BOOK REVIEW
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TITLE: LEADERSHIP AND GOVERNANCE IN NIGERIA: THE RELEVANCE OF VALUES. AUTHOR: Dr. Mahmud Tukur REVIEWER: Dr Usman Bugaje OCCASION: Presentation of the book held at Nicon Reviewing a 600 page book, which started its journey as a doctoral thesis, a quarter century ago, written by a scholar who had all the educational advantages of his generation, and done under the unflinching supervision of the Prof. Abdullahi Smith, and all this in some few pages to be read in few minutes, is certainly not an enviable assignment. I thought my unique privilege of access to the book at various stages in its journey would make my job easier, but I was wrong, in fact, it only seemed to have made it more difficult. For the more I read the more I realized that these are several books in one. I was about to start with an apology, when I ran into P. G. Wodehouse who counseled that, "It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them." So perhaps I needn’t. If we should begin from the beginning, the journey of this book began in the seventies, the second decade of independence, a time when the euphoria over independence was giving way to the grim realities of nation building, the experiment with Westminster democracy had come to a tragic end, the civil war had exposed the uncomfortable truth that had been swept under the carpet, the military were running out of steam (some would prefer running out of tricks, as they never really had any steam) and the future was clearly precarious. The assumptions that informed the first republic were called to question and perceptive minds could see that until the fundamental issues that touch on the very foundation of the state were addressed, the nation, as we know it, might not survive, much less thrive. This naturally triggered the search for alternative from within.
The first problem the author identified was the forceful grafting of alien models on a society with different culture and history, what the author calls ‘the disharmony between alien institutions and the socio-cultural environment’. This position may appear trite today but not then. It took boldness and courage to state that in the face of a whole army of, what the author once called, ‘deluded hybrids whose frame of reference was always a foreign ideology’. The more so when he turned his search to the Sokoto Caliphate which was (or still is) little known, despite the plethora of literature and the intellectual depth of the movement that brought it about. Conventional western scholarship, whose roots lie deep in the conflict between the church and the state in Europe, dating back to the renaissance, tended to distrust and often ignore religion. A good majority of western scholars have difficulty in comprehending the role of religion in other societies. The reasons are not far fetched, as Bernard Lewis, a leading Western orientalist had occasion to explain, "Modern Western man, being unable for the most part to assign a dominant and central place for religion in his own affairs, found himself unable to conceive that any other peoples in any other place could have done so, and was therefore impelled to device other explanations of what seemed to him only superficially religious phenomena."(1) Professor Hamilton Gibb, ventured even further, when he said. "In the typical Western man, who has inherited English rationalist thoughts and values of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and who has become mentally conditioned by it or by the German thoughts and values of the last century and a half, the intuitive faculty has been so starved and neglected that he had the greatest reluctance to admit even its existence and cannot imagine how it operates."(2) A lot of these assumptions and prejudices have, rather predictably, been imbibed by many of the western educated elite. Fed fat on these prejudices and having consequently become wholly and thoroughly enthralled with western thoughts and ideas, western educated elite tended to look beyond their shores for models as well as solutions to their problems. This study is perhaps the first attempt to break from that mental servitude and, for once, liberate the indigenous mind and empower it to explore its own cultural resources in developing its society. Coming to the book itself, the author took his time in the introduction to delineate the rationale for the study and define the problem to be addressed, explain the method to be used and discuss the sources he would be depending on. The author was clear in his mind, twenty years a go, that the Nigerian state is not working and cannot work until we are able to resolve this disharmony and lay it, for once, on a solid and more legitimate foundation. With the benefit of hind sight now this is looking like a prophecy. To do this it was necessary to expose the false bottom of the colonial heritage and overcome the mental slavery, in the author’s better words, "the acceptance of the West as the ‘centre’ and Nigeria as the ‘periphery’ which he said was the hallmark of the educated community. It is only then that a thorough appraisal of society’s antecedents can be undertaken, to enable an indigenous spirit and political culture to shape the ideas and institutions of governmental and administrative systems and confer on them both legitimacy and efficacy. In the author’s more lucid style, "the basic foundations of a political system is a society’s political values. A constitution, a set of institutions, a structural framework and procedures, cannot function satisfactorily and create viable organizations for the control and management of a society’s affairs, if they are not firmly rooted in the latter’s cultural traditions, values, habits and behaviour patterns as they appertain to political issues. If these conditions are satisfied, the polity can become a stable and cohesive nation, … capable of