The Kind of Leader Nigeria Needs Today

 

Walter Rodney in his, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa had some interesting revelations of how Africa was exploited by perceived foreigners in the race for wealth. The scramble for Africa became real in our history and Africa became both a dumping ground and a harvest ground at the same time.

Rodney captured the plight of Africans by explaining Capitalism under colonialism, and he said, ‘capitalists under colonialism did not pay for an African to maintain himself and family. This can readily be realized by reflecting on the amounts of money earned by African peasants from cash-crops. The sale of produce by an African cash-crop farmer rarely brought in 200/- per year and often it was less than half that amount. Out of that, a peasant had to pay for tools, seeds and transport and he had to repay the loan to the middleman before he could call the remainder his own.

Peasants producing coffee and cocoa and collecting palm produce tended to earn more than those dealing with cotton and groundnuts, but even ordinary Akwapim cocoa farmer or Chagga coffee farmer never handled money in quantities sufficient to feed, clothe and shelter his family. Instead subsistence farming of yams or bananas continued as a supplement. That was how peasants managed to eat, and the few shillings earned went to pay taxes and to buy the increasing number of things which could not be obtained without money in the middle-men’s shops… .’ it is hardly different today even after more than half a century of independence, our leaders struggle to be leaders. We are plagued and condemned to unnecessary politicking skewed selfishly. Like the capitalists that we have become, politicians will do anything and at whatever cost until they occupy the good money-making office where public funds will be looted to stupor.

Good leadership they say can cook a stone that can be served on the table for all people, high or low. This is to say that leadership is about understanding, coordinating, blending, and harmonizing the strengths and weaknesses of people and then harnessing them positively to achieve a common goal and to help people find their bearing.

Nigeria is a multifaceted nation full of different dynamics and variables. Each of the six geo-political zones also has differences and different variables and therefore requires a different approach and style to harness their resources, human and natural ones for the benefit of all and the greater good of the sovereign state Nigeria.

Today there are agitations in all the geo-political zones, people are groaning in pain and dissatisfaction in different quarters. Some have called for separation as the only solution, some are agitating for the practice of true federalism and so on.

Nigeria has seen a myriad of different challenges from kidnappings in the East to 419 and fraud in the South to armed banditry and incessant Boko Haram killings in the North-central, North West and the North East. Nepotism, corruption, tribalism, and religious intolerance have become daily pure-water in our society. Every day now in Nigeria is bloodshed and there appears to be a deaf-silence, much more silent than midnight quiet of the night.

So what is the problem? Well, many have contributed in this area of attempting to trace the Nigerian failed state and quite a good number of people prefer to pin our collective problems to the colonial entraption of 1914 amalgamation of Nigeria. More than 50 years of independence, Nigeria has moved much slower than a snail and often marred by corruption, nepotism, ethnicity, religiosity, tribalism, regionalism, and many vices one can think of. Perhaps this is a sign of growth, perhaps it is a stepping stone to cross the huddle to a greater Nigeria or signs of failure that might eventually disintegrate us ending Nigeria as we know it. This remains to be seen.

The greatest challenge in my opinion is leadership, genuine persons in all the arms of government namely the executive, Judiciary, and the Legislative doing the needful transparently and honestly in public view.

Nigeria is what it is today because we have more selfish people occupying the seat of power without honor or fear, who prefer to drain the economy of Nigeria with impunity than to look at the possibility of improving the infrastructure, health, education, service delivery and other spheres of human growth and development.

What Nigeria needs is a leader in the mold of Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso who was selfless and willing to stake his neck for the good of his people. Not everything Sakara did or that was done in his reign was marvelous but he had good intention to develop his nation-state and to accommodate everyone genuinely interested in building others.

According to a Wikipedia compilation of Thomas Sankara, he was born on (21 December 1949 – 15 October 1987) was a Burkinabé revolutionary and President of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987. A pan-Africanist, he was viewed by supporters as a charismatic and iconic figure of revolution and is sometimes referred to as “Africa’s Che Guevara”

A group of revolutionaries seized power on behalf of Sankara (who was under house arrest at the time) in a popularly-supported coup in 1983. Aged 33, Sankara became the President of the Republic of Upper Volta. He immediately launched programs for social, ecological, and economic change and renamed the country from the French colonial name Upper Volta to Burkina Faso (“Land of Incorruptible People”), with its people being called Burkinabé (“upright people”). His foreign policies were centered on anti-imperialism, with his government eschewing all foreign aid, pushing for odious debt reduction, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth, and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nationwide literacy campaign, and promoting public health.

Other components of his national agenda included planting over 10 million trees to combat the growing desertification of the Sahel, redistributing land from feudal landlords to peasants, suspending rural poll taxes and domestic rents, and establishing a road and railway construction program. On the local level, Sankara called on every village to build a medical dispensary and had over 350 communities build schools with their labor. Moreover, he outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and polygamy. He appointed women to high governmental positions and encouraged them to work outside the home and stay in school, even if pregnant. Sankara encouraged the prosecution of officials accused of corruption, counter-revolutionaries and “lazy workers” in ((Popular Revolutionary Tribunals

His revolutionary programs for African self-reliance made him an icon to many of Africa’s poor.  Sankara remained popular with most of his country’s citizens. However, his policies alienated and antagonized several groups, which included the small but powerful Burkinabé middle class; the tribal leaders who were stripped of their long-held traditional privileges of forced labor and tribute payments; and the governments of France and its ally the Ivory Coast.  On 15 October 1987, Sankara was assassinated by troops led by Blaise Compaoré, who assumed leadership of the state shortly after having Sankara killed. A week before his assassination, Sankara declared: “While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas”

Sankara’s achievements include the following:

He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers.

He reduced the salaries of well-off public servants (including his own) and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and first-class airline tickets.

He redistributed land from the feudal landlords to the peasants. Wheat production increased from 1,700 kilograms per hectare (1,500 lb/acre) to 3,800 kilograms per hectare (3,400 lb/acre), making the country food self-sufficient.

He opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you”.

He spoke in forums like the Organization of African Unity against what he described as neo-colonialist penetration of Africa through Western trade and finance.

He called for a united front of African nations to repudiate their foreign debt. He argued that the poor and exploited did not have an obligation to repay money to the rich and exploiting.

In Ouagadougou, Sankara converted the army’s provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).

He forced well-off civil servants to pay one month’s salary to public projects.

He refused to use the air conditioning in his office because such luxury was not available to anyone but a handful of Burkinabés.

As President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a refrigerator, and a broken freezer.

He required public servants to wear a traditional tunic, woven from Burkinabé cotton and sewn by Burkinabé craftsmen.

He was known for jogging unaccompanied through Ouagadougou in his tracksuit and posing in his tailored military fatigues, with his mother-of-pearl pistol.

When asked why he did not want his portrait hung in public places, as was the norm for other African leaders, Sankara replied: “There are seven million Thomas Sankara’s.”

An accomplished guitarist, he wrote the new national anthem himself.

 

Thomas, as his wife Mariam Sankara observed, knew how to show his people that they could become dignified and proud through will power, courage, honesty, and work.

Sankara no doubt left Africa with a legacy to be desired and such noblemen in our society especially Nigeria today might just bring the healing, growth, and development we so desire in our protest for separation.