SERVANT-LEADERSHIP MODEL: BEST PRACTICE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT THAT IS GUIDED WITH

A MASTER PLAN

AN OPINION PAPER PRESENTED

BY

OLUWOLE ADEDOKUN ALADE-OJOMO, Ph.D.

ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES AND SPATIAL PLANNING CONSULTANT

Member of Climate and Environmental Development Initiative (CEDI);

Member of the Steering Committee on National Addressing System in Nigeria;

Member of Vision 2020/20- Environment and Sustainable Development Thematic Group; and Alliance Partner -National e-Government Strategies, Abuja.

walade2004@yahoo.com

Introduction

The principle of democracy is based on the concept of free and equal representation of people within an administrative entity.  It is the free and equal right of every person to participate and equally be rewarded in a system of government, often practiced by electing representatives of the people by the majority of the people as proclaimed when Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola reclaimed the leadership mandate of the State of Osun.  "Democracy on one hand is like the experience of life itself-- always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested for adversity" (Jimmy Carter, Speech to Parliament of India June 2, 1978).  On the other hand, it is the model envisioned in this instance, to accommodate a system that recognizes empathy in service delivery, servant-leadership orientation and passionately guided aspirations for development. 

Indisputably, this leadership model is currently being exemplified by the humble and relentlessly passionate person called Ogbeni, who is committed to serve and devoted to service.  Fortunately, this model is contrary to the pervasive visionless and masterly model that is typically practiced in Nigeria.  Unfortunately, democracy as experienced in the State of the “Living-Springs” in recent times, turned out to be a contemptuously self-serving opportunity for those who were fraudulently installed as democratically elected administrators.  Thusly, stunted economic growth, dilapidated infrastructures, and waveringly social order were inherited by the seemingly unlucky administrator who is using these disdaining inheritances as a challenge and motivation to serve the people of the State by formulating the prescribed “Six Point Integral Action Plan” for administering the State. 

It is the concept of the action plan being integral that makes the adopted development plan unique.  Perhaps unwittingly, while the action plan for development emphasizes intensive physical infrastructure and expansive agriculture development so as to ensure even spread of development benefits to every part of the State, it has created increased informal settlements, environmental desecration, and unguided spatial reorganization.  To this end, it is making environmental impacts more pronounce on contiguous natural resources in both rural and urban areas.  For instance, it has been observed from follow-up studies conducted along the recently dredged rivers across the State, in terms of the overwhelming rate of sand runoff into the river channels.  Without an intervention program to protect, manage, and direct development appropriately, the resultant problems from development activities may be more complicated for ensuring the desired outcomes of sustainability.  Because the implementation of physical development to-date has being without any formal environmental management and monitoring master plan to ensure well coordinated spatially balanced and orderly growth, there is an urgent need for the strongly advocated government intervention program which must be legislatively promulgated for continuity.    

The Physical and Spatial Transformation Model

In an interview granted the press on Monday, the 11th day of March 2013, in Abuja, the Senator representing the East Senatorial District unequivocally affirmed that the “State of Osun has transformed”, (Sen. ‘Jide Omoworare, The Nation, vol. 8, no. 2426, March 12, 2013, page 8), it is opined that, the State of the virtuous has been transformed, and it is still being widely transformed.  No matter the perception, the fact of the matter is that “…We cannot continue to solve societal problems at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them…” (Albert Einstein).  This is the reason for urgently embracing the advocated program and master plan as a different mode of thinking to minimize the impacts of development on the environment.  This unfortunately, was never there and still not there, in spite of the increased development intensity.

Without any doubt, there is no magnitude of transformation targeted towards development, that does not have physical, spatial, economic and social consequences on the environment upon which incessant or future development depends.  What the State is going through in terms of the observed transformation in infrastructural and agricultural development sectors in particular, sway from the past development activities.  Both development sectors are land-based and their growths have varying impacts on other natural resources.  Hence, it is incumbent on the State to put in place measures for minimizing the impacts of spatial and physical modifications on the overall environment.      

