The Nigeria Leadership Puzzle!
We are a people that our individual and collective sensibility and sensitivity have been raped incessantly over the years and have become accustomed to contradictions. For instance, how do you explain situations where someone renown to be poor or average among his/her people becomes stupendously wealthy just because he was elected or appointed into a government position? Other instances abound and are everywhere! Yet the arms of the law have been twisted always to favor the person with the big pocket. The people are not deaf and dump!
This is what made each individual adapt his/her tactics to thrive or survive at their various level of society’s strata. This is what will make railway workers selfish; this is what will make traders swindle customers; this is what will make a gateman demand bribery before you can gain entrance; this is what will make a Governor misappropriate State funds, a Minister to inflate contracts. Everyone has a level, so each person plays at his/her level.
Getting out of these quagmires requires solving one major puzzle. The puzzle of Leadership!
“Everything rises and falls on Leadership” — John Maxwell
“A fish rots from the head down” — Proverb
The military parade is fun to watch. The precision and unison of every moment, even when all seems scattered, are spectacular to behold. At the head of the parade is a commander, who gives the order. As he shouts out the orders, his sub-commanders re-echo the orders to their divisions; as he moves at his own commands, the same for the sub-commanders and the entire parade.
This is what Nigeria critically needs as a nation at this point. A Leader with a vision on a mission, who will move with military discipline and precision and ‘command’ the sub-leaders to do the same. This should not be construed as supporting a military rule. Far from it! The case here is, Nigeria needs disciplined leaders, who will not be so enmeshed in politics to neglect the people that give them the mandate. Leaders who move with clear precision because they are vision-driven. Leaders that ‘command’ the citizenry to move in unison of purpose and direction. Leaders whose sole interest are not their personal ambitions or aspirations. Leaders that will awaken the national consciousness of patriotism. Leaders who will retune our moral strings and make us find our rhythm again.
When we have such leaders, then we will realize that corruption and other ills ravaging our nation will gradually and systematically drift to oblivion, no totally anyways but substantially.
The solutions to the leadership puzzle are in the hand of, ” We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”. Our collective choices will continue to glaringly indicate the direction we choose to travel.