When Nigerians
gather, one invariable topic of discussion is the problem with Nigeria. One solution advanced for fixing Nigeria’s perceived problems is leadership.
The various discussions on leadership that I participated in seemed to
lack clarity on the nature of leadership. As a matter of fact, what was taken for leadership is what one might
call idealistic leadership, which is magical leadership and not real leadership. We, therefore, need to get a good handle on what constitutes
leadership, as opposed to dreams on what leadership is all about. Dreams are different from reality. What leaders
can do is different from what we may dream that they could do.
The human mind is structured in such a manner that it can picture how
everything it
sees ought to be. If one sees a house, a tree, an animal, a human being, anything, one can use one ought imagination
to imagine how what one perceived to be. Our minds have the capacity to appraise an object, appreciate its beauty
or ugliness, and visualize how to improve it.
The tendency to imagine how things ought to be is called idealism. All human beings are
idealistic, but some are more so than others.
Human beings are, as Aristotle tells us, political animals. They live in social groups. Each human being is different
from other human beings. Each human being has a different value system. Each has beliefs as to how society ought to be organized. Because their perception
of how the polity ought to be, ideologies, is different from each other, they necessarily have conflicts.
Wherever there are two or more persons sharing the same space and time,
they tend to have conflicts.
Politics is that set of activities that attempts to bring about harmony
between conflicting human beings. Politics passes laws that enable different human beings to coexist peacefully with each other. Without laws, Thomas
Hobbes (leviathan) tells us that people would be perpetually at war with each other, and that the result would
be anarchy. The strong harm the weak and a band of weak persons harm the strong, thus both the weak and strong
live in insecurity. Life in what Hobbes called the state of nature, that is, the absence of civil authorities,
was nasty, brutish and short.
To secure their safety, human beings, everywhere, find it necessary to
organize themselves in political arrangements. In these arrangements, they give power to some of them, government,
to rule them and, more importantly, to punish any of them that do not respect other persons’ rights.
Aristotle seems correct in asserting that man is a political animal.
(See The Politics of Aristotle.) The question is not whether there would be government or not, but what form it
should take. Whereas
Hobbes visualized an authoritarian government, other observers sought less authoritarian ones. John Locke (Second
Treatise on Government) argued that, in as much as, it was the people that formed government to protect them, that
they have a right to seek a limited government.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (Social Contract) sought a government that merely actualized
the people’s General Will, and does not impose its will on the people. A government is legitimate (in a democracy),
John Stuart Mill (On Representative Governments) tells us, if it represents the people’s aspirations.
Plato (The Republic) believed that there were ideal ways of organizing
the polity. He was an idealist. In his view, archetypes, that is, ideal states of phenomena exist in nature. Ideal
states exist and our function is to try to understand and replicate those ideals in our personal and political
lives.
Are there ideal states in nature? What is self-evident is that human
beings have a tendency to be idealistic. Platonic idealism is reached through ideational processes, and is never
perceived in the empirical world. Idealists use pure thinking and imagination, to figure out what, to them, seem ideal forms of social
organization and then urge society to embrace them.
When I was in secondary school, I used to imagine how everything I encountered
could be improved. Somehow, my mind quickly appreciated the good and bad in whatever I saw, and imagined how to
improve it. Over
time, I used my imagination to figure out how things ought to be.
I encountered African governments. I appreciated their shortcomings.
I imagined how they could be improved. I posited ideal pictures of how African governments ought to be.
Over time, I invented ideals of everything in the world and used those
ideals to judge whatever I saw in the empirical world.
Since my ideals were perfect, they necessarily found imperfections in the real
world. If one uses ideal standards to judge real people and real political institutions, one necessarily must see
them as not perfect.
The empirical world is not the mental world. In our minds, we can imagine
ideals, but in the real world, ideals do not exist.
Our imagination and thinking are like birds; they are free to fly to wherever
they want to. Our
thinking and imaginations are limitless. But in the physical world we live in, in space, time and matter, there are laws that are not of
our making. Those laws limit what we can do.
One can dream of flying to the sun. In the real world, to fly to the sun requires understanding
of physics: the laws of space, time, matter and energy. Those laws limit what one can do and how one can do it. Perhaps, someday we shall
have mechanical contraptions that can travel at the speed of light, 186, 000 miles per second, enabling us to reach
the sun in less than ten minutes. Even then, such devices must be able to withstand the incredible heat in the
vicinity of the sun.
