STATE OF THE NATION: The Leadership Question – By: Amb. Godknows Boladei Igali

On Tuesday, 7th July, 2O20, foremost career diplomat, former Permanent Secretary and author of several books, Amb. Godknows Boladei Igali had an explosive discussion on “State of the Nation: The Leadership Question” with Nigeria Television Authority’s Nnamdi Odikpo on the programme “Insight”.

Excerpts:

Nnamdi Odikpo: I know you’ve provided leadership in various forms over the last three decades, that’s about 30 years now whether in international diplomacy or even in the academia and of course as well in politics. Perhaps we should staff off by speaking about governance and how one influences the other the public service. How do you rationalize good and purposeful leadership? And how could that easily fastrack good governance?

Boladei Igali: Well, the foundation of society is on the basis of what many people have come to accept as a social contract. Social contract meaning that the governed involuntarily acquiesce their freedom to the state, and by implication the government in the state to saying that we live together in a society for our common good, so we don’t live in a state of leisure. The idea of governance, the idea of society, society is built to cater for the people. For the good of the people, if not we can go back to a brutish…in the words of the social contract theorist’s state of nature where it is the strongest that dictates or the fittest that becomes the King. But we’ve decided to live together in a society for the common good. So everybody can be happy, the weak can be strengthened by the stronger. And those who don’t have can share from the abundance of those who have. So that’s the whole idea of society and if governments and governance structures are built in society to cater for the maximum welfare of as many people as possible for the common good of all. So without sounding too academic, societies exist for the purpose of catering for their people. And the foundation of the state, the foundation of the society is the common good for as many people as possible, as many persons in the society must be carried along, if I’m to simplify it in the Nigerian parlance as to be carried along. So good governance must be predicated on ensuring that society protects everybody and that’s the government. It is the government duty to ensure society protects everybody, and that brings the concept of rule of law where no body is above the law. Law has to cater…make sure that everybody is on the same level playing field. And that’s why people say these Scandinavian countries where I was once privileged to have been an Ambassador. Er…they have some nof the best governance systems because nobody is above the law. It’s like everybody is equal when it comes to the law. And I remember in Denmark there was a case where a Minister drove an official car to attend an event out of town using government fuel, government car. He came back and he was forced to resign. They said no, he couldn’t have done that, it was a private thing. So nobody is above the law, that society protects everybody. But society again also provides a safety net for everybody, so that safety net caters for all…so nobody is too poor and nobody is terribly, terribly so rich, and then the poor is left at the marginal fringes of human existence. So good governance must be predicated on the fact that society caters for all and society protects everybody.

Nnamdi Odikpo: And what role does good leadership or purposeful leadership play in all of this?

Boladei Igali: Purposeful leadership is just a matter of balance. Purposeful leadership is the idea of those who are vested with the responsibility of leading being able to ensure that the society caters not for themselves, not for their group of people, not for those who appear to look like them, not for those who come from where they came from who eat what they eat and who pray where they pray, but that the leadership ensures that the society provides the best for everybody. So purposeful leadership or good leadership, is a leadership that is accountable to the people. Yes, by the end of the day you put us there. We report back to you and our duty is to protect you. Our duty is to provide for you. It again comes back to the whole idea of the social contract, whether we believe it or not, because there are people who believe there is no social contract, let the strongest carry the day. But there are those who believe that society must be so communalist production is defined under proletarians terms but, but…

Nnamdi Odikpo (cuts in): We will be coming to ideology and …

Boladei Igali (cuts in): The whole idea is that good leadership is to ensure that when you lead, you serve the people. Maybe what late President Yar’Adua said, some kind of servant leadership as it where, you lead to serve. And if you look at the two main religions in Nigeria, both Christianity and Islam, our religious fathers, those through whom we serve our God thought us on the fact of leadership serving. Jesus said…look that the leader should wash the feet of his servants…. same Prophet Mohammed who sat on the floor with those who were with him and nobody knew who he was. So the leadership we need in Nigeria is a leadership that serves the people, that protects the people, and provides for the people.