In view of the above highlighted sectors (infrastructure and agriculture), there is the need for logical, proactive, innovative and dynamic planning processes to be deployed if any such intensive physical and expansive spatial development is to be justifiable.  To ensure that the notion of sustainability is achieved, maintained and sustained, given the magnitude and fast pace at which such transformations are currently being manifested in the State of Osun, a mitigating plan is inevitable.  Because of the rapid growth that is occurring, conventional planning models are rendered obsolete faster than what they could cope with, due to the pace at which spatial transformation and physical changes are occurring.  Consequently, the dynamic planning process that is being advocated has to be integrative, collaborative, strategic and inexorably linked to the plan.  In this instance, the plan is unquestionably intensively “broad-based extensive development”, in other words, the plan is integral, multi-dimensional and interrelated.  Such a plan framework is unique and the planning model is pivotal to meeting the economic needs of the long-neglected growing population of Osun State by uncaring, nonchalant and inept administering bosses of recent past towards the governed. 

If truly, “…Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion” (George Wilhelm Friedrich), both the “intense physical and expansive spatial development plan” models being demonstrated by the current democratically elected Administrator of the State of Osun is clearly indicative of the aforementioned passion, for evading an imminently imperiled future generations of the State.  Since a strategically deployed plan is a system for achieving specific objectives that are eloquently spelt out for each of the six points in the integral action plan, the resultant outcome of the State of Osun development plan is to inherently use infrastructural and agricultural sectors to drive economic and social developments in view of their physical intensity and spatial expanse.  

Without gainsaying, the above is predicated on the fact that an Administrator who lorded himself on the State for almost seven years and seven months without any meaningful development should not be emulated if substantive development is the goal to be achieved.  As revealed, during the most recent past corruption-ridden reign of his Excellency are superficially expensive projects.  Such included six Olympic size stadia built in a State that ranks numbers 19 and 28 out of 36, in terms of population and land size respectively.  Whereas, within two years of the current administrative tenure, there is none of the 30 Local Government Areas that has built less than 10 kilometers of roads and almost all State and Federal roads are being renovated and upgraded across the State.  To buttress the expansive spatial transformation, the State has opened-up no less than 2,500 hectares of new farm-land tracts for food and livestock production, excluding the vast expansion of existing Farm-Settlements for cash-crops.  The need for the latter is to accommodate the O’REAP scheme, and the hundreds of hectares of land along the major rivers floodplains for “Akuro” vegetable and horticulture production (Hon. Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Richard Adedoyin, 2013).  It should be noted that the newly created Osun Broilers Out-growers Production Scheme (O’BOPS) designed to produce no less than 200,000 broilers per month, is an indication of an aggressively passionate Governor to provide jobs to the people of the State.  As impressive as it is on just a newly created agricultural (poultry) production program, the environmental impacts could be enormous (Luqman Ballo, member of the scheme) without predefined mitigating measures to minimize the adverse effects of poultry waste on the constituents of the environment.  Thus, requiring the advocated intervention program. 

State of Osun Development Models

To put the above in context as envisioned and proclaimed by Ogbeni Aregbesola, transportation infrastructure is a requirement for growth, regardless of existing industrial capacity, population size, demographic pattern or technological development within any administrative entity.  Conceptually, infrastructure in functional terms is the most basic level of organizational structure within a complex system that serves as foundation for the rest.  The significance of transportation infrastructural system for development purposes is perceived to be comparable to the blood circulatory system in humans.  Similarly, the passion for development exhibited by the Governor of the State of Osun by emphasizing infrastructural development is comparable to blood circulatory system which is essential for carrying oxygen, glucose and other essential nutrients to all the cells in the body.  If something were to happen to blood circulation, it might lead to a host of symptoms, including low energy, sluggish memory and lack of stamina or failure to grow and thrive in the case of children.  All these symptoms are exhibited in an economy with a poorly developed and uncoordinatedly maintained transportation system.  In real terms, such an economy is characterized with a failure to thrive.  For an economy to thrive, it would need an efficient transportation system to move goods and people within every corner of its borders.  “An efficient transportation system facilitates the movement of goods and people cheaply and quickly which is vital in producing in a vibrant economy” (Dr. Obi Igbokwe, 2009).  This is a model and development passion that has been exhibited by Ogbeni Aregbesola’s administration in the last couple of years.

