Sir Marc Wabara, Overt Energy Chairman, former bank chair and seasoned administrator, has noted that good leadership alone cannot take Nigeria out of the woods and set her on the path to the much needed development, because according to him, the country’s structure is faulty.
“Historically, Nigeria was built on a Tripod heritage – East, West and North, with each having a leadership that was to a very large extent, responsible for a people who shared similar experiences and sense of right and wrong.
“In conclusion therefore, notwithstanding the commendable efforts of this government in tackling some of the challenges bedeviling this nation, unless we agree collectively as a people, to go back to the fundamentals and forge a workable union, achieving the nation of our dream may continue to be elusive.”
Achebe’s position on leadership as the cure-all remedy without reasonably qualifying it is simplistic in view of the evidence in contemporary Nigeria where supposedly strong, moral, competent leadership has not always yielded the desired results. Wabara noted that with the current system in which people of diverse ethnic groups and orientations are lumped together under a unitary structure, progress would be difficult and no leader can satisfy everyone.
“But Nigeria, as I have noted earlier, is a complex and challenging society to lead. This is in part because, again, as I noted before, it is a diverse polity, with different ethnic and religious groups pulling in different directions. Such a country will naturally pose a huge challenge to even the most, well-intentioned leader.
He particularly traced the derailment to military incursion, noting that while Nigeria could not be said to be the only country where soldiers intervened, the country’s experience turned out to be different. “Juxtaposed against the current challenges confronting the nation, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, economic crisis, insecurity and insurgency, the urgency of addressing the leadership challenge becomes even more imperative.
“The first military intervention interrupted the process and development of a democratic leadership culture based on the sovereignty of the people and leadership succession. The military demystified those previously revered political leaders by humiliating them out of power and introduced a new political culture of might is right; as well as corruption. So power no longer belonged to the people but flowed from the barrel of the gun.