The thesis of leadership failure has been propounded in ways which tend to warp our perspective of the scale of the crisis facing our society. For one thing, the term, leadership failure is used almost exclusively in reference to the dysfunction of the Nigerian state. Our notion of leadership is intrinsically flawed because it is used synonymously with positions, titles and institutions namely government. The oft cited leadership failure therefore begins with our inability to accurately define leadership itself.

“A man,” said Buddha “should first direct himself in the way that he should go and afterwards should direct others.” Every individual is capable of leadership and does, in fact, lead. The acclaimed American leadership expert, John Maxwell rightly divorces the concept of leadership from positions or institutions and locates it firmly in the individual. In his words, “Leadership is influence__ nothing more, nothing less.” The individual’s immediate sphere of influence is himself.

In order to properly understand leadership, we must recognize that it has several dimensions, the first of which is that of personal government. This refers to an individual’s sense of purpose and his ability to deploy all his resources towards accomplishing that purpose. At this level, the individual is leading himself; he alone is directly under his own influence.

The second dimension is that of parental government. This is the sort of leadership exercised by a couple at the home front which is crucial for the nurturing of the next generation. Parental authority derives from the mandate to “train up a child in the way that he should go” and is the primary purveyor of family values in the society.

The third dimension of leadership is the purview of religious institutions. Within our context, the church and the mosque are the custodians of the society’s moral values and ethical standards. The authority wielded by these institutions is basically moral and spiritual, tapping into the instinct of humanity for the transcendent and revealing to society at large the timeless laws that have been etched indelibly on the tablets of the human heart. Religious institutions wield arguably the greatest measure of power because they shape the values of the individuals which in turn influence the direction of the society’s ethical wind vane.

Educational institutions occupy the fourth dimension of leadership. Their mandate is to stimulate the individual’s intellectual development and instill a reverence for truth and a thirst for knowledge. The goal of education is to make us better people at making life better for others. Teachers, lecturers and the academia are high priests of the intellectual quest for truth that powers the advancement of any society. As John Fitzgerald Kennedy once said, “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.”

Fifthly and finally, the last level in the chain of social influence is the state; the institution of civil authority. The state comes last because it is in essence an agglomeration of aspects of other dimensions of leadership. Thus, the state in its operation reflects the personal government, family values, intellectual capacity and ethical standards of the society as a whole. Accordingly, the ancient Chinese sage, Confucius, wrote: “the strength of a nation is derived from the integrity of its homes.”

The great Dutch theologian, Abraham Kuyper conceptualized a similar unified field theory of leadership consisting of the state, the church and the family which he dubbed ‘sphere sovereignty.’ To borrow from kuyper’s thesis, each dimension of leadership has its own limited sovereignty over which another cannot trespass. For example the task of raising children is basically that of parental government and not that of the state. Spiritual enlightenment is the purview of the religious institutions and not the state. Some of the most diabolical dictatorships in history have emerged from a hybrid of the state and the religious sphere occasioned by the state’s efforts to assume religious functions or from the attempts by the religious institution to assume political power. Personal government is the individual’s self responsibility and cannot be left to other spheres. While these dimensions of leadership intersect at some points with each other, they cannot swap roles. One of the duties of the state is to protect the integrity of the spheres by guarding against an improper overlap between them. Social breakdowns occur when these spheres intersect wrongly or abdicate their respective responsibilities.

When we diagnose the Nigerian condition as a failure of leadership in sole reference to the perceived failures of the state, we are only identifying a symptom. A more accurate appraisal of this leadership failure reveals a failure of power at all levels __ the dearth of individual responsibility, the erosion of family values, and the apparent moral bankruptcy of our religious institutions. Given the interdependence of sphere sovereignties, it is impossible to have an efficient state, when all other dimensions of leadership are in decay. Whatever a society might be is hidden in the individual. The Nigerian is only a microcosm of the larger society. As Channing puts it, “the great hope of society is individual character.”

