Tuesday, May28, 2019  /  06.00PM  /  Joe Abah

I am greatly honoured to have been asked to deliver this year’sInauguration Lecture. The Kaduna Inauguration Lecture of 2015 was delivered bythe late, great Professor Pius Adesanmi.  His address was titled: “ElRufai and the Challenge of Building Kaduna in a Day With One Kobo.” Heconcluded his address with the words “To be continued.” Before we continue, mayI please seek the indulgence of His Excellency the Governor of Kaduna State forus all to rise and observe a moment’s silence in honour of the memory ofProfessor Pius Adebola Adesanmi.

May his soul rest in peace!

In setting out the challenge before Governor El-rufai in 2015, ProfessorAdesanmi posited that there is no option of failure, no reasonable margin oferror, and no latitude for mediocrity and unspectacular performance. While a leader can take reasonable steps to guard against mediocrity and unspectacularperformance, he or she cannot guarantee that everything that they do willsucceed as planned and that there will be no failure.

Also, to deny a leader any margin of error is to expect of them theomniscience that only God Almighty possesses. Having said that, Nigerians aretired of potential that never seems to translate into tangible improvements inthe lives of citizens. They are tired of the “sleeping giant” epithet. They aretired of the excuses. They want their potential realized now, especially asother countries with less resources are beginning to realise theirs. This, Ibelieve, is what Professor Adesanmi was trying to convey in his inimitablestyle.

However, although it is my firm belief that a leader that has the will,the support base and the passion to drive change can do so, regardless of theconstraints in the environment, I also believe that it will be foolhardy toignore the intricate challenges of the environment in which the desired changeis meant to occur. I will use a recent real-life event to illustrate thispoint. I am currently from Ebonyi State. I use the term “currently” advisedly.This is because during my lifetime, I have come from Eastern Region, then EastCentral State, then Imo State, then Abia State, and now Ebonyi State. If, atsome point, a sixth state is created in the South East of Nigeria, my villageis expected to be in the new state. Funnily enough, I have never actually livedin Ebonyi State. I have never paid taxes there.

My being from Ebonyi State does not affect the price of rice in themarket, although we do produce the best rice in the country. It only becomesrelevant the moment there is any sharing to be done at national level. In sucha case, I would be expected to be quick to claim my Ebonyi indigene-ship overand above those that have lived and worked in Ebonyi all their lives, have paidtaxes there, and are directly affected by Ebonyi local governance and politics.This is why I am firmly in support of the Kaduna policy of Equal Citizenshipthat abolishes the indigene/ settler dichotomy. You are really a citizen ofwhere you live and pay your taxes. It is the policy of that environment that directlyaffects your daily life. I applaud Governor el-Rufai for his courage in puttingthis policy in place and hope that it is carried into a review of the 1999Constitution as soon as possible.

Similar to the concept of Equal Citizenship is the notion that anybodywho can be of value should be invited to contribute the value that they have inorder to build society, regardless of where they come from. That is whydeveloped nations like the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom haveimmigration schemes through which they encourage the brightest and the best tolend their talent to nation building. It is for this same reason that I amhonoured to have been invited to interact with Kaduna’s Kashim Ibrahim Fellowslast year. It is for this same reason that I am here today, being given thegreat honour of delivering this inauguration lecture. It is also the samereason why Governor-Elect Emeka Ihedioha of Imo State invited me to join hisTransition Technical Committee to advise him on issues of ‘Good Governance’,although I am from Ebonyi…currently. Let me now relay to you a recent incidencethat occurred as part of that assignment, to provide an insight into why Ithink that context matters.

The Secretariat of the Imo Transition Technical Committee, of which I ama member, proposed a plenary meeting to review the reports of the varioussubcommittees. All members of the Committee had been formed into abroadcast-only WhatsApp group where comments and discussions were not allowed.If you had any issue with a broadcast message, you were supposed to contact theSecretariat by phone or email. By the way, someone once said that if you wantto know how difficult it is to govern people, open a WhatsApp group and askpeople not to post things that are irrelevant to the objectives of the group.You should then sit back and count how many people post irrelevant things andsay “Apologies, posted in error” only after someone complains. They tend not todelete the offending post, so was it really posted in error? Anyway, I digress.

