January 19, 2015 by The Nation

THE NATION MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 2015

COMMENTS

HAT’S in a biography? Plenty, if it’s about Lagos State governorship hopeful and frontrunner Akinwunmi Ambode of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The Art of Selfless Service by Marian Osoba, which was published last year and colourfully launched on May 15 at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, stands out as a book for this time in the countdown to the gubernatorial poll next month. It is a must-read for anyone who desires a picture of the man who will succeed outgoing Governor Babatunde Fashola, all things being equal. Symbolically, the book’s release announced Ambode’s canonisation. Oba Rilwan Akiolu, the preeminent Lagos monarch who may be considered a reliable source of information on the thinking in the charmed circle of political kingmakers in the state, controversially declared: “The elders of Lagos have said that Ambode will be governor.” He said: “It is true that we are launching a book, but we know why we are here.” Beyond the surface, the book presentation had the quality of a finely planned public relations stunt to sell Ambode. According to Oba Akiolu on the occasion, “The elders have been meeting…We review things regularly…The elders have said that Ambode should be the next governor of Lagos.” So far, the king’s confident endorsement is winning as Ambode, having won his party’s governorship primary, is well-positioned to defeat all rivals in the February election. What does Ambode’s candidacy represent? In a fundamental sense, beyond his respected financial wizardry and managerial mastery, Ambode’s recognised emphasis on selfless service is a defining plus. In actuality, a leader without a correct sense of service is ultimately negative. Service to the people, in the purest meaning of the concept, is Ambode’s mantra. Two quotes from the biography deserve contemplation, especially given the regrettable reality that personal aggrandisement is a familiar guiding principle of political leadership in the country. According

‘What does Ambode’s candidacy represent? In a fundamental sense, beyond his respected financial wizardry and managerial mastery, Ambode’s recognised emphasis on selfless service is a defining plus. In actuality, a leader without a correct sense of service is ultimately negative’

HE buck, we are told, stops at the table of the leader. That said, a country turns out to be great only when the people in it elect to make it so. I have observed with keen interest the condemnation President Jonathan gets from Nigerians these days – and he has had a measure from me as well, but I am baffled at some criticisms which I figure are not envisioned to campaign for social justice especially since some of these decriers fail to take zealotry (religion) out of their schisms. His lacklustre performance so far notwithstanding, I refuse to believe that he alone is responsible for the state of affairs of our country as it is at the moment. We are all as guilty as this president. Compare his advisers to that of developed climes and you will wonder if they truly have the interest of Nigeria at heart. Most political analysts see them as people only interested in feeding fat from the national cake, particularly with the combative way in which they engage the opposition. In contrast, during the Richard Nixon Watergate scandal, two of his principal presidential aid and defence lawyers Fred Buzhardt and Leonard Garment did what no persons had done before that moment: they asked President Nixon to resign due to the overwhelming evidence against him over the Watergate scandal. Can any of President Jonathan’s advisers show the same courage to tell him to his face that he has underachieved? Why is it that we hear that the resignation of top individuals from a party leaves the party ruined without a structure, needing the persona of other individuals to help bring it to life? Isn’t it outrageous and pathetic that our parties are centered on individuals and may not last beyond these individuals? How is President Jonathan responsible for the politics of anointment by states’ chief executives that have seen many of these endorsing wives and kinfolks to seek elective offices without grooming and recruiting capable candidates with widely-held support? I watched a CNN feature interview directed by Nick Robertson recently where soldiers recounted the distressing experiences they face in the fight against insurgency. They even have to buy their kits as revealed, but that is not news. Most Nigerians know that the armed forces are underfunded. What is stupefying is why no highranking senior officer has had the guts to spill the beans and step down, on moral and ethical principles. I recall with nostalgia the spat between General Victor Malu and President Olusegun Obasanjo over the latter’s directive that a US intelligence unit should have unrestricted access to our intelligence facility but that General refused, leading to his ousting from the army as reported at the time. Do we still have officers with guts and have they chosen to be political or apolitical? Whatever happened to our civil society groups after

Ambode’s art to him, “A true leader sees his work as selfless service towards a higher purpose. A true leader should be judged by what he has not – ego, arrogance and self interest.” He also said: “We must, wherever we find ourselves, create an atmosphere of selfless service.” Against this background, it is significant to highlight Ambode’s Local Government Years from 1988 to 1998 and his tenure as the Accountant General of Lagos State from 2006 to 2012 in a 27-year career in the state civil service, which he ended by voluntary retirement. In the biography, he said: “If you work successfully at Local Government level and you are able to make a difference, there is nowhere else you cannot work successfully.” Ambode’s remarkable sense of service could be discerned from his critical role in the creation of the State Treasury Office (STO), which should be of special significance in rating him as a governorship material. The STO has been acknowledged as a ground-breaking development which has fundamentally improved how the state’s funds are raised, budgeted, managed and spent. It goes without saying that Ambode’s demonstrated authoritative grasp of treasury issues would most likely be an advantage. ”If we take the concept of resource generation, allocation and distribution into cognisance and apply the principles of good governance, we will achieve economic growth and development,” Ambode said while presenting a paper titled “Public Finance: Probity and Accountability” at a workshop organised in August last year by the Lagos State Government and the Lagos Business School. He has also shed light on his understanding of good governance, which is an essential aspect of his vision. He said in a newspaper interview: ”In essence, the elected government is like a caretaker for the rest of the people, overseeing their resources on their behalf. The citizens re-

