Book Review
Oseloka Obaze*
Sunday 2 September 2007
Ken Nnamani
Nnamani’s Third Way
Selected Speeches
(ISBN: 1-889218-47-2 Sungai Corp., Princeton, NJ, 2007, pp. 306; Price $14.95 & $29.95)
Available At: http://talldrums.com/
Nnamani’s Third Way, a volume edited by Dr. Sam Amadi, is a collection of speeches not a biography. Incidentally, this work may in the long run serve at a biography of sorts, which it may well be, since both are often confused as being the same due to their inherent capacity to define the persona of the subject and indeed, his or her thinking.
But as similarly historical and defining as they may be, a collection of speeches is also hardly the same as a collection of essays. But it must be accepted that both also have a common value: they illuminate and offer to the reader and posterity an insight into the mindset of the author or speaker. Essentially, we can glean from public speeches of statesmen an account of a man’s and a nation’s times. The only pitfall, incidentally not too important, is that public figures hardly write their own speeches. And even when they do, they essentially offer the flourish, anecdote, and personal touches meant to guarantee them proprietary rights to the visions, ideas, and policy options espoused therein.
And so it is with Nnamani’s Third Way, which is a compendium of selected speeches on legislative leadership and democratic transformation in Nigeria, variously given by Senator Ken Nnamani, the fifth Senate President, and third ranking national leader in Nigeria during the eight years of the Obasanjo-Abubakar administration. This volume is a testimony to Senator Nnamani’s style of politics, vision, policy options, and philosophy during his two-year tenure as Senate President, from April 2005 to May 2007.
Like most collections of speeches, this one will serve historians and students of Nigerian domestic politics best, as a reference book. While none of these speeches will fall into the realm of great and iconic speeches, like Murtala Muhammed’s “Africa Has Come of Age”, Lyndon B. Johnson’s “The Great Society” or Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream”, these speeches go well beyond being mere political and historical footnotes, purely for their context in Nigeria fractious politics.
One common default theme for a collection of speeches like this volume, is that while the speeches stand on their merit, the raison d’être for producing the volume is not always embedded in the speeches themselves as they are in the author’s or editor’s introduction. Nnamani’s Third Way is no exception to this rule. This 306-page, four-part volume contains 64 speeches, which were delivered between April 2005 and May 2007. The speeches cover a broad political, economic, governance and thematic swathe.
Indubitably, the collection is put together with history and the role, which Senator Ken Nnamani might have played during a transformational period in Nigerian politics in mind. Also, what might obliquely be the other purpose is to cast Senator Ken Nnamani as a “great” man. This clearly comes across in the citing of Thomas Carlyle’s work, in which he posits that “history is the story of great men who changed their societies” as a premise on which this work is fashioned. This disposition is anchored by the observation that the alternative would be more contextual than personality driven. Hence, as the editor notes in the introduction, “situation theory argues that the context is more definitive of historical outcomes than personalities”. Yet this work is more about Nnamani’s personality than about context.
I fully agree that the emergence of Senator Nnamani as the third ranking elected Nigerian politician at a critical juncture in Nigerian politics was vitally important. But his emergence hardly had much to do with his personality or qualifications for the job, as much as it did with the contextual situation that confronted him and the nation at the time. Nnamani admits as much, when he thanked his senate colleagues “for breaking tradition to make me Senate President and for defying all odds to accord me the greatest possible support and friendship.” As Karl Marx once observed of such circumstances, “men make history but not entirely as they choose”.
Two points make this volume important and of value. Senator Ken Nnamani was hardly known in Nigerian politics before his emergence as the Senate President and the third ranking national leader after President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Atiku Abubakar. Second, in a slate of five successive Igbo politicians who held that position, from 1999 to 2007, only Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim and Senate President Ken Nnamani, survived their tenure in that office, perceptibly unscathed and with their integrity sufficiently intact to depart without a cloud of official misconduct hanging over them. His other Igbo predecessors-in-office, Senate Presidents Evan Enwerem, Chuba Okadigbo (both now deceased), and Adolphus Wabara did not fair so well.
