubbing Nigeria’s nose sorely red on this shackle post. So when will this weird kind of independence end? When will ordinary Nigerians gain true independence and freedom from their shackles; whether they are handcuffed by their lucky-Charlie brothers decked in endless yards of sleek Atiku fabric, or by tea-drinking former colonial masters speaking through their fine pointed noses?

 Postscript

As this piece unfolds, we have learned that the President’s long awaited Cabinet list has been submitted to the senate. The high point here is that the dial has finally moved. But the low point is just as newsworthy, unfortunately. The list seems to be made up mostly of the same old folks who have been at the helm of the ship of state for decades. So why did the country have to wait these many months for an old-blood team? Why the impression that the president was looking to really drain the swamp this time? WHY? Where will Nigeria’s much awaited renewed energy and sense of mission come from, if captains well schooled in the old culture are still in charge of what was meant to be CHANGE from the old way to a new deal?

Continues……

Pat Anyaegbunam

The People’s Pontiff: how the pope invites leaders to come down to earth and make a difference

When the pope comes by, the world remembers what should never have been forgotten in the first place. The palace belongs to the people, not to the prince.

Calling the called

Whether he is meeting with the once young and restless Fidel Castro in Cuba, addressing America’s fractious congress in Washington, or addressing the United Nations in New York, Pope Francis continues to prove himself a being of deep insight. For one thing, he understands fellowship and fellow-feeling like no other world figure of our time. And he continues to remind us of things we forget all too often. Idol worship is foolishness

• The pope reminds us that stuff is only stuff; that we can claim all the space to pack our laurels but that time is sure to unpack all our transient treasures to make room for higher order purposes.
• The pope says that having been called to a higher purpose, we must work consistently and tirelessly to keep averting the danger of majoring in minor things and neglecting what really counts.

Decoding the pope’s call

If we read the pope right, his message seems to resonate across all cultures and persuasions. Ordinary people and their lives matter. People should matter more than governments, and the governed should matter more than the governors thereof. As such, the people’s pope beckons democrats and republicans everywhere to find dignity in alternative points of view, to become less dramatic and divisive in their methods so that they can rise to the call to become people-centered bridge builders. He calls on the religious everywhere to become less hypercritical and militant, so they can put on the armor of mindfulness and mercy. And he wants to see the rich and the privileged across the world wrestle down greed and grandiloquence so they can become more generous and focused on lifting up the less privileged.

The pope on leadership

In essence, the pope gives us reason to resume the age old art of seeing God’s face beyond our hostile tribes and territories so we can lay down our arms, burrow out of our fortified self-interest trenches and find our way back home to our common humanity. To leaders, both seated and aspiring, who may have adopted crooked ways, bigotry, gridlock, aggression or outright violence as their religion, the pope leaves a sobering message. “A good [political] leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism.”

Look again and look hard! This is what Pope Francis appears to be saying. Look at the people’s faces and see if you don’t see yourselves in that quintessential mirror of essence. Look at the millions of fellow human beings caught in the middle of the consuming firestorms repeatedly being created by forgetful leadership and tell me that God loves oppressors more than he loves the oppressed. Look! Look at the most vulnerable victims of politics (or commerce, or religion…) run amok; scared big time, starving, suffering, getting displaced and dispossessed, dying, … “A good [political] leader always opts to initiate processes rather than possessing spaces.”

Above and beyond swagger

Like the wise grandpa who is too old to be boxed in with the pigeonholing of transactional politics and punditry, and yet young enough at heart not to be bamboozled with the bling-bling hum of modernity, the pope seems to transcend bluster. Why?

The Pope is pope because he thinks beyond the buzz of convenience. So too can we, if our thoughts expand beyond self. The pope thinks in both human and divine spectrum. So too can we, if we remember that the color of God is neither black nor white. And, did you pick up on this one? The pope travels light; engaging the world on ideas that nourish the better angels of our nature, while explicitly refusing to be caught in our ego-trip enterprises of winners and losers. Give me the pope any day!

Pope’s call to conscious religion

To all who seek a world where the people must cease to be victims of their leaders’ wayward ways, this is the time to pay attention. Yes, this is the time to pay attention to the difference between worshipping and warring. Religion is the business of divine worship; while prejudice and violence are the trademarks of those who seek, by hook or by crook, to be worshipped. Bigotry and violence seem like religion only in minds that have become their own gods!

Here is one reason we need to pay attention to Pope Francis, from Africa to the Americas and from Asia to Europe and beyond. The pope leads the worship of that which we only begin to approach when we hunker down and lift others up – the Almighty. The pope is Papa because he loves to surround himself with worship-centered and welcoming people of faith, not closed-minded dream killers.

Here is another reason the pope gets it and we should. He leads from a down-to-earth place; rallying both the faithful and the skeptical upward to what makes us at once human and divine. That’s the pope for you; The People’s Pope who says of our critical and judgmental prodding; who am I to judge?

The politics of suspended nobility

In their own ways, politicians too love to surround themselves with ‘worshippers’. Beyond this entry point though, the contrast between the pontiff and the vast majority of our political titans forms a dizzying chasm. Unlike the pope, too many of our mighty men of the political stage make such fabulous fakery of their otherwise noble calling. When such actors surround themselves with ‘worshipers’, they quickly orchestrate a coup d’état and become, at the very least in their view, objects of worship. Not surprisingly then, they begin to trade peace and clarity of thought for the sycophantic adulation of their ‘worshippers’. Often times they fib for the love of power. Soon, stealing and killing in order to hold on to this self created illusion of ‘power and might’ quickly ceases to be a farfetched notion. They forget that tomorrow is fast on its way, and that the day of reckoning is not something in their power to put off. We all know this from cradle, so why do they choose to forget? Life begins without our command, and so begins the countdown to the day of reckoning, no matter how all powerful we imagine ourselves to be. Not that we are not powerful, mind you. The pope says that we are very, very powerful when we are fuelled by grace.

