Praxis in leadership: Lessons from Kayode Fayemi’s political journey, By Babatunde Afolabi

Dr Kayode Fayemi

For JKF, excellence as the hallmark of his political trajectory was not an accident. It was a function of habit. Prior to becoming a politician, JKF was (and still remains) an intellectual of the finest traditions in matters of international politics and on issues of public policy. His role as one of the leading experts, indeed, as one of the pioneers of civil-military relations and security sector governance in Africa, extensive contribution to rethinking and reshaping discourses on governance and regional security, prepared him for the journey into politics.

I find it particularly fitting because many bear testament to Dr Kayode Fayemi’s benevolence, goodwill, networks, vision and wisdom. I firmly believe that there is a clear nexus between his life’s journey as a student leader, political mobiliser and grassroots politician, activist, scholar-practitioner, and his role as a politician, administrator and statesman.

Several lessons on how to live a life of great purpose garnished with astounding accomplishments can be gleaned from Dr Fayemi’s most remarkable journey, whether one attempts to study his trajectory as a scholar-practitioner, or in more recent times, as a politician, administrator and statesman. For this reason, I have divided the essay into two main parts. The first component will attempt to establish the nexus between praxis and Fayemi’s political leadership style, if you like, the Fayemi Governance Model, in Ekiti State and also at the national level. The second part of the will discuss a few practical lessons and personal attributes of HE Dr John Kayode Fayemi (hereafter JKF), and will include a few personal anecdotes.

Part One: What is Praxis and What are the Linkages to Leadership? How Has Praxis in Leadership Shaped the Fayemi Governance Model?

Praxis has been defined as the space where ideas, practice, theories, and people intersect (Guajardo, 2009: 70). In the field of philosophy and the humanities, extensive debates have been held on the foundational interpretation and manifestation of the concept. Notable ancient and more modern philosophers and their adherents such as Aristotle, Plato, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Hannah Arendt, Jurgen Habermas, and others have examined its meaning and manifestations. From the understandably materialist interpretations of Marx and Gramsci, to the others, various definitions of praxis have been advanced. As Wainwright (2022) notes:

Many writers have sought to explain how we are to move “from theory to praxis,” a slogan that not only pre-supposes a distinction between theory and praxis, separating thinking and action, but that also implies the political priority of the latter. The distinction and positive valence are rarely explained. The gap between the ostensible importance of praxis and its lack of transparent usage has generated great confusion, as well as an impressive literature…praxis refers to almost any sort of human activity, any doing. While this activity need not be concrete, praxis requires more than contemplation. Sleeping, resting, daydreaming—while these are all necessary for human life, they are generally seen as too inactive to constitute praxis. This introduces an obvious complication: praxis is commonly differentiated from theory, but all human activity is accompanied by thought and, ergo, by theoretical activity at some level. Moreover, elaborating such theory—whether in the formal scientific sense or in the quotidian sense whereby people try to come to a common understanding about some problem—always involves practical activity. (Wainwright, 2022:41-43)

Despite the various interpretations, credit is given to Aristotle for his discourse on the subject of praxis and distinguishing it from ‘theoria’ (theory) and ‘poiesis’ (activities that aim to do something). Aristotle accords primacy to praxis out of the three aforementioned concepts critically examined (Blackman, 2010). He defines praxis as a continuous interplay between thought and action, and as practical reasoning that is guided by a moral disposition to act rightly, and a constant process of theory-making and testing. The Aristotelian conception of praxis is what informs my exposition of the Fayemi governance model and is the guiding framework for this address.

It is evident that praxis in leadership has the ability to inculcate new world views and shape and transform societies. Good ideas do not come from space. They are carefully cultivated through diligent and painstaking scholarly and deep ideological pursuits, as well as from experiential learning. The scholarly background of JKF and his consistent exposure and contributions to world class, cutting edge research and best practices, as well as the spirit of excellence and humanistic values that he imbibed from his formative years, have shaped his outlook and leadership in public service. For JKF, excellence as the hallmark of his political trajectory was not an accident. It was a function of habit. Prior to becoming a politician, JKF was (and still remains) an intellectual of the finest traditions in matters of international politics and on issues of public policy. His role as one of the leading experts, indeed, as one of the pioneers of civil-military relations and security sector governance in Africa, extensive contribution to rethinking and reshaping discourses on governance and regional security, prepared him for the journey into politics. Even as a politician, JKF continues to amaze with his commitment to scholarship.