Nnamdi Odikpo: Dr. Igali, you’re not just a good orator I should say but you’re known to be a good writer as well. In fact, I came across a piece you wrote and delivered at an event in Bayelsa State in 2017 to mark the Isaac Boro Day. You talked about the imperatives for moving from underdevelopment and marginalization to rapid development in the Niger Delta. But I’m more interested in what you described as the Nigerian reality. I’ll quote from your speech where you said..I’ll tell them to put that up so you can see and I quote “In recent times the unfolding socio -political environment in Nigeria characterized by unbridled tolerance, religious extremism, pervasive violence, high level corruption, ethnic chauvinism, irredentist proclivities has tended to make Nigerians to begin to recline into cocoons at self-expression and creation of sphere of self and group preservation”, end of quote. This ring true on many levels and continues to be an issue for us in Nigeria. Again I’ll talk about leadership and ask you these: how can leadership stir us away from all of these misconceptions and perhaps, stir nationalism?

Boladei Igali: Well, leadership in a multi-ethnic society such as Nigeria must be very broadminded in order to accommodate and ensure that the interest sections are balanced evenly. It’s not possible to have a perfect balance but we can have a fair and even balance that will ensure that no group feels terribly alienated and excluded. And so what leadership needs to do is to ensure that…fortunately chapter 3 of the present constitution, and all the previous constitutions that deals with fundamental objectives of state policy, and derivative policies provide the fact that leadership must accommodate everybody. That is, if you’re local government chairman, all components of your local government must feel the impact of your leadership. And you have to be fair to rpossible in the local government in the allocation of resources which are scarce. The same thing at the level of the State. No part of the state, no section of the State should feel excluded, they must feel the impact of the government. And then at the federal level, infact the constitution is very hard at the federal level in terms of the fact that the federal government must be run in a way that it takes care of everybody, and the economic and social benefits must ensure that all parts of the country benefits. So the leadership has what Professor George Obiazor calls “precarious balancing”, you know, you have to balance precariously, the interest of all parts and ensure that everybody feels the warmth. It’s like a parent, you know, like a mother that all the children what to feel the warmth of their mother. So a good leader in the kind of society that we have and those who are placed to lead have to ensure that everybody feels the impact of the leadership.

Nnamdi Odikpo: Dr. Igali let me ask you a pointed question on politics and politicking in Nigeria. Do you concur or disagree with those who believe, quite strongly too, that politics and politicking, especially when it comes as a practice for determining resource allocation within a polity has largely impacted negatively on public administration in Nigeria? Take the State and local administration in Nigeria, for instance.

Boladei Igali: Well, I think we sometimes, there’s a point where I disagree with a lot of people in terms of the fact that who do we blame for the failures of governance in Nigeria or for the successes of governance. If you put on the television you see Governors advertising what they’ve done most of the time. But the point there is that there are three levels of government. There is Federal government that gets on allocation of resources, although it’s a far departure from the original arrangement. Then there are the States and Local Governments. And many times, I have been Secretary to the State Government before. When President Jonathan was Governor, I was Secretary to the State Government. And all what we hear, you know, in government circles is “ah, oga you dey try o!”, ” we’re loyal”, “you’re doing very well”. We don’t interrogate performance at the level of the States, we don’t interrogate performance, like Ministry of Health, there’s a Governor that came to Abuja once, a former Governor now,hospitals the federal government does not have any good hospitals, and I laughed. I said but health is on the concurrent list which means State governments are to provide health facilities, and federal government. This Covid-19 has exposed a lot of State governments, Covid-19 has shown a lot of State governments don’t have anything on ground. So few States now have molecular labs but many States don’t even have good isolation centres or water supply. Look at India, somebody went to court to sue the local government chairman because that section dealing with fundamental objectives is justicable, you can take somebody to court. A local government was taken to court for not providing water or for not providing educational facilities for children, and the judge said the local government Chairman should be jailed. So the point there is that we don’t interrogate performance at the level of local government. Go to UK, England or United States that Nigerians always quote, housing is not done by the central government. Water, housing, schools are provided the municipal level. But here local governments are not interrogated, we don’t ask them to come and give account. So I think that the starting point for most of us in the country, for us to query performance should be from the very basic level. What is happening at the local level, what is happening at the State level and what is happening at the Federal level.