Simply stated, in our thinking, we can think about whatever we want to,
but in the material world, the nature of physical reality limits what we can do.
An idealist is a person who uses his thinking to figure out how things
ought to be, and wants to get things to conform to how his thinking, aka mind, thinks that they ought to be.
Idealism has levels.
Most people are a bit idealistic. But some persons are extreme idealists. The
extreme idealist, Karen Horney
(Neurosis and Human Growth) pointed out, lives mostly in his imagination and thinking. He indulges in excessive imagination to the extent that
he is no longer able to cope with the imperfect reality that is our external world. The extreme idealist uses his
mind to appreciate the imperfections in the material world and uses ideation to conceptualize how they ought to
be.
The neurotic idealist is unhappy with the real world, uses his mind to
figure out alternatives to that real world, and wants to force the real world to conform to his wishes of how it
could be. According
to Horney, the neurotic rejects
his reality, as it is, and wants to invent an ideal form of it.
Generally, he rejects his real self, as it is, and uses his imagination to invent
an ideal self. He
also constructs ideal selves for other people and ideal institutions for society. He then struggles, mightily, to get the real world to
be like the images of perfection he has in his head.
Of course, the neurotic is destined to fail. His struggles to transform the world into ideal forms
of it are futile and doomed from the get go.
He must fail, for reality is not up to him to change.
In failing to change the world to suit his imagination, the neurotic
feels despair. Indeed, some of them feel depressed when the world and other people do not change to become what
they want them to become.
Youthful neurotic idealists tend to become depressed middle-aged persons.
However, it is out of their despair that they finally grow up, and give up childish imaginations of how things
ought to be. A man is grown up when he accepts things as they are, and gives up his infantile desire to make them
into what he wants them to become. It is not up to human beings to change reality and make it what they want. What
is doable is for human beings to diligently study reality, understand how it works, and conform themselves to its
workings.
A person is immature and unrealistic as long as he thinks that it is
up to him to change himself, change other people and change the world. He lives in fantasy world, if he thinks
that he can change reality. First of all, he has not even understood himself, other people and the world. How can
one change what one has not understood? A person grows up, gives up childishness and becomes mature when he recognizes his limitations and
knows that neither he nor other human beings can change their nature, changes the world and accepts himself, other
people, social institutions and the world as they are. When he accepts what is, he then studies it, and tries to
understand it on its own terms, and to the extent that he understands anything, he can work with it, and makes
the little incremental changes that we seem able to make.
An idealistic African, for example, may dream of radically changing Africa and transforming it into North America like. That is not going to happen in a life
time. There are many factors working against the transformation of traditional societies into modern societies.
It will take many generations to overcome these forces of inertia before Africa can be changed.
Science, a realistic methodological approach to phenomena, does not attempt
to change reality, but struggles to understand how it works, and to the extent that it understands it, devises
appropriate technology to adapt to it. Science is not an idealistic but a realistic endeavor. (See Karl Popper,
Conjectures and Refutations, The Logic of Scientific Inquiry.)
Winston Churchill told us that every youth ought to be idealistic and socialistic. In the Communist
Manifesto, Karl Marx and Frederick Engel declared: “from each according to his abilities and to each according
to his needs.” Communism
is the epitome of idealism. It enjoins people to work and contribute to social good and take the little they need to survive
on. Thus
Russian socialists tried to pay every worker the same wage. Alas, people need some incentive to work hard.
Money and prestige are known incentives making people to work hard. If you take away the
opportunity for people to earn money and or become very important persons in their society, many of them would
find it difficult to work hard.
It seems that Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations) is right when he tells us
that self-interest is the best motivator for economic productive activity. Smith tells us that self-centered behavior
is not bad at all. As he sees it, self-interested behavior, aka capitalism, is the best way to distribute resources in an economy. Rational, that is, selfish people want to buy goods and
services cheaply. Producers that figure out efficient ways to produce goods and services cheaply, and sell them at
low prices, tend to find buyers for them. On the other hand, those who sell
their goods and services at higher prices are not bought from as readily. This way, people making self interested choices force
suppliers of goods and services to find the most efficient means of producing them. Thus, self-centered behavior allocates resources in the
most efficient manner.
Mr. Smith argues that planned economies, socialism and communism, are
inefficient means of allocating goods and services in an economy. Morally disgusting as the philosophy of self
centeredness seems to be, Mr. Smith points out that the invisible and blind forces of the market, supply and demand,
work in such a manner as to make for the must optimal allocation of resources in an economy.
