In my domain of ungovernable irreverence, a politician is defined as someone with no visible means of livelihood!
The archetypal Nigerian politician may start out as a political thug with no proper address and badly concocted bona-fides that only a drunken comedian can mouth on stage.
Before one can say “Dividends of Democracy”, the wannabe bloke suddenly transforms to a councillor in a dingy local government area where anything goes.
In the political war theatre he then gets betrothed to the godfather of the area who ensures that he becomes the local government chairman.
It does not matter if local government autonomy is ballyhooed on high or not when he already belongs to the cabal that ensures that governmental funds are attached to his pockets with glue.
The next port of call becomes being a governor or minister or senator or even president – and anybody that dares to question his credentials is promptly advised thusly: “Go to court!”
There is no life outside power for the Nigerian politician for he hardly ever leaves behind an institute or a programme of action or any legacy whatsoever.
The former two-term Governor of Ekiti State, Dr John Kayode Fayemi (JKF), is different.
Now that his erstwhile colleagues are counting their retirement benefits in the senate or within opulent quarters in Abuja as eternal godfathers, Kayode Fayemi is forging ahead with bequeathing Nigeria, and indeed al of Africa, with a direly needed institute on leadership and policy-making.
Fayemi came into politics as a well-schooled social crusader, and he is now returning to familiar quarters with the setting up of the Amandla Institute for Leadership and Policy Advancement, a pan-African Organisation.
The institute, with headquarters in Abuja, was “formally established as a registered not-for-profit entity in 2024 after a period of consultations with various actors in African governance, development, democracy, and security on the gaps which such an organisation might fill in the ongoing quest for the Africa we want.”
Fayemi has also authored a new book that will be presented in Abuja on Thursday, February 6 as part of the launch of the new policy institute.
Amandla, for the benefit of those who may not know, translates to “Power” in the language of the Xhosa and Zulu of South Africa.
The Fayemi-powered Amandla Institute for Leadership and Policy Advancement will proffer the requisite grounding for giving power to the people in the true democratic sense.
The Amandla Institute makes the bold proclamation: “We are sending out a clear message that by our own collective efforts and energies, and through our very own agency, we shall reclaim the place of Africa in the world as a pole of transformation and a beacon of hope for humankind.”
It stands upfront for the facilitators of the institute that “forward progress demands advanced leadership.”
Many leaders of thought across the world have had a lot to say about Africa and leadership, or lack thereof, with the novelist Chinua Achebe stating in his book The Trouble with Nigeria: “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.”
The measure of Fayemi’s commitment to the cause compels the Amandla Institute for Leadership and Policy Advancement to undertake a three-pronged address to the issue of what makes African leadership and policy advancement urgent.
In the first instance, “Africa, more than any region of the world, has borne the worst consequences of the making of the modern international system”, secondly, “Successive leadership and policy underperformance has not helped matters”, and finally, “It is time for leadership and policy action at the highest level. Amandla Institute is determined to play that part.”
In its drive to offer a fresh approach, Amandla Institute will produce policy reports, convene high level policy dialogues, organise various leadership salons, promote intergenerational conversations, offer training and mentorship opportunities, and issue publications on topical issues relevant to the leadership-policy interface in Africa.
The founders of the Amandla Institute are the dynamic duo, in my book, Nigeria’s greatest political couple of the age, Dr Kayode Fayemi and Ms Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi.
They are ably being supported by a Board of Trustees, a Governing Board and a Management and Programme Team.
Kayode Fayemi, CON, is of course a Nigerian household name having served as Ekiti State Governor, former Chairperson of the Nigeria Governors Forum, and former Minister of the Federal Republic. Popularly hailed as JKF, he is presently the President of the pan-African forum of sub-national leaders known as the Forum of Regions of Africa (FORAF) and holds a PhD in War Studies from King’s College in the UK where he is also presently a Visiting Professor.
Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi who has a BA and MA from the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), and also an MA in Gender and Society from Middlesex University, UK, is a Gender and Development Practitioner Feminist Activist, Policy Advocate, Leadership Coach, Philanthropist, Image Management Specialist and Writer. She was a resourceful First Lady and serves on the board of the African Women’s Leadership Network, African Women’s Development Fund, and is a member of the Wormer’s Leadership Board at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The February 6 launch of the Amandla Institute for Leadership and Policy Advancement and presentation of Kayode Fayemi’s new book, If This Giant Must Rise, will also feature a commemorative symposium with the theme “Renewing the Pan-African Ideal for the Changing Times: The Policy and Leadership Challenges and Opportunities”.
Kayode Fayemi is that one politician for me who stands as a reason to believe because he unlike others transcends mere power-holding and involves himself in the grander issues of making principled leadership and policy happen.
China was once a Sleeping Giant which made Napoleon Bonaparte to utter the famous quip: “Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.”
Nigeria is now the Sleeping Giant of Africa and it is incumbent on Kayode Fayemi, through his Amandla Institute, to wake the nation up.