Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State, last week demonstrated a rare quality not identified with today’s crop of leaders, when he sent an apology to his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom, over a comment he made regarding the recent attack by suspected herdsmen in Benue.
Governor Lalong was at the Aso Rock villa to see President Muhammadu Buhari over the attacks in Benue and to brief the President on the measures he is taking to ensure such unfortunate incidence does not occur in his state.
But as he was going out of the villa and as is usual with the State House Press Corps he was ambushed with questions and he answered each of the seven to the satisfaction of the press but while answering the question on whether he had advised his counterpart in Benue on how he succeeded in bringing peace to Plateau, said he told the Benue State governor that it was better to put certain things in place before introducing ranching.
This is an excerpt of what transpired:
Question: So what’s the secret to the relative peace you are enjoying in the state?
Answer: I have said it a number of times, it is a matter of accommodating interests; you take everybody as your own. In Plateau state, I did that because when I came, I inherited a protracted crisis in the state. And so my first priority was how to handle this crisis and ensure we have peace in Plateau State. Within three months, we were able to achieve peace in Plateau State..
Let me also say that Plateau was one of those that embraced ranching. I had a lot of opposition initially when I said Plateau was keying into ranching. Some states said they don’t have land but I said whether I have land or not, we have to provide land for ranching, because that I see as solution to the conflicts. In Plateau, we have gone far, we have donated land voluntarily, many people donated land for ranching.
Last year, I sent a 12-man team to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, they spent almost a week there to study and the team was headed by former Vice Chancellor of University of Jos, Professor Onazi. We went round all the communities in Plateau, it took three months and Plateau people, including the Fulanis accepted that we must embrace ranching.
Ranching as a concept is a policy and there are states realizing the importance of the policy. I cannot wake up like some people said last year that I should go and do anti-grazing law. And I asked: anti-grazing law for what? We are talking about ranching, we are talking about development of livestock business and I cannot use the word anti to start driving people who are interested. It is for those who are interested to come and get involved in it.
Secondly, I can’t implement anti-grazing law. There are levels of implementation which will require government intervention, provision of ranchers. And thirdly, when you are talking of ranching, it is a component of agriculture business, you will also require subsidy. Subsidy must come from federal and state governments. And by the time we develop it and put every structure on ground, then we can bring laws to regulate the implementation. So I don’t want to jump one step before the other.
Question: So why did you not advise your colleagues about this?
Answer: To be honest with you, I did. I told the Governor of Benue when he was doing the law; I said look, why don’t you tread softly, just be careful, take other steps before you start implementation. But you see, states are different, his own concepts are different and for us on the Plateau is different. I said I will not do the law before implementation. I have not developed the ranching areas, so I cannot go and say I will put a law, to stop who? If I stop the people, what is the alternative?
The press reported the next day that the Plateau State governor said he WARNED (emphasis mine) his Benue state colleague on passing an anti-grazing law.
Though the governor had sufficient ground based on this to stick to his opinion as his views were clearly misrepresented, he did no such thing. Even after many, including Alhaji Sani Mu’azu, a renowned medical practitioner have commended him for toeing the path of peace and many others have even advised the Benue State governor to borrow a leaf from Lalong, the latter chose not to prolong the issue and showed rare humility; he apologised.
Lalong must have reasoned that if one word was all it would take to allow the hoopla, tension, threats and name calling die down, then it was not too much for him to offer in order not to add to the tension in the country by generating unnecessary conflict between the people and government of Benue and Pleatu States.
To show his sincerity, the governor after offering the apology at a press briefing in Abuja, sent a delegation comprising of eminent sons and daughters of Plateau including my humble self to go physically to Benue to see the governor and commiserate with the government and people of Benue and assure them of our love and affection.
The delegation was made up of respectable stakeholders in the state, who made the three-hour- plus journey because of their belief in the sincerity and candour of the Plateau governor.
Fortunately, the message was well received by the Benue State governor who said he has accepted the apology.
The surprising thing was that Governor Ortom did not stop at that but borrowed a leaf from the Plateau State governor’s initiative by apologizing for the comments he had previously made against the Nasarawa State governor, Umar Tanko Al-Makura.
Said the Benue State governor, “I want to apologise to the governor of Nasarawa state for the comment I made against him. The situation on ground as at that time pushed me to say what I said. I never meant to hurt him. I needed to have contacted him before I could have raised such alarm.”
From this, it is clear that the Plateau State governor had not only done the right thing but has set a path for good governance in the country and has won the hearts of many by his style of leadership that many have started emulating him.
In recent times, we have seen leaders who will rather continue with a policy even when they realize they are on the right track for fear of being seen as weak, until it is too late. Two African leaders, Robert Mugabe and Yahya Jammeh are ready examples of those who realized their folly but refused to recant due to pride until it was too late. The reality is that all humans are not perfect and are prone to make making mistakes.
It takes more than a rare courage for a leader especially under heavy scrutiny by opposition, traducers and nay-sayers to change a course of action and to admit an error on his path and offer apology.
A research has shown that many bosses and leaders take the attitude that if they apologize for errors; it makes them look weak in front of their people.
But a further test has shown that a leader who apologizes for an error might actually improve his or her own well-being as well as the well-being of his people.
Lalong has from the inception of his administration made it clear that he will only pursue the path of peace and has tried to reach out to all the sectors of the state in both appointments and siting of projects and has succeeded in giving everybody a sense of belonging in the state.
His recent reach out to his colleague in Benue only empathizes his quality as man who is ready to go the whole hog including making personal sacrifices in ensuring peace in his state and that is the kind of leadership we need not just in Plateau but in Nigeria at the moment.
Nakande is a former Minister of the State for Information and Communication and the Chairman-designate of the Board of the National Bio-Safety Management Agency.
