Bode George: Politicians come and go. A nation, if well managed, is eternal

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Text of a public lecture by the Atona Oodua of Yorubaland, Chief Bode George, at a seminar organised by the Minerva Philosophical Association (MPA), Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos.

Distinguished guests, gentlemen of the press, it was a pleasant surprise and even an element of curiosity when I received the news that I have been chosen to deliver this year’s Minerva Philosophical Association Lecture.
Yes, I was curious and surprised because I had been away from home for about five months on a self-imposed journey of personal introspection and solitary re-examination of our national journey and our defining values.
Sometimes, you must move away from an issue, you must deliberately shut yourself out of proximity and intimacy from a confronting challenge to gain better perspective and more insightful comprehension. What we take for granted from a closer position may often distort reality and the truth. Distance gives us a fuller, unbiased comprehension and a more contemplative appreciation of reality.
That is what has happened to me. I am now renewed in a more complete grasp of the Nigerian reality and our national values. Far from the din and thunder of partisan clamor, I am now reassured that while nations are sustained by permanent conflict of ideas and enduring debates, partisan politics is never eternal. Politics must always stop at a definite juncture to give room for a balanced clarity in the formulation of a national vision.

I believe that is where we are today. And that is why the topic that has been chosen: Leadership, Change and National Continuity is very much relevant now to our present national journey.

I have been told that this platform is not a partisan forum. This is not about partisan advantages or a contest about identifying flaws or merits of different political entities. Well, I do agree. I intend to fully respect this very orbit of proceedings. I must speak now in a nationalistic frame, without rancor or bitterness about the loss of my party at the last general elections and without unnecessary distortions about the status of our national union.

It is in this clarity of mind and purity of philosophical purpose that one can then do justice to the essence of a unifying national leadership, the inevitable change in national pursuit and the continuity of our national ideals.

The fundamental reality in our nation today is the immutable fact that there is a new government in the saddle of power. An election has been won and lost. We have new men in power. There can be no contentions on these observations. We must all respect this new reality.

My position today is that we must move forward. Leadership is never frozen in time and place. The redeeming and progressive appreciation of leadership is always about new dreams, it is always about new challenges, new discoveries and new confrontations.

It is now for us to redefine, to rearticulate how we engage the new team. Do we withdraw into a permanent, indecorous and belligerent war of attrition, condemning everything, denouncing every aspect of the new administration in a sweeping partisan venom?

That cannot be right. That will not enhance our national growth. That will not contribute to a refinement of our values and a development of our national fabric. Mere, instinctive denunciation of an opponent’s position is not a legitimate debate. It is a yielding to vengeance and retrogression. It inhibits development. It distorts vision and civilized clarity.

How then do we engage a new leadership without being perceived as an unthoughtful collaborator with a new order? As I have said earlier, no enlightened people or nation must be detained in perpetual partisan conflict. There must always be a natural and inevitable juncture where politics must cease for a more elevated and a more ennobling discourse about the national vision.

Once an election has been won and lost, once a new leadership enters the fray, the greater good of the nation must then be the driving force of all contending ideologies. Debates will never stop. The contest of ideas, the storm and tempest of ideological differences must now be articulated in a new patriotic frame and national balance.
I do not say the opposition should rollover and die. I do not say the opposition should withdraw into lethargic indifference and accommodate the new order without contemplative engagement. No.

What I am suggesting is that every nation is about renewal and change. Every nation is always a perpetual work in progress. It is never about a permanent, conclusionary arrival. It is always in constant fluidity as political actors perpetually contest for public space and dominance.
But the struggle for relevance is never in the same frozen structural frame.

There is always a time to go back to the drawing board, to sift through the ashes of defeat, to examine the contributory flaws that led to a debacle, to redesign the internal configurations of a party, discard its weaknesses, strengthen its strong points and prepare with patriotic zeal for a new engagement.

Take the seemingly endless travails of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom. Since Baroness Margaret Thatcher defeated Lord James Callaghan in 1979, the British Labour party was flung into an unbroken 18 years in political wilderness .No doubt the several years in the political limbo would have been full of severities and dramatic challenges for the Labor Party.

But through the ebb and flow of the downward turn in the party’s fortunes, there was no insistence that without Labor that the country must be forfeited. There was no clamor that the nation must tumble into ruin and destruction unless Labour is restored!

Labour was in perpetual vigilance and unceasing positioning of its ideals. Yes the party never remains the same. It keeps evolving to attune to the confronting realities. Principled men and women remain forever at the political barricades, engaging the presiding Conservatives with the purest of motives and the noblest of patriotic vision.

Again through unceasing hard work and deliberate persistence, the fortunes of Labour party was changed in 1997 when Tony Blair defeated the conservative Prime Minister John Major. Here again, the Conservatives too were locked out of power equation for 13 years until 2010 when David Cameron defeated the Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Thus, in this seasonal swing and turn of political fortunes, there is that perpetual steadfastness in upholding civilized engagement, in withdrawing to the drawing board with renewed vision, with patriotic grace and with deep refined contemplation to engage the new order with new insight and with alternative directions.

