Louis C. Maxwell
As the general election of 2019 draws near, politicians have started positioning themselves for victory at various levels. Self-imposed political analysts have also started inundating us with tales about the qualities of aspirants they feel should be voted into office, more often than not, for personal aggrandisement. It is also a season of letter-writing and predictions.
Two former Presidents have issued statements asking Nigerians to cooperate with incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari to finish his first term of office next year and make a sacrifice for a better Nigeria by standing down his right to vie for another term of office, thereby allowing a younger person to emerge as Nigeria’s next leader.
Although some of those who want Buhari not to contest in 2019 have been criticised, one thing that is clear is that the choice of Nigeria’s next President is important not only to Nigerians but also to the world. A time has come when it has become expedient that the country catches up with the rest of the world. We should not allow primordial sentiments to determine our choice of leaders. We must go for quality leadership.
At present, we need a leader who can create solutions, who can, literally, squeeze water out of stone. We need a leader who can take responsibility for governance, one who believes the buck stops at his table. It is not just about saying ‘I can do it.” It is about established record of performance, or what is called pedigree. This is a very serious matter because Nigeria’s almost 200 million people will be such a huge burden on the rest of the world if, this time, we fail to get it right. We simply shall not, and cannot, continue to see our children crossing to Libya and other countries and ending up in humiliating slavery or dying in the Mediterranean. We need a leader who will make Nigeria attractive for all its citizens to see the need to remain here and develop it.
It is about providing solutions, not excuses or buck-passing. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin realised humanity was finding it difficult to access information with ease, they created Google to make us find things faster on the Internet. There was a time, in the 1980s, a set of computer was selling for over $5,000. And the size was awesome. To solve that problem, Steve Jobs partnered with Steve Wozniak to reduce the size of computers and make them handy. Today, we all hold sophisticated computers on our hands in the form of smartphones. Computers are no longer for the rich and the famous.
From his dormitory room at Harvard University, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook to help turn the world to a truly global village. At the touch of a button, one can socialise with persons across all regions of the globe. Jeff Bezos is today the richest person in the world because he created real solution to a problem facing humanity.
Many Nigerians may be cynical about him and his ways, but that is what former military President Ibrahim Babangida meant when he asked Nigerians to go for digital leadership in 2019 and move Nigeria forward. When Singaporeans realised they were headed for doom, they elected a man of action, not excuses, in Lee Kuan Yew, to save them from potential annihilation and horrible poverty. A few years later, Yew provided the quality leadership that transformed Singapore from third world to first. He did that by embracing modernity and ensuring the appointment of compatriots who firmly shared and believed in his vision for all-round selfless development. He did not protect his lieutenants that fell foul of the law and pursue only political enemies, as it is happening in Nigeria today. And, of course, he ensured there was no clannishness, or a cabal to hijack his government while he went about grandstanding.
A short video I watched on the Internet described the biggest problems needing global solution as energy, water, food, environment, poverty, terrorism and war, education, democracy and population. To solve these problems, we need a leader who, as said earlier, can literally squeeze water out of stone.
When Dr. Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo became the governor of Gombe State in 2011, he realised that, in spite of the commendable efforts of his predecessor, the state needed more investments in education, infrastructure, agriculture, trade and commerce and more. Rather than waste time filling the airwaves with excuses or buck-passing, he frontally faced these challenges with unprecedented commitment and zeal. He knew he couldn’t go it alone. He, therefore, assembled a team of quality aides and commissioners that he saddled with responsibilities and clear-set goals. In education, he realised that thousands of indigenes of Gombe who failed to get admission in institutions of higher learning were turning themselves to a nuisance to society. Some would get admission, but would choose to remain at home because of distance. That was how, in no time, his predecessors transformed thousands of youths to dangerous thugs. Trade and commerce, which the state was known for, started nose-diving, because people were afraid to go to Gombe. And poverty reared its head on all fours.
He, therefore, made education his number one, number two and number three priorities. That, of course, does not mean other sectors were relegated to the background. Today, school enrolment in Gombe is one of the highest in the country. The rate of crime is also one of the lowest because these dangerous youths have now seen that the old order was just using them to score cheap political goals. Most of them have now embraced education. A few of them that I know are now pursuing doctorate degrees. The concomitant effect is that trade and commerce have since picked up. With more and more economic activities taking place there, poverty is reducing drastically, and security of life and property is inching notches higher.
In Gombe today, the emphasis is on vocational education. In a policy that is purposely targeted at catching them young, primary school pupils are equipped to learn trades, such that young boys and girls are learning tailoring, welding, furniture making, detergent production, etc. They don’t have to engage in any endless wait for white-collar jobs upon graduation. And even in their young age they are helping their parents make ends meet.
Right from his first term, Dankwambo started building a replacement generation of budding leaders who would not only take over the mantle of quality leadership, which he has made a legacy, but also compete with their peers in developed societies to provide Nigeria with quality leadership that would make us reach our manifest destiny.
In the fast-paced world we live in, we need such leaders as Dankwambo, who set about delivering quality result from the moment they left the venue of their inauguration. We are talking about leaders who used their first term as if it was the only one they got. If you cannot prove yourself in your first term, Nigerians shall simply not take the risk of trusting you with another term. And you should be fair by stepping down and allowing Nigeria be. No one is ever indispensable. For God’s sake, we are talking about the lives and wellbeing of about 200 million people. It will amount to tempting God to continue to gamble with our leadership recruitment process.
Dankwambo has successfully managed the heterogeneous nature of Gombe, such that the kind of animosity persisting between Muslims and Christians or between tribes in the larger Nigerian space is non-existent in Gombe. It is all about leadership. The people see themselves first as human beings serving the Lord in their respective ways. He was able to achieve this by treating the religious divides with serious fairness and love, just like his grandfather, the Sardauna of Sokoto, did wonderfully for the entire North.
• Maxwell, a retired ambassador, contributed this piece from Onitsha.