Asiwaju is an expert mover of equalising opportunities

By: Professor Ojo Emmanuel Ademola

As Nigerians are celebrating the 62nd Independence Day, and apparently on the March again to elect a new president in 2023, it is on us to focus the populace's attention on electing the best president to lead effectively as the commander-in-chief and fully engaged with the governance matters of solving national problems, mainly, to deliver the dividend of democracy efficiently to all Nigerians. In my earliest piece, I underlined some qualities the next Nigerian president must possess. Nigerians must hire the right person to solve the national problems and develop our democracy into a globally enviable to the global north developed democracies. 

Governance is all about solving problems either by identifying them and or implementing agenda to solve problems inherited by their predecessors. As the election is closing in on the electorates, it is central to the current leadership debate over the most qualified, tested, component, and experienced candidate fit for the job to stand on winning qualities. The core knowledge base about governance in the next dispensation for Nigerians is the ability to determine the attributes associated with a leader to consider him competent, tested and experienced. All leaders must have checkable leadership skills to deliver the dividends of democracy to most Nigerians. Regarding Nigeria of today, the argument should focus intelligently on the antecedent of the individual contesting to be the next president in terms of such an individual candidate's retrospective contribution to this democracy and the engaging perspective to advance democratic values for the benefit of Nigeria.

The bottom line could be a triple type, in which, at the end of the process, the best among the candidates, who is widely accepted in solving Nigerian’s problems, wins. Such a leader must Nigeria to a Tigerising economic, technological, and democratic development. Nigeria’s current republic has this democracy evolving since 1990, and the leadership has changed hands in a couple of electoral orbits. The debate for assertively outstanding leaders who will advance Nigeria without hypocrisy and the likes remains. The situation calls to mind that when it comes to leading, the Country and its citizens must keep developing and equalising opportunities. 

Undoubtedly, there are many essential inputs to the leadership equation of Nigeria. Nigerians’ expectations are, in fact, growing with the possible neglect of what the global economy operators counsel in the approximation of the market. Nigerians’ expectations must benchmark without any leadership hypocrisy to approximate the market. When you take time to factor in some main inputs to formulate exemplary leadership for Nigerians in a digital and globally uncertainty, you begin to see the urgent need for a president to be an exceptional equaliser of opportunities, among other winning qualities. Nigeria's diverse ethnicity calls for equalising opportunities, which is synonymous with restructuring economically. The physical notion of restructuring, to my mind in Nigeria, could create more leadership flukes than what can really work for our democratic development as a nation.

According to the CIFORB Country Profile, Nigeria is a unique Country with a massive diversity of over two hundred fifty ethnic groups. The populous and politically influential ethnicity cut across the seven ethnic’s Hausa-Fulani 29%, Yoruba 21%, Igbo 18%, Ijaw 10%, Kanuri 4%, Ibibio 3.5%, Tiv 2.5%. With such statistics, Nigeria's next president must be an expert mover, capable of leading exceptionally on equalising opportunities and not results. Most Nigerian current republic presidents are primarily good at equalising results. For example, before this current administration, proceeding from Oil inputted, ninety per cent was spent on recurrent expenditure while only ten per cent goes to infrastructure. Take this as an error that speaks volumes that government should never have equalised results. 

Inclusive leadership is effectively about executing a framework to equalise opportunities. If you take careful note of Lee Kuan Yew's transcript on equalising opportunity, you come to agree with the leadership framework of how best to equalise opportunities. Yew accentuated the contribution of the electorates to get the intellectual ablest and best into politics to equalise opportunities. I quote him: “One key requirement is: Let's avoid hypocrisy and do this honestly at the market rate. Try and get the government on the cheap, you'll end up with a cheap government, and you will be sorry for yourself. ...First job of a government is to equalise opportunity, not equalise result. You equalise the result; you are done for. You end up with what Deng Xiao Ping calls "The iron rice bowl". Nobody works; everybody does their minimum, with very little rice in their bowl. ...You vote in jokers, cranks, weak men, charlatans with some gift of the gab; you run a very serious risk of losing everything you have."

