Fifth Lecture Sir Ahmadu Bello's Style of Leadership by Senator (Chief) Sunday B

FIFTH LECTURE SIR AHMADU BELLO'S STYLE OF LEADERSHIP BY SENATOR (CHIEF) SUNDAY B. AWONIYI, C.O.N., IDC Friday 17th November 2000 I feel exceedingly honoured and profoundly grateful to the Arewa House Board of Governors and Board of Directors for inviting me to give the year 2000 Arewa House Lecture in honour of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of Northern Nigeria. This is the fifth lecture in the series. I wish to pay my respect to the four preceding lecturers. The first speaker, on Saturday 22nd January 1994, was Alhaji Liman Ciroma, Ciroman Fika, my senior and friend. A respected archaeologist and scholar; a seasoned - administrator and an unabashed and untiring advocate of the retention of the best in our tradition and culture in preference to untried fads. We were fashioned in the same crucible in the Northern Nigeria civil service, particularly in the Premier's Office here in Kaduna and later in the Federal civil service from where he retired voluntarily as secretary to the Federal Government and Head of the Civil Service. The second speaker, on Friday 15th September, 1995 was Professor lshaya Audu, a scholar of distinction, medical practitioner, educationist, university administrator and the first Nigerian Vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, an institution which fulfilled, beyond our wildest dreams, the vision of its founder, Sir Ahmadu Bello, to bridge the huge gap in higher education between these parts and the rest of the country. The 1996 lecturer on Friday, October 18th was Alhaji Shehu Shagari, our respected amiably former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who demonstrated that kind of humility, patience and accommodation of the foibles of all sorts of peoples so essential in our difficult democratic setting. His love and commitment to democracy endeared him to many, particularly those who were privileged to work closely with him. I met him for the first time in 1962 when I hand-carried, by air, from Kaduna here, some sensitive documents from the Premier, Sir Ahmadu Bello, to the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, in Lagos. The fourth lecture was given on Friday, 15th May 1998 by General Muhammadu Buhari, former Head of State and, before that, my boss as the Commissioner for Petroleum Resources in Lagos while I was Permanent Secretary of the Ministry. A thoroughly good man and a gentleman officer; a man of the highest integrity, a stickler for correct and transparent conduct who, nonetheless, knew "when to bite and when to blow." At a time when the Civil Service was subjected to savagery at the hands of the military, and when the lives of many of its best men, senior and junior, were wrecked when the traditional usage which gave the civil service its stability, pride and high morale were thoughtlessly ruined, Col. Buhari, as he then was, was invariably fair and ready to use his influence to ensure justice to those wrongly accused. He worked himself exceedingly hard and stabilized the Ministry of Petroleum. This and other attributes endeared him to the staff and gave them the necessary confidence to be bold and innovative in the execution of projects of unprecedented size and sophistication for which the ministry was responsible. I salute the four. They have exercised leadership at the very top of national governance, the apex of the civil service and of university administration. Leadership as I Saw It Practised at Close Quarters by Sir Ahmadu Bello is the Theme of My Paper Sometime in May last year, about a week before President Olusegun Obasanjo was sworn in, I had the privilege of coordinating, at his instance, a six-day seminar at Sheraton Hotel, Abuja. It was attended by the President himself who actively participated and did not miss a single session. It was known to all participants, beforehand, that from the 150 or so participants the President would appoint his ministers. I have never seen a seminar attended with so much zeal, attention and punctuality. Day in day out, participants after participants, strained themselves to impress Mr. President. They displayed alertness. They displayed knowledge. They asked intelligent questions, trying always to catch the President's eyes to improve their chances of ministerial or ambassadorial appointment. The seminar was intended to set the tone of the new administration. It was appropriately entitled Prospects, Opportunities and Problems in the Forthcorming Civilian Administration. At the end of the six grueling days of seminar, Mr. President asked me to give the concluding talk around a theme he entitled Leadership Goals and Objectives. I opened my talk with the following words: All the conclusions and recommendations of the last six days will be idle platitudes (as was often the case in the past) unless there is a truly concerned and purposeful leadership, backed by a