Mr President, this reflection on governance is motivated by Babachir’s remarks on how leadership, more precisely, the President, is caged by a small cabal of security personnel and aides. His comments in an interview with Trust Television are worthy of a quote: as he puts it, “Once you become president, on the day of inauguration, they collect your phones. They collect their phones and bring all sorts of reasons.

They’ll tell you somebody can bomb you through phones; they get all sorts of reasons to cage you in, and these people that have caged you, they’re the people that will give access to the people that are well-meaning. If they don’t give you access, what do you do?”

It should be recalled that Babachir David Lawal was the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation from 2015 to 2017 and is now the chairman of the Northern Political Consultative Group. This syndrome or outlandish behaviour, in his informed opinion, as someone who was at the centre of the federal authority, contributes to poor leadership outputs.

the circumstance, the leadership is left without robust information to work with. Many leaders globally have been victims of insularity created by a cabal of self-serving, overzealous, and sycophantic aides in the corridors of power, to the detriment of qualitative leadership.

Some loved it and permitted aides to commercialise access to them, and therefore were grossly abused. Unfortunately, these aides, largely ignorant and devoid of critical thinking, have nothing to offer in the realm of policy. Out of insecurity, they shied leaders away from redemptive counsels.

To corroborate Babachir’s important exposition, I shall relate here aspects of my participation in the last Edo State gubernatorial election process. When my team and I want to intervene in the governance of Edo, we had envisaged a performing exemplary state and a performing centre. We even thought that if the centre faltered, Edo as an oasis of performance would redeem the governance profile of the country.

Although I was not a stranger to Mr President, I sought the assistance of Chief Ayo Opadokun, an old warhorse and respected member of the pro-democracy movement in our country, to reach out to the President so that he would know I was in the race to Osadebey House, as the state house in Edo state is called.

Chief Ayo, who had not seen the president for a long while, decided, upon my prodding, to meet with the newly sworn-in president who was in Lagos on Sallah holidays in late June 2023.

He met the president at his Ikoyi home in Lagos, where he congratulated him on his election and proposed another meeting two days later. The second meeting in which the Chief was to broach the issue of my leadership contest in Edo was truncated by the visit of the Guinea-Bissauan President, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, who was the Chairman of ECOWAS. He kept the appointment but was told Mr President was resting.

During the first meeting, the president had told Chief Opadokun that it was impossible to contact him because his phone would no longer be handy. For that reason, he should call either his ADC or the Chief of Staff. After the president left Lagos for Abuja, Chief Opadokun sought to meet with the president through the Chief of Staff. We travelled to Abuja about three times for that purpose and acted as the president had instructed Chief Opadokun. The Chief of Staff on each of the occasions returned an answer of the president’s indisposition.

It was a time when people were lobbying for ministerial positions. All the efforts we made failed. I hope the Chief of Staff did not have the impression that Chief Opadokun was looking for a Job.

So Babachir is right on point. It should be stressed that it is a weakness if the leadership is unable to take decisive steps when it comes to consultation with well-meaning citizens who could help solve the problems of the country.

Mr President, this is partly your dilemma. In situations like this, all that is required is political will. Insularity from the governed is a crime in leadership. Know this, Mr President, that when leaders are cut off from reality, there is no way they can govern well. Instead, they become delusional, they stray and fail woefully.

But let me say that security matters. When instrumentalised to insulate the president from objective reality, it becomes a problem and extremely counterproductive. William Shakespeare once noted in Julius Caesar that security gives way to conspiracy. Mr President, also remember Captain Thomas Sankara, the late revered Head of State of Burkina Faso. On his security, he had this to say: “The way to be safe is never to be secure…The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come…Government’s first duty and highest obligation is public safety.”

God bless Nigeria.

Professor Akhaine lectures at the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University.