(If you are a bleeding hearted liberal, an idealist, Mr. Smith tells
you to go ahead and give away your wealth, voluntarily. Capitalist’s economies encourage philanthropy. But capitalists
insist that goods and services be allocated via the forces of supply and demand, not government planning and distribution.
Planned economies are usually poor economies. An example was the Soviet
Union.)
There is no doubt that the free enterprise economy is the most productive
economy mankind has, so far, devised. All else seem utopian conceptions of reality.
Churchill says that persons under age 35, that is, youths, ought to be
idealistic, and socialistic. He also said that any person over age 35, when real adulthood begins, who has not
given up idealism and socialism is not thinking correctly. In Mr. Churchill’s view, a view rooted in English empiricism
(see David Hume, George Berkeley, David Ricardo), older persons must become realists because experience teaches
them that man is self centered and not altruistic. People pretend to love and care for their neighbors, but when
push comes to shove, they place their self interests above other people’s interests. The adult must embrace tough-minded
realism and give up sentimental and idealistic conceptions of phenomena, Mr. Churchill said.
Political realism, social realism and economic realism do not engage
in wishes that reality change and become what one wants it to be. Realism does not see imperfect human beings, uses mentation to construct how they ought to
be and then tries to force them to become so. Realism observes people and their behaviors as they empirically are,
and accepts them as they are. Realism is not invested in changing reality but in understanding it, as it is, and coping with it,
as it is.
If you observed people, without wishful thinking, you would notice that
they are different in personality structures, have different value system and are pursuing their self-interests,
not social interests.
Self-interest, not social interest, is what motivates people into action,
particularly to working very hard. Realism, therefore, accepts that people are self-centered. Realism does not attempt to change people and make them
less self- centered but works with them as they are, not as they should become.
In Utopia, Thomas Moore, the quintessential idealist, tried to change
people and society, and make them behave in what Christians called agape love: giving something to other persons
without seeking something in return. Christians seem to believe that there is such a thing as altruism in human
nature and that, ultimately, human nature is good. Man may be flawed and is a sinner, but Christians believe that,
at root, before his fall from grace, that man is good. Christianity is an idealistic religion.
Socialism seems an attempt to actualize Christian idealism in secular
political life. Charles Fourier, Robert Owen, Joseph Proudhon, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Bakunin, V.I. Lenin,
and other socialists/communists saw human beings as self centered and used their thinking to visualize different
human beings who were not self centered. They mentally constructed a society where every person helps every other person.
Upon killing his brother, Abel, Cain asked God: Am I my brother’s keeper? Christians and Socialists
answer that existential question in the affirmative.
Realists claim that idealism, be it religious or socialistic is the worst
thing that could happen to man and his society. Indeed, the English realistic school in international politics
(see Edward Carr) considers idealists mentally unbalanced.
They tell us that if idealists come to power that the chances are that society
would go to war.
The idealistic Neville Chamberlain had sentimental views of human nature.
Thus, he did not correctly assess Adolf
Hitler as bent on war, and made the 1938 Munich concessions to Hitler, appeasement, that encouraged Hitler to launch war on Poland in 1939.
Winston Churchill, on the other hand, was a political realist. He had no illusions about
Hitler or any human being for that matter. He assumed that all people were motivated by self-interests. Furthermore, he assumed
that national interests motivate nations. To him, and other realists, war is prevented, not out of a nation’s goodwill, but because of balance
of power.
Monganthau, the
ultimate political realist, tells us that every nation must strive to be as powerful as its neighbors. In his real
politics writings, Henry Kissinger echoes Morganthau’s teachings. If nation A and B were balanced in their power, each would hesitate attacking the other. But the moment one becomes
more powerful than the other, and thinks that it could get away with doing so, it would attack the other and the
result would be war. (See the writings of Machiavelli, Pareto, Metternich, Bismarck, Joseph Schumpeter etc.)
War is prevented not by trusting human good nature but by preparing for
war and making your nation as powerful as other nations.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, John Paine (Common Sense) tells us. If you want freedom,
be prepared to fight and, if necessary, die for it.
If you trust in the goodwill of your neighbor to guarantee your freedom, you
would wake up enslaved by him. His claiming that he is a religionist makes no difference. It is Christian Americans that enslaved
African-Americans.
To the realist, religion is so much sham. Nevertheless, that arch political
realist, Machiavelli (The Prince) told political leaders to manipulate religion, for, in as much as the masses
believe in God, if you want to get their votes and loyalty, you must tell them that you believe in God, even if
you do not. But while in office, Machievilli told you to be a tough minded realist, to arrest and incarcerate your enemies, even kill some of
them, to instill fear of death in the people, and out of fear, that they would obey you.
