Special Correspondent, SAM NWOKORO, looks at leadership qualities of some of the Presidential aspirants, identifying their strength and weaknesses.
There is sense in the views of experts that leadership is the art of mobilising human and material resources towards attaining some set of positive goals. The task of leadership, according to them, entails a leader possessing some qualities desirable for achieving set goals. Leadership tasks they add, entail: problem identification, mastery of problem-solving techniques and strategies, mobilisation of the requisite human resources that help in realisation of stated objectives and goals set. The total aim is to achieve result.
In political leadership, however, it has been observed that the environment and social temperature at times determine the type of leaders that are required, the type of objectives and goals that are desirable, and the strategies for attaining such goals.
According to scientific schools of thought on leadership, there are clear demarcations between the leadership skills required for the business/corporate set-up and that for political leadership/administration. While the corporate boss deals with a fairly easily identifiable constituency like consumers, labour, stakeholders, industry regulations and regulators, the political leader deals with a mass of all of the above, including variegated local and foreign interests.
Against this back ground, attempts are being made to situate the character of politicians aspiring for various positions in the country, especially the presidency. Though the two leading political parties – All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are yet to hold their primaries to choose their flag bearers, some names are being listed as leading aspirants.
Muhammadu Buhari: This ex-general is one of Nigeria’s former Heads of state. He was military Head of Government after the fall of the Second Republic. While he ruled, his stern disposition against indiscipline was legendary. He jailed the Second Republic politicians, enacted series of retroactive and harsh decrees as demanded by the social conditions of that time. Most of those decrees however did not achieve much in enthroning noble values, or had any transformative effect on the Nigerian leadership behavior and followership.
His hasty trial of the corrupt leadership class of 1979-83, incidentally did not tame or stem the plague of corruption which was accentuated by his very constituency, the military. It is not in record that any military officer was tried for corruption offence or dismissed from the army on grounds of sleaze throughout his tenure between January 1984 and August 1985. Nor was there any record or public disclosure of the amount of loot recovered from the politicians his group overthrew or how the loot was spent accountably.
Critics of the retired army officer, in fact, allege that his first stint at the presidency as military Head was lacking in any worthwhile development vision or sustainable template for Nigeria’s growth beyond monthly sanitation exercises, the queue culture and social orientation television sloganeering without the necessary institutional enforcement structures.
The next time he served the nation was briefly as boss of the Petroleum Trust Fund which tried to make social amenities get to those outside the cities. But his achievements in that project, some allege, were uneven: some communities got, and others did not get.
A major factor many count in his favour however, is his zero tolerance for corruption. Akisola Omdiji, a social commentator, who spoke on the qualities of the former head of State, stated that “if Nigeria is truly serious at tackling corruption and putting the country on the right pedestal, Buhari is the man that should be the President next year”.
He is currently on the move to actualise his presidential ambition. Last Wednesday, he made a public pronouncement of his intention to seek the presidential ticket of his party. Buhari who spoke before an encouraging audience, reiterated his desire to reposition Nigeria if given the chance by his party and the electorate. Anchoring his aspiration on discipline and commitment, he asked for another chance from his APC party men in 2015 polls.
What cannot easily be determined is the extent of Buhari’s financial war chest to weather through APC presidential primaries that already has Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President as force to contend with.
There are also suggestions that Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, may join the race. If the governor eventually throws the dice, there are fears that his aspiration may make the race tighter for Buhari, given that both are from the same North West geo-political zone. The former military leader had run for the presidency on three occasions without success.
Sule Lamido: Until certain developments in September, there were media reports that the governor of Jigawa State had already rolled out his campaign vehicles ahead PDP presidential primary.
Supporters of the governor had claimed that he had done well for Jigawa, hence his qualification to go for presidency. They particularly cited his administration’s feat in re-engineering infrastructural facilities in his state as enough evidence for him to aspire for higher office.
The governor’s touted adventure did not come to many as a surprise. Twice in recent time, former President Olusegun Obasanjo had publicly tipped him for president.
“Some people are saying one person can’t make changes; this is rubbish. If you have a competent person who knows where he is going, he can make changes along with his team that would impact the lives of people as we have seen it in Jigawa State,” Obasanjo had said of the governor in one of his controversial outings.
Obasanjo also spoke up for the governor on May 12 this year, saying: “Going by Lamido’s background, performance and credibility, his competence and exposure, he can stand shoulder to shoulder with anybody in the country.”
Lamido had been said to be giving serious thought to these remarks and might give the presidency a trial. What accounted for the confidence on him was that he was not known for engaging in encounters that he would not sustain. His associates ascribe to him the gift of precise interpretation of political developments. Some even see him as an iconoclast of sort.