 Subtle substance

Even Pope Francis’ symbolic gestures are also packed with substance. If the pope seems joyfully at home in his modest Fiat car, the mighty without the grounding of grace find little rest even in the cozy opulence their private jets. They may rouse and rally their armies to wars, but notice the contradiction; they never fight alongside except with words that never stand the test of time. They command their flock to blow up the world with themselves as the bombs ‘for God’s sake’, but these unwary followers fail to see that they (the armchair commanders) are the gods in reference.

While the pope talks about God’s unchanging love of the poor and the dispossessed, the world’s Goliaths who have forgotten that this life is a journey, talk only as to voraciously feed their ego’s love for positions and possessions. When the pope speaks, he calls on the faithful to open their eyes and hearts to the things that matter to the least of us, and consequently to the Almighty Shepherd of our planet; love and the labor of love. Not so with too many of the mightily flawed Goliaths in positions of leadership. They are increasingly appealing only to their core constituents’ base instincts, raking in and relishing only the uninformed votes and cheers of the gullible.

The final analysis

After all is said and done, the pope will return to the Holy See (Sancta Sedes), better for having touched lives in a very big way. The United Nations will remain in New York, as a solid symbol of a world whose best hopes rest in its unity of purpose. The United States Congress will wake up to many new Washington days of opportunity to unite around the things that make the dream of a better world the summary job description of leadership. This much is in the plan. And barring the unforeseen, leaders across the world will be presented all the opportunity they need to carry on with the humongous task of shaping the days and lives of their fellow men and women.

Beyond the plausible and the certain, here are six questions, the answers to which are not as certain.

• Will the tears of joy and visceral connection stirred by the pope’s message lead the world back to the sanctity of life and the sanity of true stewardship?
• Will leaders STOP passing the death sentence on their people with decisions they make or fail to make?
• Will the real and urgent labor of love that lends strength to the fact that tears are not enough be reenacted and sustained in our world?
• Will the deep awakening inspired by the pontiff’s message enjoy a long shelf life in the hearts and minds of political, business and religious leaders who seem to have become radically wired to return to their voters and ‘worshippers’ in certain familiar coded speech patterns?
• What dreams will come into being to make the difference that the world’s most vulnerable need right now?
• Will the excluded still be waiting when the pope comes this way again?

Nothing needs to be any clearer on this one front nonetheless. The pope is with the people. And he is clear on the message that love will prevail.

The Buhari Train: Will this time be different?

It is generally the case that the citizenry tends to thrive when the nation’s central government does well, political and ideological leanings notwithstanding. In essence, good government is good for legitimate business all round. In the same vein, it is fundamentally in the interest of all Nigerians and many others for the current government of Africa’s most populous nation to do well. That said, in order for the Buhari administration to be successful in the most important ways a modern era government can be said to be successful, it needs to first succeed at priority listing. For a good starting point, there are perhaps four priority goals that internal and external watchers need to be able to check ‘well done’ on when all is said and done:

First, whether the army general turned politician forms his full cabinet this September or a little later, one question will be frontal, especially to voters who badly needed to be rid of the glaring impunity of the PDP incumbency. Will Buhari’s job hiring instincts and marching orders clearly speak of both an enlightened focus on competence and national (rather than sectional) outlook? In order words, if he is to make a respectable difference, Buhari must appoint his senior officers clearly for know-how and results. And he must be seen to have sourced talent from across the entire national landscape, and not just primarily from his own social, economic or tribal comfort zone.

The second question is equally fundamental. Will Buhari invest the breadth and depth oversight it will take to elevate Nigeria’s much talked about (but often half-baked) war against corruption above the current catch and release drama of “pay the cops and auditors to conjure up some magic after iniquity has brazenly ravaged the land”? In other words, he must go for smart gate-keeping in order to free Nigeria’s ship of state from the stranglehold of formidable inner-circle pirates. Here, Buhari needs to work extra hours to instill some underpinning philosophical sanity into Nigeria’s asset protection working model. Nigeria badly needs processes and controls that do not crumble willy-nilly under the obese overhang of personality and influence. Yes, Nigeria urgently needs an accountability regimen where the state gets out of the unholy business of selectively bankrolling the estate of a few individuals, and where you don’t get to retire from a lifelong career in government service as a millionaire/billionaire, with no teachable clarity as to the source of such stupendous wealth.

On the third flank, to the extent that Buhari himself does not run the risk of setting himself up to become power drunk, he should find the courage to go for some degree of power dilution across all levels of the political stewardship framework. Will Buhari’s reforms reduce the real, even if unintended, overconcentration of transactional authority in the hands of top political players with outsized penchant for bluster and highly desensitized nerves for due process? This may be the recipe for greater operational transparency and service above self. Buhari needs to quickly come to terms with the reality that the Nigerian system needs to be revved up with the capacity to stop highly placed individuals from repeatedly doing wrong at massive public expense. This way, Nigerians can be spared the revolving drama of paying new sets of captains and crews to go through the rowdy and largely ineffectual motions of ‘arresting and prosecuting’ friends and godfathers. Such recurring high stakes play acting episodes have tended to roundly ridicule the real business of public accountability in Nigeria. Seems kind of silly when you think of it, doesn’t’ it? Here is why this medicine doesn’t work?

After-the-fact policing is easily the most expensive, and yet ineffective, way to fight corruption. The reason is that now you are fighting a well entrenched, well-funded and sometimes well-celebrated foe. Not only is this fight often executed with relatively meager resources, more importantly, outcomes are also largely guaranteed to be suspect since too many in the audience are sure to be convinced that it is all smoke and mirrors. Besides, citizens are not that well served by a token offering of a few temporarily ostracized big shots in jails where they are still clearly treated as celebrities, albeit on unplanned detours. Nigerians will be much better served by a system that is effective at keeping itchy fat fingers away from their cash till in the first place.

