The ongoing controversy surrounding Senator Neda Bernards Imasuen is a glaring reflection of Nigeria’s democratic contradictions. A man disbarred by the New York State Supreme Court in 2010 for fraudulent activities now leads the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions. The irony is staggering—how does an individual deemed unfit to practice law in the U.S. assume responsibility for upholding ethical standards in Nigeria’s legislature? His role in dismissing Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s sexual harassment petition against Senate President Godswill Akpabio exposes deep-seated issues of power abuse, institutional corruption, and gender-based oppression.

But this is bigger than Imasuen or Akpabio—it speaks to the broader erosion of governance in a country that continues to recycle tainted individuals into positions of power. Nigeria’s democracy, already struggling against systemic corruption, is being steadily dismantled by those entrusted to protect it. Public trust is continually eroded, impunity is normalized, and disgraced figures are rewarded instead of held accountable. This is the slow poisoning of a nation.

The Ethical Contradiction: A Man Barred for Misconduct Overseeing Ethics

Despite Imasuen’s reckless declaration of Natasha’s petition as ‘dead on arrival,’ his blatant mistreatment of a female senator, and his disregard for a court order, I do not want to rush to judgment. He not only ignored judicial directives but proceeded to push a six-month suspension recommendation before the Senate—an act of defiance that speaks volumes about how power is wielded in Nigeria.

However, we should not crucify him just yet. He is a product of a system that has allowed corruption to fester at every level. The same Nigerians now condemning him are themselves trapped in institutions riddled with corruption, ethical decay, and abuse of power. That said, let us hear from him. Before passing full judgment, he might have insights Nigerians do not yet have, particularly concerning his New York disbarment and other unresolved aspects of his past. If there is any credibility left in him, he should step forward and explain himself.

Yes, he was disbarred. Yes, he concealed it. Yes, he mistreated Natasha. But let us give him a chance to speak. He might possess information that the Nigerian public lacks. He should return to Arise TV or another credible platform to offer his defense. Silence will only deepen suspicions. If he believes his actions are defensible, let him make his case publicly.

Yet no amount of justification can erase the glaring contradiction of his past. His misconduct is not speculation—it is documented. He abandoned a client, embezzled funds, refused to comply with disciplinary authorities, and fled justice in America. This is the man charged with overseeing ethical matters in Nigeria’s Senate. His disbarment was not a minor infraction—it was a judicial decision marking him unfit to practice law. And yet, in Nigeria, such a person is seen as worthy of enforcing accountability.

Democratic institutions thrive on transparency, accountability, and ethical integrity. The Nigerian media, as a watchdog, must balance due process with a refusal to let critical ethical concerns be swept aside. The dismissal of Natasha’s petition is not just about political maneuvering; it reflects deep psychological barriers to addressing gender-based violence within Nigeria’s power structures.

When a woman in power is silenced, when due process is manipulated to shield the powerful, and when institutions meant to provide justice instead suppress the vulnerable, democracy itself is under siege. Natasha’s suspension is not an isolated event—it is a warning of the continued weaponization of power against those who refuse to conform to corrupt political hierarchies.

The Political Class: A System That Enables Corruption

The Nigerian political class has perfected the art of concealing scandals under the cover of new appointments. Those who should be facing consequences for their past misdeeds are instead elevated to higher offices. Imasuen is not an anomaly—he is a reflection of a system that thrives on impunity. Politicians with criminal backgrounds, unresolved fraud cases, and ethical stains continue to occupy powerful positions. Figures like Akpabio, with alleged unresolved cases with law enforcement, remain untouchable, shielded by institutional control over the media, police, and judiciary. But I say to them: time will catch up with you.

Nigeria has become a refuge for individuals who cannot survive in functional democracies due to their past crimes. They return, rebrand themselves, and flourish in a system that rewards rather than punishes corruption. The difference between Imasuen and other political figures is that he was reportedly barred for life. That he now chairs the Ethics Committee in the Senate—an institution meant to uphold accountability—is not just hypocrisy; it is an insult to governance.

