Nigeria: learn from the ants and find ways to work together. Daily, we are focusing on scoring tribal points instead of finding how to work together. How can people advance if they do not even believe they have a shared vision? Just like in business, if you have the Tools and the Processes, but you do not have committed People, you cannot accomplish your business objectives. Left and right, for years now, strategic visions in Nigeria are done from pure tribal angles – and that is diminishing the nation.
We have deviated from the momentous elevation Obasanjo gave the nation when he made everyone believe. He ushered an unbounded spirit of communal vision, and brought people together. Competence, result-oriented and unconstrained energy to redeem a nation, locally and internationally, he ushered – and Nigerians responded. He made everyone believe in a UNITED nation and great things happened through fairness and equitability.
As I wrote on the leadership lessons of ants in Harvard, “The ants were partners and of different sizes: I will bring help and make the task our project, not mine. As much as possible, each team member will get an assignment based on his capability,” someone must unlock the comparative advantages and competitive positioning in Nigeria to advance the commonwealth. The “ants” of Nigeria must work together!
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Indeed when the agency responsible to build a federal character, Federal Character Commission, is selling job slots, you know that a nation is broken.
“On the allegations of job racketeering, the FCC Chairman instructed me to liaise with one Mr Shehu who is a personal driver and PA to the Taraba State commissioner. As a desk officer, I am responsible to take whoever is employed to IPPIS for capturing. No one can go there without a letter from the chairman or Human Resource officer of FCC.
“When she came, she wrote a letter to the Accountant General instructing that no letter from FCC should be honoured except she signs the letter. So whenever there was new employment, she signs, gives to me and I take to the Accountant General’s office for capturing.
“Shehu is the one that brought those who paid monies to my account for the job, some paid N1 million others N1.5 million all to my personal account, my Eco bank account. She asked me to give cash to her which I did through POS so there is no evidence of transfer or anything,” he said.
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When you lack both talent and capacity, the only route left to you to capture power is via tribalism and religion. Whenever religion and tribe dominate political leadership conversations, just know that there is dearth of talent and capacity. You cannot bring up religion or tribe when you have the intellectual capital and rigour to sweep anyone away, so when the desirable is not available, you resort to the mundane, base and primitive.
Even the ones appointed within the Federal Character Commission are selling job slots, the very constitutional anomaly created with the purpose of ensuring that no section of the country is cheated, even when they are not qualified for certain positions. Now that the FCC is selling slots, how do you explain such? It’s extremely difficult to believe that Nigeria is a real place, but even the most absurd and unthinkable are normalized in this geographic space called Nigeria.
If you capture power by dividing the people, it becomes impossible to preach unity and shared vision afterwards, it is pure delusion, even the preachers are aware that they are unreal.
People are ready to undermine and counter you here, not because they possess superior knowledge or talent, but for being from another tribe.