Finally, there is the question of destination leadership. Will Buhari seek to model a dynamic and inclusive Nigeria where every citizen feels fully Nigerian everywhere in Nigeria? Forget the North, East, West, South carry-go politics of weak links and misplaced loyalties, if Buhari invests astutely in a model of Nigeria that radically begins to cease to be tethered by the combined toxicity of greed and ethno-religious predictabilities, he would have significantly raised the bar for good governance in Nigeria for all time. On this score, Buhari will do well to pen down two or three countries Nigeria must ambitiously begin to work to be like when she grows up. Without some success-case role modeling to focus Nigeria on a path, the country’s road to its best self will remain a personality-centered, cash and carry, circular adventure of missed opportunity, with little or no directional horsepower and lots of resources perennially lost to entrenched leadership infidelity.

Not surprising, a parallel survey of Nigerians reveals a public catalog of expectations of the Buhari administration that can be said to be an intimidating and understandingly urgent one. On the every-day citizen level, Nigerians, almost all 170 million strong (or ‘weak’ perhaps) badly need to see and experience the vision of better days under Buhari. In the marketplace, businesses and the underlying economy need some level of policy certainty. On the global front too, the world is watching for indications that beyond the usual cosmetics of the changing of the guard, this time will be different.

While Nigerians may have adjusted somewhat to the gradual cranking up of the new administration’s governance engine, they have their own checklist too. On the whole, it would seem that most are on the same page, and for good reasons, on the expectation that the Buhari government must as of immediate necessity focus on certain key areas, including:

1. Edit Nigeria’s second-rate story of adulthood and radically write-in the acceleration of the pace of national progress away from governance mediocrity and organized criminality in high public office. It is feared that as much as 35% of Nigeria’s resources consistently dissolve into this massive accountability deficit sinkhole.

2. Checkmate the potency of the twin plague of a dominantly stubborn feature of dismal return on financial investments and the somewhat celebrated culture of corrupting influences in high and low places. There is very little hidden about corruption in Nigeria, yet there has been more play-acting than credible crime fighting in this regard.

3. Save citizens from the strange and menacing reality of extreme sectionalism and religious dead-ending. Wherever in the world they exist today, tribal pigeon hole living and religious extremism serve only to divide people and splinter a nation’s energy from focus on collective progress. Citizens are thus held hostage to hatred, poverty and ignorance, rather than be freed and empowered to become hosts to knowledge, fellowship and progress.

4. Banish mass poverty to oblivion, forcing it into the lagoon with a demonstrable aversion for poverty-minded lieutenants and a clear preference for the rule of law. Nothing wrestles down poverty as effectively as justice well practiced across the legal, social and economic spheres.

5. Elevate transparency in the Nigerian system to the much desired status of a process-based civil society. Transparency demystifies governance, forces office holders to become smarter, and radically reduces the cost of policing both the system and those institutions set up to do the policing.

6. Forge local and international partnerships and alliances of strength rather those of low standards and a mutual race to the bottom. Systems that are significantly corrupt tend to attract partnerships and contracts that are that much corrupting, much to the detriment of the nation and its least powerful majority.

Here then is the September morning question for Buhari and his team. Will this time be demonstrably different, or are Nigerians once again embarking on a journey across another bridge to nowhere?

Buhhari’s Big Day: will the bull finally be wrestled down?

It’s official

Today marks a very important milestone in Nigeria’s political history. At the conclusion of ceremonies and celebrations, one man graduated from president-elect to president as the other stepped down from president to former-president.

Muhammadu Buhari has stepped in as Nigeria’s president, and Goodluck Jonathan has stepped into the next chapter of his life. Both men will still need all the ‘Good Luck’ there is to have, but only one will need to sweat and lose sleep on the scale needed to successfully soul-search Nigeria’s psyche for redeeming resourcefulness. And only the same man is called to host the night vigils and lead the countless brainstorming sessions it will take to sanitize Nigeria of lingering institutional ineptness and leadership infidelity.

The choices 

There are at least two alternative paths Buhari can tread on the journey to substance and to history. One path will make his administration and his country remarkably extraordinary, particularly given Nigeria’s resource endowment and untapped human asset. The other route, one that has featured repeatedly in the country’s rambling search for its soul, will keep Nigeria a rich country full of very poor people; a land of missed opportunities kidnapped and securely subdued by the ignoble culture of organized criminality in governance and national wealth management.

Where the choices lead

If Buhari opts for the extraordinary, he must quickly become good at walking his talk and shooting to hit real and consequential targets. Success on this level means that strong signals will cascade across the entire economic and social spectrum, since great results tend to be more amplified than even the loudest of vocal cords. If he settles for the ordinary, will sleep like a baby – until the house catches fire.

Regardless of what approach the new administration opts, nothing will become better overnight just because there is a new sheriff in town, but so much can become much better when a new guard puts lots of thoughts into even the most ordinary things. Equally, nothing will change with new people doing the same old stuff, but it needs only take the right tone at the top to tell the nation that change means a leap to a higher purpose.

