Leadership (Abuja)
Ken Nnamani
18 May 2008
opinion
Today is a special day. It is special because I am about to achieve one of the passions of my life. With the help of great leaders across the continent and our humble and disciplined President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, a Centre for Leadership and Development is about to be launched. This Centre represents to me a dream fulfilled. Both as a young professional and now as a politician I have felt deeply concerned about the role of leadership in facilitating economic and social transformation. As a graduate student in the United States watching Senators banter and dialogue on television and in town hall meetings, I formed a vivid impression of how leaders shape their countries' destiny. Back to Nigeria and joining the political class, I also observed the incalculable damage a bad leadership can have on the social and moral psyche of a society. In Nigeria, we have had both good and bad experiences of leadership.
These experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly, have fired me with the zeal to establish a centre that will conduct high-level research and analytical studies on leadership. If I have to put the motivation behind my commitment to establish a durable and credible leadership centre in a single sentence it would be summed in this simple sentence: "Leaders make the difference". Furthermore, if I have to· point to one single experience that reinforced my commitment in this pursuit, it is my experience as the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 2005 to 2007. The period was memorable and daunting.
I longed for organized support and structured resources to help me cope with the burdens of leadership of the legislative branch of business. I did not find much institutional support outside the Senate during my tenure as Senate President. My experience as a former leader of an important branch of government convinced me of the extreme urgency and importance of a vibrant centre for leadership.
Why have a centre dedicated to leadership? How does leadership make the difference? What matters most, the leaders or the followers? What makes the real difference in human history: the great man of history, congenial moment or environment? There are so many questions on leadership begging for answers.
But it is incontrovertible that leadership makes the difference whether in public or private sector. The quality of leadership sets countries and institutions apart. Some of the countries that model innovation and prosperity in the modern world are young nations founded and nurtured by great leaders. For more than a decade Botswana has been one of the world's fastest growing economies. This land-locked country has now become a posterchild of democracy and development because of the leadership genius of its founding President, Dr. Seretse Khama. Dr. Khama endowed this young nation with a leadership culture that has made it a paragon of political stability. While other African countries boil under the ferment of political succession, Botswana continues to pass the leadership baton to the hands of generations of successors groomed by Dr. Khama.
Outside Africa, Singapore provides another model of the different quality which leadership can make to the destiny of nations. Before 1960, Singapore was just another seaport in the Peninsula. It was also a British colony. But, today, Singapore is a man-made city. Its founder and inspirational leader, Lee Kuan
Yew, nurtured Singapore from a mere 600 yards island intoAsian financial and trade centre of the world. Singapore has one of the world's highest Per Capita Income and its state-owned airline is the world's favorite airline. Although Singapore is a small CityState it does not know significant political conflicts. Governance is orderly and the dominant authoritarian ethic is moderated by an honest and open system of government that is merit-based. Lee Kuan Yew himself offers the secret of Singapore's greatness as great leadership. He argues that "leaders must have that sense of trusteeship, that they are only temporarily in charge of the destinies of their people and that their duty is not only to discharge that trust but also to pass it on to equally trustworthy and competent hands". His classic reflection on leadership: From "Third World to the Firsf' has become the authoritative text of transformative leadership.
Leaders make the difference. Closer home to Nigeria, we have the example of our neighboring country, Ghana. The great Kwame Nkrumah made Ghana the pride of Africa. His radical and purposeful leadership made Ghana not only the rising star of Africa but also the rallying point of Pan-Africanism. Then the slide began under series of rapacious military rulers until Lt. Col. Jerry Rawlings came to the scene. Rawlings' transformative leadership repositioned Ghana and ushered an era of sustainable economic growth and political stability. Leadership has made tremendous difference in sub-nationalities. In the 1960s, Eastern Nigeria was the fastest growing economy under the pragmatic and humane leadership of Dr. Michael Okpara. Today, Okpara's legacy is lost under the watch of less than patriotic and competent leaders. The same can be said of the economic and political success of Northern Nigeria under the great Sarduana, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello.
So many economic reasons have been adduced for the tremendous economic success oftheAsian Tigers and Dragons. It has been suggested that these economies grew because they invested in education and human capital development and focused on export rather than just import substitution like African countries. Other economists also emphasize the beneficial geographical and environmental factors that located some of these countries like Singapore along the major trade routes of the world. Economists like Robert Wade and Ms. Kruger have emphasized the important role of governments of this region to undertake wise and innovative economic policies which consist largely in using the market to govern rather than allowing the market to govern. No matter the economic reasons for the breathtaking successes of the Asian economies, without quality leadership they would have still remained basket economies.