The Call for Dignity

Stepping Aside for the Nation’s SakeI take no joy in saying this—but both Imasuen and Akpabio should temporarily step aside. They might believe that anything goes in Nigeria, that this too shall pass, but I implore them: have some dignity. If they fail to act with honor, the way global legal systems are evolving, they may eventually find themselves disgraced beyond repair. The honorable step for them is to resign—now, before the walls close in.

A Test for Nigeria’s Democratic Future

Nigeria’s democracy must rise above legal technicalities that allow ethically compromised individuals to infiltrate its highest offices. The unchecked abuse of power is a disease—one that spreads, corrodes, and ultimately dismantles any hope for justice and governance. The media, civil society, and political stakeholders must push for structural reforms that prioritize accountability, gender equity, and psychological fairness in addressing misconduct allegations.

This moment is a defining test for Nigeria’s democratic future. The world is watching, history is recording, and the window for impunity is closing. The question remains—will Nigeria finally hold its leaders accountable, or will it continue to enable the very forces that undermine its progress?

In the latest plot twist in the case involving Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and Senate President Godswill Akpabio, it turned out that the head of the Ethics Committee, Senator Neda Imasuen, who read out the punitive statement against Akpoti-Uduaghan has a soiled professional record. Yes, the man who claimed a woman had to be punished for “bringing the Senate’s presiding office and the entire Senate into public opprobrium” is a walking bag of ethical violations, alleged fraud, and fugitive? Who could have thought?

First, I must confess a grudging admiration for Imasuen. It takes chutzpah to speak so self-righteously about a colleague whose supposed sins pale beside yours. The confidence with which he read the statement shows he has learned that the best way to deflect from the log in one’s eye is to shout the loudest at the appearance of a speck in another’s eye. We must thank him for exposing himself. If he had managed to keep his head down and his mouth shut, perhaps the can of worms spilling out of his orifices would have stayed within. It is bad enough that a character like that was elected a senator, but it is far worse that he also heads the ethics committee! Is it not too much of an irony that the sundry allegations against him were also about ethical violation—first disbarred for professional misconduct and absconded from the USA shortly after the FBI linked him to a multi-million dollar fraud? And only God knows what other scandal will come out of him if you keep shaking!

It would have been shocking if this was an isolated case, but no, the Senate that threw a fit over Akpoti-Uduaghan’s supposedly bringing them to disrepute is full of unsavoury characters like Imasuen. Even Akpabio himself has an extended record of corruption allegations that have been put in abeyance. As long as he continues to play the obsequious politics his handlers need him for, his case with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission remains frozen. His status and influence are tied to his serving the President rather than democracy.

Imasuen’s case is, of course, also similar to that of former Speaker of the House of Representatives and current Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila. He too was a lawyer in the USA suspended (and later disbarred) for violating professional trust. The decision to permanently terminate his law license was ratified the same year he became the chief of staff. Nobody, of course, is naïve enough to wonder for even a minute why the President would keep someone so tainted that close. The reason birds of the same disreputable feather must flock together is self-evident.

Imasuen knew who he was and what he had to hide, and that was why he could proclaim that the petition accusing Akpabio of sexual harassment was “dead on arrival”. To scrutinise the conduct of the Senate’s presiding officer was to risk exposing his unflattering flank. Despite the precedents that should have instructed the committee that suspending a senator for six months is unconstitutional, they insisted on towing a discredit path. Rather than at least giving Akpoti-Uduaghan a fair hearing, he pronounced an unnecessarily harsh punishment. He is another legislative officer merely playing quid pro quo with the tools of the institution.

Now that Imasuen had no moral standing to either sit on a committee regulating the ethics of the National Assembly or pronounce judgment on a colleague, can the decision on Akpoti-Uduaghan now be rescinded? That will be the fair thing to do in the light of developments.

