The Leadership –Followership Debate

I  was recently invited to contribute my perspective on a conversation between two brilliant submissions on the primacy and priority of leadership or followership in Nigeria. I have not come across a more comprehensive and fulsome debate on this topic hence my decision to lay it before the Nigerian audience. After presenting the two opinions, I will then offer my own paradigm. Here we go: The leadership perspective “Everything else, citizenship, innovation, resilience, multiplies or diminishes based on that one variable, Leadership “Let me illustrate”. “Take the Abia power project. The foundation was laid as far back as 2004 by Barth Nnaji and commissioned in 2014. Yet for nearly a decade, it remained dormant. It was not until 2024, when Alex Otti assumed office, that decisive leadership engaged regulators, secured gas supply, and unlocked the project within months. The contrast is stark: eight years of inertia under previous Governor Ikpeazu followed by eight months of execution under Alex Otti. The variable that changed was not the people; it was leadership. The same pattern played out in Lagos under Babatunde Fashola. Governance improved, systems worked, and citizens responded positively, even voluntarily complying with taxation because they could see results. Nigerians are not allergic to responsibility; they are responsive to results”. *The Nigerian Paradox”: “Nigeria is not lacking in capable people. Consider Aliko Dangote and Mike Adenuga; individuals who built world-class enterprises despite systemic obstacles. Across the country, millions of small and medium-scale entrepreneurs display extraordinary resilience daily. Yet, despite this, tens of millions remain in poverty.  Millions of children are out of school. Infrastructure deficits persist.” “Why? Because individual success does not translate into national development without effective governance. Dangote’s wealth cannot fix education in Northern Nigeria. Only coordinated government policy can do that. And policy effectiveness is determined by leadership quality. Answering your questions directly, when will such a leader arise? Such leaders already exist.They are visible in: the private sector, reform-driven subnational governments, certain technocratic institutions. The issue is not absence, it is selection failure. Too often, competence is sacrificed on the altar of ethnicity, religion, and patronage”. “How do we get such leaders? By fixing the incentive structure of leadership recruitment.The elite; political, economic, and social, must shift from: supporting loyalty, rewarding patronage to:  Backing competence Prioritizing integrity. Enforcing accountability. Until the system rewards merit over mediocrity, outcomes will not change. Where will the leader come from? Yes- from current followers. But not all followers become leaders. Leadership must be deliberately filtered and elevated. At present, the entry bar into leadership is dangerously low. For example, the minimal educational requirement for the presidency is primary school education. This sends the wrong signal about the seriousness of governance.” “Final Thought” “There is no “Nigerian way” to development, just as there is no Nigerian way to fly a plane.You either follow the proven principles that make systems work, or you crash. Until we prioritize leadership built on discipline, competence, and integrity, we will continue to recycle failure, no matter how hardworking or resilient our people are. Leadership is not just a factor in nation building. It is the decisive factor”. Response (The followership perspective)  “I receive and respect your argument with the seriousness it deserves. Few have stated the case for leadership as decisively as you have. On much of it, we are not in disagreement. Leadership matters. Profoundly. Where governance is broken, even the best citizens are forced to perform on a collapsing stage. I concede that point fully. Otti’s Abia and Fashola’s Lagos are real, and they are instructive”. “But permit me to press back, respectfully but firmly. Leadership and citizenship are not rival forces in nation-building. They are not even unequal partners locked in hierarchy. They are co-authors of the same outcome, and history bears me out. Consider the very models you invoke: Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, China. Lee Kuan Yew did not transform Singapore alone. He transformed it with a citizenry that accepted discipline, embraced education, and met his demands with sweat. Park Chung-hee’s Korea worked because Koreans showed up, generation after generation, to honour the social contract leadership offered them. Even your own example, Fashola’s Lagos, succeeded precisely because Lagosians responded; they paid taxes voluntarily, as you yourself noted. That response was not incidental. It

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