PRESENTATION BY

THE CHIEF SERVANT, DR. MU'AZU BABANGIDA ALIYU, OON (TALBAN MINNA), THE GOVERNOR OF NIGER STATE/CHAIRMAN, NORTHERN GOVERNORS' FORUM (NGF), AT THE CONVOCATION LECTURE OF FOUNTAIN UNIVERSITY, OSHOGBO, OSUN STATE; ON FRIDAY, 16TH SEPTEMBER, 2011

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TOPIC: LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE: EMERGING ISSUES      FOR GENUINE TRANSFORMATION OF NIGERIA

PROTOCOL;

2.    I am very glad to be part of the activities marking the convocation ceremony of this young and dynamic University. Let me extend the gratitude of the people of Niger State to the community of Fountain University for appointing an illustrious Nigerlite, my teacher, an erudite Islamic scholar, a philanthropist, a former Grand Khadi of Niger State and indeed an outstanding educationist whose contribution to the educational development of Niger State and Nigeria can be described as phenomenal, Dr. Sheikh Ahmed Lemu as the Chancellor of this institution. Through Dr. Sheikh Lemu we have seen the value of determination, commitment and focus in the pursuit of excellence, as well as the symbiotic relationship between the private and public sectors in the provision of quality education. Mr. Chancellor sir, we pray that Allah (SWT) will make it possible for us to have New Horizon University in Minna, in your life time, insha allahu.

3.    I am also very grateful to the Vice Chancellor of this University, a distinguished scholar and renowned chemist, Professor Hussain Oyelola Oloyede for considering me worthy as a Guest Speaker at this maiden convocation lecture. I accepted this invitation because of my happiness with the fact that this University was established by an Islamic religious organisation - Nasrul-Lahi-l Fatihi Society of Nigeria (NASFAT) for promoting the values of Arabic and Islamic education, improved general well-being of the society, sound spiritual guidance, socio-economic advancement and the promotion of good family values. I am even more impressed that NASFAT, which started as a small meeting of concerned Muslims in 1995, ostensibly to make judicious use of their spare time on Sundays, has metamorphosed into a great institution, which is committed to the fulfilment of the fundamental role of religious organisations in a community - imparting knowledge, whether Western, Eastern or Arabic knowledge.       

4.    Indeed, I see this as an opportunity to draw attention to the significance of knowledge and education as the foundation of development of any society. This is a fact that has been strengthened by Allah (SWT) when he revealed the Holy Quran, the first surah was a commandment to Prophet Muhammed (SAW) to READ! (Suratul IQRA; 96:1) thus:

    I.    Iqra' bi-smi rabbika lladhee khalaqa

    ii.    Khalaqa l-insaana min'alaqin

    iii.    Iqra' wa rabbuka l-akramu

    iv.    Lladhee 'allama bi l-qalami

    v.    'allama l-insaana maa lam ya'lam

    TRANSLATION

    i.    Read in the name of your Lord who

    ii.    Created man out of a clot

    iii.    Read! For your Lord is most noble-minded

    iv.    Who taught by the pen (writing cane)

    v.    Taught man what he knew not

5.    Similarly, a Hadith of Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW) lays credence to the significance of seeking knowledge; thus:

     'Utlub il 'ilma wa law fis-Sin'.

    (Seek knowledge even in China). Surely seeking knowledge in China does not mean Islamic knowledge, for during the Prophet's period, Islam was probably not in China; however China was historically known to have deep knowledge in various fields, such as medicine, literature, paper, and explosives, among others. By the above Quranic verse and Hadith, we could deduce authoritatively that to seek for knowledge is indeed Halal in the sight of Allah. It is therefore very important that we encourage other religious organizations such as Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Jama'atu Nasril Islam, the Jama'atu Izalatu Bidiya Waiqamatu Sunnah (JIBWAS) to establish more schools and colleges all over the country for imparting knowledge properly and eradicating ignorance amongst religious followers, as the foundation for the genuine transformation of society.