It will be too complicated to get him out of the Senate based on the allegations of the crime committed elsewhere (which should have been raised before his election), but someone that ethically tainted is too unfit to have the privilege of regulating the ethics of an institution like the Senate. He should be removed from leadership positions and consigned to being just a floor member. If the concerns that certain actions by lawmakers can bring the Senate to disrepute are sincere, then Imasuen should be yanked from every position of responsibility. If the Senator’s case against Akpoti-Uduaghan was truly about instituting the rules she supposedly violated and not a personal attack on her, then the Senate should immediately move to relieve Imasuen of his position and recall every decision he made as the ethics committee leader.

That brings me to another point about the misogyny that has attended the Akpoti-Uduaghan case. I never knew so many bad-mannered and uncouth men could still appear on television in 2025 until recently. Under the pretext of commenting on legislative issues, all manner of scum bags went on TV to pour their misogynistic innards into the public space. It was a shame to see.

The most irritating commenter of the misogynistic lot is Mrs Oluremi Tinubu who thinks women suffer sexual harassment because they invite it. But when she had an altercation with fellow Senator Dino Melaye in 2017, and he made some demeaning comments bordering on sexual assault about her, was it also because she failed to set boundaries with him? Women like Mrs Tinubu are the exact reason I do not believe that pushing more women to occupy leadership positions will necessarily lead to female progress in the country. Those kinds of women play identity politics just to get into places of power only for their politics to pander to oppressive norms rather than disrupt them. Their understanding of “gender empowerment” never goes beyond the rudimentary idea of gifting women money and a few household items. Advocacy for women would be better off soliciting reasonable men than relying on these “pick me” women whose ideological incoherence set the course of feminine progress back by a century.

She is not the only woman whose intervention on this issue has been more of indulging male sensibilities than offering insights. I wished the women who appeared on television to speak on this issue had spoken the way some of the men did rather than merely pander. When men have gone on television to talk about this issue, some of them said the worst things and with utmost confidence too. I wish the women who got a chance did the same. Those men could say misogynistic things on television because they have never heard their stupidity echoed back at them. Women need to speak like them for them to get it.

For instance, if a man can say a woman’s beauty is a problem for her, then women too should point out how a man’s ugliness can also be a source of his problem! Another moron, seeking to delegitimise Akpoti-Uduaghan, blatantly lied that she has had six children by six men. Akpabio also once pulled that card on television when talking about a woman. If men can be so confidently coarse, women should be able to mirror their words back to them rather than being apologetic. Talk about the number of children the man has out of wedlock; ask him if he has stopped cheating on his wife. When they go low, do not go high; kick them in the face like rabid dogs.

One simpleton said this issue of sexual harassment undermines the credibility of women in politics, and it might get to a point where they ought to be tested for emotional stability to qualify for leadership. But does Imasuen’s case also not prove that men are professionally and ethically unqualified? From Bola Tinubu to Akpabio to Gbajabiamila, there is far more evidence to prove that men are too unscrupulous, venal and felonious to be leaders. It is not women who should be examined for mental stability before they are elected; it is men who should be made to undergo a virtue test with a psychiatrist to determine if there is something about their male hormones that predisposes them to avarice.

If women talk about men the way men talk about women, it will get to a point where obtuse men will finally begin to realise how ridiculous they sound when they talk about women.

Last Thursday, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan was suspended for six months by the Senate for violating its rules. But with the disciplinary action coming after she had formally submitted a petition alleging sexual harassment against the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, it is the chambers that is now on the defensive. The highest legislative body in the country is being inadvertently perceived as aiding and abetting predatory behaviour against women, even among its own members. It is a self-inflicted problem. A more circumspect Senate would have put the disciplinary matter against Akpoti-Uduaghan in temporary abeyance by first dealing with the sexual harassment allegation against its presiding officer; after all, as a Yoruba adage says, if tree falls on tree, conventional wisdom teaches that you start the clearing process from the top.

At the Women in Parliament session held at the Inter-Parliamentary Union Meeting (IPU) in New York, United States, on Tuesday, Akpoti-Uduaghan internationalised not only her ordeal but also used the platform to speak for Nigerian women. “I was suspended illegally because I submitted a petition for sexual harassment against the President of the Nigerian Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio,” Akpoti-Uduaghan said. “I thought that by submitting the petition, he would recuse himself and both of us would submit ourselves to the Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions for a fair, transparent investigation. But unfortunately, I was silenced, and I was suspended,” she told the gathering. “That means I’m here illegally…It depicts the crisis of women’s political representation. My suspension is not just about me. It’s about the systemic exclusion of women from political leadership in Nigeria.”