Nnamdi Odikpo: Can we also tie that to resource control at that level? Can we…

Boladei Igali: (cuts in) No…resource control is a different kettle of fish. If you ask me a question on resource control I can spend the whole day talking resource control…because it’s at my heart, I’m from the Niger Delta, listen to me. My local government, Southern Ijaw local government produces about 18% of the oil in this country, of the wealth and we don’t have any road going to my local government. If you visit me, we have to go by water for two hours before you get to my community. So resource control…when from the Ibadan conference of 1950 up the independence conference, up to the independence constitution, the people discussed, the leaders, the founding fathers of this country, the great people like Sardauna of Sokoto, the great Zik of Africa, Chief Awolowo and co discussed how do we allocate resources and they agreed. That the resources should be such that 50% goes to the area that produce the resources, and 30% goes to the distributing pool, to be shared again by everybody, all the regions, then 20% goes to the Federal government. From 1966 coup when the 1960 constitution was pushed aside, they now said “oh, everything should be centralized”. And today, we from Niger Delta…we’re producing the oil, suffering from the brunt of oil production, we get 13% and people think that they’re being fair to us. And the environment is polluted, we can’t fish again. We’re fiahermen, we can’t fish again because all the fish has run always from our areas and gone up in the river Niger. So resource control is something that we have to keep discussing, and having departed fundamentally from what the founding fathers agreed, there must be a forum where we will look at this subject matter again. That’s why our youths got restive and we have to put them, tell them to take it easy.

Nnamdi Odikpo: But we’ll also create a forum where you and I talk resource conthat, where we can have a longer time to do that…

Boladei Igali: (laughs)…well, well yeah

Nnamdi Odikpo: Ambassador Igali, I’m bringing this up right now because I do know you’ve been in the thick of politics on Bayelsa State. I’m fact, you were a governorship aspirant in the 2019 guber polls there. I also do know of your Senatorial ambition, please permit me to be blunt here and ask you. Is this an attempt to political office not minding which or perhaps you’re driven by something Nnamdi you would like to share with us?

Boladei Igali: No, no, no. I think that er…see I joined public service at a very early age. I joined civil service at the age of 22 and I had very successful career that took me to the peak of diplomacy, and the peak of administration. I became one of the most senior administrators as permanent secretaries in the country before I exited. And I think that I’m still strong enough to contribute and give my…I’ve worked for Federal government all these years, so I thought I could still give back to my people. That’s why I tried to be Governor but I didn’t understand some of the nuances of politics in Nigeria and I went into governorship election and saw that it’s not about ideas. For a lot of people, its not about ideas. Unfortunately, its not about ideas. It’s about maybe the depth of your pocket. But that’s another matter. But Senatorial ambition, do I have one? Well, my people keep shouting very loud that “ah, come back, come and be our Senator, come and be our Senator”. I’m listening to them and I’m praying about it. That’s what I can say.

Nnamdi Odikpo: Okay, I would later on, just before I let you go, ask you quite a delicate question on your ambition, but I’ll leave that for now tarrying and keep it just for the tail end of our discussion. But I’ll still stay with politics, and this time I’ll like to have your take on the seeming lack of ideology in Nigerian political parties. Does a blueprint suffice as ideology even when they’re not fixated on any of the prominent political ideologies like we see in other clime?

