A Piece for my Heart's Peace - 18: What Nigerians do not know about Leadership.

I went to visit a dear friend yesterday and browsing through blogs, we read about the freezing of Davido’s and family members’ bank accounts. This is a man most if not everyone including the aged persons know worked and still working hard for his money. The moment he and family members decided to be on the opposition party, they get accounts frozen.

Why will that be? We asked ourselves and somehow came to the conclusion that, this leadership and their activities under the All Progressives Congress (APC) underlying factor is still that of dictatorship. Yes, all forceful opposition has to be swept under the carpet.

My friend lamenting said to me “Nigerians were really tired of Former President Goodluck Jonathan leadership that is why they voted him out, they just wanted something different”.

I thought about it for a second and disagreed with her to some extent and told her “Nigerians did not vote Jonathan out because they were tired of him but because they were actually tired of the leadership of People 's Democratic Party (PDP). Hence if an upright, straightforward and capable individual had decided to run for presidency under the umbrella of PDP, he would still have been voted out too”.

Our conversation reminded me of the dialogue between Michael Douglas as President Andrew Shepard and staff, Lewis Rothschild in the movie “The American President”. When Lewis told the president to step up to his running mate and engage in a debate. He said “People want leadership. And in the absence of genuine leadership, they will listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership, Mr. President. They are so thirsty for it, they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there is no water, they will drink the sand”.

The presidents replied “Lewis, we've had Presidents who were beloved who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand 'cause they're thirsty. They drink the sand 'cause they don't know the difference.

Same could be applicable to Nigerians today, because they were just thirsty for a CHANGE any remarkable individual from political parties but PDP had to be good enough. Hence, they were oblivion to what the difference is between leadership and true leadership.

Hence, they voted the former president out. Hopefully, the recent development is educative enough to enable individuals know the difference and vote wisely next year. it is not about the party but the individual.

 

Cheers!