6.    I also see this invitation as a challenge because some States in Nigeria have many Universities (public and private), for instance Ogun State has 12 legally recognized Universities (1 Federal, 2 State and 9 Private) while Niger State has only two (Federal University of Technology Minna and IBB University, Lapai). We however hope to have more Universities in Niger State to complement our efforts towards attaining Vision 3:2020 (of becoming one of the three most developed States in Nigeria by the year 2020). We should all pay attention to and support the educational sector, for education, as I said earlier, is the foundation of the development of a society. We should encourage University education for providing the high level critical manpower required for national development.  We therefore, welcome all good people with the desire to establish Universities to come to Niger State that we have declared as the emerging intellectual destination in Nigeria. Fountain University should not hesitate to take advantage of the incentives being provided by Niger State Government to interested proprietors of private universities, including free land allocation to any proprietor that can commence development within 12 months. We have also challenged other flourishing private secondary schools to move a step further to open their Universities, especially El-Amin International School, Minna and New Horizon College, Minna.   

7.    This therefore leads us to the discussion of the day, which centres on: "Leadership and Governance: Emerging Issues for Genuine Transformation of Nigeria". To me, this is not only an opportunity to be part of the history of this University but a chance to interact and discuss with our youths - the future leaders, and scholars on the precarious socio-political situation of our country today. I am of the view that no patriotic Nigerian will be happy with what the nation is going through today, in terms of security, economic and social challenges, whereby everyone seems to be losing confidence in governance and in public officials. It is indeed very unfortunate for a nation blessed with enormous human and natural resources to find itself entrapped by 'resource curse', kidnappings and bombings simply because we fail to situate our society properly and to take leadership and governance seriously. We have all it takes to be among the 20 leading world economies long before now, yet we are still unable to organize ourselves properly.

8.    It is not usual for me to bore my audience with definitions of leadership or the argument about whether leaders are born, made or trained. It is however important for us to note that leadership is not an end in itself or a destination, but we can analyze leadership roles and their impact on achieving desired goals and objectives, either for an organization, a group, a state or country. There is shift from the old notion of associating leadership with organizational or managerial position and relating its characteristics to elements such as dominance, status symbol, concentration of power, regimentation, authority relation, organisational hierarchy, and oftentimes top-down relationship. The new paradigm however, focuses on the results and impact generated by the actions and activities of individual stakeholders playing leadership roles to achieve collective goals and aspirations. Here, we are usually less concerned with the efforts or length of time spent. We are more interested in the outcomes, the result of those efforts achieved in an efficient manner. 

9.    Therefore, regardless of your position in any setting or organization, take for instance this University, whether you are the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, a Dean, Head of Department, the Student Affairs Officer, a lecturer, a staff of a department or indeed a student, you are exercising some leadership roles and functions once your actions affect the realisation of the aims and objectives of this University, directly or indirectly. Indeed, your style in those roles invariably affects how you perceive your responsibility, your attitude to work and your relationship with colleagues and the whole academic environment of this University. It suffices to say therefore that genuine leadership for the nation entails the little and major things that we do as individuals and groups to facilitate the realization of our national developmental aspirations. Whereas there will be only one President, a Governor or a Constituency legislator at a given time to provide political guidance and direction, the occupants of those offices require the support and involvement of the electorates, who must exercise their own relative leadership roles and functions before genuine transformation can take place. How many people reach leaders with advice on issues of development that will affect majority of the people other than attempt to get their own share of the 'national cake'?

10.    Similarly, there may be no need to explore the broad range of definitions of governance in this session. It suffices to note however that different institutions and interest groups (from the World Bank, UNDP, ADP to other multilateral donor agencies) view governance in different perspectives. I believe that the overreaching concern should be how the basic elements of good governance - accountability, transparency and participation in development - can promote genuine national transformation, reduce poverty at the grassroots level and enhance socially inclusive development. In other words, good governance may be seen as the process by which the best practices could be instituted at different levels to accelerate the transformation of society by expanding the space and opportunities for the people to participate in their development, according to their own understanding of the issues and their aspirations. At best, good governance must be anchored on the strong institutions, rule of law and involvement of critical stakeholders in decision-making to impact on genuine transformation.