Men obey governments, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because
they fear death. Governments,
that is, leaders, in Machiavelli’s terms, the Prince, must, therefore, not hesitate arresting and jailing, even
killing people, if they want the masses to obey them and the law.
If you killed a few thousand corrupt Nigerians, the rest of them would
shape up, quickly, too, and give up the nonsense called corruption, not out of religion or a suddenly discovered
need to abide by the law, but because of fear of the hangman. One wonders why no realistic leader has emerged in
Nigeria and used draconian punishment to bring about the rule of law in that bedlam, that madhouse, that
lawless haven.
In international politics, it is believed that the world is a jungle.
The moment
a nation is more powerful than its neighbors, it seeks to conquer them. See, during the cold war, the power of
America and Russia was balanced, both had mutual capacity for destruction and the result was no major war in the world. Then sentimental leaders
emerged in Russia and allowed their country’s military to decay. Russia allowed itself to become weak.
Since then, America has gone conquering other nations, such as Iraq. Misbalance
of power encourages hot war, political realists tell us.
If no other power emerges to check America’s hubris, she will keep fighting
everywhere. See,
the arrogant creatures have now packed their war ships right in Nigeria’s territorial waters, harassing and intimidating traffic in those sea lanes.
Real politics’ scholars are praying for China, or any other country, to become
powerful enough to check America’s unmitigated arrogance. The world is currently in a dangerous situation because of the existence
of a sole superpower, the Hegemon
that attempts to intimidate every one into doing what it wants, not what is right.
It takes power to check power, not sentimental trust in the goodness
of human nature. If
Africans want to be taken seriously in international politics, they must develop both economic and military power,
the two go together. If
a country is powerless, it makes much noise but nobody takes it seriously.
Political realism rules in international politics, and also in domestic
politics. However, in domestic politics, rulers see people as gullible and give them the sop that they are seeking
political office out of the goodness of their hearts, and that they want to help the people. Help the people, indeed.
Nigerian leaders seek political office for their self-interests. They see office as from which they enrich their
pockets. Nigerian
politicians cart Nigeria’s wealth to the West, and send their children overseas. They could care less whether their fellow Nigerians live
or die. In
fact, Nigerian politicians would take the money budgeted to give their own village water and electricity, and bank
it overseas, while their people drink worm infested waters, and die early deaths. The life span of Nigerians is
56.
Do not tell political realists that human nature is good. Just talk about
how to manage people’s self centered behaviors.
As they see it, people are self-centered, and the best you can get out of them,
is to get them to behave in an enlightened self-interested manner. That is, people who are mutually self interested
have no delusions about each other’s goals, and bargain with each other to get what they want from each other.
Structure the polity and economy so that people pursue their self-interests,
while respecting other people’s right to pursue their own self-interests. Pass laws that enable people to compete fair and square,
and punish those who want to cut corners and cheat.
Life is like a game. Posit rules for playing that game. Hire referees to make sure that all play by the rules
of the game and punish those who do not do so. Build jails and prisons to house criminals. (At any point in time,
at least 1% of the population engages in antisocial, criminal activities. Therefore, build enough jails to accommodate that number
of people. At this point in time, at least 1 million Nigerians ought to be in jail, if realists ruled Nigeria.)
Hire hanging judges and tough prosecutors who make sure that those who
disobey the law are arrested, tried and sent to jail.
Recruit mean looking policemen and authorize them to arrest, even shoot to kill,
those who threaten innocent citizens.
Without the agents of law and order, political realists tell us that
society would descend to anarchy. Remove the police from any city, and people go on rampage, pillaging and looting
their neighbors’ property. In other words, it is not the good nature of people that makes for law and order, but the unhesitating
use of the means of coercion in corralling people into obeying the laws of the lands. If you do not punish criminals, no one will obey the laws.
Nigeria has one of the best constitutions in the world.
But nobody implements the provisions of that constitution. Crooks, criminals and corrupt politicians are slapped
on the wrists, rather than put away in jail or shot.
Close your eyes and shoot a few corrupt politicians, Machiavelli told us that
the rest of them, being cowards, would quickly straighten up and stop stealing from the people. But see these criminals in politics as good men, sing
praises to them, as our Juju musicians do, and they rob us down.
