It is now embarrassing as the other races of the world look at Nigeria and indeed Africans of black race (all included except North Africans who are Arabians by origin). Hate him or love him, it was only Sani Abacha that cleverly wrote a policy termed “Vision2010” that was focused on economic development. Abacha used the best of the fading first republic technocrats to carefully craft the policy, looking at every inch of Nigerian needs. It is quite shameful to note that Vision2010 did not see the light of day. Obasanjo did not use it, Yar’adua wrote one in a hurry and termed it Vision2020. Nigeria has designed so many policies that were not implemented, thereby wasted the resources Nigeria did not have.

The aim of this write-up is to redirect the thinking of Nigerians to see if we can begin reason together to get the politicians who have arrogated power and know-how to themselves to change their corrupt practices. I have followed and practised British culture since I was in my 20s. In British Caledonian Airline, the first thing that the airline did was to train their workers to acquire good practice by giving them training that inculcate best practice into them, redirecting their vision, understanding and knowledge to think positively and productively with the aim to satisfying their diverse customers. This is evident today that when one walks into British Airways, KLM, Air France or Lufthansa Airlines one immediately realises the difference in customer services, compared with the airlines of Nigerian origin. One may ask why as the same workers are Nigerians working in same environment but behaving differently. I worked for British Caledonian Airline and British Airways in Nigeria, and worked for Nigerian Airways in London. In London the workers of Nigerians Airways behave like Nigerians, and in Nigeria the workers of British Airways behave like their counterpart in the United Kingdom. Now, one may ask again, are Nigerians in Nigerian businesses cursed? What is the reason why everything Nigerian tends to be substandard? In Human Resource Management there is “best practice and best fit” practices. Best practice is a universal approach while best fit is a localised approach according to local environmental needs. Both approaches are good however one tends to consider the local content to achieve productivity.

Productivity is a combination of various ingredients which includes alignment of organisational objectives with individual objectives. To get this alignment into the best fit, management has to understand the organisational needs and the individual needs. This calls for the realignment of individuals’ vision, cultural orientation, development and motivation by drawing inferences from best practices and models,  such as Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s two factor theory, Douglas McGregor’s theory X and theory Y according to the local content and the expected outcomes. Thinking about local content, Nigeria has to look inwardly to achieve our aims and objectives. We have to realign our vision to agree on the fundamental purpose, so as to understand the needs of Nigeria as a nation and the needs of the people as the agents of production. Nigeria may use any of the classical schools of thought, classical scientific management or classical administrative management. Ascertaining which one of the classical schools of thought is the best approach is irrelevant.

All that Nigeria has to do is to look at which one of the practices fits Nigerian local needs. This is using whatever one has to scratch his back. Sew your coat according to your cloth, and not according to your size because you may be a large person and cloth is few yards that may not be enough for you. On the other hand, one may have more than enough cloth as required, then (if a lady) may require to sew it flay so that she can show off with it. This therefore, dictates the type and style of the sewing that you want. The productivity of one’s coat depends on the local content. In the case of Nigeria, we have the required cloth and the skilful tailor to sew our coat according to our needs. The trouble is that Nigeria does not engage with its population to review and sew the type and style of their coat. The leaders are carried away thinking that they know what their people want. It is obvious that as Nigeria is going presently the centre cannot hold. It has to localise its resources to form the pillar of the structure.

Nigeria must go back to basics as it was in the beginning. I have no business with Abuja. My business is Imo State. In fact, I have no business with Imo State. My business is Owerri North Local government. If only Nigerians know the powers of these three tiers of government. The president will be made redundant if the state governments know what they are required to do. In fact, the state governor is redundant if the local governments know what they are required to do. The truth is that it is only the councillors and their local government chairman holds the power. The Bible says that “my people perish due to lack of knowledge” and this is absolutely true. How I wished that Nigerians know the importance of local government. With an effective and efficient local government, all these praise singers and political harlots have no business going to see president in Abuja or the governor in the state house because the action is in the community town hall. Do the people really know what they have?

Nigeria as an entity cannot be managed from Abuja. The president is only in charge of the army, the police, foreign affairs and the finance. All that every Nigerian needs is in his local government, at his backyard. You do not need to travel all the way to Abuja, to do what? The truth is that the political class knows that establishing local government according to the law will not financially benefit them. There may be no room for stealing the people’s money. In the United Kingdom, the chief executives of local governments are paid more than the prime minister, the ministers and the members of parliament. These are the people who matter most in government as their actions directly affect the common man. The chief executives are the ones who are locally responsible for all the needs of their people. This is why the prime ministers have time to engage themselves in regime change and unnecessary wars as they are looking for something to do.

