At the twilight of 2020, the Public Policy Research and Analysis Centre (PPRAC), organisers of the Zik Leadership Awards garlanded some Nigerians with honour for their works in 2019. Auspiciously, that event marked the 25th anniversary of the awards instituted in honour of one of the greatest Africans that ever lived – the irrepressible Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, also known as Zik of Africa.
Zik, as he is still folklorically and fondly referred to, was Nigeria’s first President. But he was far more than a president. He was the man who woke up a sleepy Nigerian nation, rousing her to a new dawn of self-rule. Zik was the undisputed pathfinder of Nigeria’s Independence. As far back as 1934, he was already a ready and primed fighter for the emancipation of Nigeria from the colonial fetters of British overlords.
Establishing newspapers like Starbucks coffee chain was his weapon. Sagacious, eloquent, an intellectual giant gifted with luminous literary lustre, the Great Zik was a zesty, restless intellectual canon who exploded at lecture halls, rally grounds and among the nation’s intelligentsia. By the account of Pa Obafemi Awolowo in his autobiography, My Early Life, Zik was already dripping with phrases like political irredentism, social justice and economic emancipation – the kernel of his pre-Independence messages when Awo was a reporter in the good old Daily Times.
Historians and chroniclers of the events that led up to Nigeria’s Independence in 1960, including the colonial masters, were amazed at the dazzling brilliance of Zik, especially his uncommon ability and skill to string words together, àto force home his argument. Such was the elephantine size of his intellect. Never one to ladle out praise to the white man or engage in helpless self-pity, Zik rallied a troop of feisty Nigerian journalists to birth a new lease of freedom for the nation. Those who worked tirelessly with him say he was an astute leader of men and prudent manager of resources. But far from that, these men noticed something else in Zik that always set him apart from his contemporaries. It’s his matchless nationalistic disposition. He did not engage in ethnic politics. He abhorred religious sentiments. He was irrevocably accommodating and tolerant. It showed in his cosmopolitan view of life. His constituency was Nigeria, even Africa. His vision was to beget a better Nigeria. He was willing to forego his personal comfort to win public peace and order. He was not a regional champion and never was any ethnic or regional tag affixed on him. He was a man of compromise. A true nationalist. He bent over backwards, several times, to propagate a culture of peace. Since his death on May 11, 1996, barely 25 years ago, not much has been done to immortalize and honour this man of uncommon valour. Aside the Zik Leadership Awards, no other event or legacy fittingly reminds us of this man of sacrifice. In 2002, the then President of the Senate, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, took a bold step to domesticate the leadership virtues of Zik by establishing The Zik Institute, designed to be a watering hole for outliers in the leadership ecosystem where they can help nurture Nigerians of all tribes and tongues on the dialectics of leadership, the type of benign, result-driven leadership as espoused by the Great Zik. It was proposed to be sited in Enugu.
That project, with all its trappings of nobility and toppings of public-spirited grandeur, was not nursed to reality after a well-attended fund-raiser. The Zik Leadership Awards, therefore, remains the only enduring totem to epigraph the lofty life of a man of many parts. Zik was a leadership colossus, an intellectual behemoth and a political leviathan who lived ahead of his time. His appetite for good governance was voluble. His proclivity to the principles of nationalism and true federalism was so robust it swamped every modicum of self-adulation and egocentrism in him. He stood for Nigeria, not for self or his region. He simply set himself apart. He pursued and negotiated national unity like no other leader. This is why any leadership reward system associated with his name must be above board. The Zik Leadership Award must never be desecrated; must never be given to political jobbers, economic vampires, ethno-religious mandarins and merchants of mediocrity. The PPRAC Board, it should be emphasized, has done a good job over the years; sticking to a selection process that throws up merit, relevance, promotion of public good, contribution to national development, enthronement of the finest democratic ideals among other emblems of integrity in both private and public life.
The cast of winners in the last edition is an ensemble of the nation’s bastions of hope in an oasis of despair. Kennedy Uzoka of United Bank for Africa and Professor Umar Garba Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC (winners in Professional Leadership category). Other winners included Senate President Ahmed Lawan; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; Dr. Stella Okoli of Emzor Pharmaceutical, amongst others. Three governors namely: Borno Governor, Professor Babagana Zulum; Delta Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa and Oyo Governor, Seyi Makinde were decorated with Good Governance Awards. They join the likes of President J.J. Rawlings, President Nwalimu Julius Nyerere, Dr. Salim Ahmed Salim, President Sam Nujoma, Dr. Nelson Mandela, President Yonweri Muzeveni, President John Agyekum Kuffor, Senator David Mark, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Alhaji Ahmed Joda and Mr Godwin Emefiele, all past recipients of the honour. A very good company to keep.
The choice of Governors Zulum and Okowa is particularly instructive. Both governors have had to manage challenges that threatened internal peace in their respective states. Zulum is grappling with humanitarian crisis arising from terror attacks. Okowa has continued to appease and manage the centrifugal forces occasioned by youth restiveness and sometimes inter-communal upheaval especially in the oil-bearing communities in his state. His ability to engage the youths through the various job creation and skills development initiatives ensured that Nigeria has in recent years met her oil-production quota with zero disruption on account of violence.
Besides, both Okowa and Zulum have demonstrated that government exists for the people, and not the people for government. They have continually sided with the poor, the despised and the despondent. They have evinced the principles of democracy even to their own hurt. Okowa’s manifest inclination to always uphold the values of democracy has earned him critical roles in his party’s conventions where he upheld fairness, the rule of law, equity and social justice.
The Great Zik would be proud of these choices. They all represent what he has always stood for, captured in four phrases of political Risorgimento, economic determinism, social resurgence and spiritual balance.
Besides, these award recipients have in their exertions put the nation above self. They have proven that in the bosom of Africa resides the solution to the ills that plague the continent and its people. The Great Zik would feel a sense of relief that the fire he lit decades ago still flickers in the horizon of leadership.