Issues That Make Me Think

Issues That Make Me Think. Hmmn! Bad Followership- (I)

Chigbu, Uchendu Eugene

u.e.chigbu@reading.ac.uk

Back in 1906, William Sumner had this to say, that the critical habit of thought, if usual in a society, will pervade all its mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men educated in it cannot be stampeded by the stump orators. They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens.

The above words should be placed in the minds' marbles of many of us who are really worried about dragging our country out of the dungeon of bad governance. The issue in this serial piece is 'critical thinking' and why its lack is the bane of our followership. Really, critical thinking should be made an issue for our great country must move successfully ahead. This writer has always maintained the ideology that the problem holding Nigeria back today is more inclined towards bad-followership than to the open bad-leadership, which has maintained regular consistencies in the history of this Nation.

One of our most ardent believers in the 'bad-leadership-as-our-problem theory' has always been the Noble intellectual and prolific writer, Professor Achebe. This great man of posterity, more than two decades ago, lamented in his book, 'The trouble with Nigeria', that the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land, climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to their responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.

On the other hand, this writer, a strong believer in the 'bad-followership-as-our-problem theory', about a year ago, paraphrased and differed from Professor Achebe's school of thought when he lamented in his piece 'The trouble with Nigeria today: the citizens' that the trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of followership. There is something basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land, climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its followers/citizens to rise to their responsibility, to the challenge of coactive and proactive living which are the hallmarks of true followership.

And just recently, at President Obasanjo's conference, notable Nigerian Statesmen started singing this popular bad-leadership jingle to us, lamenting the failure of the Nigerian leadership and tracing the nation's failures to the badness of these leaders. Honestly, Their lamentations ring boomeranging sighs in my head than it makes me agree with these men and women whom themselves have at one time sipped or gulped from our notorious leadership-cup before joining us as ordinary Nigerians (but do not mix issues here, even within the followership class there are our 'lords', 'gods ' and even the 'spirits').

Permit me some space to once more reiterate my belief that the problem with Nigeria is the poor followership. In fact, it is bad followership that is the bad feature of the Nigerian character. Ringing these leadership jingles as a way to make them change is like expecting a woman who is already pregnant with a monkey-foetus to deliver a bouncing human-baby. The leadership has been a hard-hearted, dictatorial and sadistic terrain that will never change unless it is matched with a simple, common-sensed and sensitive followership willing to see things as they ought to be seen and do things as they ought to be done. This is why a lot of respect should be reserved for those who understood that answering President Obasanjo's conference call will be a dent to their images. The Nigerian leadership (past, present and future) has formed a complex web within and outside the followership, enmeshing the entire system with confusion and political complexities that enables it draw a substantial portion of the followership along with it in an effort to carry us along and make us share its draconian ill-values and cultural traits. This is not a kind of leadership that can change on its own, no! It can only change when the followership withdraws from the bilateral symbiotic relationship that it shares with bad leadership. If this does not happen, forget it, we all will write and talk and shout and die; as the bad show goes on. To create effective followership today will be a way to quail the bad leaderships of today and tomorrow.

Bad governance has proved to be the most consistent feature of our politics. The architects of this bad governance have always risen from our gallery of followership into their circle of 'bad leadership'; and our inability to sanitise the country from the followership gallery is what is sinking the Nation's boat today. It is mainly effective followership that can stir up effective leadership; history has shown it rarely goes otherwise. Our legendary musical philosopher and crusader, late Fela Onikulapo-Kuti warned us all against this in his various afro-vibes, especially the popular lyric and tune termed suffering and smiling. May be, our masses considered Fela's message to be the rantings of a drug addict, or the groanings of an aroused insatiable womaniser - probably because we are addicted to listening to 'radio commercials' while ignoring the 'news broadcasts.' well, whatever opinion many of us may hold about this, we owe a great gratitude to Fela - he may be dead, but his afro-beat lives on. We are the problem - not President Obasanjo and his Legislative and Judicial 'hand-bags' - they are simply our assignment to solve. Our inability to caution these men is really where the problem lies. Many of our good citizens have gone into leadership and returned to the followership as corrupt and ordinary men. Few have journeyed away from the followership gallery into the leadership class and came home to the followership dressed in tarnished reputations. While few have also refused to undertake the journey to leadership for fear of being smeared with the oil of glut that keeps the leadership wheels moving in Nigeria. The general followership has on the other hand constituted a national zombie that reacts in tune with the demands of our corrupt leadership, therefore, accepting, assimilating and digesting the socio-politico-economic nonsense that cascades on our heads from the leadership fountains of Abuja. Yet, we all sit here and there writing and pouting for the leadership to change. How can they change if we do not teach them to change? How can a stubborn child do right if he is not spanked into doing right? When will the expected change from our leaders happen? The answer is simple, it will only happen that day when Nigerians can stand upright without fear and not only say enough is enough, but put the saying into doing. That is the day the leadership will either stay for good or leave forever. It is not wrong to say that this will surely happen, because history has shown it always does happen whenever the elasticity of tolerance of the masses become over-stretched beyond its limits. Ours have been on a nonsensical stretch in the greater part of the history of this Nation; but the Nigerian bad leadership seems to be a very lucky one - to have been blessed with a followership imbued with unnaturally high tolerance level. How long will our tolerance last? Surely not forever!

Our condition as a followership to an ever damning leadership can best be expressed in the poetic imagery of an obsessed audience in a theatrical concert of melancholically obsessed stage-displayers. Read this poetic piece free-versed to catch the relationship between our leadership and

followership:

They blow trumpets

swerve to drums

and transfer to xylophones

like a star-studded jazz band

with gesticulations catchy

and movements entertaining

without losing pitch

as each instrument blending into next

as songs with high gusto

come forcing us dance and dancing.

Battered we are audience joyfully clapping

to them whom our mazes like wedding-rings wear

in their dexterity to jazz-rocking

soaring in sparkling

jiggling gyrating twilights of vain glory

they are a marvel to watch!

The artistic gyrations of our leaders create applauses from a helplessly carried-away followership, who most times misconstrue their clappings to warnings but most of all dance to the beat of the moment without caring to snoop around to catch a glimpse of what happens back-stage. The situation results to irony of realities, forming a juxtaposition of badness and goodness. The extended result is that:

Where good and bad are in a romance -

Poverty and wealth sit side by side,

Life and death lie side by side;

Where truth and falsehood live as neighbours -

Politics and religion wink side by side,

Love and hatred fight side by side;

Cause bad leadership and followership wine and dine.

That extremities are allowed to mingle in Nigeria can best be said to be the fault of the followership and not the leadership. This is because the mingling of extremities create an enabling and sustainable environment for the leadership to be remain what they have vowed to remain (bad); so in the whole game-show, the followership become the losers and bad-leadership wins. The fact that we have not fought to win is a problem.

Succinctly put, followership becomes a big problem when it fails to create effective opposition that can effect issues to the betterment of a state. Our leadership is a complete write-off, so throwing the blames at them is like begging an addictive nudist to shop for heavy clothing. It will tantamount to waste of time! The sane side of our society where appeals should be made for change is the followership; and a change from this point will catalyse a catastrophic failure of bad-leadership at the other point. How can we achieve this? As mentioned by William Sumner, ...education in the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens. The day we can resist the cajolery of our leaders will be the day this country resurrects from its present moribund life. Until this happens, the followership can best be said to be ineffective - and this is bad followership, where many of us belong. To educate the Nigerian masses on adequate opposition postures and critical thinking, let us give this rare genre of civil life enough space in what we say, write and do.

Chigbu, Uchendu Eugene