Given the wide range of issues to be covered that weekend, theSecretariat of the Imo Transition Technical Committee announced that themeetings will happen throughout Saturday and also on Sunday afternoon. Beforelong, a huge furore had broken out. Someone said “We are Christians. It is verywrong and insensitive to schedule meetings on a Sunday.” Another personcountered: “The future of the people of Imo State is superior to any religiousobligations. Sunday is just an ordinary day.” A third commentator said “While Iwon’t mind working on a Sunday, I don’t agree that Sunday is just an ordinaryday. It is a day that Christians set aside to worship God.” He had put the“just an ordinary day” part of his sentence in Capital letters. Then it turned intoa free-for-all. You got comments like “I beg to disagree. God first”; anothersaid “Oh my God! We must worship God on Sunday. Imo State needs God now morethan ever before to survive”; and yet another said “Please don’t go there! Imopeople are religious people and will be most unhappy with you.”

I observed all these with amusement and some sadness and discussed itwith a friend of mine that was visiting me at the time and he said that heagreed with them. I asked him: “What about Muslims that worship on Fridays andJews that worship on Saturdays? Should we not have any meetings on those days?”He said “That is them now. They are different from us.” I said “Seventh-DayAdventists are Christians, just like us. They worship on Saturdays.” A loudsilence ensued, and then he came back with “Yeah, but how many are they?” Iheld my peace. After all, Democracy was described by the French historian andpolitical theorist, Alexis de Tocqueville, as “The Tyranny of the Majority.” Iwill return to this point later in the lecture.

Then as the WhatsApp exchanges continued, somebody in the WhatsApp groupraised the point that all that the Secretariat was trying to arrange was afamily meeting. He said that Igbos all over the world, including those in ImoState, hold their town union meetings on Sunday afternoons to discuss issuesaffecting their communities. If town union meetings could happen on Sundayswithout offending our Christian values, why couldn’t a meeting that is focusedon the wellbeing of Imo State as a whole hold on a Sunday? Would the Governornot have to work on Sundays when he is in office because he is a Christian? Bythe time that this comment came, the Secretariat had already capitulated andannounced that the meeting will now be compressed to hold only on Saturday.Sanctimony had triumphed over logic and common interest. How do you lead apeople like these, with what Professor Adesanmi had described as no option offailure, no reasonable margin of error, and no latitude for mediocrity andunspectacular performance? Who wants to be a Governor? Well, one governor isquoted as saying “I will be the first to concede and I want to tell all thatwant to be governor that it is not an easy job…I want to run away.” The name ofthat governor is Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai!

A lot has been achieved in Kaduna over the last four years. In the areaof Education, a Primary School Feeding Programme is in place and there is aFree Basic Education Policy. There have been reforms on Teacher Quality,including a 30% salary increase for teachers in the rural areas and a 28%increase in the salary of teachers in urban areas. Before the salary increaseswere implemented, about 22,000 unqualified teachers were disengaged andreplaced with better-qualified ones.

I remember personally coming under attack for supporting thisinitiative. As usual, Nigerians raised the emotive issue of job losses and thehardship that the disengagement will cause to the families of those disengaged.Nobody worried about the hardship and lack of employability that substandardeducation is causing to the children, their families and the society at large.I found it incredulous that anyone believed that we should be teaching primaryschool teachers how to read and write!

In the area of healthcare, the Primary Healthcare Under One Roofinitiative was put in place, as was a Contributory Health Insurance Scheme. Anumber of health facilities were also refurbished and upgraded. In terms ofSocial Protection and Welfare, a Child Protection and Welfare Law and anAnti-Hawking and Begging Law were enacted. A Kaduna State Women EmpowermentFund Scheme was also put in place.

With regards to Governance reforms, Kaduna State put in place theTreasury Single Account and adopted the Zero-Base Budgeting approach in itsbudget preparation. It also domesticated the Fiscal Responsibility Law andpassed a Public Finance Control and Management Law. It is instructive that, atthe National level, we are still operating the 1958 Finance (Control andManagement) Act without amendment. Ministries in Kaduna were streamlined, aprogramme of Pension Reforms was undertaken and internally generated revenueincreased by nearly 70% compared to 2015. A number of bright young people werealso appointed to bring energy and fresh ideas into governance. It is worthpointing out that many of them are not from Kaduna State.

In the area of Economic Development, Kaduna ranked first in the WorldBank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings with regards to Registering a Propertyand Enforcing Contracts. The annual Kaduna Investment Summit has become apopular means through which needed investment has flowed into the state,leading to a near 12% jump in the GDP of the state. It was announced a coupleof days ago that the Kaduna State Government had attracted $400 million in newinvestments in the last 4 years.

