Tope Fasua: DON'T I DESERVE A BREATHER?

DON’T I DESERVE A BREATHER?

There is an unbelievable level of naivety among young Nigerians. And the smart goons amongst ‘us’ have begun to ride on that naivety and shallow thinking just like the bad old guys keep doing. Nigerians are vulnerable to superstardom; we get carried away easily by fame and fortune.  And just like our forebears, we always need something to worship. And this pathology plays into the Machiavellian bent of our successive leaders. For with that kind of mindset, it is easy to subjugate an entire peoples and continue to position yourself as god-sent, or God’s own representative on earth. Anyone who tries to let us out of that mindset is likely to face backlash and be heartbroken. But for a leader, the earlier you learn, the better.  This will allow you build resilience to do the right thing, in spite of your followers. A great definition of a leader is that he/she is someone who takes his followers to a better place, even if they are kicking and screaming. Because leadership is a VISION, and vision, is scarce.

Tope  Fasua

As written in Machiavelli’s The Prince, people/Nigerians seem to seek for themselves, total incapacitation and destruction, given the choices they make. Machiavelli had advised the Prince, that people loved a leader they feared, and take for granted the ones that were benevolent and kind.  He also advised that in subjugating and incapacitating subjects, it was important to approach the process with finality. Break their hands and their legs. Destroy their mouths so that they cannot speak or even express in any way what happened to them.   Leave them in a vegetative state such that even their offsprings cannot come after you or your offsprings.  Let them run back to you for every need. Nigeria’s leaders have so far mastered the Machiavellian way so perfectly and the result is 84million extremely poor people out of a population of 180million, or 15million children out of school, as well as the ease with which people throw away their lives for gala, N1,000, garri, a bow of rice and whatnot. Playing the anti-Machiavelli in this clime is an uphill task; the odds of success and happiness is pretty slim

I have always said that we don’t need more politicians in Nigeria. We already have them aplenty; those who know how to say nice things and present a great facade; those who know how to deceive a people and paint rosy pictures where there are no flowers in sight. Nigeria is however terribly short of leaders. However anyone who will step up for leadership roles must be careful because Nigerians want what they want, and don’t care a hoot about what they need. It has become normal for millions of Nigerians to live the way they live, crawling out from gutters in the thousands of slums they call home each morning, complaining about the same things and the same people, yet rooting for the same oppressors to continue their oppression.  We need leaders who will change this narrative once and for all. It will take a revolution to get it done. No less. A revolution of the mind and intellect. A revolution that ushers in a new way of thinking.

Now let me bring my humble self into the discussion.

We often forget to take stock of milestones. Being someone who has never celebrated a birthday in my life, and someone who fears unnecessary fawning and attention, I am perhaps the chief culprit in under-documenting issues around my activities. My life has always been about service and sacrifice. Indeed it is often about taking risks - for the collective - where everyone seems to shy away. When I worked in a bank way back, I was always the one eager to speak to difficult customers and calm them down. After I left banking, I was never afraid of opening a business venture or another where others fear failure. Of course, one would succeed in some and fail in others. I have always known that failure was a part of success. I think little of ‘what people will say’ if I failed, and just did what needed to be done. I am not given to complaining about situations for long. I just get up and act to correct situations. It was for this reason that I agitated to leave the operations back office as a banker and get in the forefront - in marketing - where people made the money for the bank. I’ve never been comfortable with sitting somewhere while expecting someone else to earn you a living. I try to put in EVERYTHING I have into any project I get involved in. No half-ways. No messing around. I believe that I’m a good player to have in a team that wishes to succeed, even though I don’t love playing midfield roles for long. I love to get the goals. I love to strive to win, even if I eventually don’t.

