Necessary Paradigm Shifts
Transparency and Accountability

In these days of shareholder democracy and activist shareholders, there is a greater demand for accountability from companies. Now, accountability is not only demanded of the financial bottom line, there is now what we call the Triple ‘P’ Bottom Line reporting, which is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental (or ecological) and financial. These three divisions are also called the three Ps: people, planet and profit, or the “three pillars of sustainability”. Interest in triple bottom line accounting has been growing in both for-profit, nonprofit and government sectors. Many organizations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader context. The term was coined by John Elkington in 1994. In traditional business accounting and common usage, the “bottom line” refers to either the “profit” or “loss”, which is usually recorded at the very bottom line on a statement of revenue and expenses. Over the last 50 years, environmentalists and “social justice” advocates have struggled to bring a broader definition of the bottom line into public consciousness by introducing full cost accounting.17 

L-R: Former Chairman, Interim National Government, Chief Ernest Shonekan; former Lagos State Commissioner for Finance, Mr wale Edun; immediate past Governor of Ekiti State/Guest Speaker, Dr Kayode Fayemi; and former Commonwealth Secretary- general and Chairman of occasion, Chief Emeka Anyaoku at the 2015 Akintola Williams Distinguished Lecture held at the Muson Centre, Lagos …on Thursday

As democratization deepens in Nigeria, issues of transparency and accountability have also become even more salient. In 2013, the National Assembly passed the Freedom of Information Act. The FOIA is a significant milestone in our national journey precisely because it signifies the opening up of governance, traditionally seen as the opaque preserve of a few initiates, to greater public scrutiny. Both the 7TH Senate and former President Goodluck Jonathan deserve credit for enacting this breakthrough legislation. During my tenure as governor, Ekiti State was the first to domesticate the FoI law in Nigeria. We should however highlight that till this day only a few states have passed the law and there are still major issues regarding the effectual implementation of the law.

The new administration is however paying more than lip service to the issue of transparency considering that the NNPC for the first time in many years has published details of their earnings. This has always been an issue of acrimony between the federal government and the state governors because of the secrecy that had hitherto characterized the regime of income generation from the oil and gas industry. These are some of the transformational acts that signify a new dawn in the relational dynamic between leaders and those that are led. We can expect that with the President Buhari administration, we will see a renewed emphasis on probity, transparency and playing by the rules by this administration both in the precincts of the private sector and in the public sector.

Paradigm Shifts
Managing Diversity

Managing diversity and ensuring Inclusion is a factor of growth that has become very important to leadership in the business environment and in the public sector. In the world today, every serious organization has a charter that addresses non-discrimination on the basis of gender, age, sex, tribe, religion, physical ability, health status or any other social markers. Some companies even go a step further to ensure a certain percentage of their board and staff is constituted by minorities.

Consequently, it is not at all strange there is a renewed drive in corporations and governments to create more gender-diverse environments. Women constitute 50 percent of the workforce and any system that excludes women actually eliminates 50 percent of productive potential – a disruption that militates against growth and profits. Thus, we need to keep our eyes on the inclusion of more women over the long term through girl child education; access to equal opportunities and affirmative action as a key development factor.

Gender however is not the only area in which we must pursue greater inclusion. Nigeria is a vastly plural society with a population of about 180million making up over 250 distinct ethnic nationalities, spread across an extensive land mass of about 910,770sq.km.18 In the emerging global economic order, our greatest strength ought to be the size and diversity of our population. Sadly, 55 years after independence and over a century since we have been together as a country, we are yet to achieve sustainable peace among our divergent ethnic groups.

In Nigeria the pursuit of equal opportunity is essentially guided by the objective to share the much touted national cake within the context of a political economy based on rentier dynamics. The prebendal conception of public office is a major factor that explains the endemic levels of graft in Nigeria. Rather than harnessing our diversities towards viable national development, we have become slaves to our ethnic origins to which our allegiance is largely focused to the detriment of nation building. Fanatical ethnic consciousness has resulted into ethnic prejudice and mistrust, religious and political problems, and socio-cultural conflicts. These vices have pervaded all spheres of life in Nigeria, be it employment, education, religion and admission into federal Institutions.1919 Dr
 A A. Jekayinfa, “Implications Of Competitive Ethnicity In The Process Of Nation Building In Nigeria” in Nigerian Journal of Social Studies Vol.IV, 2002

In order to achieve sustainable peace and productivity we have to adjust our national psyche by doing away with the thinking that has done nothing but stunt our growth and make us lazy, and start thinking of how to make our diversity and population size work for us. There is a key lesson that contemporary codes of corporate governance holds for public sector leadership as regards leadership recruitment.

Integrity and Competence as Key Factors for Leadership Recruitment

In the public sector, the pursuit of equal opportunity in the form of a representative bureaucracy has been conducted in such a way that it has negated merit as a factor in recruitment. In many cases recruitment parameters are circumscribed almost entirely by questions of identity i.e. the ethnicity, state of origin or religion of the prospective public servant. One of the main reasons for the gulf between policy conception and execution is the scant attention paid to the proficiency and integrity of the people who are actually charged with executing.

This is in sharp contrast to the widely practiced corporate governance principles in the private sector that prescribes rigorous recruitment procedures in ensuring only the most qualified in character and competence are employed. Career progression is also conducted in the same spirit as the performances of candidates for promotion are judged against pre-agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Public sector leaders need to take this cue and enhance capacity in the institutions they lead. Given the problems of our society, the stakes involved in meeting development targets could not be higher – sadly, the fact is that many public sector organisations simply lack the institutional capacity to execute and pursue their developmental goals.

Our onerous development challenges are not for want of brilliant policies and programmes or even dedicated leadership. The dilemma therefore for political leaders is that it is not even enough to have great ideas and programmes that will help the people. We must develop the delivery capacity within the service that takes a proposal and translates from a bright idea into a truly tangibly transformative policy with material consequences.

The nature of recruitments into our public services is of paramount importance. Only a public service populated and led by our best and brightest can justly and efficiently provide the public goods such as education, healthcare and housing that will achieve the developmental aspirations of our people. Only such a meritocratic system can deliver excellence.

Revitalizing public service goes beyond issues of working conditions and morale. These are, of course, important but they are only a tip of the iceberg. The real key is to restore a missionary sense of purpose to the public service; to get civil servants to see their work in sacramental terms at the altar of a transcendent purpose.