In the nature of things, the average human being is a bit realistic and
a bit idealistic. Each of us is a combination of idealism and realism. Very few persons are totally realistic or
totally idealistic.
Hitler was a total political realist. He saw himself as self-centered
and accepted that
fact without apologies. He saw the people as self-centered and set out to manipulate their self centeredness. .
He wanted power. Obeying
Machiavelli’s dictum that the leader should tell the people what they want to hear and do something different,
Hitler told the people lies
about his intensions. He
knew that the people wanted to listen to sentimental stuff about how good man is, and he filled their ears with
such silliness. They
listened and elected him to office. In office, he quickly rounded up his political rivals and eliminated them. He burned down the Parliament
and accused communists of doing so, and under that pretext rounded them up and sent them off to concentration camps.
He arrested and placed undesirables: homosexuals, anarchists, social democrats and even his fellow fascists in
concentration camps. He
even killed the architect of his rise to power, Rohm. He disbanded the SA that had enabled him to come to power,
and replaced it with the SS, that was sworn to loyalty to him.
The man was rootless and that was what it took to acquire and retain power.
(See Hitler’s Mien Kampf, and
Table/ Secret Talks, edited by Trevor Roper.)
The total idealist is a neurotic and or psychotic. The neurotic knows
what reality is, but is unhappy with it; he operates in reality, but resents it. The neurotic tests reality well,
he just does not like it.
The psychotic, on the other hand, has totally escaped from reality. He uses his mind to construct
ideal worlds and pretends to live in them. Thus, if he is poor and powerless, he uses his mind to imagine himself rich and powerful; he believes
himself to be that fantasy. The schizophrenic, the deluded and the manic person, in fact, tells you that he is the richest man
in his world, that he is the president of his country, that she is the most beautiful woman on earth, etc when
he is eating out of garbage cans. The insane person takes his delusions as reality, and hears voices telling him
that his ideals are, in fact, true. (A voice telling him that he is Jesus Christ is his wish to be all important,
as Jesus Christ supposedly is, translated into voices for him to hear.)
On the political spectrum, from left to right….communist, socialist,
liberal, conservative, fascist…most people tend to be in the middle and are moderate centrists.
Those who see government in a positive light are mostly liberal idealists. These people believe
in the power of government and want to use government to right all the wrongs they see in society. They engage
in magical and wishful thinking, that if only they had good leaders, that every thing would be fine in Nigeria.
The political conservative thinks differently. The conservative, in fact,
fears the power of big governments. His experience teaches him that if big governments can do well that it can
also do badly. Big
government can trample the people’s liberties.
Conservatives want limited government. A government with built in checks and
balances, for without those we run the risk of tyranny.
One cannot trust the good nature of governments and rulers for one’s political
liberty. (See the writings of Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aureoles, John Locke, Edmond Burke and other conservatives.)
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?
For as long as there
are human beings on planet earth, there probably have been leaders. However, the formal study of leadership is
relatively recent. Peter
Drucker (see Bibliography)
began to write about management in the 1930s and encouraged the study of management. The study of political leadership
is even more recent. The literature on political leadership is seldom more than fifty years old. This is interesting
considering that for thousands of years people have had governments. Apparently, few observers bothered to study
the characteristics of the leaders of ancient governments.
Leadership is broad
and specific. There is national leadership, and there is leadership in the various walks of life. One can be a leader in politics and one can be a leader
in a specific activity, such as religion, education, business, technology etc. Irrespective of the leadership arena, however, the traits
of leaders seem to be the same. Leaders are people who initiate activity and point the direction for those with
them to go to. Or, if you want to be politically correct, you can say that leaders understand where the people
want to go to, and enable them to get there. In our liberal age, it is a crime to talk about heroic leaders; instead,
one is told to talk of leaders as persons who are led by those they supposedly lead. It is no longer acceptable
talking about great leaders like Napoleon, Von Bismarck, Von Metternich, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Augustus
Caesar, Theodosius, Charlemagne, Genghis Khan, Tamarind, Chaka Zulu and the other great persons who set the direction
for human civilization. Political correctness wanting to equalize every person tells us that the masses select and lead
their leaders. (I am a conservative and, as such, accept innate differences in people; I accept that there are
some persons who possess greater leadership qualities than the norm.)
Leadership is a social
phenomenon. It entails positing goals for a group of human beings and mobilizing them in pursuit of attainment
of those goals.
