By Taofik Afolabi
The pinnacle of leadership is attractive by its temptations. As huge as its blessings are, so are its woes impregnated with unthinkable stances and nuances of benevolence and malevolence. Sometimes, destiny rests leadership easily on your shoulder with the right path to walk and it illuminates the best way to carry out the assignments at hand without conflicting the standards and expectations.
Leadership can be difficult and tiring at the same time so much that the leaders ask themselves why they chose to burden themselves with the yoke. They are hammered by the complaints and grumbles of their passengers who, from time to time, demand for more and more and see less of accomplishments because of the height they set their eyes on.
Historically, leaders hardly succeed because of the circumstances of their emergence that are mostly hinged on primordial sentiment and uncontrolled emotions for certain personal gains by their electors or selectors. Dr. Hans Finzel, the famous leadership mentor who authored ‘Top Ten Mistakes leaders Make’ in 2017 once said that “today’s leaders replicate the poor leadership habits they have observed in others, often lack basic skills for common leadership demands and largely lack good models and mentoring.” Finzel has beautifully illustrated what should mostly be expected of leaders except for those who prepare to lead, guide their conscience and imbibe the attitude of being a follower when they are actually on the driver’s seat.
By November 28, 2023, the leadership led by Comrade Eludire Gbenga which mounted the throne in back to back widely questioned electoral processes will come to an end in an abysmal style just as its emergence on November 11, 2015. The curtains will be drawn on that era permanently and a new chapter shall be opened. The scorecard of that leadership has been an unfortunate history mixed with gross incompetence, unrepentant arrogance of power, unprecedented financial recklessness and horrendous fart on the face of the state Judiciary. Such a leadership has never emerged in the history of the Osun Judiciary even when the eyes were on the knees.
It should never be forgotten in jiffy that on 28th November, 2019, the national leadership of Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria conducted another yet epic election which put a question mark on the process. The polarized contestants and their army became more shredded and badly rent. The essence of leadership was defeated at the wake of the necessity.
JUSUN became a rollercoaster that cruised for another four years on daydreaming and conviviality with irrelevance. It advertently lavished the patrimony of all in a landmark manner that one’s imagination to come to the rescue could only amount to foolhardy and clowning. The entire executive members could not even remember when last their general business meeting was conducted and yet, it shocked their imagination when a paperweight state of the union finance poignantly stressed by their chairman’s account of stewardship that a whopping over 80 per cent of their earnings in staff dues were expended as sitting allowances. They put mouth in each other to whisper and one could imagine them asking each other “when did we sit or could it be that the chairman and the secretary including the treasurer were all along in tandem with each other misappropriating the union’s money?” In a saner society, these are the questions that should disquiet the enquiring minds and rattle the holders of the union’s purse in a staggering manner. At the Osun State 2022 legal year interactive session with the Hon Judges, learned counsels and the court Registrars, His Lordship, Justice Aderibigbe made a clear statement about respect and responsibility when the question of calling cases out of turn was raised. His Lordship said in clear, unambiguous term; “if you must be respected, you must be responsible.”
With his Lordship’s lotus flower from his bowel of wisdom, it is important to journey the assessment lane of the retiring leadership under the Osun JUSUN’s incumbent chairman together, so that the scorecard devoid of bias and which can influence future decisions with empathy would be plated.
On January 7, 2011, a vehicle of new leadership of JUSUN in Osun State started with the crew on board as fresh as daily bread. The late Comrade Oladapo Oseni was elected as the Chairman of the Union and that was not by accident. His victory was possible because of his vision, character trait of good leadership, intelligence, control prowess and ultimately, his choice of team to work with. In the build-up to the election that ushered him in, he set a group of young brilliant minds to shop among the members those who could give the Union a new face of leadership that would comport itself with decorum, do the business of that leadership in the light of the day, bond the leaders and the led with spirit of trust and champion the course of members welfare truthfully. As at this time, he knew that that was his last lap and the race must finish in a blaze of glory. May his soul continue to rest in peace.
For the four years he was in the saddle, he engaged the members meaningfully and academically. His team worked with the same spirit. His leadership was transparent, benevolent, engaging and rewarding. Workers of the institution knew where their work starts and where it ends. Respect was the order of the day for court and the revered Judges.
Members of staff were not abused because they had a voice of reason and wisdom. His leadership style was too procedural and fruitful. He knew when to draw a sword and how to draw it. And, of course, he was masterful in combat and witty in peace. He was a General that lost no battle with his lieutenants. He remains the face of new JUSUN in Osun State till date and those he courted to work with him are most respected in the circle of the institution’s workforce.
Counting down the days of the incumbent will always give a minder that latitude to raise opinion on what is left to be inherited as JUSUN in the State’s post 28th November, 2023. The dog that slept for eight years suddenly became the hunter’s choice. The lion that left the den of protection for its cobs for three years has overnight become a Leonardos with thunderous roar of wreckage that is about to consume all.
His words have become pebbles that form avalanche of brimstone to ‘rescue’ the sinking ship at the wrong hour. For eight years of financial recklessness and unfounded character trait of malevolent leadership, one selfish man has chosen to enter the age of uprising against the principalities and powers by donning the banner of JUSUN. That strange energy should give everyone a concern at this period.
