LEADERSHIP AND NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION IN NIGERIA

BEING THE FULL TEXT OF THE LECTURE ON LEADERSHIP AND NATIONAL TRANSFORMATION IN NIGERIA DELIVERED BY SENATOR ABUBAKAR BUKOLA SARAKI AT THE OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY(OAU). INTRODUCTORY The invitation extended to me to be the Guest lecturer in this year’s Distinguished Lecture series is indeed a great honour. I must thank the Vice Chancellor, the Dean of the Department of Political Science, Obafemi Awolowo University for considering that I should share these thoughts of mine with you. I am very pleased to be here. The topic assigned to me for this lecture is “Leadership and National Transformation in Nigeria”. In truth, the concept of leadership is multifaceted and it will be too obtuse for this lecture to focus at all the various dynamics and facets of leadership. Our purpose will be restricted to political/public sector leadership that enable national transformation as opposed to private sector or informal leadership. We shall consider how quality leadership can give rise to national transformation. We will evaluate how the power message/story rather than authority could make all the difference. We will also explore the proposition that Nigeria needs transformational leadership and examine those traits that make for transformational leadership. We examine transformational leadership as a key mobilizer of national development and how if properly harness and harvested leads a nation to greatness. This paper will therefore, seek to reiterate the special value this kind of leadership brings to national transformation. Let me say from the onset that in discoursing the issue of transformational leadership, I will be utilizing universal illustrations to drive my point. I will also avoid local experiences in order not to evoke parochial sensitivity and maintain the integrity of this discourse as an intellectual interaction. In all however, I seek not to make or claim exhaustive knowledge of the entire import of the concept of leadership, but would invite and provoke you the experts to come with me in search of this holy grail for national transformation. I therefore hope that this lecture will be as interactive, robust and provocative as intended. And I hope that it would raise more questions and also provide some answers, while avoiding deep conceptual and definitional issues as I expect the audience is already grounded in those. Let me also say that the views that I express in this lecture are my personal views as a citizen of Nigeria and should not necessarily be attributed to any official position, office or position held or being held. The illustrations used are deliberately impersonal. LEADERSHIP AS FOLLOWERSHIP Leadership is mostly associated with individuals even though no individual alone leads a nation. It’s important to stress that the effective exercise of leadership function in the form of setting a vision, developing an agenda and mobilizing resources is at the heart of transformation management. In this sense Leadership presupposes followership. President Eisenhower of the United States once defined leadership as the “ability to decide what is to be done and then to get others to want to do it”. President Harry Truman put it more pungently when he said, “A leader is a man who has the ability to get other people to do what they don’t want to do, and like it”. These two leaders of the United States of America perceived leadership in terms of a man’s ability to manage men in such a way as to get certain results willingly (even if initially they had any doubts). Let us examine this conception of leadership a little bit because it dovetails to the overarching leadership value that this paper considers as enabling national transformation. Transformational leadership evolves from two presuppositions. First it presupposes that the leader has emerged with the necessary tool to succeed, as he is necessarily equipped with man management ability. This must be non negotiable. Secondly it also presupposes that the desire of the leader is in tandem with the interest of the followers therefore the ultimate outcome will be development. These cardinal principles must be fulfilled as minimum requirements. If this is not the case the capacity to congregate the people and reciprocatively, invoke obedience, will not be a continuum. The challenge in harvesting transformative value out of leadership is that it is not a happenstance. More often than not this leadership is a product of a structured forum of regeneration. Even though it may appear spontaneous, leadership that is effective for transformation is well planned. TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP What this means then is that followership is critical in the formation and development of transformational leaders. Leadership and followership are in the mode of the egg and chicken paradox- they are symbiotically intertwined. The way the character of leadership is shaped by followership has not been fully extrapolated. However, it remains evident that the art of leadership for national transformation is positively influenced by a culture of responsible followership and vise versa. Put conversely, the qualities that initiate good followership creates transformative leadership. Some of these include the expression and enjoyment of basic rights within a system that is accountable, and is merit driven. Having said this, it takes transformative leadership to create the same atmosphere necessary for the expression of basic right and the enjoyment of good governance. A Ghanaian writer Adei once wrote that “ transformative leadership is cause; everything else is effect”. This statement highlights the prime position of leadership in the development mix. This is so as development is vision driven, and while leadership supplies the vision, it sets in place the think-tank and assures the adoption of a development agenda. As a country Nigeria has had some inspiring leadership. However, much of it has been short lived, largely unmetered and undervalued due to lack of mentorship, sectarian psychology, successional inconsistency and selfishness. Nonetheless, and as pointed out in the onset, for Nigeria to reach is potential what we require is leadership that is not just inspirational, but transformational in scope and nationalistic in focus. THE TRAITS OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP Speaking for myself, I will contend that transformational leadership will have to go