There is no better time to tell ourselvesthe home truth than now. To say most Nigerians have given up totally on any hope for a positive change is an understatement. We have reached the level where our citizens are getting blasphemous, and openly asking God why He seems to have abandoned us. The reason is not far-fetched. Our squalid condition has defied all logic. We are probably the only country that is retrogressing, while those countries that looked up to us for succour have since left us to wallow in our self-delusion of grandeur as the so-called giant of Africa. Even the war-torn zones, where our gallant men and women laid down their lives for peace to rein are marching forward in steady progress, while we continue to make headline news for all the wrong reasons. A leader must worry about image.
Unfortunately, Nigeria’s ruling party seems incapable, and unwilling, to prevent our descent into total chaos and destruction. All the blame must go to a leader who has demonstrated a lack of courage to take on the useless system that has kept Nigeria in this dangerous state of perpetual coma. We must move beyond polemics and seek various answers to the many questions plaguing our nation. Some of these solutions may appear drastic, but it should be known to all that we cannot cure cancer with Paracetamol. A leader must be a good doctor who can diagnose ailments and prescribe the right medication.
If I were President Yar’Adua, I’ll promptly cure myself of the optical illusion being dangled before me by the sycophants in the party of incompetent people who are telling me I must run for another term in office. These are characters who would say the same things to every leader now and in the future. If the President falls for that poisoned bait, he’ll later regret the decision like others before him. He must remember that no one was more eminently qualified to rule forever than Nelson Mandela, but the great statesman chose to quit the stage while the ovation was loudest. He has continued to generate feverish attention from all over the world. Mandela has shown that it is not how long, it is how well. True leaders are those who possess the will to be different, the courage to dare, and not the timidity of maintaining the status quo. A ceremonial leader would always end up a tragic figure. A leader needs all the stamina in the world to tackle matters of state effectively.
A leader must have a mission, and the vision to project it. A leader cannot be ambivalent. He must have a clear understanding of the issues at stake, and set his priorities from Day One. He must surround himself with the right calibre of people who can operate on the same frequencies with him. The team determines whether a leader would fail or not. A leader must seek good disciples.
The Chinese were fortunate to have such a leader in Chairman Mao Zedong who founded The People’s Republic of China 60 years ago, just 11 years before Nigeria attained Independence. The man fought gallantly to liberate his people from the grip of irresponsible leaders who had pauperized the citizenry without mercy. He was able to lay a clear agenda for the cultural, political, economic and technological foundations for modern China. Today, China has confounded the world as the new super power. The Chinese left no one in doubt on October 1, 2009, that they are the new wonder of the world, as they celebrated the 60 years of Communist China. In those years, they have used their awesome population to great advantage. According to Bloomberg, no nation in the world has witnessed the same phenomenal economic growth. A leader must understand the game of advantage.
No leader can wobble and fumble the way ours have been doing and hope to achieve even a one-point agenda. The objectives must be clearly defined. I doubt if any Nigerian can claim to know the manifesto of the ruling party. All we read about are party chieftains and their thugs slugging it out all over the place. There was never an attempt to sell the party policies to us, or to explain why we have no roads, security, water, electricity, good education, jobs, true democracy, sound health, and so on, despite the huge budgets we read about every year. There were even rumours that our President was a socialist at a period in his career as a university teacher. But there is no trace of such an inclination in his style of governance. A leader’s ideology must be transparently manifest.
The agenda one can see is the award of useless contracts to mostly party loyalists who are not obliged to perform. And the appointments of wrong people to very strategic positions. This is the reason Nigeria is in such a shabby state today. If a contractor knows he will truly end up in jail for not executing what he’s been paid for, he’ll certainly persuade himself to perform. But we live in a country of the untouchables, and the scars are there for everyone to see all over our towns and villages. Nigeria urgently requires the services of those who are not political jobbers but men and women who have distinguished themselves in their fields of human endeavor. The politicians will only grumble but they have little choice. A leader must know when to declare a state of emergency.
