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Saturday, January 20, 2018

Ministers are Leaders, not Practitioners

The following was a short comment I made on the wall of Jafar Jafar when he registered his view that some appointment made yesterday may not be "round pegs in a round hole." Since the issue has been a subject of discussoon in various fora, I feel it will be useful to reproduce the coment here:
"Good writing as usual, Jafar. Thank you. I will only hasten to repeat here what I said on Yakubu Musa's wall just a while ago.
"From my experience, many leadership positions need much more than specialisation to succeed.
"In 1975, a mix up in typing names saw Adamu Ciroma appointed as CBN Governor instead of MD Daily Times, as a journalist. When General Murtala's attention was drawn to the mistake after it was communicated, he said, "Ehe! Let them go and work." Adamu Ciroma is today remembered among the finest CBN Governors the country ever had.
"Broad knowledge, commitment, honesty and intelligence is what makes a good leader particularly at the ministerial level. This is what has been missing so much so that many professors were appointed as Ministers of education but they performed terribly below expectation. Under their watch, our children idled at home for months or even a full year.
"The advantage of an outsider is also there in Mal. Adamu's appointment. It is difficult to change things from the inside. An insider is used to the decay and can hardly see much wrong in the system. He can hardly generate new ideas different from the ones he is accustomed to. An outsider, on the other hand, can look at things with a challenging eye that can open the eyes of even the experts to new vistas. Hamid Ali as CG Customs is an example.
"Finally, I feel since the ministry has experts heading its different parastatals, it is my hope that Malam Adamu will blend their expertise with his broad knowledge, critical mind, zeal, honesty, intelligence and commitment to bring about the desired change. His cv is definitely less rosy than the Professor's in the field of Education but he may be many times a better leader. That might be what PMB considered. Ministers, as political appointees, are leaders, not practitioners.
"Allahu aalam.

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