Within Nigeria and indeed across Africa today, the conduct of and outputs by some of our current leaders reveal a shocking and stark deficiency of ideas, the lack of moral conviction, and a lack of exposure and understanding of the complexity of governance in the 21^st century. We often ask ourselves how we have ended up where we are. It is a collective blame on society – from our leaders to us, the followers; from the governors to the governed. We have placed meritocracy and value for education and good character below the acquisition of material things, a phenomenon which the late Professor Ojetunji Aboyade referred to as the acquisition of junk. Putting things into perspective, allow me to highlight a number of initiatives in Ekiti that can only come from a well-cultivated mind and an experienced and seasoned thinker and administrator – a philosopher-king, and which have set JKF apart from other politicians and administrators. That journey must start from the ideas contained in JKF’s eight-point agenda, which served as his framework for transforming Ekiti State, titled the “Ekiti State Transformation Agenda and Road Map to Ekiti Recovery.” The Fayemi Eight-point agenda were: Governance, Infrastructural Development, Modernising Agriculture, Education and Human Capital Development, Health Care Services, Industrial Development, Tourism and  Environmental Sustainability, Gender Equality and Empowerment.

Some of the notable achievements recorded during the JKF administration’s second term in office include: massive increase in Ekiti’s Internally Generated Revenue, a citizens-focused budgetary planning process, free education up to the secondary school level, the introduction of IT education and infrastructure for students and teachers across Ekiti State, the renovation of hundreds of schools, the construction of several water treatment plants and the transformation of the water delivery system in Ekiti, social welfare policies as the payment of monthly stipends for the elderly (Owo Arugbo), and the Ekiti Food Bank programme. Others include the renovation of general hospitals and the construction of new ones, massive road construction, a multiple birth Trust Fund, vaccination programmes for children and women, the establishment of a Youth Commercial Agriculture Development Programme (YCAD), the  construction of the Ikogosi Warm Spring Resort, provision of financial assistance through the Gender Empowerment programme, and the signing into law of such landmark bills as the Freedom of Information Bill, the Water and Sanitation Bill, the Equal Opportunities Bill, and the Freedom of Information Bill, among others. We must not forget the Ekiti State Agro-allied International Airport, among several other landmark achievements.

JKF has the unusual ability to embrace local politics and engage with community citizens in farm steads in Otun, Igede, Orin, and Erio, and at the same time blend in easily with the members of the international community in Oslo, Munich, Geneva and Addis Ababa. He is an embodiment of the “all politics is local” aphorism and at the same time a global citizen. Allow me to share a personal experience in this regard.

International development programmes of the likes of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank, and others, have acknowledged the linkages between the Ekiti Transformation Plan and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and have, as a result, invested in the state. One of the recent Human Development Reports had described Ekiti State as the most conducive environment to live in, for long and healthy living, with a life expectancy average of 55 years, more than the national life expectancy average of 50 years. Ekiti has had the lowest infant and maternal mortality rate and the lowest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the country. The state has consistently recorded the highest pupils’ enrolment in relative to Nigeria’s population and it has the least out-of-school children (less than 2 per cent) in Nigeria.

During his stint as governor, one of the key structures put in place by HE Fayemi to drive the vehicle of performance and delivery that could have come from a praxis-oriented approach include the setting up of an Office of Transformation, Strategy and Delivery (OTSD), for the purpose of reshaping how government functions, re-engineering its processes and systems, in order to implement government’s policies in an effective and efficient manner. Also worthy of mention are the introduction of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) into measuring performance, a medium term expenditure-driven budgetary process, and the establishment of the Ministries of Rural Development and Community Empowerment; and Budget, Economic Planning and Service Delivery. Also established was the Ekiti Knowledge Zone, aimed at bringing together Ekiti academic experts and pioneers with players in the industrial and scientific communities to cross-fertilise ideas and to produce innovative concepts, products and services that will positively impact Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa, and the Ikogosi Graduate Summer School.

