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Duty call is often a privilege to serve because out of the multitude, you are singled out to occupy a position with a title and other incentives possibly attached. One could be called to serve in any capacity cutting across public service, religion, politics, corporate and voluntary service. Beyond the title, the primary objective of being appointed or elected or nominated or selected is to serve the people by way of coordinating their affairs.
Every office has its peculiar title, which depends on the organisational structure. There are titles such as Excellency, Senator, Honourable, Bishop, Reverend, Imam, Manager, Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer, Colonel, Superintendent, Sergeant, Chief of Staff, Special Adviser, Chief Protocol Officer among others. All these are human ideologies give a distinction.
In all these, irrespective of the title, one thing that is demanded or required is the effective discharge of duties and responsibilities popularly called KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) in the corporate world. So, anyone with a mandate to serve is perceived to be credible, intelligent, faithful and diligent to achieve the desired results.
Leadership thus requires being a ‘servant’. That means no matter the position, you should remember that you owe allegiance to the people who have called you to serve or whom you have been called to serve. In our clime as we mostly observe, instead of servant leadership, we see a bulk of ‘bossy’ leadership where the common man is belittled and made insignificant. We are faced with leaders who have lose the vision of what true leadership entails and the call is now on a fresh breath of visionary leaders into our systems.
The political leadership space has been dominated by a recycling process not giving hope people with vision and even the youths to emerge. ‘Youths are the leaders of tomorrow’ has become a cliché. Repeatedly, I have asked; ‘will this tomorrow ever come’? For me, the tomorrow is now but how can we get the youths into core leadership positions without any sort of compromise? We have recycled leaders from the period of independence to the extent that leadershiphas become the property ofsome egocentric and rigid grandparents who have refused to take a bow. In the event of stepping aside, they pick a successor who is more or less a relation. The place of merit and the people’s mandate has been thrown into the air resulting to increased non participation among people with visions for a better society.
Another election year is here; the time might be too short to take action but we can use the power in our hands to reshape the society to what we want. If we indeed hope to go into the future with the expectation of a better Nigeria, we have to rejuvenate a new vision and hope for the land. From independence, we have been riding on experience, which has resulted to the recycling of old heads in governance who have abused positions of authority. It appears to me that these recycled leaders have lose their visions and hence unable to figure out that we need a positive transformation.
Everyone needs to brace up to become a major stakeholder in the politics of the land. The time to tag politics a dirty game is long over. A dirty environment is like darkness that if no one puts on the light, it remains dark. We need everyone to joins hands to clean the dirt in the system. If we don’t begin to participate in the political affairs of the country, we may not have a nation to bequeath to our upcoming generation.
There are young men and women who have excelled in the private sector but they have expressed nonchalance in the public sector or national politics because of its peculiarity. But note that while you are busy with your private sector live, remember that the governance of the land is left to suffer in the hands of clueless people who have no idea of what it takes to lead. For them, there is a vacuum which exist and needs to be filled.
This narrative can be changed if we all team up to get into the dirty and dark road of our politics. This road needs to be salvaged my men and women of vision. The politics of Nigeria may be embroiled in violence, greed, thuggery, fraud, etc, but let’s not forget that the nothing good comes easy. The time to be involved is now, no more seating on the fence to watch while it deteriorates per second. Only by participation can we influence true and positive change.
Kenneth Adejumoh
Adejumoh writes from, Lekki, Lagos via kenadejumoh1@gmail.com
08140363593 @kenadejumoh
