(IL)LITERACY IN LEADERSHIP by Rotimi Fawole @TexTheLaw

The Nigerian quest for leadership continues and, unfortunately for progressives, zoning and entitlement to others standing down so that a particular region can enjoy its turn to produce the next president is the current preoccupation of the ruling elite and the chasing pack. The pro-zoning argument is mostly that it corrects marginalisation and encourages “a feeling of belonging”. As there is a gaping lack of evidence that any region has benefitted from being the sitting president’s home-region, one must question what exactly those who protest it are being marginalised from?

The North (I use these geo-political groupings only very nominally) has produced the majority of the country’s heads of government post-Independence. The consensus is however that it is largely the region lacking the most in infrastructure, education and several other key development indices. The South-West had its own turn but no one can point to the exclusive benefit this conferred on the region during those eight years. The incumbent is from the South-South and it would also be hard to point to anything that has accrued to that region specifically. What then can the accusation of marginalisation be in reference to, if the regions do not enjoy special benefits for producing the president? This zoning argument also scales down to politics at the state level, where the governorship “must” be rotated between the different regions that comprise the states. Marginalisation apparently also exists at the state and local government levels too. The majority of the country must therefore be suffering from this malaise of marginalisation at every point in time.

My guess is that it is not the benefits that would accrue to the region that these marginalisation politicians refer to. It is more than likely to be the benefits that accrue to the members of the office-holder’s circle of trust and their hangers-on – the ability to influence appointments (and accumulate political capital), the potential to increase their own personal wealth and [in the tiniest of whispers] the opportunity to assist with how looted funds, if any, will be laundered.. If the President or Governor emerges from your region, you can expect a handsome personal reward depending on how close a friend you are or how prominent a role you played in his election. The cry of marginalisation cannot have very much to do with the progress of the officer-producing region.

It is extremely idealistic but I am hopeful that one day, marginalisation will cease to be the motivation or justification for a candidate’s eligibility, and the most important factor in our choices at the ballot will be the quality of the candidate’s learning and the strength of his character. I have often wondered whether the prosperity of the world’s richest nations has anything to do with how well-educated their leaders are. I finally did some digging this week and the results are in the table that follows. The table tries as much as is possible to either go as far back into time as 1980 or, where the information was not readily available, to list the last four heads of government. The table omits schools outside the US and the UK, as most of us (Nigerian readers) are unlikely to be familiar with their pedigree.

There is a preponderance of degrees in political science, law, business, economics and arts (with Singapore throwing its own unique party). Leaders educated in the science of statehood, jurisprudence, commerce and humanities. Of course, this is incomplete, almost half-arsed, data and not much can be gleaned from it. For instance, we do not know from this table if the citizens of these countries prefer leaders with this sort of education or whether it is each country’s political infrastructure that ensures that the cream rises to the top. The table does not examine the presidents’ cabinets and the quality of the team they are surrounded with. We cannot tell if the countries are rich because their leaders are well-educated or whether the leaders are well-educated because the countries are rich.

Regardless, there does appear to be a correlation between the level to which a country’s leaders over time have been educated and how prosperous the country is. This is more so when Sub-Saharan Africa (in which a huge number of the world’s poorest countries are located) is examined in a similar vein and we see several countries that have been pillaged [mostly] by soldiers in the period under review. The soldiers that have usurped civilian rule have also mostly not been of the senior ilk – coups are rarely planned by generals. Many of these countries have also endured long stretches during with the same head of government. Imagine a first-year medical student performing heart surgeries, and answerable to no one for the inevitable cock-ups.

Going forward, while I realise that the “masses” probably do not care much for what university the president went to nor, indeed, if he even went at all, the nature of candidates’ education must be taken into greater consideration. It should come as no surprise, for instance, when people who know nothing of the theories of state get onto our television screens and spout heresies. How can we expect such people to be aware of their own responsibilities in the social contract? When merit is perpetually sacrificed on the altar of marginalisation, how can we expect progress or growth? Perhaps our change advocacy needs to make much more of an issue of this.