The dysfunction of the state is only a natural consequence of having it operate by irresponsible individuals who espouse no values save self-interest and worship no god other than self, money or power. If indeed we are serious about transforming leadership in Nigeria, then we have to see the linear progression from an irresponsible individual who exercises no personal government, to irresponsible parents who fail to raise their children properly, to the moral atrophy of religious bodies and finally the mutation of the state into a monstrosity that oppresses the very people that it is supposed to serve.

If social degeneracy starts with the individual, then social redemption must begin from there as well. There is no point expecting amoral and unprincipled individuals to suddenly develop morals and principles upon their assumption of office. There can be no regeneration of the state apart from a regeneration of the other spheres of authority. Good governments are operated by good people. Good people are usually those who are adept at self-mastery and personal government. Usually such individuals are beneficiaries of good parental government and tend to be people of faith or ethics. We also need reforms that would strengthen Nigeria’s institutions and systems. The effect of this would be to subject individual office holders to the institutions as against the present situation in which institutions are subject to individuals.

The corruption of our institutions such as the police, or the civil service, is only a reflection of the corruption of the Nigerian character. The individual who has not learned to master himself will only self-destruct and harm many others when given a greater measure of power. As John Maxwell puts it, “No one can rise above the limits of his character.” This is why various religions and philosophies agree on the necessity of self mastery.

There are Nigerians who doubtless will feel offended by the notion that the corruption in our institutions is a reflection of the Nigerian character. They will argue that they are different from the others and that the corruption of Nigerian institutions is in no way reflective of their character. That may be, however a national character is the creation of a critical mass of individuals who are consciously living out their values. Nigeria is the way it is because the “bad people” are more vigorous and more enthusiastic about living what they believe. Despite the level of decadence in our society, I believe that most Nigerians are basically decent. We are not all corrupt neither are we all fraudsters. The truth is that a corrupt active minority will always defeat a passive honest minority in the struggle to shape nations. There is within our society an ethical conflict between various forces all angling to install their values as the soul of the system.

In Nigeria, as in many parts of the world, the good people are only a passive majority while the corrupt are an active minority. The tragedy is that passivism will eventually become capitulation. As time goes by, the argument that, “if you can’t beat them join them” will assume an irresistible logic and as the 18th century British statesman, Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Leadership is simply influence. The irony is that in a society such as ours, the corrupt and active minority is aggressively exercising influence and is therefore demonstrating leadership while the honest passive majority is refusing to exercise influence and is therefore failing to provide leadership. It goes without saying that nature abhors above all, a vacuum of authority. If we live in a climate of darkness, then we must understand that darkness exists only in the absence of light.

W.B. Yeats might well have had the Nigerian nation in view when he penned these words from his poem, The Second Coming:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity

In order to redeem Nigeria, the passive majority must abandon their passivism and come out of their cocoons of self-absorption.

The dichotomy between the corrupt active minority and the honest passive majority has given rise to a supremely paradoxical situation. In a society like ours where corruption is a key challenge, the failure of leadership lies not with the corrupt minority but with the honest majority because they are the ones that are failing to influence society for good.

The thesis of leadership failure as an occasion for merely pointing fingers at the government is no longer sustainable. Seen within the framework of a unified field theory of leadership, it is clear that these failures of power whether as individuals, parents, teachers, state functionaries or as religious adherents, are in one sense or the other, our failures. We are all guilty and are therefore all individually and collectively responsible for the redemption of Nigeria.

Robot  # 1 | 25.10.2005 10:46

Link to the article is here

Guest  # 2 | 26.10.2005 03:29

Chris, I\'m afraid you are wrong again. Your \"Age of Enlightenment\" contribution is deeply flawed. This one is also flawed. Chinua Achebe was right that we have a failure of leadership. And that is Political Leadership, NOT Personal Leadership, Parental Leadership, or Religious Leadership. Political Leadership failures spurned these other types of leadership failures, not the other way round.