JKF has the unusual ability to embrace local politics and engage with community citizens in farm steads in Otun, Igede, Orin, and Erio, and at the same time blend in easily with the members of the international community in Oslo, Munich, Geneva and Addis Ababa. He is an embodiment of the “all politics is local” aphorism and at the same time a global citizen. Allow me to share a personal experience in this regard.

I recall an incident that will remain indelibly etched in my memory, and which took a long time to reconcile with during my brief stint as HE Fayemi’s personal assistant. Sometime in March 2007, while at his Isan Ekiti country home, I awoke from deep slumber to noise around 1:00 am and rushed out to the main living room, to find over fifty people, obviously indigenes of Isan, with Dr Fayemi in their midst. Out of curiosity, I listened in on the conversation, which was about a minor dispute between two Isan Ekiti indigenes and for which the then candidate Fayemi was to mediate. I was shocked at the reality that the man that I had known and served, and whose credentials I had seen first-hand hobnobbing with heads of state, ministers and ambassadors, and eminent scholars from across the world, sat to listen to the grievances of his people over what I considered to be almost a non-issue. I went back to bed without saying a word and the next morning, he said to me that he noticed my shock at what had earlier transpired in his living room. He implored me not to worry about him losing his mind, and added that this was the meaning of politics in practice, and that no issue is ever too small or too big for a leader to help his people to resolve.

Part B: The Imperatives of Mentoring and Personal Experiences.

This leads me to the second part of this essay, which delves into my personal experience and life lessons from an excellent boss and mentor. I would like to start by sharing another personal anecdote. It was sometime in 2004 and I had just commenced work at the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) as an intern, and my first assignment was to review and discuss a compendium of scholarly critiques and acclaims from leading public policy experts on the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), with JKF. I had gone through this publication without the required diligence and had been trying to avoid an opportunity to discuss it for several days.

The day of reckoning finally came and I could no longer hide but to present my key findings from the book. This was at the CDD office at Olabode Close, Ilupeju Estate office in Lagos. Suffice to say that I did not do a good job of it and Dr Kay, as we used to call him then, did not hide his disappointment. Before I could go far with the nonsense that I was presenting, JKF stopped me and in no ambiguous words, said that the quality of my presentation was unacceptable and that he knew that I could do better. He was visibly unhappy and sent me back to my corner of the office.

On that day, I skipped lunch because I had lost my appetite following the show of shame, and I must have wandered around aimlessly around Ilupeju for over an hour, shell-shocked and disappointed with myself, but with a strong resolve never to flunk any intellectual test ever again. When I presented myself for my ‘second viva’ a few days later, I knew I had passed when he actively engaged me on the arguments and when what looked like a smile emerged.

Such is the nature of the man that a lot of us refer to as a mentor and role model. As much as he is willing to go to any length to support your intellectual, professional and personal goals, he can also give you feedback in words or with his renowned silence.   

Sir, you have helped several of us to find purpose and to navigate life much easily, and on every mentee or protégée’s behalf, I have come to say thank you. Without your steadfast commitment to young people, we would most likely have wandered and stumbled without the ropes that you have thrown to us and held firmly on the other side to lift us up.

Tenacity, Focus and Hard Work.

In his memoirs, Out of the Shadows: Exile and the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy for Nigeria, he said and I quote:

Academically, I was above average, but my academic record was not any more distinguished than that of many of my classmates. This speaks volumes about the work done by our teachers in Christ’s School to produce a consistently excellent crop of students. There was, however, an area in which I distinguished myself during my time there. There was in connection to my mastery of current affairs in the world. The distinction earned me the sobriquet “Current Affairs” throughout my time in Christ’s School, as my schoolmates marvelled at how I could retain the amount of information I did about world leaders, state governors, national and international events…my particular interest in current affairs, which started very early in life and developed rapidly in Christ’s School, was to play a key role in my choice of career and in my public spiritedness (Fayemi, 2005: Pp 61-62).

