of us find the privilege to step into public office today, we will act
the exact same way as many of those whom we criticise, even despise.
Recover quickly and let's interrogate that assertion.
The problem is neither a default in character (the "all Nigerians
young and old are corrupt" doctrine) nor a sudden absence of
conscience – the problem is, as I see it, one of understanding.More
than once, I have quieted down and listened to government officials
who were once activists or critics or columnists or opposition members
repeat that they "did not fully understand the depths of the problem
that existed" or that suddenly they have seen the light. That in
itself is a major problem, and I don't think we understand how grave a
challengeit presents – and why we need to pay attention to what these
people are saying.
It is very troubling to listen to the public discourse amongst young
people and see them belittle and simplify the magnitude of the
problems Nigeria faces or why it has been impossible for many
brilliant, determined Nigerians in government to fulfill the promise
that they made or represented.
They are preparing themselves to fall into the same traps that have
caught their predecessors.
Let's look back on perhaps the finest example ofthis tragedy – Bola
Ige, that excellent man who government took away from us. It had been
barely days since he joined the government, without looking at the
files, sitting down with the decision makers, understanding the
bottlenecks or indeed having a cup of coffee to think over the
mountains ahead, but he went to the public space and declared that he
would solve the problems of NEPA in a couple of months. His timeline
came and passed – and, of course, he failed.
Government in Nigeria is surely not a matter solely of good
intentions. If you are a politician, you face a number of woes: a
severely corrupt set of grassroots politicians that subsists almost
entirely on cash-patronage and is driven by primal, primitive
interests. To break all that English into a simple phrase – it is
cash-and-carry (to win a local government election in the South-West,
I have heard, you need at least N20 million).
You face an electorate populace that will sit outside the home of a
Senator to get their "dividends of democracy", most times in cash. On
rare occasions, they demand that a legislator sink a borehole in the
community or build a bridge, a responsibility that is neither his nor
does he oversee whose it is. If you are, say a minister, your woes
surely multiply – government is a complex layer of mundane, redundant,
and gravity-defying bureaucracy that can consume (and corrupt) you.
There are permanent secretaries who have outlived two decades of
ministers whom you have to co-opt or circumvent (ask Adenike Grange).
By the way,you cannot fire them, nor can you discipline them. The
Ministry of Youth Development is perhaps a good example here. It is a
ministry that "handles" the National Youth Service Corps, but then,
that is easily a joke.
Despite the fact that its budget is taken almost90 per cent by the
service corps scheme, the minister unfortunately has very little
control over matters as simple as whether corps members allowances
have been paid – in fact, effectively, the director-general and other
officials of of the Corps are beyond his control No amount of "fire
and brimstone' threats can make any real change in those places unless
he somehow finds himself having the ears of the president on a
constant basis. Unfortunately, youth development is not a 'powerful'
ministry – another major problem. You find yourself beholden to a
severely corrupt National Assembly whose members have been there since
democracy returned in 1999, who already know "how things are done
here" and are armed, dangerously, with small minds and huge egos.
Youare pressured on every corner to ease your own passage during
sittings and hearings (ask FabianOsuji) for everything from your
budget to mini-controversies, and you find yourself havingto learn a
whole new range of social skills to get any work done.
And I have only mentioned two principalities. One remembers Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala tell a tale on her first course in Nigerian government
about how she had to go out and buy pens for the ministry herself
because the process of getting the monies out was about to drive her
crazy. And that's just pens.
Have I told you the story of a government minister who entered into
office and sought to do the simplest thing possible –a re-design of
the ministry's website? Ah, then maybe I should tell you. First and
foremost, the directors in hisoffice could give him no clues, claiming
the previous minister had single-handedly managed the site. There was
no email trail made available to the new minister, no proper handover
in documented format (the minister before him had simply upped and
left). When he eventually got a contact, informally, to the special
assistant to the former minister (whom, as you must recall was no
longer in the vicinity), he was told that the contractor who managed
the back-end of the site could not reached. Cut a long story short, to
get anything done, he had toregister a whole new URL and get a new
website designed, leading to a situation where differentministries in
Nigerians government circles have wildly different URLs.
