It
does not require a special skill or intelligence to recognise that Nigeria is
ailing. Although those at the helm of affairs may find it a bitter pill to
swallow, the problem of the country is inextricably tied to the poor quality of
leadership it is plagued with. Little wonder the nation’s fortune has continued
to plummet just as she diminishes in stature and integrity.
Of
course, the dearth of quality leadership cannot be divorced from a poor
recruitment process. The consequence of poor choices at the polls, if choices
have ever been truly permitted, is the election of wrong persons into public
management offices, who in turn appoint the wrong persons as aides. No country,
afterall, can rise above the level of its workforce, especially at the
decision-making or leadership level, hence the state of the nation.
It
is so bad that at the national level and in most states, untested hands are
appointed ministers or commissioners and into other sensitive political
offices. The refrain is that the best of Nigerians are outside the government.
This tragedy is a vicious cycle: The collapse of businesses and poor economic
environment due to poor political and economic decisions have made government
and partisan politics a major and most rewarding source of livelihood, the only
thriving business, the surest way of climbing to the top with little or no
sweat.
Those
who failed in business, in their education and some who at one time or the
other, contributed to the economic downturn of the nation continue to be
recycled in political offices giving them the opportunity to perpetuate their
failure in the affairs of the nation. The result is what obtains today:
Widespread ineptitude in the body politic.
And
there is so much deficit of integrity and honour! Universities have remained
shut for close to three months due to ASUU strike at a time when their
counterparts in the polytechnics had just called off their six-month industrial
action; hospitals just resumed work from a week of industrial action with its
attendant loss of lives. In spite of renewed and repeated assurances of regular
and uninterrupted power supply by government, it has remained epileptic and
unreliable.
Insecurity
is at its worst while poverty is on the ascendancy. The economy is ailing in
spite of the statistics government reels out from time to time. Yet there are
men and women in these high places of responsibility appointed and maintained
sumptuously with public funds to provide direction and to prevent this
unwholesome situation. In the face of these failures, they still cling to their
offices. Legislators at all levels portray themselves as self-seeking and
conceited with so much reward for doing so little.
The judiciary is a shadow of its age-long tradition of being the last hope of
the people, noticeable from its questionable and highly controversial and
conflicting decisions, and having in its midst shadowy characters. And just at
its recently concluded annual conference, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA)
decried the declining standard in the appointment of judges and warned against
its politicisation. Everywhere, it is a sad tale. What the leaders have going
for them is the resilience of Nigerians and their undying spirit, now obviously
stretched to the limit.
Yet,
what the country deserves at this critical point is a crop of leaders that are
endowed with the gift of steady application, imbued with the ability to control
events rather than drift with the tides, and who in range of vision and depth
of conception, tower above their contemporaries. Nigeria needs leaders of iron
resolve, indomitable courage and sharp intellect with acute and exceptional
sense of history to lead the people out of the doldrums.
Such
people abound in their numbers in this country but are choked by warped and
corrupt recruitment processes, the major albatross of the country. Something,
afterall, is wrong with a process which makes a few persons, in certain offices
or with some dubious connections, see it as their exclusive right to
nominate people for appointment to all offices in the land.
Of
course, the overriding consideration to these power-mongers is the political
patronage which this portends. It is often an opportunity to nominate only those
who are rabidly loyal and subservient to them regardless of their suitability
for the office. The primary mandate of such a nominee is to feather the nest of
his patron to whom he is beholden and who he perceives as his godfather.
More
often than not, such appointees are mere mediocrities, clueless and inept,
ill-equipped for the enormous responsibility of nation-building. The nation
undoubtedly gets a raw deal when the wrong people get into offices. Even if
their age is no problem, what about the age of their ideas?
Nigerians
alone can effect a change. And quickly too. They must sit down and address
critically, the phenomenon of having wrong people in offices. Men of proven
integrity should also come out and give it what it takes to assume positions of
responsibility. The price good people pay for abstaining from office is that
they allow wrong people to lead them.
Nigerian
leaders at all levels currently must have a sense of shame. They owe it a duty
to fish out patriotic and right thinking citizens to man positions of
responsibility. The stature of a leader is not diminished but enhanced by
appointing those who are better and bigger than himself into public offices. He
takes the glory at the end of the day for a job well done. Above all, he leaves
his name on the sand of time.
Of
course, it takes character to be such a leader. And yet, that is what this
nation needs today.
Source:
The Guardian
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