New York [RR] ABUJA–Nigeria is plagued with chronically inept leadership and burdened by a loud, vociferous and critical, but largely ineffective followership. Nigeria’s leadership is inept, not because it lacks credentials. There are proportionally, more PhDs and Professors in the Nigerian cabinet than you will find in a University Department, yet we remain trapped in the mire of underdevelopment. Nigeria’s leadership is inept because of its inability to attract effective talent, motivate its people, and translate the innate potential of the nation towards true greatness. Few things in Nigeria are done with deliberation.

[PHOTO: Malcolm Fabiyi]

Our national strategy is to “wait and see”. We await the next crisis, and when it inevitably occurs, we scrap together a committee peopled with the usual parade of traditional rulers, Bishops and Imams, Professors and retired military officers, Labor leaders and pseudo-activists – and charge them with producing a white paper on the crisis. More can be said about the dearth of leadership in Nigeria, but that is not the focus of this article. 

Nigeria’s followership is loud and ineffective because all that it does is talk. Loud, boisterous, garrulous and banal talk – that is all we do. In Newspaper editorials, internet chat rooms, on twitter, facebook, in beer parlors, market squares and bus stop libraries, our voices loudly bemoan the state of the country. We blame everything under the sun for our problems – from a colonial experience that ended over 50 years ago, to the poverty of leadership & ideas that currently afflicts us and our ethnic & religious differences. 

We are blessed with a marvelous ability to convince ourselves that we are the victims of circumstances that we conjured into existence. We talk as if these leaders that we denounce at every turn were dropped on us from outer space, forced on us by malevolent beings intent on seeing our national tragedy extended. We conveniently forget that we voted them in ourselves, with our very own hands. We seem to forget also that national growth has roles not just for those who lead, but for those who follow as well. 

As a people, we spend too much time debating whether we should stay together as a nation. No household can move forward unless there is agreement that the marriage that bind that house will last. A couple who are convinced they will soon divorce will not sit together to make long term plans. Nigeria is a marriage, consummated between the ethnic nationalities that make up the nation and as long as we entertain all this errant talk about separation, national progress is held at bay. 

Our standards for the minimum conditions necessary for nationhood are skewed and irrational. Some argue that Nigeria should split because there are still lingering tensions between Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities. Such folks either do not understand the history of nations that they hold up as examples of perfect unity, or they choose to forget their history lessons. About 85 years after America became independent, 16% of its population, an entire race of men and women were slaves. The American Civil War (1861-1865) ultimately settled the question of slavery, but it did not settle the question of equality.  It took the Civil Rights Movement and the sacrifice of people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, for discrimination to be outlawed with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was about 200 years after America became an independent nation, and 100 years after a Civil War fought largely over the same issue!  

An entire region in Canada – Quebec, which is predominantly French – has agitated to be a separate nation for ages. The Basques in Spain have had their own dalliance with separatism. In Belgium, the Walloons (French Speaking) and Flemish (Dutch) have lingering issues. In Turkey, Kurdish elements have waged a perennial struggle for independence. In Britain, it was only in 1997 that power was devolved to Scotland and Wales allowing for limited self-governance by these nations. In 2014, an independence referendum is scheduled in Scotland to determine if their 300 year union with England should continue. Inter-ethnic tensions are not unique to Nigeria. And besides, who is to say that the breakup of Nigeria into ethnic nationalities will resolve all the current conflicts that afflict us? Form a Niger Delta republic and the Itshekiri and Urhobo might still continue with their rivalries, and surely the conditions that led to Andoni-Ogoni tensions will not suddenly dissipate. Create an O’odua republic and the Ifes and Modakekes will still have their problems. Establish a Biafra republic and you might still have crisis like the Aguleri-Umuleri conflict. We need to accept the fact that a nation without conflict is an unrealizable utopia. Most nations are in a continuous quest to create a more perfect union. But not Nigerians – we want unity on a platter of gold. We want the benefits of nationhood, without engaging in the hard task of nation building. Nations are not perfect. Even families have their feuds. It is the duty of a nation’s citizens to find a path to progress in spite of the differences that exist between them.

There is also a very sad and false narrative that has emerged in the discourse about what Nigeria’s fate should be. The entire Northern region is depicted as comprising of nothing but freeloaders and hangers-on, a parasitic appendage that is bleeding Nigeria dry.  The purveyors of national dismemberment are united in saying the excision of the North is the first step that should be taken if Nigeria is to be split. This same North that produced the Shehu, Othman Dan Fodio, his daughter Asmau and his brother Abdullahi – who between them penned over 200 books, and 600 works in poetry, law, administration and religion. This same North that produced the first literate Nigerians (first using Arabic as the medium of learning, and later Fulfulde as well). This same North that had established the Almajirai public school system as early as the 12th Century AD  in the Borno Province and more extensively in the early 1800s following the Dan Fodio Jihad. This same North that birthed an empire – the Sokoto Caliphate – that spans 10 present day African countries. This same North whose agricultural produce was the stuff of legend (the groundnut pyramids of Kano, the cotton fields of Northern Nigeria, etc) is now considered to be a drain on the Nigerian nation, and the cause of all that is wrong with it. If a tiny group of Northern leaders have failed Nigeria in the past, should the entire region be blamed for their failures? No region in Nigeria suffers the privations that our Northern brothers are forced to endure. Poverty, illiteracy and disease are more prevalent in the North than anywhere else in Nigeria. The Northern masses are therefore victims too. All those who believe that the Northern masses have done nothing to rid themselves of the oppressive feudalistic leadership that has held them captive, should avail themselves of some lessons in history.

