There are two kinds of people: Those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group, there is less competition there- Indira Ghandi.
I often feel ashamed discussing how Nigerian leaders have been unable to articulate and justify the reasons why they are in the positions they find themselves. One of our poorest reference points in Nigeria today is Zamfara State, a state where the governor recently cried out that he could no longer perform the duty of chief security officer of the state because herdsmen and armed militia keep coming into the state to sack the villages. That could be an honest declaration, considering the state of our security in Nigeria.
Zamfara is not strange to the news. The Chief Executive of the state, Alhaji Abdul'aziz Abubakar Yari was elected Governor of Zamfara State, Nigeria in the 26 April 2011 national elections. His greatest claim to newsworthiness is when he wantonly declared that the state was attacked by and outrage of meningitis because of the lifestyle of his people. His belief was that God was punishing his people with the ailment because they had been sinful. Zamfara is one of the most backward states in Nigeria. It has a penetration for vaccination as low as 2%, it also has the highest occurrences of child marriage among girls who have barely reached puberty and the lowest number of students who have attempted WAEC in the country. Simply put, in spite of fertile land and massive farming potentials, Zamfara is still way out in the 19th century. A former governor of the state Senator Ahmed Yerimah has been accused of marrying under aged girls on more than one occasion. Yerimah is the architect of the Sharia Law in Zamfara state which he governed for eight years during the Obasanjo administration.
Alhaji Yari the current governor of Zamfara is also the Chairman of the Governor’s forum of Nigeria, an association of which every governor in the country is a member. You can’t help but wonder the kind of banter that would occur in a association of governors with such leadership.
There are states in Nigeria that are far more developed than Zamfara. In fact Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Lagos poll as some of the top states in the area of development. But again we need to be very clear in our analysis. How quickly are these states developing? What trends are their chief executives taking note of and who are they benchmarking? State Senate leader Kevin de León recently claimed at the Democratic National Convention that California in the United States has "the sixth largest economy on planet Earth." This hypothetical comparison rests on California's $2.4 trillion GDP, which moved slightly above that of France and Brazil in 2015 to sixth in the world. Lagos probably has the largest economy in West Africa with a monthly IGR that borders the N34billion mark Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, has described the state as the fastest growing mega city in the world, just as he revealed that it’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has hit $136 billion. This all sounds good but In spite of these figures, much is left to be desired in Nigeria’s economic development. Nigeria is in flux. Public spending does not show enough investment in the teeming population in the country. Health care delivery is at its lowest ebb, transport is mainly by road, Apapa Port the nations gateway to import and export is permanently in a gridlock, electricity is unstable.
Certain questions arise from the gaps in development from one state to another. Why are the gaps in state development so wide and far from each other and with so few in between? Even with Zamfara as our worse and Lagos as our best much is still needed to be done. The answer is of course leadership! African countries cannot be said to lack resources. In fact Nigeria is an example of a country that has all the resources that can be thought of but with little or nothing to show for it. Ghana is another. Mensa Otabil a Pastor and Chairman to numerous corporations in Ghana described leadership as “the process of influencing others to realize beneficial aspirations”. Most Africans leaders and indeed Nigerian leaders lack this skill. The country needs leaders that are not Czars and Emperors like many of the governors tend to appear. Leaders who are not oppressing, not suppressing but are willing to promote goals and values that influence a majority of people, so that people would follow them, not for their power and money, but for their vision. Nobody seems to thinking about the future. How do we occupy our restive youth population? What should be our plans 10 or twenty years from now? Zimbabwe in spite of all the economic and political trouble it has faced recently convened a group of experts to discuss how the country could have an economy worth $500billion! Nigeria is buy grappling with N9trillion and we cannot seem to see beyond that. Are these leaders forward thinking?
A former governor of the Zamfara state, Senator Ahmed Yerimah has been accused of marrying under aged girls on more than one occasion. Yerimah is the architect of the Sharia Law in the state which he governed for eight years during the Obasanjo administration. Yerimah is now in the senate and yet his state is even more backward than he left it.
As we totter in a fragile economy that depends mainly on oil exports in which our budget and planning office is celebrating 2% growth, we all ought to be worried about the future. We keep reminiscing over the impact of our founding fathers: Awolowo, Azikiwe and Amadu Bello. Perhaps its because we have not seen such politicians in the current breed. How long will our economy depend on oil to balance things out? How long will state governors wait for allocations from Abuja before they can pay salaries, let alone develop their states. There is a big gap in the intellectual prowess of today’s politicians. They seem to think once they are comfortable, then everything is okay.Peter Drucker, management guru, captures it in a quote:"Chief executives are not there own masters. They are servants of the organization whether elected or appointed, whether the organization is a government a government agency, a business, a hospital, a diocese. Its their duty to subordinate their likes, wishes and preferences to the welfare of the institution." Nigerian leaders seem to think different.May God help Nigeria. We simply cannot continue this way.
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