Considering what many of the male Senators have been saying on this crisis, it is almost difficult to fault Akpoti-Uduaghan’s claim that her ordeal has to do with her gender—regardless of whether her allegation against Akpabio is true or false. In asking that the suspension be reduced from six to three months, Senate Minority Leader, Abba Moro—leader of her own party, the main Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that ought to be in her corner—compared Akpoti-Uduaghan to a ‘recalcitrant child’ that you sometimes ‘beat’ when they misbehave. The Deputy Chief Whip, Senator Onyekachi Peter Nwebonyi made matters worse by going on air to retort that Akpoti-Uduaghan has “six kids from six different men”, a false claim; and that her “lifestyle is blocking the chances of other women who want to enter politics.”

I wonder why the Senate cannot understand that the entire saga has gone beyond the person of Akpoti-Uduaghan or the veracity of her allegation. It is not for nothing that the United Nations has devoted several days in a year to remind the world of impediments against the female gender. The last four months provide a ready example. Between 25th November and 10th December 2024, we had the annual global 16 days of activism which basically just called for an end to violence against women and girls. Then on 6th February this year, we had the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Five days later, on 11th February, was the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Of course, we were all aware that last Saturday, 8th March, was 2025 International Women’s Day. But I doubt if many were aware that Monday, 10th March was also the International Day of Women Judges.

To mark the event, the United Nations Office for Drug and Crimes (UNODC) published a feature story on a female judicial officer in Kenya, Christine Njagi with the headline, “‘Be the headliner, not the footnote’: Women in Justice/for Justice.” While sharing her experiences on the challenges women and girls face in Kenya, Njagi said in whatever situation women find themselves, they should strive to be the headliner and not the footnote. “Don’t be afraid at times to swim against the current—you might be the one who will change the flow of the river,” Njagi admonished. That appears to be the manual from which Akpoti-Uduaghan draws her inspiration. Whatever may be her motivation, the moment she was shut down by Akpabio while protesting the seat-change, she had elected to be the headliner rather than the footnote in the battle she knew was coming. By suspending her, after she had formally submitted her petition on sexual harassment, the Senate has only played into Akpoti-Uduaghan’s hands.

It is possible, as Senator Nwebonyi said, that Akpoti-Uduaghan’s allegation against Akpabio “is a case of personal, unsubstantiated, and conveniently timed accusations—claims of sexual harassment that supposedly took place over a year ago but surfaced only after the accuser was summoned for disciplinary action.” But not many people really care anymore, perhaps because of the way the Senate handled the issue. When the holder of a superior power position is accused of sexual exploitation, intimidation, or implicit threat, there is an obligation on that institution to treat such allegation, especially coming from a member, with seriousness. That perhaps explains why for many, the real issue is no longer whether Akpoti-Uduaghan’s sexual harassment allegation against Akpabio is true but rather that the Senate, in suspending her—even if for another ‘offense’—has denied her the opportunity of a fair hearing.

My position on the former ‘uncommon transformer’ of Akwa Ibom State is well-documented on this page, and one of my recent columns on him, ‘Akpabio: A Man for Every New Season’ has been trending on WhatsApp since this crisis started. I have also received suggestive messages from readers about what I should ‘write on Akpabio’. But that is not my way. I have nothing personal against the senate president. No matter what some of us may think of Akpabio, it would be unfair to jump to any hasty conclusions based on a claim that has not been proved to be true. Besides, removing Akpabio as Senate President will not resolve a problem that is institutional. What we must ensure is that women and girls who find the courage to raise an alarm relating to sexual harassment are respectfully listened to and not intimidated into silence. We must find a way of supporting a fair and discreet interrogation of such issues, without humiliating either party. This is because we live in a patriarchal society where women who refuse to accede to sexual demands from their superiors could easily have their careers delayed or truncated with irreparable damage done to their self-worth, sometimes for life.

