In Nigeria, many in public office do not reckon that while leadership is a thankless job, it is also an opportunity to generate social capital. Leadership is about making sacrifices and taking tough decisions with compassion. It is an altruistic or selfless vocation. Leadership is not easy. A leader is taken to have magic wand and a problem solver. A leader must perspire to inspire. As a leader, you will be pummeled, insulted, harassed and misunderstood. If you do not go through all these, check well to see that you are not leading. Pray!
Many who are in leadership positions realise too late that the weight of leadership is radically different from phantom or specter of the opera house. Leadership is not taking a leisure walk in the park. Leadership throws up challenges and opportunities. You are either a hero or a villain at the end of the day. If you succeed, many will inherit your goodwill but if you fail, all, including your closest friends, will deny you.
The allure of public office or position, the glitz and glamour of power can be deceptive. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power is transient. Ancient wisdom never fails. While in office, many act recklessly, talk arrogantly or bullishly that they do not remember that there is something called goodwill. Goodwill is the take home pay of the public officer, the boss or even the lowest member of staff. Goodwill is the pension and gratuity of the public officer. Goodwill is the savings for the children and successors of the public officer.
Any public officer who is not thinking of earning public goodwill at the end his public service is digging his own grave and investing in public odium, contempt and hatred, not only for himself but for his descendants. A good name is better than silver and gold. A good name, a good reputation, opens doors for the living and unborn generations. Goodwill is an intangible asset. Goodwill is built through good reputation. A public officer should systematically invest in goodwill by being upright and compassionate. If you cannot walk into an office where you once headed or worked and be received with open arms and measured respect by your erstwhile subordinates or colleagues, do you need to be told that you were an error when you held sway? If, as a former top public office holder, the audience or citizens in attendance at a public function do not spontaneously stand up to jubilantly herald your entry, know that you are deficit on public goodwill. Putting it mildly, you are a public enemy. William Feather adroitly admonished that “None of us can buy goodwill; we must earn it”.
It is against the foregoing backdrop that one is rankled that there was wild and open jubilation by federal civil servants following the news that some Federal Ministers were dropped in a recent cabinet reshuffle by the President. This was supposed to be a routine exercise being that it is the prerogative of the President to disengage any appointee without any reasons being offered but viral video clips of workers openly celebrating the development in some Ministries of some of the affected Ministers cannot have been ignored. What could have made the workers to engage in such wild celebrations, video record it against their real faces with audio and post it online? More worrisome was the viral video too of an alleged retiring female custom officer being booed and jeered at as she was exiting the premises on her last day in office. Was she highhanded, bossy, domineering? Was she corrupt, greedy, mean and callous? Nigeria does not seize to amaze. It could very well be that she was a stickler for discipline, rules and regulations. Who knows? Sometime last year, there was this telling and disgraceful viral video of a Senior Police Officer who was forced out of office by his junior colleagues for refusing to hand over to the next-in-line officer just a few days after retirement. He must have some explanations to do why his junior colleagues were very enthusiastic in giving him that type of rough send forth? Recall that many times in the past, many former powerful and feared Acting and substantive Chairmen of EFCC had faced the same clampdown and opprobrious bashing from Nigerians when booted out of office. Ancient wisdom records that if a big Iroko tree is cut down or felled by a violent strong wind, children and pregnant women will march on its large trunks in a carefree manner.
Nigerian masses, colleagues or subordinates may be too docile or afraid to confront a dictator, a wicked ruler, a capricious leader or corrupt official while in office but they always wait for him or her at the end of the day. There will always be a day of reckoning. Many years back, Nigerians trooped out to the streets either to celebrate military ouster of corrupt civilian rulers or military ouster of equally corrupt military rulers. That was tragic but it is part of the history of the beleaguered nation!
The real nature of Nigerians, the true rating of public officers and performance index of leaders is seen once power has “left” the once powerful President, Governor, Senator, Federal House of Representatives Member, House of Assembly Member, Federal Minister, Honourable Commissioner, Special Adviser, Local Government Chairman, Managing Director, Director-General, Permanent Secretary, Director and others too numerous to mention. Those in the legislative and judicial arms of government are not exempted from the post office inquisition of Nigerians. Nigerians know corrupt, dishonest, crooked, compromised or lazy judges although they may not be too quick to celebrate the many incorruptible, upright, courageous and hardworking ones. Nigerians know corrupt, indolent and or sexually abusive lecturers cum teachers, health workers, bankers, security officers, public and private sector union leaders, traditional rulers, religious leaders. Nigerians know lawmakers that are benchwarmers, under performers, anti-people but it is from the point when such a person has left public office that he or she is at the mercy of public opinion. That is usually the defining moment when the hunter becomes the hunted, so to speak. Predictably, Nigerians, including those who have personal scores to settle, will engage the former powerful and invincible oppressor in merciless bashing and vilification. This is typical of the Nigerian people. Public approval or disapproval, public rejection or acceptance after public service remains the true tests between public odium versus public goodwill.
For a fact, the recently disengaged Ministers are not the first and certainly will not be the last to suffer this irony of fate and perennial reality about power. Loss of public office is like musical chairs. By constitutional prescription, and by effluxion of time, every elected public officer will one day leave public office. In the end, Nigerians will, via public opinion, demand accountability based on delivery of the tangible and intangible dividends of democracy. Every public office holder must therefore be concerned with the question whether after leaving office, he or she will be “guilty as charged” for not delivering the dividends of democracy in the court of public opinion. Nigerians eulogize their leaders and public officers when they are in office only to turn around to ask for their heads when they no longer call the shots. Too bad! Nigeria we hail thee, Nigerians repent.
According to Marshall Field, “Goodwill is the only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy.” Goodwill after public service makes all the difference.
A new normal is possible!
Prof. Obiaraeri, N. O.