securing effectively the interest of the community …." (P. 6) In his appraisal of societies antecedents, the author chose the Sokoto Caliphate. His choice was "influenced by a number of considerations among which are the following. The Caliphate is a culmination of the state-building and administrative experiences of at least the Hausa, Kanuri, Tuareg, Nupe, Jukun, Bowatiye, Babur and Fulbe [Fulani] peoples. The Sokoto system represents the quintessence of four hundred years of interaction and evolution of all human waves which traversed more than two-thirds of today’s Nigeria in the course of peaceful trade, search for knowledge and armed conflict. The second factor is the richness of documentary evidence together with established research channels and sources of oral evidence related to the Sokoto experience. [It might interest some of you to know that the three leading personalities of the Caliphate alone have together authored some three hundred works of varying sizes and on varying subject matters] Thirdly, the extent of the land area which formed part of the Caliphate and its cultural affinity with the whole of the Western Sudan region makes Sokoto an attractive core for the present type of under-taking. (Pp. 1-2) Knowing that his readers are going to be varied and assorted and perhaps fearing that some of them would be pedestrian enough to infer, by his choice of the Sokoto Caliphate, that he was antiquated, he found it necessary to add the caveat that, "this study is not about to suggest that ideas and institutions not indigenous to Nigeria or Africa should be abjured." Rather, the author explained, "what it hopes to achieve is sympathetic but dispassionate evaluation of the indigenous past so as to draw out of it those of its strands which, when fused with Nigeria’s other experiences and related to its present priorities, could give a flexible and authentic system suitable for achieving national cohesion, social justice, moral regeneration, and decent living standard for the broad mass of Nigerian people." (P. 6) The author was not oblivious of the contentious nature of what is indigenous and what is foreign, so he admitted that, "the question of what is indigenous and what is foreign is an important one." He then proceeded to draw the line, "the Nigerian is nowadays so much subject to foreign influences that it is not easy to define which idea, institution, mode of dress, food or architecture is part of his heritage and which is not. The meaning of ‘indigenous’ as used in the context of this work is ‘that which people have made and accepted as their own’. (P. 1) In addition to the Introduction, the book is altogether made up of seventeen chapters spread in five parts. While parts one, two and three deal with Sokoto Caliphate and consists of three chapters each, part four deals with contemporary Nigeria, consisting in six chapters and part five, reserved for overview, evaluation and comparison, is made up of two chapters. The first part deals with ‘Foundations of the Political System’. Under this part, chapter one focussed on political values, chapter two discussed the basis of community identity while the third chapter concentrated on Purposes and scope of Caliphal State and Government. Sifting through piles of manuscripts of original sources largely made up of the very books written by the Sokoto leaders and their students and using several analytical tools including content analysis, the author identified the various political values of the Caliphate. Justice, rather predictably, topped the list, rated even above faith, as cleared gleaned from Shehu Usman’s famous statement that, ‘a Kingdom can endure with unbelief but not with injustice’. Justice is not only a foundation for good governance but the essence of governance itself. The security of a polity, in the understanding of the Sokoto scholars lies not in the size of it army or the sophistication of its security and intelligence network, but, in its application of justice. Oppression on the other hand destroys a polity and starts from the point when, in the words of Sultan Muhammad Bello, "authority [is] given to those unfit for it". Another political value that formed the foundation of the Caliphate was consultation, which begins with advice and goes as far as challenging a ruler and debating a matter when there is a consensus that it is wrong. (P. 30). Yet another political value which featured prominently was the primacy of public interest. This was a serious issue which was pursued with vigour and passion by the leadership, Shehu Abdullahi in particular, the ideologue and the lawyer, with his flair for eloquence. "His treatment of the nuances of the relationship between private and public good", the author writes, "shows Abdullahi at his best. The sharpness and dexterity with which he makes the various distinctions and the way he strains to protect the right of the individual, while leaving the reader in little doubt that in case of conflict the interest of the generality of people prevails, is impressive." (P. 33) In a similar fashion, the author went ahead to examine the community conception in the Caliphate as well as the purpose and scope of state. In each case he drew directly from the original Arabic sources and bring to bear a thorough analysis, bringing to the fore the position of the Caliphate, in ways no scholar of the Caliphate had done before and in a language which is both lucid and unequivocal. The second part of the book deals with the policy making authority. Chapter four deals with authority and leadership, and chapter five deals with representation, acceptability and succession, while chapter six deals with the decision making framework of Caliphate. Here again the author engaged himself with the primary sources, sifting and analyzing works after works trying to locate the position of the Caliphate in respect of the conception, exercise and the