By Young Erhiurhoro
The above topic is very timely and important for leaders of communities in the entire Niger-Delta region. Autocratic leadership is never receptive or acceptable to the subjects or indigenes of the community. It’s never acceptable to any right-thinking person in the community.
This is the major reason why so many Nigerians are deliberately against military rule in the country. This is because military government embodies greater autocratic processes in government than civilian or democratic rule. For instance, what Nigeria as a country is passing through since 1999 when the country returned to democratic rule, is an adjunct of what autocracy is compared to what Nigeria passed through in all those years of military rule.
This same scenario is what is practically playing out in most communities with respect to leadership. In fact, autocratic leadership has caused a lot of communal crises in many communities across the Niger-Delta region. The community leadership in this case could be the community union leadership or the traditional leadership. The union leadership in most communities is the administrative organ or arm of government in the community while the traditional leadership has to do with the different traditional institutions in such communities. Such traditional institutions are the traditional rulers and chieftaincy title holders.
However, in most cases, you will definitely discover that, the two forms of leadership have caused much ripples and rigours in our various communities by initiating crises and litigations in the courts of law. They have led to the destruction of people and properties in recent times.
Why is it always so? It’s so because in most cases, those who are either elected or appointed as leaders in our communities, may perpetually and tenaciously hold to power immediately they have a taste of it. It’s now that I’m convinced that power intoxicates more than alcohol and high drugs. Immediately our leaders taste the juice in power, in respect to honour and financial emoluments, they usually find it very difficult to quit power to allow others to come in. This is why when their tenures are over, they must find a fault or look for a loophole to foment trouble that will make them to remain long over their tenures of leadership. This will then gradually lead to crisis in the community.
More importantly, the heads of the various leaderships are the architects of this autocratic leadership. Many of them in some communities may even find ways to push away their executive members to run a one-man government. They may succeed in painting their executive members black especially those that are against them (heads) with their kind of policies and programmes before the community elders and the indigenes in general. They may put false allegations on their heads to make sure that they are finally expelled from the government. No doubt, this has continued to happened in many communities across the Niger-Delta region.
Having succeeded in disintegrating and destroying the executive body, he will go further to set up a kind of cabal with which to run the government unquestionable. They may even position themselves to be “saints” before their subjects because they have embarked on one or two projects in the community. This is what they usually do to induce the people and woo them over. And with the full support of the cabals or his loyalists, the people usually clap for him and continuously sing his praises everywhere.
Unfortunately, if any person or group of people in the community are bold and courageous enough to bring out the excesses and the secrets of such autocratic leaders to the understanding of the subjects, this may lead to crisis or other troubles. They may not easily accept this kind of a challenge from anybody in the community since they have tenaciously held to power. Every tool or instrument of power are at their disposal. They can use it the way they like against any of their opposers in the community. In running such oppressive tendencies, war may result at the end.
In one of my articles, I talked about sacrificial leadership of community leaders. This was exactly the kind of leadership that our forefathers ran in their time as community leaders. In this kind of leadership, leaders would always deny themselves to satisfy the needs and yearnings of his people. In most cases, they would happily run the government with their own financial resources without, even demanding from the people. They usually ran open door government by carrying all his executive members along. They sought to protect their integrity, financial prudence, accountability and finally, the names of their families by religiously followed the bye-laws or constitution of the said leadership. When it was time to leave office, they would be happy to handover the power to other people in the community. They would not be forced to quit power or to conduct peaceful elections that would bring other people in.
However, the story had long changed in many communities as community leadership is no longer a sacrificial type, rather an autocratic one. Community leadership has become an avenue for leaders to enrich themselves, embezzle money, diverting projects and properties, oppressing people in a harder way etc. All these atrocities are perpetuated by leaders as a result of high-level corruption in power intoxication. Therefore, as leaders we know that power can’t remain in one hand forever, then our today’s leaders should try as much as possible to reverse to the old sacrificial form of leadership. This form of leadership will definitely create peace, harmony, love, unity, understanding, prudence, loyalty, kindness, honour, respect and many other positive attributes or virtues between the community leaders and their subjects and also amongst the leaders themselves and amongst the subjects. After prudently following this form of leadership for some years in those communities, it will surely be an established norm and cultural practice in respect to the leadership of such communities. It will be the foundation and the standard of leadership in various communities across the Niger-Delta region. For us to enjoy peace in our communities, let our leaders practice sacrificial form of leadership. Thank you for reading!
Mr Erhiurhoro is a journalist and cultural affairs analyst
