By Reuben Onyishi
(Ugoachataberu)
In his book , The 360 Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization , John C Maxwell holds that a 360-degree leader masters three basic ways to exert influence. They can “lead up” the hierarchy by working with their supervisors; they can “lead across” the organization’s structure by working with their colleagues; and they can “lead down” the hierarchy by directing and motivating their subordinates. Leadership is a function of influencing decisions, and a good leader exerts influence by their ability to influence decisions without necessarily being the head. They cause all-around followership as their ideals rub off on others. They need not be the head but can influence others from whatever position they occupy in the organisation. The 360-degree leader can influence their boss, subordinates, and colleagues. This leader is a team player with uncommon interpersonal relationship skills. They know their onions and have the communicative power to drive home the ideals in which they believe and gain the buy-in of the authorities.
Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah of Enugu State is a 360-degree leader. He had demonstrated this ability in the private sector from where he hived into the public sector. From the rear, he drove Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited to the forefront in the downstream oil and gas sector of the Nigerian economy. He could not have achieved this without 360-degree leadership skills: influencing competitors, influencing customers, and exerting influence on the organisation’s people. Mbah’s adaptation to technological innovations disrupted the status quo and charted a cause of utter transformation of leadership in terms of market share and revenue profiling in that sector.
Pix: Gov Mbah
Armed with these transformative skills, Mbah came into public service as the governor of Enugu State with utter commitment to the disruptive innovation that would, by means of his 360-degree leadership skills, rub off on the nation and the subnationals, offering the nation credible standard reference for excellence in governance.
South East of Nigeria was headed for utter economic ruination orchestrated by the sit-at-home monster foisted on the zone by some non-state actors. It would be a herculean task dealing with sit-at-home and the security danger it engendered. Within one week of his inauguration as the governor of Enugu State, Governor Mbah pronounced death on the monster and killed it. It wasn’t easy dealing with it. It would take exerting influence on many fronts, gaining the buy-in of the people who were hoodwinked to think the monster served the interest of Nnamdi Kanu and the quest for his release. The rest is history. It was at this point in June, 2023 that on a visit to President Tinubu, Mbah asked that Kanu be released in line with the healing process the president had espoused in his own inauguration speech.
Asking the president to consider releasing Nnamdi Kanu from the gulag was “leading up,” but since it would not yield the needed result, Mbah would push at the horizontal level, “leading across” his colleagues, getting his brother governors in the South East to buy into it. This paid off as the South East governors after their meeting in Enugu on 10th August, 2024 called for the release of Nnamdi Kanu, as they also resolved to meet President Tinubu to impress on him as to why it had become necessary that Kanu be released.
After the PDP Governors Forum meeting in Enugu on 16th July, 2024, while briefing the press in a communique issued by the forum, the chairman, His Excellency Bala Muhammed, referencing the leadership role Mbah played among his colleagues acknowledged that “the meeting thanked the Host, His Excellency, Governor Peter Mbah, for hosting the first meeting of the PDP Governors in recent times outside Abuja and for holding the party together not only in Enugu State but in the entire South Eastern Geo-political Zone; as well as extolled his virtues and achievements as evidenced with major landmark projects and interventions.” It goes without saying that Mbah is a 360-degree leader, a team player who has the capacity to communicate his milestone achievements to his colleagues as he naturally becomes a reference point of what good governance entails as acknowledged by the PDP governors.
It was not just the PDP governors that would glowingly appreciate the leadership roles Mbah played, the presidency also did and expressed it in two different awards bestowed on the governor between the months of June and July, 2024. Mbah was conferred with a National Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSME Award by the office of the Vice President on the World MSME Day for his outstanding contributions to the MSME sub-sector in Enugu State. Barely one week after, another award of excellence in public service was also conferred on Mbah by the presidency in acknowledgement of his milestone achievements, especially with regard to road infrastructure in Enugu State. What the presidency did was point to Mbah as a reference point worthy of emulation by the other subnational leaders.
Shortly after the Presidential Awards, Mbah’s excellent leadership received international acclamation as the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria, Mohamed Malick Fall, on 13th July 2024, decorated Mbah, as a Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) champion, describing his leadership as the model that Nigeria, the UN, and Africa needed. The UN was overwhelmed with the credible leadership model Mbah embodied especially as it concerned the smart green schools he was building in the 260 wards of the state as well as the 260 type 2 hospitals unleashed on the 260 wards, the budget of the state with its capital projects orientation and the ceding of 33 per cent of the budget to education, and the special attention the Mbah Administration paid to the social services sector.
Mbah had previously been conferred with the Governor of the Year Award by New Telegraph, Sun, Vanguard and Champions Newspapers in acknowledgement of his excellence and courage in leadership. But Mbah would not bask in the glory of the awards. If anything, they motivate him to do more, and more he has continued to do.
The fact is that a city on the hill can not be hidden. Although Mbah is soft-spoken, quiet, and unassuming, in him is the convergence of uncommon virtues, intelligence, wisdom, creativity and a can-do spirit. Whatever Mbah says he will do, he does, even when it seems impossible before the ordinary eyes that has no capacity to glean from what Raymond Williams in his book, Illuminations calls “complex-seeing”. During the unveiling of his manifesto at the Peter Mbah Law Auditorium of Godfery Okoye University Enugu on Thursday, 13th October 2022, Mbah said he would build 10,000 kilometres of roads in Enugu State in eight years. It sounded Greek to the ears of Thomas. Today, Thomas has seen and believed, as Mbah constructs 1250 kilometres of roads every year in the course of achieving the 10,000 kilometres in 8 years. The presidency gave Mbah the award of excellence in public service on account of his exploits in road infrastructure, as Mbah, in one fell swoop, commissioned 71 roads built with a year in Enugu.
The leadership role Mbah plays in the nation is obvious. The smart and young Enugu governor has become the barometer with which excellent leadership is measured in Nigeria and Africa, and the UN points the nations to this barometer. It is all but a function of excellent 360-degree leadership skills Mbah has got and which has translated into tangible performance on all fours. Kudos to the 360-degree leader par excellence, Governor Peter Ndubuisi Mbah of Enugu State.