Leadership, when it is effective, efficient and purposeful, has a coordinating effect on employer-employee relationship and keeps the morale of employees extremely high.
When leadership is good and employee friendly, it increases trust and loyalty, broadens the horizon of passion and commitment which often times translate into a more positive work environment and better employee performance. Show me an organisation, be it in public or private sector that has excelled in the realisation of its corporate mandate, and I will show you the quality of leaders it has and the relationship that exist between the leaders and the employee.
With effective leadership, the morale of a team will definitely increase, whether it be by giving commendations for hard work or penalties for wrong doings. That is why I have always believed that to empower, is to enable, and an enabled employee will ultimately work in a manner that will aid the growth of the entire system.
When effective leaders empower their people, the team will grow as they become more comfortable in their decision-making and other skills, and they will strive to do their best.
A case at hand is the Federal Road Safety Corps and of course, the leadership philosophy of the newly appointed Corps Marshal, Dauda Ali Biu FCNA CPA.
The new Sheriff who came on board in December, 2023 has in a bit to sanitise the system, ushered in a new regime of ecstasy and unprecedented joy through the introduction of employee related policies that have in no little degree, boosted the general morale of the entire workforce.
Let it be told for emphasis that Dauda Biu is not only one of the most specialised and thoroughly bred transport administrators to have risen to the highest position in the organisation after Boboye Oyeyemi, the erstwhile Corps Marshal, but a welfare guru who understands the deepest mystery of administration and the best way to strike a balance between media and employee relations.
Since assumption of office, the Corps Marshal has left no one in doubt when it comes to show of commitment, passion, dedication to the Safety of lives and properties of Nigerians, as well as his determination to carve a niche for himself.
Without any waste of time, his administration declared a state of emergency on improving the welfare of the entire workforce, and that effort marked him out as different, a man apart. To such men as this, the organisation cannot achieve it’s purpose if the staff are not adequately motivated, hence the need to expedite action towards entrenching a better welfare platform for the staff.
Apart from the commencement of clearance of backlogs of transfer allowances and other benefits of Staff which he inherited from the previous administration, the Corps Marshal has changed the course of policy focus and direction, particularly in the area of career progression.
The peak of this transformation came with the release of the list of promoted Officers who participated in the 2022 promotion exercise. At the glance of the promotion list, the entire workforce of the Federal Road Safety Corps was set agog in ecstasy. It was a celebration and jubilation like never before seen. Everyone, including those who did not participate were cut in the web of uncontrollable joy, staff who had stayed on the same rank for years, had, for the first time in a long while, a breath of fresh air. A situation similar to that of Israelites after liberating themselves from the slavishness of their oppressors.
A walk around all the formations of the Corps nationwide show that a number of careers of staff had been hitherto traumatised, emotionally beaten black and blue, stagnated beyond what they could bear, and utterly ridiculed before their contemporaries who have the same service years in other uniform organisations.
The man Dauda Biu has sure become the present day ‘Moses’ who did not only bring freedom and liberation to career progression, but brought healing, entrenched solace and comforted many who had wandered in what seemed to be an endless search for joy, freedom.
Many who were held on the same rank for over a decade couldn’t believe what they saw. Never believed it is possible to pull through to the next rank. To them, it’s a miracle, a kind of magic that goes far beyond human comprehension. Indeed, Dauda Biu has shown courage and capacity in leadership, restored hope in the face of hopelessness and proven beyond every iota of doubt that, nothing is impossible.
Let me conclude by stating that FRSC has become a reference point in excellent service delivery in Nigeria; the benchmark for road safety management and administration in Africa and an exemplar of global best practices in its operations. Being the Frontline govt agency for traffic superintendent and guardianship, the Corps has been well known in terms of its origin and trajectory which has the imprimatur of Africa’s first Nobel Laureate for Literature, Prof Woke Soynka, who made it a project and agency to behold.
But this excellence, can only be sustained in an atmosphere where the workforce which represents the strength and image of the organisation are properly taking care of. And it is on this premise that the present Corps Marshal, Dauda Ali Biu has set the wheel of progress of his administration in motion.