FIVE LEADERSHIP EXPECTATIONS IN 2019 by Dr. Uzor Orji Kalu
What should the electorate expect from whoever that would lead the country from whichever level in two-thousand-and-nineteen? Since two-thousand-and-fifteen when the APC led government took over from the PDP, unabashedly, it has been one blame game after the other; how it is not the fault of this administration why the economy has been run aground to the point of recession and everybody is now confusingly running round the circle on how to fix the economy. And there is the polity to look into also; agitations here and there, some calling for secession while many others are yet yearning of restructuring.
We do not want all these in the years to come and this is why whoever the leaders of this country may be in the years to come whether as president, governor, in the local government authorities and in the National Assembly, that person should be prepared, which brings us to the first requirement amongst the lot of leadership in two-thousand-and-nineteen.
Insight and Foresight: The APC is receiving all the bashing it can muster presently from all quarters of the country because it failed to prepare for two-thousand-and-fifteen before it got there, instead, it allowed the ;Nigeria thing of let us get there first before we start putting the cart before the horse’ to cloud its judgement. . Perhaps the APC had had the notion that there was no point worrying about the situations-that is, if it were aware of the situations in the first place- that as soon as they get to the helm they would have to deal with the situations.
Hoaxed. You do not get there before you start dealing with the situations, you plan and organise and have all the strategies in place before getting there so that to deal with the situations becomes a problem half solved. We all know the familiar admonition; those who fail to plan should be prepared for the failure that would come.
The leaders for two-thousand-and-nineteen should be visionary enough to know the problems that are on ground now and begin to marshal out plans and strategies to be able to respond to them. And how can this be achieved? This would be the right time to start building that formidable team for the future; that leader does not have to wait until the last minutes to start organising the team to become relevant. And that team, methinks, should comprises largely by the youths with brilliant ideas and not foxes that have been tried and so much so flogged.
In the years ahead, I think Nigerians would be bored sick if they start over again to read or hear the literature of how the country has continued to be in shambles because past governments did not do the right things or because every Nigerians living and yet to be born are corrupt. In leadership, you fix problems by knowing and understanding the problems and not by dancing around them while blaming the devil for being devilish. Because the devil shall remain ever devilish as that is perhaps the natural construct. We should start dealing the devil now until it is conquered at the arrival of that most important year.
Nigerians would only be too glad to have leaders with scientific thinking mindset and not some boring traditionalist that is yet to answer the question of whether traditions and cultures have since attain a universal/international outlook.
The Health of the Leader: Yes, good health and longevity are two things we pray for everyday so we should strive to have it. But did somebody say it does not matter? It does and quite so. We are not talking here about minor health issues that can be dealt with with paracetamol or panadol extra; we are talking about chronic health concern that would see that leader running in and out of the hospital just to attend to some health concerns. Leadership is big business; it is the image of any organisation and when it is held back by crises such as health, it means that organisation would have to depend on delegations in the span of such leadership.
Leaders who must aspire to leadership of this country after this dispensation should be subject to some measure of health-check to determine if such leader can stand the ever demanding rigours of the office. There is no point saying God would fix it by running from one faith clinic to the other for healing or spending tax-payers money to attend to the health conditions of the leader which the tax-payer were not informed about at the onset. If the leader is not medically fit for the purpose, there is no point being there at all.
With a population of one hundred to two hundred million people, there are enough of the numbers to represent the country and the people. The two-thousand-and-nineteen leaders would need all the energy, mental alertness, physical fitness to meet up with the pace of the twenty-first century assignments whether locally or internationally.
The truth is, Nigerians would be looking forward to seeing an athletic looking Obama or a Vladimir Putin look alike in the office of the presidency or any of the offices to send the message that physical looks and fitness could be part of governance, too. Maybe there should, starting from now, be the advocacy for fitness centres in every of the government establishment as well as having personal fitness trainer.
The Leader Must be Democratic: We have heard many times expressions like: ‘Don’t you know he is your president, you should not address him as such,’ ‘You must learn to talk to your elders properly.’ ‘Our culture and tradition do not allow us to do this, say that.’ And all the other nonsense. For crying out loud if you are not going to bring to the table some democracies and you want to start deliberating on some archaic cultures and traditions, my advice is, that leader should not come out for public office, instead, he/she should remain at home in the privacy of the home and continue to enjoy the joy of being a parent and grand and continue to enjoy its benefits.
A leader who is not ready for the sucker punch should be told to stay at home. Presently and into the future, Nigerians would be yearning for that leader who would be prepared to take all the one hundred and eighty million or more criticisms from the people whether positive or not and not allow the self to be distracted by this to carry out the duties and responsibilities to the people.
The leader is elected to serve the people as demanded by the constitution and as it is morally right to do and not by weighing the constructive or non-constructive critiques of the people before services can be dispensed. The leader should be aware that in spite of the many successes leadership may record and achieve, it can never do away with its illiterate part of the society and it should continue to go about the path of enlightenment.
Loyalty: There is always the law of attraction; every seed sown is the harvest we get, for everything attracts the sameness of our giving. So twenty-nineteen should not be different; if we are going to be getting the votes of the electorate, we should be ready to be loyal to those votes. It would be useless to promise the people heaven on earth when there are infrastructural demands to be met, mountain of unemployment to be addressed; youth disenchantment, the political divides that are ever threateningly begging the question of the nation’s peace and oneness. The future leaders should be ready to be loyal to the votes of the electorates because every vote discharged is the destiny of that voter that must be met, failure should be the consequence of that failed destiny.
Be Human: When leaders become gods, the people would only tend to worship them instead of seeing themselves as being equal or even more equal than the leaders because without the votes of the people any ascension to that political office is null and void.
The people want to be sure that they can relate with their leaders that they are not far away from; they want to see if their leaders understand and speak the same language as they do. They want their leaders to feel their pains as they do, be it in the areas of the family, health, economy and their everyday struggle to win the battles of life. While the right to private life cannot be over-emphasised within the frame work of the law, there should not be that zealous protection of that privacy with tall walls of concrete bricks that the electorate start asking themselves if they had voted in some hermit to watch and deal over their affairs why they are not there.
If the Christ did weep, the people would want to associate themselves with the emotions of their leaders. The people would want to see their leaders jogging on the street, laughing and partying; having a bath in the pool; wanting to know if their leaders have the same family challenges as they and what they do to manage them; want to see how their leaders relate with their family, for instance who does the cooking in the house, who pulls the trolley when they go shopping. In all, in the leader’s simplicity, there should be humility.
Every society has its street language besides the so-called polish words spoken by the so-called class people, and the people would want to hear their leaders speak such words to them in their moments of downs.
I always try to imagine slapping the hand of the so-called ordinary Nigerian who wakes up daily every day to dig out a living for self and family or giving that man or woman that special close and tight hug without any care in the world and telling the person, ‘Bro, no shaking, all will be well,’ and imagine the feelings and smile and laughter that would be on that person’s countenance.
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