Charles O

What Yar’Adua Must Do

Posted July 15, 2007 · Charles O

Foreword

I realize that proposing to tell the president of the most populous black nation on earth, what he “must” do, is a rather brazen undertaking—but one which I feel compelled to take nonetheless. I realize too that Nigeria’s problems are multifaceted and interrelated in such a way that they buttress and reinforce one another. Finally, I realize that a blog entry such as this cannot hope to fully and adequately address even one of the myriad issues that have beleaguered that nation for decades…

Accordingly, the goal of this entry will be to outline, at a very high level, some perspectives on how Yar’Adua, the new Nigerian president, might begin to go about the business of righting the wrong that currently constitutes the Nigerian nation.

First Impressions

In spite of the appalling electoral fraud that handed the Nigerian presidency to Yar’Adua, the man appears to be, by far, the best option (or the proverbial ‘least’ of many evils), when one considers the pool of 2007 presidential aspirants and contestants. The man appears to have a genuine interest in the Nigerian project, and appears to be willing to go against the grain of the typical Nigerian politician and public official. Yar’Adua appears to be committed to fiscal responsibility, accountability, and transparency; to reform of the major social, economic, and political institutions; and, to setting Nigeria on the right trajectory.

So What Is To Be Done?

I believe that Yar’Adua must take a two-pronged approach to redressing Nigeria’s problems: a top-down, and its corollary, a bottom-up approach.

The Top-Down Approach

Yar’Adua must establish, at the onset, that his administration will be purely performance-driven, and he must inculcate that notion into every element of his administration, elevating it, in fact, to the status of a guiding principle.

Yar’Adua must set a vision for his administration (ideally, with a four-year horizon, since this is the length of time he is reasonably assured of being in office), and devise a high-level strategy—a road map—for getting from the current national state-of-affairs to a desired future-state. The vision should boil down to a set of defined objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound—in short, SMART.

Invariably, these objectives will “map” to individual federal ministries and “parastatals.” For instance, an objective to “ensure that 85% of all interstate highways meet federal guidelines for operability by May 2008,” might map to the Ministry of Transport, whose minister will, in turn, be charged with driving efforts to meet that objective.

Of course, each ministry will be involved in the formulation of these policies. In other words, the process of setting the objectives must include the full participation of the affected ministry. Indeed, this is absolutely critical for the objectives to meet the ‘achievable’ and ‘realistic’ criteria, and also to engender “buy-in” from all participants, as well as forestalling the semblance of ‘imposition from above.’

Track Objectives

Yar’Adua must then implement a mechanism for tracking each objective—or high-level policy—against a solid set of metrics. How is the progress of each objective tracking against metrics on an on-going basis? Are there any assumptions that need to be corrected? Are there unforeseen exigencies that need to be incorporated into, or accounted for, in the overall policy? Are there issues that need to be escalated for action at the highest levels? Of course each minister will be responsible for escalating issues up to the appropriate level, for appropriate action.

Yar’Adua must approach the tracking of implementation with the rigor of true project management. He must require on-going status reporting from his reports, and (back to our “performance-driven” guiding principle), must not be afraid to replace ministers and public officers who consistently fall short of performance. Yar’Adua must clean his administration of that bane of Nigerian progress called cronyism. Finally, the president must recognize and reward consistent high-performance through promotions, as well as other open, rational, equitable, and justifiable performance reward packages.

A critical component of performance should be fiscal responsibility. All ministries must show financial responsibility, accountability, and transparency. In other words, they must deliver on their objectives within reasonable constraints of time and budget!

“Perform, Or I Will Replace You.”

If public officials were to perform their duties in such as manner as to meet the objectives devised as part of the highest level policy, they would invariably contribute to the development and/or improvement of infrastructure, creation of economic opportunities and/or enabling economic environments, as well as a raising of the general level of societal wellbeing/welfare. Again, where such public officials fail, the message (and non-ambivalent accompanying action) should be a simple replacement of such official. In other words, Yar’Adua must say, “Perform, or I will replace you.” And he must be unafraid to meet that commitment.

The Bottom-Up Approach

The saying, “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop,” is never more apt than in the Nigerian context. Most Nigerians who reside in the Nigerian space have either been a victim of “One Chance,” or know someone who has. “One Chance” has come to be the name for a relatively regular occurrence in metropolitan Lagos, where a public transportation vehicle holding a band of armed robbers picks up an unsuspecting passenger, only for that passenger to be relieved of all possessions (phones, wallets, etc.), thoroughly manhandled, and in extreme cases, killed. “One Chance” refers to the fact that in many cases, there is usually only one seat left in the bus—a seat that offers the unfortunate passenger the “one chance” of getting on the bus!

The One Chance phenomenon is, of course, only one of the plethora of social ails that afflict Lagos—that city being but a microcosm of a larger national ailment—albeit one with rather acute symptoms. There are the armed robbers that break into people’s houses; the area boys and motor-park touts, equally violent and unpredictable; highway robbers from whom even highway patrol police are known to flee, et cetera.

Instant Gratification: The Get-Rich-Quick Syndrome

The question that bogs one mind is: are these people inherently (perhaps, genetically) predisposed to be miscreants—perpetual warts on the collective social body, or do they pursue their violent vocations simply because they have no other means of sustenance?

Of course, one is tempted to argue that there is some likelihood that even in a prosperous Nigeria, these people would still engage in some variation of thuggery and gangsterism. We all know that Nigerians are incorrigibly loath to defer gratification (i.e., work hard now, reap rewards later), preferring instead to “make it” today-today, as the popular song in Nigerian pidgin attests:

Today, today (not tomorrow) Today, today Jesus go answer me Today, today.

Understand, the Nigerian represents the quintessential sample of a species that craves instant gratification… a collective purveyor of the get-rich-quick syndrome.

In spite of this damning picture, I propose we accept the more optimistic picture—the one that suggests that relative abundance (of employment and entrepreneurial opportunities—in other words, engagement of the workforce), would near-eliminate social ills of the One Chance variant.

The bottom-up approach also acknowledges that a large portion of the Nigerian malaise is tied to a truly deficient collective mentality. The Nigerian mentality finds stealth, stealing, and fraud to be acceptable—so long as it is somehow justifiable. As an example (and I have had occasion to say this before), many Nigerians implicitly justify public official’s theft of public funds by saying that anyone would do the same thing if they were in the same situation…

In some sense, I agree. I agree that in the current Nigerian context, any one would be likely to help themselves (to use a euphemism) to public funds if they found themselves in the position to do so. This speaks more to the default predisposition of the human species though, than to an indictment of the Nigerian species. Basically, the bottom-up approach requires that the Nigerian context, system, and social construct change.

Therefore…

Yar’Adua must work with the state and local governments to devise policies that, in effect, correct the anomalies inherent to the current system, that make Nigerians predisposed to indiscipline and unethical behavior. The precondition here is that Yar’Adua’s government will have succeeded, from the top-bottom perspective, in engaging the able workforce in productive venture.

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