From reproach to restoration
The jury is out. By all accounts and by all parameters, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has been weighed in the balances. And it has been found acutely wanting.
In the course of the Easter period, Bishop after Bishop, from the reticent to the voluble across the country, issued plangent cries in their homilies. They lamented how the country had failed its people under President Buhari’s watch.
Some of the most sedate Bishops, particularly those in Kaduna, Timothy Yahaya of the Anglican Diocese and Matthew Manoso Ndagoso of the Catholic Diocese, were quick to align themselves with the call, of the previous week, for the outright resignation of the president by the Northern Elders Forum (NEF). Others spoke in terms that agreed with the fears expressed recently by the Sultan of Sokoto, namely that the country could not survive beyond 2023 and that Nigerians had lost faith in the President’s capacity to defend them against bandits and terrorists.
The preachings capture, in graphic and comprehensive detail, the sordid state of affairs in the country. And they underscore, lucidly, how a country which was once the envy of its peers has transformed into a byword and a reproach. Not even the most frenzied, and sometimes coarse, rebuttals by the president’s quixotic enablers can wish this sad reality away.
If the country, under President Muhammadu Buhari, has become a byword and a basket case, the 2023 general elections present us with another propitious opportunity to enthrone leaders who could salvage us from the mire in which we are bogged. At all levels, Nigerians must define for themselves. They must quickly set criteria and identify uplifting qualities which prospective leaders should possess.
Perhaps, one of the ways to proceed is to root for candidates who are the very antitheses of those who have failed and betrayed us. While we distance ourselves from politicians who are content merely with feathering their own, or their ethnic group’s nest, we should prefer leaders who deliberately foster inclusion, by their words and by their deeds. This is key because a selfish leader who favours his ethnic group or race cannot function optimally in a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multi religious setting such as ours. Our leaders must consciously carry everyone along and deliver good governance and infrastructure to all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria.
We must go for competent, handson leaders. Leaders who are unafraid to work with men and women of equal devotion, diligence and excellence. John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier administration stood out and shimmered because Kennedy, a man who set store by excellence, co-opted technocrats and academics such as Robert McNamara, Arthur Schlesinger Jnr., McGeorge Bundy, Dean Rusk, Clark Clifford etc. into his government. It was these men that added luster and credibility to the New Frontier.
True leaders are not poseurs or sly pretenders. They carry on, unfazed, and in the knowledge that those who came before them faced similar challenges and surmounted them. It is this sense of calm with which they carry on that imbues confidence in the citizens, galvanises them and assures them that the country is in safe hands.
A good leader, like a genuine suitor, cannot be desperate. It is desperation for power that leads either to its misuse or the untoward pursuit of misadventures. Though we should look for the leader who has a solid pedigree and a record of practical achievement in at least a field, we must be wary of the wunderkind. The wunderkind is the Uber achiever who did not go through the mill and is adept at cutting corners and disdaining due process or intellectual rigour. It is these failings - of desperation and the superstar syndrome - which proved the undoing of Richard Nixon. Lest I be misconstrued, I am not canvassing for the run-of-the-mill or mediocre. Far from it! But one must raise red flags on the superstar who disdains due process and the law.
As we are wary of the superstar, we must embrace the leader who is relentless and untiring in his quest to succeed. My humble prescription is Theodore Roosevelt’s high-minded, THE MAN IN THE ARENA: “whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.”
Above all, given our current predicament, we must go for leaders who are determined to make the difference, who want to add tremendous value and who crave, earnestly, to etch themselves positively in our history and consciousness.
Let us vote wisely. Let us vote for credible leaders so that our reproach can be transformed to our restoration and to God’s glory.
Nick Dazang is a former Director at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
If the country, under President Muhammadu Buhari, has become a byword and a basket case, the 2023 general elections present us with another propitious opportunity to enthrone leaders who could salvage us from the mire in which we are bogged