By Austine Uche-Ejeke
The current buzz now in the polity is the agitations and quest for inclusion of young people to run for the Presidency and other high offices in the land. This has come with a movement or bandwagon mobilising for the inclusion of certain age range of the citizens to aspire to be president, Governor, Senator or member of the house of Representative. Hitherto or the extant norm now is for certain age group to be barred from contesting such exalted offices.
To actualize this, a Not Too Young To Run group has been in the forefront to ensure that this proposal sees the light at the end of the day. As at today both chambers of the National Assembly have adopted this landmark Agitations in principle. Also, about 27 State Houses of Assembly have also debated and passed it.
Now the big question is that going by hindsight and following the antecedents of governance in this country has age ever been the determining factor for the bane of leadership we have been having over these decades. Perhaps we need to draw the attention of everybody here that Nigeria has been blessed with a plethora of young people as presidents and heads of state. For people that don’t know General Yakubu Gowon was barely 32 years when he became the head of state. What did he do! He not only contributed and facilitated the prosecution of the bitter civil war but presided over the wanton squandering of the nation’s wealth that came with Oil Boom in the 70s that he gleefully told the whole world that money was not Nigeria problem but how to spend it!
Obasanjo on his own was not up to 40 years in his first missionary journey as head of state and what did he achieve. Some pundits are saying that most of the problems of this country can be traced to policies, actions and inactions of Obasanjo.
Former President Shehu Shagari was a young teacher in his forties when he became the first executive president of Nigeria. We all know how he ruled and how the country fared under him.
Even President Buhari in his first coming in 1983 did not pass well. With much jubilation and hope Nigerians welcomed Buhari thinking that as a young and ruthless military officer that he will perform wonders but we all know that he left hardship, austerity measures and bitterness. Yet Buhari was in his early Forties when he grabbed power. And to take over from Buhari was also a young man Ibrahim Babangida who was also in his early Forties in 1985 when he became the first military president. No need to waste time on the nine years of Babangida draconian rule that many said institutionalised graft, corruption and recklessness in governance.
Even in this current democratic dispensation we have had very young leaders who not only did not live up to expectations but performed below par. Suffice to alert Nigerians that current Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi became speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly at about 32 years. He was speaker for 8 whole years. After that he became governor for another 8 years!
Also, current Senate President, Bukola Saraki, became Governor of Kwara State in his thirties. He ruled Kwara State for 8 good years and the chronicles of Saraki in Kwara State is there for everybody to see. Orji Uzor Kalu became Abia State Governor when he was not up to 40 years and everybody can attest to the extent he ruled the state. Former Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, was sworn in as Governor when he was barely 41 and ended up as one of the most corrupt governors that looted Plateau State treasury!
Senator Tokumbo Afikuyomi was elected at the age of 37 years. Former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, became Senate President when he was just 39 years. Former President Goodluck Jonathan became Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State in his early forties and we all saw how that panned out when he eventually became the president.
Currently, one of the worst nightmares of our time now is the Governor of Kogi State, Yahaha Bello. He is the youngest governor in the land but about the worst performing governor today. He became a governor in his mid-thirties.
So, from all these expositions it shows that age of a person may not necessarily be criteria for his performance. But the fact must be alluded that physically speaking the younger the better. In other climes we have seen where young age was an advantageous factor that counted for them.
Former American presidents, Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama, were in their early forties when they became president and they performed creditably well. Recently France elected a 39-year-old Macron as their president and the young man is performing very well. No doubt relatively young age has its own advantage as the occupier of such office will bring in vitality and vibrancy, moving from one end of the country to the other at short notices.
This is in sharp contrast of having an old and elderly person who will be holed up in Aso Rock not being able to move around, act briskly on emergencies and situations and who will not see the Presidency as a retirement bed space to live out the remaining part of his life, being sick and hospitalised for a good percentage of his ruling term!
On the other hand, arguments for older people in the saddle may not also hold much water as Nigerians are quick to point out that former president Obasanjo was old enough when he came for his second missionary journey. They expected Obasanjo to use his maturity and experience to revolutionalize the country. So painful to many Nigerians was the fact that Obasanjo was brought out of prison and at a quarter to die stage.
This is a man that escaped execution by whiskers and his major task would have been to reorder the country with good leadership and massive development. They expected him to be ruthless, stepping on toes and getting things right. But what did Nigerians see at the end of the day, an Obasanjo that ascended office in 1999 with virtually nothing in his Bank account but coming out of office in 2007 as a billionaire and one of the richest former presidents in the world today!
Same thing is applicable to President Buhari now. Having craved and vied to be the executive president of this country for four consecutive times Nigerians were of the hope that their lives will never remain the same. And, of course, their lives have not remained the same since Buhari ascended the throne in 2015 with suffering, insecurity, killings here and there, poverty escalation, unemployment quadrupling, unimaginable inflation, Corruption and graft magnifying and rebranding itself, etc.
So, whether old or young the problem of leadership in Nigeria may not necessarily be the championing of this Not Too Young To Run advocacy. Accepted as painted above there may be some advantages and disadvantages of young people taking up sensitive and even the highest seat of government in the country but that may not be the almighty elixir. Good leadership does not count on age.
A good leader will be a good leader irrespective of the person’s age. What we should be clamouring for now is the enthronement of good structures and institutions. Once we get it right at that level nobody will tell a 78-year-old man that he may not fit into the nuances of the office of the president of a vibrant and demanding country like Nigeria.
The same thing will be applicable to the young person who will think that his only criteria, qualifications and curricula vitae will be his age. There will be nothing like that as the institutions and structure entrenched will make it possible to decipher your capabilities right from school days. What have you done for your immediate community before thinking of being a Governor or president.
Of course, the system will be such that a non-performer irrespective of his age will be shown the way out once he is not performing.
While we encourage the young to aspire and, in fact, take up key leadership positions after all the aphorism that the young are the leaders of tomorrow should actually start today. But if the young actually wants the tempo to be sustained and by that I mean for Nigerians to earnestly yearn for them to not only run but govern consistently they must set a good example and act as a test case study of reference.
This will come in form of a person in faraway Otuoke, Bayelsa State citing an a example of young, brilliant and wonderful performer in Daura, Katsina State. A multiplicity of these testimonies will be the only tool and unique selling point that will galvanise Nigerians to gravitate towards embracing the Not Too Young To Run and Rule advocacy.
***Austine Uche-Ejeke, Publisher and Editor-in-chief, AGENDA Community Newspapers, and Public Affairs Analyst, wrote vide eaustineuche@yahoo.com
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