Earlier in his political career, he had pitched tents with the seemingly ideologically left Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) during the Second Republic. Apparently leaning on the same progressive bent, he became National Secretary of the Social Democratic Party during the General Ibrahim Babangida transition programme.
He was to be jailed in 1998 by General Sani Abacha for criticising the late Head of State’s plan to perpetuate himself in office.
At the onset of the current transition in 1999, Lamido ran for the governorship of Jigawa, but was narrowly defeated by Ibrahim Turaki of the then All Peoples Party (APP). In apparent compensation, the then President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed him Foreign Minister.
Lamido was eventually elected governor in 2007 and was reelected four years later. Ever since, he has not shied away from taking position or being associated with one on national issues, no matter how controversial.
The Jigawa governor’s aspiration, however, hit an anti-climax when against all expectations, he was among PDP chieftains that offered President Goodluck Jonathan consensus candidacy of the party.
Atiku Abubakar: In the school of leadership according to Francis Fukuyama, consistency and focus towards set goals are necessary qualities for a leader.
In Nigeria, former Vice president Atiku Abubakar is in no way detached from the North’s penchant for “unity of Nigeria” for whatever reason. This logically implies that aspiration to national leadership must be strictly based on the principles of pure politics as provided for in the national constitution and party rules.
Critics of the former Vice President, however argue that he cannot easily be identified with any identifiable vision or ideology for moving Nigeria forward. They allege that at one point he would propose regionalism in line with the present geopolitical structure. At other point, he would talk about unity and indissolubility of Nigeria. According to them, he is hardly exact on one formulae nor has he any strong position on those contentious issues of devolution of power, fiscal re-arrangement or power rotation.
Atiku is however credited with extensive network of contacts and sterling organisational capacities that had seen him sustaining the then Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) and nurturing it to a formidable platform that came handy at the formation of PDP. He was also seen as stabilising voice in the first term of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration where he was the Deputy.
In fact, until Atiku and Obasanjo got entangled in a suffocating feud in the build up to the 2003 general election, the political clout of the former Vice President had loomed large across the country. He had at the onset of the current political dispensation sent signals of being among the politicians to reckon with in the land. When he left the governorship election that he had easily won in Adamawa for a vice presidential slot, it was seen as an attempt at marketing his intimidating credentials at the national level.
However, when his battle with Obasanjo began to take turns for the worst, enormous efforts were deployed by the highly vindictive former President to shoot down his towering influence.
Many still see him as a great leader that cannot be written off any day. On September 24, when he officially declared his intention to seek the presidential ticket of APC, it was a carnival of sort. The former Vice President had at the well-attended event, offered explanations for his aspiration, anchoring it on the patriotic zeal to refocus Nigeria. He vowed to champion the needed change to move the nation forward.
Sam Nda-Isaiah: This is the newest entrant into Nigeria’s leadership contest. Until he became a publisher of Leadership Newspaper, not many knew Nda-Isaiah, especially for holding pronounced public office.
Critics allege that his major agenda is the return of the presidency to the North in 2015. Nda-Isaiah’s supporters however insist that he possesses leadership skills required to reposition Nigeria.
Goodluck Jonathan: The President who has unsuccessfully disguised his interest for a second term, is currently savoring group and private endorsements from within and outside his party.
The security challenges raging in some parts of the North have however provided critics basis to describe the president as not being strong.
Professor Douglas Anele of the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos, has however located the security challenges over which the present government is randomly pilloried “as a result of Northern leaders failure over the year three years to expose its rigid cultures and jihadist indoctrinations to changing realities”.
Dr. Gregory Nwobi, a political scientist added: “Jonathan could not do more than he is currently doing. Nigerians have short memory. They reverence those leaders that bully them than those that treat them with dignity.
“If President Jonathan is not performing, why has investors been risking their money to come into Nigeria.”
The president’s supporters argue that he is tackling the security challenges from a holistic approach – pump in funds into social re-orientation and subsequent economic empowerment of the Muslim youths.
It is however argued that the rapidity with which the nuisance of Boko Haram spews out has continued to tar Jonathan regime’s genuine efforts. There are also allegations that the President has not demonstrated capacity and competence in re-engineering Nigeria’s economy. Corruption, his critics insist, has gone all time high in his administration.
Notwithstanding, his party – Peoples Democratic Party, had at its 16th National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja, last month, adopted him as its sole presidential candidate for 2015 elections. The endorsement, curiously, came even when he was yet to declare interest on returning to the job, at least, officially.