In view of the above, infrastructural development for the purpose of moving goods and people is a requisite for ensuring social relations and it is equally vital to fostering economic growth because it is the groundwork upon which other development sectors latch onto to achieve any planned “Spatial Development Strategy”.  The model for utilizing Spatial Development Strategy is predicated on the fact that development plan in this instance depends on the utilization of geographic space to efficiently provide for beneficiaries of plans.  Both infrastructural and agricultural development sectors are being used to drive Osun State economic and social growths with the view of guaranteeing both physical and spatial developments, and for sustaining the environment for generations yet unborn. 

Although, Development Plan as an economic tool in this instance goes beyond what it has been commonly ascribed to be.  Going by the wizardry of the prime administrator of the State of Osun, it is a tool within a larger, webbed and multifaceted system as deployed in the State of Osun.  It is an instrument that is set up for implementing plans targeted for economic growth, social development and physical development which includes infrastructures development ranging from roads network, railways, utilities network (water and power-supply assets), affordable housing supply, waste management, tourism potentials, provision of quality health-care and  education systems, rural and agricultural development, and urban renewal and so on.  All of the different development sub-systems in general, as being prescribed would be simultaneously tagged along with “Spatial Development Strategy” which ascertains orderly utilization of the geographic space, and by-and-large enhancing the attainment of a sustainable development.  It is my honest professional belief that the envisioned sustainability can be achieved, if only guided by a “Resource Protection Program” that is driven or advanced by a much advocated “Environmental Management Master Plan”.  The diagram below provides the essence of the advocated principle for attaining Osun State Six point integral action plan without compromising environmental quality and the aforementioned sustainable development.

The State’s experience to-date in implementing past Development Plans have been relatively ad-hoc, fundamental, subjective, and seemingly misguided.  Whereas, because of the uniqueness of the current development plan model (“Integral Action Plan”) and the required policies, it would be most effective if directed by data-dependent socio-economic parameters as well as thought-out land use policies.  In addition, a data-guided spatial strategy that could more efficiently move the State further along the sustainable development continuum is imperative.

The adoption of “Spatial Development Strategy” as a critical factor does not only ensure sustainable development but also it ascertains a coherent spatial planning framework aimed at achieving better balance of social, economic, and physical development spread across the 30 Local Government Areas.  Subliminally, in the psyche and passion demonstrated by Ogbeni Aregbesola, he believes that the adoption of the action plan model would in-turn make the most of our cities, towns, and rural areas to have more opportunities for improved quality of life and better places to live in.  The attainment of the above development mind-set is envisioned to be enhanced with the deployment of the advocated “Environmental Management Master Plan”.  As propounded by the late President Yar’Adua and in line with Governor Aregbesola’s mind-set and action plan execution, this will hasten the process to “… meet the developmental needs of our people, their educational needs, their health needs, and their psychological needs…and develop the environment for them to grow and develop their potentials” (President Yar’Adua at the presidential retreat, 16th august 2007).  Essentially, the diagram presented below shows what is being advocated as an intervention program to in-effect ensures the implementation of the Osun State six-point integral action plan with biases for the management of the environment so as to minimize the impact of development and without compromising the ability to sustain the environment.

ESSENCE OF THIS GOVERNMENTAL INTERVENTION PROGRAM

The most logical question that comes to mind is--How then, can a plan of such diversely intensive and expansive magnitude be executed with inadequate knowledge of how much resources are available within the geographic space without negatively impacting on the quality and sustainability of the environment in the process?  It is for this reason that Spatial Development Strategy becomes critical.  Such strategy is principally based on the fact that resources within a given space are developed to accommodate growth and provide for conservation and protection of natural resources that are vulnerable to development activities.  Thusly, criteria are developed within the advocated government intervention program as shown in the above diagram.  The formulated criteria shall be to minimize the impacts of development by directing, controlling, and managing development in a manner that the adverse impacts of growth are minimized. 

Empirical Evidences for Model

Professor Akin Mabogunje has propounded the concept of “Spatial Reorganization” as the method for enhancing the delivery of goods and services.  Osun State, as discussed above, is using its infrastructural development to derive the enhancement of the delivery of goods and services.  Ideally, spatial re-organization demands logical, empirical, and methodical advances to rightly organize or re-organize spatial structures.  The notion of "spatial structure" as an integral part of effecting spatial re-organization is the physical manifestation of the components of the environment both the rural and urban areas (Mabogunje, A. L., The Development Process: A Spatial Perspective. 1981, pg. 55). 