separation of power and authority. In the Caliphal system the distinction between power and authority appear to have been not only alien but in fact unacceptable. The system lays no claim to the theory of separation of powers in the sense accepted in Western social science, rather the system conceives these functions as integral of each other and lays emphasis not in separation but in a proper and responsible exercise of power and authority. While, as the author quickly explained, "that does not mean that it is either undifferentiated, diffuse or ambiguous, since it caters for specialized units which perform separate tasks", (P. 67) it seems to operate on the basis that what matters is not so much the separation like the quality of the men and women who hold and exercise power. The focus becomes the leadership code of behaviuor and here the "constant refrain is moderation, and abstinence from self-seeking, greed and excessive consumption." (P. 80) The leadership of the Caliphate had enough example in the deposed corrupt system they had overthrown, and Shehu Usman lost no time to warn the new leadership about the corrupt ways of old. Paraphrasing Shehu, the author wrote, "their other unaccepted habits were ‘devouring of the alms of women who are subject to their authority’, and placing ‘many women in their houses, until the number of them amounted to one thousand or more’. In addition they delayed repaying debt, they resorted to illegal taxes and confiscation, they gave judgements in favour of those who paid them some money, they indulge in lying, treachery, pride, giving themselves airs and punishing those who did not prostrate to greet them." (P. 80) The corollary was obvious, with such a code of behaviour, accountability by people who hold and exercise power becomes central to governance. In bringing this discussion to a close, the author examined the various structures and offices of the decision making authority. One office readers are likely to find interesting is that of Muhtasib, literally rendered, an inspector. Quoting various sources the author noted that Muhtasib’s "… duties included seeing that judges made appointments for trying cases, so as not keep everyone waiting; if a beast was ill-fed and the owner too poor to provide food for the beast; if a farm was undertilled and the owner unable to till it, to find a man to share the work and the crop; if a canoe was overloaded, to warn the owner twice before confiscating it. … He is to stop any kind of cheating in weights and measures, any kind of deceit or misinformation on articles, trade or prices, and delay in the settlement of debts when the indebted person has the ability to settle the debt. … the Muhtasib also ‘supervised buildings and streets within the city to ensure that in their layout and upkeep they conform to the regulations of the Maliki Law." If nothing else we can see that there is nothing novel in animal rights, Town Planning, Road Safety Corps or even the failed bank decree. The third part takes the interesting theme of management of society. Here chapter seven looked at the administrative framework, chapter eight deals with resource management and chapter nine concentrated on the central issue of the management of change. Under administrative framework the author discussed extensively the administrative superstructure and the administration of justice and law enforcement. In the chapter on resources management the author’s practical administrative skills were brought to bear on the analysis and to bring to the fore the practical consideration in running a polity. From Financial Administration, through Regulation of Commerce, Regulation of Land Use to Staff Management, the author went through corpious materials revealing sometimes graphically how the Caliphate tried to come to terms with routine societal problems with amazing contemporary parallels. Nowhere does this look intriguingly relevant as in the staff management, for it was as if some of the leaders of the Caliphate are just around the Corner. Hear the Shehu himself, for example, "One of the surest way of destroying a kingdom is to give preference to one particular tribe over another, or to show favour to one group of people rather than another, and draw near those who should be kept away and keep away those who should be drawn near." (P. 177) Shehu Abdullah, the author reported, went further in quoting Umar b. Khattab’s injunction that ‘appointments to office on the basis of favouratism is a sinful act on the part of a leader, and in adopting Ibn Farhun’s position and explanation, that "… the appointment of any person could not be valid except on three conditions: first, the employer should make sure that the prospective employee has the necessary qualification for the post to which he is being appointed. If he [the employer] knows nothing about his [the candidate’s] qualifications, the appointment is illegal. If, however, the person was appointed without such knowledge and then his qualification became known to the employer, he should then re-appoint him. Second, the nature of the duties for which the employee is employed, e.g. judgeship, governorship or tax collection, must be mentioned so that he may know for what purpose he is assigned to the office. If the employee is not aware of his function the employment is not valid…" (P. 177-8). Muhammad Bello also dutifully repeats, Umar ‘s position, that, "any ruler who appoints a governor or a judge for personal favour will pay for half the sinful acts any of such commits; any ruler who appoints such for the good of the [community] … will share with him the rewards of that [good acts he does] … [the caliph must] favour nobody and intend nothing by the appointment but the service of Allah [and the community]" P. 178. The author’s experience and taste for administration must have sharpen his taste for training and did not fail to note this aspect of staff