BECKONED to Serve’ is the autobiography of AlhajiShehuUsman Aliyu Shagari, the first President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria under the American-style presidential system of government.

The title probably owes its origin to the mechanism through which the President found himself in high public offices at different stages of his political career.

This was through a recruitment process where the political leaders at that time determined that he was required to serve in defined capacities and proceeded to get him elected to those positions.

In that era, there was clear job definition that helped to narrow the choice of candidates rather than the burning ambitions of aspirants. In so far as the leaders were altruistic in the decision, the persons beckoned to serve were expected to have certain enduring qualities of leadership.

While, the first generation leaders have been denigrated in some quarters, in retrospect, the quality of leadership in public office in Nigeria has been more on the decline with each succeeding generation.

Public office is high office of service which has direct impact on the welfare and well-being of all citizens. Therefore, it should be a calling for the most capable hands in the land. Unfortunately, military intervention in our political life has left this nation an unsavory legacy of mediocrity in public service that is not limited to the political class but extends to the bureaucracy.

The natural process of leadership identification, grooming and maturation have been scuttled and replaced with a chaotic process that appeals to our basest sentiments. Indeed, nowadays, emergency philanthropic activity has become one of the common devicesfor attaining public office.

Recently, I was having a conversation with some friends which invariably dovetailed to the process of leadership recruitment in our country, especially in the light of the explosion in information communication technology and pervasive access to media coverage of electioneering processes in other countries that we can benchmark.

My friends seemed particularly enamoured of the American system of intense electioneering campaign that tests the capabilities of the aspirants and helps the voters to evaluate them and wondered why our own system cannot borrow a leaf from the Americans.

Some were quick to point out that our historical socio-political experiences and peculiar demographics are responsible for our current political development.

Perhaps, this was what the military had in mind when they insisted on home-grown democracy. Nonetheless, a process that constantly throws up mediocre performers that diminishes high offices of state such that the best minds and capable hands regard public office as being beneath their status requires speedy overhaul and reform.

Unarguably, the starting point in that reform process must be altering of the motivation for public office. I was told a story of a young man who aspired to serve his people by representing them in the state house of assembly and looked forward with delight  to being given his own Prado Jeep.

Yes, some elected officials are in a hurry to acquire sirens for their escort cars and to have several armed mobile policemen at their beck and call as sign of their arrival. Evidently, in situations where public officers are over-pampered with the perquisites of office undreamed of by public officers in better developed economies, it is impossible for anyone to be beckoned to serve any longer.

In the event that someone is beckoned to serve, it is even doubtful if the person is being recruited for the interest of the larger society and not those of the anointing godfathers.

By all available indices of development measurement, Nigeria is a poor country, yet public office holders in Nigeria are among the best maintained in the world and live in Byzantine luxury(apologies to Honourable Patrick Obahiagbon).

Maintained, is carefully chosen here to reflect the disparity between actual lawful entitlement of public officers and the perquisites that they have appropriated for themselves.

Take the example of the young man that aspired to the House of Assembly in order to possess his own official Prado Jeep. Nowhere in the law specifying the remuneration of members of the house of assembly, is there provision for official car.

Indeed, the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission which sets the maximum entitlements specifically does not recommend official cars for members yet I do not know of any state where members are not provided official cars.

To be fair, it is not just members of the state houses of assembly that are guilty of this breach of the law. At all levels of governance in our country from local government to federal, there is a complete irreverence for the laws of the land, especially when it comes to matters of welfare for office holders.

It is therefore unsurprising that ambition for public office is no longer propelled by as much a desire to serve as to be served and rather than wait to be beckoned to serve, the ambition is today, pursued with murderous ferocity.

Mr. CLEMENT OFUANI, a political analyst, wrote from Asaba, Delta State.