Despite the formation of a Peace Commission, security remains achallenge, with killings in various parts of the state. A number of communitieswere attacked by bandits and, at various times, the Kaduna to Abuja road becameone of the most dangerous roads in the country with regards to robbery andkidnapping. Ethnic and religious clashes also led to the death of manycitizens, including citizens of other countries.

I have simply stated the facts, without forming a judgment on theperformance of the government in the last 4 years. I believe that the people ofKaduna State formed that judgment with their votes on the 9th of March 2019.Re-electing this government for another four years, despite the challenges withsecurity and the difficult decisions like disengaging 22,000 teachers suggeststhat they saw something good in what the government is doing. Our task now ishow to take Kaduna from Good to Great

In Jim Collins’s book “Good to Great”, he discussed several ingredientsthat are necessary to move an organisation is to move from being a goodorganization to a great organization. Of course, he was writing about privatesector organisations but many lessons from his book are also applicable to thepublic sector. We can summarise Collins’s 300-page book by saying that it callsfor Discipline. Disciplined People, Disciplined Thought and Disciplined Action.Discipline is therefore a key attribute in driving an organization from good togreat.

In his seminal work, ‘The Trouble With Nigeria’, Chinua Achebe used afootball analogy to reflect on why Nigeria never seems able to, as he calls it,“present its first 11.” The quote that is very often cited is where he saysthat there is basically nothing wrong with Nigeria and that the trouble withNigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. I will not focus onthat part. I would rather focus on a part of the same statement that is oftennot cited. That is where he says that “The Nigerian problem is theunwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to thechallenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.” Itis on this more difficult aspect, the challenge of personal example, that ourlecture must now focus.

To start this part of the discourse, I would invite you to accompany meback to Imo State. The Chairman of my ‘Good Governance’ subcommittee isHonourable Justice Paul Onumajulu, former Chief Justice of Imo State, acerebral, wise, jovial but firm man. In a discussion with him on leadership, heproposed that a leader must score 6 Credits and one ‘F’ if he wants to begreat. Like you, I didn’t, at first, understand what he was talking about. Whynot 8 ‘A’s? Why an ‘F’? It started to make sense as soon as he began to explainwhat he meant. The first of his 6 Credits is Capacity. He posits that a greatleader must have the mental ability to lead. She should really have aboveaverage intelligence and if she is not born with it, she must work hard toacquire it through diligent study. The second is Capability, which he describesas the physical strength to work long hours and be visible to the people. Thethird ‘C’ is Credibility. This connotes the need to be sincere and trustworthy.The leader must ensure that his word is his bond and that he is not askingpeople to do things that he himself is not doing.

The fourth ‘C’ is Courage: the quality of fearlessness and the abilityto take difficult decisions in the interest of his people. As the Greekphilosopher Sophocles once said: “I have nothing but contempt for the kind ofgovernor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knowsis best for the state.” The 5th ‘C’ is Conscience: having one’s actions guidedat all times by choosing right over wrong. As Mahatma Gandhi once said “Thereis a higher court than the courts of justice, and that is the court ofconscience. It supersedes all other courts.” The 6th and final ‘C’ isConsistency: the realization that, as Aristotle once said; “We are what werepeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” The Retired ChiefJustice included an ‘F’ as part of the requirements for great leadership. An‘F’ may initially sound like failure but it actually stands for Fear of God. Itis the realization that we are not only answerable for our actions in this lifebut also in the afterlife.

Because Kaduna is a microcosm of Nigeria, I will add three additionalcredits. The first ‘C’ is Compassion. A few days ago, UK Prime Minister TheresaMay resigned in tears after three difficult years as Prime Minister. Manycommentators did not feel sorry for her because they felt that she lackedempathy and was unable to show compassion when she was required to do so. Anexample was when she displayed no emotion whatsoever in the wake of theGrenfell Tower fire and when she laughed in parliament when the issue of risingchild poverty in the UK was raised. A leader cannot be hard all the time. Theymust be able to show compassion when a tragedy occurs or when people aresuffering.

The second ‘C’ I will add is Circumspection. In leading people, it isoften not enough to be right. The wrong word at the wrong time to the wrongaudience can trigger consequences of unimaginable proportions. That is why wemust understand the decision of the Secretariat of the Imo Transition TechnicalCommittee not to go ahead with a meeting on Sunday afternoon. Once religion hadbecome involved, the Secretariat risked organising a meeting that many memberswould not attend or would attend principally to express their displeasure. Notmuch would have been achieved and the Secretariat would have acquired areputation for insensitivity. That the Secretariat listened to the cacophonyand adjusted its plans was not a sign of weakness but a lesson in leadingopinionated people. Religion and reason do not always mix well. That is why aleader must be circumspect around issues of religion. Logic and common-senseare often not enough.

