Defining the New Start!

“I believe the Judiciary has an important role to play in this country, as it is the last hope of the common man. The Judiciary has to be firm, fair and courageous and must not employ any form of double standards. It is not right in my view to regard or treat the courts of Justice as an extension of the Federal Ministry of Justice. I cannot condone any attempt to destroy the judicial system in this country using me as a scapegoat.”

That was Justice Yahaya Jinadu before he voluntarily resigned from the Bench following his refusal to apologise to Mr. John Oyegun, then Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the Military regime. Yes, our own indefatigable Mr. John Odigie Oyegun, before he became the Governor of Edo State, and now the Chairman of the APC. The case involved one Garba v. Federal Civil Commission. While the case was pending in Justice Jinadu’s court, Garba was fired. Justice Jinadu summoned Chief John Oyegun to his court, but he declined to appear. That led to contempt charges against Chief Oyegun by Justice Jinadu. As it turned out - trust the Nigerian system – it was Justice Jinadu who was instructed to apologise for harassing the influential Permanent Secretary. Justice Jinadu resigned from the Bench rather than collaborate with the system to humiliate the Judiciary. And the rest is history. See "Salute To Courage, the Story of Justice Yaya Jinadu" By Richard Akinola. I may not know the state of Justice Jinadu today, but I have no reason to believe that he is in a situation of want. His likes are the Nigerians we should celebrate. And his likes are the Nigerians we expect to populate a Ministerial list - the Ebitu Ukiwe of our world.

Of Conscientious Advisers and Quality Leadership:

Today, and as it has always been in our public sector, people with questionable character or appalling work ethics capitalise on their closeness to power or ethnic affinity to secure and perpetuate their emptiness in positions calling for discerning minds and informed judgment. In Nigeria, the majority of those who have tasted power in government find it demeaning to go back to the private sector. Politicking, and not public service, has become worth dying for. And leadership by example is no longer a virtue. Those worth celebrating are easily forgotten, because images of wastage and institutional decay make the most news.  

The majority of those who have served in Government, whether at the State or Federal Government level, no longer consider it befitting of their new status (the newfound wealth) to go back to classrooms, as the culture is in Europe and North America. 

For instance, can you name one Professor (excluding Jega) in Nigeria of late who, for instance, brought to bear on his job as a Minister or as a Special Adviser or as a Public Servant his much professed populist appeals or radicalism on campus? In most cases, it is they are either perpetuating the vicissitude and ethnic agenda of their captor or assisting him in defining and perpetuating a much narrower one on hapless Nigerians. But the moment they ceased to hold public offices, they turned into avant-garde pundits, populating the pages of our newspapers and TV talk-shows with populist hogwash they did not remember nor dared to vouchsafe during their years in office. They are the Nigerians who define and perpetuate a stultifying, austere economic agenda, undermining the state of infrastructure on their campuses.

In the US, where our leaders and their chosen ones shop for ideas and consultants, most high-profile Universities recruit from the pool of retired political leaders, and most often, from the pool of former Special Advisers and political party strategists. Mr. David Gerges worked with about five United States Presidents. Today, he is a lecturer at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University. Robert Reich, President Clinton's Secretary of Labour, is at UC Berkeley. Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's Secretary of State, returned to Stanford. Paul Begala, President Clinton’s mouthpiece piece is back at the University of Texas, his Alma mater.

It is the same story all over the US. It has nothing to do with the weight or length of their certificates, but their stewardship and the principles they project and the changes they represent - principles and changes that profoundly altered the polity, whether borne out of conservative, liberal, or progressive schools. Not in our Nigeria.

For instance, since the existence of Professor Bab Fafuwa from the Education Ministry, can you name a Minister of Education who quit the job as a result of disagreement with his or her President (Military or civilian) over the funding process or the lack of it? I say this in light of the unsettled wages palaver, as well as the appalling decay of infrastructural facilities on our campuses. Where is the reform? If all is well on our campuses, how come in the past twenty years, we’ve never had a regular academic year (September to May), as it is all over the world?

Where is the Pa Fafuwa, Aboyade, Ewa, Olikoye, Ake, Ayagi, or Aguda in us? The public servant is expected to serve, not to satisfy the orthodoxy of geographical expression - a bench warmer in observance of quota application or geographical spread. The President and his screening team must find ways to overcome constitutional provisions mandating quota application or federal character in the hiring process. 

This is a critical time. And it calls for critical minds. Performance measured by "just doing the right thing" or "business as usual" must be discredited. That was not the standard current under Papa Awo in the old Western Region before and after independence, and as Minister of Finance under the Administration of Yakubu Gowon. It is not the standard President Obama is applying today in the United States of America, surmounting institutionalised odds to ensure affordable healthcare for all. And it is not what Mallam El'Ruffai did at FCT, rescuing the Federal Capital Territory from land speculators and untouchable power brokers who appropriated for private use land set aside for public use. A process that was successfully replicated in Lagos, thus freeing Oshodi Bus Stop and Mile Two interchange from hoodlums.  

These gentlemen see beyond the culture of business as usual – a pervasive culture in our public sector that legitimises graft, stultifying grace and resourcefulness. A new Ministerial list, therefore, must be one made up of Nigerians imbued with innate drive and those sufficiently proactive, capable of seeing beyond and performing beyond "just doing the right thing." So, for the change mantra to be meaningful and enduring, President Buhari and his recruiters must look beyond the pool of the discredited, thieving bunkums successively imposed on us as leaders over the years.

Alex Aidaghese

alexaidaghese@gmail.com