There in the Developed world, politics is never perceived as some narrow personification of a provincial agenda. There is no dubious recourse that beyond self, that beyond the purview of a particular party, all else must crumble and disappear.

No sir. That is not politics. That is not an enlightened participation in statecraft. The enduring leadership then transcends far beyond immediate personal advantages. Leadership is not about a restrictive personal agenda which is coloured by discrimination and biases.

Whether in opposition or in power, the enlightened and developmental leadership must always be perceived in sweeping, unbiased patriotic affirmations. It must be seen in balanced, equitable logic.

Leadership must be uniform to friends and foes in the shepherding of the state. It must not yield to favours, or lean to partisan prejudices. Leadership must be woven in the fulcrum of order and ethical signposts. Leadership must be believable, perceived in sweeping moral cadences.

Here, in this thematic largeness, the true leadership, either in opposition or in the saddle of power cannot really endure if it has two conflicting prongs of engagement- one for friend and another for the foe.

It is in this wise that a leadership can only endure in credible appreciation when its general agenda is wholly subsumed in unbridled patriotic firmness. It must not bend in partisan consideration at the forfeiture of a larger national interest.

A national pursuit is not always about one agenda. A nation is always a simultaneous confrontation with several issues. We must now steer towards other grave issues like the decay in our school system, the degenerative state of our communities, the brazen larceny in the corporate circles, the general malaise among our youths, the deepening loss of hope in the redemptive totality of the Nigerian dream that is now driving thousands of our unemployed youths into the tragic hopelessness of foreign isles.

My humble position is that an enlightened leader must erect genuine and enduring structures of a pan-national agenda where merit and the content of character will displace the narrow parochialism of ethnic prejudice and religious bias, where atavistic bigotry will collapse amid a new engaging universal enlightenment.

Along this path of new nation and national identity, I suggest that we strengthen the paramount idealism behind the National Youth Corps Programme which is predicated on promoting national unity by compelling that all the major three languages – Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo are made compulsory at the secondary school level. This will not only strengthen mutual understanding but will equally deepen the cultural accommodation and unifying values among our people. In knowing each other, in gaining a better appreciation of our subtle differences, we can invoke and cultivate deep chords of national unity.

For instance, the enduring vigour of the Swiss Canton System which has been in existence for over four hundred years is established in a balanced mutual harmony that accommodates the four major ethnicity of the German Kanton, the French Canton, the Italian Cantone and the Romansh Chantun. In this healthy confederation, each Canton is like a sovereign state but whose aspirations and pursuits are restrained in civilized deference to the larger summative interest of the whole confederation. It is a system built on trust, sincerity of purpose, healthy competitiveness and the instinctive embrace of the greater national vision.

The magic of the Swiss national continuity is anchored on a unifying leadership that sees far beyond the self, that perceives truth and redeeming value beyond the selfish prism of an hallelujah chorus of a sycophantic gang or ethnic jingoists.

The enlightened leadership anywhere must always be overborne by the larger interest and the selfless progression of the whole. It cannot be restricted in partisan articulation, hindering the general expanses with a selective cordon of favoritism and parochial blindness.

Equally important, there is no leadership that is woven in messianic perfection. There is no such leadership that is adorned in sweeping curative largeness. Even nature does not permit such eternal relevance. Every leadership is confined to a role and a time. Each must confront the challenges of his time with the constant reminder that he is but an ephemeral actor in the vast, permanent proportioning of national continuity. No man will be there forever. No man must presume himself in permanent residency of national relevance. Each leader must confront his own twilight and yield to a beckoning sun. That is the natural order of things.

It was that Roman Statesman and General of the 5th Century BC Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519-430BC) who best exemplified the truest essence of uncommon civic virtue and absolute selfless commitment to the general good. After his son Caeso Quinctius was convicted and flung into the executioner’s stake, Cincinnatus harboured no malice nor hate against the Roman State. Humbly, he withdrew into the solitary refuge of his farm, wrapped in a private grief.

But soon after, an alien army ruptured the boundaries of Rome, threatening a massive invasion. Here, the Romans now hurried to the lowly farm of General Cincinnatus begging him to save the beleaguered nation. Without rancor or bitterness, without being detained by lingering venom, Cincinnatus took up the challenge. He led the Roman army to repel and destroy the invaders.

Cincinnatus wielded the power with the purest of motive and with unswerving commitment to the greater good of the nation. He harboured no vengeance nor did he pursue those who executed his son in vindictive fury.

To the surprise of all Romans, two weeks after the invaders had been driven into the sea and the safety of the Roman nation secured, Cincinnatus resigned and quietly went back to his farm. It was an extraordinary display of sacrifice and selfless articulation. Cincinnatus discarded all the power, all the mightiness and the majesty in the Roman world for the ordinariness and simplicity of a farmer!

The Cincinnatus moral resides in leadership contentment, an uncommon heroic rectitude; that noble and rare personal awareness that every arbiter of the state must know when to quit the stage and must never perceive himself in indivisible attachment to national continuity. No man must say to himself: “Without me, the state dies!” Never true. Not true at all.