Using the same logic, Professor H. Ajaegbu asserted the concept of “Rural and Urban Integration” to accelerate both social and economic developments.  In the same context, the intensive physical (infrastructural) and expansive spatial (agricultural) plans as employed in Osun is for transforming the environment as well as for driving economic and social developments.  If these were to be attained, it must be based on a well articulated Spatial Development Strategy that is guided by an “Environmental Management Master Plan”.  It is strongly believed that this concept is an imperative for ensuring sustainable development because it recognizes that the amount of available resources within the geographic space, already existing land uses and development within an administrative boundary are determinants for environmental sustainability. 

In the context of the above, the more efficient the transport system is, the lower the cost of transport, and invariably the lower the cost of goods and services to the masses being governed.  When infrastructural development of the magnitude being demonstrated in the State of Osun occurs, one tends to see people as the motivations for development.  Nevertheless, people are equally the rationale for planning, conserving and protecting the constituents of the environment because they are the foundations upon which development is built to meet those basic human needs.  It is paradoxical however, that one of the intents of sustainable development entails changes, but what is changed must remain constant.  “That is, development requires the transformation and consumption of environmental resources, but the required changes must not diminish the quality, distribution and quantity of human and natural capitals” (Robert Costanza, Economic Reasons for Conserving Wild Nature. Science Vol. 297:950-953, 2002).  This is one of the perspectives for the six-point integral action plan, in view of the person, our “Rauf” and his peculiarities in the way he does his things and the way he reasons regarding the governing and administering the State of Osun.  Tacitly, the Governor had once requested and directed that a “Resource Protection Program” be developed for the State so as to minimize the impacts of development on the State’s River Channels that have been dredged.

Justification for Model

The aforementioned data guided socio-economic parameters are viewed in terms of spatial structures which are the components of the landscape that interactively work with each other (both within and between each other) to make the systems within an enclave function.  It is the spatial transitivity or interrelatedness that promotes a functional system if deliberately and consciously applied using relevant data.  The term transitivity in geographic or topologic context means, if a relationship exists between features "a" and "b" and between features "b" and "c," then similar relationship also exists between features "a" and "c."  Topology in that sense is what ties the relationships between features linked together in a system.  That is, it is the order, contiguity, and relative positions of geographic features.  Therefore topologic analysis from the “Spatial Development Strategy standpoint, are the scientifically tenable criteria formulated after assessing the configuration of the earth’s surface to determine the relationships that exist between features  and the position of those features such as streams, roads, cities, farmlands, and so on.  In spatial or geographic context, topology could further be broken down to hypsographic features (relief, topography, or terrain); hydrographic features (water, rivers, drainage, watershed areas and canals); and vegetation (forest, grassland, riparian vegetation, etc).

For instance, each of the urban functions is ruled by a specific policy as it is the case with the six-point integral action plan.  Hence, as a consequence, the policies influence and drive the development of the static and dynamic elements of the system.  Individual policies can be formulated at the Local Government Areas as would be required in the unique approach for implementing the aforementioned Critical Area resource protection program.  Program provides a unique program approach that emphasizes and mandates each of the 30 local jurisdictions to develop and implement their programs because of their varying needs and ecological peculiarities so as to ensure effective improvements in conditions of the watershed within their jurisdictions.  From the provisions and guidelines developed for the development and implementation of local programs, it is mandated that they formulate land use policies that recognize the existing components within their jurisdictions.  Where policies emanate and are dictated by growth sector, individual developments that are deemed to be required to support one function can have adverse impacts on the effective operation of other functions.  As a result, mutual influences are typically driven by socio-economic and physical criteria.

One of the requirements for the advocated resource protection program is the development of a requisite Environmental Management Master Plan for the following purposes:

(1) To develop, establish and implement a resource protection program for the rivers and their tributaries by fostering more sensitive development activity along their banks so as to minimize impacts to water quality, hydraulic capacity, and natural habitats;

(2) To implement this resource protection program on a cooperative basis between the State and Local Government Areas, with local governments establishing and implementing their programs in a consistent and uniform manner subject to State oversight, and criteria formulated in the aforementioned requisite Environmental Management Master Plan;

(3) To increase the amount of forested buffer areas that fall within the designated Areas, along the rivers and streams in all of the Local Government Areas (comparable to the 75 hectares of Osun Osogbo Sanctuary which was established by Suzan Wenger Alarape); and to ensure that the established “Akuros” in the rivers floodplains adopt the prescribed agricultural best management practices (BMPs); Particular attention shall be given to the entire span of Osun River in the State, whereby a minimum of 100-feet forest buffer shall be mandatory, except those portions that shall be excluded for Governor’s approved GRA subdivisions; and

(4) To develop land use policies for physical development and associated activities including waste management so as to minimize their negative impacts on adjoining natural resources in the urban built-up areas and rural areas in order to attain the following goals.  