To mark the 2025 International Women’s Day last Saturday, platitudes eulogising women in Nigeria  were offered by our men in positions of power. But the reality is that we operate a system patently skewed against women. At the Women in Parliament session attended by Akpoti-Uduaghan on Tuesday, a new IPU report, ‘Women in Parliament, 1995-2025’ was released to commemorate 30 years since the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The report reveals that the percentage of seats held by women in national parliaments has risen from 11.3% in 1995 to 27.2% in 2025. Meanwhile, in 15 States Houses of Assemblies across Nigeria today, there is not a single female lawmaker! Let’s not even talk about how a female lawmaker who was elected Speaker by 90 percent of the membership in a State House of Assembly was arm-twisted to surrender the gavel to the unpopular man she displaced. Even if the decision was not taken because she is a woman, the signaling was bad considering the overwhelming support she enjoyed from her colleagues.

The situation is only slightly better at the centre. In the current Senate, there are only four members among 108 Senators. Among the 360 lawmakers in the House of Representatives, there are only 16 female members. But the real problem is that even those few members are most often treated with disrespect. Exactly nine years ago, I wrote about this in a column titled, ‘In Defence of Nigerian Women.’ Interestingly, it is the current First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu who provoked my column at the time.

Presenting a motion to mark the 2016 International Women’s Day with the theme, ‘Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality’, Senator Tinubu (as she then was) had argued, “We represent courage and resilience; without us (Nigerian women) I don’t think this country will move forward.” The contributions that followed from some of the male senators were, to put it mildly, reckless. Eight months ago, I rehashed most of my arguments in another column, ‘For Akpabio, A Teachable Moment’, after he tendered a public apology to Akpoti-Uduaghan on the floor of the senate for demeaning her with a biting remark that the Senate is not a “nightclub”. What that episode and the earlier one that elicited my column nine years ago reveal is that when those who make laws for society act in ways that suggest a lack of respect for women, there is a problem.

That precisely is why many women, including those who may habour doubts about Akpoti-Uduaghan’s claim against Akpabio, are angry about the way the Senate has handled the matter. But it is not too late to make amends. The suspension of Akpoti-Uduaghan should be lifted. She should also be availed the opportunity to prove her sexual harassment allegation against Akpabio before the Senate Committee on Ethics. If she cannot provide evidence, Akpabio reserves the right to sue for damages. For any family man, the psychological wound of being falsely accused of sexual offense is deep and it is not something that should be taken lightly. For that reason, I am delighted by the way the IPU President, Ms Tulia Ackson, who is also the Speaker of the Tanzania National Assembly, handled Akpoti-Uduaghan’s allegation. She said they have only heard one side (from Akpoti-Uduaghan) hence would also need to hear the other side (from Akpabio and Nigerian Senate) before they could draw any conclusion. Keeping an open mind is exactly what is required on such an allegation until all sides are heard and the person who asserts can prove.

Meanwhile, my counsel for Akpoti-Udughan is to return home for the new battle ahead. All the white, black and red lions she defeated to get to the Senate have launched a subterranean but well-funded campaign for her recall. However, since the larger issue that has been thrown up is about gender inclusion in Nigeria, let me also conclude with the last paragraph of my 2016 column which still resonates, especially for our lawmakers. It will serve the Senate and also the larger Nigerian society: The recent obsession of some senators with the denigration of a vital segment of our populace indicates something more sinister about the state of our legislature. In a country beset with so many pressing existential issues requiring legislative intervention, it is a negative testimonial that some of our lawmakers can only find relevance in denigrating women. I therefore do not hesitate to say to the unrepentant chauvinists in our midst: Next time you think about Nigerian women, think of your mother and please mind your language!

