Wanted! A Leader We Can Be Proud Of.

Nigeria is in bondage, bondage of mediocrity and ethnicity. Each factor on its own is dangerous, combined there can be no worse fate for a country.

Right now Nigerians are disgusted with the leadership cadre they are saddled with, right from the presidency through to the legislative chambers. We are cringing when most of our leaders speak publicly, inspiring none and evincing no soundness of mind. At international fora we sit and watch our leaders address the world, we hold our breath and pray silently for no gaffes or blunders, to no avail.

Quickly, the ethnic card flashes on the minds of those not from the ethnic group of such leader, falsely associating the mediocrity on display to the speaker’s ethnic group, and fuelling even more ethnic resentment, one of another.

Conversely, Nigerians feel unitedly proud with themselves when a Nigerian stands out at a public forum, especially of an international kind, and mesmerizes the audience with smooth eloquence and force of his argument. We smile, we clap, and, at that point, we bury our differences and identify our nationality with the speaker.

This much was brought home to me at the just concluded week-long 6th Joint Annual Meetings of the African Union (AU) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, which I attended at the invitation of the ECA.

The theme of the conference was “Industrialization for an Emerging Africa”. Throughout the conference there was barely anything more than the perfunctory, often tepid, diplomatise applause after one leader-of-delegate’s or another’s speech. Then on the last day and at the last key-issue titled “Financing Africa’s Industrialization” treated by a high-table array of governors of central banks in a number of African countries and top global financial gurus, the unusual happened – repeated deafening applause from the otherwise conservative hall after one particular speaker’s delivery.

That particular speaker was none other than our very own Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, (SLS) governor of Nigeria’s Central Bank! This small-framed stormy-petrel was a sight to behold as, in the manner of a stage actor, he held everyone spellbound, starting out calmly then, with increasing tempo and alto, delivering his points, quoting one authority or another, spewing data, even as he spoke extempore!

He insisted that Africa’s non-industrialization, and by extension non-development, rests squarely with bad governance. Finance is globally awash, he postulates, but it would only follow good policies, security and stability. Though central banks universally have a role to play, he insists, until African countries “have the right policies we won’t be able to have the right finance” for industrialization.

Giving examples of countries that have moved Third World to Industrialized World, he said: “If you talk about Malaysia, you talk about Tun Abdul Razak Hussein; if you talk about Singapore, you talk about Lee; you talk about the Indonesian experience, you talk about Suharto,” insisting that it’s all attributable to leadership. “If there is a deficit in leadership at the highest level, there will be a deficit in finance,” he concluded.   

Nobody cared if he was merely grandstanding or playing to the gallery with stuff that may under intense intellectual scrutiny collapse, it was just enough that there was one speaker who appeared not only to know his onions but had the gift of the garb to mesmerize the audience. Our Sanusi spoke passionately; he spoke with conviction. And everyone seemed to nod along in appreciation, even his colleague gurus on the high table.

Sitting a seat or two away from me in the audience was a black guy who had erstwhile kept to his self, minding his business and not showing any interest in me whatsoever, dressed as I was pointedly Nigerian – what with the Yoruba goobi cap. But from his looks (and European dressing) I couldn’t tell if he was Nigerian or not. However, as Sanusi spoke and spake, and as the audience (including this guy) clapped and clapped, he looked in my direction for joyous fraternity, smiled, shifted towards me, stretched his hands (just holding back from embracing me), grinned from ear to ear, and the very first words he said to me was, “this guy is great.”

So this ‘brother’ is Nigerian after all, I thought to myself. “Look,” he said rhetorically, “why don’t we have someone like this as our leader in that country. Who would care which part of the country he comes from. See us,” he continued, “I’m Igbo, this guy is Hausa or Fulani, and I take it you are Yoruba, and here I am filled with pride at being a Nigerian because of him. ”

“Sanusi’s performance,” my new brother concluded of Nigeria, “rekindles hope that all is not lost.” He gave me his card; yes he’s Igbo and works at the UN in New York.

Truth is, from his diction there’s no way of telling which part of Nigeria Sanusi came from. But he is also clearly intelligent, even scholarly, bold, articulate, and smooth. I could not resist the urge as he left the hall to go up to him to shake his hand and say: “thank you, sir, for doing Nigeria proud.”

Sorry I got so carried away eulogising SLS, but the point I’m making, a point I also made to some foreigners at an evening relaxation joint in Abidjan, is that Nigeria is a country of over 160 million people. We’ve got some of the best brains on the planet living within Nigeria and scattered all over the Diaspora. We’ve got scores of medical doctors in Saudi Arabia, Europe, and America; we’ve got great historians; great scientists; great writers; great scholars; great artistes. Why then do we keep ending up having leaders who shame us?

And that also nicely brings me to what gladdens my heart: it doesn’t have to be like that. The fault (to paraphrase what Cassius said to Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar) is not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings. Nigerians must wake up to the fact that they can bring about the change in leadership that they desire, come 2015, with their votes!

The group of Nigerians with which I have identified, going by the name “Kick-Out Siddon Look (in) 2015, (KOSIL) aimed at galvanising Nigerians to choose and elect a leader they would be proud of come 2015, have now released their website: www.kickoutsiddonlook.org to register and mobilize.

And as my 18-year old daughter, Torera, wrote to me, “it is a breath of fresh air to see a movement like KOSIL come into play, into the tragic comedy that is Nigerian politics… The name of Nigeria, once a land on which Kings walked, has been smeared by post-colonial kleptocracy and religious preposterousness… The revolution must be live – it must be on every doorstep and in the heart of every Nigerian, those at home and those in the Diaspora… Ultimately, we must start by electing a man or woman who has not been tainted by the lure of riches – those riches which arrive at the expense of the people… And since the power is really with the people, the arms must be taken up by every caring citizen. Our hearts are weapons the size of our fists, and it is with heart that we must go forth into the fray, however daunting it may be…” Wow, and she’s 18.

We would do this (kick out siddon look) even as tribute to Chinua Achebe, the great, recently departed, African writer who asserted: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership... The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are hallmarks of true leadership.”

We would not doubt that it could happen. As Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist, once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Wanted! A leader to be proud of!