By Iyorwuese Hagher
I am writing this unauthorized, not requested, but badly needed authoritative testimonial of His Excellency the SGF, Senator George Akume KSJI, CON on his 71st birthday. All public officials need this form of public attestation from senior colleagues and experts in leadership and governance.
I seek to provide a broad-stroke canvas picture of a man whose meteoric rise to the apex of Nigeria’s top leadership is still a tantalizing puzzle. In reaction to his appointment as SGF, many who would have been, or should have been, SGF considered Akume an undeserving appointment. Many have been blind-sighted to President Tinubu’s master stroke strategic appointment of George Akume as SGF, a phenomenal national strategic critical asset.
If the President had sent me as many names from North Central Zone to evaluate, vet, and recommend who should be appointed as the country’s Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), I would have put George Akume at the top of the list without hesitation.
Twenty-one years ago in 2003, I declared Akume an extraordinary leader and politician on the 27th of December at George Akume’s 50th birthday celebration public lecture event when he asked me to be the Special guest speaker at the IBB Square in Makurdi. It was after his inaugural as second-term governor of Benue state. It was the bitterest political battle of Akume’s life as many Hegemons, God-fathers, Satraps, and Warlords congregated to end his political career and make him a one-term governor. They must have seen his bright future in their fasting and prayers or witches’ covens. I was Chairman and Director General of the team that elected him. I declared that his second term inaugural was more than a re-launch of another term, but the Birth of National Greatness, which Benue State owed Nigeria through one of us – George Akume.
I said, “As one of us, Governor Akume, has brought a new face to politics and a new definition to that much-maligned word, politician. No longer shall we define a politician as a human who is untrustworthy, selfish, self-seeking, and arrogant and who steals from the public for his upliftment. Thanks to George Akume, we can now define a politician as having a humble human face, integrity, selflessness, public spirit, empathy, and generosity.”
The emergence of the SGF, George Akume, as a significant Nigerian leader and a key ruling party member has become a reality and self-evident truth. Like all truths, he was ridiculed and violently opposed by individuals and segments of society who could not accept that such a great leader could be one with such humble endowments. The truth is inevitable: A great favor has been done to the SGF, George Akume, and us.
I hereby assent my authority to this testimonial based on my insights and personal experience, which is unbound by traditional or external constraints. I have no desire nor wish to benefit from this writing nor engage in fisticuffs.
THE MAKING OF GEORGE AKUME
Let us meet the graduate of BSc in sociology and MSc in Industrial Relations at the University of Ibadan. He had a nineteen-year civil service career in Benue from 1979. Then, amazingly, in mid-career, as State Director of Protocol of the Military, Governor Col. Kama, in 1999, Akume was nominated and elected governor of Benue State at the age of 45.
George Akume is a voracious reader who has allowed his reading of various sociology and industrial relations texts to affect his leadership attributes and character. As a sociologist, he comprehensively understands society and has the analytical mind to identify and analyze social problems. During his first term, the Governor, Cabinet, and his close friends studied Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power. He tried to unofficially implement some segments as the ideological basis of governance. But he later repudiated this evil book, which promotes hate and competition instead of love, empathy, and cooperation.
George Akume has never been out of power since 1979. Indeed, He has never been without an official political or bureaucratic office since graduation. He never joined politics because of a failed ambition to require food to eat. He has been a two-term Governor, a three-term Senator, and a one-term Minister. Like his friend, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Akume has installed three successive Governors.
In his eight years as Governor, Akume learned that political opponents are not necessarily enemies to be feared or hated. He realized that Meaghan Winter, the US author, was proper, after all, that “All Politics Was Local.” This is why no politician in Nigeria has cultivated a more passionate home base like Akume, starting with his Jugu Dajo extended family and moving through the Mbakol and Jemgbagh clan—Tiv-Benue—to Northern Nigeria.