management which he said occupied Abdullahi’s mind. "His (Abdullahi’s) approach to supervision was governed by the maxim that ‘the ruler should be to his employees like a shepherd among the wild lions; they look after his subjects for him and he looks after them. For him to do this effectively, he must have a through knowledge of them and continuously seek to update it. In this regard he count their wealth before their employment, and look into their work from time to time … those who transgress should be dismissed while any person against whom many complaints are made should be replaced. (P. 178) I must say I found chapter nine, the management of Change, most interesting and the author at his best. Though highly theoretical, this chapter represent the soul of the book and holds the key to the message of the book. The purpose of the whole exercise is understanding and managing social change and the transformation of society. While previous chapters have concentrated on sifting and analyzing data, it is here that the data is synthesized to produce a position. The very nature of the assignment of this chapter requires an assessment of the theoretical positions which inform the conception of progress and development in society. Rightly the author started with ‘the idea of change’. He successfully dismissed the popular conception of change in Western social science which sees change as eurhythmic, moving only in one inevitable direction, from the traditional to modern, with the latter being synonymous with westernization, progress and development. He laboured, and rightly so, to show the implications of the wholesale acceptance of these spurious, if popular, ideas. He observed, for example, "What seems to be happening is that western social scientists of the Parsonian category are producing solvents for the disintegration of ‘emerging’ societies. These are served up as scholarly discourse and aid to theory construction. In reality they play the role of preparing the minds of target elite for ideas suggestive of western superiority. These same social scientists prepare the ground for the subservience of the ‘developing’ countries through insistence on suitable economic policies [I.M.F. & World Bank] … many of these policies are naturally directed against the basic interests of the countries of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Ironically, these proponents of ‘modernization’ of other societies are the opponents of change … in their own countries." (P. 186-7) "The explanation for this apparent double standard", the author continued, "is that their interest in preserving their own way of life while encouraging others to imitate them is the basic instinct to have someone to feel superior to. The desire is borne out of commercial interest as well as arrogant conviction that the materially affluent societies have reached the peak of human achievement … It, therefore, represents the universal model. Thus, to order, manipulate and regulate the direction and quality of other societies’ process of change in such a way as to approximate the condition of the ‘developed’ west in world view, belief system, ethics, ethos, tastes, manners and dress is to aim for the highest form of civilization." … "The view proposed in this study", the author declared, "is a movement away from this position, … the central issue, it is being suggested, is not whether values, institutions and states approximate those of the materially developed world. It is not whether what is being done meets with the approval of the experts and commentators of the advanced countries. It is whether the objectives are the most desirable from the view point of the survival of the people and their ways of life and whether the means are the most suitable for the environment and the most effective for obtaining positive and sustainable development." …. "Hence the type of change this discussion is concerned with is that basic one which takes as its jumping-of point change must be directed towards a purpose and that when there is clear objective to be attained, change become obligatory." (P. 188) Having defined his idea of change the author proceeded to analyze the Caliphal approaches, revolutionary dimensions of change as well as the reformist dimension of change. The fourth part deals with contemporary Nigeria and is made up of six chapters which began with agitation during the colonial period through to independence. It then proceeded to examine the foundations of the political system, conception of policy making authority, management structure and finally approaches to change. It covered the period from independence to the fifth military government. I will, however, have to leave this in the more competent hands of the political scientists. The fifth and last part, overview, evaluation and comparison, made up of two chapters, represents the culmination of this rather extensive and eventful research. Chapter sixteen is essentially a summary of the first and fourth part of the study, emphasizing the universality of the Caliphal values and the mentally decimating effect of the colonial education and transplanted alien values. Chapter seventeen, being the last, is a distillation of the ideas and analysis made earlier. They were discussed under two main headings: Areas of Similarity and Areas of Variance. Under the areas of similarity such values as justice, unity, welfare, primacy of public interest and even consultation appear to be common to both the Caliphal system and contemporary Nigeria. Under variance, however, the author identified a fundamental variance in their approach to consultation. "Even in the sphere of consultation", the author writes, "in which the Westminster model is purported to be superior, a closer look at the workings of the system exposes its failure. This is because the political parties and the communications media are controlled by powerful interests which