SRONGMEN OR STRONG INSTITUTIONS: A KEY DEFECT OF NIGERIA HUMAN RESOURCES POLICY 

By AVM RTD AKUGBE IYAMU MNSA fsi

Nigeria is a land of endless possibilities and opportunities including infinite combinations where people can sometimes transform from ignorance to philanthropists, from roadside mechanics to wear military uniforms, from stark illiterates and assume professional toga. Nigerians acquire titles and qualifications by all means work their ways to the to through microwave inductions and return to rule in process and procedure.

This is because the job description of public officials in Nigeria does not require any serious application: boring speeches written by unimaginative aides with single narratives of approved, KIV or represent. In all the processes the are no in depth analysis, intellectual discussion that arouses great thinking, rigour or deep reasoning and academic reflection.

The people insisting on strengthening the institutions are not altogether wrong. Strong institutions build countries and not whims and caprices of strongmen. This is very instructive because Nigeria is a nation that take advantage of all situations and those who seek to rule the country need to maximally ensure the strengthening of her institutions over the strongman syndrome or illusion. They must have traceable percentages of work experience. That is not too much to demand.

The singing of the hymn of strengthening the institutions in Nigeria are no longer laziness or jobless voyage anymore. Where persons have slipped through the crevices of insufficient leadership selection process to assume positions, the moral burden must shift to the society, the system and institutions that support and guide leadership. Such moral burden need to be offloaded at the doorstep of the society that allowed itself to be ruled by strongmen and not strong institutions. It all depends on the character of the society, it’s standards and the definition of leadership that country is willing to accept.

This write up recognizes that there are too many deficiencies in Nigeria’s administrative system that strongmen easily convert to political capital. My contention is simply, delivering projects does not surpass or supersede the primacy of the institutions and the strength of the constitution. In Nigeria, this can no longer be considered as a redundant assertion anymore.

The endless travails of citizens particularly the worship of strongmen rings of this tale.

When public servants constantly override and vanquish the institutions, the administrative expediency will override constitutional imperatives. The overriding dictum becomes crude strongman over the institutions. Such development shed our worship of individual strongmen over institutions.

Globally, the assertion of strongmen over strong institutions does not go with the mathematics of leadership anywhere. Leaders like DJT has tried severally to get above the institutions but the institutions always remind him that he is subject of the constitution and the constitution is the grand norm.

Our administrative kings and philosophers died or have simply become extinct as less qualified people has chased people of knowledge and taken over the centre stage. The system is under strict rules and obligations to ensure adherence to the requirements of the institutions. Therefore the obligation of individuals is to abide by the requirements of institutions is incumbent.

AVM RTD AKUGBE IYAMU MNSA fsi

PRESIDENT ASSOCIATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE PRACTITIONERS

CONSULTANT ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND ANALYST ON ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES AND COMMENTATOR ON NATIONAL ISSUES

WARNING!!!!!!!

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