Yinka Oyinlola is CEO of the Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI), a good governance advocacy organisation found by Dr. Olusegun Aganga in 2006. He emerged from a background of executive roles in the World Bank, the Nations United and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Oyinlola, a member of the American Economic Association, the World Affairs Council and the Society for International Development, previously held positions as country director, project director, team leader, chief of office and technical expert in 20 countries during his 27-year career with the international agencies. In an interview with GEOFF IYATSE, he examined historical landmarks that have shaped Nigeria in the past 52 years.How would you assess Nigeria at 52'There are gains in some respects while challenges persist in others. It is tempting to use episodic events to assess a country, that is, the current state of insecurity or the prevailing rate of corruption. However, we have to take a comprehensive look backward and inward for a fair assessment. Illustratively, in spite of the civil war from July 1967 to January 1970, Nigeria is still one country; even if it is a work in progress with all its imperfections, our nascent democracy has lasted 13 years (as opposed to an earlier six years in the 60s and four years from 1979 ' 1983). Consider that after being a pariah country, in the 90s, we regained the ground in the new millennium and has continued to be significant on the international stage. From around 1980 till 2000, our GDP growth rate hovered around 1.5 per cent but we reached 10-11 per cent from 2003 ' 2004 and while in 2011 it was at 6.9 per cent.Furthermore, at some point, our external debt would have impoverished future generations of Nigerians with over $30billion but in 2006 the same debt was renegotiated and settled to free us from foreign debt. The point is that Nigeria is resilient and we have to believe in it. Yes, there are lots of areas for improvement: our economy remains vulnerable to global contradictions so long as we do not diversify away from oil. The standard of education has severely deteriorated that a graduate is unemployable and this will haunt our overall development in the not-too-distant future. Infrastructure, particularly energy and transportation, remain considerably moribund while poverty level is at an unsustainable rate.Would you honestly say that we have made reasonable progress'Let's consider some statistics: population of over 167 million, over 1 million square kilometers of land for agriculture with solid minerals, daily output of about 2.3 million barrels of oil per day. Flip the coin and what do we have: official unemployment rate of over 20 per cent; 158th ranking (among 182 countries) on the Human Development Index; over 70 per cent of Nigerians live below the poverty line. Nigeria currently ranks as the 147th of 179 most corrupt countries.One of the acute ailments facing Nigeria is corruption; it is a cancer that has metastarsized to unbearable proportion with attendant consequences on leadership, security, and development. For leadership, there is an adverse impact on selection process of political office holders in that most of those who eventually hold public office become rent seekers and unable to serve in accordance to their oath of office. This has a concomittant effect on performance and effective governance with cascade effect down the societal pyramid. With regard to security, the government is unable to fulfil its primary responsibility of protecting citizens' lives and property.If you add up all the figures bandied around during the legislative probes on oil subsidy (over N1 trillion) and pension fund (over N700 billion), can you imagine how many women could have received ante-natal care so that their children survive beyond their first birthday. Can you envision how many more megawatts could have been added to the national power grid to create more jobs or how far such sums can go to improve the quality of education. What is bothersome is that corruption has now been elevated to the level that it is considered as normal.Recently, someone said the new name for bribe is 'appreciation.' The public perception, such as putting a positive spin on a despicable act, is even worsened by the apparent impunity that comes with corrupt practices.Although there is still a lot to be done in the fight against corruption, there are relative gains which I hope can be deepened and consolidated. While conceding that there is a discrepancy between laws and practice since 2000, there is a relative progress if we assess structures, laws, and institutions for anti-corruption policies and programming. The Evidence Act, the Criminal Procedure Law, the Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission Act, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Act, the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act were aimed at providing statutory and institutional framework for anti-corruption. In addition to laws to criminalise corruption, on the prevention side, there are also others aimed at regulating fiscal planning and management of public expenditure, notably the Fiscal Responsibility and Public Procurement Acts. One can confidently conclude that the legal framework is reasonably robust but there is acute weakness of enforcement as well as mechanisms for detection and punishment. This is why it is important to beef up the process for transparency, which