In essence, Buhari can:

….go ordinary and …	….or choose the extraordinary and …
Operating Standards …yield to the temptation to govern with the ‘minority mentality’ that appears to say “it’s okay for processes, standards and institutions to be mediocre because this is Nigeria.”	… go BIG and begin to mold the building blocks for a Nigeria of sound processes and global standards.
Information …preside over a nation where over 95% of citizens have at best only a speculative and cynical view of the workings of their government and governance institutions.	…opt for the democratization of governance information and begin to lead a nation where citizens have unrivaled access to information on how every aspect of their government works; from financial transactions to decision basis.
Institutional Corruption …allow overtly corrupt governance institutions and processes to continue consume budgets and deplete Nigeria’s reputation as a matter of fact.	…rate every governance institution and process in terms of reputation risk and value to citizens, and insist on remedial timelines for slackers.
Corruption in Leadership and Service …continue with the governance approach that keeps Nigeria a rich country full of poor people; where to be powerful or on the inside track is too often seen as being licensed to participate in the industrial-scale pilfering of public resources.	…hire and manage players willing and able to make governance about the people; their needs and aspirations.
Governance effectiveness …preside over a kleptomaniacal bureaucracy in which the politics and economics of such basics as oil wealth management, power supply, education, healthcare, etc. reduce vital services to sectors of internationally acclaimed disgrace.	…make mission and results the corner stone of every level of governance.
Citizenship and the Dignity of Diversity …settle in as the captain of a splintered nation culturally and politically walled off in ethnocentric blocks, each block financially dependent on the center and yet believing itself a nation for only a few.	…govern toward a social society in which every Nigerian is fully Nigerian everywhere in Nigeria. a nation: a nation… Where every state is national in character and outlook. That fully protects and empowers its citizens everywhere.  Masterfully welding and defending its unity even as it celebrates its diversity

 All in all, nothing ever works well until diligent hands work it. And diligence is what every Nigerian institution and captain must deliver to the Commander in Chief and his hopeful nation, if Buhari is to make a mark worthy of respect. So really, all President Buhari needs do now is begin to ask – loudly and clearly! No, he really should demand! No, he need not demand. He might as well go BIG and command.

President Buhari’s charge from Nigerians of all persuasions appears to be to ask for, demand and command strong results. Having come so far and fared so badly, Nigerians want their new president to start shooting up targets of substance from day one. They want the man to really call the shots and shoot for impact. Well, why not? Haven’t they been too badly bruised and battered by big shots that din not shoot straight? Do you not see the millions of economic casualties and social refugees littering the Nigerian space, victims of their very own leaders?

Good luck President Buhari. You can do this!

‘Power-sharing’ in Nigeria: where is the obligation for results?

A time to learn how to learn and lead

There is a sound reason the Chinese place a high premium on continuing leadership education. They have their eyes on the world. As a result, they have continued to wax strong as local champions in key global markets, including of course Nigeria. There is a great reason India greatly values continuing education for its leadership teams. Look how the nation has recognized brain power and tech savvy as its passport to the world. Equally, there is now a compelling reason for the Nigerian leadership teams to re-enroll in the constantly evolving school of continuing leadership education. Leaders who have ceased to deliberately seek knowledge are just like those who do not read. They are no better than those who cannot read.

As Nigeria’s president-elect works on calling up his mastermind team, this seems the perfect point in time for reflection on the need to get the basics right from the outset, especially with regards to getting better at learning. On this note, ‘don’t forget the priorities’ sounds like the magic four words for the Buhari think tank to chew on. To cap this off, it may also be fitting to add ‘…be super smart with thinking about tomorrow. And while at it, don’t forget the lessons of yesterday.’

Of stumbling stones and building blocks

Why is critical thinking and learning from both emerging trends and history two areas worthy of heightened attention in Nigeria’s leadership clubhouse now? While the point here will require a level of elaboration that may not be suited for this forum, a quick summation on the essentials will suffice. Essentially, there are several lingering governance blind spots still begging for attention in the Nigerian system, but taken in the context of our opening paragraph, the following two fronts seem to need the most urgent attention:

1. The absence of a robust forum for sharing the ‘lessons-learned’ wisdom of experience:

Nothing points to where a nation is going as much as what it learns and does with both its past experiences and newly emerging ideas. Do these become building blocks for continuing progress or stumbling stones that checkmate national aspirations? Failure on this front guarantees that with each passing year, the same policy monsters, process fault lines and incentives for dodgy behaviors re-surge to waste golden opportunities and gulp down additional chunks of scarce resources. The risk and cost of this bottom-grade play seems to be what many Nigerians have somewhat fatalistically come to accept as the way things are because of corruption. Here is the irony. Corruption is far from being Nigeria’s singular Achilles heel. Leaders who are entitled ‘knowers’ of everything and yet not nimble enough to be committed ‘learners’ of much are just as dangerous.

2. Zero emphasis on continuing leadership education:

Once installed, too many of Nigeria’s team captains begin to equate high office with expertise on every subject. The predictable results include the relegation of best-practice view of processes and apathy towards incremental learning. In a very dynamic and increasingly globalizing world, this is akin to driving blind on the speed lane. The one expertise required of leaders as a must is knowing what experts to deploy for what ends, what results to expect within a set time-frame, and how to inspect for the desired outcomes.

Learner leaders understand the efficacy of relentless learning as a power tool for driving innovation and expanding the social and economic frontiers for the pursuit of worthwhile endeavors and wealth creation. Just ask your teenage kid to work your newest gadget and you quickly begin to appreciate how much is still out there to learn. Whatever you observe is likely to constitute a tiny window into the untouched homework that is piling up for knower leaders seeking to lead institutions, cities and nations while remaining absent from the school of reformatting knowledge. They never drive good results.The case has been made repeatedly. Those who cannot learn cannot teach others abiding principles, or lead institutions and nations to greatness.

Buhari as a tour bus driver? 

As an essential element of learning from both history and emerging trends, think of this. Wouldn’t it be awesome for Nigerians to be constantly briefed and engaged on what constitutes the Buhari approach to the economics and politics of governance? Is this not what a tour bus driver routinely does in order to keep the passengers engaged from the takeoff point to the final destination? To maximize the value of the tour experience, first, the driver reassuringly refreshes the audience’s understanding of the final destination, the approximate time to get there, and the key features to look out for along the route. This is the trust and buy-in point. Think of a Buhari administration that runs on this trust and buy-in idea.

