Barrister Fabian Awhen
It has been variously asserted by renowned sociologists and political philosophers as well as other erudite scholars in human sciences that group life is a practical impossibility without responsible leadership.
In this context, therefore, leadership is an indispensable element in any society developed or developing.
It follows therefore that for any nation to enjoy peace, growth, and prosperity it must have good leadership characterized by the superiority of knowledge, ability, experience, accountability, and responsibility.
Others are virtues resourcefulness, efficiency, good conscience, vision, discipline, and above all ability to generate cooperation and stimulate initiative.
Suffice it to say that in all of these, a nation is what the leaders make of it or intend to make of it.
And as Reverend Ukaegbu of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria once declared “No nation can rise above its leaders whether in moral social or spiritual potentials.”
This implies that the quality of life in any nation is determined by the qualities of its leadership
What can we therefore say is the Nigerian experience?
Our experience as a nation in a heterogeneous setting has tended to expose us to more problems than benefits, to more vices their virtues.
For instance, the country has been bogged down over the years by such teething socio-political problems as bribery, corruption, graft armed robbery, lavish funerals, mind-boggling squander mania, and a host of other vices.
But this should not be the case given the prime role Nigeria plays as the flagship of African socio-political and economic advancement, especially given its role in championing the African renaissance in politics, economy, and culture.
While it could be said that every nation has its own peculiar problems, many people have blamed that of Nigeria on inadequate planning, mismanagement of public funds, and lack of sense of priority on the choice of values, what Chinua Achebe aptly summed in one word, “leadership.”
We are however happy that the democratic leadership has taken far-reaching measures to address most of the nation’s teething problems through its numerous reform programmes at the State and national levels.
Some of these reforms are in the micro and macroeconomic sectors, such as banking and insurance sector reforms as well as anti-corruption institutions like the EFCC and the ICPC, including service regeneration mechanisms like servicom.
Above all, the civilian administration has successfully conducted elections that have led to a civilian-to-civilian transition the first of its kind since Nigeria became independent in the sixties.
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