A leader must have his eyes fixed on the future. He must worry about what the history books would say of him. Ghana was lucky to parade such leaders. Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah was able to set such a right tone for the greatness we witness in Ghana today. Though his ideas appeared too radical at the time, and he was persecuted and rejected by many, the country later paid for that shortsightedness when Flight-Lt Jerry John Rawlings came on the scene and wiped off some of the former rulers. A leadership that makes it impossible for the citizens to live like normal human beings would ultimately attract a violent reaction from the most unexpected quarter. A boastful party like PDP that is already planning to rule for the next sixty years no matter the degree of its incompetence should please have a rethink. A leader must be perceptive.
It is virtually impossible for the ruling party to win an election today in a free and fair contest, but our rulers are determined to continue their occupation of Nigeria. This is another illusion our President must cure. If he claims to be a democrat, then he must call his unruly men to order. His party cannot conduct its primaries in an atmosphere of peace and conviviality. For them, an election is a war and all is fair. Nigeria must be turned into a one party State by force. A leader must know when the game is up.
The commendable example of President John Agyekum Kufuor readily comes to mind. The contest between the NPP and the NDC in Ghana was so close that if he did not care about his future and that of his country, he could have damned the consequences by handing over to his party’s candidate. But President Kufuor chose to remain neutral, and that brave decision has earned him his statesmanship today. Eight years earlier, Jerry Rawlings had done a similar thing when his party lost to opposition. He could have chosen to set his country ablaze, but he chose the path of honour and dignity. The more I think of it, the more I suspect that our leaders hate our country so much that they can’t really be bothered if it collapses. A leader must know when the people desperately want a change.
Food production must occupy a pride of place in Nigeria. We are currently wasting so much money on importing all manner of junk food to our country. Some have even expired from where they were bought. Yet we are blessed with arable land everywhere, not to talk of the fertilizer scams that go on every year. Our farmers have since abandoned farming for the more lucrative business of politics. The retired military officers who used to retire to their farms are now political party chieftains. They are terminating their retirement and returning to power in their seventies. Our President has the chance of a lifetime to end this terrible habit of over-recycling tired people. A leader must shun nepotism.
We must return to full-scale agriculture urgently. Our multitude of jobless youths would be gainfully employed if the government can come up with a policy that can integrate some of our youth corps members into a sincere agricultural revolution. The level of unemployment is now too scary, and something has to be done to arrest the situation. The way we tackle our own economic meltdown would ultimately determine how much progress we can make with the restiveness of our unemployed graduates. This is what has led to the explosion of violent crimes all over the country. The youths have no one to turn to and this is very terrible. A leader must create jobs, not kill it.
The issue of electricity is too critical. It is becoming totally unbearable for Nigerians to live perpetually in darkness. While everyone agrees that the current minister in charge is an energy expert, but the politicians would always make his assignment extremely difficult. The 6,000 megawatts promised by government is fast becoming a mirage. Even if it is only 4, 000 megawatts that can be achieved this year, we would have made some progress. The problem is there are political Lords who are unwilling to change their old habits of seeking quick money by any means necessary. Such parasites would always frustrate the efforts of those who really want a positive change in that most important sector. A leader must never put good and bad people together.
It is unacceptable for our students to be perpetually at home because of the intractable problems between government and ASSU. The president must step in powerfully and put a permanent end to this ding dong affair. A situation in which our streets are flooded with able-bodied youths who are not in school plus those who are not gainfully employed is too dangerous. These youths are the hopes of our future. A leader must protect the salt of the world.
There must be continuity in government. Many investors are bewildered by the abrasive style of our governments. Each one comes with a new malady. This incurable habit is one of the reasons many investors have no confidence in erecting permanent structures on our soil. Many of the investors merely come to do business here and take the money out. A leader must imbue confidence.
The few great Nigerians who braved all odds to stay and invest at home are being humiliated left, right and center, as if there are no better ways to conflict resolution. Our industrialists have been ruined. The bankers are in disarray. The oil merchants are dying. The poor have lost hope. Who’s left?
I think Armageddon is here

Nigeria _pardon