beyond office. It must take on the form of a state of mind; to envision, conceive, conceptualize and boldly tackle challenges with a variety of tools within the context of knowledge, instinct, institutions and impersonality. This transformational dimension is hard to put in theoretical sense. You experience it. It is nationalistic not sectarian, it is egalitarian not class driven, it is universal and bold. It thinks outside the box, and connects its usefulness in the value it brings to help individual lives to strive. There are many leaders that have given us unmistakable trappings of transformational leadership in Nigeria. On a global scale also we can illustrate with two global figures that have in recent times embodied the frame of transformational leadership in terms of national development. These include former president Nelson Mandela of South Africa and the former president of Singapore President Lee Kuan Yew. I know a lot has been said about Lee Kwuan Yew but suffice it to say that President Lee Kuan Yew inherited a country without direction and virtually stagnated. But he was driven by his belief that his country can be transformed. He undertook a review of the system without too much leaning to political correctness and ideological trappings, and set out to envision a new country. President Lee decided to follow a pragmatic, ideological and specific approach towards economic development that is not conditioned, by any of the existing dogmas on third world development of the time. As Lee rightly remarked, “We learned from the failed policies of countries such as India, Pakistan, Ghana and Nigeria. Many new nations believed that the way to prosperity was state planning of the economy with socialist states being seen as models, he said. … So my strategy was to turn Singapore, a third world island, into a first-world oasis, by entrenching the concept of the rule of law and establishing up-to-date facilities in communications and transportation” as the necessary artery for connecting people and property to the economy. President Lee placed premium on economic viability and pursued it with a clear simple and pragmatic vision. As a leader, Lee said he learned to ignore political correctness when it did not accord with his own experience – a singleness of purpose and commitment, which he consistently applied. He achieved self liberation and ideological trappings" and carried on with a bold new vision of Singapore. The above observation from Lee makes it clear that Singapore’s leadership was deliberate and intelligent which, is the hallmark of organizational leadership a cardinal dimension of transformational leadership. Today, President Lee is still regarded as the father of the new Singapore. Which brings to mind the question of who can be regarded as the father of New Nigeria? Leadership is the prime cause of development because of its indispensable role in a national context, which no other agency can replace. Leadership provides direction, national mission, vision and goals. In Singapore, Malaysia and to some extent South Korea, individual leaders – Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir Mohammed and General Park, respectively, to be specific – guided the national transformation through the critical periods. These leaders provided direction, set the necessary agenda and executing change. This is where the distinction lies. LEADERSHIP AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Make no mistake about it, leadership skills/styles are environmentally socio-politically, culturally and 
economically determined. It is often said that the quality of leadership and the socio-political environment often determine the 
nature of national development. Some people have argued that our socio-political environment, not only makes the 
emergence of national leadership difficult, but also complicates the process of national 
development. While agreeing in part to this view, I think that to give it axiomatic status glosses over the emergence of dynamic leadership. Nigerian from all works of life more than ever before are yearning for change. The solution is that we need to build the culture that accepts defeat, tolerate and respect losing and manage with humility victory. An unhealthy and protracted tussling for leadership chokes out the transformative value of leadership. You cannot underestimate the value of leadership in nation building. The contribution of leadership to the emergence of certain underdeveloped countries entering the big league today cannot be overstated. Check this out; you will recall before now countries like India, China, Brazil, Vietnam and Nigeria were classified as overpopulated and therefore will stagnate following Malthus theory of demographic economic. Today, India, China, Vietnam and Brazil have made it pass the economic development curve. In fact this March a CNN report suggested that Brazil has overtaken the UK’s economy and China is now the second largest economy in the world after the United States of America. It is significant that all these countries were characterized by low income; low growth and their economies were dominated by agriculture and primary production like Nigeria few decades ago. Yet, today it is clear that these economies are fast growing, with high and rising per capita GDP. All these countries but Nigeria have moved on. Without much deconstruction much of the emergence of these countries have been traced to visionary transformative leadership. Such is the power of leadership to achieve national transformation. WISDOM INTELLIGENCE & CREATIVITY There are some lies that have found fertile ground in our psyche of late. Some of these include; that Nigeria is different; that the leadership we need is the iron man’s style of leadership; some say that certain things that hold true universally cannot work in Nigeria; that leadership is our curse, amongst all manner of hogwash theories that seek to explain why we snailing behind the league of developed nations, even when our potential point to that direction. I have no doubt in my mind that we have incredible Nigerian minds with capacity to lead us out of the woods. There are Nigerians today who are world-class captains of industry and leading successful complex private enterprises and excelling in several leadership positions. Much of the values that are necessary to achieve success in these areas apply also to public sector leadership. Apart from the fundamentals of wisdom intelligence and creativity, in practice, successful leadership