My upbringing was not easy. Well it could have been until Nigeria dealt a blow on the old man’s business and things went really down south. At some point as a teenager we found it tough to eat a meal a day. Garri was a big luxury. The main meal for a day could be dried corn boiled with wooden fire for hours and somehow stewed up. Ajebutter became Ajepaki. And even at that young age, I felt the poor old man could have spent less time praying about the situation and hustling, diversifying and being valiant at something new. I was always the hard worker though. I never refused work. I did stuff so happily. I was honest to a fault. I don’t know how to lie. I would most likely be caught out. This was how I went to university where even though I almost dropped out on a number of occasions due to finance (imagine having financial issues in a state owned public university), I still came out with the best result in the entire school in my year - 1991. Other details will be spared for now, but I remember roommates singing mockingly about how I was from a poor home. There is this Sunny Ade’s song about ‘omo alailowo d’omo olomo’, meaning if your parents had no money you can become someone else’s child, or someone else’s wife and so on.

My career life has been one of straightforwardness. I have put in all I can. I hate getting paid and not fulfilling my side of the bargain. In my first 3 years as a bank worker, I was usually the first guy to get to work. I opened the bank doors and closed as late as 9 or 10pm everyday.  It was nothing to me. Saturday work was a constant.

I knew I didn’t fancy being a bank MD and so logged off once I went for my Masters in UK in 2005. I have run my organization(s) ever since, seen the ups and downs. I have recruited and lost great staff. I have learnt about life. I have dealt with the Nigerian public service in the main. I have won and lost jobs. I have been cheated, I have been had. And on a few lucky occasions, I have also been favoured. I have been antagonized by my own ‘brothers’, only to be assisted in great measure, by those you would consider as foreigners; a Mallam from the core north, a Muslim, an Igbo atheist. Once in a while a ‘brother’ of yours shows up and is ready to do anything for you. With my experience therefore, I could never discriminate against anyone. I have learnt to keep an open mind.

It is this hardboiled state of mind that propelled me to go ahead and form a political party.

I had seen it all. I felt this should be the next level if all my social justice advocacies would not come to naught. I’d interacted enough with the Nigerian civil service than to be intimidated or afraid. I stepped up to INEC. It turned out to be a lot easier than many business I had chased and lost in the past. I recall being shocked at the number of very old people seeking new political party license on my first visit to INEC for that purpose.  I wondered why I hadn’t thought about this move for a long time.

Since that day I have gradually put in my all. My time, my little money, my energy, my thinking, my organizing skills, my assets, my goodwill, my contacts, my reputation, my family, my everything into ANRP. I have also learnt a lot more about human beings especially when power is involved.

I have lost businesses that I could have had. I have dedicated time to ANRP at the expense of my family. I have liquidated two investments and sold one property, all to keep growing the party. I have sacrificed material things that I couldn’t even let my family know. I have given my all. I have recruited those I know, begged some, cajoled others. I have spent time managing egos, and crisis, and clashes of personalities. I have lost a car engine, and several tires on my way to and fro Nigerian states trying to build the party and consensus around it. I have spent untold amounts, unaccounted, when people come to me for one thing or another. I have loaned people amounts which they never return. I have given concessions where needed, in the interest of progress, not only for the party but in order to try and save Nigeria when the time comes, and at the slightest opportunity we had. I have thus deprived myself, my wife and my children, the usual luxuries which middle class people take for granted. I have sometimes used my children’s school fees to finance one urgent thing or the other on behalf of ANRP. I have been called by chapters in almost every state and asked to donate for one project or another - a new office, a state congress, one concern or another - and I have always had to oblige. I have spent nights being afraid of what can become of my family if I am ‘taken out’. I have feared that the same fate of ‘ajebutter to ajekpaki’ may befall them. I have been exposed to the elements - to danger, to plotters, to backstabbers. I have feared if I or my children or wife should be kidnapped where will I find then ransom? I have feared if I or someone close to me should develop a debilitating disease where will I start from?  The little investments I have, I have liquidated. Yet they think I’m enjoying and I should continue along this track.

I am a private sector person. I have been spending my sweat and shrinking opportunities on this project.

And when I wished to at least exhale, to look at myself in the mirror and take a break, what I hear from some, is “why?, why you? Why must it be you? Why do you deserve to exhale? Why must you breathe? You should hang on and suffer some more”.