If this collection is to be taken on its face value, it is Nnamani’s contention that he survived the office, by the use of his wits, skills and the employment of the political philosophy and style that is being referred to as the “Third Way”. In a nutshell, the “Third Way” philosophy is “anchored on a principle of legislative engagement that sees the Executive and the Legislative as interdependent. Interdependence is a relationship where different shades of a spectrum complement one another and structure their engagement in a manner that minimizes frictions and maximizes productivity”. For the record the “First” and the “Second” Ways, on which the “Third Way” is premised, are either being “adversarial” or being “a rubberstamp stooge” of the Executive Branch. By claiming to have taken the “Third Way” Nnamani lays claim to not being the latter or the former.
In the context on Nigerian politics and governance, Nnamani’s “Third Way” philosophy, holds that “the legislator is not a rubber stamp for the validation and approval of excesses (via malfeasance, nonfeasance or misfeasance) of the Executive Branch. The legislator is not under either moral or legal obligation to pander to the views and opinions or the people once elected”…. The “Third Way” subscribes to the idea of a legislator as a trustee who uses his or her best judgment. However, independence does not mean overlooking the commonality of governmental organs and the interrelatedness of problems that political governance aims to overcome”.
If Nnamani survived the vagaries and imponderables of Nigerian politics merely by his wits, nimble and nifty political footwork and his “Third Way” philosophy, then, what he has to say and the contents of this volume should be of utmost importance to students of Nigerian politics, historians and every aspiring Nigerian politician. I suspect, however, and I think most Nigerian observers will agree me, that it was a conjunction of circumstances well beyond his control, which more than Nnamani’s political savvy, his skills and experience led to his being elected and being able to survive that office. Such realities also afforded him the option and opportunity to “chose not to seek re-election to his senatorial seat, believing that providence would place him in a position someday to serve in a higher capacity” --read the vice-presidency or the presidency itself. For all intents and purposes, Nnamani quit when the ovation was the loudest. After all, discretion is still the better part of valor.
Depending on one’s political coloration and understanding of Nigerian politics, the fact that President Olusegun Obasanjo wrote the forward to this collection could be considered a plus or a minus. In this context, and considering the well known estrangement and adversarial relations between Obasanjo and Nnamani’s four predecessors-in-office, the much improved relations between the Executive and Legislative arms during Nnamani’s tenure must be seen as a plus and a tribute to him. Indeed, as the editor, Dr. Amadi observed, Nnamani “ushered in an era of Interdependency and Co-Management in the relations between the Legislature and the Executive arms.”
As President Obasanjo notes and one must herein agree with him, the book “encapsulates the philosophical grounding of the leadership style of the Head of the Legislative Arm of Government of the largest Black Democracy” and “clearly reveals the essence of the man and the fundamental nature, underlying belief, driving principles, and critical antecedents which have collectively shaped Senator Ken Nnamani’s outlook on leadership”. It is indeed this perceived successful procedure and its attending accomplishments, that are being refereed to as Nnamani’s Third Way, and hence the title of this work.
What perhaps makes this collection important is that historically, Nnamani, a political neophyte, had succeeded in managing legislative relations with the Executive Branch where veterans and more seasoned politicians failed. In fact, his emergence as senate leader was an aberration since “senator Nnamani was not high ranking, being a freshman Senator”. Under normal circumstances, hardly would an inexperienced freshman be elected to lead a National Assembly, but the political circumstances in Nigeria at the time of Nnamani’s emergence were anything but normal. So while not in conformity with the norm, it was hardly surprising when in April 2005, the freshman senator for Enugu East Senatorial District emerged to lead the 109-mmber senate after his predecessor, Senator Adolphus Wabara resigned from office on allegations of official misconduct.
On substance, one can be forgiven for asking “what has speeches got to with transformative leadership?” This is a question not lost to Nnamani and his handlers. In response, they note that “transformative leader must be a man or woman of vision, a leader who perceives a crisis, discern a solution and enacts symbolic acts and tell ennobling stories that lead his compatriots to embrace the challenges of making the vision a reality”. The four parts in this volume under which the speeches are sectionalized include: Legislature as Co-manager of the Economy; Legislature Democracy, Good Governance and Constitutional Due Process; Globalizations and International Politics and Politics and Social Relations. In reviewing the 64 speeches in this volume, no where can it be found, where the Senate President Nnamani specifically enunciated the “Third Way” as a policy approach, philosophy or doctrine that would guide him, the senate or both during his tenure.
