Leadership and the Future of Nigeria

Professor Julius O. Ihonvbere, OON, OGI, FICA
National Chairman, Board of Trustees
Institute of Corporate and Business Affairs Management
Lagos, Nigeria

Text of a Lecture Delivered at the Founders Day Celebration, Lead University, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, March 12, 2009
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Allow me to begin by thanking the Management and students of this great citadel of learning for inviting me to deliver this lecture.  I have followed the activities of this institution fairly closely since its inception.  I am convinced that it is steadily emerging as an intellectual crucible that will not just fill a strategic place in our nation’s quest for growth, development and progress, but would also sufficiently empower its products to effectively meet the challenges of globalisation.
Our topic for discussion today is very direct and clear.  We are interested in interrogating the place of leadership in the future of Nigeria.  This does not mean that we are not interested in followership.  In fact, it is the combination of leadership and followership that often determines the future of a nation.  However, since leaders control and dominate the commanding heights of the economy, exercise legal monopoly over the means of coercion, dominate the structures and institutions of politics and economy, and shape the ideological or philosophical direction of society, we shall focus on leaders and the future.
I would not go into a debate as to whether leaders are born or made.  Suffice to note that we are all leaders in different ways.  Emergency or challenging situations can produce leaders. But the nature of society, existing contradictions and opportunities, power balances and societal values can determine whether the imbued leadership qualities can be nurtured, subverted or simply negated or ignored.  Leadership can be individual or collective.  Either way, the purpose of leadership at home, work or anywhere for that matter is to exercise power, provide direction, encourage and inspire others, show the right direction, build appropriate legacies for the future generation, and work for the common or public good.

If we undertake an opportunistic analyses of the Nigerian predicament today, we can lay the causes of our problems at the colonial and post-colonial dimensions of our history.  We can emphasise the distortions and disarticulations of that experience and claim that the leaders that have failed to do much for us are products of an undemocratic, non-accountable, exploitative, repressive and discriminatory colonial order.  Hence, the imperialists systematically produced leaders that would continue in their own ways and left behind structures, institutions and ideologies that would ensure that departure from the neo-colonial consciousness would be almost impossible without a revolution.  Though fanciful, this would be an incomplete argument.  Unless we wish to lay claim to inferiority and incapacity to move in terms of our own creativity, innovation, and productive energies.

I believe that we must search elsewhere for the causes or origins of our national wahala.  While acknowledging the systemic limitations and contradictions, I want to believe that the managers of that system must be carefully examined to know their level of culpability.  The failures and failings of the past have squandered the legacy of independence, undermined the present and mortgaged the future.  What is perhaps more frightening is the way in which current balances of power and policies, especially in the last two decades, have tended to marginalise and discourage genuine leaders while promoting opportunists, charlatans and mediocres.  Actually, can we say that the majority of our people are better off today than at independence?  Have we made much progress since 1960.

It is possible to contend that there is very little structural distinction between Nigeria’s yesterday and today.  This is because the legacies of colonialism and peripheralisation in the global divisions of labour, power and exchange have continued to shape the character of production, exchange and consumption, and they remain essentially unaltered even after almost half a century of political independence.  From the distortions in the economy and the fragility of the state to the largely unproductive disposition of the power elite and the marginalization of the political economy in the global political economy not much has changed in Nigeria.  We have had reforms, restructurings, minor adjustments here and there and political epochs but no revolution, effective reformation, or structural transformation.
It is true that we can point at new local governments, new states, new infrastructure, new national anthem, new federal capital, new political parties, a new constitution, a wider but not necessarily stronger economy, deeper involvement in the global market due mainly to oil exports, and new discourses on politics and economy.  But they have, in large measure, and in spite of the civil war, several military juntas, and transitions, been no more than motion in a barber’s chair: a lot of motion but very little movement or progress.  Countless opportunities to move forward, give our people hope, restructure and reposition the political economy and improve the living conditions of the people have been carelessly squandered without apologies by the governing elite.
True, the Nigeria state is still one in formation.  It is quite easy to worry about the rather unfortunate state of the nation today.  But a proper historical understanding of the Nigerian reality can enable any analyst to place our conditions and predicaments in proper context.  It is true that the global political economy has been hostile to Nigeria in several ways, but we have failed to initiate structures, institutions and processes to contain or respond adequately to our extant challenges.  We have also failed, like most African states, to take advantage of openings in the global economy to restructure, reform, recompose and redirect the character of state and class in Nigeria.  Even well-intended policies and programmes, have been easily undermined by prevailing contradictions, limitations, and conflicts in the system.  Our political, social and economic power blocs have adjusted to the distorted and unproductive system that recycles underdevelopment and crisis. They have persistently shied away from a serious-minded, consistent and focused structural transformation and repositioning of the political economy.  It is therefore not amazing that in spite of Nigerianisation, Africanisation, indigenisation, war against poverty, operation feed the nation, the Reform Agenda, Development plans, local government and state creation, the oil boom, Rolling Plans, stabilisation, structural adjustment and other publicly celebrated strategies, Nigeria is yet to find an answer to any of its numerous challenges.  Even good leaders with vision, the few islands of integrity, easily get contaminated, compromised and corrupted. Their ideas and achievements are often easily swallowed by a strong and diabolical contraption of indiscipline, political rascality, elite insensitivity and irresponsibility.  No nation on earth has ever made progress in that way.

