We Need to Get Involved

The West Wing is an American TV series from the 1990s that follows a fictional White House Presidency. It portrays the inner-workings of Presidential Politics and takes viewers into the personal lives of these staff members as they help President Josiah (Jed) Bartlett a liberal former governor push his agenda.

The fictional President Bartlett (played by Martin Sheen) is a Professor of Economics, winner of the Noble Peace Prize, a former congressman and Governor of New Hampshire. He is in every sense of the word, an intellectual giant. The character as written by Andy Sorkin was usually the smartest person in any room he walked into.

The series focuses on the sheer scale and complexity of national (and international) politics that competes for the attention of the President. When you have a mix of domestic affairs, military matters, foreign affairs you could see how an administration could get bogged down by competing interests. Throw in the dynamic of a hostile congress including members of the President’s own party who had their own agendas to push and it looks like a task greater than any 1 man.

Jed Bartlett consequently surrounded himself with a cadre of senior staff to advise and execute his agenda.

They were lawyers. And professional political operatives. They were professional PR consultants and they were graduates of Yale, Harvard and MIT.

And they were all first rate minds. And at the top of this pyramid was his Chief of Staff Leo McGarry.

Leo was the one who originally convinced Jed Bartlett to run for President and was a former air force pilot, cabinet level secretary and he was referred to as a world class political operative. He was a political pugilist who had made plenty of enemies but was respected by both allies and enemies for his wide breadth of knowledge, strategic mind and tactical nous.

Leo was the gate-keeper to the President and he ensured that only the most relevant discussions and decisions were tabled before the President. He knew what the President’s vision was and was the chief strategist for making sure it was achieved. He was also the one who guided the President in matters where he had less experience. Guided. Not led. Areas like foreign affairs and military action. He was the one the veteran generals looked towards, to explain the nuts and bolts of military strategy to the Commander in Chief.

Leo was probably not as smart as his boss. But he knew how to get things done and had a track record of doing so. President Bartlett trusted him implicitly.

One of my favourite scenes from the series was when a new deputy communications director was appointed. A note was planted on his desk to find out his true views on a speech that the President was going to give. His opinion directly contravened what the President thought. He was later pulled into the Oval office and the President asked if there were any other thoughts on his speech.

The new appointee baulked and didn't speak up and it was revealed that he had been set up to see if he could speak the truth to power. The President only wanted people who would actively challenge him. And oh how they did! His senior staff members challenged him and argued vociferously for their sometimes directly opposing views and the President welcomed it. Because he knew it came from a place of shared vision. And from a place of trust built over a grueling campaign.

There is a decided lack of first rate minds in the present government of Nigeria.

Some three weeks ago over 200 girls were abducted from the North Eastern part of Nigeria. They were apparently abducted by the terrorist organization Boko Haram whose name loosely translates as Western Education is forbidden/a sin.

The level of ineptitude demonstrated by the people who are supposed to make decisions at the highest level in the Nigerian government has been gut-wrenching to watch.

The apparent apathy to the abduction initially has only been compounded by the total lack of a visible plan by the Nigerian authorities ever since social media has (finally) exploded the issue onto the consciousness of the world.

While much better placed individuals and writers have analysed the inaction of the current government, I would like to look at this from another angle.

Why are our best minds not attracted to politics and public policy in Nigeria?

Nigeria is blessed with not just practitioners but trail blazers in every single facet of life. From commerce, to business, the arts, medicine, science and technology. There are Nigerian born achievers wherever you look.

Except in present day politics.

The example I gave above is of a fictional American Presidency but there are several real life examples of erudite and deep thinkers committing their lives to public service. Bill Clinton is considered by friends and foes alike to be the finest political mind of his generation. One need only hear him speak to understand why. Barack Obama was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Ed Miliband, leader of the Opposition in the UK was a policy researcher and speechwriter and graduated from the University of Oxford as well as the London School of Economics. Angela Merkel is a former research scientist with a doctorate in physical chemistry. John Key the current prime minister of New Zealand was an investment banker and had made millions before entering politics. The list goes on.

And in saying this, there have been a few exceptions in the Nigerian polity. Obafemi Awolowo. Bola Ige. The Sardauna of Sokoto. Tafewa Balewa. Nnamdi Azikwe. Our founding fathers by all accounts were titans of their age who made many mistakes but were passionate men who had the mental fortitude to navigate the times into which they had been born.

More recently, we have had individuals like Pat Utomi and Governor Fashola who have (with varying degrees of success) brought a refreshing take to the art of politics. We have technocrats like the former governor of the central bank Lamido Sanusi. And I am sure there are very many more examples.

But they are too few and far in between.

Ayo Sogunro explains here why everything in Nigeria will kill you. And he makes a powerful point about most people just not caring anymore.

The attitude of the upper middle class Nigerian to politics is one of extreme disdain and there is a universal agreement that politics as it is played in Nigeria is dirty. And it is. Just like in any other country. But while the best minds are still attracted to it in other climes, our finest minds eschew the cut-throat and rough world of politics and instead gravitate towards the private sector. Or in my case, move abroad and be condemned to watching from afar as things deteriorate.

This needs to change.

The nadir of the whole episode of the abducted girls for me, came when I watched a news segment featuring the wife of the President. Barely able to string an articulate sentence together, it wasn’t so much her lack of Queen’s English that saddened me but the obvious lack of any critical thinking that had gone into her presentation.

The wife of the fictional President in the West Wing was a heart surgeon who had her own agenda and engaged her husband in issues that were dear to her heart. Issues like child welfare, health and women’s issues. And if we want to discount this as fiction, one need only look at the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2016 elections who was once the spouse of a President.

And if it is argued that the wife of the President should (rightly) hold no policy authority, then the performance of Ebele Goodluck Jonathan himself in a Presidential media chat showed that not only did he lack even the false emotion his wife had shown on national TV he was very poorly prepared by his aides on the nuances to strike in his tone and manner indeed the seriousness of the situation.

The best leaders surround themselves with people smarter than themselves.

Public Policy encompasses a wide breadth of society and affects everything from personal choices to private enterprise to how a society retools and equips itself to tackle the challenges of the day. It is too bloody important to leave to incompetents. Nigerian politicians right now devote time and resources to winning power. With no clear idea of what to do with it once they get it. The level of debate in politics is restricted to zoning agreements and on whose ‘turn’ it is to gain political office.

We need to figure out a way to transform the perception of politics. I am not naïve to think that a knowledge of grassroots mobilisation, backroom deals and yes even money will not continue to be a feature of politics. But my point is that we need more first rate minds willing and able to jump into the fray. We cannot continue to leave it to miscreants. And thugs. And people bereft of any kind of vision or plan.

We need to get involved.

We need to get people to see public office not as a means to riches but as what it truly should be. A call to serve something greater than yourself. Where you give your maximum output and then leave to give the next generation a chance as well. And we don’t all have to be in executive positions. But we need more policy analysts, technocrats and people directly advising those in the executive positions. We need the critical thinking of those one step below those in executive power to be world class. And we need it to reach a critical mass across state local and federal level.

We need to raise the level of political discourse in Nigeria to what power will be used for rather than to who wields power.

We need to get involved.

We need to get off Facebook and twitter and bring the discourse to forums that matter. We need to stop pontificating and posting pictures of ourselves with hashtags and think we are making a real difference.

The focus will fade. The camera men will move to other assignments. Op-Ed writers will no longer devote column space to it. Those that matter in Nigeria NEED to use this as a springboard for a wider conversation. And we need to start being the people that matter.

We need to get involved.