Adieu Dubem Onyia

It was a sobering moment for us on Monday afternoon at the General Hospital in Maitama, Abuja, as we watched the body of the late former Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Chief Dubem Onyia, being wheeled to the morgue. Only two hours earlier, the Director, Programmes and Administration at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Mrs Vivian Emehelu, had left the office abruptly after receiving the sad news about her father’s passing. So, I joined the Centre’s Director, Partnerships and Development, Amara Nwankpa and Director, Finance, Babatunde Ahmadu, to support Vivian and her family through the initial post-mortem procedures at the hospital. Yesterday, I also joined members of the Centre’s Board led by its chairman, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to visit the bereaved family. Onyia was a very pleasant man with whom I related very well for almost two decades. He was also a strong advocate for peace, cooperation, and African self-determination both at home and abroad. May God comfort the family he left behind.

(Being Prof. Adebayo Okunade’s 70th Birthday Anniversary and Valedictory Lecture Delivered at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, on Wednesday, 12th of March, 2025)

Professor Bayo Okunade has crossed into the seventh bracket; he is now effectively a septuagenarian—that state of hoariness where he joins the gang of the sages who have been given the capacity to connect divinity with humanity in terms of wholeness. Seventy is a weighty number in spiritual and cultural terms. In spiritual terms, seven and ten elevates sacredness in numerical reckoning both for the Israelites, the ancient Egyptians and the Yoruba. Seven indicates perfection and ten signals completeness. Must be the reason why Psalms 90 says “The years of our life are seventy.” This makes seventy years a most notable year that represent fullness—the time of reckoning and deep reflection and appreciation. And yet, for the Yorùbá, in terms of the chronological reckoning as àgbà, àgbàlagbà, arúgbó, we also see why seventy is just another chance at consolidating a life well-spent. 

That he would eventually become a teacher was something that was almost inevitable. Being born to parents who were teachers could not possibly have been rosy for any young child. Teachers, especially those who have strong cultural knowledge about parenting and child upbringing, could only be seen back then as efficient taskmasters. They are those who were already seen as exemplary and who, by the force of societal expectations, also expect their children to take after them exemplarily. So, when he resumed his teaching trajectory at the Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, it was a critical juncture that would not only lay the foundation of his political science teaching and scholarship—he was the Government teacher. It was also the point at which a young, suave and brilliant Government teacher began to enlighten me particularly as a green-eye Aáwé lad about a possible future in political science tutelage. 

This is why, on this occasion, I am celebrating Prof. Okunade’s in terms of the consummation of his stature in the political science scholarship in Nigeria. A brief historical note will serve the purpose of properly situating the significance of Okunade. The emergence of political science in Nigeria was chequered by two significant issues. The first was the colonial administration and its fear of a possible emergence of an ideologically sophisticated student body. The second reason for the delay in the establishment of political science as a discipline was a similar fear by the nationalist elite who suspected that political science will radicalize the Nigerian masses and expose the elite’s standpoint. 

By the time Okunade would be completing his undergraduate and graduate studies, he was already getting drawn into the foundational curriculum and pedagogical issues that would shape the political science teaching orientation and scholarship at Ibadan, and provide the stimulus for redirection. From independence to the Nigerian civil war and the aftermath of military incursion into politics, Nigeria was already going through a flood of postcolonial national issues, replicated across Africa, that demanded that political science needed to be taught differently. Bayo Okunade the student was a witness to these curricular unfolding and growth. And Bayo Okunade the teacher was eminently situated at the preeminent citadel at the University of Ibadan, that was to serve as the bastion of the political science education in Nigeria, as part of a critical mass of change agents who had been saddled with the responsibility of bringing political science theorization to bear on the sociopolitical and national experiences of the postcolonial Nigerian state. 

