It is difficult to stick out your neck for an African leader because if he takes one or two commendable steps, especially at the beginning, the odds are that he will do a series of things shortly to embarrass you. But Lagos State governor Babatunde Fashola has since established he is an exception. He is the kind of army general you could follow to the battle blindfolded. A couple of weeks ago, I published an article demonstrating how the Lagos governor is ahead of the Nigerian political class in courage and development vision, citing the example of how he attended the Chinua Achebe colloquium in the United States when political activists in the Southwest were playing to the gallery by publicly excoriating There Was A Country, Achebe’s memoirs on the Nigerian civil war of 1967-70.
Fashola always shows he is a 21st century leader, not hidebound, an atavist or historical throwback. For instance, on Tuesday, April 9, 2013, he commissioned a 76-housing unit estate in Ikeja GRA named for Emeka Anyaoku, erstwhile secretary-general of the Commonwealth. In an era when even universities fall over themselves to bestow honour only on men and women of money and political power, as Pius Okigbo memorably reminded the nation in his scintillating 1992 convocation lecture to the University of Lagos, it is reassuring to see a Nigerian government immortalize a truly renaissance man, a man of refined values and culture. Perhaps more significant in the Nigerian political context, the immortalisaton shows Fashola’s commitment to Nigeria’s success. Anyaoku is from neither Lagos nor the Southwest. He is rather from Anambra State in the Southeast. In a social milieu marked by all manner of primordial cleavages, the honour to Anyaoku is truly significant. It represents the famous handshake across the Niger, if there has been any.
The Anyaoku honour is no isolated incident in respect of Fashola’s belief in multicultural Lagos. Last December, his government donated N4.5m out of the N6m which Nollywood actress Ngozi Nwosu needed for liver and kidney treatment in the United Kingdom. Like Anyaoku, Ms Nwosu is from the Southeast. What Anyaoku and Nwosu have in common with the governor is that they live in Lagos. And not to be forgotten is that more than any state government, apart from the southeastern, the Lagos State government went out of its way to honour the inimitable Biafran leader, Emeka Ojukwu, during his long funeral rites last year. Do we need state here that the influential Lagos State commissioner for budget, Ben Akabueze, is from the Southeast? Or that the chief executive of the state infrastructure regulatory agency, Joe Igbokwe, is from the geopolitical zone?
Fashola’s cosmopolitanism places him be in the footsteps of such leaders as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first president who, as the Eastern Nigerian regional premier, appointed a Lagosian his principal secretary and head of Government House in Enugu. The Great Zik built Nigeria’s first autonomous university and chose for it the universal name of the University of Nigeria, naming the schools and halls of residence after great Nigerians, including his political opponents like Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello, and Samuel Akintola. As premier of the Eastern Region, Zik ensured that a Northern Muslim, Malam Umaru Altine, was elected the mayor of Enugu, defeating his Eastern-born rivals.
In the Second Republic, Kano State governor Abubakar Rimi appointed individuals from Cross River, Bauchi and Edo states into his government, individuals like Sully Abu, Ibok Essien and Bala Mohammed. Borno State governor Mohammed Goni appointed a Yoruba the state chief judge and another the commissioner for justice and attorney-general. Plateau State governor Solomon Lar chose an Anambra State indigene, Obi-Okoye, as the state chief judge while his counterpart in neighbouring Benue State, Aper Aku, made an Anambra indigene, Lawrence Anoliefo, the state director of public prosecutions and later a state high court judge. Lar and his Anambra State counterpart, Jim Nwobodo, fought to have Janet Akinrinade from Oyo State in their cabinets following the collapse of the working accord between the National Party of Nigeria and the Nigeria Peoples Party.
It is unfortunate that liberalism, tolerance and peaceful co-existence are today in retreat in Nigeria so much so that an indigene of Imo State born and raised in Aba, for instance, cannot be employed even as a messenger in the Abia State public service. Governor Theodore Orji has since adopted a scorched earth policy against non-indigenes in Abia State, treating them as “undesirable foreigners”. Yet, anytime this Quixotic and queer governor speaks in public about “the imperative of Igbo unity” some people clap for him!
Nigeria is really in a social and moral cesspool. Time was when Kenneth Dike could be the vice chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Eni Njoku the University of Lagos, Adamu Baike the University of Benin, Umaru Shehu the University of Nigeria, Cyril Onwumechili the University of Ife, etc. Appointments like these ones are no longer feasible. First and second generation federal universities have become tribal and religious cocoons of the most primitive and vicious type, not centres of civilized behaviour. The Ahmadu Bello University vice chancellor was a few years ago forced out of office for not being a Hausa-Fulani Muslim. A person of Ishan stock in Edo State can hardly dream of becoming the UNIBEN VC as the office is now in the grip of Benin people. The battle cry the other day when the post of the UNN VC became vacant was that only a candidate from Nsukka senatorial zone was acceptable!
It is not different on the ecclesiastical front. A few years ago, the nation was treated to the spectacle of some Anglican priests insisting that only a person of Benin extraction could be allowed to become the bishop of the Benin Diocese. Shortly after, the same drama was recreated in the Catholic Archdiocese of Benin. Worse, when the Vatican announced toward the end of last year that a priest from Awka in Anambra State had been chosen as the bishop-elect of the Ahiara Diocese in Imo State, we were treated to the unprecedented spectacle of Catholic priests marching in the streets against the “imposition of a foreigner”!
Developments like the above make you wonder if the Nigerian people themselves, not just the government, want to join the rest of the world in the 21st century. But you then remember there are still enlightened and far-sighted leaders like Fashola. It is nice to praise Fashola for his liberalism, for his live-and-let-live policy which has deep implications for Nigeria’s integration. But the governor is essentially a first-class strategist, obsessed with Lagos State development . He is keenly aware that open societies develop fast but closed societies atrophy. The unrivaled openness of Lagos has enabled it to become one of the world’s fastest-growing cities. This is why tradition-loving Anyaoku, after decades of living and working outside Africa, could settle here, and not Enugu or Awka or his hometown of Obosi. He is making solid contributions to Lagos development. Some three years ago, Governor Fashola honoured Anyaoku at a special ceremony for always paying his tax honestly and promptly.
Like most economies the world over, Lagos is being developed by non-indigenes. Fashola understands this simple but critical fact. By integrating non-indigenes more and more into Lagos society, he is at once taking a strategic step to enhance the state’s economy and making a powerful statement about his belief in one Nigeria. Fashola is one public officer who always keeps hope alive.
— Adinuba, head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting, lives in Lagos (Originally published by leadership.ng)
No comments :
Post a Comment