I admire quiet achievers. Piling up achievements while they make themselves unobtrusive isn’t the only virtue they remind me of. I take note too that an intelligent mind is at work. For it takes an intelligent person to watch his ways, knowing that people watch, and that for this reason tact is needed. Tact. I like the way British colonial officers used the word in their writings while they were in charge in Nigeria. Has anyone heard it being said that the British have a stiff upper lip? I interpret it to mean they, among other things, exercise tact.
I’ll go a step further on ‘tact’ before I return to Senator Ahmed Lawan, Leader of Nigeria’s Senate, who is my subject. It’s because I need to prepare the ground for my viewpoint. Leadership is a great task. Having the tact to navigate it in all its courses is a cherished value. I have read comments of southerners who accuse the British colonial officials of favouring northerners, especially the traditional leadership segment made up of the Hausa and the Fulani. There are reasons. Having been very much in contact with the North for over two decades, I know a few. Northern Muslims typically have access to two kinds of education, the Islamiyaah and the Western. Long before western education reached the South, northerners in organised Muslim communities of the pre-colonial era had been taught some values that automatically imbued them with tenets of leadership. The Sarakuna, leaders, especially had for centuries writings by Muslim scholars and rulers across West Africa, North Africa and the Middle East. Products of the values taught in such writings were the men that the British colonial officers met in leadership positions in the Emirates of Northern Nigeria by 1900.
I took note of how senior British officers in the North would praise a traditional leader for his tact. It might be in how the traditional leader had handled a dispute among communities. It might be how he had handled the payment of tax among animist minority tribes (that the British routinely referred to as Pagans) within an Emirate. It might also be how an Emir had tactfully presented an issue to the white Divisional Officer or Resident. References to ‘tact’ that colonial officers made caught my attention; although expressed in few words and mostly in passing, their implications were never lost on me as the British weren’t the easiest people to impress. For instance, the Resident, Zaria Province, at one point praised the tact of an Emir of Zazzau. Normally, the colonial government allotted a share of the annual revenue in the Province to the Emirate for native administration. At a stage, the Protectorate government headed by Lord Lugard in Zungeru asked the Emir to contribute funds to projects that were of protectorate, not local, significance. The Emir didn’t want the funds allotted to his Emirate to be taken by Lugard. The Resident in Zaria went on to explain to Lugard how the Emir had behaved in the matter, expressing his admiration for the tact the Emir had deployed at every turn to make his mind known, without confronting the colonial government. The Resident, one of the few who could tell Lugard their minds, sided with the Emir in the matter. I could go on with other examples of how a leader of northern origin showed tact, impressing the British. But I stop here, suffice to add that I see this value in some of my friends who are of northern origin. In fact, each time I sit down for a discussion with some of them who are in positions of leadership, traditional or public, even as they talk, my mind records their traditionally-impacted refined manners. It’s not a surprise therefore that each time my mind goes to the person of Senator Ahmed Lawan and his activity in the National Assembly, I view him against the background of the notion that I have of northerners who have imbibed the necessities in the art of leadership.
It’s not all the time a person that has been taught to behave in a particular manner is conscious of the fact. Yet, no human is totally oblivious of what he says and does, or that what he does is being watched by others. I enjoy studying people, taking mental note of what I see. I should as a journalist, playwright, and fiction writer. Making up believable characters is an essential tool for the latter. Of course, a fiction writer moulds characters from real characters. But I’ve got to return to what my focus is. It’s the Nigerian political landscape where one searches for politicians worth pointing at, but they’re rare to find. Ordinarily, I give it to a politician whose actions aren’t worthy of emulation that he’s humans after all. But I equally praise the person whose actions are worthy. I find one in the Eighth Nigerian Senate. Recent happenings in that chamber make it imperative that I single out Lawan, who was made the Senate Leader not long ago.
All that I see of Lawan is what every other Nigerian sees on TV, since he arrived the National Assembly in 1999 as a Representative. He reminds me of the saying that the more years wine spends in storage, the better it becomes. Lawan had demonstrated this in the happenings in the Eighth Senate. If there’s anyone in the National Assembly that hasn’t changed colour like a chameleon, in disposition, temperament, party membership and personal character over all those years, it’s Lawan. He has this approach to issues and debates that is consistent in content and presentation. Being in opposition until recently, Lawan would always stand up, speak to the truth, speak to what concerned Nigerians and asked that the interest of Nigerians be taken care of. It didn’t matter whether he was speaking on the economy, politics, education or social matters. He would present his point in a calm manner, in a way that made members of the ruling party recognise that someone had said something, even though they would have their way. I thought this was the nature of Lawan, a manifestation of the culture he came from and the teachings he had received. I was not surprised when his party made it known that he was the one it wanted for the seat of the Senate President.
Things had happened and the will of the party had been jettisoned. Following the event, I was keen to see how Lawan would conduct himself. I noticed that he didn’t go to the public space about what had happened. He sat in the Senate and participated in its activities as a member. This continued for a long time, until one day I saw him speaking in an interview on TV and he was noted as Chairman Senate Committee on Defence. The position the Senate chose to allot to Lawan at that point, he had quietly taken, and had been doing what was his position required of him. How would one not take note of such a politician who conducted himself with a high level of respectability and maturity? If no other Nigerian noticed, his fellow senators did. For they pushed to honour their party’s latter recommendation that Lawan should be given the Senate Leader’s seat. They appended their signatures to the recommendation en masse. I had watched Lawan as he accepted the post. I had also watched him recently on a TV interview programme where he was asked what the relationship was between him and his rival for the seat of the Senate President.
Characteristically, Lawan didn’t gloss over the question. He was candid. He said he had accepted the fact that the person destined to occupy the seat of the Senate President was there. For what he got, Senate Leader, he was grateful. But he and his rival had actually acknowledged to each other that the circumstances under which the contest took place had witnessed the flow of bad blood, and that both of them needed to work hard at having a good relationship as Senate President and Senate Leader. Then Lawan added that, to be fair, the Senate President had actually done his best to ensure that both of them worked together well. I thought that was gracious of Lawan, worth emulating, an icing on the impression that I had had of him since 1999.
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