The last two unpleasant terms experienced in the state JUSUN have attracted reproach because the leadership failed to live up to it responsibilities.
The Oseni led administration always clipped the matters of the members of staff on the priority list while every other issue followed. Training of staff was his first baby project followed by the issue of welfare where he suffered persecution in 2012 and yet, defeated the imbroglio.
Yoruba will say “igba kan n lo, igba kan n bo, enikan ko le lo ile aye gbo” (there is a season for everyone). In the act that led to disdain suffered by the predecessor of the present Chairman of JUSUN, the truth, according to a scholar “must be treated the way mariner treats the pole.
Never let it out of your sight, but never head straight towards it.” The immediate past Chairman (RIP) made a case for consideration of some driving staffers who always traveled on journey of expediency with His Lordships. Despite the fact that the presentation was wholly unbiased and impactful, there was a wall that stopped the process. The staffs were divided by the inner judicial politics, but in the end, the wall was shifted with the application of diplomacy without any selfish end, but godly intention to set the proper template for the protection of the judiciary staffs in the state.
One cannot begin to elucidate the exponential success recorded during that good time when the state JUSUN was not an instrument in the hands of some masquerades to divide the members and propagate their own campaign of inappropriateness, mischief and greed.
The years of holocaust will fade in a matter of days and the present executive members would hand over to the new leadership that would sail the ship of the union for the next four years. In all of this, it is important to expound how this era is ending and the ignominy the leadership of the union has invited thus far. This shall hallmark the narratives of the union’s existence and shape the destiny of the workers of Osun State Judiciary in the years to come.
Comrade Eludire Gbenga and his lieutenants were not elected yesterday.
They were elected eight years ago and some, four years ago. There is no doubt that it is most certain that when the subjects in an institution are not properly accorded with the status that would allow ambience for expected performance, the organized leadership of the union of those workers is to protect their interest. It is also important to state that a system that is not checked is bound to crash. In other words, it is wisdom that now says that soft and iron hands do a proper job to keep the institution afloat. The affliction at this time is that one foolish man is trying to die a wise man. It is important to be direct and diplomatic with the saga at hand.
The office of the Chief Judge is not just an office. It is the supreme tabernacle that all gods and kings of the society relish and revere. It is the castle that spells out how destiny of men who find themselves in the yard of justice is determined. That office should be held esteem and respected while the holder of same must don the cap with honour and fairness.
With deep sense of humanity, staff who suffered the gavel of suspension and dismissal at the slightest error without a second chance deserve to be made a case for. And it is no longer news that the Osun State House of Assembly has made a case for that to investigate the unjust punishment and the appropriate recommendations have been made to the State Governor. But the question is what is in for the Union to beat the dead horse? Attacking and picketing the office of the Chief Judge of a state is simply defined in a word—a coup d’etat. It is synonymous to attacking and preventing a president that has not been impeached from working. What the leadership of Mr. Eludire Gbenga has just done was a call for what Yoruba would simply call igbogunjalu—insurrection. Their act is likened to what His Lordship, Justice Musa Dajjito said in his valedictory speech recently—propagating the public opinion on the judiciary as “witheringly scornful and monstrously critical”.
The show of shame can only be attributed to three possibilities. One is the speculations among the staff that the chairman of the union in the state has been monetarily induced to make a case for the state Assembly. Number two is that he is playing pranks to usurp the State JUSUN election that would whine down his leadership, come November 28.
And lastly, a lazy failed leadership trying to show sense of leadership at the twilight of its existence. It is a notorious fact that someone whose job booms in times crisis has intelligence and capacity deficit.
The Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria was registered as a union that transformed from a mere association. By the authority of the union, the national headquarters gives power to the state branches and chapters to operate under its supervision and that of the state NLC. In this whole saga, there was never a minutes of the meeting that conveys the resolution of the state executive council to the congress that has that power to give final verdict to embark on industrial action which would be communicated to national headquarters that would consequently give it a nod. This nod would then be transmitted to the state NLC and then all the security outfit of the state would be briefed for protection that would allow a casualty-free strike. As a matter of fact, a fourteen day ultimatum would be given for an impending strike after requests calling for the strike have been properly tabled before the concerned bodies. That is the procedure and the union’s law is explicit about that. But in this instance, the reverse was the case. Judges, lawyers and staffs just woke up to find their schedule of work altered.
To even think of it, if the Chief Judge of the state was the target of the union’s attack, then why shutting the entire bar and the bench out of work while the fate of the cases that require bail hangs in the balance? This cannot be more impervious, technically destructive and perilously damnifying.
The press interview where the chairman shuddered his hand like a salamander’s tail and twitched his lips awkwardly with a countenance of Sango underscores a vested interest and a man with a motive stretched beyond the workers interest. But before the dawn of the year is set, the dust will surely go to rest and certainly, unkind epithet would follow.
In all of this, one testing stage that remains sacrosanct is the fact that this union’s leadership ends on November 28, 2023.
The new leadership shall be elected same day and baton will change hands to reconstruct or deconstruct the history and ask questions, if necessary. Until then, the fox will be let out of the coop before the fowl is reprimanded.