needs to do two things among others. First, is the need to have a story that followers can understand, accept and hopefully support. Secondly, the need to engage in complex processing that results in the creation, implementation and monitoring of the story in a consistent way. This is why it is necessary that the leadership that can transform Nigeria is one that passes the WICS test: Wisdom, Intelligence and Creativity Synthesized. These three components work together in a highly effective leader. As a transformative leader you must be ready to redefine the problem. Transformative leaders do not define a problem the way everyone else does, simply because everyone else defines the problem that way. You must redefine the exact nature of the problem using your own judgment. The transformative leadership required must be willing to take sensible risks, which can lead to success but also can lead from time to time to failure. You must be willing to defy the crowd and also have the nerves to contend with the fact that there may be long periods of uncertainty, during which you cannot be certain that things are going right or that the ultimate outcome will be right. There are very many Nigerians with these traits of leadership. What is needed is to strengthening the supply and demand side of developmental leadership. We need to enable leadership emerge through a formative forum that nurtures them towards the right value orientation. Right now by our constitution, the political parties represent one of such veritable formal forum or should I say the platform for grooming leadership. But to be effective in their role as leadership regeneration platforms, the parties must consciously institutionalize internal democratization; acculturate values of merit and discipline. The leadership that can transform a nation must ultimately anchor on a story. A leader must convey a story. His story is the communicated vision. It is the overarching embodiment of his striving. Nelson Mandela as a leader, not necessarily the President but Nelson Mandela that fought apartheid and liberated black South Africa. Roosevelt was a leader molded by the recovery from depression and the ending of the World War 11. This story must define your philosophy of life, development and national context. Perception of leaders and how much they are able to get followership are filtered through stories. The reality may be quite different from the stories. For example, Stalin was responsible for the deaths of many millions of Soviet as well as and citizens of other countries. Yet, he was greatly mourned in death yet by many citizens of the USSR. For many years, Stalin was idolized, despite his being responsibile for so many deaths. Even today, many people still idolize Hitler. People see the leaders only through their stories. If the story is persuasive it will form the fulcrum on which followership will rally to leadership. Leadership succeeds to the extent that they have a story that resonates with their followers needs. Therefore, communicating this story in a compelling way and implement the story in a way that suggests continuous success is crucial. This is important given that there may be a difference between the perception and the reality, and persuading followers in the end that the story accomplished what it was supposed to have accomplished. Leaders fail to the extent that they have a story that fails to fit their followers’ needs. This failure is closely tied to failure of communication. A striking example in our recent history governance in the pursuance several economic reform stories; from deregulation to power sector reforms and development to anti-corruption. If we take the story of power reforms for example, it is a story that connects directly to the need of every Nigerian… but whether it’s been successful or perceived as failed is once again a reflection of how this story has been communicated (6000MW by end of year), implemented (Nigerians can hardly tell who is investing- government or private sector and who is to be held responsible for project failure not clear as there are too many agency involvements) and structured (significant institutional and regulatory confusion- privatization or deregulation) to a perceivable conclusion. Measuring degree of success or failure might seem tedious; however, effective leadership needs the right mix of practical intelligence and creativity to come up with ideas and dispositions that galvanize followership to keep faith with the story, which is also the vision. Words are much more powerful in leadership than in any other sphere of influence. The leadership that drives national transformation must make the communication of the vision/story priority. Much of the despondency in the country today stems from failure from us as leaders to communicate effectively. Leadership must place high premium on communicating with the people. CONCLUSION In conclusion, let me say this. We have allowed too much water under our unity bridge through utterances that do us no good as a people. Words are very powerful. Effective leaders are very aware of the impact of their words. What a leader does and what a leader says, are amplified and exaggerated by their constituents. Given this, if leaders don’t take charge of their words and carefully shape their messages, it has the potential of being misrepresented by the people. Communication is the greatest tool in the hands of a transformational leader. Leadership that can transform this country must build bridges and not walls. Leaders are in the business of building bridged to the future, this require the breaking down of walls! These walls include, walls of dissent intolerance, sectarian chauvinism, bigotry, nepotistic leadership and dereliction of merit. Change will always require the destruction of walls and the building of bridges. One of the best ways to do this is through effective and regular conversations. Our leaders must learn to talk more about the change they desire to make. Influential people and not foisting positions down their throat is useful. We must talk to all shades of people, students, women, traditional institutions, religious bodies and others to help shape the message and allow them to take the necessary action to bring the message to life. Nigeria awaits the emergence of this leadership for national transformation. My brothers and sisters, ladies and gentlemen, the time is now not tomorrow. Thank you for listening. Senator Bukola Saraki, Member, National Assembly Federal Republic of Nigeria