All through the tour experience, the already excited customers are kept abreast of interesting and important milestones and their unique stories. Those who stay awake participate fully in the experience, becoming more aware and empowered as they capture picturesque views of interesting events and sights. Those who snooze too frequently miss out, finding a compelling reason to stay alert and participate the next time around. Ultimately, there is a unique blend of value focus and goal congruence that makes the tour a shared experience between the expert driver and the paying passengers. Of course the driver never seeks to put the audience to sleep and give a second-hand gist of the tour after the fact; doing this will make the journey just about the driver, instead of a shared experience. The journey itself and the education and empowerment it provides is an inherent part of the destination, one that creates a communion between the driver and driven.Think of a Buhari administration that fully appreciates how this works.

In order to forge a productive relationship between the citizens and their government, Nigeria’s leaders at all levels must become expert tour bus drivers. To make this transition, they must necessarily stop acting like fun-bursting and rigid old-school parent figures and become committed and curious stewards. At this point, Nigerians need to know from source how their commander in chief and his ‘senior brigadiers’ plan to make their needs and aspirations the Buhari main things. And they need to know what is being done on their behalf, right as it is going on. No, not after the fact, right from the get go and all the way! And definitely not after lots of water and Naira have gone down the wrong channels with no clear discernible value in sight and lots of ‘how the dog ate the homework’ stories. Please!

To share or not to share

If the history of Nigeria’s demonstrated approach to political power and how to share and wield it is anything to go by, right about now, countless hours have already gone into lobbying, stumping and arm-twisting on who gets into what position and what interest groups and sections they represent. Good or bad, this has been Nigeria’s wobbly trickle-down strategy for power and wealth sharing. There is no need to judge this history at this point; it is what it is. Given the reality of today’s governance priorities however, we can certainly attempt to prep for a more informed judgment call on how best to position better for tomorrow.

The first challenge Nigeria faces as a nation of people and aspirations today is that there is much less wealth to distribute, and thus much less brand power to wield or waste. If the leaders insist on being stuck on the ‘national cake sharing’ mindset, much of what is to be shared will now need to be borrowed from countries that have perfected the art of good governance. Secondly, if the art of continuous learning is to rank high in Nigeria’s leadership list of essentials, all must realize that wealth distribution is the easiest part of governance – if indeed there is wealth to share. It is also the most misinformed approach to governance, if ‘sharing’ means the right to receive and fritter away resources, rather than the obligation to build up from all corners based on some set standards. At any rate, sharing presupposes that sweat equity building is a core part of the process, otherwise, why build a culture around sharing what you cannot create or sustain? The elephant in the room is wealth creation. This is about asking and answering one foundational question. How does government lay the foundation for team leaders to lead by example and on purpose so citizens can engage, follow and thrive.

When a government engages citizens in a democracy of dialogue and value delivery, leaders become learners and citizens become empowered to create. When citizens flourish, governments gain mileage. The simple reason is that thriving citizens return the favor through taxes and other activities. These returns loop back to fund the government and grow the common wealth. Okay, this is all theory in the Nigerian context. Yes, the Nigerian governance culture has been spoiled by ample oil revenue for too long. Also agreed, this has been roundly implicated in the debate on why the country has not developed a healthy respect for the idea of the power of tax-paying citizens and the need to account to them. But is this it? Isn’t there more out there beyond good and logical reasons for the absence of good old common sense? Shouldn’t Nigeria be shooting for only the presence of both the common good and uncommon brilliance now? From our observation post, there seems to be no more bandwidth for being best at making brilliant excuses now.

Results or regrets? 

Beyond the familiar ground of endless jockeying for positions, there is a much more important question. The billion Nara question is one that is sure to compound into multiples of billions on either the plus or negative side, depending on whether or not the new team gets it right. How many productive hours have been spared for actual visioning on what each prospective office holder must deliver for the nation? This is infinitely more important than who gets to occupy what position. So how will the new administration work the modern magic of dogged mutual interest race for medals over the placid positioning of personalities with no compelling marching orders for results?

How does Buhari plan to ensure that his senior troopers hit the ground running real miles in a harmonized manner? How will the general ensure that actions and decisions taken by his lieutenants will be such that will best serve Nigerians and turn over decent returns on every cent of public expenditure? How do fiscal allocations to State A, Ministry B or Institution C fit into a unified national plan? How will the tour bus be kept in shape and fully serviced for the assigned tour? What specifically will Buhari ask the new president’s men and women to deliver as critical components of a cohesive national strategy? Indeed, what will Buhari do with the ubiquitous federally funded silo fiefdoms that serve best as outlandishly expensive incubating grounds for corruption?

Since Nigeria’s incoming administration is sure to need to borrow a lot more money today to execute its mission, how will Buhari refocus office holders away from the ‘business as usual’ mindset and get his sector captains fired up for the sweat and dust of real work? How will the president-elect govern on clear deliverables and turn up the pressure-cooker impetus for sound and measurable results? Indeed, how will Buhari demand, command and measure performance? This really is the bottom-line question.

For as long as Buhari will captain the Nigerian ship of state, his goal ought to be clear and concise; to make improving the welfare of Nigerians and the revamping of the stock price of the Nigerian brand his non-negotiable main thing. And guess how most Nigerians really want the goods to be delivered to them at this point? In results they can take to the bank so they can pay bills for concrete values and quality services! They want a tour bus that is well engineered to accomplish its mission, and a driver that will take them along all the way.

