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Reflection, Reinvention, and Winning at 65: A Field Note for Nigeria’s Next Chapter

Reflection, Reinvention, and Winning at 65: A Field Note for Nigeria’s Next Chapter

By Dr Alim Abubakre

I pen this article with a humble sense of responsibility hoping to contribute to this critical national discourse of proffering actionable insights to nation building. This article is informed by insights gleaned from my engagements with more than 1,000 leaders globally in the past year and close to a gross of this number fifteen years after I founded These Executive Minds (TEXEM) in the UK.
Sixty-five years after independence, Nigeria stands at a crossroads that is both sobering and promising. The sobering part is familiar. Too many citizens experience public services that arrive late or not up to par. Firms face a cocktail of inflation, logistics friction, and regulatory uncertainty. Civil society carries heavy loads where formal systems falter. The promising part is quieter but powerful. In the past year I have sat with more than a thousand leaders in ministries, agencies, boardrooms, factories, start-ups, cooperatives, and classrooms from Kano to Lagos to Abuja and cities in other emerging and developed countries. The appetite I have encountered is not for new slogans. It is for practices that produce compounding improvements citizens can feel. My contention is that the leaders who will move Nigeria forward in the next decade will practise three disciplines with rigour: reflection that rebuilds trust and sharpens judgement, reinvention that converts constraints into design choices, and winning that scales what works and protects it from erosion.
Reflection must come first because progress without trust rarely survives the news cycle and more importantly does not lead to sustainable inclusive impact. In many of our institutions there is an inherited deficit of confidence. People discount statements before they hear them. Officials are assumed to be evasive until proven otherwise. In this context, the most strategic act a leader can take is to make the logic of decisions visible and testable. I have watched permanent secretaries and chief executives shift the temperature in a room by explaining the trade-offs behind a policy or a pivot in two pages of plain English, then inviting challenge before the implementation plan is final. That small ritual does more than inform. It signals that citizens and staff are not audiences but partners in judgement. Rwanda’s experience with public performance contracts for officials is instructive because it illustrates how visible targets and steady follow-through can change the relationship between leaders and citizens. Nigeria does not need to copy the mechanism to embrace the principle. We can begin with published choice notes that state priorities, the reasons for those priorities, and the measures by which success will be judged.
Reflection also requires safety for truth. In utilities, hospitals, and agencies I often meet talented professionals who knew trouble was coming but said nothing because it did not feel safe to do so. The cost of that silence is measured in failed projects, service outages, and avoidable controversy. A modest institutional habit can reverse this dynamic. Start formal meetings by asking for the pieces of bad news that no one has voiced. Reward the messenger rather than the fixer. In a northern water board I watched how this practice reduced the number of last-minute crises and improved relationships with suppliers who were finally hearing about risks early enough to help. Psychological safety is not a fashionable idea. It is a governance advantage.
Strategy is the next frontier of reflection. Plans that attempt to please everyone end up straining everyone. Strategy is not an inventory of hopes but the courage to choose. What distinguishes Ethiopia’s early industrial zones, despite all the imperfections, is not simply the infrastructure but the choice to concentrate on a small number of sectors where jobs could be created quickly and learning could compound. Nigeria has too often pursued breadth without depth. A commissioner who commits to a two-page statement of where the state will compete in transport or health, how it will win there, and what will be left aside this year, has already advanced execution. The power of this clarity lies in how it enables other actors to align. Suppliers, investors, and civil society can only complement a public agenda they can see.
Foresight completes reflective leadership. Oil shocks, currency swings, (though the latter two have been quite stable in the past six months) import disruptions, and climate stress are not surprises. They are conditions of the game. The organisations that navigate them well do not predict the future. They rehearse it. In Vietnam, which has climbed the manufacturing ladder over the past two decades, routine scenario exercises allowed managers and officials to pre-commit to responses when supply chains wobbled. In our context the same discipline means agreeing on three or four numbers that, if breached, trigger specific actions within a week. It means deciding in advance which contracts can be slowed without losing capability, which social programmes must be protected under any scenario, and which suppliers or ports will be used if a route closes. When senior teams practise these drills quarterly, they do not eliminate volatility. They convert volatility from a reason to panic into a reason to act calmly and quickly.
