It…worries me gravely that this dumb down is fast becoming a culture as the quality of leadership is declining in every sector… There is an urgent need to inspire new leadership model and I am convinced the best way to do it is to shift our gaze from that picture of Akala back to that of Awolowo and shout ‘give us Awo! Give us Awo!! Give us Awo!!!’
The Government House at Agodi, Ibadan, can now serve as a tourist centre for those who want to see the failure of leadership in pictures. When you enter the room where the governor receives visitors, a story of what Americans will call the dumb down of leadership jumps at you.
This story is hanging on the walls and woven into the sequential portraits of leaders of governments that have been operating from Agodi – from the colonial era to the current Oyo State. The first indigenous leader’s picture is that of the Sage, Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo (SAN, GCFR) and the last picture (before the incumbent governor) is that of Otunba Dr. Christopher Alao Akala.
In a moment, zooming from Awolowo’s picture to that of Akala unravels the ills of the larger Yoruba society. It is a moment packed with cascading tales of egoistical and short-sighted leaders.
How did it happen that Akala is lined on the same pedestal as Awolowo?
Let us say this is e-tourism and I am your tour guide as we explore this subject. First, as you zoom from Awolowo to Akala, notice the shift in the position of their appellations and you can glean something sorrowful. In Yorubaland, the title(s) after one’s name, earned through diligent occupational pursuits, define his/her public standing, while those before it are usually icing on the cake. In short, every Yoruba man or woman, who seeks public reckoning as an Omoluabi, must be known in a professional circle. The reverse is the case today. Public reckoning is now defined by doubtful and sometimes dubious ‘achievements’.
For instance, Akala has two doctorate degrees (honoris causa), in civil law (LAUTECH) and political science (Lead City) – both were awarded when he was the governor of Oyo State, when city life ended by 7pm daily and you needed ‘security’ escort to withdraw money from ATM in Ibadan!
Mind you, Agodi is not the only site in Yorubaland with this great tourism potential. Senators representing Ogun East senatorial district always come from Ijebu-Igbo. That seat, once occupied by the legal luminary and fearsome politician, Chief Abraham Adesanya, is now occupied by a roguish character, Buruji Kashamu – some will say he is not guilty until convicted but I contend that Yoruba leaders always live far and above reproach; they do not skirt it.
I guess by now other sites are flashing in your mind. That is the point: Yorubaland is now a huge tourist site for the dumding down of leadership standard and this is exclusively due to the shift from the ‘do-good’ political philosophy of Awo’s era to the ‘demi-god’ philosophy of Akala’s generation!
Awolowo’s political dynasty was guided by the slogan, “freedom for all; life more abundant”. Politics was a laboratory for debating ideas on how to structure the society in an efficient and productive manner, while government was the epicentre of articulating those ideas into implementable policies. The vision, during Awo’s era, was how to organise the society efficiently and make it work for everybody in accordance with his/her God-given potentials. Today, Yoruba politicians only plan for the society to the extent that it allows them to control the society’s resources.
Renowned professor of history, Senator Banji Akintoye, has written about several trips that he and others embarked upon, on behalf of the party, to understudy how things worked in other countries. They brought their reports to the debate table presided over by Awo.
According to Baba Akintoye, Chief Awolowo had a catchphrase he repeated at their meetings: “Gentlemen, four years. We only need four years. We do not need more than four years to transform Nigeria.” But we elected a president in Nigeria in 2015, who despite being a candidate thrice, had no ready made blueprint to govern the country. You will never catch any government run by Awolowo’s party unprepared.
Little wonder the speed at which amazing socioeconomic transformations and generational legacies sprang up in Western Nigeria and during the regimes of UPN governors in Lagos (Lateef Jakande), Oyo (Bola Ige), Bendel (Ambrose Alli), Ogun (Olabisi Onabanjo), and Ondo (Adekunle Ajasin).
During Nigeria’s first and second republics, many living in jurisdictions controlled by Awolowo’s party owe the betterment of their lives to direct effect of government policies. Today, the few whose lives are improved by government owe that to cronyism.
Cronyism is the only language that post-Awo Yoruba political ‘leaders’ speak, so that they can rule over a republic of lackeys, so that the masses can flock to them like hens do when their owner comes out in the morning with a handful of maize/millet. They have turned us to hen. We fight – even kill – over handfuls of maize while they frolic with the bagful kept away from public glare.
It should just be tolerable that the quality of governance entrenched during Awo’s era is maintained, if it cannot be improved upon. If a deity cannot bless me, says a Yoruba proverb, it should at least leave me as it met me. Most political leaders in Yorubaland currently are bloodsuckers, muje muje! When you tolerate a parasite, the result is the gangrenous decline in Yorubaland today.
