Guardian

LORD Barnard Montgomery in his canons of military leadership defined leadership as the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character that inspires confidence. This definition dovetails with the one furnished by fleet admiral Nimitz who defined leadership as the quality that inspires sufficient confidence in subordinates, making them willing to accept his views and to carry out his commands. The All Progressives Congress has evinced overt leadership trait in the way it has put its acts together.  But Nigerians are not searching for mere leaders. Nigerians are searching for effective leaders.

Nigerians are searching for the man (or the party) that has the road map. To paraphrase John R. Mott, Nigerians are searching for the man (or the party) that knows the road, who can keep ahead and who pulls others after him. But the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN) has made leadership a plural concept by institutionalising it. Whether you are talking of party or bureaucratic leadership, you are not talking of one-man- riot-squad.  The people involved must be people who know the road map and have trodden the way.

In the last 43 years, our leaders have been leading us along the road that leads to nowhere. The journey to our promise land has been circuitous. A journey of 40 days became prolonged to a 40-year journey. All this is because contemporary leaders don’t have the road map. Those who come up for leadership are people that have not trodden the way.

Only the founding fathers knew where they were taking their various regions to. At Federal level, the road map was not quite   clear being merely economic in nature. In the long-range economic plans, considerations were given to how to improve the gross domestic product (GDP), grow and develop the national economy. Later, emphasis shifted from growth in GDP to import substitution.

Today, precisely 53 years down the line, we have leaders who know next to nothing about such basic economic concepts as GDP, per capita income, import substitution, national planning and the overall industrialisation and development of the nation. We don’t have leaders who understand the need to make Nigeria self-sufficient in all facets of human endeavour. We don’t have leaders who can harness, motivate and mobilise our scientists to release their high creative fecundity and ingenuity to make the Nigerian bicycle, motorcycle, the Nigerian motorcar, the Nigerian aeroplane and rocket.

A good leader should programme our national planning over the short and long-term to make such dreams come to fruition.

The effective leader must not only be far-sighted, he must also be clear sighted as to how to achieve these feats almost effortlessly within the time and resource constraints imposed by the political economy. He must be a sound picker of men. He must be focused.

From the independence era to date we have not had leaders who spelt out clearly the type of nation they want. Do they want a nation that will be a world power, second to none? Do they want a nation that will be ranked among the league of medium powers?  We have not had leaders with “can-do-it” mentality, leaders who can tell the nation “you-too-can-fly” are those we need.

Fourteen years running, the PDP has squandered mind bogging resources that could have produced two world powers in other climes without advancing our growth and development one inch. The APC is scheming in the wings   empty headed and empty handed to substitute one evil with a greater or lesser one. It is serious if not curious that APC is promising a more effective party leadership without making its manifesto and ideology known to Nigerians. Manifestoes and ideologies may be filed with the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC). But they are useless if they are not disclosed to Nigerians. Ideologies and manifestoes not disclosed to Nigerians are either unimplementable or ab-initio not intended to be implemented. Such manifestos are mere window dressing and political grand- standing. The APC to be different, must not only make its ideology and manifesto known to Nigerians, it must give Nigerians clear vision of its road map. It must recruit leaders who have trodden the way time and time again. No doubt, Muhammad Buhari and Bola Tinubu are qualified candidates. Both have trodden the way. However, the pogrom, terror, and bigotry in the north make the chances of voting in a Muslim president very slim. This reasoning is premised on the fact that if Boko Haram can operate with such impunity and brazen effrontery under the regime of a Christian President, what will happen when a Muslim President takes over? Luckily, there is a Christian North.

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu or anybody from the Southwest cannot be fielded either. Ask me why?  The reasoning here is that the Southwest cannot rule three times when the Southeast has not ruled even once. We cannot forget that all states are deemed equal under the doctrine of equality. The APC should have the political will not only to do things right but to do the right things. The APC should buy into the doctrine that the only way to put the civil war behind us is to allow the Southeast to take a shot at the presidency. It will be a masterstroke for APC to field a presidential aspirant from the Southeast. This may bring about automatic switch or transfer of voting power from PDP to APC.

The nation has been bogged down with parties without vision, parties without mission. These parties field candidates who only know how to spend money. Effective leadership transcends ability to spend money. The effective leader must not only be versed in the management of demand, he must be adept at the management of supply. The management of supply is this road that leads to employment generation, industrialisation and new town development. It is this road that leads to a healthy balance of payment.

The 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN) has made leading lots easier by making effective leadership a plural concept. The President in council must carry the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives   along. Strategic decisions cannot be made without carrying the Chief Justice of the Federation along either. It is the failure to see that the 1999 CFRN has institutionalised decision-making that made leaders across the realms to wobble and fumble in the last 14 years. Decision-making is based on collaboration, without which the repeated jousts between the legislature and the executive would remain clogs in the wheel of progress.

We cannot accept any longer leaders who avoid our problems and thus never get to solve them. We don’t need leaders who keep pleading one alibi after another. Leaders who brood over our circumstances are not leaders. I don’t believe in circumstances.  I rather agree with George Bernard Shaw who said that leaders who get on in this world are those that get up to look for the circumstances they want and if they cannot find them, they create them. A leader without a road map cannot go far. His government is run on hunches, whims and caprices. Such leaders have no choice than to depend on those-who- lead-the-leaders.

Eugene Uwalaka writes from Lagos.