Once reflection has cleared the fog, reinvention can proceed with precision. Reinvention in Nigeria must start with an unflinching acceptance of constraints. Capital is tight. Power is unreliable in too many places. The skills we most need are scarce and globally mobile. Rules sometimes move mid-stream. These constraints do not forbid innovation. They shape it. The leaders who make headway begin by asking what job the citizen or customer is hiring the service to do. In one health programme I observed, teams stopped designing features and started listening to mothers who simply wanted certainty about vaccination days. A low-cost text system that reminded families and local clinics of fixed days in each ward lifted attendance without expensive infrastructure. India’s Aadhaar system, whatever one thinks of it in the round, succeeded because it focused on a minimal identity layer that others could build upon. Kenya’s M-Pesa was born because the banking system ignored the unbanked. Both cases show the pay-off from designing to the job, not to the institution.
Reinvention demands learning before scale. In too many Nigerian settings pilots are a performance rather than a process. They lack a falsifiable question, a clear owner, and a path to either stop or scale. The fix is not complicated. Any initiative expected to touch a large population should be tested in two locations, with one sharp question set in advance and a date by which a scale or stop decision will be made. The results should be published in language citizens understand. Failure then becomes an investment rather than a secret. I saw a state education agency kill three shiny ideas quickly and redirect funds into a teacher coaching model that improved learning outcomes because it treated the pilot as an experiment rather than an announcement.
Reinvention gains momentum when public institutions become conveners of ecosystems rather than providers of every function. Big problems yield when government, private firms, and civic actors share accountability for outcomes that citizens feel. Bangladesh offered a vivid lesson. Partnerships between government, a major telecom, microfinance institutions, and social enterprises created rural digital kiosks run by women that offered identity, market information, and payments. The result was a commercial model that advanced connectivity and income at the same time. There was no philanthropic afterthought. Incentives were aligned at the design stage. Nigeria’s agriculture and health sectors can embrace the same logic. Shared cold chain investment for vaccines, joint platforms for farmer data, and managed marketplaces for produce are all areas where no single actor can win alone, yet every actor can win if the rules of cooperation are clear.
The final discipline is winning. By winning I do not mean a one-off success that makes good copy. I mean the craft of scaling what works, protecting it from erosion, and compounding advantage. The first move is to pick a narrow transformation where citizens will feel the difference within months, ‘a low hanging fruit’. A permit workflow, a claims process, a land registry, or a targeted procurement system are good candidates. The rule is simple. The process must be completed end to end in a single digital flow. A named leader must own service levels. The model that drives decisions must be monitored so that it does not drift. Small wins matter because they change expectations. Once a citizen experiences a permit that takes days rather than months, tolerance for delay declines across the board. Indonesia’s progress on e-procurement and tax administration, while uneven, shows how patient systems work can raise revenue and trust at the same time. We should be stubborn about this kind of boring progress because it pays compound interest.
Winning also requires decision-making that treats a downturn as a time to prune and plant rather than to freeze. The instinct in a crisis is to cut across the board. The better move is to cut visible waste, protect muscle, and pre-fund two moves that will pay off when others are distracted. When India’s Tata Group bought Jaguar Land Rover in the depths of the 2008 crisis, it was not a gamble on prestige. It was a calculated bet on future capability. In Nigeria the equivalent in the public sphere could be a state securing a long-term power arrangement for critical social infrastructure when prices soften. In the private sphere it may look like acquiring a distressed logistics asset that reduces cost to serve for essential goods. These are not headline moments. They are compounding moves.
The strongest fosses in emerging economies are often social and institutional as much as technological. A company that ties its profit engine to a farmer’s gain by reducing post-harvest losses creates an affinity that is difficult to copy. A ministry that becomes the trusted orchestrator of identity or payments in a sector makes duplication wasteful for others and partnership sensible. Vietnam’s rise in manufacturing is instructive here. Once clusters matured and supplier development programmes took root, firms preferred to deepen rather than exit. In Nigeria we can replicate the principle if not the exact model by choosing the lever we will own, whether identity rails for SMEs, last-mile logistics in a large state, or a vocational pipeline that gives investors’ confidence.