Few examples will suffice. Former military ruler, General Yakubu Gowon (GCFR), at the Oyo State’s education summit in 2012, decried the state’s awful performance in WASSCE ranking and said, “This cannot be the same Oyo province that was regarded as headquarters of education on whose soil the late Chief Awolowo declared universal free education which was later copied by the Federal Government and other states…education catapulted the West to commanding hierarchy in Nigeria. I know that this will make Chief Awolowo turn in his grave 25 years after his death.”
News went viral last year about a 27-year-old Yoruba lady who could not communicate in English Language (I grew up to meet a grandmother who could). But for a photobomb that snatched her from poverty and launched her into instant celebrity, Yoruba leaders would have had nothing to offer her. There are abominable reports of people stealing pots of soup from their neighbour’s kitchens. Yoruba leaders are clueless and have nothing to offer them.
Yet they call themselves leaders and wish to be so addressed in their rapacious jostle for Awo’s kind of status. Perhaps, only Professor Wole Soyinka can go to grave in peace because he only has publicly apologised for the failure of his generation to bequeath what they benefited.
There is a premise upon which some will rely to dismiss this narrative and seek to thrash it in the ‘political attack’ dumpsite. And that is the fact that the people being crucified here – the politicians – merited their positions. They were after all elected or appointed. This is not about merit but about the dignity they bring to bear on their tenure while in office. In Yorubaland, that you are born by a couple is not enough to qualify you as a proper human, you must also be socially born-again. That you answer to a surname is not a license to behave anyhow but a responsibility to add dignity to that name. That is the essence of Omoluabi.
Which of these politicians has propounded anything ingenious or advocated strongly for policies that advance the society? (…as if I do not know that one cannot give what he/she does not have). When Babafemi Ojudu and his Ekiti colleagues in the Senate announced their decision to pool their constituency project funds together for a bigger project, I danced to the fact that we still have leaders thinking to make something good out of the complete mess that Nigeria’s governance structure is. Others would rather distribute handouts that they cannot offer their own children. They call it ‘empowerment’.
Another delightful ingenuity is the presentation of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria report by the Afenifere Renewal Group in 2012. This has led to the establishment of the DAWN Commission to reactivate regional integration templates. The point is not to single out some for praise singing but to underscore the fact that there are too few people thinking for the Yoruba society and too many preying on it. Consequently, Yorubaland, once bestrode by many colossus, is now synonymous with ‘leaders’ who will go to any length as yes-men and yes-women in order to satisfy their narcissistic pursuits.
I am yet to see Ojudu and Co’s idea materialise and there is very little to write in terms of concrete achievement of DAWN but the emphasis for now should be on resetting our society to the thinking mode. Corgito Ergo Sum: I think, therefore I am. Not all good thoughts will yield good products but it is certain that there cannot be good product without good thinking. Yoruba leaders no longer think for the society; rather, they pander and fawn around… leading to the coinage, ‘feudalisation of Yoruba politics’ by some academics.
Two things, I suppose, are wrong with these leaders. First, they lack a consummate vision of the society, the type enunciated by Awolowo in his autobiography. It is therefore difficult for them to discern that they occupy an office that determines the fate of generations. Second, they do not see beyond themselves and therefore have no capacity to change anything that does not fit into their immediate personal gains. Therefore, while some may expect this article to provoke a wakeup call, it will do no such thing and I am not worried.
What worries me, as we end this tour, is not the action and inaction of the political class but the gradual acculturation of Yoruba society to this dumbing down of leadership standard. A clear example of this is the way Peter Obi, former Anambra State governor, was celebrated as something never seen when he gave a speech at an annual event, The Platform, recently. I felt remorse for Nigerian youth, particularly for the Yoruba youth, who see Obi as the new fad and standard for good governance. They have forgotten, or maybe they were not taught, about Adekunle Ajasin, the author of Awolowo’s education policy and governor of the Old Ondo State, who went into government house with 10 pairs of Agbada and left with the same set, who had a functional personal car when he became governor but had none when he left, in whom no dark spot was found by Buhari’s corruption searchlight as a military ruler.
It therefore worries me gravely that this dumb down is fast becoming a culture as the quality of leadership is declining in every sector. And more than any external threat, this portends gravest danger to Yoruba nation. There is an urgent need to inspire new leadership model and I am convinced the best way to do it is to shift our gaze from that picture of Akala back to that of Awolowo and shout ‘give us Awo! Give us Awo!! Give us Awo!!!’
PremiumTimes
END
Be the first to comment