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Ugwuanyi’s Relationship Management Savvy and the Gains Therefrom

Published

5 years ago

September 9, 2020

By Reuben Onyishi (Ugoachataberu)

As it is written in the holy book, go wisdom is better than weapons of warfare. Certain battles in life are avoidable only if men have wisdom. The Almighty God was minded to give King Solomon rest from battles, unlike King David, his father, who, all his life, fought battles up and down the hills and caves. His hands were soiled with blood so much that when he purposed to build a house for God, the Almighty objected to that and would rather his son did build His temple. So when Solomon asked for wisdom, he asked according to the will of God; he asked and received because he did not ask amiss. God granted him unprecedented wisdom and so he could manage relationships effectively with every diplomatic savvy without detracting from the dignity of the exalted office he occupied.

Many of the tyrants that did people the governance of the world were men who lacked the wisdom of governance embedded in interpersonal skills and relationship management abilities. Wisdom is the ability to solve a problem without creating another problem in the process. Tyrants seek to protect their positions arbitrarily. They are cowardly men who lack the competence and the art of wearing the toga of power. Tyrants undress power naked and have it rampage and gallop uncontrollably along the streets of the country with no loincloth of peace and modesty around its rude waste, as Achebe would say. Tyrants know not how to negotiate power across the bends of governance and so end up crashing it into the rueful heaps of indiscretion. They are haughty and so wear the anklets of power up to their knees. They provoke the vindictiveness of the gods on account of their hubris- excessive mortal pride – and so undo themselves in no time.

Some leaders might not have set out for the low they found themselves, for while taking their haughty steps to the Olympian height without the needed circumspection, they stagger down the lugubrious stairs into the lowly cesspit. By so doing they confirm V. S. Naipaul’s prelude to his ‘A Bend in the River’ that the world is such a place. Men who are nothing, who have made themselves nothing, have no place in it. Indeed tyrants have no place in the world besides the lowly cesspit into which they often descend.

If wisdom was a gift, it is denied leadership at all levels in Nigeria and this has a historical dimension. Nigeria as a country has had a checkered history full of crises. We have had leaders who lacked relationship and people management skills, men who ordinarily would have had no business with governance. Many such leaders across all facets of the land ended up creating more problems for themselves and for the people. Perhaps we are yet to be developed for want of wise leadership. We have yet at the national level to encounter the J F Kenedies and the Lincolns of American fame in Nigeria.

This history bereft of people management savvy has entrenched itself a tradition, a stereotype of the sort, so much that the people suffer shock at a manifestation of such unknown skills in their governance. Such shock is capable of engendering some level of misinterpretation on the part of the people who had not encountered such all their lives. What exactly is what plays out in Enugu State since the coming to power of His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. Ugwuanyi’s relationship management savvy has remained as enigmatic as it amazes the learned and confounds the simple. No one has yet to come to terms with it.

Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi is like the soldier ants and the pumpkin leaves that know no boundaries. Ugwuanyi is the pathway that has no enemies as he constantly defies the saying that nobody can please everybody. In truth and practice, Ugwuanyi has shown how possible it can be to please everybody. And this is one of the assets of his government.

Since 2015 when Ugwuanyi came to power to date, Enugu State has seen rest; rest from political upheavals; rest from security challenges; rest from the opposition; rest from power tussles; rest from the executive-legislature crisis, and all the ills associated with poor interpersonal skills and lack of wisdom.

Besides wisdom, it takes humility to effectively manage relationships. Many of the political crises that come to governance are oftentimes orchestrated by pride and arrogant showmanship. Chief Jim Nwobodo, the former Governor of the old Anambra State, recently attested to Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s humility as unprecedented.

Ugwuanyi’s many victories had come to him naturally as leaves to a tree. He is loved by the people for identifying with them at all times. Some paid vain detractors had thought to ridicule him with his identifying with the people in celebration and mourning, something they had thought unbecoming of his high office, without their knowing that Ugwuanyi has uncommon relationship abilities that erase the barriers between the high and the low. Little wonder the door of Lion Building is open to all.

