In the early 80s, the world-renowned novelist Chinua Achebe of Nigeria wrote the book, “The Trouble with Nigeria”, and presented the position that leadership is the greatest challenge of his country. Some mocked him and said his analysis, along with his conclusion, was simplistic and unreflective of the complexity of the Nigerian condition. Really? But Achebe has been proved right after nearly 40 years…
Every president over-promises and under-delivers — Daniel Horowitz, US lawyer and writer.
Fifty eight years after Nigeria gained independence, its leaders seem not to know what to make of the enormous capital flowing from its sovereignty. The country has dealt in meretricious politics over the decades that has given birth to a correspondingly trifling superstructure or institutions that have stunted growth, rather than enhanced it. Which is why after nearly twenty years of civil rule, we still refer to our democracy as a nascent one.
Our rulers plead for understanding and patience when our people cry out that they aren’t witnessing the dividends of democracy as promised by the large army of public office holders maintained by the state. When they are on the hustings crisscrossing land and sea, the politicians exhaust the strong room of promises to entice the electorate. But when performance doesn’t match promises, the official riposte is that this experiment with democracy is not old enough to generate the wealth and prosperity promised. They say it will take a seemingly longer period to get to the dividend-creation age. Rome was not built in a day, according to them. After all, they argue, the greatest nation on planet earth has behind it more than two hundred years of existence that have enabled it land where it is at the moment.
Now this is an unacceptable excuse offered to cloak the incompetence and selfish leadership Nigeria has suffered since independence. Development of a polity isn’t about its age or longevity of its existence. It’s about the management of its resources (lean or large); about how a group of privileged compatriots turn in selfless leadership conduct to address the challenges of their people; about how you put the greatest resources of all, namely the people, into profitable use through the education, medicare and other welfare packages you factor into their lives.
Current realities prove this many times over: How long a nation has existed is not the key determinant of its success. The old Soviet Union didn’t have to be in existence for a century to beat the much older United States of America at the game of space exploration. In less than half a century after the 1917 revolution, the Soviets sent man into space, a feat the Americans couldn’t achieve in nearly two hundred years. Greece and Italy have come from a richer history of achievements in the arts and sciences. But today, they lag miserably behind in the roll call of the most advanced countries of the world.
In Nigeria, we should cease mouthing the lack of experience as the devil in the details in our march these past 58 years. We should bring down the flag proclaiming our democracy is nascent. The world would laugh at us, as it knows that we are not facing the reality of the cause of our stagnation.
Each Independence anniversary we look back to notice that despite what appeared to be a hopeful start on October 1, 1960, with limitless human and natural resources, including vast land (the envy of the world) at our disposal, we’ve had leeching leaders who live only on promises they never fulfil. In other words, they are monsters on promises and weaklings on delivery.
The point is that Nigeria has been failed and felled by its leaders over the decades. Each Independence anniversary we look back to notice that despite what appeared to be a hopeful start on October 1, 1960, with limitless human and natural resources, including vast land (the envy of the world) at our disposal, we’ve had leeching leaders who live only on promises they never fulfil. In other words, they are monsters on promises and weaklings on delivery. If we give one hundred years more for the experiment to mature, we shall be saddled with the same feeble excuses of a growing or evolving democracy.
Those chronicling what is going on in the giant of Africa liken the country to a good football team suffused with all-time legends like Pele, Garrincha, the two Ronaldos, Maradona, Messi and Ronaldinho, but alas, with a coach of middling pedigree! The team will not fly despite the parade of such a galaxy. The coach will reduce them to his own puny position and subject the boys to global ridicule. The team would receive humiliating bashing at the hands of small clubs with far less intimidating names. A giant must be tended by the fingers of a giant, if he must not drop to the low of a dwarf. When a Lilliput leads a race of giants, it’s a process to transform them to a race of pigmies.
In the early 80s, the world-renowned novelist Chinua Achebe of Nigeria wrote the book, The Trouble with Nigeria, and presented the position that leadership is the greatest challenge of his country. Some mocked him and said his analysis, along with his conclusion, was simplistic and unreflective of the complexity of the Nigerian condition. Really? But Achebe has been proved right after nearly 40 years of the country sitting atop ginormous wealth in the custody of its leaders, with little to show for it.
Your resources would amount to nothing in the face of leadership poverty.
So, if Bill Clinton said of the US during his presidency, “It’s the economy, stupid,” I say of the Nigerian situation, “It’s leadership, stupid!”
Banji Ojewale writes from Ota, Ogun State.