This scholarly enthusiasm attending the deployment of social science scholarship to the understanding of the Nigerian national experiences is demonstrated in his first set of over fifty publications, from 1985 to 2010, and the legion of others thereafter. These publications range from local government structure, public policy, public bureaucracies and human rights to foreign relations, electoral processes, constitutionalism, democracy and democratization. This entire corpus signals the urgency of mastering the conceptual, intellectual and empirical bases of the symptoms and morbidities of the Nigerian state and its multiple consequences on and for Nigerians. It was inevitable that the Department of Political Science would be at the forefront of the radical discourse on revolutionary possibilities that ensured. For instance, that a staple of our intellectual and academic learning was the Marxian political economy perspectives on the postcolonial frameworks and trajectories of the Nigerian state was inevitable. Dependency and World System theories and its centre-periphery structure made strenuous efforts that provided the basis for a class analysis of the Nigerian society, especially given the capitalist accumulation enabled by colonialism and its deepening by the postcolonial comprador elements. As the radical fervour of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary scholarship started to wane on the rubbles of the collapse of the communist Soviet Union, it became increasingly important that political philosophers, political scientists and other committed scholars began to explore alternative theoretical resources and praxis that could facilitate a critical understanding of the structural, institutional and historical bases of Nigeria’s federal system and its hobbled economic development which had from then till now made national development a mirage. 

This is the critical defining juncture that opens up the fundamental significance of Prof. Okunade’s social constructivist theoretical framework which enabled a formidable research contribution to the body of scholarly knowledge about political engineering as it relates to Nigeria’s sociopolitical dynamics. With Naija Marxism and the Nigerian Left floundering, and the Nigerian federalism in a lopsided constitutional mire, the next best thing on the table was the idea of restructuring. In the absence of the possibility of a revolution, how do we restructure the political structure of the postcolonial Nigerian state that has been hobbling national development, nation-building and democratic governance for more than six decades since independence? Prof. Okunade has not minced words on this issue: it cannot work. According to him, “any system that is not totally off the mark can work. It takes people for a system to work. For a system to work, there has to be consistency with the construed norms and supportive ethos that will make it work. If we change the system, even with restructuring or whatever, how much of what were on ground are we substantially complying with? And then we change to another system. They are the same thing.”

On the contrary, a much more fruitful course of discourse should be on leadership, and how it could be deployed in facilitating the emergence of a well-ordered society in Nigeria. For sixty-four years, it would seem that Nigeria has been locked in a national question that has not produced any significant governance and development answer by which the lives of Nigerians could be transformed. And, to quote Albert Einstein, insanity is precisely to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result. And such a society, for Okunade, would revolve around the critical variables like the rule of law, constitutionalism, human rights and local governance. These requisite institutions and their fundamental ethos make for an efficient public administration that backstop good governance and our idea of a society that functions efficiently for the betterment of the citizens. The responsibility to pull all these variables together in the service of a vision of a society that governs for her citizens rests squarely on the shoulders of a good political leadership. Such a leadership must be, on the one hand, morally and technically good; and on the other, effective in terms of governance programmes and policies. 

Beyond Chinua Achebe’s announcement and analysis of the leadership predicament, Prof. Okunade provided a fundamental iteration of the political leadership as a “big challenge.” This challenge is grounded on a more empirically sophisticated frameworks of the variables involved in bad leadership and the consequences that have kept Nigerians impoverished since independence. And that empirical political analysis has been further demonstrated by the inability of the continent itself to throw up a critical mass of leadership figures that is able to win the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership for four consecutive years. The transformational qualities that the Mo Ibrahim Award requires of the recipient is what Prof. Okunade infuses into his own deep analysis of what leadership requires. The worth of a leadership, as Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson demonstrates, in Why Nations Fail (2012), derives from whether their decision facilitates the emergence of extractive or participatory institutions. The issue is critically about “how decisions actually get made, who gets to make them, and why those people decide to do what they do.” And then, there is the equally fundamental issue of how these decision aggregate in the design and operational function and optimality of public institutions. 

What we see, between Okunade’s concession to political leadership, and Acemoglu and Robinson’s concession to institutionalism, is the agelong discourse on the relationship between agency and structure. Yet, both are caught in an empirical grip of counterexamples that undermine their theses. On the one hand, the authors of Why Nations Fail are hard-pressed to explain why China has kept progressing economically under successive authoritarian regimes (same can be said about Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, as well as other Asian Tigers) while India’s progress might be hard to attribute to its putative democratic leaders. On the other hand, Prof. Okunade’s thesis also need to explain the successes of China and Singapore whose leadership demonstrated governance effectiveness without the accompanying ethical imperative.   

