Immediate past Minister of Works and former governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola, has reiterated the need for leaders, particularly in governance circles, to demonstrate courage and conviction to take hard decisions and implement policies that would be in the best interest of the nation despite the initial hardship caused by the their decision.
Moreover, he also advised that when leaders take such decisions they have to adequately and properly communicate the benefits that would ultimately accrue to the nation and the citizenry in due course. And for that to be achieved, leaders must necessarily be circumspect in choosing members of their team.
Fashola gave the charge in a keynote speech he delivered at the Nigerian Air Force Officers Mess Honorary Members Forum 2023 Annual Lecture, with the theme, Leadership – Leading The Change, held at Ikeja, Lagos on Friday.
Alluding to the less-than savoury situation that existed in Ondo State until Governor Akeredolu transmitted a letter to the state’s House of Assembly, authorising his deputy to be recognised as Acting Governor during pendency of his second medical leave and the unfortunate crisis in River State, Fashola said that leadership demands courage, character, vision, the ability to think, say and above all to do.
His words: “Inherent in this is courage and character as part of the theories of leadership. But as we have come to find out, courage does not mean the lack of fear; rather it is the resolve, conviction and dignity to pursue the cause in spite of fear.
That resolve comes from many things, not the least of which is the nobility of the cause, it is just and lawful nature and often times, its publicly beneficent nature as opposed to self-serving purpose.
We have seen this kind of resolve in some areas of our public lives that we will do well to reflect upon.
Some of them that come to mind include the decision to stop providing foreign exchange at official CBN rate for the import of food items like rice. The other one is the decision to remove the subsidy on petroleum products. These decisions pass muster because it is hard to make the argument that they serve the self-interest of the maker.
“On the contrary they serve a public benefit purpose in the long run even if that requires proper explanation and communication to those impacted adversely by the change of circumstances.”
He explained that the decision to stop using scarce foreign exchange to fund rice importation should have been better communicated to show “the impact of a lack of decision on our foreign reserves in the face of crashing crude oil prices at the time.”
He said further: “This kind of communication would have been helpful to show the beneficial nature of this decision because as crude oil prices crashed, so did our dollar receipts diminish, and with it our ability to fund payment for imported rice.
With regard to the petroleum subsidy removal, it is still necessary to continue conversations about the benefits, and to define for Nigerians what harm was avoided by its removal. One thing that was clear to me was that its continued prevention was the clear road to national insolvency.”
In the face of the internet and social media which have caused fundamental change in the way the world communicates, he urged those in leadership to come to terms with these developments and thereby rejig their communication strategies, given that governments no longer have monopoly over mass communication systems as used to be case in the past.
“Leadership communication certainly helps to manage public understanding of leadership choices. But the truth is that communication tools and skills have also changed and that is what leaders must learn. For example, while in the past Chief Awolowo had a monopoly of the Rediffusion, Tribune newspaper and later WNTV; and subsequent Nigerian governments had control of NTA and Radio Nigeria, today the privately owned TVs, radios and online publications have outnumbered what the government owns or controls.
“A new lesson that today’s leader must learn is how to communicate in this world of information overload and how to get the truth across in this age of fake news,” Fashola said.
