How can a country move forward when the elite, the leaders, the very custodians of state power, those that ought to set the example, give hope and inspiration, act as if they had lost faith in the present and future of their own nations? How can the nation have a future when the elite appear to be turning its back on the nation? Now they are buying houses in Brazil and Dubai and take pride in their foreign assets. Where they can help it, they die in foreign hospitals then we are told that they died with one white doctor by their bedsides!!
What is more painful is that these same elite presided over the squandering of trillions of naira, ran down our basic institutions- Eleme petrochemicals, Nigeria airways, Oku Iboku paper mill, Nigeria shipping lines, Nigeria coal corporation, all Government catering rest houses, all government printing presses, Ajaokuta Steel, Delta steel, NIOMCO, the various ports, Nicon Hilton Hotel, and so on. The list is endless. How do we build a future on such gargantuan display of fiscal recklessness, administrative rascality and incompetence, and managerial mediocrity?
To hide the extent to which they have compromised our future, they try to legitimate corruption, manipulate primordial differences and exaggerate socio-cultural differences in order to hide their failures or divert attention to non-issues. So, they create all sorts of ethnic and counter-ethic associations and pretend to be using them to defend the interests of the people. They exhibit a criminal fixation on the capture of raw power by all means necessary including violence, thuggery, lies, bribery, stuffing of ballot boxes, exclusion of candidates from the ballot, manipulation of security forces, even the use of juju! The power they spend so much to grab is not for the promotion or advancement of peace, stability, basic human needs or progress, but for the enhancement of primitive accumulation, reproduction of underdevelopment and the recycling of undemocratic conducts.
I believe that we must wake up as a people to put a stop to this unacceptable control of our present and future by so-called leaders that have not read a book in ten years. Even reading newspapers is a lot of work for them. We must begin to ask new questions, insist on merit, fair-play, accountability, social justice, and sensitivity to the plight of the ordinary person. We must reject those that we know to have been tainted in the past that are now running around as leaders, decision-makers, democrats, and godfathers. We must set new standards for identifying and supporting those with leadership qualities that will serve individual, national and collective interests. And we must develop the courage to stand against election rigging, abuse of power, subversion of the constitution, manipulation of public policies, and the enthronement of mediocrity in our national life.
2 thoughts on “Leadership and the Future of Nigeria”
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Dear Prof,
May God give our leaders the wisdom, the will and the courage to access this treatise and practice at least a bit, if not all of the content therein. It is a wonderful piece meant for consumption, practice and for the record. Keep the flag flying. All hope is not lost. Not when one can still access this type of information from a resourceful mind.
Those who know your problem are far from you.i wish you know problem…