Hate him or love him, you cannot deny
the fact that Donald Trump has exhibited strong leadership qualities within the
short period he assumed office as President of the United States. He may have
played to the gallery during the campaigns and told gullible Americans what
they wanted to hear in order to get their votes but the moment he assumed
office, he left no one in doubt that he meant business. Whether his actions so
far will bring progress to the American people at the end of the day is a
matter of conjecture but no one can deny the fact that Trump came into office
prepared and with a game plan to execute.
Donald Trump began the process of
setting up his cabinet as soon as he won the election. He did not wait for
handover notes and whatnots from his predecessor before moving into action.
Even in the face of opposition and protests against his victory, he never lost
sight of the fact that he had a job to do and he must get himself ready for it.
Barely hours of being sworn in as President, he sent his first list of nominees
to Congress for approval.
Buhari, on the other hand, was not only
slow but lackadaisical towards setting up a cabinet when he assumed office.
While his spin doctors made excuses for him that he was taking his time to
select “saints” to form his cabinet, Buhari himself revealed his true state of
mind in far away France when he told a bewildered world in an interview with
France 24TV that ministers only make a lot of noise and technocrats and civil
servants are the ones who carry out the day to day running of governance.
Impliedly, he was not keen in appointing ministers and if he had his way, may
do without them.
It is therefore not surprising that even
until this moment, he is yet to make many key appointments and the Minister of
State for Labour who lost his life almost a year ago is yet to be
replaced.
Among the hallmarks of good leadership
are precision and the ability to design and articulate roadmaps to get to
desired destinations. You may not agree with his ways and means but you can
tell what Donald Trump’s foreign and economic policies are even in the infancy
of his administration. The same cannot be said of President Buhari even after
almost two years in office. For a start, he has no economic team in the real
sense of it and one cannot pinpoint those charged with the execution of his
economic policies. Again, the flip-flops in policy direction that has
characterised his administration apparently suggest the absence of an
articulated plan for leadership before he assumed office.
During the campaigns, Trump’s promise to
intervene to prevent jobs from leaving America was seen by many as a mere
campaign promise. That particular promise was targeted at the air-conditioner
manufacturer Carrier, whose move to other countries was making Americans to
lose jobs. But Trump quickly swung into
action after the election and announced a high-profile deal with Carrier to
keep jobs in Indiana! Since then, other companies have announced expansions of
jobs in the U.S. owing to the action taken by Trump. That is the sense of
urgency, and creativity in leadership that we have not seen Buhari exhibit,
especially on the economic front since he came to power in 2015.
Donald Trump’s constant use of Twitter
to talk about his plans and direction of his government is another commendable
attitude that must be recommended to President Buhari. With this, the American
people can literally follow their President and know what he is up to and what
position he has taken on any issue. Whether they agree or disagree with him is
a different issue entirely.
In contrast, Nigerians are often in the
dark on Buhari’s views on topical issues. They are left to read his famous body
language and indulge in debates on whether the many spokesmen who speak for him
are speaking his mind or not.
It may not be via Twitter or any other
social medium for that matter, but President Buhari must devise a means of
reaching out to the people he leads. There cannot be effective leadership where
the leaders and the led are not on the same page in terms of focus and
direction.
-By Jerry Uzezi Edo. Originally published in http://www.opinionnigeria.com/leadership-lessons-from-trump-that-president-buhari-must-imbibe-
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