The Nigeria state on the other hand remains non-hegemonic.  Yet, a degree of hegemony is required to maintain the sovereignty of a country, keep the dominant classes under control, maintain an environment that promotes accumulation and define a nation’s location and role in the global system.  To be sure, part of the reasons for this, aside from the limited hegemony of the state is the lack of cohesion amongst the ruling or power elite, the distortions in the economy, the vulnerability of the political economy to external interests, and the general condition of poverty in which the majority of Nigerians live.  Yet, our elites appear to be disinterested in purposeful and progressive visioning, building state and class hegemony, and establishing viable foundations for holistic progress.  In spite of changes in the world, the Nigerian state and its custodians remain rigid in its ideas and politics.  It finds it difficult to move from government to governance, respect gender equality, structurally transform the foundations of society, distinguish between rulers and leaders, and refocus the nation for sustained progress.

The basis of Nigeria’s leadership failure can be found, in its concentration in largely unproductive ventures.  We have a lot of people with cash capital, but with very little capitalist drive or initiative.  They are traders, commercialists.  Such a class has never built a sustainable economy or polity.   In addition, the state is the primary means of accumulation.  Until the accumulative base shits from the state or public treasury and speculation to investment in technology, research, ideas, and production, the leaders can only be superficial and opportunistic.

The power elite appears to have a pathological fixation on subverting the foundations of the state, collaborating with undemocratic forces to abridge democratic rights, and designing dubious and diabolical strategies to close political spaces, suffocate civil society, enthrone a culture of anti-intellectualism, and rusticate opportunities and possibilities for progress and development. Until recently, the culture and obsession of the power elite was on building a parallel or alternate state at the expense of the public good.  In its failure, it has created private alternatives in the following areas:
o Water – private boreholes as against public water systems
o Health services – private and foreign hospitals as against general or public hospitals.
o Schools for children – expensive private schools in and outside the country at the expense of public schools
o Security – private bodyguards and security systems as against collective or community and public security.
o Electricity – private generators as against public electricity supply.
o Foreign travel – use of foreign as against national airlines, vacations abroad rather than local alternatives
o Banking Stolen funds – stealing is bad, even then they patronize foreign banks.  Their counterparts do not even consider Nigerian banks for this purpose.
o Houses as prisons – high walls, complex security gadgets, electrified fences, huge dogs, close circuit televisions etc- more defended than local prisons!

How can a country move forward when the elite, the leaders, the very custodians of state power, those that ought to set the example, give hope and inspiration, act as if they had lost faith in the present and future of their own nations?  How can the nation have a future when the elite appear to be turning its back on the nation?  Now they are buying houses in Brazil and Dubai and take pride in their foreign assets.  Where they can help it, they die in foreign hospitals then we are told that they died with one white doctor by their bedsides!!

What is more painful is that these same elite presided over the squandering of trillions of naira, ran down our basic institutions- Eleme petrochemicals, Nigeria airways, Oku Iboku paper mill, Nigeria shipping lines, Nigeria coal corporation, all Government catering rest houses, all government printing presses, Ajaokuta Steel, Delta steel, NIOMCO, the various ports, Nicon Hilton Hotel, and so on.  The list is endless.  How do we build a future on such gargantuan display of fiscal recklessness, administrative rascality and incompetence, and managerial mediocrity?

To hide the extent to which they have compromised our future, they try to legitimate corruption, manipulate primordial differences and exaggerate socio-cultural differences in order to hide their failures or divert attention to non-issues.  So, they create all sorts of ethnic and counter-ethic associations and pretend to be using them to defend the interests of the people.  They exhibit a criminal fixation on the capture of raw power by all means necessary including violence, thuggery, lies, bribery, stuffing of ballot boxes, exclusion of candidates from the ballot, manipulation of security forces, even the use of juju!  The power they spend so much to grab is not for the promotion or advancement of peace, stability, basic human needs or progress, but for the enhancement of primitive accumulation, reproduction of underdevelopment and the recycling of undemocratic conducts.