Almost one thousand three hundred years later in 1797, George Washington, the founding patriarch of the American Republic virtually rejected to serve a third term even when he had reluctantly conceded to run again for a second term in office. While he was unanimously re-elected for a second term because of his rallying leadership and selfless commitment to the new nation, Washington, like Cincinnatus before him, quickly hurried back to his farm in Virginia, insisting that the nation must try new hands and new vision.

The great Nwalimu, Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the humble teacher and revolutionary leader who wrested Tanzania from British rule was the first African leader in modern memory to define for his own people an ethical standard of leadership through demonstrated example. Nwalimu was a man of absolute humility and unwavering decency who led through the moral simplicity of his own example. He governed Tanzania from 1964-1985 through a set of moral principles known as Ujamaa. It is a predication on communal bond, societal discipline, hard work, moral guidance and national unity.

Nyerere insisted that leadership is a public trust, a sacred stewardship that should be restrained from over-bearing ambition. The Ujamaa principles cultivated a selfless patriotism and national identity that elevated the collective interest of the state far above narrow ethnic agenda. It strengthened the civilian control over the military by inculcating strict professionalism and discipline in the army.

Since the voluntary departure of Nyerere in 1985, Tanzania has sustained an unbroken democratic succession that is unequalled in Africa.

Nyerere, also known as Baba wa Taifa (father of the nation), strengthened the chord of national unity by ensuring that all segments of the society were touched by the force of his own ethical idealism. His observable ascetic example both in public and private lives were the moral guide that fostered institutions like Tanzania National Youth Service Corps which Nigeria copied and various military and civilian academies that helped reconcile both the soldiers and civilians to a uniform national vision of service and sacrifice.

While Nyerere was advised not to vacate power in 1985, he told the sycophantic chorus: “I am convinced that the national need for a change of leadership is much greater than the need for my continued service at the helm.” This is uncommon nobility of mind and action, a selflessness of purpose rare in our part of the world.

Our own Mandela replicated this Iconic self restraint and incredible virtue when he walked away from all the fame and glory despite 29 years in prison, choosing to serve only one term in office.

The nobility of all these examples from Cincinnatus to Mandela is the selfless heroic certitude which insists that the continuity of a nation does not stop at any leader’s table. The nation is eternal while leaders are transient actors, playing a defined role, latched to a temporary stage in the sun.

Change must always come for renewal, for new truth and for new horizon. Change, then, is the most enduring value and constant illustration in the human ideal. Nothing stays the same. Nothing is frozen in rigid permanence. It is then how a leader accounts for his place in the sun that defines not only his legacy but the fortune of the nation.

Our nation is now at a historic crossroads that is typical of all nations. A party has lost out of the power contest. There is a new vision and a new direction. We in the opposition will respect the rules of the game.

We will engage this new reality with civilized articulation and purposeful firmness. We will neither withdraw into complacent capitulation nor seize upon the disruptive primitivism of the Samson’s Syndrome.

We will always be vigilant and be alert, pointing out the ills, illustrating the flaws and offering corrective guidance amid the current ebb and flow of our national journey.

It is in the engaging expanses of debate, it is in the constant healthy tussle of ideological conflict that nations are enriched in values, that leadership is restrained and curbed from messianic leanings and invariably the nation is nurtured in longevity and strengthened in corporate existence.

The journey to this national continuity does not reside in a monolithic leadership alone. It is also in the commitment of individuals and groups to a common national vision where merit and the stride of excellence are not hindered by ethnic bias, where the narrow parochialism of religion does not usurp the legitimacy of truth and equity, where the crass resolve to nepotism does not supersede justice and ethical balance.
In the end, while leaders must always arrive at some destined point, yielding place to a new presiding order, nations are often eternal, if well managed, subjected to infinite remolding and renewal, always changing and adapting to new challenges. It is in the faithfulness to the reality of constant renewal and change that a nation becomes deathless and eternal.

We are presently on that road of change and national continuity. It is a two-way traffic between the presiding order and the opposition. The sustenance and the viability of the nation are hinged upon these two protagonists. Should the ruling power resort to a sweeping triumphalism of a heedless victor, discountenancing the indices of balance and equity, contemptuous of justice and the fairness doctrine, the road would be rough and tragic. And should the opposition equally be swallowed in bitter fury and storm, sworn to destructive configurations, the same wrack and ruin would be provoked.

The middle way and the only way is what I have counseled earlier: We must engage each other with civility. We must all confront the challenges of the state knowing fully well that the nation is greater than all of us and that our collective vision must always be focused on the greatest good of all our people. This is how a good leadership and an enlightened nation endure. Distinguished guests, this is my basic submission. I hope I have thrown my humble insight into this discourse. There is no finality in my intervention. This is the essence of liberty and pluralistic dialogue. Let a thousand ideas bloom! Let healthy contentions flourish!

Finally, I want to leave you with these words: Nations are not about the wild fancies and dubious spectacles of the moment. They are not about the unthoughtful magnified imaginings of power. Nations are long nurtured truths and verities. They are the enduring ideals, the constant selflessness and sacrifice, the graceful fixity on excellence, the focused vision on renewal and permanent rebirth.

I leave others to continue with this debate. I thank you all for listening.

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