knowledgeable, and effective government machinery to convert them into action. Similar conclusions and recommendations from this kind of gathering had been made in the past; only to be stillborn, all because the political leadership was indifferent to the ills they were designed to cure. Today, 18 months later, I have no reason to modify this view. One has seen good intentions, reforms and prograrnmes of leaders vitiated because of: (i) Failure to provide and apply, on consistent basis, the single-mindedness and impartiality necessary for success; (ii) Failure to practice what is preached, i.e., failure to practice leadership by example; (iii) Choice of poor-quality personnel or even patently wrong persons to help implement his reform programme; (iv) Poor consultation, weak and ineffective staff work, denying the leader knowledge (such as the ripple effects of his actions) which may be critical to the acceptance and success of the programme. (v) Insincerity or plain deceit, which forfeits credibility and turns off the respect and cooperation of good men whose support is vital to success. (vi) Lack of justice and fairness; discrimination in favor of a person or persons or of one tribe or group over another, particularly in the punishment of wrongdoings, and in the reward for good conduct and good performance. (vii) Flatterers and sycophants who are wont to report only good news to the authorities even when the wider society knows that things are bad. Bold and honest men, capable of truthful reporting, are shunned in preference to those who automatically respond protectively to all official acts, no matter how erroneous, insensitive or condemnable. (viii) Poor strategies that are easily circumvented by beneficiaries of the status quo opposed to change. (ix) Poor or complete absence of a verification process for reporting progress or loss of past gains, if any. (x) Shoddy, ineffective enforcement and poor compliance with rules and regulations. (xi) Launching into actions, prematurely, in the name of dynamism without adequate study or preparation to ensure good chances of success, etc, etc. Within the constraint of time, what I think I should do today is to remind us of the principal objectives of the Nigerian enterprise and to draw principally from some of the attributes of successful leadership, which flowed from the paper and from the discussions and recommendations of the seminar referred to earlier. I will then try to narrate incidents or give instances of occasions, which I experienced at first hand, or heard from creditable colleagues and other individuals who witnessed, at close quarters those attributes of leadership as practiced by Sir Ahmadu Bello. I believe this approach might be more instructive, particularity to our younger audience not privileged to have met or known the man, Sir Ahmadu Bello. Assessment of The Greatness of Sir Ahmadu Bello But first, let me touch very briefly on two factors affecting the assessment of Sir Ahmadu's achievement, and his personal stature. The farther away we are from the day Sir Ahmadu Bello was murdered (on these very premises in which we are gathered) the brighter his star shines and the greater his stature grows. This is partly because he was a legend in his lifetime. Imposing in stature, dress and manner, he dominated his environment without seeming to try. You could not be indifferent to Sardauna's presence. Also, it is in the nature of the history of departed great men for myths and stories, anecdotal or even apocryphal to develop around them as the years go by. Sir Ahmadu is no different. Stories of real incidents involving him are told and, atimes, embellished in a variety of ways depending on who is doing the telling and on what occasion, and to create what impression. Some are told to match or surpass other stories told by someone claiming inside knowledge. Some are told to draw useful lessons. Some are told in order to invest with authority the conclusions of discussions/conversations. Yet, others are told to relieve tensed situations, create fun, and evoke laughter. The assessment of Sir Ahmadu's greatness has benefited, additionally, from the poor quality of leadership provided by a breed of many mini-minded men masquerading as leaders in various aspects of our lives. Their poor performance, their outright deceit of people, their rascality and mind- buggling stealing, their sheer indolence to bestir themselves into taking selfless action to improve the lot of the poor and the lowly, all serve as background foil providing contrast against which the Sardauna's superiority is highlighted. We do not have to look too hard to see how the selfishness and meanness of some of those who attained leadership positions, since his death, brought into bolder relief his generosity and his genuine interest in the welfare of others, especially the common man. Their dishonesty and duplicity magnify his integrity.

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