Emerging Issues:

11.    We could therefore deduce that leadership and governance have significant roles to play in the emerging issues militating against the development and genuine transformation of this country. These issues include elite fragmentation, dominance and power struggle, social exclusion, poverty and ignorance, greed and materialism, general insecurity, among others.  In our sincere desire to find solution to our problems, we should be frank to admit that God has blessed us with enormous potentials. Unfortunately, we have allowed our country to be seen by some people as a mere geographical description - 50 years on. For me, Nigeria is a nation with developmental challenges and we must all come together no matter the difficulties and complexities to correct the ills together.

12.    It is indeed sad that many of us who aspire to or find ourselves in leadership positions prove to be mere opportunists, who do not have any understanding of the enormity of the responsibilities involved and the implications for governance, let alone genuine transformation of the nation. Some people have attributed the problems to our huge population, to our complex socio-cultural composition, to tribalism, ethnicity, religious differences, and social upheavals and so on. Could these truly be the main problems militating against our development? One is tempted not to believe so, because poverty has neither tribe nor religion; corruption has no tribe, race, religion or country of origin, neither does indiscipline nor crime have ethnic, tribal or racial orientation. Indeed, every nation has varying degrees of corruption and corrupt practices, giving lessons from the British Parliament for instance. The only difference being the temerity with which we celebrate questionable characters with obvious evidence of corrupt elements in this country, rewarding such characters with various kinds of shady recognition. This negative practice sends the wrong signals to our youths, who no longer learn the values of hard work, honesty, integrity and good character - the building blocks of a good life.

13.    It is also difficult to believe that our population is the problem. Despite their high population figures, China and India are examples of nations recording remarkable leaps and successes in poverty reduction and accelerated economic development. Population explosion could not be a setback, for instance, China with a population of 1.33 billion (as at late 2010) and India with 1.21 billion populations (as at April 2011), are good examples of determination, will power, commitment and industry in the pursuit of success.  Similarly, other nations with peculiar challenges such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Chad and some East Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia are also making progress in poverty reduction and recording appreciable levels of economic growth. 

14.    Distinguished scholars, ladies and gentlemen, let us attempt to have a common understanding of the concept of transformation, at this juncture, as we aspire to achieve genuine transformation of the nation. Transformation could be seen as the process of change and improvement in the character and condition of things, the situations or outlook of organizations, communities or nation-states. The question however is, do we know where we are now, where we want to be and how to get there? Do we know the ingredients of transformation and their implications for leadership and governance?  

15.    Let us take the multidimensional indices of human development for instance - human security, adequate income to sustain livelihood, access to quality education and health, life expectancy, infant and maternal mortality rate, environmental sanitation, social inclusion, water supply, transportation (road, rail, air and maritime), electricity supply and the general standard of living of majority of Nigerians - where are we? Without mincing words, our nation is indeed in a very pitiful state and desires transformation, leadership commitment and good governance.  We need better schools, better hospitals, good road networks across the country, good transportation system, better business environment with adequate energy supply at domestic and industrial levels for enhanced production base. We need to attract local and foreign investments, with key variables such as entrepreneurship, micro and macro-economic development mechanisms, higher income for the people and more opportunities for the people to participate in both the economy and to guarantee good governance. Hence, it is worthy to note that the task of transformation should not be left to government alone; it is a total and collective responsibility for all citizens, both the leaders and the led. We are in dire need for attitudinal change, value reorientation and sound moral upbringing for the younger generations. We must celebrate accomplished people and worthy models in the society to inspire younger generations.  That is the task for the academia - to provide the light and the direction to get us out of the quagmire.   

16.    However, I am of the view that we must face our insecurity problems squarely - by embracing fairness, equity and justice in the polity, eliminating social inequities and paying more attention to policies and programmes that can improve the quality of lives of the people. The elites must unite to face the problems of society squarely and not allow extremism to take over the country. Fragmented elites will only create the atmosphere for nihilists to destroy the fabric of the nation, thereby unleashing fear, insecurity and confusion in the nation through different forms of criminality and social vices - armed robbery, militancy, pipe-line vandalization, arson, kidnappings and terrorism. Those of us in positions of authority now must fight to protect not just what we have but the people who elected us.