Nigerians hunger for results that clearly make them better off today and tomorrow than they were yesterday. And they do not need rear-mirror tales of what should have happened yesterday; only solid steps of directional progress today. While this is certainly not too much to ask, there are still too many rivers yet to be crossed. Unfortunately, as often as one explores the importance of results in how successive Nigerian administrations have tended to engage key operatives and sector leaders, blank is perhaps the most charitable description for what stares back at you. Except for very few and very rare exceptions, the big men and women of Nigeria’s corridors of power never seem to be under pressure to deliver results capable of increasing Nigeria’s fire power as a global player. The more commonly visible pressure seems to be one fed by the intense need to get re-appointed or re-elected. Even with regards to this though, not even the best performance has proven to be a decisive factor for longevity. So what is? Will Buhari change the playing field and add performance to the position-sharing template? Will this be done even if only for the sake of millions of Nigerians already severely undeserved by their so called senior representatives?

Your call now, sir! 

As should be expected in any situation where one repeats the same behavior while expecting a different outcome, lack of attention on the learning front of leadership has been utterly costly for Nigeria. Ideas and projects bloom and die with each new administration, with very little consistency of follow through. Predictably, each new administration complains about inheriting a black eye from the last one, only to become a good example of what is wrong to the next regime. From the side, it all sounds like a joke, but there are too many intelligent players on the scene for this to be the case. So how do seemingly smart and classy players casually preside over such a classless comedy of failed expectations and shattered dreams?   When is a situation that seems like a very expensive joke more of a sweeping oversight? What really is the difference between the two anyway?

On another front, each successive regime pounds its chest and appears to set its teeth against corruption – at least in words. Then it quietly settles down and begins to fatten up and age into status quo as corruption runs its errands a matter of fact. Meanwhile, much waywardness continues to depress positions and institutions that seem to operate on a yo-yo diet of recurring federal allocations followed consistently by lean results, empty treasuries and unhappy workers. How is the Nigerian zeal for the pursuit of happiness to be found in the troubled waters of discounted oil revenue, jaundiced currency exchange rate and potential captains prepping for same-old, same-old?

With the brand of federal system Nigeria operates, we cannot of course apportion much blame for the unproductive national-cake-sharing culture on any one issue. That would be way too simplistic. But we can at least acknowledge what there is to acknowledge. There is so much still left unsaid and undone when it comes to a concerted focus on setting national priorities and investing in the capacity for both internally generated revenue and committed focus on leadership for intended outcomes. Will Buhari make the right judgment call for course correction?

Please stay tuned.

Countdown To Buhari Country

To dance or not to dance

Soon Nigeria will commemorate the birth of a new leadership team, conceivably with a parallel celebration of some vital lessons learned on the road to maturity as a democracy. Regardless of how the story unfolds thereafter, the imminent change of guard in and of itself is noteworthy. It serves as the ‘yes we can’ witness ground for the first time an incumbent Nigerian topmost leadership lost an election its conducted and contested as well. But it will be even more of a teachable phenomenon for the fact that the defeated captain expeditiously engaged the winner in a peaceful ‘good job’ handshake with no tragedy-inducing, sore-loser battle cries.

Nigerians took in several campaign promises, voted their wishes, and commendably switched gears in the continuing search for the best version of their nation. Soon it will be up to the new team to ramp up and speed up progress on this front. Ultimately, what is achieved or lost will depend on what tune the new team dances to, and what band plays in the governance ballroom. What is not in doubt now is that on the essential front, Nigeria is about to become Buhari Country and all Nigerians are on the road to becoming Buhari People. The inescapable implication is that at the collective level, Nigerians will soon be either incrementally empowered or disempowered by the operating Buhari Doctrine. And guess what? Other than Nigerians at home and elsewhere, the CNNs, the BBCs, the Economists, the social media, and the financial world will all be watching, talking, writing, valuing and devaluing in line with what they perceive, hear and see. In summary, what the Buhari team conceives, says, does, or fails to do will all either dovetail into wings with which Nigeria will fly higher, or become the ubiquitous sharp object that caps Nigeria’s wings and sabotages flight. Policies do have real social and economic implications, it turns out.

Who will lend us heart for the gig?

Will Buhari remap Nigeria’s outmoded mission playing field or just paper over its massive cracks and loopholes? Will he air out and socialize Nigeria’s sticky ship of state and pull the nation closer together, or fan the embers of division? Will Buhari now feed starving Nigerian kids or continue to feed the East-West-North-South appetites of Nigeria’s pot-belly political landlords? Will Buhari govern toward a greater Nigeria or dance to the tunes of tribal thriller seeking, religion-peddling and money mongering silo veterans? As these questions saturate the Nigerian psyche, even folks who consider themselves far from being the praying types seem to instinctively pray for both Buhari and the nation.

To preempt Buhari’s governance strategy template, let us return to the essence of the existing Nigerian vision playbook for a moment. The stated vision underpinning Nigeria’s search for its best self is a nation making solid investment toward attaining “great lofty heights,” and building a society that does not shortchange or deceive its youth. Unfortunately, Nigeria has so far scored pretty low on both counts. The elders have proven to be unabashed masters at feeding fat on their grand children’s lunch, the sages equivocate repeatedly for all the wrong reasons, and the statesmen have remained adept at the foxy art of squirreling away the people’s harvests.

Nigerians continue to be promised a nation where leaders “serve with heart and might,” and where “peace and justice” are much more than mere ingredients of empty slogans. So far, this pledge has remained a feast on words rich in poetry but empty of religion. Rather than serve with any appreciable measure of commitment, too many of Nigeria’s front liners still seek to be served on their ‘big-me-small-you’ altars, and many more sleepily occupy very substantive positions with no clear job definitions and no conscience for the mission. Given the history as Nigerians have known it for several years now, what can reasonably be expected when Buhari is handed the mantle? Will Buhari successfully focus his associates on really walking the talk now? Will he turbo-charge Nigeria’s operating economic engine and create the momentum for across-the-board creativity? Will he engage only gatekeepers with ‘heart and might’ focus on what really matters to Nigerians?