People readily look beyond strategy and longterm planning, and beyond past sacrifices, and concentrate on the immediate. Why him? Is he not being greedy? Greedy??? Greedily spending my money and creating structures that has now given everyone a voice? Perhaps some think it’s the donation they have made that I have been spending or that has lifted the party to this point. sure, every little helps, but people should remember that I personally ensured that no executive member can make a dime off this party for now. We prepare our accounts twice every month. I mean TWICE! If anyone was a member and not a long-distant, cynical chance observer, they would have seen that we have taken great pains to include our people. We have been anti-Machievellian indeed. We believe in the dignity of man no matter what some of the sages said.

But such is human nature; hand over your own head on a platter and they shall demand for more. Indeed the challenge of leadership is that no leader goes down as ‘good’, especially in a society such as ours. At best you get a split opinion, if you’re lucky not to be hounded out of the leadership position. There is a reason why Nigeria remains so backward. Anyone aspiring to the position of leadership - especially Nigeria’s presidency - should know that. As the ONLY current presidential aspirant who built a party from scratch, assembled as many as he can, maintained an unprecedented level of transparency, it seems I will be more experienced than most others. In spite of provisions in our constitution permitting I or any exco to compete in general elections, as a way of showing quick visibility to voters, some believe I should just resign. Yes, they cannot wait to see my back but all I need as party chairman is actually a single term, which is running already. I have declared my aspiration. I will soon gladly proceed on a LEAVE OF ABSENCE to enable me plan and compete well with the behemoths on the scene. I am insistent that only our ideas will set us apart this time.

And so when asked to remain chairman or resign this is what I hear:

Keep on spending your personal saving for us
Keep on endangering your life and being confined to obscurity for us
No, you don’t deserve a rest. You don’t deserve even the limelight of ideas
You cannot get the opportunity to simply express yourself in spite of all you have done
Your earlier expressions - since November 2016, and also in December 2016 amount to nothing
You have been enjoying yourself as national chairman and your work is not appreciated
The party does not need to mainstream its best ideas at the level of presidency. We can wait till 2023. Meaning that such people are so naive they expect to win positions at first try. We must try try and try and keep learning

And so I will invite you all to a virtual control room; my mind. Let us look at the dashboard of ANRP and consider what is more important. We are here balancing a weak argument on ‘morality’ (which boils down to ‘we just don’t want to see your face as a presidential aspirant even if it’s your money you have been spending and will spend some more’) against several other imperatives for the party. I answered one faceless person on Facebook as follows:

“I was voted in at congress. I cannot resign except those who voted me in say so ... at the next congress when my term is over. My chairmanship is not a chairmanship of benefits but sacrifice. Yes there is morality. But against morality we have stacked; LEGALITY (our constitution which is our compass does not require that these first excos - at least -resign BEFORE vying for position but only IF THEY WIN), PRAGMATISM (our excos at all levels - Federal, State and Local Government and Ward - are the BEST suited to run for elective position now because they are the ones who have sacrificed all they have and also understand the party in full and what we hope to achieve. We cannot hound them all out of office and bring in those who don’t care about the party. We also cannot preclude them from contesting and go look for total strangers to contest the elections we have been striving so hard for so long for), REASONABILITY (that there is no time on our hands to do the right thing and that we must start NOW even if we have to fail. so there is no point waiting for 2023 to do what must be done today), EQUITY ( that we in exco — at all levels - have not been paid a dime but this project has sucked our life savings so why should we vacate and leave the space for those who know nothing about our pains? let them come into the party and struggle and pay their dues and compete and debate with us if they are up to the task), lastly LEADERSHIP...(that I am doing this in order to give confidence to all our excos at any level, that they should be confident to step forward because we are DOERS and not TALKERS, we are not professional PAPER-PUSHERS or BUREAUCRATS being asked to sit down, shut up and use their own hard-earned money to ‘build the party’… but a bunch of REVOLUTIONARIES who are ready to step up to the plate because rescuing power is war! Let me throw in PRECEDENCE (that when they formed AG/NPC/NCNC/PRP/UPN/NPN etc, their excos were also the ones who went for offices, and that Gani Fawehinmi (a man of global repute and respect who understood the URGENCY OF NOW and beside whom I’ll be lucky to be counted) also contested as president in the party he formed, just as well as Okotie and many others).

I rest my case.