unquestionably will enhance oversight and accountability.How could we have made any progress'Values-based leadership. The way out is for us to have leaders whose compass is a discernment of right and wrong and, more fundamentally, doing that which is in the interest of all Nigerians. About five years ago, NLI asked Nigerians to identify the values they will like to see in their leaders. Notable among the recurring values were integrity, patrotism, compassion, contentment, justice/equity, discipline, tolerance, industry, family values and spirituality. When we have a crop of people uniting these values for governance, we will have leaders capable of taking responsibility and willing to be held accountable for project Nigeria. Values-based leadership will make people in position of authority to ask themselves the pertinent questions ' what difference am I making' What do I wish to be remembered for'When in the history of the nationhood do you consider as most challenging in terms of leadership'Indeed, leadership matters for any country or company. Former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, wrote in his book From Third World to First: 'It had taken me some time to see the obvious... talent is a country's most precious asset.' If you look at the trajectories of Singapore or post-apartheid South Africa, you can hardly divorce the progress of the two countries from Lee Kuan Yew or Nelson Mandela. So, it is leadership that takes countries onto higher trajectories; turn companies into inspiration and move individuals into emulated icons.The political leadership pattern in Nigeria cannot be assessed independent of our history and circumstance. Without using the past as an excuse, the reality is that we are still grappling with quite a bit of legacy issues of three decades of military dictatorship that deprived a generation of political leadership the required nurture and tutelage for effective leadership. In addition to the historical legacy, there is also room for improvement in the process of getting to power. The subsisting process makes it difficult for credible and honest people to offer themselves for public office. In addition to process, we also have structural deficiencies of weakened governance institutions as a consequence of personification of structures. When one talks of leadership, the other side of the coin is also important 'followership.A variety of factors rendered the Nigerian citizens incapable of holding their leaders accountable. In spite of these challenges, there are encouraging signs that give optimism. For example, when Nigerians protested the removal of fuel subsidy, the agitation was not merely against hike in fuel price; rather it was a demand for transparency and accountability. Encouragingly, the elected leaders in the legislature had no choice but to listen to vox populi and the rot within the system became a public knowledge. I am hopeful of some irreversible gains of the unfolding conundrum. Even if it is insufficient, it is still an important step forward that we are learning how Nigeria's resources are being plundered. A lot of work is still required, though, because the problems have been entrenched over several decades and reforms will require a lot of political will and courage.Would you compare the current state of economy with what was obtainable in per-Independence era'The state of any nation's economy is a result of several variables: time, contexts, actors, and even what happens beyond the shores of the country. It is always romantic to do a comparative analysis with what is perceived as good in the past but this implies that conditions are static and not dynamic. The pre-Independence era of Nigeria's economy contended with a population size that was not 167 million people and in a condition that was not undemocratic (no need to satisfy the development aspirations of the people no political rights to demand equitable distribution of wealth). It was not also affected by weak global economy. If you fast-forward to today, the circumstance is completely different. For example, in the 1990s, the Nigerian economy had to deal with domestic economic stagnation and macroenomic instability because of weak oil and non-oil commodity prices globally.One of my observations is that our economic policy making require a bit of more push to challenge conventional wisdom. I admit, though, that this is a problem that is not exclusive to Nigeria but pervasive in developing countries. I will cite two examples ' the conventional wisdom is that jobs are created through economic growth. The reality, however, is that we are now in an era of jobless growth in which technology and reorganisations are eliminating good jobs faster than growth is creating them.Many of the jobs, provided by the conventional economy, are based on unsustainable rates of resource extraction and therefore temporary in nature. Our policy makers need to challenge this conventional wisdom by thinking in terms of providing people with sustainable livelihoods based on sustainable production for sustainable markets to support sustainable lifestyles.Another example of conventional wisdom, with repercussions in the policy arena, relates to sustainable development being solely achievable through sustained economic growth needed to meet human needs and improve living standards. If one evaluates Nigeria's economic growth, in the past ten years, little of the economic growth has improved the lives of Nigerians. We need to