As
I listen to lamentations on the speed of expected change, following the
swearing in of a new government at the centre, in Nigeria, on May 29, I
am reminded of Wisdom Whispers from antiquity that tell of the nature
of the change process. Yet, I am fully respectful of the divergent
expressions of both discontent, and understanding of the pace of change,
in our extant political reality. What I had not reckoned enough with
was my personal accountability in it all, until I was on a flight to
Abuja not so long ago.
A partner in a leading accounting
firm said to me as we stepped off the aircraft: Why are you people
delaying our change? My reply was: Thank God you call it our change, not
your change; so why did you say you people? His response was pointed
and puzzling. Said he: People like you and Bismark Rewane said we needed
change and because we take you lot seriously, we embraced the prospects
of change. If it fails, you two face serious reputation risk.
For
one moment, I thought about myself, that it was a little too much of a
burden for someone whose name was not on the ballot; then I thought of
Bismark, who I do not think belongs to a political party. Surely, as a
card carrying member of the All Progressives Congress, I should be held
partly accountable, but to put Bismark to account, I thought a little
unfair. But that is the reality of expectations and the desire to find
those responsible and hold them to account. On the good side, this is a
major turning point in public life in Nigeria, a culture where the
greater tendency is to delegate upwards and outsource problems to God.
Still the expectations involve a certain limitation with understanding
the nature of the change process, and the peculiarity of the current
change context.
The trouble with all change efforts was made
plain, long ago, by Niccolo Machiavelli, in The Prince. He stated,
without equivocation, 500 years ago, that nothing was more difficult to
bring about, than a new order of things, because those who profit from
the old order will do everything to prevent a new order from coming
about, and that those who could profit from the new order do not do
enough to make it happen because man is incredulous in his nature, not
wanting to try new things until he has witnessed an experience of it.
Making
change happen is tough business, especially if the intent is sincere
and the change sought is profound and designed to be enduring. Yet, from
outside, it seems easy. We can see examples of this in the growth path
of big business operations.
One way fortunes of business
enterprises that find organic growth too slow, change, is through
mergers and acquisitions. We know the batting average there, globally,
and the troubles M and A run by the most gifted of corporate leaders,
supported by an army of well-heeled consultants face. What resulted in
the APC victory was partly the M and A vehicle that broadened the base
enough to make victory possible. That partners from two different
organisational cultures can be challenged, starting off, is supported by
much experience.
Many years ago, I took off from Detroit, in
the United States, shortly after the merger of Republic Airlines and
Northwest Airlines. The following day, that same flight came down,
killing many passengers and some in cars on the expressway just by the
airport.
Investigation would later suggest that cooperation
between staff from the legacy airlines was so scarce that the former
Republic pilot and his Northwest counterpart had neglected to do
something as basic to flying as breathing, extending the wing flaps on
the way to the take-off run. In some ways, the troubles in the National
Assembly are outcomes of merger. What matters is that game plans for
ensuring such snafus in mergers of cultures are managed with more skill.
In the current reality, ego and ambitions need to be reminded that what
is at stake is the well-being of a generation. The fear of this
challenged well-being can be well informed from the recent reports on
the finance and economic challenges of Greece and the frightening
lessons from how many subnationals and government agencies got to the
amazing debt situations of today in Nigeria, and failure to pay salaries
for months. If more disciplined economic communities like Puerto Rico
and Greece are in such bad shape, the consequence for so many in so
populous a country as Nigeria only needs to be imagined.
How
peculiar is the context of extant crisis in Nigeria that calls for
change? Imagine this: The ratio of debt to receipts from the Federation
Account in recent history… clearly the Fiscal Responsibility Act has
been lived in the breach. So, where have the state Houses of Assembly
been? Why all the excitement blaming Southward travel of oil prices? How
come the capacity situation did not allow for scenario budgets, the
so-called repetitive budgeting in high uncertainty, something policy
scholars, Naomi Caiden and Aaron Wildavsky, from my days in graduate
school, in the late 1970s, proposed in a book on planning and budgeting
in poor countries. But talk of looting leads to the more discomforting
feeling that the state of economic distress may be less the result of
incompetence and more a mindless affliction of impunity in abuse of the
common- wealth. How can we avoid serious sanctions for grievous actions?
Without the example of consequence management, cost to the future could
be frightening. Choices to save Nigeria, therefore, have to be made
carefully. Patience for the pace needs be seen as being in order.
Getting
ready to deal with troubling matters of the magnitude we are in,
suggests that change requires much more considerate engagement. It seems
to me therefore that all, including people like me anxious for a
“hurry–up offence” charge at the change hoop, and many who want to slow
down, need to be patient with those who have all the information. Beyond
basketball metaphors, patience is a mark of the times. Change process
will not be a straight vertical line. Those who profited from the old
order will fight back, against the will of the people. Temporary bumps
like what happened in the National Assembly should therefore be seen for
what they are. Leaders who have been unfairly pilloried and accused of
power grab when their goal was to connect tradition and also to create
an enabling environment to advance the will of the people in line with
the change they voted for must know that history vindicates.
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Pat Utomi is a political economist and professor of entrepreneurship
and is the founder of Centre for Values in Leadership
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