General News
By Anthony Isibor.
PROFESSOR Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, the presidential candidate of the Young Progressive Party, YPP, in the 2019 presidential election, has listed Effectiveness as the most important component of good governance.
Moghalu made this known while speaking at the 10th Emeka Anyaoku Lecture, held at the Dora Akunyili Women Development Centre Akwa, Anambra State on Thursday, August 12, 2021.
According to the professor, good governance can only be measured or assessed by its elements of Effectiveness, Transparency, Accountability, Inclusion and Participation, Rule of Law, and Efficiency.
Effectiveness, he noted, is the most important component of good governance. “A government cannot be effective if the fundamental requirement of leadership capacity is absent. If leadership is weak or absent, it is wishful thinking to expect good governance that is anchored on the primary plank of effectiveness,” he said.
He opined that real foundation for good governance and development has continued to elude Nigeria after 60 years of independence.
“My goal in this lecture, therefore, is to establish clearly in our minds why and how visionary, capable leadership is the secret, but often overlooked sauce without which Nigeria simply cannot achieve the more popular aspirations of good governance.
Although Nigeria’s leadership challenge is complex, Moghalu says that it is reflected in three conundrums.
· The Us versus Them
· The Power versus Responsibility syndrome and
· The Loyalty vs Competence syndrome.
He said that the failure of leadership in Nigeria was largely due to our inability to understand and prioritize leadership and what it means.
“It is why we have politics without governance, and why politics is the biggest business in our country, while real businesses and the economy are being steadily destroyed by leadership failure and incompetence.
“It is why Nigeria, with 200 million people, has only 5,000 megawatts of electricity after 60 years of independence, while South-Africa with 50 million people has 60,000 megawatts and Brazil with 210 million has 120,000 megawatts.
According to him, Leadership is the ability to influence a group of people or unit to actions that achieve goals and by doing so, create progress. True leaders have the ability to envision, to inspire, motivate, and mobilize people or institutions for action.
“A leader must also be able to take calculated risks. In short, a leader’s task is to take societies, family units, organizations or institutions from A to Z or whatever point in the 26 alphabets is relevant, necessary and possible. It is not, as we often misunderstand it in Nigeria, about merely holding positions of power or deploying authority mainly for self-serving purposes.
“True leadership requires a kind of character that emphasizes and upholds core values, a sense of sacrifice to consciously forgo opportunities to advance self or other interests, and the competence to bring these values to bear in a manner that creates change and sustains social progress.
Mogholu, however, added that quest for competent and capable leadership for a 21st Century Nigeria must begin with an understanding of what such leadership must deliver.
“This requires us to understand what political theorists term “political order formation”, how the formation of political order in Nigeria was subverted, first by colonialism, then by military rule, by the foundationally ethnic underpinnings of the contests for political power in Nigeria, by the role of culture, all of which has resulted in the inability of a visionary leadership to emerge in Nigeria.
According to him, Nigeria still lacks a modern and strong state with strong, independent institutions and the rule of law.
“Our eyes are assaulted daily by numerous examples such the extrajudicial killings by security forces of the government without consequence, as happened with the shootings of peaceful protesters of the #EndSARS movement at Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos in October 2020, and the refusal of the federal government of Nigeria to obey the orders of competent courts on several occasions, including the case of the Shiite leader El Zakzaky and the trial of Biafra secessionist agitator, Nnamdi Kanu.
He said that these examples establish clearly that the rule of law was weak or absent and real accountability as a characteristic of governance simply does not exist.
“The leadership Nigeria needs now and in the near future is one that has a clear understanding of how the weak — nay deformed political order formation in Nigeria is the fundamental development challenge that confronts us, and has a clear vision and plan to address it. Such leadership, which must transcend mere politics, must therefore deliver the following outcomes:
a. Nationhood: a united and capable state with the capacity to secure its territory and citizens;
b. Human development, economic growth and structural economic transformation; and
c. Restoration of Nigeria’s standing in the world.
He suggested that for the country to grow and develop, political parties in their internal democracy, must now begin to prioritize leadership vision and governance capacity in the selection of their candidates for electoral office.
“We need to focus on the political education of citizens to know what they should be looking for in order to make informed voting decisions,’’ he added.
According to him, this is a necessary part of a shift in emphasis from mere politics to elections as a democratic search in real leadership without which good governance will remain a mirage.
In addition, he said that “Non-partisan actors such as elder statesmen, including Nigeria’s living former heads of state and government, as well as clergy, traditional rulers, civil society and professional bodies must now begin to play a more robust role in leadership selection in Nigeria. They can do this through public statements, endorsements, or quiet recommendations. Every country must fashion its democracy to its unique environment. Politics is too important to be left to politicians alone.
Others are, the formal institution of Leadership and governance training and education in political parties and in the institutions of government across the board at leadership levels, the constitutional reordering of Nigeria, returning the country to true federalism, including the devolution of powers to the regions, will improve leadership and governance by bringing governance accountability closer to Nigerian citizens.
Aug. 13, 2021 @ 15:58 GMT |
A.I
Tags: Emeka Anyaoku Lecture PROFESSOR Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu Young Progressive Party