To govern a nation from grassroots to greatness is a monumental task no doubt, but this is precisely what meaningful leadership CHANGE entails. Nigeria needs a wholesome economic remodeling that is underpinned by an even more urgent need for philosophical course charting. Hopefully, the thirst to champion this deep-digging will prove to be the ONE and ONLY opportunity that Buhari wanted so badly that he applied and interviewed for the job multiple times.

Buhari’s immediate challenge ought to be clear to both the come-back-kid himself and to all Nigerians. How does the man of the hour hit the ground running On ALL FRONTS so Nigerian everywhere can follow his lead? How does Buhari retool the racetracks so the end result of all the running and cheering is the bagging of medals of honor rather than ones of ill repute? Hopefully, the new administration will not be one more that largely starts and ends in political high offices and television screens, until election seasons return. Nigerians must now be engaged fully by their government. And they must be challenged to bring their ‘A’ game by leaders who lead by example rather than by words not backed by boots-on-ground commitment.

Who obeys when Nigeria calls for center players?

How does Buhari the man evolve into Buhari the grandmaster of Nigeria’s renewed corporate call (for nationhood) obeyed? How does the President-Elect begin to unpack his campaign promises into a reality-checked and actionable vision roadmap? How do we go from a vision map to orchestrating credible and purpose-driven steps with the power of rippling synergy across the entire nation? How does the new administration elevate the dynamism of competitiveness, meritocracy and boundless industry? How does Buhari plan to relegate the divisive and inherently corrupting culture of ethnic and chieftaincy mentality in national affairs?

The result of each step the Buhari team models ought to be easily analyzable in terms of sound cost-benefit justification. Whether it is a move aimed at reducing unemployment or one aimed at diversifying the economy, the focus must be on governing with certifiable data rather than with childlike suppositions. Ultimately, passing grade must be reserved for only actions that add independently verifiable value to the system. And if Nigeria’s much talked about fight against corruption is to be elevated above the comical, the cash flow financing all levels of Nigeria’s governance processes ought to become transparent enough to be explainable to a 10 year old. If not, corruption will quickly resurge and high-five its club patrons with renewed exuberance, wearing a different garb no doubt, but still wreaking the havoc that all swear is what impoverishes Nigerians and hurts the national stock price the most.

The ultimate gift exchange

Nigerians and Buhari have consummated a very pivotal gift exchange. Since this exchange marks the very important beginning of a new era, it is vital that no one misses the inherent import of the changing season. On the one hand, Nigerians have re-gifted Buhari with the hallowed privilege of leading their nation’s so far checkered quest to defeat mediocrity and emerge as a substantive global player on both the economic and social fronts. Buhari and his team need to understand the driving spirit behind this quest for what it really is, particularly with regards to the Nigerian youth seeking to play honorably and successfully in a globalized world.

Simply stated, young Nigerians, and of course their perennially hassled parents, have a deep yearning for a national operating code that is anchored on equity, and spurs the inalienable freedom to dream big. Nigerians particularly seek to emancipate from being social dwarfs in their own country. And they have been so undervalued because their leaders operate with foggy lenses and are guided by indecipherable codes that nobody credible will endorse or proudly own.

On the whole, progressive Nigerians thirst to build smart and agile nation able to leap into orbit and finally path ways with its collective ‘backward-ever’ culture. This culture is reminiscent of a splintered society that has walled off its social potential in semi hostile sectional fragments, each fragment seeking to assert itself as a nation. To understand how fast Nigeria needs to dump this culture, try imagining that your hands are uncompromisingly convinced that they are all the you there is. Try imagining also that your hands are equally convinced that your legs and eyes are nothing but enemies that must be cut to size. How far will your hands take you if all they seek to do is keep your eyes shut and your legs tied?

At the other end of the bargain, Buhari has offered his shoulders and asked Nigerians to trust and make him the Chief Architect of their best hopes. Will following him lead Nigerians to their promise? Will Buhari’s vision lenses be magnified enough to see the compelling possibility of the entire Nigerian space? Will his shoulders be sturdy enough to carry Nigerians to higher ground? Some Nigerians categorically retain their doubts, waiting to see to believe. Can’t blame them, can we? Most Nigerians say YES nonetheless, and this is a great launch pad. All told, both believers and doubters seem to end their reflections on Buhari’s second coming with BY GOD’S GRACE or INSHA ALLAH.

Nigeria’s Endangered Innocence: why the legacy check must not bounce

Well now General!

With the election of Buhari as Nigeria’s next president, it can be said that majority of Nigerians got what they wanted; CHANGE! What is of foremost import now is that beyond the red carpet festivities, once they begin to taste the Buhari pudding, sorry, pepper soup, the vast majority of Nigerians want what they got.

The first question Nigerians have put on their President-Elect’s table is straight to the point. “Can you, General Muhammadu Buhari, make miracles?”

The man himself says no way! “How? How can I promise miracles?”