Personally, I can not believe Deng Xiao Ping mentioned that before, but when seeing many Malaysian at that time wanted to have an iron rice bowl for their careers, taken the notion as describable an iron rice bowl as a stable that could recline around without any repercussions and will never be a fire unless a serious fault. Contextually, it would be best if you had a mover of equalising opportunity to make things happen nationally. Mover in this context is the capacity or ability of a leader to cause an opportunity to move to where it could be best created and utilised and in the interest of the majority of the citizens.

Notably, inclusive leaders will never equalise results but opportunities. Some leaders are stayers! What do I mean by this? Some leaders can only equalise results, that is, getting the minimum out of all the leadership teams. Also, a leader as a stayer will not see talents in others but try to keep the team moving collectively in a circle. Whatever way you look at a stayer, it's a political team leading that centres on equalising results. Politicians with this mindset can quickly get results in privatising public assets and look for a way to equalise the results to their business and or that of their closed assets. That's why when you have a stayer as the President of a Nation, they are the arrowhead of corruption, and the utility of such crime shall circulate within such stayers' inner circle. If you do a consecutive and corrective mapping between movers and stayers regarding unemployment, studies show that unemployment is higher among stayers by more than three hundred per cent than movers. And in terms of socio-economic progression, only stayers from a routine and manual socioeconomic background reached higher managerial or professional occupations, compared with movers from similar experiences.

When you consider Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in retrospect, you have discovered at least five indispensable qualities of an expert mover of equalising opportunities. Asiwaju does not become an active progressive democratic activist overnight. The ironic side has always been part of him. He was from the pre-1999 till date. We knew how Asiwaju breathed life into the pro-democracy struggle when he took over its financing after the cruel annulment of the June 12, 1993, election. His financial muscle thrived the activities of NADECO in those days, and his financing of Radio Kudirat was a game changer that positively redirected the activities of that pro-democracy movement and tails that pinned into the eventual handover of power to civilians in 1999. Asiwaju did this as an activist advancing equalising opportunities as a leader who takes leadership as professional selflessness. Asiwaju focuses on the evergreen values for the coming generations to adopt as a steady paradigm, even when uncertainty speaks against authentic leadership.

Asiwaju had been a prominent voice canvasing both fiscal and political restructuring from the advent of this democracy. He has instituted a type of Treasury Single Account in Lagos State before it became a national policy. That is thinking outside the box. He talked about the Supply and consumption economy, not the usual supply and demand economy. One deals with production, and another consumes the economy. He executed the credit economy as a powerful solution to corruption to transparently capture every financial transaction within the system. That is how to be a mover and equalise opportunities in the interest of national development. If that is not restructuring, then I accentuate that those are the attributes you should look for before voting for a presidential candidate in the 2023 election orbit.

Asiwaju is confident and an expert in equalising opportunities. He executed a blueprint for Lagos with a zero margin for error with leadership integrity, dedication and competence. Undoubtedly, he has the conviction to make the right call and do the right thing, even if it will cost him a few numbers of votes. We have seen him demonstrating this repeatedly and keep winning elections. Asiwaju is a leader for now, and the one Nigerians can trust. At this stage of our National development, Nigeria cannot afford hypocrisy, compromise and fluke to retard our democratic growth. Asiwaju knows how best to work closely with the people to deliver winning and improved economic policies for the improved lives of the citizens. When he took the stewardship of the Lagos State as the Governor, he reformed the civil service human resource to eliminate wastages and block leakages by effectively equalising opportunities to make the Lagos State Civil crew what it is today. He passed a Lagos' success formula to the next generation of successive Governors. The iron in Asiwaju remains untouched to Tigerising the Nigeria economy and democratic development.  

Asiwaju's political concept of "Emilokan" carries an indicative value of equalising opportunities. The leading global north nations are beginning to be largely successive in attaining equal opportunities by balancing other factors to maximise what an individual could bring significant positive impact to the economic development of their nations.  Asiwaju's sense of commitment fleshes out what the "Emilokan" stands for as an integrative national development framework of equalising opportunities. 

