Kano And Momentum Of Leadership

By

Ammar Muhammad Yola

ammarmuhammad@ymail.com

 

 

“A leader is a dealer in hope” – Napoleon Bonaparte

 

I read with considerable interest the exchange between Messrs Kabiru Inuwa Tsakuwa (Kano: Development in reverse gear), Sule Ya’u Sule (In Kano, cynicism is not an option) and Babangida Dangora (In Kano, cynicism is not an option, another view).  In summary, Kabiru Inuwa Tsakuwa opened the first salvo with a lamentation about how “the once enterprising and vibrant business-oriented people are now engrossed in spiritual contemplations, albeit in very feeble, but nevertheless decipherable voices for a providential succor”, a comment I suppose was meant as a sharp rebuke against the jihadist fervor of the Ibrahim Shekarau administration.  I want to admonish those disparaging the moral theme of the Shekarau government to back off because it is a popular programme.  Short of employing draconian force, there is no other path government can thread toward attitudinal change except through a programme of moral rearmament.

 

Sule Ya’u Sule replied in kind and in his response dismissed Kabiru Tsakuwa’s lamentation as the cynicism of the displaced and went on to reel out the achievements of the administration on whose behalf he speaks.  No satisfied, Babangida Dangora interjects with a rebuke for the Kano State Government spokesman for labeling Tsakuwa a cry baby, even pointing out areas the government has not touched in its development claims.  This contribution is more of a clarification and not in support for either contributor, all of whom, I think, can take care of their own defense.  Actually this is democracy at work.

 

But let me quickly point out that the mere fact that the Shekarau government would resort to such a civilized methodology as writing a rejoinder to a newspaper article it considers to have factually misrepresented it, its programmes or intentions, points to it standing on moral and democratic high ground in contradistinction with his predecessor, the Imperial Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who would have tried to trace the (true) identity of Kabiru Inuwa Tsakuwa with the intention of running him out of town, Gestapo fashion.

 

My intervention in this raging debate is to caution that there is more to leadership than building roads and culverts, what I will refer to as leadership by project execution.  Leadership is the constant in every development milieu but it is a tragedy how this critical component has been devalued and ridiculed to the point of absurdity, worse, by the leaders themselves.  It is commonplace in Nigeria for the State Governors to make such a commotion of celebrating their anniversary in office.  In a hurry to have some projects readied to showcase for their one, two, three or four year (s) anniversary in office, they sacrifice long term planning for short term result, building roads that easily wash away, for instance.  Every Governor wants to be seen as an Action Man, a miracle worker, the man with the magic wand who renovated 200 primary schools, built a full-fledged university, re-constructed all urban and township roads, build new hospitals and fed the entire population with food grown from the fertilizer he distributed, all in one year.  This concept of leadership is showmanship is the bane of our development because those elected into office easily channel their development energies into garnering short-term limelight at the expense of planning for longer term socio-economic development.

 

Unfortunately it s through this faulty, shallow and meretricious paradigm that Babangida Dangora viewed Sule Ya’u Sule more forward looking response to Kabiru Tsakuwa.  From my understanding of Sule Ya’u Sule’s intervention, Shekarau is not going to win any short term applause, his policies and programmes have longer term gestation periods and to me that is the hallmark of a great leader.  The Societal Re-orientation Programme is not exactly a programme you initiated on Monday and expect results before the end of the week.  Human beings are notoriously reluctant to give up their poorer habits.  Embracing new ones is even tougher.  Attitudinal change is the toughest of all leadership challenges.  People cling to their ways of life for good or bad and have handy rationalizations why the old ways will be difficult to reform.  I can understand Sule Ya’u’s disappointing encapsulated in his branding the Kabiru Tsakuwa of this world as cynics, unbelievers in change and reform in attempting to rubbish Sule Ya’u’s progress report, Dankore claimed that “the level of indiscipline in our society today goes to prove that the amount of resources committed in this sector is not consummate with the result” and goes on to reel out all the ill of the Kano society which A Daidaita Sahu has, in his estimate, failed to wipe out.  Problem with this type of analysis is that it is up again a framework of subjectivity given the irrational nature of social (mis)behavior.  How can someone correctly claim that A Daidaita Sahu has failed; because people still rob and kill?  How for sure can we ascertain that many more people who would have robbed and killed did not actually have a change of mind after being exposed to A Daidaita Sahu’s message?  Let us be realistic, human beings are stubbornly resistant to change but people do react favourably to message of social change, depending on their frame of mind.  Even hardened robbers do change.  This is exactly where the question of leadership comes in and where Dankore completely misses the point.