The final ‘C’ is Communication. A leader must engage with the citizensat all times. In this era of fake news and wild unsubstantiated allegations,government communication must be proactive, rather than defensive. Thegovernment must put forward and constantly explain its own agenda before its detractorsplant falsehoods in the minds of citizens. Once the falsehood is allowed totake hold in the minds of citizens, it becomes a certain version of the truthto many. Communication is different from Information though. While Informationis unidirectional, Communication is a two-way process that requires the abilityto listen and to take in the opinions of others.

Additionally, there is a need to redouble all efforts on improvingsecurity. The nexus between Security, Peace and Development is clear. There canbe no development without peace and security, and no peace and security withoutdevelopment. It is additionally important to protect minority rights and guardagainst the tyranny of the majority. A lot of conflicts in the world todaystarted as a result of a feeling of grievance.

To take a society from good to great then, the challenge of personalexample which is the hallmark of true leadership demands Discipline, Capacity,Capability, Credibility, Courage, Conscience, Consistency, Compassion, Circumspection,Communication and Fear of God. If you have keeping tabs on the ‘Credits’, itrequires 9 Credits, 1 ‘D’ and 1 ‘F.’

What about the people being led though? What is required of them if thestate is to move from good to great? Well, everybody wants change but nobodywants to change. We all want change but many of us do not have the appetite forthe difficult decisions required to bring about a better outcome for everyone.We cannot constantly complain about the state of our nation in one breath and thencriticise the tough decisions that are taken to address the issues we arecomplaining about in another breath. Governance is not a beauty contest. Wecannot eat our cakes and have it.

Having said that, you will probably have noticed what sounds like acontradiction. On the one hand, I had said that a leader that wants to lead asociety to greatness must have the courage to take tough decisions. On theother hand, I have also said that leader must be circumspect around certainissues and show compassion, and that being right is often not enough. Oneweakness of the social sciences is that they sometimes try too hard to resemblethe physical sciences, like physics that has seemingly-immutable laws.

Newton’s Third Law states that “For every action, there is an equal andopposite reaction.” This is true in the physical sciences but is notnecessarily the case in human relations.

Human beings are not machines and the world is not a sterile laboratory.Sometimes, you need impetuous behavior. At other times you need to becircumspect. As Machiavelli said “A man who is circumspect, when circumstancesdemand impetuous behaviour, is unequal to the task, and so he comes to grief.”On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi said: “When restraint and courtesy are addedto strength, the latter becomes irresistible.” The skill of the great leader isto know when to be impetuous and when to be circumspect. The human element thatchallenges Newtons Law of Action and Reaction is perhaps best espoused by theAustrian neurologist and psychiatrist, Victor Frankle.

He said “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that spaceis our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and ourfreedom.”

If that stimulus is from social media, it is in that space that theleader should have his phone taken away from him to prevent him from tweetingin the heat of the moment.

Taking Kaduna from Good to Great therefore requires much more than thetechnical excellence that Kaduna is beginning to be known for. It goes beyond thecourage to do the right thing that Governor el-Rufai has always been known for.It requires of everyone in the Kaduna State Government the kind of leadershipthat rises up to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example whichare the hallmarks of true leadership. That challenge of personal example iswhat Governor el-Rufai has demonstrated by committing to sending his own son toa public school in Kaduna State. It is my expectation that everyone in aleadership position in the Kaduna State Government will similarly rise to theresponsibility, this challenge of personal example.

Tomorrow’s inauguration in Kaduna presents a good lesson for incominggovernors, like the Governor of Imo State. Difficult as certain reforms are,you do not need to wait until your second term to fix your state. For all youknow, you may not even be alive to seek a second term. Many predicted thatGovernor el-Rufai will lose his re-election bid for the singular reason ofdaring to disengage 22,000 unqualified teachers. Governor el-Rufai disclosed ata roundtable that I organized in March 2018 that many governors told himprivately that they believed he had done the right thing but would wait to seeif he survives it before they consider doing the same in their own states.Well, he survived it and we are here today. It is proof, if any is needed, thatthe best insurance policy a reformer can have is the support of the public, notthe fear of the elite.

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