The leader is a person who has clarity of vision; he sees clearly what
his people need, and what needs to be done to meet those needs. The leader is able to come up with ideas of what
needs to be done to solve the problems he sees in his world. He has initiative and comes up with solutions to perceived
problems. It
is not enough to talk about problems, as Nigerians do; the leader comes up with answers for them.
The leader totally dedicates his self to solving the problems he sees
in his group. He is passionate in pursuing his goals. He is enthusiastic. Those around him are affected by his enthusiasm, his passion
to get things done, and not just talk about them.
He totally commits himself to his goals.
The leader tends to work more hours than the average person. The average
Joe Blow worker puts in his 8 hours of work a day, and goes home. The leader works 14 or more hours a day, seven
days a week. In fact, a leader lives his work, 24 hours a day.
(Have
you ever initiated social activities? Have you seen a problem and set out to solve it?
As a child, did you initiate games, gather other children, assign to them roles
to play and coordinate the play? Have you ever started a business, seen a need, demand for a product or service, and set out to supply
it? If your
answer to these questions is affirmative, then you have leadership traits. If you tend to wait for other persons
to start activities and you merely participate in them, you are a follower, not a leader. Not all people are leaders.
If you have aspirations for leadership, you had better have initiative or learn to develop it. There is debate as to whether leadership qualities are
learned or inherited. I think that it is both).
LEADERSHIP THINKING
A leader easily sees that Nigeria has problems to be solved and
sets out doing so. Nigerians need to get a handle on their political system. Nigeria is an artificial country. The British, Lord Lugard, put Nigeria together. Different tribes were forcefully brought into one polity and governed by a foreign power. Nigeria was kept together by force.
Once that foreign power left, the various tribes became restive and agitated
for a different political order, one where power is shared, rather than imposed on them by an alien power.
So far, Nigeria has not solved the question of what its political structure ought to be like. Clearly, each tribe
wants some independence from the others. Each tribe seeks some leg room to be itself.
Good political leadership would make each of the tribes in Nigeria a state. Nigeria has about 15 large tribes and many minor ones.
Each of the large tribes in Nigeria ought to become a state…as that sagacious Nigerian politician, Obafemi Awolowo, visualized. That gives us 15 states. The smaller tribes can be bundled into five states, to make
for a total of 20 states. (Yoruba state that stretches from Lagos to Ilorin; Igbo state that encompasses all Igbo speaking people, from Ikwerri to Agbo; Hausa
state; Fulani state; Kanuri
state; Ijaw state; Edo State;
Urobo/Ishikiri State; Efik state; Tivi state; Bornu state and so on).
A good leader knows that a multi tribal polity requires federation, not
unitary government, to work. Thus Nigerian would have a federation of twenty states.
There would be a central government and state governments, along the line of the United States of America. The states
would be divided into counties/districts and the counties divided into towns, with each unit of governing having
its own governments, as in the United States local government structure.
Nigeria needs true federalism, such that each tribe, state, feels that it is in charge of its destiny and
have the central government coordinate the affairs of the various tribes/states.
Foreign affairs, military affairs and so on are clearly the function
of the central government. But such issues as education, commerce etc ought to be left to state governments.
We know from experience that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts
absolutely. (Lord Chesterfield, Thomas Jefferson.) To avoid tyranny, Charles Montesquieu told us that we must share
power. As he saw it, if adversaries compete for power, each trying to protect its power base, liberty is maintained
in a polity. Thus Montesquieu recommended that power be divided into the three natural branches of governing: legislative,
executive, and judicial.
One can see a democratically elected legislature at each unit of government,
five year term, six terms limit and (minimum age 35). A National Assembly, preferably a unicameral one, to reduce
duplication of functions and save the taxpayers’ money, and versions of it at state, county and town levels. An
elected executive President/governor/county commissioner/city mayor, six year term, two terms limit (minimum age
45). And a meritocratically appointed judiciary, thirty five year limit (minimum age, 40).
The rudiments of this political structure are already in place in Nigeria. Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution is probably
as good as any in the world. That constitution just needs some tweaking, such as making each tribe a state, to
make it work.
Once the issue of political structure is taken care of, the real task
of governance in Nigeria is begun. We need to provide all Nigerians that desire to work, work. How do we do that? We embark on a policy of industrialization. With single-minded focus,
Nigeria could become industrialized in fifty years.
LEADERSHIP AND
MANAGEMENT TRAINING
How do you go about producing the type of leaders that would accomplish
these seeming idealistic tasks? Train them. We know enough about the nature of leadership that we can train leaders. Leaders posit goals and
use men and materials to accomplish them. Therefore, leaders not only must have visions of what needs to be done but also must have managerial
skills.
