The Arc of the Possible: A review

The book also gives us templates which, if applied, can help those who refuse to forget who they are to survive unscathed. Above all, it takes the reader from where we are today in leadership and public office management to the qualities of character, as well as processes and paradigms we need if we are to create and sustain a 21^st century nation.

As part commentary, part reflection and part sub-thesis on the political economy of the Nigerian State, The Arc of the possible is a work that could also have been alternatively titled: Profile of a Tenure. This is what the author has to say after his watch at NEITI: “…I am proud of the little we were able to achieve, I am prouder of my ability to remain myself, my refusal to get sucked into the grandeur and permissiveness that we weave around public office in Nigeria, the conscious decision to uphold, largely through myself, the values I hold dear.”

This book, which details this experience, is in five main parts. These five sections are thematically grouped to capture and address related issues. Each part is made up of several chapters and we have a total of 25 chapters in all. This is followed by an epilogue, an acknowledgements and an index.

I would like to start on the structure of the book by commending the author for putting the acknowledgement at the end of the book. It is certainly unconventional, but that is the author being himself. As a person who has practically no regard whatsoever for presumably impregnable conventions, knowing that most conventions have dated validity, I specially commend Waziri for sparing me (I don’t know about others) the sometimes sycophantic and off-putting long acknowledgement section that you find at the beginning of most books and biographies. Is it ingratitude on the author’s part? Is it presumption? Is it the author’s sense of the dramatic? Was it, perhaps, an error by the printer? Most probably not. But whatever may be the reason for the position of the acknowledgment, I love it where it is.

The first part of the book, titled ‘The Path to Public Life,’ which is made up of two chapters, gives us the circumstance of the author’s emergence as the Executive Secretary of NEITI. We got to know the persons involved in making the appointment possible and the author’s initial reactions and impressions. This section also brings out in beautiful prose about how the author’s stint as Adviser to the Senate President can be described as a Dress and Tech rehearsal for public office. This section also brought out, in particular, the commendable disposition of the Chairman of the THISDAY stable regarding the fate and fortunes of his people.

The second part, titled “Building Blocks,” and which is made up of seven chapters, starts with a historical and process review of the organization, NEITI. It showed the author’s clear grasp of the agency and also of his mandate. His initial experiences as CEO, the initial success stories, the successful on-boarding of high-end personnel, the pivotal role of strategy in organizational success and health check tools he deployed. This section also brought us face-to-face with the role, power and significance of strategy and attention to detail as a performance driver. The imperative of a leader sending out the right signals and how Waziri’s signalling, captured under the gingerly and clearly mischievous title “A Toe in the Water” ended without the toe being bitten off. In his own words: “It came good and validated the value of trying to do things differently, or being entrepreneurial, and of seeking to make things happen rather than just trusting that they would happen by themselves.”

Part four, titled “The Value of Values,” with its four chapters, is the soul of much of what the author set out to say in this book. Waziri Adio’s core personal values, which impacted his work ethic and which can also be gleaned from all his reflexes as Executive Secretary of NEITI, manifested from the first day he appeared as CEO. He refused to have a special photographer take his “official” portrait, to be hung in his office. Thus, he had no official photograph in the place for the five years he was Executive Secretary of NEITI. He also refused to have his simple request for an official laptop to morph into a memo asking him to approve for himself a laptop, an iPad and an iPhone, which he never asked for.

He rejected the explanation that it was “… the standard for the ES and other members of the senior management staff to have official phones and tablets.” When he was told: “The tablet is for when you go outside for a meeting or you are on the road, and you may need to access your email or some important documents” he replied: “But I can do all of that on my phone.”  Going further, he said: “I don’t need an official phone. My phone is a dual-SIM one. So, either I return to carrying two handsets or I give out the iPhone. I don’t think that is a good way to spend public money.”

This reported exchange between the author and NEITI administrative personnel reminds me of some of Peter Obi’s narratives. As the young Chairman of a bank, Peter Obi discovered that a new Mercedes 500 limousine had been bought for him to use whenever he can for board meetings. He asked them how many times such a meeting would hold in a year and then directed that the vehicle be sold off and the money put in the coffers of the bank. He assured his confounded senior managers that people whose job is to keep and manage other people’s money in trust should not be seen living ostentatious lives. He also got rid of the Chairman’s guest house, since he lived in Lagos. When he found out that the bank’s top management travelled first class overseas, he demanded an explanation. When he was told that the first class compartment was the likely place for them to meet high net worth clients, he wanted to know how many such clients any of them had met in the First Class compartment in the last ten year. The answer was “none.” That was the end of first class trips for the banking executives in his bank. But we are digressing.

