‘Change’, a simple and common word has always meant different things to different people. All of us get introduced to change at birth, the transition from the womb into the elements, the conscious circle of life begins. We spend the rest in a pattern between the familiar and newer challenges. Early on we associate change with inevitable pain and sacrifice, for many it leads to clinging unto the familiar reassurance, even though growth is defined by successful transit from one state to another. All these are subtext to the elections here in Nigeria, starting on the 28th of March.
As part of a generation born just after Independence, the idea of Nigeria was the framing of my identity. The Independence Day parades, Children’s Day march, boys scout and even doorstep milk bottles from the dairy shaped my first five years in Ibadan. Even though many of my generation lost their lives in an unfortunate war, it was ‘no winner, no vanquished’ ‘to keep Nigeria one’ that stuck in my memory of that period. Things that now hold dubious meaning were celebrated in my family and environment, so long as it meant Nigeria stood as a possibility and promise. I was already in secondary school when I first experienced a change in government and even then the change was exciting. A government that would not tolerate indiscipline, and a Head of State who stood outside the pomp and circumstance we were used too.
Change then was exciting, as it was popularly experienced as dynamism and prompt implementation of national concerns, we were led by the ‘ebony pimpernel’. Then change took another meaning when he was killed – this man who in a few months had come to mean not just a country but a nation. For a period in 1976 the excitement was replaced by paranoia but it did not last, Nigeria remained the focus, even with the ever present subtext of ‘tribes’, we all stood under the flag as we hosted FESTAC proudly.
Nigeria is always a act of faith and hope; we were optimistic in our consensus that what we needed was just education and hard work to be socially mobile. We were incentivised to believe that from school all the way to the workplace we could be anything no matter where we started from. Our Nigeria today is where not even a primary school child believes they can get anything without the help or support of influential or networked people. We have taught helplessness so well it has become hopelessness. The hopelessness that has turned what used to be called the best Army in Black Africa to a butt of jokes from many rival forces. Cynicism is worn like a badge of honour and hope is depleted to the point that we recruit mercenaries and foreign forces to fight our battle within the Nigerian territory. The hopelessness, where the Federal Government of Nigeria contracts ethnic militias and local warlords to guard our pipelines.
The kind of helplessness in which elections are postponed without the consideration of instability in the stock market, disruptions to investors, and damage to our reputation. The hopelessness where no one has confidence of when and if elections will finally hold. We are resigned to the fact that those who have power and access will decide what affects us without visible reflection for consequences or concern for the lives of we the multitude. Life today is a casino shaped simply by proximity to power, and all we need to succeed is goodluck not hard work or productivity; not innovation or capacity; not even certification, which we spend most our lives pursuing.
We are now a country where people openly carry arms in pursuit of its dismemberment, and where government seeks the support of active secessionists to retain power, irrespective of the longer term implication for the majority. A country where the pathological ability to take lives and be ruthless are rewarded and incentivised from the commonwealth. It will be unconscionable if the clamour for change did not rent the air demanding we replace these destructive trends.
Change is not a stroll in the park; to change you must be ready to give up something of your own. I had resented General Buhari for quite some time. It was on his watch that Fela was imprisoned for infringing foreign exchange rules. Angry that the unforeseen consequences of the regime’s exchange rate policy was the foundation of the international criminal class of Nigerians that now define the country for many people. Resentful that a man in his 70s sees himself as a solution to our problems. Openly blamed him for the massive drop in the numbers of the middle class in 1984, even though I should have known and factored the lag in the effect of the economic policies of the Shagari years.
Change for me is accepting with humility that which I teach across the world – that effective leadership is situational and ‘generation’ is defined by values not age. I now change my position and admit that a country at war with a virulent insurgency needs the battle savvy of a heroic infantry general. A country that has failed to transcend into a nation has vacancy for someone who spent his youth in service laying his life on the line. Far more potently, it needs a office for someone so committed to change that he invested his time as a Military Head of State to tough love and disequilibrium rather playing to the gallery.
Our economy, where there is no longer transparency and accountability on how wealth is amassed, deserves the injection of an ascetic lifestyle that the General represents. In changing my position on General Buhari, I acknowledge the needs of Nigeria above righteous and misguided indignation. Simply, that the things that I criticised in the past are in fact the basis for the attitudes needed in the Nigerian President in 2015 and beyond.
We need the moral clarity that the General brings and the standards it will set and the boundaries that it will create. Moving us away from the loss of shame where unexplained wealth buy private jets and under five-year-olds die from treatable ailments in their millions. We move from a mindset where it is acceptable that billions are spent on re-election and yet millions of potential and actual voters die from the lack of pipe borne water. A mindset where we borrow money to fight a war to kill misguided citizens rather than invest in creating a viable system to address grievances before they become crisis.
Change means an explicit love for our people, whatever their ethnicity, class or religion, so that a Nigerian life is treated as a treasure of possibility to set standards for our treatment both at home or abroad. It is the direction towards a grundnorm where both stealing and corruption are abhorred to the point where no public servant finds it appropriate to conspicuously consume the commonwealth or live the kind of opulence that his or her employer (we the people) would never know from years of hard work.
Change is about political office holders exercising leadership with humility to serve, the bravery to be transparent, and the commitment to disciplined focus to the delivery of our common purpose. It is the dawning of a culture of rule of law in our broader society, especially changing the administration of justice based on trust by the people, speedily delivery, coherent process and collective ownership. Change is ethnic identity proudly celebrated and exercised in a consciousness of seeking, celebrating and using our diversity as vehicle for the pursuit of excellence.
We must make no mistake that the competitiveness of the opposition in this election is change in itself. It has already led to a belatedly responsive government, with the President visiting the North East more times in the past month than in the preceding five years. A recent cut in electricity tariff, admission by the President that he ignored both the Niger Delta and the South West, and going on the offensive against Boko Haram are some of the resulting changes. I believe change is in the air already, but we are far from where this administration can truly embody it. Some more habits are yet to stop, including the end to habitual and pathological lies, and governing to benefit exclusive networks of hidden interests and privileged few.
We ought to have stopped ignoring basic standards in public life and rewarding pathology at massive cost to the multitude of hardworking, productive and innovative Nigerians. It is far too late for their conversion. In this election, ‘Change’ is not just a party slogan, but a National Lifeline.
Adewale Ajadi, a lawyer, creative consultant and leadership expert, is author of “Omoluwabi 2.0: A code of Transformation in 21st Century Nigeria.”
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