The Governor’s Peculiarities within the Nigerian Leadership Context

In a write-up by D. Akinsanya Juliuson C. titled, “What constitutes insanity?”   He defined it from the Nigerian context when he acknowledged that insanity “…is to keep doing the same thing' over and over again, whilst expecting a different result. If we want life to become saner and less stressful, we've got to change some of what we keep on doing.  We're not single-handedly creating the situation that we find ourselves in, but we're certainly shaping it to some extent. We can't control anyone else's behavior, but we can at least modify our own. That's all we need to do.  Break a habit pattern.  Try a new approach.  Experiment with a different plan. Then suddenly, all that seems so exasperatingly impossible will begin to become pleasingly feasible” (http://pointblanknews.com/artopn397.html).  If there is any other way to demonstrate the deployment of a new approach, or sway from old practices of governance better than what is currently experimented in Osun with its current development model, may be the above definition is misunderstood.   

The above seems negatively stereotypical, but in very few instances across the country could it be said that State administrators have defied the conception of what insanity is really is as defined.  However, some of them have embraced the notion that “When you cannot change the direction of the wind it is only logical to adjust the sails” (Jackson Brown).  The changing of sails is the most practical way that Governor Aregbesola’s administration has deemed it fit to handle the wind direction that has blown for so long without the Servant-Leadership model.  The model being manifested with the current spatial development strategy, which is the most appropriate under the prevailing circumstances in most parts of the country, is what Osun State has embarked on.

The focus on infrastructural and agricultural development in the State of Osun is supported by the need for a well guided integrated rural/urban arrangement within the concepts of “Spatial Development Strategy and Spatial Reorganization”.  Such a strategy, by definition is the catalyst towards rational, orderly, and sustainable development resulting from spatial reorganization that enhances the delivery of goods and services sustainably.  It is this notion of change that tacitly results to what is intended for future generations.

The above is predicated on the fact asserted by Ajaegbu that an urban-rural interplay with effective social interactions and relations between contiguous existing growth-generating urban centers and the rural areas can serve as binding zone.  Any development therefore, must be concerned with creating and developing such zones for delineating urban-rural regions and rural centers to serve the rural hinterlands by using tenable criteria in the proposed environmental management master plan to identify and protect functional regions.  These functional regions are where the spatial interplay and interaction of the settlements become zones for their demand for and supply of goods, services, and other functions that are essential for development.  Therefore, harmonious spatial development activities can be achieved, with linkages related to transportation, telecommunication networks and other utilities that can be developed in an efficient manner to simultaneously serve the citizens in both urban and rural areas (Ajaegbu, 1976, pg. 60).  The harmonious development activities in practice are achievable by guiding or regulating development within their developmental capacities.       

Conclusion:

The extent of spatial and physical transformation across the State of Osun is a manifestation of an administrator who is adamantly progressive regardless of any limitations that might seem debilitating.   The aforementioned Spatial Development Strategy in the context of the State of Osun can be defined as the accelerating factor towards rational, orderly and sustainable development because it addresses “the adequacy of infrastructure which helps to diversify production, expand trade, cope with population growth, reduce poverty, and improve environmental conditions”.

In recognizing the profound impact of man's activities on the interrelations of all components of the natural environment, particularly the profound impacts and influences of population growth, high-density urbanization, industrial expansion, resource exploitation, and many others, the environmental intervention program becomes important.  Further recognizing the critical importance of restoring and maintaining environmental quality to the overall welfare of the citizens, the development approach model exhibited by Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola is most ideal to get the State to the envisioned destiny.  However, it should only be attained without blemishes and compromises.  Also, it must not be at the expense of the environmental limits needed to sustain it for future generations to come.