From HE Fayemi’s self-admission, at least two lessons stood out for me. First, his incredible work ethic, evidenced by his attainment of top grades, as a student at the University of Lagos, as a postgraduate student at the University of Ife, and subsequently, as a doctoral student at the prestigious King’s College, London. The second lesson for me is the early identification of his areas of strength and the subsequent mastery of those areas to maximum advantage. One can imagine that Dr Fayemi could have done well in the field of law or any other field in the humanities. However, would have been able to attain the highest heights that he did in scholarship, politics and administration, had he done something else? I do not think so! The key lesson here, therefore, is that as young people, we should make every effort to identify our core strengths and build on it with all that we have got.

One other key attribute of JKF is his dexterity at versatility. For him, there have been no barriers at being an activist, a scholar and a politician. He has played all the roles with aplomb by emphasising the importance of and displaying public spiritedness. As he asserted, whether one is at the barricades protesting and agitating for public service delivery, interrogating the dynamics of the political economy that give rise to policies, or actively crafting and implementing better policies, what matters the most is the public spiritedness (Fayemi, 2008). HE Fayemi has lived these ideals and walked the talk in the various roles that he has assumed in public life – from his days as a student activist, to the era of being a scholar-practitioner, to the more recent days of being a politician and an administrator. What we have observed over time is the sheer difficulty of evolving from one role into the other for most people. The activist thrives in his or her corner as a leader and remains in that space into his twilight years, while the scholar at the ivory tower remains in her comfort zone of testing theories and paradigms without trying out other things. The point is not to critique specialisation and sticking to one’s calling. It is to underscore this unusual trait in a human being that has excelled in various roles and in varied positions in public service.

As I conclude, permit me to stress to youths that the importance of and benefits of mentorship cannot be overemphasised, and to inform you that it is a cheat code for living a remarkable life. With the scores of JKF’s mentees doing remarkable things across the globe, several notable achievers in history have relied on mentors to identify, articulate and to pursue their dreams. People who have mentors go further in life than those who set about things experimenting without guidance or supervision. Let me quickly reel out a few notable names and their mentors to drive home this point: Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams, Michelle Obama and Barack Obama, Sir Freddie Laker and Richard Branson, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, Robert Redford and Quentin Tarantino, and Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, Socrates and Plato, Leonardo da Vinci and Francesco Melzi. Younger ones  please get yourself a worthy mentor. It will make a huge difference in your life’s journey.

My very last point – which is directly to JKF. Sir, just before the Second World War erupted in 1939, a man called Nicolas Winton, a British stockbroker, helped get approximately 10,000 persons, mostly Jewish children, out of Nazi Germany-occupied Czechoslovakia, through what was known as the Children’s Transport programme across the UK. With the imminent war, he used all the resources and networks that he had to evacuate and place the several Jewish children originally from Czechoslovakia, as well as from Austria and Germany, into adopted homes. This heroic move occurred from November 1938 to September 1939 and it earned Nick Winton the sobriquet, ‘The British Schindler’. With what we know of the horrific crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazis against Jews, one could only imagine what would have been the fate of those children that were saved by Nick Winton. Upon the discovery of this remarkable heroic act by his wife and others, in 1988 on the BBC show “That’s Life,” which Winton was invited to, the host, Esther Rantzen, asked the studio audience, “does anyone here tonight owe their life to Nicholas Winton?” Dozens of those children whom had become adults stood up, surrounding an emotional Mr Winton, to thank him for saving their lives. Nicolas Winton, later knighted for his heroic acts, to become Sir Nick Winton, lived to the ripe old age of 106!

Sir, you have helped several of us to find purpose and to navigate life much easily, and on every mentee or protégée’s behalf, I have come to say thank you. Without your steadfast commitment to young people, we would most likely have wandered and stumbled without the ropes that you have thrown to us and held firmly on the other side to lift us up.

To my mentor, my boss and role model, I pray that you live longer than Sir Nicolas Winton and that the Almighty will help you achieve many greater years ahead. Amen!

Babatunde Afolabi (PhD) is Africa regional director at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD).

This is the text of the keynote address delivered at the JKF at 60 Youth Dialogue Forum on ‘Bridging Generations: Leadership, Mentorship, and Legacy in Governance, Adetiloye Hall, Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria, 8th February, 2025.