Integrity and character are all traits or virtues in leadership.

To be more precise ‚integrity is essentially about wholeness, completeness, and soundness or the quality of being honest, and having strong moral uprightness.

In other words, the leader is undivided in his or her fundamental beliefs.

Indeed, the supreme quality of leadership is unquestionably integrity. To be gleaned from this is that without integrity no real success is possible no matter what.

On the other hand, character is the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual.

These two leadership attributes stand out as core elements in creating good governance, characterized by good conscience, vision, discipline, ability to generate cooperation and stimulate initiative, and courage amongst others.

Discernible from this is that leadership has to be exemplary. One cannot just become a leader by position but rather by one’s performance

He or she must be the one who shows the way, one who conducts, guides, or directs the course of others by going before or along with them in a manner that will be beneficial to their well-being and not for personal aggrandizement.

Therefore, it stands to reason that a leader with character and integrity strives to maintain societal equilibrium through the equitable distribution of benefits and responsibilities as well as the promotion of high ethical values.

It is contestable that today our political arena is bereft of such men of honour at all levels of governance thus the many controversies that plague our politics and governance.

These include political ratting, corruption, graft, favoritism, tribalism, religious bigotry, dishonesty, embezzlement of public funds, electoral malpractice, politics of bitterness, injustice, and non-payment of workers’ salaries as when due amongst others.

As it were, many people have attempted some explanatory reasons which range from inadequate planning, mismanagement of public funds, corruption in all its forms, and lack of sense of priority on the choice of values, non – the less we are all victims and accomplices.

This is why with the floodgate of politics now fully thrown open, we must tell ourselves the truth.

The promotion or adoption of the Machiavellian doctrine in politics postulates that politics and morality do not go together and that for one to be successful in politics, one must push morality aside, and should no longer be the order of the day in choosing our representative at all levels of governance.

We must vote for people of character and integrity, men and women who will see their position as that of sacred trust of stewardship, subject to check and objective criticism.

Politics cannot flourish without morality, no more vote buying, no more ballot snatching; no more thuggery.

What Nigeria needs today is a radical ethical change that will generate ethical ideology within and among the masses.

Any society or nation wishing to progress must be willing to rigidly enforce morality and thus must begin with all those in authority either as politicians or technocrats

Fine enough, the present administration is taking the bull by the horns to give the nation a new breath of life where impunity is no longer the norm.

More profound is the government’s stance on ill-gotten wealth particularly its policy on restitution which demands that all ill-gotten wealth and stolen money must be restored, all assets must be declared; all offended parties must be appeased and all lies must be uncovered.

Agreeably, these measures are not new in our political history but fundamentally it is a strong lesson to those in the corridors of power that the Machiavellian principle of the end justifies the means no longer holds sway in our polity.

More so, it will help fine-tune their minds to the fact that morality and politics are indispensable just as character and integrity are sacrosanct in LEADERSHIP.

Barr.Fabian Awhen

Barrister Fabian Awhen is a veteran journalist, prolific writer, public affairs analyst, and media consultant. He is a retired Director of News and Current Affairs, Cross River Broadcasting Corporation, Calabar.
Tel. 08035524490

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