They should learn about the Northern Talakawa movement. They should review the story of NEPU (Northern Elements Progressive Union) and Aminu Kano’s People’s Redemption Party (PRP) and the heroic battles that these organizations led against the feudal oligarchs that have held the North in a stranglehold. That history lesson will be incomplete if the complicity of the colonial British government in the ascendancy of the feudal Northern People’s Congress (NPC) over NEPU in Northern politics is not considered. 

There are also those who call for a sovereign national conference where all of Nigeria’s issues should be discussed. A sovereign national conference would be wonderful. But, will it happen without organization? The answer is no. Like it or not, we have an elected parliament. Do we really expect that a group of elected officials will repudiate their own mandate and turn the power of representation over to a sovereign national conference? How will the delegates to such a sovereign conference be selected or elected? These fundamental issues have not been addressed. We have called for a sovereign national conference for over a decade. What concrete steps have been taken in all that time to advance the cause, if we are really serious about it? What national association, movement or party has been put together to coordinate actions that will lead to a successful conference of Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities? Has something as simple as a national signature collection effort ever been initiated to drive the cause into the national consciousness? Has a bill calling for the rights of the people to advance causes that might have not have the backing of the political elite through the referendum process ever been proposed to the National Assembly by any of us who claim to speak and act for the Nigerian masses? Such a bill on the right for referendum (if passed) could enable us to develop a legal pathway that can allow a simple majority of the Nigerian people to legally force a sovereign national conference on an unwilling parliament? All we do is talk. Like our fire-brigade approach to governance, Nigeria’s followership stays quiet until some misstep by Government suddenly galvanizes us to seasonal action. Would the “Occupy Nigeria” protests have happened without the self-inflicted subsidy removal debacle of the Jonathan government? We are titillated by the Arab Spring revolts and desirous of replicating its far reaching socio-political results. But we forget that those revolts were not the result of some spontaneous, uncoordinated, random protest. 

Again, some lessons from other nations will suffice. The American people are as frustrated with their leaders, as we are in Nigeria. Congressional approval hovers at about 12%, an abysmally low value. Like Nigeria, the political process is too expensive and many openly call their congress the millionaire’s congress, and argue that the congress is demographically, culturally and politically out of step with the American populace. Well-oiled politicians tend to win elections in America. Occasionally, access to money and ideals might coincide – as was the case with Barack Obama, who was fueled to the Presidency in 2008 with a war chest of $750 million provided by an army of about 3 million donors (this was the most that any person had ever spent on a presidential campaign). Unlike Nigeria, the average US Citizen does not carry out activism solely via social media. How then do concerned citizens in America and other nations manage to ensure that their ideas and views are heard even when they are not happy with their government? In America, there are hundreds of Civil Society groups focused on nothing other than the channeling of ideas to the political process. it is to these groups that they turn to give life to ideas and ideals that they hold dear. 

Ask a Nigerian where the worst Nigerians are and they will tell you they are in Politics. Ask them where the best Nigerians are, and they will tell you they are in the Private Sector. Yet, the so called best of us in the private sector sit on our hands, tweeting and texting about our disillusionment with government, while miraculously expecting the “worst of us” to come up with cutting edge policy positions, and solid ideas for socio-economic growth. Such an expectation is plain lunacy. A government that has run out of ideas will not suddenly be jarred into creativity and genius because we are writing newspaper or web articles that are critical of their actions. No one can give what they do not have. We criticize, hopefully because we believe we have better ideas. And if we do, those ideas should not lie only in our minds. They should be packaged into bills and legislative proposals. We should find ways of ensuring that those ideas are considered and hopefully, even passed into law. Over 60% of the Nigerian National Assembly is replaced in each election cycle. The major argument used by their opponents is the fact that in four years of being in the National Assembly, the incumbents pushed no bills and proposed no legislation. Believe it or not, Nigeria’s do nothing legislators are looking for bills to pass, albeit for selfish political reasons & self-preservation. 

We must wake up to our responsibilities as a people. We all have roles to play in moving Nigeria forward. We have talked enough. It is now time for action. Nigerians will find allies in the National Assembly that will push bills put together by concerned groups of Nigerians, who come together informally or formally to advocate for positions they believe in. and were we do not find ready allies, we should engage in advocacy, protests, lobbying, occupation, and rapprochement & do whatever is necessary to ensure that our voices are heard. That is what happens in all nations that are making progress. That is what needs to begin to happen in Nigeria.

Culled to RepublicReporters by Dr. Malcolm Fabiyi, FCT, Abuja

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