Of course, when you go down to Twitter to hear the chatter, you hear
things like this: "Why can'tthis minister do a simple thing like
change the website of this country?! Why do we have such daft people
in government in Nigeria?"
The problem unfortunately, is not 'daft people.' The problem is a daft
system that has made itself so impossible to change that it takes the
will and guts of a mad man. What do you find, therefore? Brilliant
technocracts who have blazed trails internationally or in the private
sector or in the development community who find themselves hampered by
the labyrinth of government in Nigeria – where they are unable to do
the most basic things.
Cushioned unfortunately by the interminable luxuries of that same
government, they will not resign, but will simply throw their hands in
the air, do the little that they can to "satisfy their conscience",
moan about how terrible it is to steer any change in Nigeria. Where
they are smarter, they launch into quick wins – developinga string of
nice-sounding ideas and projects that will quickly win them column
inches and the admiration of donors and foreign governments. They are
seen as visionary and transformative, but they know that the minute
they step out of government, their unsustainable ideas will be churned
out, along with their strategists, consultants, and other suits.
The result is that we take no step forward, and two backwards.
This is the challenge that a new generation of leaders faces.
Government is the most important force for change in any society so
ultimately to make any sustainable change, you have to have people in
this imperfect, impossiblegovernance structure. Getting into public
service without seeking to correctly understandhow deep the
corruption, the ineptitude, and thefailure of common processes runs
means that you are getting into government without the competence and
the capacity that you truly need to make any change possible.
We don't need another generational merry go round where people go into
government all fired up and ready to go and come out with no concrete
achievement – ending up as additions to the long list of failed "whiz
kids".
Therefore, any young person who is desirous of joining that system
(indeed, any system) on a tangential or major level, must begin to
take thetime to understand that system –indirectly through
observation, monitoring, and knowledge osmosis (conferences, sittings,
etc), or directly through internships, mentorships and other
interactions. That is what will truly differentiate a new generation
of leaders from the old: knowledge, and the capacity to make change
happen. Not to complain about how hard it is when you eventually
arrive there, not to be crippled by the relentless graft that defines
it, not to be slowed down by its institutionalided inadequacies; but
to come into those offices fully understanding the complexity of our
problems and how deep they run and armed with a plan and a strategy on
how to circumvent or de-mobilise those situations and achieve
sterlingresults.
For now, we are not at that stage yet. Many of us are still
under-estimating the problem, and we are over-stating our own capacity
to make that change happen simply because we have read a couple of
textbooks that have outlined "alternative sources of energy in
emerging economies", we have not faced any situations that test our
character, or have attended one or two conferences on "The Asian
Tigers" duringour summer holidays at Stanford. Many of us still
imagine for instance – and this is truly worrisome – that good
intentions are enough to solve our power problems and dismiss the
circling of vultures including ex-heads of state who have vested
interests in that sector and willfight reform tooth and nail; or that
it takes just one fiery senator to dismantle the wickedness in high
places that are siphoning Nigeria's oil wealth.
I'm sorry, but it doesn't have anything to do with passion, or
righteous indignation. It has everything to do with the competence and
the capacity to navigate these treacherous waters.
The solution bears repeating – Any young personwho is desirous of
joining that system (indeed, any system) on a tangential or major
level, must begin to take the time to understand that system
–indirectly through observation, monitoring, and knowledge osmosis
(conferences, sittings, etc), or directly through internships,
mentorships and other interactions.
These are not times for trial by error.....
Chude Jideonwo is publisher/editor-in-chief of Y!, including Y!
Magazine, Y! Books, Y! TV & YNaija.com. He is also executive director
of The Future Project/The Future Awards.#NewLeadership is a
twice-weekly, 12-week project to inspire action from a new generation
of leaders – it ends on March 31.
Source: bellenaija.com
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