What are managerial skills? They are what are taught at business schools. To obtain a Masters in
Business Administration, students are required to take course in business finance, accounting, marketing, production/operations,
human resources, organizational behavior/psychology, business communication, interpersonal relationships, industrial
relationships, general management, supervision, customer care, e-commerce, basic economics (macro and micro economics),
statistics, basic mathematics (up to Calculus level) and so on.
These courses can be taught in a year. I have taken a group of business executives
and taught them these courses in nine months, and they turned out as good as any graduate of our best business
schools.
The only way to understand management is to study it. One year crash
program of training in management must be required of all aspirants to political office.
Leaders deal with politics and, therefore, need to understand something
about politics. However,
they do not need to study political science.
Political science is not a practical field. It is scholastic and suited for the Ivory Tower, not for
actual leaders. In so far that those in leadership positions need to know something about academic politics, they
can be required to take a few political science courses, such as: Introduction to political science, Introduction
to international politics, Introduction to public administration and Public finance. Leaders can gain the knowledge of politics they need from
actual practice, rather than trying to obtain advanced degrees in political science.
Leaders need to understand the nature of law. The polity is a system
of laws. I believe that what Harvard University
is currently doing is the best approach to producing excellent leaders. Harvard now has a four year combined law
and MBA program. The
graduate becomes a lawyer and trained business manager. I believe that this is the best way to produce good leaders,
to train them in law and business practices. Nigerian universities ought to copy Harvard and provide such combined
programs to aspiring Nigerian leaders.
In my judgment, a modern leader needs the equivalent of an MBA and a
law degree to be able to effectively manage our complicated economy and society. We ought to require our political leaders to have such
education.
We do not need PhDs in politics. If you have a doctorate degree, the assumption is that
you are smart. You ought to devote your life to doing scientific research.
Politics is for average human beings dealing with average human beings. A leader must be like
those he is leading. If he were too smart, too ahead of the people, too different from them, he would not make
a good leader. It
requires an average person to understand other average persons.
The human population is 90% average (IQ 85-115) and leaders must lead
these average people. Leaders, therefore, ought to be average, or slightly above average.
About 5% of the population tends to be above average (IQ118-129). These
ought not to waste their time in politics. They are expected to be our professionals, such as medical doctors,
engineers, lawyers and so on.
About 2% of the population tends to have superior intelligence (IQ 130
and above). These people ought to be involved in scientific research and not pretend that the humdrum affairs called
politics would satisfy their intellects’ craving for knowledge.
In the West, politics is generally left to slightly above average persons,
those who mainly had C to B grades while at school. (Al Gore, George Bush and John Kerry were C to B students,
and are excellent candidates for political leadership).
We do not need those who ought to be performing research that produces
cures for our tropical diseases etc wasting their time and energy in politics. Those who had mainly A grades at school must be discouraged from
going into politics; they should be teaching, doing research and writing. Of course, every once in a while, an overly practical
university professor might be appointed to head a government agency, but that ought to be an exception, rather
than the norm. Administration is a boring chore; if you are gifted, it bores you to tears, and you itch for an
opportunity to return to academia, to do research.
Leaders are practical men and women. They are supposed to be realistic and not dreamers or
impractical scholars, intellectuals and artists.
If you are excessively idealistic, for God’s sake, write books on how
things ought to be. We all could read your fiction.
But do not make the mistake of thinking that you could go into politics and
transform the real world into your fictional beliefs as to how it ought to be. Leaders are not persons who sit
around positing ideal standards and using them to judge leaders.
It is idle intellectuals and college professors that are supposed to
judge real leaders with their imaginary ideal standards. It is a well known fact that intellectuals, college teachers
and artists tend to be immature, though highly intelligent. No polity takes the ramblings of scholars and artists
seriously, or permits them to rule it. (Why does one find it necessary to say the obvious? Because Nigerians are under the illusion that
university professors and the so-called PhDs make good leaders; generally, they don’t).
Real leaders are imperfect men and women grappling with imperfect people
and an imperfect world. They do their best but their best is not always good enough. But such is life. It is left to school
boys, college
teachers, intellectuals and artists to criticize leaders, using their academic, that is, unrealistic standards
to do so, and finding them lacking, relative to their ideal standards.
If you want to get into the leadership arena, you must give up your idle
idealism and become realistic. Learn to judge people with imperfect, realistic standards.
