Late last week, former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, raised an issue that is all too familiar to Nigerians.
He said that “Nigeria cannot continue to allow bad people to govern or misgovern them” and called for all hands on deck to sensitise Nigerians on the electoral process.
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“There should be no fence-sitters”, because “our future is at stake”, he warned, according to a news report in the Daily Trust of Friday, 25th September, 2020.
Now, at a certain level, few people who speak about political leadership have any significant experience of it.
Professor Jega has the rare benefit of near universal acclaim as a former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), a Vice-Chancellor of a leading university, and above all, as INEC Chairman at a crucial moment in its history.
Secondly, he is also a professor of political science, one of Nigeria’s finest in fact.
And third, Jega spoke not just as a former leader, but perhaps as an aspiring one also.
He is clearly a potential presidential candidate of the party whose Policy Advisory Committee meeting he attended, that is, the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), the oldest and most ideologically committed of all political parties in Nigeria today.
The former INEC Chairman is therefore eminently positioned to speak about political leadership in Nigeria, and I have no more to add.
Nigeria definitely has a leadership problem which we must solve, and solve quickly too.
And Professor Jega’s call for all hands on deck, and making himself available are all ways of reaching that solution.
But there are many huddles to cross to get there.
The first huddle is the negative partisanship that has dominated Nigerian politics from at least 2010 to date.
Nigeria has always had divisive and fractious politics.
But there has been a qualitative shift to something else over the past ten years or so.
At any time before 2010, it was possible for a clear majority of Nigerians to agree that a political leader or a particular political event was bad, despite the extent of polarisation in our politics and society.
Now, the picture is not so clear.
With the exception of those in the First Republic, many former Nigerian leaders up to 2010 were not that much widely regarded as heroes.
Some were more vilified than others in some quarters, but hardly any were that much venerated even in their own quarters.
By contrast, we now have two political leaders in Nigeria that are venerated or vilified in equal measure by nearly half of the voters in each case.
But the bigger problem is that, no one else in Nigeria right now comes close to these two in veneration or vilification.
The good leader for one group is the worst leader for the other group, and vice versa.
Perhaps this political climate will change at the next general election, but for now, any Nigerian who wishes to offer a third way must pierce through this thick fog of negative partisanship in the voters first.
The second huddle is by what criteria should we judge a bad or good leader in Nigeria?
The answer to this question might appear straightforward.
But it isn’t. Like all humans, political leaders are a bundle of many things.
A ‘good person’ may not necessarily make a good leader, whereas, a ‘bad person’ can be quite capable a leader.
The qualities required to run one’s own individual life are different from those for leading a country, or parts of it.
At one level, then, it is a choice between personal moral soundness and competency on the job.
The two do not always mix in the same person. Not very many people have described former President Obasanjo as a ‘good person’, but he was and remains one of Nigeria’s most capable and effective leaders.
Former President Babangida was called many things, but not ineffective or incompetent.
At another level, it is a question of which qualities Nigerians prefer the most.
Given the high extent of negative partisanship, many voters may well not even see incompetency as what it is, regardless of what others say.
Then there is the old problem of where the good leaders would come from, or more significantly, how they will emerge into the fold.
Leadership abilities, like all other talents, are spread randomly within the society.
Some people have, others don’t. the problem is how to ensure those who have get to where they are supposed to be.
This is why the structures for leadership recruitment matter.
Perhaps the most important of these structures are the political parties themselves.
Elsewhere, political parties actively seek out new and potential leaders to recruit, train, mentor and promote to positions where they will gain experience in leadership.
This ensures the survival of parties overtime.
But Nigeria’s two major political parties are thoroughly dysfunctional, even against their own long-term interests.
So where would the prospective good leaders emerge for the governors’ offices in even half of the 36 states?
And what half of the 470 seats in both chambers of the national assembly?
And the hundreds of executive and legislative seats at the state and local government levels throughout the country?
The leadership problem in Nigeria is a collective problem, not just in the presidency or governor’s office.
And if change must come, it must be at all levels.
Perhaps the best place to start is where Professor Jega has already started. Make yourself available, and make your friends available too.
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