Those who swear by the rule that everything has a price would have found much to contemplate. Delusions are often functional. A mother’s opinion about her children’s beauty, goodness etc., keeps her from drowning them at birth. Nigeria is Nigeria, so also we remain Nigerians but we cease to remain Nigerians when we start doing things that would bring her down. It’s only few men that have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. Most of us are doing things that have endangered this governance of this country. Pain becomes a way of life when hard periods refuse to take a bow out of one’s life. A times, it is said to be our human effort that has led us into such environment of discomfort while some still thinks it is the will of the Almighty. One thing that I have come to realize is that humans are the captain of their fate and the architect of their destiny. We decide what will happen to us by our actions or inactions. Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do no sit at home and think about it. It safe to say that an individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. A little learning is a dangerous thing and no man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar. Where respect for real values end, bad omen on the basis of leadership begins.
It is a paradox that our country, the world’s eighth largest exporter of crude oil, a country endowed with many resources, still has more than 70 percent of its population living below the poverty line as a result of corruption and economic mismanagement. Pathetically, the logic of the Nigerian political leadership class has been that of self-service as some of the leaders are mired in the pursuit of selfish and personal goals at the expense of broader national interests. Consequently, emphasis has been on personal aggrandisement and self-glorification with the result that corruption has become an euphemism for explaining political leadership in Nigeria in relation to the management of national wealth. If the number one citizen can be quoted to have said stealing is not corruption, it shows the extent of the culture of impunity that we adore. Sincerely, the life of an average citizen in Nigeria is below expectation yet someone out there still believes blood is thicker than water. If water can flush out blood, it simply means the thickness is not worth it. Blood is blood but great values is thicker than blood. We lose our great values when it comes to choice of leadership. These real values are lost to sentiments, greed, ethnicity and love for money. Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today. Nigerian politics is now a cash and carry system where it is only the rich individuals that can market our misplaced values. For the sake of getting a living, most Nigerians forget to live again by losing real values.
The extent of development of any nation globally is often been determined by the quality and selfless nature of its leaders. The manifestation of symptoms of underdevelopment does not imply Nigeria lacks quality and competent human resources to engender development, but the process of enthroning leaders is bedevilled with crisis and it does not provide room for morally upright, competent, visionary leaders to emerge. Nigerian leadership of the moment and sometimes past is replete of clueless, parochial, uninspiring, attitudinal debauchery and selfish leaders. We have leaders that have no respect for norms of decency and civilised conducts.
It can be well argued that there is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land, climate, water, air, or anything else but there is something wrong with the values we put to play in selecting our leaders. The values we often lose during electioneering has made me come to a conclusion that we pitch the tents of leadership to our leaders. The camps are the national unity leadership camp and the national crushing leadership camp. The national unity leadership camp is made up of genuine and sincere leaders that has the true feeling of this country at heart. They can sacrifice the last drop of their blood to see meaningful changes happen in the society. They are selfless, truly transformational and intellectually endowed. They are the true leaders. True leaders in any nation are the key to a new world. It is practically impossible for any nation to improve, change, and develop without true leadership. True leaders are selfless, they think more of the next generation. These leaders don’t measure how many people they’ve served but how many people they’ve served and impacted positively. They do not seek followers, but followers are attracted to them. True leaders do not have seat-tight syndrome. The nation crushing leadership camp is full of men that lacks substance for real governance. They are the leaders that are characterless, clueless, self-seeking, greedy, parochial, visionless, mission-less, uninspiring, attitudinal debauchery, unwilling to relinquish power, thoughtless, unfair, high-handed etc. They don’t care if the nation’s economy is been grounded, they don’t care if billions of dollars are missing neither do they care about the happiness of those that vote them to power. They serve their respective pockets. To them, politics of leadership is a family business. Every member of their family holds one post or the other. They are mediocre, corrupt, insanely violent and morally untoward. They are like a sheep before elections and after we trade our values for their touching stories and give them power, they unleash the devil in them. They are nothing but crushers of economy.
It would be noted that no leader gets to power without been handed over the mandate to do so. It boils down to the fact that we choose our leaders. Often time than not we trade our values and vote wrongly for those leaders that would crush the great destiny of our nation. We have opportunity to assess candidate and found out who is wanton in character but yet we keep fabricating enmity where there is none. Rather than exercising real values on events that would shape our polity, we keep flexing muscles on trivialities. We must get back our values and elect individuals that we deem fit to be pitched in the nation building leadership camp irrespective of the person’s party nor sex. We need to be handed a good leadership system like our colleagues in the developed nation.

We must choose our leader’s successors and not them choosing for us. Enough of that bullshit. It is only our votes that are casted upon good values that can make the change occur. Leadership is not a right of the leader but a privilege given by the followers and the leader must respect the followers. For Nigeria to experience sustainable socio-economic development, responsible, credible governance, she need true leaders who will build strong and transparent institutions as well as leaders who are dedicated to how history will remember them for transforming the society rather than accumulation of private wealth must emerge to implant the act of good and selfless governance in Nigeria. Let’s trade our voting values for good leadership. If it is to be, it is up to us.
(WHYTE HABEEB IBIDAPO is a Lawyer, United Nations Award winner, Africa International Arbitration Award winner and Coca cola/ The Nation Campuslife Award Winner.
Email: whyte287@gmail.com
@whytehabeeb

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