Lee Kuan Yew (1923-2015)

The avalanche of tributes that has trailed the death of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father and first prime minister whose rare feat of transforming the country from a third world to a first world in one generation has become proverbial across the world, is a testimony as well as a lesson in good leadership, especially for Nigerian politicians.

Since the announcement of his death in the early hours of Monday, aged 91, the international media have been awash with endearing tributes by world leaders for the man whose brand of capitalism, which stresses the role of government rather than the free hand of the market, is said to have provided a blueprint for China’s landmark economic reforms.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply saddened” by Yew’s death.

Former US President George H.W. Bush said of him, “I will always be proud that Lee Kuan Yew was my friend. I respected his effective leadership of his wonderful, resilient and innovative country in ways that lifted living standards without indulging a culture of corruption…. Because of the example set by Lee Kuan Yew’s singular leadership, let me add I am confident that the future will be bright for Singapore.”

His son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, said in a televised address, “The first of our founding fathers is no more. He inspired us, gave us courage, kept us together, and brought us here. He fought for our independence, built a nation where there was none, and made us proud to be Singaporeans. We won’t see another man like him.”

BBC called him “the statesman who transformed Singapore from a small port city into a wealthy global hub”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry described him as “a uniquely influential statesman in Asia and a strategist boasting oriental values and international vision”.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called him a “far-sighted statesman” and “a lion among leaders”.

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo said he was “a close friend of Indonesia and renowned as the founding father of modern Singapore”, adding that under his leadership, Singapore has succeeded in transforming itself into a major economic hub for the Asian region and stands in equal footing to other developed nations of the world.

For CNN, “Lee Kuan Yew will forever be remembered as the man who transformed a mosquito-ridden colonial trading post into a prosperous financial center with clean streets, shimmering skyscrapers and a stable government.”

During a meeting with Lee at the White House in October 2009, US President Barack Obama said, “This is one of the legendary figures of Asia in the 20th and 21st centuries. He is somebody who helped to trigger the Asian economic miracle.”

In an article on Kuan Yew, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote, “The mark of a great leader is to take his society from where it is to where it has never been. There is no better strategic thinker in the world today.”

Indeed, Lee Kuan Yew’s legacies in Singapore and the world at large will remain indelible. A charismatic and inspirational figure, Yew led Singapore through merger with, and then separation from, Malaysia. After the split with Malaysia in 1965, he pledged to build a meritocratic, multi-racial nation. And he never wavered, in spite of criticisms against some of his “repressive” policies.

In 1959 when he took control of Singapore, a tiny spit of land with no natural resources and a polyglot population of Chinese, Malays and Indians, the country was still a British territory beset by riots and unrest. But through purposeful leadership, Yew fostered the environment that allowed the former British colony to transform into a flourishing bastion of international business and innovation.

Extolling what he tagged “Asian values”, in which the community trumped the individual, Yew placed economic development above democracy. He created a highly educated workforce fluent in English, and reached out to foreign investors to turn Singapore into a manufacturing hub. Foreign investment poured in, much of it from US tech companies. In US-dollar terms, Singapore’s gross domestic product grew more than tenfold from 1965 to 1980.

Mainly because of the foundations he laid, Singapore today has flourished. It is now a widely-admired banking, tech and educational hub whose GDP per capita is among the highest in the world.

An unrepentant patriot, so deep was his passion for Singapore that Yew once threatened to rise from the grave if he saw things happening that he did not like. He told a rally in 1980, “I’ve spent a whole lifetime building this and as long as I’m in charge, nobody is going to knock it down.”

Variously described as “the father of modern Singapore”, “the architect of Singapore’s prosperity”, “a visionary who fostered relations between Asia and the US”, “the architect of a remarkable transformation”, among others, Lee Kuan Yew was born in Singapore on September 16, 1923. He gained admission in the city’s elite Raffles Institution and went on to study Law at Fitzwilliam College at Cambridge.

Yew was co-founder of the People’s Action Party (PAP) under whose platform he became prime minister. In 1990, he voluntarily stepped down as prime minister, the first Asian strongman to do so. In 2013, he wrote, “I have done what I had wanted to, to the best of my ability. I am satisfied.”