But the General need not worry. And if in fact Buhari is back to serve as a keenly observant General of the people’s socioeconomic resurgent army, he must not sweat the small stuff. Unrealistic governance expectation will not be found in any list of transgressions Nigerians have ever been guilty of. In fact, life in Nigeria promises to be pure bliss were the public expectation level for accountable governance to inch up just a few notches. When it comes to ambitions for leadership fidelity, Nigerians are surprisingly a very modest lot. Just for clarity, below is a quick preface with respect to the order of magnitude of results that will constitute the miraculous in today’s Nigeria:

• Supply Nigerians electricity for up to 5-10 hours on any given day.
• Make some sense of the fact that despite a very substantial budget, the Nigerian Army has proven ill-equipped to defeat the number one declared thorn in the nation’s flesh, Boko Haram.
• Confirm to Nigerians whether or not $20 billion (or whatever amount) of oil revenue actually vanished, and is still vanishing under a democratic government’s watch.
• Pledge to Nigerians that while he will build a credible team with a mix of party associates and non-party actors, he will not be beholden to veteran mafia dons in his own circle adept at annexing huge chunks of public wealth and saturating public offices with surrogates and family members.
• Give Nigerians ‘closure’ explanation on some $15 million (or whatever amount) arms money supposedly seized by South Africa from Nigerian arms dealers.
• Govern on a demonstrable commitment to catching and conclusively prosecuting at least 2 out of every 20 public fund thieves, no matter how well placed they may be.
• Stay far, far away from sectional (tribal, religious, class, etc.) politics.
• Govern with a deliberate and deliberative aspiration to global standards.

If Buhari can get these and similar foundational checklist items squared away in the shortest possible time, he will be well on the way to proving himself a quintessential miracle man. If not, he stands to quickly squander his claim to credibility inside a bald-faced fraternity of unprincipled role models with perfectly tailored do-as-I-say-but-not-as-I-do costumes. This will be very sad for very many.

Will the compatriots pull their sleeves and really serve?

Will there now be a sustained push for every Nigerian stewardship path to be layered with character, even before Buhari’s administration can muster the resources for much needed overall process upgrade? Whether it is a path leading from physical ‘point A’ to ‘point B,’ or one from poor stewardship results to peak performance, or perhaps another from corruption to conscious governance, the questions remain frontal. Will wing-to-wing incremental integrity be infused into the Nigerian governance structure under the reborn Buhari worldview? Will this necessary shift of emphasis be a real one that is transparently score-carded, or will it be just another amplified lullaby of toxic parenting that further tranquilizes the Nigerian psyche into a deeper socioeconomic coma? Will the needs of hardworking citizens matter more now or will the hatchet men show up in every sector to collect as of right?

One thing Buhari will have going for him for a little while is sympathy. Very many Nigerians seem to understand that with the recent oil price plunge, their government now has even less cash power to pave the streets, raise salary levels, modernize bridges, spruce up airports, face-lift schools, etc. While this should be comforting in the short term, Buhari will do well not to overdramatize this handicap. He may have been reborn to champion a renewed search for Nigeria’s sense of self, but the man was not born on the eve of his election into office. Buhari has been part of the system for far too long to play the innocent card for more than a few months.

Will the new captain spare already bruised and battered Nigerians the agony of living with the knowledge of obvious massive character and equity deficits on their nation’s political floors? Will there be light – both in terms of process transparency and in terms of a respectable supply of electricity? On the flip side, will Buhari preside over an undemocratic democracy that remunerates and pampers too many unproductive elite bench warmers in multiples of what their services are worth, and yet expect millions of teachers and other civil servants to live the reality of being owed arrears of meager salaries?

Did you say “God forbid?” Same here! And something in the wind seems to suggest that Buhari the family man echoes this sentiment. Nigeria must now begin to write out a legacy check that will not bounce on the younger generation. Here is to a miraculously prosperous presidential golden pen for the Commander in Chief!

Muhammadu Buhari: Nigeria’s certain Good Luck….?

No April fooling for sure

The polling booths have served their transient purpose and the ballot boxes have revealed their closely guarded secret. After the vote harvesting and tallying, Nigerians have chosen to CHANGE their choice of Chief Public Servant. They have dropped the unlikely Goodluck they had hoped would heal their land, and they have embraced a prospective Good Luck they hope has been seasoned by the lessons of history and reformed by the necessities of these times. With this move, Muhammadu Buhari returns on a second mission as Nigeria’s highest ranked Public Servant.

Unlike his first act as Nigeria’s military dictator, this time Buhari will not have the power of the gun. He will not need this to govern. The world is different now and so is Nigeria. But for sure, he will need the power of process bandwidth to uphold the safety and dignity of ALL Nigerians as they go about their lawful endeavors across the landscape of their country. Additionally, he must become the Chief Defender of the sanity of the Nigerian Brand at multiple levels – security, economic, political, rule of law, etc. Finally, he must cultivate the flight-deck mastery to govern with a 3D view of the entire Nigerian space, with no sacred cows operating outside the law, no sectors or regions sidelined, and no critical miles uncovered. Put simply, Buhari’s one and only task is to get the Nigerian engine firing on all cylinders within the shortest possible time.

So many miles, such limited time

We pause ever so briefly (there’s such limited time for rest) to give KUDOS to Nigeria’s President-elect Buhari and his team. The courage of their conviction has given birth to an era of viable opposition in Nigeria’s politics, and this is no small step. We wish the President-elect great health and a sound mind for the monumental journey ahead. We must also praise President Jonathan for the refinement to make the one call that matters the most in any tense post election early hours. Jonathan may not have given Nigerians enough good reasons to retain him in office, but it must be said that the fact of being the first Nigerian incumbent to gracefully accept defeat in an election his administration conducted has a certain je ne sais quoi that makes the man more than just a politician.

Now, the real business of governance must resume. For Buhari, this mandate is super-sized. There is no higher honor. And it comes amidst well-rehashed past failings that many Nigerians must now forgive. Even so, Nigerians everywhere have high expectations. No business as usual result is likely to cut it this time. Unbridled competence and an unrivalled national outlook must become Buhari’s core governance ingredients. This atypical second coming must not be played out on the altar of rookie naïveté. There is no time.

The vital stats on Nigeria that Buhari’s administration must retract and upgrade over the next four years are best seen in pictures since words may not do them justice. Take a peek below.

These stats pack a lot of information that are useful for any people-focused government seeking to turn Nigeria around. We will be digging deep into these in subsequent blogs.