Boladei Igali: Well, I think there’s a fundamental problem in the way we’re playing politics at presand. If you go back to the first republic and I keep talking about the first republic because that is where the foundation of this country was laid. The Northern Peoples Congress was a centre party conseKingdom party, something similar to the conservative party in the United Kingdom. And Mallam Aminu Kano left to form Northern Elements Progressive Union based on ideology. He was radical. If you come down to the south, Chief Awolowo preached and practiced some social welfare type of governance, something similar to the Scandinavian countries – free education, free housing, support agriculture. And a person like Akintola was slightly more to the right. You know Akintola parted ways with Chief Awolowo based on ideology. Parted because he was more similar to what the Northern Peoples Congress was doing and he joined them. If you go to the East, at a point Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe wanted…oh independence now! independence now or never! And a person like Professor Eyo Ita who was his friend and holding the forte in Eastern House parted ways with him, essentially based on ideology. So ideology is a fundamental part of politics. Now, let me come forward to today. We have too many parties in the country. I don’t even want to go into…second republic? Yes, the same thing. Chief Awolowo came with Action Group – social, centre left, NPN – centre right. Then in between, PRP of Aminu left was again extreme left. And so we had all that and then you had the one that Wole Soyinka, Dr. Tunji Braithwaite and Fela and co formed (laughs…) which was more of a radical advocacy kind of thing. Ideology! Now, President Babangida tried to do two parties -NRC and SDP, it failed. Today, we don’t know where ideology is in our parties. We don’t know where ideologies is and ideology is a critical thing in a party. The two parties are more or less two concentric circles with a big common area. The common area is so big that you don’t know if there’s a difference. So I think that we need to return to ideology, we need to return to the functionality of the power of the party. And those who are old enough to remember in the days of NPN, I was in the University of Port Harcourt, I was NPN Student’s Wing in Rivers State, and I remember when Akinloye was visiting the State as Chairman of NPN, it was more than when the President visited the State, that is the strength of the party. The party was so strong. And the same thing Adeniran Oguntime who was Chairman of NPP, the Zikist party at the time…second republic. He was so powerful that, again because in the Rivers State House of Assembly we were equal, well almost equal NPN and NPP. When Adeniran Ogunsoya was coming our colleagues who were supporting NPP it was like the president visited the State. So today, I think party Chairmen, anybody can say “abeg commot”, no! We have to return to a place where the party is able to dictate its ideology and there’ll be irresistible standards. This is what we want in education, this is what we want in health, this is what we want in maybe infant mortality or whatever. So ideology has become very opaque. The opaqueness of ideology is affecting…

Nnamdi Odikpo: (cuts in) Ideology has to the motivation and guiding spirit. I would interject…I would interject here and that is it so we can move on quickly, we’re fast losing time. I’d like for us to move to other issues now and let’s talk about the national response plan on Covid-19. We’re seeing the number of infections rise while the government unveils more plans to contain the spread. As we gradually reopen the economy, if I ask you to make recommendations, what stimulus packages would you recommend for businesses and perhaps what group or groups of business should be targeted for bailout at this point.

Boladei Igali: Of necessity, well, first and foremost let me commend the actions taken so far. The Presidential Task Force has done creditably very well, you benchmark them with other countries and I was invited recently to All Africa Day to talk on the African response. And it you benchmark us with other African countries we’re doing quite well, and unfortunately, because of demographic issues our numbers are very high. So naturally, expectedly, we’ve even done well. Look at Brazil. We and the country that about same level with us is Brazil, in terms of demographics and size, and the numbers in Brazil are taking a quatum leap, you know. So we’ve tried well but there’s need for more advocacy. Need for advocacy not by only the federal government, but the States and local government, we have to advocate, people have to be aware on the streets. What is important? People first have to know that Covid-19 is a reality. I went somewhere and I was the only one wearing facemask.

Nnamdi Odikpo: Last week I had some migration experts come on the programme. They came on Insight and we where discussing the growing sense of loss and isolation occasioned by the prolonged closure of borders between countries. I do know that some countries has been creating what has been termed “mobility bubbles”, otherwise known as ” safe zones” invariably asking other nationals to stay away. What are your thoughts on these developments and how such a move could further drive the world apart?