Odinaka  # 3 | 26.10.2005 04:24

True leadership flows from top to the bottom, so is bad leadership. The problem of Nigeria and that of Africa in general is nothing but a colossal failure in political leadership.

Guest  # 4 | 27.10.2005 03:42

As usual the President OBJ wants to appear above board. What happened to collective responsibility in Government? When the team is failing the President always exonerate himself (I didn\'t tell my minister to close AIT) the blame game begins and the buck passing. When the team is winning (debt relief) he is the first to beat his chest and take full advantage ( My frequent travels abroad finally paid off) Closing down media houses is nothing new with this democratic Government -His late wife also closed down a media house Omo-Ojo Orobosa, publisher of the weekly Midwest Herald, was imprisoned for more than two weeks and accused of sedition after his publication accused First Lady Stella Obasanjo of corruption. His lawyer, Festus Keyamo, told CPJ that Orobosa was arrested at the newspaper\'s Lagos office and taken to the capital, Abuja. The lawyer said he rushed to the scene of the arrest and confronted police, who said they were acting on the first lady\'s orders. An article last week headlined “Greedy Stella” alleged that the first lady was involved in selling government houses to her relatives at below-market prices, Keyamo said. Two other people involved in circulating and advertising the Midwest Herald were also detained, Keyamo said. The Midwest Herald circulates mainly in southern Nigerian states that include the first lady\'s home region The President didn\'t know his in-laws were cleaning out with ikoyi properties- Osomo had to go she was sacrificed. The President didn\'t know his son Olumuyiwa has a house worth over $500,000.00 in New York We may hear later he wasn\'t aware his wife was abroad for cosmetic surgery.His media aide Remi Oyo failed to disclose the full story to her colleaques when the news about his wife came out. What advice did he give his wife about the cosmetic surgery? We may not know the full story or what the autopsy report says. An opportunity to learn about the hazzards of cosmetic surgery lost especially now that it\'s becoming popular in Nigeria It\'s the usual rumour mills and chinese whispers. You know strong leadership when you see one. Great Mandela came out to let the world know his son died of AIDS no effort to keep it under wraps and it was a welcome reflief for thousands of sufferers.Late Olikoye Ransome Kuti took the responsibilityto let Nigerians know that our well loved Fela died of AIDS against all pleas to keep it secret. He was a Health Minister he felt he had to let the world know. That is leadership. Our OBJ what manner of leadership? even at the family level? You want this man to continue in 2007?

Guest  # 5 | 27.10.2005 13:51

Firstly I say without any equivocation, this current government we have in Nigeria is the best we have had by far (emphasis by far) since we became an independent nation. However if I must rate them in terms of what we are capable of producing as a nation and more importantly what we need I would give them a score of 10%. The original writer has made a very good and valid point, that people must share a collective responsibility for their sucesses and failures and a government will only reflect the character of its people. Also you can not say you are good and honest and remain passive in the face of dishonesty, corruption etc. Until we start holding our leaders responsible for their actions, and stop being self-centred in our outlook we will continue to have leaders that are inept, lazy and corrupt. We need to set high standards for anyone aspiring for leadership. We need to demand from them set goals and target and if they don\'t achieve them within set time frames they should leave.

Antiobj2007  # 6 | 27.10.2005 15:57

The Legislators have decided to investigate the crash. I believe they are taking the wrong step. The truth would not see the light of the day. They would be manipulated and intimidated with people with different agendas. The best route is to have a private investigator with unlimited power to dig deep. The money allocated in the budget to the department that would handle the search and rescue was not released. Meanwhile the Presidency and retinue of sycophants fought the National Assembly to approve the N10 billion naira needed for the Presidential Private jet but none of them gave a thought to the deplorable aviation industry. We need selfless leaders. We should continue elect new ones enough recycling!