17.    Yes, Nigeria, like much of Africa, has remained in stagnation and regression by economic growth measures, but we are not the poorest nation. Other African countries with peculiar poverty challenges are still doing well in terms of economic growth, at least by the World Bank standard; such as Mauritania, Angola, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, etc. Nigeria is a very strategic nation in global affairs, and we must not toy with our nation, otherwise once Nigeria disintegrates the world could indeed say bye-bye to West Africa, as well as to peace and stability in Africa. God forbid!

18.    We must therefore judiciously harness our economic resources for the welfare of our citizens, irrespective of social status, ethnic or religious backgrounds. We must seriously look at the revenue allocation formula to ensure that we take care of the people, particularly where they reside more. We recall that between the independence and the era of the first military coup in 1966, the Regions and Local Governments had more resource allocation, which is today skewed in favour of the Federal Government. In the light of current national realities, there may be the need to revisit the revenue sharing formula in the interest of the people of this country to ensure equity, fairness, justice and our fiscal federalism.

19.    Indeed, we should save for the future as a nation. That is what many other nations have done to secure their future. It should interest you to note therefore that the State Governors are not against the Sovereign Wealth Fund as being widely reported. However we believe that the modus operandi must be properly placed so that everyone can appreciate the essence of what is being done. Moreover, we must ensure that savings does not become a 'pill of death'. In other words, there should be a balance between meeting the needs of the present and those of the future.   

20.    We must also fight poverty as a moral, social and political imperative, by concentrating on our comparative advantage, that is by placing high premium on agriculture. It is gratifying to note that with the emergence of the trio of the Central Bank Governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi Lamido; Finance Minister, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; and the Agriculture Minister, Dr. Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina, Nigeria will hopefully go beyond theories to results in agricultural transformation. The agricultural sector should witness proper revitalization this time around, through the integrated value-chain approach that will enable the agricultural sector play its dominant role in economic growth and development, as well as in employment generation, especially for the youth. All subsidies (agricultural or petroleum) and import waivers must target the people (farmers, transporters, etc) directly; otherwise they should be abolished, once we discover that subsidies are only serving the needs of a few privileged people.

21.    We must resuscitate our decayed infrastructure (roads, rail, air and maritime transportation systems) to enhance our economic development and the social wellbeing of the citizens of this country. We must overcome the problem of power supply in this country to facilitate industrial production, attract much needed local and foreign direct investments and to promote the standard of living of Nigerians. We must be courageous to unbundle the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) and implement all the reports and decisions taken under the Power sector reforms, while appreciating the efforts of some states government in generating power through the Independent Power Project (IPP) to complement the national grid.

22.    Above all, we must ensure equity in economic relations, openness in governance and equal opportunities in employments that recognises Federal Character without compromising quality and standard. Our political processes and elections must continue to produce legitimate leaders who will have the courage, character and temperament to take the hard and difficult decisions when the occasion demands, so that Nigeria will be put on the path of genuine transformation.

Lessons from Niger state:

23.    In Niger State we have taken certain measures to promote a sense of belonging and harmonious co-existence amongst the citizens. For instance, there is no discrimination against so-called non-indigenes in public service appointments and public school enrolments. Indeed, we have expunged 'State of Origin' from our Application Forms, thus making every Nigerian resident in Niger State eligible to benefit from our free education programme, free healthcare programme for women and children under five, as well as the aged above 70, free NECO or WAEC examination fees payable by Government, our graduate engagement scheme for unemployed graduates and our mass housing scheme, among others.

24.    As servant leaders, public officers are very accessible to the people - government officials must not hide in tinted vehicles (particularly official), the Governor's telephone numbers and those of other key public officials must be known to the public, who have the right to contact them. Similarly, we offer political appointments to people across the diverse ethnic groups of this country, based on merit and value addition to the State. I am delighted to note that these policies have been helping us to maintain peace, stability and harmony, as well as in reducing tension in the State, thereby making Niger State the destination of choice for many Nigerians.

25.    Finally, distinguished scholars, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that our nation will attain higher levels of economic prosperity and genuine transformation if we remain committed to servant leadership and good governance in whatever capacity we find ourselves. I congratulate Fountain University, Oshogbo on this historic feat and thank the entire community of the University for this wonderful opportunity to share my thoughts with this distinguished audience. Please accept fraternal greetings from the people and Government of Niger state.

26.    I thank you all.