By Uche Onyebadi

UNTIL recently, Kathleen Sebelius was the U.S. Health Secretary. As April unfolded, she sent in her letter of resignation to her boss, President Barack Obama. That move caught practically everyone by surprise because there was hardly any indication that she was about to quit. But she did, and it was not a forced move as the highly authoritative New York Times newspaper reported that she quit entirely of her own volition.

What made her resignation seem out of sync was that things were now going well with President Obama’s signature Affordable Healthcare act popularly known as Obamacare. When the March deadline requiring people without health insurance to do so or face some penalties came, the number of people who had registered for health insurance surpassed the seven million mark that was set as the benchmark for registration. But, you have to rewind to October 2013 to fully appreciate the shock brought about by Sebelius’decision to quit.

Perhaps very few legislations in modern U.S. history have generated so much anger, confusion, frustration, division and political acrimony as much as the Affordable Healthcare act. Republicans and their allies vigorously campaigned against the law as they saw it as government intrusion into their lives. On their part, Democrats and their supporters could not imagine why anyone would stand in the way of a law that is designed to ensure that every American had health insurance. Healthcarecost in the U.S. is so phenomenally high that several studies have shown that it is perhaps the single most potent reason why people go bankrupt.

Ridiculous disaster

When this flagship policy of the Obama administration went into its implementation stage last October the launch was a ridiculous disaster as the Obamacare web site was just not ready to welcome people who wanted to sign on for health insurance.

It was a moment of huge political humiliation for President Obama, and his Republican opponents had a field day taunting him. But, the president resisted all calls to fire Sebelius in whose docket was Obamacare. Rather, the president publicly accepted blame for the disaster and ordered Sebelius to go to work and fix the problem.

Sebelius did, and did it so spectacularly that when the deadline came, registration for Obamacare exceeded estimates. And having redeemed her battered honor and integrity, Sebeliusresigned when the proverbial ovation was at its loudest. But somehow, it didn’t make sense that she left when everyone expected her to stay on and receive the accolades her hard work had earned her.

It is rather difficult not to examine this incident against the backdrop of what regularly happens in the developing world, Africa in particular. How often do we hear our leaders blame their failures on the opposition even when it is disingenuous to make such linkages? The last thing most of these leaders will do is to admit failure, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that things have fallen apart. When they are ready to give in to the reality that their policies are not working, they seek solace in blaming their opponents and everyone else as ready-made excuses to explain away indolence and shortsighted policies.

How about the treatment of officers who work for the presidency? The shabby treatment they get when things go bad can be personally humiliating. Very few ministers in any African presidency leave office on a happy note. They are the immediate sacrificial lambs to assuage a restive public. The presidency often pretends that the problem will go away once the officer who is in charge of whatever it was that went wrong is publicly humiliated in a most uncivilized manner and relieved of his or her official portfolio.

But those problems do not disappear by merely dismissing the minister in charge of what went wrong. In the case of Obamacare, both president and his health secretary went to work to fix the problem.

President Obama has the power to sack Sebelius in order to curry some favour from the American public. However, doing so would not have solved the problem for people who wanted to sign on to the programme. Obama did not want to appear nice and innocent at the expense of his minister.

In fact, at the press conference where he officially accepted Sebelius’ resignation and announced her replacement, President Obama confessed that “She’s got bumps, I’ve got bumps, bruises” over the ill-fated launching of Obamacare. But he was also magnanimous enough to tell the world that in the end, she “got the job done….the final score (on registration) speaks for itself.”

Such attitudes make public service attractive to all who wish to get involved in it. There are too many good-spirited public servants in our continent who got booted out in disgrace just because of something going wrong at some point, not because they are habitually incompetent. They are not even given a chance to rectify the anomaly because their bosses often try to ride the crest of good public opinion on their backs. Of course there are indolent ministers who need to be shown the door.

It is important for the leader to share the shame and blame when something goes wrong, as well as lead the lap of honor when all is well. That, is the mark of good leadership.