Every serious proposal invites counterarguments. The first is that our constraints are too severe. It is true that power, security challenges, still high inflation and undervalued Naira shape the feasible frontier. Yet they rarely block the first disciplined step. Narrowing focus, publishing choices, and testing cheaply are possible even in tough conditions. The second counterargument is that pilots never scale here. That is not a law of nature. Pilots fail to scale when ownership is vague and money is episodic. Tie each pilot to a named leader with a budget gate and an adoption target. If the target is met by a stated date, the next release triggers automatically. If not, the idea is retired without controversy because the condition was agreed up front. The third objection is that openness hands advantage to rivals or invites misuse. Opacity is more expensive. Clear interfaces, shared dashboards, and pre-agreed escalation channels protect the public interest while letting private actors bring energy and ingenuity. The fourth objection is that our context is unique and therefore resistant to lessons from elsewhere. Culture and politics matter. So does execution. The underlying disciplines of reflection, reinvention, and winning have travelled across Asia, Africa, and Latin America because they are grounded in human behaviour and institutional incentives rather than in fashion.
Actionable suggestions matter most when they become routine. A practical rhythm helps leaders avoid performative announcements. Each quarter, senior teams should meet for a candid review of trust, choices, and scenarios. The output should be three objectives with dates and owners that are shared with staff and, where appropriate, with citizens. Each month, the organisation should pilot two new practices and retire one legacy habit that no longer serves. A one-page learning note in plain English should capture what moved, what did not, and what will be changed as a result. Each week, leaders should review a single measure that protects their moat, whether adoption, cost to serve, or ecosystem leverage, and then remove one blocker that slows progress. This cadence is not a ritual for its own sake. It is the mechanism through which reflection feeds reinvention and reinvention feeds winning.
The independence anniversary invites a final reflection. Nations and subnational do not become trustworthy because they declare it. Companies do not become competitive because they wish it. NGOs do not become impactful because they are earnest. Trust grows when leaders expose their logic to scrutiny and follow through. Competitiveness grows when organisations choose a place to compete and then refine how they win there through fast learning. Impact grows when coalitions form around measurable outcomes that citizens experience in hours saved, income gained, and safety improved. I have seen these habits in pockets across Nigeria. A cooperative that became a disciplined buyer and seller on behalf of its members and cut their losses. A state-owned entity that digitised a creaking process and recovered weeks of time for small businesses. A private firm that opened its platform to complementary services and grew by letting others create value. These are not miracles. They are crafts. Crafts improve with practice.
Examples from other emerging economies are not medals to hang on a wall. They are reminders that the work is doable. Rwanda’s visible performance contracts demonstrate how public accountability can reset expectations after trauma. Aadhaar in India shows that a minimal, interoperable public good can unlock many private innovations when designed with restraint. Kenya’s mobile money revolution proves that leapfrogging can occur when a clear job is served on a platform people already use. Vietnam’s steady climb through manufacturing illustrates how clusters, supplier development, and predictability attract commitment. Indonesia’s progress on tax administration and procurement shows how patient system building raises revenue and trust together. Bangladesh’s rural digital models illustrate the power of aligned incentives across public, private, and social actors. None of these examples is a blueprint. Each is a provocation to ask what the Nigerian equivalent would look like under our constraints and with our strengths.
As we enter the sixty-fifth year of independence, the choice before Nigerian leaders is not between idealism and realism. It is between a loud cycle of fresh promises and a quieter craft of institutional improvement that compounds. The second path is less dramatic, yet it is how countries change without fanfare. It begins with leaders who listen before they speak and who effectively communicate the reasons that informed their choices. It gains speed with teams who test efficiently, measure honestly, and stop what does not work. It consolidates with organisations that scale what works, protect their edge, and reinvest in capability in good times and bad. I wrote earlier that the mood is sober and promising. It will remain promising only if it becomes disciplined.
The most powerful sentence I have heard in the past year came from a nurse in a secondary hospital who said that the only thing that had changed her day was a new process that meant a critical drug arrived on Wednesday without fail. It made her sound less like a hero and more like a professional. That sentence is the heart of development. When essential functions become reliable, professionals emerge, and citizens begin to trust. The path to that sentence is neither glamorous nor impossible. It asks us to reflect with candour, to reinvent with humility, and to win with patience. If we make those verbs our habit in the year ahead, the country we will write about at seventy will look less like a set of crises to manage and more like a system that works. That would be an independence worth celebrating.