I was deeply shocked during my consultation with several Northern leaders when I was an aspirant for the 2015 Presidential elections on the platform of the SDP. Several notable Northern Elder politicians told me I had little chance of getting nominated talk less of winning coming from the North Central Zone. But Hon. Isaac Shaahu, former leader of opposition in the Northern Assembly in the First Republic, and Hon. Alhaji Zangon Daura, former Hon. Minister in the Second Republic, were more blatant. They smiled in my face and said I was an excellent material. Still, George Akume would have been a better candidate. I was huffed up because the same George Akume had told me he wasn’t interested in running for President. Ask him a thousand times today, and he will tell you he is not interested in running for President. There is something charismatic and appealing in his persona. Maybe it is the grace of God, after all.
Akume means what he says. He is coherent and believable. Today, Akume’s mantra is that Nigerians should stand on the hallowed rotation of the Presidency between the North and South, with each part having a term limit of eight years. He is believable and convincing. This was his stance against term elongation by the Obasanjo Presidency. He led other Governors and legislatures to scutter this risky third-term experiment into demagoguery. Today, he is rooting for President Bola Tinubu’s second term. Akume and his principal have a lot of work to do before Uhuru.
The most significant influence on Akume has been the late Senator Tarka, the Minority leader who led the PDP to victory in Nigeria in 1979. Even though Akume never met Tarka in real life in the political field, his mind is seared with the anecdotal wisdom of Tarka, which was delivered to him by elders like Isaac Shaahu and my friend Mr. Simon Shango. Akume, like his late relative J.S. Tarka, whose political mantle Akume took a double portion, is not afraid to fight for just causes of social justice and equality, as well as for the downtrodden.
A MANTLE WITHOUT BLEMISH
Despite a lifelong preoccupation with politics at the highest level in Nigeria, the Akume political palace is almost scandal-free, unlike other national elites whose political careers are marked by stories of physical, moral, financial, relational, and immoral scandals. Akume has valued glory, honor, and integrity more than bank accounts and overblown egos exhibited in expensive convoys of politicians who are in politics for riches, power-grabbing, and global tourism and exercise their natural inclinations for evil.
Having a non-blemished record has its challenges. Twenty years ago, I noticed his seeming reluctance to proceed at a fast pace. Politicians and businesspeople who see his office as the place to get rich quickly readily accuse George Akume of being too slow and, in fact, lazy. Akume laughs at this criticism and points to too many dead frogs on the highways who failed to heed and wait for the right time to jump across incoming traffic. Akume’s virtues, especially his careful disposition to do the right thing at the right time, are one of the reasons pretenders to be SGFs demand his removal, as they might make haste to use the office to acquire riches for themselves and their families. Akume, in their opinion, is simply wasting critical time when they should be converting the SGF office for rent-taking.
AKUME’S LEADERSHIP ASSETS
Among George Akume’s leadership assets is his generosity. He is essentially quintessentially the politician’s politician. As early as 6 am, Akume opens the doors to his residence to the public. By seven o’clock, the main living room floors are filled with people flocking to see the SGF. His living rooms are the best places for political networking. You don’t need an appointment to see Akume. A hot breakfast awaits you whether you see him or hear he has already left for the office in a hurry. If you wish to stay for lunch, you are welcome. Food prepared in Akume residence is without end.
You will meet a horde of his admirers and followers in the courtyard. They, too, must be fed and transported, and their needs are taken care of by the SGF. Yet Akume does not own any known businesses, nor has he been on the record for those who stole state funds. He survives from day to day by grace. Like Tarka, or even Paul Unongo. Tiv politicians carry the poverty of their homeland. They live by other people’s generosity. Like the above Tiv predecessors, Akume is overgenerous, has empathy, sympathy, integrity, and is visionary. He is courageous and fears nothing unless he makes mistakes and apologizes. Akume lives an authentic life. He treats people with kindness and respect. Akume is a good leader. He is highly relational and generous with his resources and time.
THE AKUME LEADERSHIP CONUNDRUM.
