Nigerian ‘Leaders’ – A Gruesome Failure In Leadership -By Ij Onuigbo

I J Onuigbo

The menace of your leadership has degenerated to one of you, Linus Okorie, submitting a bill (Economic Amnesty Bill) to absolve any politician who steals Nigeria money from prosecution if he or she invests the money in Nigeria.  If you don’t know what that means, let me spell it out – you want a free ticket and open season for PUBLIC SERVANTS (yes, you forget that’s what you are and live as if the public were your servants) to steal money from the people and not be brought to justice for it.  My goodness, how in the world did that even pass a common-sense test much more being presented on the floor of the legislature?  Then comes the outrage that most of you senators see nothing wrong with the current state of the nation nor its direction to hell that you reject restructuring as a solution, not that it was the best option even – and leave the masses in limbo.  And while you are getting very well paid the masses are on the streets struggling, dying and fighting just to get their salaries and pensions paid.

As if that wasn’t enough, we have recently become the subject of caricature by the international media due to Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari MIA (missing in action) for over two months.  I bet you people don’t care about any of it because you don’t have an iota of conscience.  Well let me tell you, every one of you so-called leaders ought to be walking around in shame if you have any sense at all because you are doing a VERY VERY bad job and boldly taking salaries on top of it.  What happened to the age old saying, “whatever you find yourself doing, do it very well.”  You are very far from doing anything well.  Where is the sense and pride of duty?  Yes, there is such a thing as a person feeling pride and content that they are diligent in carrying out a duty entrusted to them.  None of you can honestly say that you are doing anything for the Nigerian people. Leadership encompasses these 7 Army values which I grew up with in the United States Army – Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity and Personal Courage.  I do not flinch when I say that you all lack these values and you call yourselves leaders.  Instead of selfless, you are self-serving in a public service position.  Who does that?  Need I analyze the rest?

How about the ineptness of those of you like Dino Melaye who have no concept of decorum for the position he occupies.  He goes about embarrassing himself and making a fool of Nigerians.  When he is not posting a video of himself dancing like a buffoon, he is posting a video of himself with a tray of cooked groundnut on his head on the street mimicking poor groundnut sellers, and that is also after he has posted a picture of his 20 Rolls Royce and Lamborghini cars lined up in the garage of his magnificent mansion.  Please just tell us how that makes any sense at all that someone that calls himself a leader would be behaving like a street tout without world knowledge and enlightenment.  What about the one (Bukar Ibrahim) that was accused of improper sexual behavior with young Nigerian women when he already has 3 wives at home.  And the irony is that same senator strongly supports sharia law that kills or maims women committing adultery according to public records.  The pain of it all is that most of you leaders are the same exact way. And I bet that you will tell us that you have the right to enjoy yourself and do whatever you like outside of work.  No, you don’t.  Not while Nigerians are dying, sweating, killing themselves over your collective failure in leadership.  Until you all set a path to free the destiny of the next generation, you should be very ashamed to live the way you do.

Let me tell all of you something, corruption exists in all countries; but the difference between other countries leaders and Nigerian leaders is that those other countries leaders are mostly educated, mentally matured and possess a sense of responsibility toward the people.  They don’t steal and empty national treasury so blatantly.  They are covert in corruption by doing so along completing systems and infrastructure that make the lives of people good enough that no one notices corruption.  But as for you all in Nigeria, it seems that 99 percent of what you do is steal from the people.  You create projects to distribute money and then leave the projects incomplete.  “All una dey do be chop chop, and no dey work at all.”  I personally would not have much problem with a system where occasionally an official is accused of one corruption or another if they are 95 percent of the time working to make the lives of the citizens better.  Let’s take for example the NEPA.  Do you mean to tell us that for 57 years, no one can get it to work?  Just think about it.  There is absolutely no excuse for your failure thus far to provide stable electricity in Nigeria when you have many countries to learn from and so much money that have passed through your hands and rather diverted to personal pockets.  Look at Dubai where you all visit to enjoy life, Dubai was a complete desert land and parts were great body of water.  But in a very short span of years, the leaders transformed it to paradise with less money than have passed through your hands in Nigeria.  Even our neighboring Ghana have stable electricity.  Isn’t it a big shame on you all?  Someone need to enlist Ghana if not Dubai to teach you what to do.

Furthermore, as the country is laden with many civil protests for self-determination, you have yet again shown that you don’t care about the needs of the people you are supposed to serve. Instead of you all to listen to the agitators, you rather say things that fuel the agitation.  You talk down on the people calling them trouble makers when they are legitimately struggling to survive your gross mismanagement of the country. The agitations are the result of your failure to make Nigeria a country fit for humans to live.  Therefore, instead of opposing the agitators, you all ought to be calling the leaders of the movements for dialogue and taking necessary steps to make constitutional amendments necessary to allow a Referendum.  You have no right to dictate to the people that Nigeria is indivisible unless it is no longer a democracy.  If you all have wisdom and knowledge of history as you ought to, you will remember that Nigeria was created by the British when they joined together independent nations just so that it would be easier for them to manage.   And this all happened without the consent of all concerned.  So, the proper thing to do now, if we agree that we have independence from colonialism and now a democracy, is to come together and dialogue about a way forward; and only a Referendum will provide that.

Finally, regarding the Biafra agitation and the way forward for our people the Igbos, I beg to inquire what the south-eastern senators have been doing on the floor of the Senate daily while your constituents are on the streets crying and dying.  Why is it that senators like Ike Ekweremadu and the rest of the Igbo representatives have not yet put forth a bill for a constitutional amendment or done whatever is necessary to allow a referendum?  The people need their voices heard.  The people want a referendum.  It seems that in the midst of the self-serving attitude which is the order of the day among Nigeria leaders, you all forgot the little man/woman/child on the street struggling to make a living to feed themselves.  You are showing yourselves to be good for nothing for your people.  Have you all not “chopped” enough?  Nigeria is bankrupt and does not seem to have any constructive way forward.  It is time to usher in the change that will set the sail for a new direction for the next generation of our people who deserve to determine their future.  If you can’t make this happen, God will judge you all harshly.  SIT UP.  DO SOMETHING NOW. The world is watching alongside us for you all to do your job.