I readily agree with Gyimah-Boadi and van de Walle that "All the factors identified as keys to the success of economic reform in the recent literature are, in fact, dependent on effective political leadership. These include the government's level of understanding of economic issues, its commitment to reform, the insulation of key technocrats, and its ability to build coalitions on behalf of reforms" (Agenda for Africa Renewal, 1996, page 294). It is leaders who select workable policy options and conditions society through the power of words and credible behavior to accept the difficulties and maximally exploit the opportunities which these policies bring about. Without great and persuasive leaders, the citizens of these prosperous countries would not have accepted those bitter pills that go with economic reforms. Without good leadership good policies may not avail much. We need great leaders to lead positive changes.
Nigeria follows most Sub-Saharan countries in falling far behind in achieving economic growth and human development. These countries also fall behind in Freedom House Index of human liberty and freedom. Unfortunately, they also fall behind the advanced Indo-European countries in political stability indicators. Recently, Sub-Saharan failure of development has been attributed to failure of leadership. In a study of leadership in
Africa, the Harvard University's Institute of International development observes that African economic development has been hampered by corrupt leaders who interfere capriciously with the market in order to secure benefits for themselves and their cronies to the detriment of the public good (see Clive Gray and Malcom McPherson, The Leadership Factor in African Policy Reform and Growth Development, Discussion Paper No. 703)
In the past weeks, stunning revelations have been coming from legislative hearings on major sectors of the Nigerian economy. We have heard of massive abuse of power and privileges, and even outright theft of public funds. The laudable program of privatization has turned out to be asset-stripping and the conversion of state resources into private ownership without due process and appropriate addition to public value. We may be tempted to just sensationalize the revelations and conclude that they are matters of personal moral failings of the indicted persons. No! These revelations expose a greater crisis in the institution of leadership. They reflect the social capital of leadership. These are not individual failures. They show institutional crisis that require institutional remedies.
Thank God President Yar'Adua has stepped in with 'servant leadership' and the ideal of a rule of law state. We cannot but support Mr. President in his demonstrated commitment to due process. But, we must not fail to point out that the classic failure of leadership in Nigeria and other African countries relates more to the absence of quality institutions that support good leadership. Good leadership is nurtured through quality intellectual engagement of all sectors of society. The mistake of the past has been to leave the burden of leadership to the so-called political class. But, leadership is so important to be left to politicians alone. Except we develop a leadership complex- made up of research centers, advocacy groups and think-tanks- Africa may not develop a sustainable culture and structure of transformative leadership.
Ki Moon, stated that no African country is on course to meeting the Millennium Development Goals before 2015. It is depressing that in spite of the awesome resources of a country like Nigeria she cannot halve poverty by 2015. As the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe argued in his book, The Trouble with Nigeria, there is nothing wrong with the Nigerian people or the Nigeria geography or climate. Nigeria's economic and political crises relate squarely to failure of leadership.
The Mission of Ken Nnamani Centre for Leadership & Development:
The Ken Nnamani Centre is conceived to fill the gap in institutional leadership modeling for Nigeria and other African countries that run the risks of being permanently left behind in the race against time for freedom and prosperity. The vision of the centre is to become a veritable platform to facilitate qualitative and transformative leadership and development in Africa. The idea behind the centre is the strong belief that ideas and words matter. We share the views of the former British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, that with words we govern men. Ideas create structures, and structures determine outputs. Our mission is to promote responsible, transformative and democratic leadership through research, scholarship and capacity building.
The passion and the vision that drive the centre are built on the pillar of collaboration. We believe that a new partnership is what Africa needs to stand on its feet. The eighth goal of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) focuses on building partnership for international development. This partnership is between the rich and the poor nations. The rich nations undertake to provide financial support to the poor countries in order to enable them meet the daunting challenges of poverty and underdevelopment. The poor nations on their part undertake to govern transparently and implement efficient policies that ensure accountability. This partnership is what can guarantee that the world achieves its grand dream of making poverty history.
The Ken Nnamani Centre proposes a similar partnership to entrench the culture and institutions of transformative leadership that will help unlock the tremendous potentials in Africa. This partnership is a tripartite partnership between government, business and the civil society. We must begin to leverage resources and insights from different sectors to enhance the provision of public values. It must be observed that such privatepublic-non-profit partnership enabled the successful continents of Europe, America and Asia to escape the scourge of poverty and instability.
Africa is not an exception. What worked in other continents can work in Africa. Just as great corporations like Ford and Sony have supported the development of research. institutes and policy think-tanks that produce the ideas that drive economic and social transformation, so should African great corporations like the banks, the telecommunication companies and manufacturing firms invest in the production of knowledge, especially knowledge about leadership. There is a great corporate social responsibility. Good governance is in the interests of small and big businesses. As they say, a good tide raises all boats. If the African continent raises its human capital and increases household prosperity through competent and honest leadership, then there is a bigger market to meet the innovation of our entrepreneurs. A poor country is a small and unstable country that lacks a meaningful market.
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