To make Nigeria great, we have to localise our resources by empowering the local governments and engaging with the people, thereby decentralising powers of the government. Productivity goes with maximising your resources. For any business organisation to meet its objectives, it has to get the best out of the people, not by exploiting them but by empowering them, training and developing them, and understanding their needs. The reason why I used the classical schools of thought as an example earlier was that for Nigeria to develop we have to make choices. We have to use what has worked for others and apply it according to our needs. We have to identify which type of leadership works in Nigeria. It may be transactional leadership or it may be transformational leadership. However, the best practice is transformational leadership that is globally acceptable. If transformational leadership is practicable in the case of Nigeria, we have to re-orientate the thinking of the people, remembering that for over thirty years Nigeria has been promoting the get-rich-quick strategy whereby the criminals are compensated with political positions and chieftaincy titles. The professionals have been derided and relegated.

Nigeria has to focus on re-visioning of the people to think of values and honour in service, and not servitude. We have to develop skills from the grass root. Nigeria has to invest heavily in education to reposition the mentality of our people. Remember that development is collectivity, of which it goes with esprit de corps that is the corner stone of classical administrative school of thought. This means teamwork. Development is teamwork. Competency is derived from effectiveness and efficiency. Efficiency is therefore, derived from skills, continuous development and good practice. However, developing the people and using their skills to achieve organisational needs depends on the mindset of the people and their needs. The needs of the individuals must be met before an organisation can get the best out of the people. That is the reason why I made reference to Fredrick Taylor’s classical scientific management and Herzberg’s two factor theory. Taylor used transactional leadership and it worked for him in the nineteenth century. In the twenty-first century that management approach may not work as Herzberg’s theory and McGregor’s theory X and Y are needed in the humanistic approach to get the best out of the people. This means that the government of Nigeria has to meet the needs of the local people and motivate them to be productive.

Understanding the needs of the local people does not come from Abuja, it comes from the local government. All Abuja has to do is to offer the conducive environment and promote the image of Nigeria to attract foreign investment. While Abuja does their job to attract foreign investment, the local government has to make use of what they have. They are responsible for creating job opportunities through the provision of local amenities. Each local government has the talent they need to develop their areas by using the local content to achieve their aims and objectives. The provision of amenities will create jobs for graduates and non-graduates. In each local government, there are carpenters, electricians, civil engineers, town planners, plumbers, name it you have it. Again, every organisation needs customer services, marketers, administrators, accountant, name it you have it in each of the local government.

There is no need to award contracts to contractors who may not carry out the work as required. To concentrate on rebuilding the local governments, the allocations they receive from state and federal governments are enough to keep the population busy, providing source of income and at the same time, using the local people to offer local amenities to the people. However, the problem Nigeria has is that the wrong people are in power at the federal, the state and the local governments. This is the root of corruption in Nigeria. The rule has to change. People have to start thinking positively and professionally now. All political parties have to be involved. We should stop promoting mediocrity.

In the United Kingdom, the members of European Parliament are not mainly from the party in power. In fact, UKIP is the largest UK party in Europe and they have just one seat in the house of parliament. The party in power does not control local government as the majority are held by the opposition parties. Nigeria has to learn from what has worked for others. There is nothing wrong in borrowing ideas from other people who have tried and tested different strategies that work. Nigerians must learn how to balance the equation. The party in power must not control the local government. All political parties have to be involved and that is the reason why UK introduced Propotional Representation. This system gives opportunity for smaller political parties and independent candidates to be elected into political offices in the United Kingdom.

It is only in Nigeria that politicians shamelessly move from one party in power to the other. In the UK, if an elected member wants to change his party, he will resign from the party and his elected seat to create by-election. He or she has to re-contest for the seat. He may lose or he may win but he cannot cross to another party with the seat he won from another party.  In Imo State, there are smaller parties such as UPP, APGA, Accord and others. We must learn how to get them involved in state and local governments. We must have balanced legislature and councillors. Imo State should start thinking of voting UPP in power come 2019. Chekwas Okerie seems like an intelligent man with values. He is patriotic, he is not selfish and he has idea on how to mix local content to achieve collective results. Nigeria must dump these arrogant politicians who are out of touch with the people, and do not know what their local people need. The only thing they know is how to bribe the voters. We must stop these thieves who call themselves politicians from coming to power in 2019. Government must be in the hands of the people come 2019 election. It is shameful how Nigerians move from one ruling party to another without policy and political conviction. The only thing they are quite good at is to steal the money, bribe the judges and the police and get away with it. Nigeria is fantastically corrupt.

By: Oguchi Martins Egbujor