Leaders are not critical persons, for to lead men and get them to work
hard, you must praise them. If you do not praise workers, they would not work hard.
If an idealist is made a leader and he brings his critical intellect
to bear on the leadership situation, and criticizes people, they would stop working, and or go on strike.
When an artist or professor becomes a country’s leader, that country
simply becomes unproductive and stagnates. These intellectuals are mere talkers and not doers. Moreover, intellectuals are often cowards and
talk shop, but if you fired a gun into the air they would panic and flee. Leaders are brave men and women, who
would look you in the face, ask you to go ahead and fire the gun that you point at them, and kill them, rather
than relinquish their goals.
Soldiers, particularly ex-generals who have led men at war, tend to make
the best political leaders. In fact, no one should go into politics who has not served in the military. Those who
have started their own businesses tend to be almost as good as soldiers in political leadership.
Scholars and administrators are the worst candidates for leadership.
See Max Weber, On Bureaucracy. Please pay attention to his description of political and bureaucratic personalities,
and his view that the bureaucrat, who these days we might call the technocrat, is not meant for political leadership.
Do not make the mistake of making bureaucrats and college professors leaders, they are lacking in initiative, and
vision and are excessively procedural. They seem unable to get out of the box and see things differently, a necessary leadership behavior.
A bit of rascality is desirable in political leaders. Leaders are not angels, they are men capable of making decisions
that send people to their death, and are comfortable with such decisions. Leaders must be comfortable in their
own skins and not be what Whyte
called Organization men and David Riesman called other directed persons.
(Woodrow
Wilson was a college professor and president of Princeton University. He also served as the
governor of New Jersey.
Americans made the mistake of electing this academic their president. This hopeless idealist proposed to save the
world. His 14 point plan aimed at making the world a democracy.
Luckily, his utopian plan was rejected by Congress. In the meantime, a naive
international community embraced Wilsonian plans and stated the League of Nations on that basis. They ignored the reality of differences in power and made all members of the League
coequal. The result was that the League was lacking in effect. After the Second World War, more realistic politicians
restructured the League into today’s United Nations and gave decision making authority to the five great powers.
Today, sentimental thinkers, like Kofi
Annan, want to restructure
the UN and give powerless countries like Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, India and Brazil membership in the Security Council. This is absolute nonsense. Germany and Japan deserve membership in the Security
Council, but not the other hapless countries mentioned as potential members. Idealism cannot be permitted to color
our realistic judgments. Nigeria first must industrialize and
become a military power before she has delusions of grandeur. A poor country, whose economy will collapse, if the
oil money that keeps it going goes caput, has no business hoping to join the big boys of America, Russia and China in determining the fate of the
world. A country that cannot provide its people with jobs, and cannot feed its people, so that many of them run
to America and work as modern version of African slaves, performing menial jobs that white persons do not want
to perform, has no business wanting to be a member of the Security Council.)
LEADERSHIP VISION QWEST
So you think that Nigeria needs education in technical subjects (applied science, both at the university and trade school
level)? Okay,
work to build such schools in Nigeria.
The annual graduating class of our universities ought to compose of,
at least, 30% engineers. A developing country needs engineers more than it needs sociologists. Therefore, Nigeria ought to devote resources to
education in science and applied science.
We know that at least 33% of any population can do university work. So let us build enough
universities to accommodate at least 33% of all secondary school graduates in Nigeria. That would translate to about
a thousand universities in Nigeria. Build them, now, not tomorrow. Where there is a will, there is a way. Do it, just do it, do not
give us excuses why it cannot be done.
All Nigerian children need elementary and secondary school education.
So let us budget enough money to build the number of schools that could accommodate all Nigerian children in elementary
and secondary schools. Do it now, not tomorrow, no rationalizations for not doing it is acceptable. We have had
enough excuses why Africans are unable to do the right things, not governing themselves well. We do not want to hear another excuse, how other people
are responsible for whatever is wrong with Africa, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Walter Rodney). It is children that make excuses for their shortcomings.
It is time for Africans to grow up. Adults recognize their shortcoming and still do their best.
Nigeria needs those who can fix things, technical persons. We need mechanics, machinists, electricians, carpenters,
plumbers, masons, electronic technicians, nurses and other technicians. Every thing built in Nigeria soon is in a state of disrepair.
We need to learn to fix things, not just build them. So let us build trade schools everywhere in Nigeria. If 33% of secondary school graduates go to universities,
at least 50% of the rest of the graduates ought to go to trade/technical schools, where they are taught how to
fix things.