Nothing is more powerful than having a strong leadership. Strong leadership turns difficulties into opportunities and provides structures that make every citizen a willing partner in the realization of national dream. National dream is a strong base for the realization of individual aspirations. This is what has preserved the modern State of Israel against all odds since its creation in 1948.
Given the historical high profile of the Arab-Israeli conflict which has polarized opinion across the globe, one would have thought that Israel would be a state in ruins. The consistent firing exchange of mortars between Israel and its neighbours would have left the city desolate, lawless with collapsed leadership and structure. But despite intermittently launched missiles by surrounding enemies into Israel, the State of Israel has remained the pride of struggle for self actualization, the hope of those craving for a nation of their own free from marginalization and external manipulations.
Israel and Nigeria are worth comparing as countries with security challenges. In 1967, both Israel and Nigeria went to war. Israel’s war lasted only six days while Nigeria stretched its own war to three years. Israel was seeking political self-preservation from outside forces while Nigeria was fighting its own people provoked into revolt by corrupt and discriminating government. Israel was politically inside shouting out and Nigeria has been politically inside shouting in.
50 years after, Israel is still security tensed but the un-safe city is more developed and safer than the safest inn in Nigeria. The most unsecured person in Israel is safer than the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. While occasional skirmishes in Nigeria have served as reliable excuses for lack of reform, in crisis the State of Israel has remained more committed to national destiny, unrelenting distractions notwithstanding. This is because the state of Israel has a leadership.
If necessity were to be the mother of invention, Nigeria would have had more inventions than Israel because of our overwhelming absence of amenities. But Nigeria is bereft of inventions despite nagging necessities because we have no leadership. Our crisis moments have failed to be opportunities for our government to widen thinking and proffer solutions which are enduring. Israel still spends much more easily more money on arms than any other part of the world, but the country is focused. Why? Israel has a government. Efficient! Effective! Transparent! Focused! The government is exhaustively radical in its policy formulations to challenges. It does not waste thinking. It does not waste resources. It does not waste energy, human or natural. The Israeli leadership does not waste steps. Every step taken by the government is a step forward. The government does not waste expectation for it knows that if expectations are wasted the citizens become disappointment and that can provoke resentment.
The government is ever poised, goal-focused; it is always target oriented. Even when government is adopting a short term solution to prompt difficult challenges, it knows that the solution is temporal; it will be short lived. Consequently, it gets the best results with minimum input. Yet, the results of such short term conceived plans are overwhelming. To be sure, such short term policies and programme will be valid in Nigeria system for more than a century. Some of the policies we go to copy from other nations were temporary solution to nagging issues; they fail us because they are outdated.
Effective government provides efficient system resilient enough to confront challenges. The first creed of an Israeli is vigilance for the survival of the State of Israel from its overwhelming enemies. Security is everybody’s business. The airport is GPS wired with other states-of-the art electronic security facilities to detect suspicious items, substances and persons. Every inn, road, mountain, hotel room, lavatory, name them is electronically gazetted to the central surveillance unit. But it is amazing that there are no roadblocks save for few checkpoints leading to important areas. Yet, these checkpoints are not manned by policemen like logs of wood on the highway.
Though no policeman carries gun to harass people the country is secured. Along the security posts, one will see neatly dressed security men sitting like pupils waiting for school buses at bus-stops. Yet, they are ever-alert to every movement. The electronic security defence is made manifest in its anti-missiles technology that can detect missiles in space and destroy them if they are heading to settled population or important offices.
Besides security, averting water stress is Israel’s greatest problem because 65% of the land is desert save for the Sea of Galilee, all other waters in the country are too salty. But the country is equal to the task. Water is not wasted but recycled. All sewage water is collected and centrally treated to at least 70% purity level and used for irrigation. The country has a single water works hidden from enemies’ mortar under a mountain in the Golan Heights. This underground water treatment mechanism serves the whole country and it always has enough for drinking and powering its massive agricultural irrigation.
While Nigeria converts arable lands into desert, Israel turns desert into grassland. Israeli landmass is estimated to be over 70% mountainous desert. This has not been a hindrance to agricultural production. For Israel, there is always a way out. The country has efficient irrigation system which sustains farming. Across every part of the country, every single crop or tree has a tap dedicated to supplying water to it. Laying of irrigation pipe is part of cultivation planning. This mechanism accounts for its impressive agricultural production which is a big booster to their economy and pride of the nation. Olives, oranges, mangoes and grapes all have their pride of place in plantations scattered round the country. The orange plantation beholding Tel Aviv international airport is adorned and held in highest esteem because it symbolizes triumph over pessimism that no fruit would grow there. Its green vegetation is weather friendly and has added a green colour to the neighbourhood.
To ensure that farmers’ efforts are not rendered futile, the country has, through its agricultural research and pest control, come up with biological answers. The choice of bio-option has saved the country of multiple embarrassments. The chemical control of pest is poisonous to plants, crops and the environment. Because of its security alertness, radioactive chemicals might find their way into the country and pose dangers to animals. The possibility of polluting their only source of water is obvious.
In a perfect foresight, the government banned the use of chemical. The country, in the alternative is flexible to creating various insects that will prey on agricultural pests. For every specie of agricultural pest, there is an equivalent insect bred and released by the pest control unit to eat up the farmers’ enemies as well as their eggs. The created insects themselves cannot harm their plants but feed only on moths and the eggs of crop pests. This is possible only in a country where leadership is strong, focused and responsive.
