The lack of leadership has been a recurring problem in Nigeria since the country’s independence. Leadership should be about vision and creativity, but our leaders are like rotten trees that bring bad fruit.
The journey since independence has been rather bumpy with political crises, economic failures and social divisions. The fibre of the society has been broken apart, and the fundamentals of nationhood are dissipating at an alarming rate.
Nigerians have been pushed to the brink of hunger, deprivation, poverty and despondency. Meanwhile the world casts aspersions on us, regarding us as a failed state, with the most corrupt, most indebted, least educated populace, hunger stricken and directionless.
Our beloved country is deeply in pain – that is why you and I are roaming Europe and North America like orphans looking for better lives for ourselves and our children. Nigeria has what it takes to be a great nation, but unfortunately our resources are wasted, without any transparency and accountability on any level, whether federal, state or local.
The power vacuum that President Yar’Adua left in his wake when he disappeared abroad for medical treatment late last year only made things worse. To resolve matters, the National Assembly declared Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan to be the king without a crown, an acting president with half-baked executive powers and functionless ministers bent on frustrating and distracting any moves to take the country forward. Out of sheer desperation, the ailing Yar’Adua was smuggled back into the country at the end of February – without his VP’s knowledge – to restore some semblance of order.
On behalf of all Nigerians, I congratulate you, Goodluck Jonathan, on your handling of the role you were forced to take in the absence of good sense. You know that true leadership is the ability to take a bad situation and turn it round for good. But are you really ready to make a change?
What Nigeria needs now is a fearless, radical, indefatigable, incorruptible leader that can redeem the image of our country politically and economically. We ask Goodluck Jonathan: do you have these attributes, or should we continue searching for a real leader?
Dele Agunloye is a political science graduate from Nigeria currently living in Dublin