main the landlord while the elected officials are only caretakers.” He further said: “Arising from this, good government can only thrive where the resources of the people are judiciously distributed to various sectors/needs in the society in a just and equitable manner that makes life easier for every person.” Interestingly, the biography provides what may be interpreted as a thought-provoking response to the view in certain quarters that Ambode is a puppet of political kingmakers. “Sometimes I am confronted with the subject of mentoring and I am asked who my mentor is,” he said. “Somehow I cannot place appropriate answers to some of these questions. Why? Because every day, I am also confronted by situations which give one the opportunity to search for true leaders and even though they abound everywhere and a lot of us have the innate capacity to make a positive difference, we are never recorded as mentors, champions or true leaders.” He added: ”At different points in our lives, we have had relationships; a teacher, a boss, an employer, a friend, a parent who has greatly changed the way we looked at life and the world. Someone who inspired us and motivated us, someone who taught us to set goals and instilled the confidence and spirit to achieve them, someone who had high standards and truly stood for something; such a person is the real mentor we all need to find. I have found true leaders through such observations in the course of my career...they help you build your art of selfless service, but it is important too that you carve out for yourself an identity authentically your own, that you don’t monkey another person’s life so slavishly as to lose your own.” It is noteworthy that Ambode spoke of those who “help you build your art of selfless service.” The projection of Ambode’s political vision through an inventive acronym, LAGOS, is notable for the inclusion of service. At the well-attended ceremony in October last year at the Onikan Stadium, Lagos, where he formally expressed his desire to govern the state, Ambode declared: “Our message is LAGOS. LAGOS is Leadership, LAGOS is Accountability, LAGOS is Good Governance, LAGOS is Opportunities and LAGOS is Service. This is what I stand for.” It is a demonstration of impressive originality that he has been able to package his organising principles in a capsule named after the state he seeks to govern. More importantly, his antecedents indicate that he is a man who can walk the talk. His credentials in leadership, accountability and service are reinforced by Governor Fashola who branded him as an individual ”guided by the philosophy of a true public officer, who must place himself last while rendering service to the public.”

Is Jonathan Nigeria’s problem? By Simon Abah the end of military rule? Do they still passionately charge leaders to deliver electoral undertakings to the people and also stir up the youths from their state of disinterest for national growth? Isn’t it true that Nigeria is quickly becoming a place where people hide under the cloak of religion to promote hatred and the condemnation of people of other faiths? Instead of religious leaders to campaign for concerns that will be beneficial to their members, they now either prophecy that candidates will win or lose. How such predictions help our body politic remains an open question. The world woke up recently to the shocking news that 17 lives were lost in France to terrorist acts. It was really sad news for people who truly value life and humanity. What I found interesting was the bi-partisan meeting that was held immediately by President Francois Hollande and former President Nicolas Sarkozy who is now a leading opposition figure. There was no trading of blame, brickbats and bedlam like we have here with our political class that have all failed to rise above partisanship for the growth of Nigeria. You could see two great statesmen who care for their nation rousing citizens to stay united and not be cowed by terrorism and to fight against it in their homeland and also to stay alert. But in Nigeria, it took our president forever and a day to visit Maiduguri, leading many to assume that people who die in the northeast regrettably are lowlifes who do not matter. Little wonder Odumegwu Ojukwu said, Nigerians “suffer from selective amnesia,” and when they chose to remember, suffer from “selective myopia”. If not, how come the members representing these constituencies in the Senate and House of Representatives have not resigned their offices to protest the government’s grotesque abandonment of their people who fall prey to the killing machine of the ‘Haramists.’? Have we ever heard of resignations in those houses to protest the maladministration of this regime? Didn’t we read in the press that the ACF has chosen to endorse General Buhari because it is the policy of the outfit to endorse northerners for election even when concessions and merger made this development possible? And given our country’s need for a reawakening, should we still be encouraging regional prejudices to fester? The debates in the House of Commons entices youths in the United Kingdom to be politicians and to play an active role in that country’s national life but ours has

been unexciting and mind-numbing at the national level, while some state assemblies remain closed, others have their members hounded out of the state and our officebearers are yet to groom young people to be good citizens by their own good conduct. Did the elders from the Niger Delta not play politics with the carrying off of the Chibok girls by misleading this president that there was never an abduction which made him to act 21 days after when it was too late? And even after videotapes revealed that they were abducted, some of them still hold this deceptive viewpoint. Many years into democratic rule, most states do not have active developmental plans, technocrats are not employed but acquaintances, and the government remains the highest employer of labour instead of the private sector and machineries of state have been used to stifle opposition that is relevant in a democracy. How is the President responsible for all of these contradictions? It would require a long epistle to describe the tumbledown federal civil service where the practice of engaging people to boards of government organizations without recourse to national experience and age is widespread which till now is responsible for the lack of the development and implementation of rolling plans in the country. Why are the DSS and the Police not able to prevent illfeelings before they aggravate? Why haven’t they been able to prevent gun-running so unparalleled in our history that youths now dare to kill as often as reported in the press these days? We are as guilty as this president for the decay Nigeria finds herself in and it is binding on all of us to rebuild her. • Abah writes from Port Harcourt, Rivers State

‘Many years into democratic rule, most states do not have active developmental plans, technocrats are not employed but acquaintances, and the government remains the highest employer of labour instead of the private sector and machineries of state have been used to stifle opposition that is relevant in a democracy’