Back to The Arc of the Possible and the memo designed to make Waziri Adio incur some avoidable expenses in the name of NEITI. He insisted that the memo be taken away and only approved a fresh memo to get himself a laptop. It was this laptop that he used for the five years he was in office. He did not, as he said in the book, use “…getting the work done as an excuse for downgrading the importance of values.”

But did he proceed from this, and similar, incidents to argue that Nigerians are fundamentally immoral people? No, he did not. The author recognizes the challenges posed by personalization of public office and the tendency for some to assume that accountability need not be taken too seriously. But he sees this as what happens anywhere you have weak institutions and executive discretion is given a wide spectrum.

It is on the basis of this understanding that his views on “Leading Through Self” and tackling entitlement mentality can be understood. He urges us to explore and entrench the inspirations around which the new can be anchored. This is to be borne in mind, because “…individual examples are not as useful as system-and society-wide change in reshaping deeply rooted values.”

The last part of this book, Part Five, which is made up of three chapters, is titled “Obstacles and battles.” It speaks to the dire straits in which those who deviate from the norm find themselves in an environment like ours. You need more than a great strategy and good intentions to survive. Tenacity and a refusal to be demoralized comes in handy. Read chapter 22 of this book, titled “Dire Straits” to know about all that. Chapter 23 tells you how an administrative lapse, such as not putting rent on the budget, can ungird much in an organization with fiscal challenges. As for the expected reactions, pushbacks and counter actions by persons, groups and interests not benefitting from the new focus of NEITI under the author, this is what the author has to say: “Changing a set culture within an organization or in the larger environment is some piece of work which can defeat even the most adept and determined administrator.”

The Question of Objectivity

Can the book before us today be described as an objective narrative, especially bearing in mind that it is an individual’s interpretation of experiences that are coloured by who he is, his core values and his inclinations? When we speak of objectivity in communication and discourse generally, we often hear the rather uninterrogated claims of journalists, namely, “Facts are sacred. Opinion is free.” I disagreed with this statement. All the facts of our daily experience are usually interpreted facts. The interpretative tools are usually physiologically, culturally, religiously and experientially determined. A cell phone is a fact to us, but it is a mystery to a primitive man. Once we make a distinction between “objects of experience, independent of an observer” and “objects of experience as reported by an observer,” we see that the presumed “sacredness” of facts collapse irredeemably.

Concerning opinions, I dare say that opinions are not free at all. No one is free to say whatever he likes, whenever he likes and wherever he likes totally unchallenged. But having said that, how does this short foray into some of the most frightening question of philosophy come into our business of reviewing The Arc of the Possible? Does this then mean that we have no way of making a distinction between what is objective and what it not?

Waziri Adio’s book rests on many verifiable processes, institutional and interactional variables that we can hold unto, to make correct inferences about his submissions. These submissions are, first and foremost, completely in sync with the lived experiences of most of us here; especially people who have held one type of public position, sub public position or the other. His insights, observations and suggestions agree with the position of many reputed scholars on the sociology and dynamics of transformational leadership in a morally unstructured environment.

Without denying that an interpreter of human experience, or his tools, may be faulty, we note with relief that the author’s conclusions and inferences in The Arc of the Possible derive from, and are largely warranted by, the preceding and related narratives. Thus, using the concept of objectivity in terms of the extent to which the book is largely relatable-experience based, we can describe it as an objective account of the issues under reference. It retains a very respectable profile as a report, as a series of reflections, as a written documentary and commentary on government and as a case study of the governance challenges we must navigate successfully if we are to build a viable and lasting Nigerian state. The book is at once didactic, biographical and historical, because the author drew conclusions about lived and really trying experiences, while struggling to be faithful to the facts as he sees them.

Other comments and Observations

The major comment here is that The Arc of the Possible should not become one of those book that only the author would talk about. Like Olusegun Adeniyi’s book, From Frying Pan to Fire, on illegal migration which should be made compulsory literature in secondary schools, Waziri Adio’s book should be on a must read in ASCON, NIPPS, Faculties of Management and high-end human capital development and leadership platforms and institutions. It will be an invaluable resource for scholars, leaders and students of leadership and existentialist thinking.

The other point is to say that the author should see his tenure at NEITI as a rehearsal for future, much more demanding, leadership positions.

The editorial and technical quality of the book is almost flawless. This is a lasting tribute to the editors and publishers. This is hardly surprising, knowing that Simon Kolawole is involved, with Olusegun Adeniyi as brother and imperator to the author.

As I congratulate the author and publishers, let me place it on record that, based on this book, including the testimonies of third parties and stakeholders in the industry under reference in this work, the author, Waziri Adio retained his Brand Integrity.

Text of the book review by Dr Okey Ikechukwu, mni, at the public presentation of Waziri Adio’s book, ‘The Arc of the Possible’ in Abuja on Saturday, December 11, 2021