• Dr Alim Abubakre is the Founder of TEXEM and Senior Lecturer at Sheffield Business School

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By Dr Alim Abubakre I pen this article with a humble sense of responsibility hoping to contribute to this critical national discourse of proffering actionable insights to nation building. This

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US-Based Groups Fault Tinubu’s IPOB-Boko Haram Comparison

US-Based Groups Fault Tinubu’s IPOB-Boko Haram Comparison

. South-east Judaism adherents plead Kanu’s release

John Shiklam in Kaduna and Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia

Three United States-based advocacy groups have criticised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over his recent Independence Day speech in which he reportedly equated the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) with the Boko Haram insurgency.

In a joint statement yesterday, which was made available to journalists in Kaduna, the organisations-Advocates for Victims of Injustice and Discrimination (AVID), Rising Sun, and Ambassadors for Self-Determination,  faulted the Tinubu’s comments, describing the remarks as “reckless, prejudicial and subjudice.”

The statement signed on behalf of the groups by AVID President, Dr. Sylvester Onye, noted that such utterances could undermine ongoing judicial proceedings involving IPOB and its detained leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

The groups stressed that comparing IPOB, which, according to them, is a non-violent self-determination movement,  with a globally recognised terrorist organisation like Boko Haram, was both “inflammatory and irresponsible.”

The statement said: “It is deeply unfortunate that a sitting president would make such a false and inflammatory statement while judicial proceedings are ongoing.

“This utterance is not only subjudice but a blatant attempt to prejudice the course of justice and poison the atmosphere of fair trial.”

They argued that IPOB remains engaged in a legal appeal currently before the Supreme Court of Nigeria, while Kanu’s criminal trial continues at the Federal High Court.

Against this backdrop, they maintained that such presidential remarks carry the risk of undermining the rule of law.

The groups urged President Tinubu to redirect his focus towards Nigeria’s broader security challenges, including violent armed groups responsible for widespread displacement and loss of lives across the country.

“Rather than fixating on IPOB, which has consistently pursued its aims through non-violent means, the president should prioritise efforts to curb the activities of well-armed militant groups destabilising communities nationwide,” the statement stressed.

The advocacy groups further reiterated calls for Kanu’s unconditional release, citing existing court rulings in his favour. The statement alleged that Kanu’s continued detention amounted to “ethnic persecution disguised as national security enforcement.”

The groups warned that: “No amount of intimidation can silence Mazi Nnamdi Kanu or diminish his influence.

“On the contrary, every additional day of detention only strengthens his profile among his supporters and beyond.”

The statement called on the United States Congress and the U.S. Department of State to intensify scrutiny of Nigeria’s governance and human rights record.

It also urged global actors to denounce what they described as “reckless and prejudicial” rhetoric from Nigerian leadership.

They also cautioned that the federal government’s stance towards IPOB could prove counterproductive in the long run.

“President Tinubu has only succeeded in demonstrating one thing: the more he persecutes IPOB and detains Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the stronger their cause becomes.

“No prison walls, no courtroom manipulations, and no propaganda can extinguish the light of truth.”

Meanwhile, adherents of Judaism in the South-east region and part of Sout-south yesterday  pleaded with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to exercise his presidential prerogative and release Nnamdi Kanu from lingering detention. 

They made the plea after a prayer and fasting session and peaceful solidarity rally at the home of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra(IPOB) at Isiama Afaraukwu, Umuahia, Abia State. 

The Jewish worshippers also urged  Abia Governor, Alex Otti, to rally his brother governors in South-east to plead with Mr. President to release Kanu for them. 

Kanu, who professes the Jewish religion, has been in the custody of the Department of Sate Service(DSS) since his extraordinary rendition from Kenya four years ago. 

Delegations of Eastern Judaism and various Jewish communities from Anambra, Enugu, Ebonyi, Imo, and Rivers States gathered at Kanu’s home where they joined their host congregation to pray for Kanu’s freedom and good health. They also prayed “for return to normalcy in all the communities ravaged by Fulani herdsmen and bandit attacks.” 