challenge this conventional theory by recognising sustainable development as (1) sustainable economies that equitably meet human needs, and (2) sustainable human institutions that assure both security and opportunity for basic needs as well as social and intellectual growth. Subjecting our policies to thorough and rigorous thinking based on our social-anthropological environment, having consistency in implementation, regardless of the government, is key. We have witnessed policy reversals that have set us back decades in terms of development but the most important is for us to learn from past mistakes and apply such lessons to move forward.Could Nigeria have done better if the military were never in power considering the level of disappointment people have expressed against modern Democratic leadership'Leadership challenge is just part of and not all of the story of the problem with Nigeria. Over the past decades, there has been crying need for selfless leaders to steer the affairs of the country. I need to add that holding a public office is not the same as leadership and this is evident when one looks at the transactional nature ' instead of developmental ' of the way Nigeria is administered. By the way, are the people in the military not Nigerians' Notwithstanding the resources of any country, without the leaders who are able to explore and exploit the resources, the blessings will continue to remain a curse. So, there is an urgent and critical need for a purposeful leadership.However, leadership also implies that there is followership, that is, citizens have attendant share of blame.Statistically, there are less than 500,000 people in all spheres of government responsible for 167 million Nigerians. Fortunately, we are in a democracy where all eligible adults are king makers with their votes. From that standpoint, one can arguably say that if there is failure of leadership, it is because we persistently opt for bad leaders. However, one should not naively arrive at such a conclusion given the process of ascension to power. Notwithstanding the shenanigans that produce bad leaders, through the ballots, I question the apathy of all of us not to ensure that our votes count. I dare say that we as citizens ought not to renege on our responsibility to make our votes count so as to avoid failing or failed leadership. I will hope that we can 'occupy Nigeria' in the process leading up to 2015 to avoid electing 'the worst leaders and hope for the best' in the words of Karl Popper.In addition to the aforementioned responsibility of the citizens, our systems, structures, and democratic processes are still struggling to gain identity and function appropriately. The way forward for us is to create institutions of state, properly balanced in their authority and scope, so that we can insure good governance. All the world's thriving economies have the following similar traits: strong and effective institutions backed by legal frameworks that guarantee rule of law.Unfortunately, the adventure of the military in governance continues to have long-lasting effect and we are still coping with legacy problems of severly weakened governance institutions. Even if you assess the language of the political elite, you can almost detect the so-called 'democrats' using undemocratic expressions such as 'we will capture this State at the next election.' This is pathetic. Take another example, we are the 'Federal Republic of Nigeria' but in reality and in practice, one is tempted to say the right name is Unitary Republic of Nigeria. The greatest damage of the military period was what it did to the psyche of Nigerians to the point that we have almost lost all sense of how to be a citizen. There are prostheses for a broken arm or leg but a prosthese for a broken brain and damaged mindset is yet to be invented.Do you see light at the end of the tunnel'Our infant democracy is maturing and Nigerians are gaining more confidence to demand accountability and transparency in governance. With this confidence, political structures and processes will likely be more strengthened while office holders will recognise that they hold power in trust on behalf of the people. They may recognise that public power is not as end but as a means for serving collective good.On another positive note is that there is a substantial increase in the number of public interest groups ' NGOs, professional organisations, labour unions ' with initiatives and activities to serve as watchdogs and advocates of the citizens. The efforts to diversify the economy are encouraging and I believe that more private investments will lead to more jobs and improved efficiency.The reforms that we saw in the banking and telecommunications sectors in the last 10 years coupled with an increasingly improved policy environment will enable the private sector to collaborate more with the government for enhanced economic development. The reforms in the power sector, if sustained, will unlock more economic potentials in the non-oil sector with under-exploited areas becoming more robust. All these hopes are tempered with the reality that four challenges prevail: do something urgent about the 67 percentile of Nigeria's young population; move away from an oil revenue economy; transit from the current farming method to technology-driven agriculture and implement policies that make it easy to do business so that people can move from the informal to formal economy.
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