I believe that we must wake up as a people to put a stop to this unacceptable control of our present and future by so-called leaders that have not read a book in ten years.  Even reading newspapers is a lot of work for them. We must begin to ask new questions, insist on merit, fair-play, accountability, social justice, and sensitivity to the plight of the ordinary person. We must reject those that we know to have been tainted in the past that are now running around as leaders, decision-makers, democrats, and godfathers. We must set new standards for identifying and supporting those with leadership qualities that will serve individual, national and collective interests. And we must develop the courage to stand against election rigging, abuse of power, subversion of the constitution, manipulation of public policies, and the enthronement of mediocrity in our national life.

We must of course, change our ways within the family, work place, community, professional organizations, and in the public sphere by showing good leadership and sensitivity at all times.  Even in the simple things such as treating subordinates as human beings count a lot in building appropriate leadership for peace, progress and democracy.
What is the Leadership Challenge in Nigeria?
For President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the Nigerian predicament can be put squarely on the challenge of leadership.  As he put it recently, the “concept of leadership has been bastardised in Nigeria, and people use leadership positions to show arrogance, oppress others and misappropriate resources meant for the generality of Nigerians instead of serving them as directed by God” (Leadership August 1, 2008, p. 3).  While the President is absolutely correct, the fact remains that these leaders operate within a system that encourages impunity, the abuse of office, rascality and indiscipline.  These same people work at very high and prestigious positions internationally and they never abuse their offices or misbehave.  However, once they are given opportunities within Nigeria, they begin to do all that the President has outlined and worse.  This means that we must look again at the structures and institutions of the state, the constitution, character of policy making, enforcement of laid down rules and regulations, political will, and the involvement of the people in politics and policy to fully appreciate why leadership is what it is or has turned out to be.  Will you believe that all the numerous reports on the Niger Delta since 1956 have virtually recommended the same solutions and not one has been implemented?  Is this just insensitivity, political rascality or plain wickedness: to leave communities and constituencies, fellow Nigerians whose land produce so much wealth in grinding poverty and environments that resemble worse than the Fourth World!  How do we explain the existence of thousands of abandoned projects all over the country today?  What is the explanation for thousands of dilapidated schools, hospitals and public institutions around Nigeria?  Why do our so-called leaders measure their wealth, success and importance with the degree of poverty around them?  How do we account for children hawking in dangerous traffic when they should be in school?  Why has the looting of public funds almost become institutionalised and we cant find any of the hundreds of arrested or prosecuted looters in any prison?
Because leadership is largely pedestrian, opportunistic, unpatriotic and insensitive to the plight of the people, it is still possible to see regionalized or ethnic based agendas whether it is Afenifere, Ohaneze, Arewa, Northern Union, South-South Peoples Assembly or the like.  It is the failure of elite and state hegemony that encourages primordialism.  In fact, where the state is seen as largely irrelevant to the survival of the ordinary citizen, coping or survival mechanisms are invested or routinised.  This eats away at the capacity and capability of the state to perform the basic function of government much less that of a state.  On the other hand, coping mechanisms congeal divisive political and cultural enclaves- ethnicity, region, gender, religion, professional or atavistic.  Loyalty is transferred from a state that is seen as repressive and ‘irrelevant’ to other non-repressive organisations and outlets for social expression.  This is why we have prominent ethnic or regional rather than truly national leaders today.

These trends and tendencies of distrust and covert and/or overt opposition are expressed in the numerous coalitions, contradictions, conflicts and confusions in the society.  There is hardly a consensus on any issue in Nigeria, including the continued survival and unity of the country.  This in itself is a sad and unfortunate development after the Nigerian civil war and the high price that was paid by our fellow citizens. Indeed, between and within economic, cultural, political and social communities and constituencies, the degree of distrust remains very heavy and deep.  University graduates and HND holders are at war; NECO versus WAEC certificate holders are treated differently; so-called career and non-career officers are at war; north and south, Niger-delta versus the rest of the nation, and security and non-security personnel are not communicating.  Within Christendom, the competition and commercialisation has gone beyond rational understanding.  Within universities, cultists and non-cultists are at war.  Libraries are either empty or behind by over a decade in relevant literature and journals, and many academics are involved in general business and consulting as against serious research and teaching.  In addition, rural and urban dwellers, the poor and the rich, landlords and tenants, employed and unemployed, and segments or sectors of the private sector strive to outdo and undo each other as opportunity permits.  Nothing seems to go in an orderly or predictable manner. Recruitment into paramilitary forces results in the death of several applicants.  Satellites get lost in space within a few years of purchase and launching while airplanes disappear for months only to be found by farmers, despite the billions invested in emergency rescue and satellites!  In the midst of all these, we have leaders, mostly self-imposed leaders that have simply refused or failed to lead us anywhere.