Singing their religious songs in solidarity with their detained member, the Jewish community people carried placards to express their feeling and demand on Mr. President. Some of the placards read: ‘Free Nnamdi Kanu, he committed no crime known to the law;’ Eastern Judaism calls for release of Nnamdi Kanu from DSS detention; ‘Obey Court order Tinubu’; ‘Free Nnamdi Kanu,’ among others. 

Speaking at the rally, leaders of the Jewish communities raised their collective voices to earnestly demand  Kanu’s freedom, saying that he has not done any wrong” to be clamped into detention and charged with treason. 

Deputy National Rabbi “of Biafra land, Rabbi Okezie Anosike, noted that there was no reason for Kanu to be in detention because  “what he is demanding is not different from what Sunday Igboho is demanding for the Yoruba nation, and yet he is free.” 

“We ask President Tinubu to set Kanu free. We ask Governor Otti to do all in his power to bring freedom to Kanu,” he said. 

Anosike prayed and expressed optimism that nothing bad should happen to the IPOB leader given his poor state of health under DSS custody. 

Ofuji Ekhad, who led the Anambra delegation queried why Kanu’s case “should be different from others” that demanded for sovereign states for their own people, especially in South-west. 

According to him,  “there is nothing abnormal in Kanu’s demand for sovereign state of Biafra,” adding that self determination is a universally recognised right. 

In his remarks, Elder Shahum Ogu from Imo State urged “all political leaders, connected in one way or the other with Kanu’s travails to please have a change of heart and work for his release. 

He described Kanu as “a prophet, a messenger of God, who advocates  justice, equity, and people’s rights”, adding that President Tinubu has nothing to lose by setting him free. 

The woman leader of the Eastern Judaism and Jewish Community, Mrs. Ugochinyere Onuoha, declared that “we have come to let the whole world know that Kanu has done no wrong, and committed no offence against the Nigerian state.” 

“We are asking for Kanu’s freedom and asking God to deliver him from the ordeal he is facing,” she said. 

Even a 12-year-old boy from Enugu delegation, Michael Ndubuisi, added his voice in pleading with Tinubu to free Kanu from detention. 

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. South-east Judaism adherents plead Kanu’s release John Shiklam in Kaduna and Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia Three United States-based advocacy groups have criticised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu over his recent Independence Day speech

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Kainji, Jebba, Shiroro, Zungeru Dams to Discharge Excess Water

Kainji, Jebba, Shiroro, Zungeru Dams to Discharge Excess Water

Laleye Dipo in Minna

As the four hydro-electric dams-Shiroro, Jebba, Kainji, and Zungeru-located in Niger State are set to discharge excess water, the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA) has alerted communities in the riverine areas to relocate upstream as a result of the impending flood.

The agency warned in a statement made available to journalists in Minna yesterday that the flooding that would follow the discharge of water from these dams would be catastrophic.

A statement issued by the Director-General of NSEMA, Alhaji Abdullahi Baba Arah, said the Nigerian Hydrological Services had also advised that communities along Rivers Niger and Kaduna should relocate for the same reason.

Baba Arah declared: “The dams are releasing thousands of gallons of water per minute that could lead to the overflow of these rivers,” before also advising “our communities to limit activities around river banks during this peak rainy season to avoid being flooded.

“People living in riverine areas should relocate to safer grounds already identified.”

Arah also said that: “NiMET’s latest prediction also indicated that the end of the rainy season will be accompanied by violent windstorms, and as a result, the people should avoid standing under trees during rainfall and also stay away from substandard structures.

He disclosed that: “The state is already experiencing negative impacts of the flooding with houses, farm lands, bridges, and link-roads washed away in some LGAs located up and down streams of the four dams,” adding that the development had rendered many homeless and also affected the socio-economic activities of the communities.

Some of the affected local government areas are Lavun, Magama, Rafi, Kontagora, Gbako, Mokwa, Lapai, Katcha, Ag Shirorororo, Mashegu, Agwara, Bida, Edati, Munya, Bosso, Chanchaga, Paikoro, and Wushishi, saying that loss of lives had been recorded in these areas without mentioning the number of lives lost.

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Laleye Dipo in Minna As the four hydro-electric dams-Shiroro, Jebba, Kainji, and Zungeru-located in Niger State are set to discharge excess water, the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA) has alerted