Sycophancy destroys Jonathan governance - Oby Ezekwesili

The formal minister of education under chief Olusegun Obasanjo, admistration insists the poor performance of the present administration is due to sycophancy. She said the president aides only report good news to the president ignoring bad ones. She tweet this late on thursday night, stating the chibok girls abduction a case study.


“When a review of President Jonathan’s administration is done, we’ll realise how much damage sycophancy did to governance. Example? Chibok Girls,” she said.

She further elaborated on how the President allowed sycophants in his cabinet.

She added, “A leader must be without an inordinate desire to be serenaded with ‘good news’ or their team will never let them know the true state of affairs.

“An environment that rewards sycophancy encourages team to withhold accurate ‘bad’ news (problems) from the leader while serving up ‘good news’.

” When a leader makes hero worshipping costly to those who engage in it, he/she deprives the ‘sellers’ market to set the ‘Mediocrity Benchmark.’

“A critical success factor in governance is for the leader to both in word and deed convey a culture that abhors sycophancy. No hero worshipping.”