OUR FAULTY leadership recruitment process will always throw up leaders with trust deficit, just like we are seeing in this administration.
Leadership is all about influence, and influence can be achieved through acts of service and sacrifice. A leader who does not want to put service before self-interest will never be able to influence the people. You can’t lead people that you lack capacity to influence. Once the people you lead perceived that you are not ready to make sacrifices, rather you are out to enjoy yourself with friends, family and cronies, trust and credibility becomes a serious issue.
The present administration of President Bola Tinubu is enmeshed in a crisis of credibility. For a president who got to office with a statistically narrow mandate of 37% of total votes cast, it is expected that the president would like to rise above himself in order to establish an enduring legacy. That expectation now appears misplaced. It is clear that President Tinubu never had a clear view of what he intended to do with power.
ALSO READ: Why There Are More Widows Than Widowers; By Godwin A. Abeghe
No man can give what he does not have. One can lie his or her way to power, or use propaganda, blackmail, intimidation and deceit; but alas, but the lack of capacity to govern will expose the real persona – weak points, ineptitude, cluelessness, greed, wickedness, etc. The big error of life is that most people cherish the idea that the whole world vibrates and rotates purely around them. It is a wicked and low complex.
Nigerians know and believed that sacrifices should be made at this time because we are aware that the APC administration under the clueless former President Muhammadu Buhari, which President Tinubu claimed he brought to power, completely smashed the country’s economy to smithereens. It is only President Tinubu, his cronies and family that do not believe that sacrifices should be made. The unguarded and reckless spending of this government does not indicate that times are hard.
I disagree with the president that he inherited a bad situation from the former President Buhari. This government believes that Nigerians should be the ones to suffer for them. The harsh economic climate has undoubtedly deconstructed the democratic credentials of President Tinubu who for many years was masquerading as a progressive politician.
The do-or-die nature of our struggle for political power shows that it is not just about service. There is more to it that an ordinary mind can comprehend. The idea of “it is my turn” suggests that an emergent president must first satisfy himself before the nation. In most cases, the politicians never get to satisfy themselves before the end of their tenure. We cannot continue that way.
ALSO READ: Picking Pieces Of Peace As The UN Turns 79; By Owei Lakemfa
This government must know that the current hardship in Nigeria is not survivable.
There’s no alternative to restoring petrol and electricity subsidies. We cannot wait for the leftover from the table of our leaders anymore.
The expenditure profile of government since the inception of this administration did not suggest that government understands what is at stake. More worrisome is the fact that no one is talking again. The opposition parties have been silenced; the traditional rulers, those who still preside over kingdoms in a conquered Nigerian State, have kept mute. The bishops have disappeared with their hoods. The ethnic bigots have all gone to sleep.
The last man standing; the Nigeria Labour Congress, is about to be decapitated. For the Congress to have stayed away from the last #Endbadgovernance protest shows that the spanner of government and its agents of coercion were already working on its wheels. There is no form of engagement going on between government and citizens. Everyone is afraid. We have never had it so bad!
The only lesson is that we now know what can befall a nation when the so-called progressives have access to power.
ALSO READ: Resilient Maiduguri Flooded Again: Assessing Hope Assured College; By Jibrin Ibrahim
No man can give what he does not have. One can lie his or her way to power, or use propaganda, blackmail, intimidation and deceit; but alas, but the lack of capacity to govern will expose the real persona – weak points, ineptitude, cluelessness, greed, wickedness, etc. The big error of life is that most people cherish the idea that the whole world vibrates and rotates purely around them. It is a wicked and low complex.
That can only be the reason for so much man’s inhumanity to man, and the multiplication of evil against the earth.
As we march towards a bleak political and socio-economic future. I fear if we will ever see good days again. No nation became great through the leadership of politicians. Nations are built by patriots. A nation without patriots is doomed.
Amechi, a trade unionist and pro-democracy activist, writes from Lagos.