No eyebrow can detract the folly of the impression that Nigerians are a hard-to-please people who therefore get the bad leaders they deserve! Good government ought to produce good people. If people are bad, it is because their government is very bad. I think it is Nigerian leaders who get subjects they deserve.
Developed nations understood the indices of progress long ago. The secret is making everybody a willing partner in the struggle to national agenda. Government can only secure citizens’ loyalty if it is responsive to their yearnings. Last week, we began examining the effects of responsive leadership of the state of Israel. This piece is a continuation and conclusion of that script. Israel is decent because it has decent government and decent people.
Having examined security issues and agriculture, we need to peep into Israeli transportation sector. The country’s airport harbors no lack in international requirements. Perhaps, theirs is held as standard for other countries. The services are efficient, effective, fast, humane and thorough. The airport security is second to none and the best brains in aviation management are on ground to keep the developmental pace of the sector updated. No delay is tolerated at the airport since that can be a security risk to the country. The airport managers do not eat their words. Weather forecasts are predicted long before the flight schedules. Cancellation is rare.
The roads have not received lesser attention. There are massive roads leading even to every house. Mountains are not obstacles but opportunity for construction engineers to develop and apply their constructive ingenuity. Roads crawl like snakes finding their way to the mountaintops. The roads are neatly constructed with GPS technology to detect security risks. The roads are spacious enough, such that in cases of emergency aircrafts can use them as landing or take off tarmac. The roads are also graded according to importance and ownership. Part of Israel policies allows privatization of certain trunks to decongest heavy traffic. Some motorists wishing to escape heavy traffic can pay and ply the less congested roads maintained by individuals or companies that pay their taxes and rates to the government.
There are no road marshals standing like frozen statues on the road, as seen in Nigeria, with wild eagle eyes looking for possible iniquities and sometimes finding fault where none exists and giving clean bill of health where massive faults predominant. There are no traffic wardens because the traffic lights have no time-outs. The traffic rules are respected because they are written in the hearts of the citizens. Overtaking of vehicles is rare, not just because the roads have many lanes, but everybody is patient, calm, articulated and calculated. The use of horn is hardly non-existent.
There are no damaged cars and scraps littered along highways because accidents are rare. The rights of pedestrians are respected and zebra crossings strictly observed with no or minimal coercion. Despite its dangerous terrain arising from its peculiar topography, every ditch down the mountainous road is free of trunks of trailers that missed their way as one would have expected in Nigeria where sometimes heavy duty vehicles are seen floating in Lokoja River. Even in the deepest of the gullies leading to the mountaintops, one will be disappointed that there is no abandoned cars as a result of accidents like what we see around Ngwo hill in Enugu.
Students do not pay a dime to and from school as long as they have their identification with them. Yet, the drivers stop at every bus-stop to pick those who would not pay them. Only in Israel! The services of a conductor are not needed in their public transport. The passengers are respectful, and well behaved. They pay their driver with no intention to cheat. The roads are everywhere to guide the driver. In the event of making a u-turn that might waste the time of road users, nobody is needed to either guide the driver or use hands to control the impatience of other drivers. Every driver would patiently wait till the turning heavy vehicle is done, and the movement continues. The drivers drive with dignity and most have their university education.
Power is another sector which a typical Nigerian visitor to Israel would not fail to ask the reason behind their success. Power failure is predictable. The country’s oil deposit was only in the Sinai Peninsula but that too has long been handed over to Egypt on diplomatic arrangement. In the alternative, the country has a technology designed to achieve multiple purposes. The solar pan technology serves as roofing sheet and at the same time generates solar power for household usage. That is not all; all excess energies generated by households using the solar pan technology are bought up by the government and transmitted to the country’s power generating house to be distributed to households older than the technology and those too poor to buy the new technology. With this, steady power supply is guaranteed.
The beauty of a system is that once it is set going, one has only to sit and watch it deliver. Israeli government has a system that is predictable. Every Israeli knows where the government is heading to at every point in time. People are not kept outside the corridors of governance. They are regularly put on the know and that is why everybody is queuing up behind government in the realization of its dreams.
Beside government, Israel has people determined to love it more than anything else. Nationalism is the first religion. Every Israeli is proud of the State of Israel and enthusiastic about peaceful Israel. While we owe our Christianity to the land of Israel and our Islam to the same Middle East; yet, despite the disproportionate number of adherents to these religions, nobody is distracted by either the religion of the cross and that of the crescent. Everybody is willingly contributing to the growth of Israeli economy because one realizes oneself only in a community.
Effective system produces patriotic and responsible citizens. Every Israeli loves his nation above every other sentiment. Citizens are business-minded but are not greedy. The efficiency of Israeli system is a joint cooperation between the people and their leaders. The education system is decent and focused. There are compulsory intermittent study leave for students, rich or poor. During the leave, restaurants, businesses and offices are mandated by the government to absolve the students and pay them fixed amount to enable them go back to the school.
Another way to make people responsible is to reward honesty. Israelis have ways of rewarding sincerity. I recall paying for an item where I had expected $70 balance but I was mistakenly paid $160 by the storekeeper. When I called his attention to it, he took me around the whole market shouting that he had seen an honest Nigerian. In the end, I went away with gifts more than that overpaid $90. If I tried that in Nigeria I risk going to prison on account of cheating. But the real cheats go free.
We can’t blame God for making us Nigerians but one would wish this biological accident were different.
