Seyi and Olumide give me hope

I want to talk about Seyi and Olumide. Seyi is otherwise known as Mr. Seyi Makinde and he is governor over Oyo state. The Olumide I mean here is none other than Mr. Olumide Akpata, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA). In the days of age grade system, the two probably would belong to the same age grade. Seyi was born on 25 December 1967 while Olumide October 7, 1972. Seyi took to engineering while Olumide took to law and became a lawyer. The two volunteered themselves to serve the public. Seyi offered to leave the comfort of private practice where he was doing very well to contest to lead Oyo state, while Olumide stepped out of the comfort and hidden world of his chambers to contest for the presidency of the NBA, an office seemingly reserved for very old silks. He was considered too young to lead the NBA and many ‘rebelled’ when, against their expectation, he secured majority votes of younger members of the bar to become NBA President.

When Seyi sought nod of the people of Oyo state to lead them, many considered him a rookie who was still to learn how Oyo politics worked. Of course, he was. Oyo was a political environment controlled by octogenarians who regularly anoint, and, or, plant one of theirs as governor, with the mandate to effectively, and properly, manage their sickbays or risk being ousted at the next election, if not impeached by an pliant House of Assembly. Breaking that stranglehold was an equation that Seyi solved with his team of ‘project managers’. One of the PDP buffs who sat on the screening committee that cleared Seyi and others to participate in the primary election of the party in Oyo state, had whispered loudly that Seyi was a guy to watch. He also told his colleagues on the panel that Seyi was a guy for the future. Seyi hasn’t disappointed.

And, between May 2019 and today, Seyi has proved that Oyo can work for the people. He is also continually proving that Oyo is governable. This is against past rhetoric that presented the state as under the total control of members of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and as such, too difficult to manage. Almost every one talked of NURTW like everything about Oyo state was Motor Park touting. But Seyi brought a new sense and new direction to governance of the state. You don’t hear him complain of paucity of funds to manage government and execute projects. He never complains of low IGR or poor federation cash. Not much is said about him and borrowing from local and international lenders. Yet, Oyo civil servants are regularly paid –though that ought not to be a measure of good governance and transformational leadership. You don’t get to hear contractors in Seyi’s Oyo banging the gate of Government House pleading to be paid. Even the way and manner he managed the hijacked #EndSARS protest in Oyo was masterly. It saved the state from any form of destructions or loss of lives. He knows tact.

Just last week, Seyi returned the keys off Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) to Oyo state. That university has been in management contention due to joint ownership between Oyo and Osun states. Osun was carved out of Oyo’s ribs in August 1991. Asset sharing between the two had gone on rightly but LAUTECH got stuck in a mix of joint management. Past leaders of the both states couldn’t find a way out of the logjam. The university stalled. Academic activities were paused. Students paid the prize. But Seyi undertook to end the logjam. And he did. LAUTECH is back in Oyo’s hands. That feat opens the gate for progress of the university and future of students, if ASUU permits. Simply put, Seyi scaled a hurdle that his predecessors were afraid to attempt. So, why is he different? Seyi is not a politician. He is a project manager and an engineer whose training involves creating new things out of nothing; building highways where there were only bush paths.

Olumide exhibits same traits as Seyi. He became NBA President against expectation. The bulk of those who voted for him said they did so because he was young like them and as such would think differently. This means that they had become tired of an NBA led by the very old silk for their beneficial interest only. Somewhat, the newer wigs rebelled and got one who would communicate in pidgin English, dance to hip-hop songs, not Fuji and highlife, and also rock tech gadgets like they would. The newer wigs voted for him and kept vigil over their votes just to make sure that the older foxes do not outsmart the young ones at the dead of the night. Olumide won the presidency of the NBA to a promise to return the bar to all lawyers, not to an exclusive set. He also promised to be accountable to all lawyers and deliver to them, a monthly report of his presidency. Novel!

That is the one that got me. No past president of the association had broached that idea. None had published, monthly, a paragraph of his stewardship of the association. Perhaps, this was reason several lawyers raise issues with the management of the association’s secretariat and also demand publication of the accounts, at least, to members. As a reporter covering the judiciary, I often heard lawyers alleging inappropriate usage of NBA property by the leadership. But as lawyers, they only complained but wouldn’t challenge their leadership. Reason: their presidents were always old silk and legal privileges wouldn’t allow young wigs to challenge older wigs.

I guess that was reason Olumide’s publication of his stewardship to the NBA got many lawyers, especially the newer wigs, elated. He was sworn in as NBA President in August. By the end of September, he published account of his first month in office. By November 1, he had published the second account of his stewardship of the association. It may be too early to commend just after two publications, but he has shown promise of deviation into a new reality. It is a reality where lawyers are kept abreast, monthly, of the activities of those they elected to lead their association. This is something that is missing in both political leadership and leadership of professional bodies in Nigeria including the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE). If same becomes a habit, it sure will impact on political leadership. Political leaders do not need to think of themselves as doing the public a favour when asked to account for their services. It should be a given.

That is why Seyi and Olumide give me hope that tomorrow will be better. It is not just about building rails and roads, but about seeing in leadership an opportunity to do things differently and achieve results. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result could be a sign of mental health deterioration. These youthful leaders are practically pointing a way into the future for Nigerians.

This, to my mind, is what Nigeria’s leadership search ought to focus on next. It is not necessarily be about the age. But it certainly has much more to do with preparedness, purpose and know-how. Our national leadership experiment has proved one thing clearly and that is; if you do not know it, you do not know it period. If you do not know how to squeeze juice out of oranges and grapes, you simply do not know it. Even a juicer won’t be of much use to you.

Seyi prepared himself, academically and mentally, for the office he is executing today. That is why Oyo state is on a roll with greater promise. Olumide also did the same and that is why majority of lawyers are happy with his leadership. Prof. Steve Hanke, an economist at John Hopkins University says “incompetence has been a staple of Nigeria’s political leadership for years with an abysmally 82 percent of Nigerian immensely unsatisfied with their country’s direction”. However, the two guys here give hope that someday, something radically different will happen to political leadership in Nigeria. Perhaps, that is when Nigerians will start to be proud of their country again. For now, a cup of tea please!