Boladei Igali: I recently wrote an article on this pandemic and I was impressed it went round globally. It is a natural factor. Nature, everybody wants to preserve himself. The law of self preservation is regarded as first human instinct. So now it is a time for everybody to answer as is locally said “his father’s name”. Every country is protectionist. Every country will cooperate with you on the phone and through the virtual medium but they want to protect themselves because this is a virus that is spread by human contact. So bubbles will exist but what do you want people to do? Every nation wants to survive. Even within the nation State governors have barricade some federal roads that connect to States, you know. A Federal road that belongs to federal government, they say well we don’t care, we can go for the penalty later…we’ll put a barricade because everyone wants to be preserved. So there’s nothing you can do, it’s a natural instinct, it’s a human reaction. As Covid-19 begins to fade away, if hopefully there is the discovery of a vaccine or some treatment somewhere, I think those bubbles will burst and life will return back to as cbese as possible what it used to be.

Nnamdi Odikpo: There’s so much that we have to talk about that I’d really love for us to talk about. There is the issue of security, but I’ll just try to make this quick and condense all of my questions into one or two. Let me ask you this Dr. Igali. Give me very quickly if you’re to choose just five…give me five critical sectors in Nigeria that you like to see government take a radical, pardon me to use the word, radical action as a way of fast tracking sustainable development in Nigeria?

Boladei Igali: Well, the first sector is power. I used to be in power and I think that some things need to be done that were being done. There’s need for the sector to be more supervised. We used to have what we called Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP). PTFP was a daily engine room where all actors would meet and monitor what has been happening. And that helped a lot, later it was scrapped. I think that the scrapping of PTFP should be reconsidered so that the burden is taken away from many people. The other one is what we’ve spoken about before, dealing with the lowest level of the economic superstructure. The informal people, bring as many osector into the formal sector and try to help them because when you help them you’re helping more people. Number 3 is the issue of youth unemployment. We have to give jobs to our young people and it has to be something that both private sector and the State and Federal government should not be doing with lip service and has to play their roles. Number 4 is agriculture. Agriculture is so critical. I’m not listing them in any order of preference. Agriculture is so important. And on terms of ideology, that is, in terms of water supply and the climate, Nigeria offers offers some of the best opportunities for agriculture. 5 is Niger Delta. Niger Delta produces the oil of this country. Niger Delta is the one that keeps this country going and to imagine that East West Road which is where this oil comes from, the East – West Road will cost just about three to four days oil production, but East – West Road has not been done. So as long as Niger Delta is not solved, and even whether there is amnesty programme or not, there needs to be more focus and concentration in solving the problems of the Niger Delta. Well, security is always there…I now add a 6th for myself. Yes insecurity is there, we have to address it.

Nnamdi Odikpo: I’ll take your 6th but before I let you go, and I’ll say this with all sense of honesty. I mean, when did you decide own your Senatorial ambition? Ofcourse the national Assembly can use more people like you, but then some people criticised the obvious arminious relationship between the country’s legislature and the executive, pointing out that it makes caricature of the principles of checks and balances.

Boladei Igali: First, I don’t have an ambition, it’s the wish of my people. My people have been crying loud. But let’s put that aside. Now talking about the harmony between the executive and legislature, I think you’re making a mistake. There’s a perception that animosity in governance is a critical factor. No! No, no, no. There’s what is called concentual government. Government can be run in such a way that people talk, people negotiate, people agree and personally, as a Diplomat, I have always believed in talk talk talk instead of war war war. Jaw jaw jaw instead of war war war. Governance can be such that state government and federal government can agree, national assembly and the executive can have a modus vivendi talking and agreeing on issues and so on, but that does not mean that anybody is a licky to the other.

Nnamdi Odikpo: Ambassador, so you don’t perception is problem…

Boladei Igali: No, no, no, that perception…Students of political science will agree with me that one of the concepts of political governance is concentual governance and that what happens in Communist countries. My first diplomatic post in 1982 was in a communist country. And before they come to do things they sit down, the leadership would agree on the main things, argue and by the time they come to the public, they’ll be telling the public what they’ve agreed.

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