To rehabilitate Prof. Okunade’s theory of leadership out of this quandary requires first that we undermine the intrinsic assumption in Okunade’s theory, about the leader as a change agent with singular capacity to make people do what is needed. This is evident, in Okunade’s inaugural lecture, from his assessment of leadership activities from Tony Blair and George Bush to Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. I think that this understanding of political leadership stifles the significance of the relationship between leadership, social change and infrastructural development. Indeed, it puts a lot of over-extended pressure on a political leader in terms of the expectation of magical transformation by a wave of the leader’s wand that turns poverty to prosperity. We must therefore ask, legitimately, if this understanding of political leadership is sufficient for national transformation. This question is justified when we take cognisance of Nigeria’s unique political sociology and how it throws up compromised leaders who are forced to play bad politics with the commonwealth to hold on to power. There is a one-to-one relationship between this skewed political sociology and the construction of elite nationalism in Nigeria. 

An alternative articulation of the nature and role of leadership can be found in the change space model of leadership. The change space model is meant to facilitate the capability of the institutions and systems of government to encounter and engage changes while factoring in contextual pressures and circumstances. It therefore depends on a distributed and multilevel understanding of leadership that requires, (a) a political leader as the lead change agent, and (b) a critical mass of change agents who can bring abilities/competences, resources and context together in facilitating genuine and transformational change through a problem-solving approach. 

Apart from helping us move away from the idea of a leader as a change agent with a singular capacity, it also proposes the understanding of leadership as what influences the difference between a change that is intended for development, and the one that is actualized through infrastructural development. A change leadership is the one that initiate the change space and motivates it efficiently to achieve desired transformation. With this model, therefore, we have a conceptual framework to make sense of the relationship between “leader” and “leadership” in understanding how the change space through leaders and the leadership dynamics that mobilize people, ideas, resources and infrastructures in order to be able to catalyze change. The leadership is therefore expected to: (a) build coalition for change; (b) assemble a team with sufficient IQ, wisdom and commitment to initiate, implement and deliver the change; and (c) grant required authority, incentive and support, with accountability, to these team of leaders in their own right, so they could achieve optimal productivity, performance and impact, that will deliver the change. 

It would be interesting to see what a change space model of Nigeria’s political trajectory would have yielded if interjected into Prof. Okunade’s analysis of leadership. More worthwhile is what the idea of distributed and multilevel leadership framework could mean for our understanding of impactful politics and national development. This in my assessment of Prof. Okunade’s “big challenge” of the political leadership in Nigeria—a leader who has the capacity to build and motivate a change space populated by different levels of leadership frameworks, political, religious, social, bureaucratic and civil. It is therefore safe to hypothesize that while a leader is a key and critical factor in transforming a state, it does not by itself resolve the myriads of predicaments and problems that bedevil the Nigerian state and society.

To conclude: Prof. Bayo Okunade stands in a continuum of scholarly excellence that has at one end the scholarly genius of Billy Dudley, E. U. Essien-Udom, Peter Ekeh, Bayo Adekanye, John Ayoade, Tunde Adeniran, Busari Adebisi, Larry Ekpebu, Alex Gboyega, Femi Otubanjo, Fred Onyeoziri, Jimi Adisa, Kunle Amuwo, Eghosa Osaghae, Adigun Agbaje, OBC Nwolise, Rotimi Suberu, and the host of other stellar personalities and scholars that lit up the credentials of the Department of Political Science. Prof. Bayo Okunade’s theory of political leadership—a systematic and empirically sophisticated articulation of Chinua Achebe’s diagnosis of the Nigeria problem—unarguably presents a research outline that speaks to the need for more theoretical and practical engagement with the leadership phenomenon in a postcolonial context like Nigeria. I see this as a critical challenge to the political science scholarship in Nigeria; the challenge of articulating theoretically feasible and nuanced understanding of what ails the Nigerian state, her leaders and leadership and her citizens.