Governance by Design

If leadership is the engine, then design is the steering.
And right now, we’re coasting blind.

For decades, Nigeria has relied on charisma and brute force — the hope that a strong leader will come and “fix things.”
But long-term progress doesn’t come from heroics. It comes from systems that make good decisions inevitable.

What we lack isn’t willpower. It’s governance by design.

🧠 What Is Governance By Design?

Governance by design means treating leadership like engineering:
Where structure matters more than slogans.
Where roles, processes, incentives, and accountability are intentionally built.

It asks:

• What behaviors does the system reward?
• What failures are silently tolerated?
• What checks exist — and who checks the checkers?
• What happens when a competent leader leaves — does the system collapse or continue?

Design dictates how people move through a system, how decisions are made, and whether the structure resists collapse when pressure comes.

🏛 Strongmen vs. Strong Systems

Many African nations, Nigeria included, are addicted to the myth of the messiah — the single reformer who will swoop in and save the day.

But even the best leaders burn out. They die. They get voted out.

If progress dies with them, then what we had wasn’t a system.
It was a performance.

Governance by design doesn’t depend on exceptional people. Instead, it creates ordinary processes that produce exceptional outcomes.

It builds:

• Institutional memory that outlasts any administration
• Clear channels of accountability that function with or without media attention
• Checks and balances that actually prevent power from corrupting

Good systems make it hard to fail — and even harder to abuse power.

🧱 Examples of Good Design

We’ve seen glimpses of this in unlikely places:

• Lagos BRT (early phase): A multi-stakeholder transport system with relative transparency in fare collection and route enforcement.
• Corporate banking systems: Private sector compliance mechanisms that continue working regardless of who the MD is.
• NIBSS & BVN: Interconnected banking ID system that drives secure transactions and financial inclusion.

Each one proves that when systems are designed for integrity, they can thrive even in difficult environments.

Each of these cases shows that when things are designed well, they last.

Now imagine applying that same design logic to ministries, agencies, courts, and education.

🔁 From Culture to Code

Governance by design doesn’t start at the top. It starts with understanding how systems behave and encoding better behavior into the structure itself.

That could mean:

• Switching from patronage to performance-based promotions
• Digitizing processes to reduce human interference
• Structuring incentives so that the easiest path is also the most productive
• Creating redundancy so that failure in one part doesn’t break the whole system

It’s like writing good software:
If the logic is flawed, the program will always crash — no matter how much you pray over it.

🌍 A Country That Can Run Without a Saviour

Nigeria doesn’t need a savior. It needs structure.

The goal isn’t to find a perfect president, governor, or commissioner.

It’s to build a country that functions regardless of who’s in office.

That’s governance by design. And until we embrace it, we’ll keep repeating the same rehearsed parades of strongmen, each louder than the last, none able to leave behind anything permanent.