never hesitate to suppress views which are inimical to their designs. In this way the public could be manipulated to deliver judgements which favour the influential groups. At elections or in debates on major policy issues, much effort is expanded in persuading the population that they are actually being consulted and that their wishes are in fact reflected in government policies. … In the end, therefore, no real consultation takes place because it is easy for the inert and the ignorant to be cajoled into accepting or acquiescing in policies which are in actual fact not in keeping with their interests and which only cater for the welfare of the professional and commercial groups. The idea of consultation in the Caliphal polity," the author continued, "on the other hand, was essentially that of having recourse to the views of the knowledgeable people who had no vested interests to protect. Because of their disinterestedness they could be relied upon to take a wider view of things and to be concerned only with the real interest of the community. Thus because of their learning, and piety and their lack of material interest in the question at issue the quality of consultation was bound to be much superior to the type obtained through the manipulative process of head-counting ‘ democracies." (P. 547-8) The conclusion is predictable, "First, that no state can really expect its citizen to ‘be motivated to achieve development goals through values and procedures with which they have absolutely no ideological relationships’. Secondly no political system can gain legitimacy and guarantee functional and durable institutions when these are almost totally divorced from the experiences of the wider society. This is more so when the basic assumptions of the system represent a frontal assault on the world view, ethos and the very humanity of the people comprising society." (P. 564) The author went further to elaborate and make specific and often practical suggestions. He did this under three headings: the core ideas, reconsideration of aspects of the polity and a purposeful education. Ultimately it is on education all other suggestion appear to hinge on. He took time to make his points with all the emphasis, "First, it is important to impart a knowledge and understanding of the type of ethics, code of behaviour and commitment to non-materialist goals which can redress the balance and save the society from decaying at a much faster rate than that at which it can hope to achieve the material development it is now geared to seek at the expense of everything else. … In particular, there should be a deliberate effort to explain the inherent dangers of slavishly imitating the decaying societies of other regions of the world. Secondly, the education should include a special type of civic training which would build on the general values required for the first part and emphasize the necessity for selflessness, commitment to truth and accountability to God, to ideals and to society. In addition, stress should be placed on recognizing that leadership in societal affairs exclude ownership of excessive wealth, over-indulgence, obvious partiality, discrimination on the basis of primordial ties and acting in ways which derogate from the dignity of other people." (P. 576) Looking like a tall order, the author raised the question of the feasibility of what he was suggesting and examined and listed the numerous odds up against any recovery, the top most of which is "the servile mentality of fixation with borrowed notions and institutions is such that any mention of an alternative, or the possibility of building on pristine experience and traditions, is dismissed without any reflection." (P.583) Adding to these odds, he remarked, "As if to make the situation still more dire, the discipline, integrity, sacrifice and hard work required are viewed as inconvenient and tantamount to self-inflicted deprivation by an elite which is used the easy life, loose accountability and absence of a core morality." (P.5583) At the end, the author gladly ended his book on a note of hope, saying, "And, as the most recent experience of Nigerians has amply demonstrated, when the country seems to reach the darkest depth of despair, Allah in His limitless mercy, affirms His admonition to the faithful to ‘be not of those who abandon hope! …[as none] other than those who have utterly lost their way … could ever abandon the hope of His Sustainers grace." Indeed we have seen enough to agree with the author, on this count, at least. Message of the book The book as we have seen has a powerful message, a compelling logic and an irresistible hope for all those who yearn to liberate themselves from the shackles of a mental servitude that has kept us down for the best part of our life as a nation and is capable of condemning us to the life of slavery until the end of time. Written by someone who held administrative posts at various levels, taught in the university for a long time, held a cabinet post and retired into boards of banks and industries, the book is the richest one can ever hope to come across. It makes a compulsory reading for all Nigerians and those peoples of ‘developing’ societies who need to begin to look inward and disengage from the mentally attenuating, culturally subservient and economically exploitative relationship with the West. That appears to be the only hope for real and fulfilling development. As for Nigerians, the book could not have come at a better time, having gone through what we went through, having seen what we have seen, we ought to be wiser. Luckily we just enough time to purchase a copy, read and digest it before the 29th of May, 1999. Thank you for listening. References: 1. B. Lewis, ‘The Return of Islam’, in Middle East Review, Fall, 1979. P.18. 2. H. A. R. Gibb, Studies on the Civilisation of Islam, S. J. Shaw and W. R. Polk (eds.) Beacon Press, Boston, 1968. |
