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Recruiting the Nation's President By Anthony A. Akinola
This article does not canvass electoral support for any presidential aspirant or candidate; rather, what the article seeks to achieve is to balance one argument against another. Reading through an article comparing the suitability or otherwise of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) with that of Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the author of the internet article concluded that General Buhari was the more suitable candidate because “he has been there before”.
The “he has been there before” argument pre-supposes that because General Buhari was once Nigeria’s Head of State, he would be more at home with problems affecting the Nigerian polity than Alhaji Yar’Adua whose leadership credentials are limited to his home state where he has been governor since 1999. The problem with a contention of this nature is that it tries to assert that one cannot be Head of State unless one has been in that position before.
The “recycling philosophy” of former leaders or rulers can hardly be sustained over a period of time. The norm in democratic nations of the world is to recruit aspirants from among those who have demonstrated the capacity and verifiable qualities for upward mobility in the political leadership hierarchy. A history of the United States of America from 1976 to 2007, for instance, reveals that the nation’s presidents have been former governors or former Vice-Presidents (Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (jnr) are all former governors, while George W. Bush (snr) was a former Vice-President. Past Presidents have also emerged from the ranks of senators and revered generals, while there have been isolated cases of former Secretaries (Ministers) or former Congressmen becoming President.
The job of managing a society, not to speak of one that is as complex as ours, cannot be the easiest of tasks. Those who seek to govern must develop the thick skin that goes with it. It is not by accident that national leadership seldom emerges from the rank of outsiders. The “outsider” here is one who has not held an established political position before and who also does not belong to a mainstream political party. The ability to speak good English or gesticulate like a Shakespearean actor does not alone provide the platform for the elusive office of President. It is not an understatement to say that anyone who seeks to be President and is serious about it will be doing an ambition a world of good by cutting his or her political teeth at some level of political governance.
It would appear from all indications that the next President of Nigeria would be coming from one of the northern states. The basis of this assumption rests with the fact that political parties that could realistically be said to be on the ground have adopted Nigerians of northern origin as their presidential flag bearers. With the South-West geo-political zone not fielding a member of its own in the presidential contest, not least because the outgoing President is a member of the zone, the optimism may not be unfounded that a system of rotational presidency is gradually creeping in. An argument for its formalisation will conclude this essay.
One argument mustered in support of leadership rotation or “zoning” is that such an approach would enable us to focus on personalities and leadership qualities more than we were able to do in the past when every region was desperate for one of its own to be President of the Nigerian federation. A recent interview with a Nigerian from the South-West geo-political zone who had voted in every presidential election since 1979 is revealing. He told this writer he had sought to know more about current presidential aspirants than he ever bothered to know in the past. He is now confronted with making a choice he did not have to make in the past when his kinsmen were involved in the presidential contests.
The beauty of narrowing down the area of contest is that we immediately create for our society a pool of independent voters – voters who are prepared to look at contestants more objectively. The availability of such a class of voters tends to keep elected men and women on their toes, as well as ensuring that society does not degenerate into a one-party state. Independent voting has continued to be on the increase in America and Britain.
Another argument which is not unrelated to the aforementioned is that with the device of leadership rotation we could achieve competitive political parties that traverse Nigeria’s ethnic and religious divisions. The process of achieving this feat actually began in 1999 when the presidency was zoned or “conceded” to the South, resulting particularly in the emergence of the PDP as a truly national political party. It can no longer be said today that the North is still “monolithic” with the intra-ethnic competition going on in the region.
Instituting a system of leadership rotation will not mean we have sacrificed competence for mediocrity, as some self-righteous politicians will want to make us believe. Competent political leaders are emerging in all the geo-political zones of the Federation. They will continue to reveal themselves in the way in which they manage their states and articulate policies at the National Assembly. No geo-political zone of the Federation has a monopoly over political wisdom and the ability to manage our national affairs. A political leader is successful, not because he or she is the most educated in society but because he or she is the one who can make the best use of the talents of others. Such a leader can achieve greatness if personal integrity, class and honour combine appropriately.
The endorsements that have been coming for General Buhari from some unlikely sources and the enthusiastic crowd of supporters who welcomed Alhaji Yar’Adua into Lagos, are indicative of a Nigerian nation whose people crave the unity of differences. Whoever emerges as the next President of the Nigerian Federation must accept that there is a destiny to be protected.
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