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Nigeria: The Servant Leader

J.K. Randle

31 July 2007

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opinion

Lagos — To my mind it is an over indulgence and self-serving skepticism to dismiss "Servant Leader" as a cynical ploy, flaky gimmick, vacuous slogan or outright hoax. What would be far more patriotic is to be sufficiently gracious and constructive to accept that our chosen leaders do have the right to present us with the template of their thinking and their vision. It is our responsibility to join them in crafting the road map and filling in the blank spaces. To expect "ready made" or "ready to serve" is an exercise in puerile futility and grandiose illusion.

The obvious starting point is to recognize that for a continent that is confronted with a plethora of problems of unimaginable complexities and magnitude - ranging from poverty to ignorance, hunger, HIV/AIDS, homelessness and hopelessness to environmental degradation, the leader has to be the leader and be seen to lead from the front ! Perhaps, in the Western world and other developed continents where prosperity, stability and democracy are taken for granted there is tolerance for the "Servant" who merely wants to serve while wearing the toga of the leader - or vice versa.

For our continent, the menu is not so appetizing. To start with, let us take a cursory look at the state of education in our continent. I owe my grandmother a debt of gratitude for reminding me of a recent publication in The New York Times, (19th May 2007) by Lydia Polgreen:

"Africa's best universities, the grand institutions that educated a revolutionary generation of nation builders and statesmen, doctors, and engineers, writers and intellectuals are collapsing. It is partly a self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, but it is also the result of international development policies that for decades have favoured basic education over higher learning even as a population explosion propels more young people than ever towards the already strained institutions. The decrepitude is forcing the best and brightest from countries across Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving dozens of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of poverty."

My grandmother is adamant that Africa's leaders (or servants) are endowed with two eyes. Hence, they can afford to keep one eye on education but the other eye must be firmly focused on the economy. Thankfully, we have been provided with the incisive observations and penetrating insights of UBS Investment Bank Research which have unveiled the secret behind the success of the "Asian Tigers":

-We identified two fundamental characteristics of high-growth Asian "tigers":

-savings, and

-exports

From a pure macroeconomic point of view, these are quite simply the only factors that tie countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and China together. You need domestic saving rates of 30% to 35% to generate the investment needed to grow at 8% to 9% year on year. And you need a strong commitment to globalization and export growth in order to pay for the inevitable commodity and capital goods import needs, and provide an outlet for rapid labour-intensive employment growth in order to move excess farm labour out of the country side."

It is instructive that none of the Asian "tigers" has ever been ruled by a Servant Leader !! On the contrary, their leaders were generally pretty much authoritarian - and that is putting matters mildly.

Perhaps at this juncture, we should take a pause and ponder on the 2005 report of "The Commission For Africa" (a British government research organization):

"African universities are in a state of crisis and are failing to produce the professionals desperately needed to develop the poorest continent. Far from being a tool of social mobility, the repository of a nation's hopes for the future, Africa's universities have instead become warehouses for a generation of young people for whom society has little use and who can expect to be just as poor as their uneducated parents."

This scenario has provoked Penda Mbow, a historian and labour activist at Cheik Anta Diop University (formerly the University of Dakar), Senegal to declare:

"Without universities there is no hope of progress, but they have been allowed to crumble. We are throwing away a whole generation."

According to Polgreen, the results are as startling as they are disturbing:

"Universities across Africa have become hotbeds of discontent, occupying a dangerous place at the interception of politics and crime. In Ivory Coast, student union leaders played a large role in stirring up xenophobia that led to civil war. In Nigeria, elite schools have been overrun by violent criminal gangs. These gangs have hired themselves out to politicians thereby contributing to the deterioration of the electoral process there. In Senegal, the university has been racked repeatedly by sometimes violent strikes by students seeking improvements in their living conditions and increases in their tiny stipends for living expenses. Students have refused to attend classes and set up burning barricades on a central avenue that runs past the university."

I hope you will all join me in commending my grandmother who insists that we should forget about geography and concentrate our energies instead on what is happening within our own borders - particularly the public statement by the Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy:

"An estimated N1 trillion (now we no longer talk about millions or billions!!) is lost annually to the activities of social miscreants otherwise known as "Area Boys" The government is deeply concerned about this ugly development and is prepared to tackle it. We are determined to find a solution not only to the criminal activities of the Area Boys but also to traffic snarls (congestion) which are almost paralyzing economic activities in some parts of the state."

Sadly, some of these miscreants are university graduates who have been tramping the streets in search of employment and have finally succumbed to drugs, prostitution and crime.

Needless to add that the Organised Private Sector (OPS) and businesses have for several years been highlighting the gravity of the activities of miscreants and the consequential insecurity of life and property as major disincentives for investment in Lagos. Even more disturbing is the report in Business Day newspaper (11th July 2007):

Headline: "54 MILLION NIGERIANS GO TO BED HUNGRY"

"Civil society organizations in Nigeria yesterday expressed worry over the increasing level of poverty in the country whereby about 54 million Nigerians go to bed hungry daily.

"The organizations under the auspices of Global Call To Action Against Poverty (GCAP) have petitioned President Umar Yar'Adua and the leadership of the National Assembly to find a lasting solution to the menace.

"Sarah Ochekpe, who spoke on behalf of the organizations at a press briefing in Abuja, also stressed the need for renewed commitment and adoption of new strategies by local, and state governments as development partners for attaining the MDGs in the next seven and half years.

"The group which comprises Action Aid International, UNIFEM, UNHCR, UNDP, Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, National Council for Women Societies (NCWS), NTA, Federal Ministry of Education (Home-Grown School Feeding and Health Programme) is expected to present a petition to President Yar'Adua, David Mark, Senate President and Patricia Etteh, Speaker, House of Representatives on Thursday.

Ochekpe expressed pessimism that Nigeria may not be able to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 if government failed to attend to the issue of poverty eradication and ravaging HIV/AIDS pandemic.

"It is time to ascertain what has worked and what has not worked, which strategies need to be strengthened and which ones are to be modified or thrown off."

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