This refers to the paradoxical situation in which Akume made people governors, ministers, and other high-ranking government officials due to his ability to empower people. This relationship between Akume and his proteges, whom he raised to high positions but who turned against him and became rivals, is an interesting phenomenon that has been replicated in many states in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. The situation raises questions about the complexities of leadership, power dynamics, maintaining relationships, and trust among politicians, hence the conundrum.
AKUME AS STRATEGIC COMMUNICATOR.
Akume is a forceful speaker. His ebullient personality, sartorial elegance in a flowing gown, and careful choice of words in measured cadences make him President Tinubus’s effective public relations and voice to the Nigerian public. He knows when to plead when to make a point, and when to get mad. And he does get angry and harangues. And when he is complemented by the loquacious, audacious, unapologetic, and eloquent polyglot, Senator Jack Tilley Gyado, the rostrum is on fire. His ferocious temper tantrums are Akume’s way of holding his followers accountable, in check and sanctioning. There are other reasons, too. Akume is known to be too kind and does not know when and how to say no to requests. This is why he resorts to Drama. Akume and his principal, Bola Tinibu, are the best political dramatists in Nigeria today. While Akume’s drama is verbal, almost like Trump’s, Tinubu is non-verbal, like Reagan’s.
The last presidential elections were lost and won because Tinubu courted sympathy and pity during his campaign of one with one foot in the grave. Still, soon after being sworn in as president, the Lion manifested in him. Akume’s recent assignment in Benue had his opponents scampering for shelter from Akume’s fiery rhetoric. Nobody withstands his fiery logic and clarity in the deliberate choice of words in Tiv and English. Akume gives his opponents the spread of fingers insults at his most ferocious. They attack him back as a drunkard. A claim that Akume takes in his stride and laughs and dances. In the 2015 election, Akume danced to the song his opponents made about him, laughed, and danced, calling himself a “drunkard.” He is a political leader who refuses to hold grudges or enemies and has a healthy knack for laughing at himself, which enables him to defuse tense situations.
CONCLUSION
On Thursday, Dec. 5, Professor Leonard Karshima Shilgba made a social media posting asking, “Where are Senator Akume’s men? And why have the Tiv intellectuals gone silent recently in a season of advertised political tension involving Senator Akume, Governor Alia, Chief Gemade, and other politicians in Tiv land?
I am unsure if I answered Prof. Shilgba by bringing Senator Akume to my analytical focus. I am not sure I have dwelt enough on the Akume Conundrum.
I would love to disprove Chinua Achebe that the problem with Nigeria rests squarely on the inability of Nigerian leaders to exercise responsible leadership. In my 35 years as a full professor and 25 years as a teacher of leadership, the biggest problem in Nigeria is the sheer ignorance of the followership of their responsibility to hold the leaders accountable. Nigerian thinkers and politicians must reimagine our republican democracy and revise our political practices, recognizing that we, the elite, are part of the problem. We need to change our mindset fundamentally. As followers, we have not represented ourselves well. We are primarily isolated bystanders and diehards when we should be participants and activists.
In her excellent book Followers, Kellerman, a Harvard professor of public leadership, warns all those who ignore that the Followers are today more important than the so-called leaders that they do so at their peril. Evil followers are enablers of corruption and tribalism.
Finally, I wish George Akume and his family a happy Birthday. I look forward to the return of peace in Benue and Sankara, especially when Akume and his proteges, who have gone rogue, can meet in a convivial atmosphere devoid of drama to chart a path to peace in Benue State and Nigeria.
Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher OON
DAYTON OHIO
Second Republic politician and Senator who studied under the feet of the late Revolutionary J.S. Tarka and Aper Aku, the minority Rights Crusader. Prof. Hagher is President of Africa Leadership Institute, an Independent, US-Afro-centric Think tank. He was Nigeria’s Minister, Ambassador Extraordinaire, and plenipotentiary to Mexico and Canada. He is also a playwright, poet, award-winning novelist, and member of PEN America.