Opposition politics in Enugu State is dead. It is dead because there is absolutely no need for that. The administration of Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has excellent people-oriented policies that are judiciously being implemented. Opposition thrives where the government is not doing well. The government of Ugwuanyi is doing exceptionally well on all fours and so there is no need for any opposition. Ugwuanyi also maintains sound relationships with the APC led federal government despite his being in the opposition party, the PDP. It takes a great deal of relationship management skills to sail through the thorns of opposition at the center and at the state level. This is something that was absent in previous administrations of the state.

Maintaining a good relationship with the legislature is not a dance done with snuff in the palm. We had in the past seen cases of the split legislature for and against the governor. We have seen the implications of that as it affects governance in the state. In some of the cases, two speakers emerged. Accusations and recriminations, impeachment, and votes of confidence fly the sky and fan the people cold. But this is completely absent in Ugwuanyi’s administration. His Excellency has an exceptional cordial relationship with the legislature. This cordial relationship has wrought positive impacts on the development and governance of Enugu State.

When the ways of a man please God, he makes even his enemies be at peace with him. In Enugu State, Ugwuanyi is loved by the people. He has the mien; he has the aura; Ugwuanyi has the charisma. Notorious criminals have kept away from Enugu State, avoiding crimes as one would a hot iron. They on their own know that righteousness is on the throne and so they had better give peace a chance or be worse off for any negating criminal action.

Many politicians of Enugu State extraction who went on political asylum have returned home. Old politicians who could not find their feet politically have now been integrated into the scheme of things irrespective of party affiliations.

Youths who had before now complained about their exclusion in political appointments in the state are now appointed to positions in Ugwuanyi’s administration as commissioners, SPAs, SSAs, SAs, and TAs. The elderly are happy; the youth are glad that true governance has come to Enugu State through Dr. Ugwuanyi.

Ugwuanyi’s Midas touch of relationship savvy also finds expression across the divides of gender consideration. Both genders are equitably represented in his government. Ugwuanyi has been able to manage the gender question in the state that there are no ayes and nays to that effect.

At the local government level, the chairmen of the 17 local governments in the state are not left out. Ugwuanyi relates with them so effectively that there has not been any issue whatsoever with the councils. Ugwuanyi’s interpersonal skills have also rubbed off on the chairmen to the extent that they too have developed cordial relationships with their councilors. There has been no case of impeachment of any chairman or leader of the house in any of the councils under Governor Ugwuanyi’s watch.

At the party level in the state, inter-party relationships have been leveraged upon, leading to the adoption of Ugwuanyi by the other political parties as their joint candidate during the governoship election. Within the PDP in Enugu State, Ugwuanyi as the leader of the party has caused the party to relate like a family. Recently, the party had its state congress and there was no issue at all. The congress was done in an orderly and peaceful manner devoid of any rancor or acrimonious altercation.

No man can do all this if he lacks wisdom; if he lacks excellent interpersonal relationship management skills. These skills do not just occur as leaves to a tree; they grow as boughs in the plant of humility and wisdom. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi is the plant and Enugu State enjoys the good fruit it bears

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Business

Tax Reform Bills: The Verdict of Nigerians

Published

1 week ago

March 6, 2025

The Gleamer

Ismaila Ahmad Abdullahi Ph.D

The public hearings conducted recently by the two Chambers of the National Assembly have elicited positive responses from a broad spectrum of Nigerians, cutting across regional interest groups, government agencies, civil society groups, concerned individuals, the academia, and Labour Unions, among diverse others. Contrary to a few dissensions hitherto expressed in the media, almost all the stakeholders who spoke during the week-long sessions were unanimous in their declaration that the hallowed Chambers should pass the tax reform bills after a clean-up of the grey areas.