 

Malam Ibrahim Shekarau has shown exemplary leadership and his personality paradigm has positively impacted on his administration’s societal reorientation programme enough for his spokesman to sound optimistic.  Shekarau is a model public officer by whatever yardstick, an honest, transparent, visionary, humble and prudent leader who leads by example and has earned the right to ask his subjects to change from their bad ways.  Compared with Kwankwaso for example, Shekarau is in more vantage position to mobilize the Kano population for development.  That may account forwhy the people are patient with the Shekarau government when, like in the case of the gigantic Tamburawa water scheme, government’s good intentions are not matched with instant successes due to circumstances beyond the control of the planners.  Shekarau’s water project is hugely popular with the people.  When he announced that the project would cost N5.6billion, there were no murmuring or sniggering gossips because the people believed he must have done his arithmetic very well and that he would neither add percentage for himself nor allow anybody steal Kano people’s money under the guise of providing them with water.  Kwankwaso would never have enjoyed that benefit of the public’s doubt because trust was far scarcer than drinking water during his reign.  Today the ambitious 150million liter per day is ready for commissioning and contrary to Dankore’s spurious claims that “no place in Kano can claim five-hour a day water supply” areas like Tarauni, Hotoro, Na’ibawa that have thirsted for water for years, now have access to portable water.  The situation is not yet perfect but water is flowing and by the time the administration completes the construction of an Independent Power Plant dedicated to the Tamburawa Water projects, the like of Dankore will eat their words.  This is against the backdrop of the fact that Kwankwaso, a water engineer and former Chief Executive of WRECA wasted four years without offering a sustainable solution to the state’s intractable water problem, something Shekarau is able to tackle head-on.

 

I consider as pedestrian reductionism Dankore’s denigration of the success recorded in the educational sector simply because part of Tarauni Primary School has been balkanized into corner shops.  Now that is crude and uncharitable.  He demands to know the performance of Kano students in NECO, WAEC and GCE “to justify the quality of education they get from the present (regime)” after his self assessment concluded that “the quality of teaching staff is very low, training and development for the teachers have become lip service and teachers have become ware sellers in staff rooms at the detriment of the innocent children of the masses”.  Again we are offered neither scientific yardsticks nor standard measurements, just the highly questionable, data-free summary by someone who clearly has a lot to learn about the true state of things in the Kano’s education sector.  For Dankore’s information, the Shekarau government has spent considerable resources in training and retraining the state’s human resources; Teachers included.  Apart from the figures Sule Ya’u Sule reeled out, I am in a position to know that the state government bankrolled accreditation of courses in its tertiary institutions to the tune of over N1billion.  Scholarship awards, for overseas and local training has been restored, a clear departure from the Kwankwaso days of “the state is broke” while teachers are enjoying enhanced remuneration which in turn has boosted their morale.  If Kano students are not doing well in national examination (again, this is highly contentious) it is not a localized problem although it could have a localized solution.  There is every indication that the Shekarau government can also square up to the challenge in the event of Dankore is right.

 

As the famous authors Francis Fukuyama (End of History) observed in his seminal work, Trust:  The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity, “one of the most important lessons we can learn from an examination of economic life is that a nation’s well-being, as well as its ability to compete, is conditioned by a singled, pervasive cultural characteristic: The level of trust in that society”.  One of the greatest challenges which the post-Kwankwaso administration in Kano urgently needed to address was the issue of restoring trust in public life.  Shekarau’s A Daidaita Sahu was the government’s chosen path to societal reawakening.  It is basically an attitudinal change programme and not a magic wand to turn all citizens into righteous men and women.

 

We must begin to appreciate governance and leadership from a more holistic context and not merely from a contract-awarding paradigm which lays undue emphasis on project completion.  A well-structured, functional administration should provide the socio-economic needs of society every without a Governor.  Surely the bureaucracy can sink boreholes, rebuild schools blocks, equip hospitals, construct roads and bridges and meet recurrent obligations without political supervision.

 

What we must expect from political leadership are vision, character and mobilization skills.  State Governors must be encouraged to see the larger picture and rescue themselves from the hollow ritual of claiming the completion of projects which demean the import of their offices.  Charity organizations, voluntary bodies and country clubs are now capable of building and renovating schools, health centres, roads, markets and bridges.  So when comments like that of Dankore sacrifice the higher values of leadership for its manifestation just to score political points, they help create the condition for the flowering of the type of leadership by persons like Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who built roads and constructed culverts quite alright but lacked vision, was not transparent and so could not mobilize the people to achieve development.  Whereas Kano stagnated under him, Shekarau is able to achieve second term because he is trusted, admired and seen as a role model.

 

Malam Ammar Muhmamad contributed this piece of intervention from Yola Quarters, Kano city.