Nonetheless, several speeches such as “Working Together for the Common Good”, “Collaborative Governance: The Key to Sustainable Democracy” and “The Triumph of Teamwork” all echo relative themes. In the latter speech, which marked his first year in office, Nnamani referred thus to his vision on assuming office; “we set before us the triple vision of salvaging the reputation of the chamber, streamlining its administrative mechanism to enhance our efficiency and establishing a legislative mechanism to enable the executive to efficiently and fairly manage the economy.” There was no reference to doing things differently, the new way or the “Third Way.” One is therefore, left to draw the conclusion that the entire “Third Way” concept and philosophy, is a well crafted afterthought meant to rally and harness Nnamani’s thoughts, ideas and successes through his various speeches and collectively branding them as the successful “Third Way” of doing things and in actual fact, establishing a new doctrine for domestic politics – the Nnamani’s Doctrine.
Given Nnamani’s widely acknowledged role in helping to put to an end to President Obasanjo’s Third Term bid, his speech titled, “Protecting Legislative Due Process”, (pp.157-160) made on the last day of the debate on the general principles of a bill to amend the Constitution to provide three terms for the President, may well be the most important speech of his career. I concur that it “is historic both in its content and in terms of its consequences”. Undeniably, that may also be one speech that revealed the mettle of the man and “eloquently revealed the character and ideological orientation of the Senate President”.
Just as writers often produce effete works on paper, so too, do politicians produce Spartan moral vision for the common weal. Nevertheless, on behalf of Senator Nnamani, Dr. Sam Amadi has done a noble and very professional job in editing this work and giving it some gravitas. His lead commentary before each speech is very helpful in explaining the circumstances under which the speeches was made. Such comments inextricably form the vital strands that connect the disparate dots and lines, thus bringing the various speeches into a holistic mode. It is this approach that puts the reader in the frame of mind to begin to contemplate and eventually accept, that there was from the very onset, a grand vision and design called the “Third Way” rather than one that evolved over time.
Two uncertainties pertain to Senator Nnamani. First, is whether he will ever again run for public office, in which case it will be for the number two or one slots -- the vice-presidency and the presidency. Second, only time will tell if he will ever write his memoirs. So far there are no issues that have presented an embarrassing coda for him that will militate against both endeavors. But in the event that he elects to do neither, he can rest assured that posterity already has the benefit of his views, from whence they will evaluate his personality, politics and general contributions to nation-building in Nigeria and more specifically, his input in upholding the time-honored separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.
Interestingly, in reviewing this book, a great moral issue crops up, which even though it does not diminish the importance and value of this collection, cannot be glossed over? In every sense, this work is about leadership. However, leadership ought to be a place where reputable people come to serve, rather than where ordinary people come to be made reputable. One aspires to leadership because his or her bona fides were good, not because being in leadership would make them good. In the case of Nnamani, this volume claims both niches for him: he was good before coming to the Senate and while there, he served with great aplomb and came out of the office smelling like roses, when most his predecessors clearly failed. This accomplishment, which in essence, is supposed to make Nnamani a “great” statesman, is the motive that underpins this work. It will suffice therefore to accept that Nnamani had “greatness” thrust upon him.
All said, the speeches in this volume have the distinction of brevity and are written in a style that is non-partisan and non-pedantic and therefore, easy to read and assimilate. They cover a vast area and therefore, will appeal to a broad audience. The greatest value of any collection of speeches is that like poems, they remind us of our own humanity and also inform posterity of our realities and frivolities. In this regard, Nnamani’s Third Way passes the essential test and surpasses the basic threshold.
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Mr. Oseloka Obaze, an aspiring writer, is a founding member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005 he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004. His novel, “Happy Eulogy” will be published in 2007. He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.
© Copyright 2 September 2007.