The public hearings were auspicious for all Nigerians desirous of economic growth and fiscal responsibility. They were also a watershed moment for the Federal Inland Revenue Service, which had been upbeat about the tax reforms. Indeed, the public hearings had rekindled hope in the tenets of democracy that guarantee freedom of expression and equitable space for cross-fertilisation of ideas. Without gainsaying the fact, the tax reform bills have been unarguably about the most thought-provoking issues in Nigeria today, drawing variegated perspectives and commentaries from even unlikely quarters such as the faith-based leaders, student bodies, and trade unions, which speaks much about the importance of the bills.

In the build-up to the public hearings, not many people believed that the bills would make it to the second reading, much less the public hearings. Even the Northern stakeholders who seemed unlikely to support the passage of the bills have softened their stance and have given valuable suggestions that would enrich the substance of the bills. The Arewa Consultative Forum came to the public hearings well-prepared with a printed booklet that addressed their concerns. It concluded with an advisory that the bills should be “Well planned, properly communicated, strategically implemented and ample dialogue and political consensus allowed for the reforms to be accepted.”

The concerns of ACF ranged from the composition of the proposed Nigeria Revenue Service Board as contained in Part 111, Section 7 of the bill, the unlimited Presidential power to exempt/wave tax payment as proposed in Section 75(1) of the bill, the family income or inheritance tax as contained in Part 1, Section 4(3) of the bill, to the issues around development levy and VAT. On the development levy, the ACF stated that unless the Federal Government is considering budgetary funding for TETFUND, NASENI and NITDA, it does not see the “wisdom behind the plan to replace (them) with NELFUND”.

The position of the North was equally reinforced by the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Northern Elders Forum, Kano State Government, Professor Auwalu Yadudu, and the FCT Imams. Like the ACF, these stakeholders lent their respective voices to the Section on the Inheritance Tax in Part 1 of the bill and the use of the term ‘ecclesiastical’, which, in their views, undermines certain religious rights and beliefs. The Kano State Government, represented by Mahmud Sagagi, affirmed that “we support tax modernisation” but cautioned that “we must ensure that this process does not come at the expense of states’ constitutional rights and economic stability”. Professor Auwalu Yadudu, a constitutional law professor, drew attention to the use of the ‘supremacy clause’ and cautioned that the repeated use of “notwithstanding” in the bills would undermine the supremacy of the Nigerian constitution if passed as such.

Other stakeholders that made contributions at the sessions included the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas, Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Nigeria Customs Service, and a host of others. While most of their concerns bordered on technical issues requiring fine-tuning, they were unanimous in their support for the bills. They aligned with the position of the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, Ph.D. and the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, which is that the extant tax laws and fiscal regulations are obsolete necessitating reforms aimed at creating a fair and equitable tax and fiscal space to grow Nigeria’s economy.

In one of the sessions, Dr Zaach Adedeji expounded on the criss-cross of trade activities in the Free Trade Zone whereby companies misuse tax waivers as exporters to sell their goods or services in the Customs Area at an amount usually less than the price the operators in the Customs Area who pay VAT and other taxes sell theirs thereby disrupting business transactions. This way, the operators in the Free Trade Zone shortchange the government in paying their due taxes by circumventing extant regulations, which are inimical to the economy’s growth.

Overall, the presentations were forthright, foresighted, and helpful in elucidating the issues contained in the bills. According to the statistics read out at the end of the hearings at the Senate, 75 stakeholders were invited, 65 made submissions, and 61 made presentations. At the House of Representatives 53 stakeholders made presentations. By all means, this is a fair representation. Given the presentations, it is evident that the National Assembly has gathered enough materials to guide its deliberations on the bills. As we look forward to the passage of the bills, we commend the leadership of the National Assembly for their unwavering commitment to making the bills see the light of the day.

Abdullahi is the Director of the Communications and Liaison Department, FIRS.

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