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A visit to
Singapore always leaves me with mixed feelings. To quote minister
mentor Lee Kuan Yew, it is the “cleanest, brightest, greenest city in
the equatorial belt”. Walking through crowds of well-dressed youth to
see a former British tropical colony of slums sporting a Manhattan
skyscraper skyline, offering well-stocked bookstores and a variety of
expensive branded shops reminiscent of London, New York, Paris, or
Tokyo, laced with wide streets and impeccably manicured parks, lifts my
sense of African possibilities.

Tempering that
feeling of hope is the sheer scale of difference between current urban
African squalor, of which Lagos is one of the more notorious examples,
and Singaporean splendor. No ifs, ands, or buts, Singapore has made it!
It is a rich city state. How did they escape poverty in our lifetime?
Can cities like Lagos and Accra emulate it? Could its methods for
selecting political leaders hold any lessons for giant Nigeria? Is
Singapore’s success the outcome of honest and competent leadership?
These questions demanded answers as I strolled through downtown
Singapore last week.

It bears repeating
that any community of people bears the scars of their own history.
Singapore’s colonial inheritance, evidenced, for example, by
institutions such as its compulsory national savings fund called the
Central Provident Fund, gave it advantages in its quest to create an
affluent Singaporean citizen. The American journalist, John Gunther,
wrote about Singapore in 1939 in his book “Inside Asia”. Apropos of
Singapore and Malaysia, he said: “acre for acre it is the richest
British possession or sphere of interest on the face of the globe. It
produces forty-five percent of the world’s rubber, thirty-five percent
of its tin.” But, it was corrupt and filthy, with pigs roaming its
streets.

The politics of the
Singapore story is inspiring for those of us who dream of clean African
politics. It starts with a group of young socialist members of its
English-educated elite deciding to fight for independence and a clean
government. Mr. Lee, for example, took a First Class Honors Degree in
Law at Cambridge University. They met in Mr. Lee’s house at 38 Oxley
Road in late 1954 to form the People’s Action Party (“PAP”). There were
other parties already in existence with prior claims on the allegiance
of the Singaporean masses that, in the main, were Chinese speakers.

The most
formidable of their opponents was the Malayan Communist Party, inspired
by the Chinese Communist Party and led by committed cadres of the most
ascetic type. But, the multicultural and multiclass group-spanning
Chinese, Indians, Eurasians, trade unionists, senior civil
servants-decided that their aspirations for Singapore were best
realised only if they themselves entered the political ring. To use the
language of my last column, “good followers” came together to form a
“group of good followers.” By 1966, the PAP had defeated their foes at
the ballot box to create a clean Singapore. Those members of Nigeria’s
educated middle and upper classes who seek an honest well run Nigeria
should consider forming their own political party.

“Good followers”
select good leaders. After attending the 1966 Commonwealth Conference,
Mr. Lee shed some light on desirable and undesirable leadership types
in an address to young students at the Law Society of Singapore. He
said: “There are two types of individuals who emerge in positions of
leadership. If your country is developed, then inevitably the people
who emerge in positions of leadership are people with a firm grasp of
the bolts and nuts of life, of standards of living and the economics of
life. And so Mr. Wilson is an economist of some repute… As I looked
around the conference table at Marlborough House recently [the venue of
the Commonwealth Conference], I saw emerging the other kind of
leadership-a new one: not one which we represent, the Tunku (the then
Prime Minister of Malaysia] and I. I looked at two young colonels
present, representing the governments of Nigeria and Ghana. And I say
to all law students: pray that my successor will be an economist. Then
you have a future.” Young soldiers, blind to norms of sober budgeting,
could not lead young people to a prosperous and dignified future.

Forty-four years
later, Nigerians will have occasion to ponder whether they have “a
future” under the presidency of a military man-General Ibrahim
Babangida. I, for one, think a Babangida presidency would be a
catastrophe. Yet, his announcement may be the event needed to compel
decent Nigerians to form a new party to fight for a better Nigeria.