The “Emilokan” model will effectively and efficiently integrate the eight subsystems together to deliver overwhelming dividends of democracy to all. The model will extensively execute the following on the national scale, achieving tremendously in Lagos State. The Emilokan framework's eight cohesive elements are Economic evolutionary and diversification; Manpower recruitment and development; Industrial revolution and ICT engagement; Legal reforms; Optimal use of Government resources and blocking leakages; Keeping Nigeria and Nigerians safe from external and internal aggression; Agricultural transformation, and Nigeria for Nigerians. With Asiwaju’s perspective of “Emilokan”, his expertise will speak volumes on Tigerising Nigeria’s economy by effectively and efficiently equalising opportunities. His strategy will be similar to that he used in Lagos, but now if elected more efficiently and expansively. 

Asiwaju's antecedent in governance provides undisputable evidence of a full sense of commitment, focussing resources on a positive attempt to correct inequalities by providing extra schooling to those who are disadvantaged by social class. For instance, on 9th February 2000, just a year into his stewardship in Lagos, he presented cheques to the officials of assigned Banks to pay the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WAEC) for all public-school students in Lagos state, an exemplar of equalising an educational opportunity. 

 

Asiwaju knows how to make governance an appropriate and timely intervention channel for the benefit of the populace. In Lagos State, he made several economic and strategic interventions to make the right economic progress, even on personal matters, for instance, the payment of the WAEC exam fees for all pubic-school students in Lagos State. 

He is a gifted visionary who will not settle for less.  He saw a massive opportunity in a seedy waterlogged landmass, and from this was birthed Lekki. The entire city was created when Asiwaju was governor, and today, Lekki is a swathe of a sprawling metropolis inhabited by upscale Nigerians with a net land value that is above the average upscale environment in Nigeria. Today, Lekki has encroached on neighbouring suburbs around it like Ajah, Badore, etc., and its land value continues to soar each passing day. Lekki was a product of Asiwaju's creative thinking, and he will continue to excel in his inextinguishable desire for excellence.

Equally unprecedented in discussing Asiwaju's expertise in equalising opportunities is the Lekki Free Trade zone, which is today fondly referred to as the Nigerian Dubai. It remains an innovative concept he drew when he was governor and targeted the massive development of the Ibeju-Lekki virgin land into a world-class industrial, business and commercial hub in record time. Today, the Lekki Free Trade Zone hosts the world's largest refinery, Africa's largest fertiliser company, and a deep-sea port, among many other heavy industrial concerns that directly impact the lives of millions of Nigerians. The Lekki Free Trade Zone is still embryonic, so the economic potential accruable from the zone at a complete stage of development can never be quantified.

Asiwaju is capable and comes prepared for any task he embarks on as a confident expert in equalising opportunities. Asiwaju will take a sound study of any opportunity before venturing into it. He had never gone into any venture unprepared, setting him apart from other candidates now seeking the country's presidency.  Preparedness has been an attribute that has, over the years, honed his skills and given him the cutting edge in every sphere he has veered into. He is a good student of success, which shows in anything he has gone into; politics, business, work, leadership and governance.

In politics, Asiwaju is more than prepared and has come through a long history of tutelage that has seen him a senator, a fighter for democracy and governor of Nigeria's most important and most influential state. Asiwaju is an expert leading in a volatile digital world. Asiwaju's thematic approach to leadership will continue to win the way to equalising opportunities and escalating the economic, technological and democratic development of Nigeria. 

Asiwaju can always: make sense of the turbulent digital environment, implement a scorched Nigeria strategy review, and excise the legacy structures and management thinking that stifle innovation and break free from past cultural norms. Unleash the creative potential of his people and high-performing team; leverage the full potential of existing and emerging technologies, and reimagine leadership for a great Nigeria. 

Agreeably, Asiwaju wants to deploy his rich, enviable, illustrious leadership skills to improve Nigerians and Nigeria. Of course, Asiwaju's confidence and expertise in achieving sustainable equalising opportunities for Nigeria will remain firm. He did this for Lagos, and Lagos is today one of Africa's best success stories and has grown to the fifth largest African economy that is growing at an astronomical rate after Asiwaju's impact. Nigerians have no option but to drive Asiwaju with massive winning votes to become the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If Nigerians desire a profound change in the country’s fortunes from 2023 will come to fulfilment.