By: Olu ‘Remilekun

“I think the lesson is the people of this country can’t afford to let the President run the country by himself. Even foreign affairs any more than domestic affairs without the help of congress. I was struck in fact by President Johnson’s reaction to these revelations is close to treason because it reflects to me the sense that what was damaging to the reputation of a particular administration, a particular individual was in itself treason which is very close to saying “I am the State” -Daniel Ellsberg, “The Post (2017)”

The Separation of Powers, which entrenches check and balance in the institutions of democratic governance also applies to the conscious separation of self (ego) and the institution (leadership positions) for anyone, who has been entrusted with the responsibility of leadership. Drawing the line between the individual wishes, no matter how good, and the mission of an institution is foundational to preventing the emergence of tyranny. The daily performance of this responsibility towards honest and democratic leadership informs the outlook and internal characteristics of the institution, no matter the resources channelled into its image laundering. The institution is simply a machinery, controlled by the attitude of leadership that drives the priorities and the quality of know-how that the institution exhibits.

Unfortunately, against the counsel that Africa needs strong institutions, not strong men, institutions in Nigeria, except a few have only demonstrated an illusion of strong institutions which in reality are expressions of strong egos. This demagoguery is captured in how institutions of government are mobilised to victimize people who represent or defend certain ideas. While it seems that the persons are the target, the ideas and their imaginations are the target that cannot be captured. However, because ideas cannot be victimized, jailed or killed, like thoughts, excepts the mind is consciously tasked to engage another, the government chooses the easy method of victimization and in the extreme of its show of weakness, it chooses the execution of the citizens who are mediums for the ideas that threaten the egos that drive the institution. The history of nations as a macro entity and its institutions as micro spaces testify to this performance of weakness.

Our history of the first, by history and the best, as an aspiration, reflects this performance. The institution’s history of imagination that projects its powerful status as a no-nonsense institution also projects its leadership’s performance of weakness. When students protest against neoliberal policies and demand accountability, and the response of the institution is suspension, rustication and expulsion, the message it wishes to send to the students and the public is that it is powerful enough to enforce discipline and deal with dissenting opinions but such acts are understood differently. For the feeble minded, the university is powerful but for the introspective, such response is a performance of weakness, no matter how militarist it is. It is the easy method.

Is the performance of the institution or its leadership? As a machinery, the institution, both human and material, can disagree with the instructions of the leadership but has to act on instructions because the internal mechanism of the institution itself has been captured by tyrannical minds. We have seen instances when the Vice Chairman single-handedly closed down the school without the approval of the Senate. Last session, we also witnessed an increment of fees without the approval of the Governing Council. The approval of the Governing council was secured after chains of protest that the symbolic protest of our heroic four inspired on the 13th of May. This performance of tyranny has been consciously passed down to the Student Union leadership. In the past years, the Lord of Host, Awada and Blood Covenant, in connivance with the Representative Council’s leaderships have exhibited the tyranny of ego over the democratic processes of the ideals of our union. They have used the Union to protect their egos, succumbed to the threat of the school management and also gone to the extent of forging congress resolution and outrightly disrespecting the students who elected them. They chose the easy method and basked in the criminality of it. Our congress was placed on the table and raped. We have not heard it breathe.

At each point in time, everyone will be faced with the choice of what is right and what is easy. The history and act of victimisation demonstrated as an illusion of power are conscious and unconscious curation of public exhibitions of egos. The classification of this performances as that of weakness is not arbitrary, neither is it a merely moral assessment. It is classified on the basis of how the acts and the institution of this school and the Union agree or conflicts with the principles that guide the ideals and aspirations of these institutions. For the Management and its leadership, in hard times, our motto, vision and mission, and hymn should be a reminder of the kind of decisions and methods to be settled for. At no point should we be thrown under the bus for the ego of any leader.

Contrary to our motto, we have misappropriated the project of nation building into ego and personality infrastructure. It is high time we revisited our motto and exit the machinery of personal aggrandizement and the mentality of “I am the State” that characterises our leaderships. A careful and humble study of our hymn convicts us. How many of us know the words and history of its composition. This leadership is vigorously committed to destroying the future of this school and the nation at large. The victimization of students who protested does not only conflict with the spirit of character moulding, it is totally against the spirit and words of our hymn.

Actions and decisions that are contradictory to social justice and equal chances, and the enshrining of the right to learn, the principles that inspired the May 13th protest in the Lord’s Hall, are evidences of weakness, not strength. Victimizing students who go to this extent to remind the Union’s leadership and the management of the ideals it sings and professes to live by captures the determination of a school at works against its own future. It is an attempt of the management to cast down imaginations and ideas that this school is established to defend. Mobilising the institutions of the school and state intelligence against the ideals of the scholarship as represented by heroic three is not a wise use of human and material resources. Sadly, these ideas will outlive the Vice Chairman and the management team. These ideas cannot die. Effort to suppress them, no matter how successful it seems, depicts how weak our institution have been reduced to in the defence of egos.

Hard times project the true personality and understanding of leadership. Problems are not difficult to identify. In fact, there is no special skill to know when an institution is not working. Everyone knows the manifestations of corrupt institutions even when they bring food to the table. Contrary to the attempt of institutions to criminalise freedom of thought and expression in the face of hard times, the responsibility of genuine leadership is to acknowledge its difficulties, communicate its limitations and genuinely find solutions that will not compromise the integrity of the people. The use of force as a response to criticism or protest is a public exhibition of weakness.

Every man is conditioned to create or recreate from the internal workings and structures of the self. If a man cannot live by reason and subject his ego and (good) intentions to the test of logic, empathy and time, he is not fit to lead. When he leads, he will subject the machinery and resources of the institution to the pleasure of his ego.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Olu ‘Remilekun is a student of the University of Ibadan. He is a social justice advocate and a stern believer that Nigeria can be fixed.