Governance and tragedy of incompetence

Anyone who reads the book titled “The Peter Principle” by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull will be conversant with the management principle of hierarchy, which postulates that “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” At other times, people are promoted or appointed to positions of incompetence.

Commenting on the book, the Sunday Times of London wrote, “For anybody who has ever worked in or been head of a big private or public organisation, this devilish little book will provide unending material for easy reflection.” The book talks about competent, incompetent, and super competent leaders.

This write-up seeks to draw public attention and that of legislators that screen political appointees to the level of incompetence exhibited by many elected and appointed public officers to public offices. Most of these appointments are made with no measurable criteria but on the basis of party loyalty, not competence. That explains why Nigeria is not moving forward. Incompetent people everywhere, from minister to counsellor, local government chairman, House of Assembly member, senator, governor, and even president, if you will permit me, surround himself with incompetent advisors and aides. And yet the president is not in touch with reality. They tell him what he wants to hear, not reality.

In the second republic after the military coup, a large amount of cash was found in the Kaduna State Government House. When asked to explain why he was having such a huge amount of cash, the sitting governor at the time, Alhaji Barkin Zuwo, answered, “Ba wahala (no problem), government money in government house.” During the same period, while campaigning to be Kano State Governor, Alhaji Aminu Kano was asked about the mineral resources in Kano State he could rely on to raise funds internally. He gave a rather bizarre reply. “There are plenty of minerals in Kano State. Coca-Cola is there, and Danta Cola is there.”

One former Head of State who had competent officers was General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB). Even at that, he did not seem to rely solely on his aids for information about what is going on in the country. He listens to the radio, watches television, and reads national newspapers. Why do I say so?

In November 1989, I wrote an article in the Business Times on issues about the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) policy on bankers’s acceptances (BAs). The write-up was titled “Checking the Off Balance Sheet Activity of Banks.” I was making the point that it was wrong for the CBN to make a blanket classification of BAs as ascending or loans. It becomes a lending or loan when it is discounted in the money market. So the CBN ought to have asked banks to render returns on discounted BAs and I discounted BAs and from there treat only the discounted BAs as loans instead of lumping them together. Let me say in passing that that mistake has continued till today.

IBB read the write-up in the Business Times and then queried the CBN governor at the time, Alhaji Abdulkadir, of blessed memory on the regulatory incompetence of CBN. “What is CBN doing that a journalist out there is telling them what they did wrong in policy formulation?”. That is the way of a competent leader. You don’t rely 100 percent on psychopaths for advice to advise you on what is going on in body politics. They will tell you what you want to hear in order to keep their job, not what is going on.

The way President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) is handling the hunger protest by the Nigerian youths gives the impression that he is listening to incompetent advice and acting on it. Why should he conveniently ignore the demands of the youths when things are going out of hand? He ought to be a listening leader in a democracy. Ignoring the youth shows disconnect with the people he is leading, which in itself smacks of incompetence.

Not addressing the demands of the youths frontally can be taken to mean that the government does not understand their problem; not to talk about solving it are indices of incompetence. Hunger, hardship, unemployment, and inflation caused by floating the Naira and removing subsidies on Premium Motor Spirit are destabilising economic activities and demand a re-jig of the policy framework, not maintenance of the peace of the graveyard.

Toying with the idea of cabinet reshuffle is an admission of having an incompetent team in place. Appointment of incompetent persons is a direct result of PBAT’s style to reward political jobbers who worked to help him win the election. When political loyalists are appointed to run the affairs of government, what do you expect? Garbage in, garbage out.

In a way, former Head of State Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) appointed competent people to his cabinet. That is because he is a detribalised Nigerian. He appointed competent people, not minding ethnic origin, religious bias, or political affiliation. We are all witnesses to how his government performed very well in paying off Nigeria’s debt to the Paris Club creditors. His successors in office, Shehu Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan, followed in his footsteps. You may accuse his government of corruption, but the economy was running smoothly because competent people were at the helm of affairs.

It is not as if President Johnathan did not fight corruption, especially leakages in revenue collection. He established the Treasury Single Account, which he domiciled in deposit money banks with strict operational guidelines. It worked well, and the economy was well funded with public sector funds. The government, in contradistinction to the public sector, is cash rich.

Then in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed an incompetent Finance Minister that moved the TSA from deposit money banks to the CBN in the guise of fighting corruption by Ministries, Departments, and Agencies. The immediate result was a lack of liquidity in the banking system and reduced balance sheet size that could not support the lending capacity of banks. Also with reduced business, banks were forced to lay off staff, especially in the cost centres of banking operations and other backroom departments.

That policy is sustained by PBAT, who during his electoral campaign pledged to continue from where President Muhammadu Buhari stopped. The economy is now dry and not well funded for sustained business activity because TSA is domiciled in the CBN, not the deposit money banks, which was the model operated by the originators of the policy. Yet, corruption and looting by public officials in the ministries, departments, and agencies has not abated. Can you see what an incompetent policy can do to the economy?

The time has come for PBAT to fight incompetence by removing political jobbers in his cabinet and appointing professionals and technocrats in various positions on the basis of proven competence. Nigeria can only move forward when competent people are at the head of affairs.

Chris Enyinnaya is a Fellow Chartered Institute of Bankers: [email protected]