Any wonder therefore that Legislators that are asked to probe corruption end up being probed!  Trust, accommodation and cooperation hardly exist in any aspect of national life.  As public institutions crumble or give the façade of a beautiful existence based on their architectural outlays, within the institutions exist an ocean of conflict, waste, manipulation, oppression, indiscipline, arrogance of power, ethnic jingoism and downright terrorization of the powerless and those with no godfathers or political connections.  In the judiciary, while it has remained the longest undisturbed arm of government and in spite of numerous assaults especially the military juntas over the years, has also not escaped the rot in the system.  Some judicial judgments leave many lawyers wondering if so-called non-learned persons have invaded the sector not to talk of countless allegations of bribery made against judges at all levels.  Of course, these are all manifestations of the structural deformities in the system and the rather unsteady constitution of the non-hegemonic State under the control of a badly factionalised and fractionalised leadership.   In this context, the followers take strategic but reactionary positions on the political landscape and use their own hands to destroy their environment and foul up the system.  The entire nation suffers while the so-called leaders subsidise and lubricate their survival with looted public funds and monies in foreign banks.

Ladies and Gentlemen, why do we find it so difficult to move in one direction so that our people can conserve and deploy energy for productive purposes?  How are we going to move forward in the midst of plan indiscipline, policy inconsistency, competitive as against complementary programs, duplication of services and functions, the re-awarding of the same contract over and over again even by the same government?  How can we move forward with empty libraries, poor research culture, limited concern for futurology and visioning, and inability to identify and use the best brains and hands in the larger society?  We must begin to think out of the box, break out of the barber’s chair of motion without progress.  If the leaders, after almost 50 years, refuse to lead, the people and their organisations must bypass them.

Let us look briefly at leadership at the political level.  You are all living witnesses to the political abracadabra going on in our dear country.  In spite of the existence of a constitution, political parties and party rules and regulations, politics is war in Nigeria.  You can now understand why many Nigerians wept and celebrated the victory of Obama in far away America.  In fact, a former president of the country once described politics, elections in particular, as a “do or die” affair.  It is costly, diabolical, unsteady, uncertain, and announced results hardly ever reflect what took place on election-day.  It is not unusual for political leaders to ambush and undermine the best candidates before or during the primaries.  Only in few cases are the best candidates presented for political office and aspirants are almost bankrupted before they get elected.  This in itself lays the foundation for the arrogance of power, executive recklessness and unbridled corruption.  Until our political parties become truly and fully reformed, Nigeria cannot move forward.  Until the parties begin to respect their own rules, Nigeria cannot produce credible, capable, courageous and visionary leaders that will build the political economy and consolidate democratic institutions and practices.  The parties must begin to perform some of the basic functions of political parties- identify and train leaders, develop policy platforms, present the best aspirants and candidates for office, regulate office holders, conduct research on party and political development, encourage public discourses, and commit openly to the sustenance of democracy in every regards.

Office holders that emerge from a dubious and diabolical process cannot be expected to respect the constitution of liberties.  They cannot be expected to distinguish between the public and private treasury.  That is why we must never tire of the struggle for democratic practice and social justice.  Political parties in Nigeria must be bastions of fair-play, justice and freedom.  Unless this happens they would be contributing directly to the consolidation and reproduction of poverty, insecurity and underdevelopment in Nigeria.

This is exactly why electoral reforms more than urgent in Nigeria to correct the defects of our present system.  This will ensure efficient and speedy adjudication of critical petitions, careful monitoring of electoral processes by civil society groups, and severe sanctions for all electoral offences. It is one of the strategic ways to get our politics rights, and when this happens, we can get our economic directions right.  We require focused and capable leaders to ensure that politics is no longer seen as a business, an opportunity to loot the treasury and mortgage the future of our dear country.

So, Once again, we are into the business of constitution review.  The very last effort was contaminated and destroyed by the narrow interests of a few at the expense of the common good.  So, we threw the baby, the bathwater and the bath-basin out and we lost everything.  Billions of naira went down the drain, no questions asked.  Today, we are starting all over.  This is not one man’s show and it must not be an ego trip.  It is not senators versus the representatives.  It is not the National Assembly versus the rest of the nation.  Rather, it is one more golden chance to give ourselves a living document, a true peoples covenant, a road map to show us how to organise and deploy power in the collective interests of our people.  It is an opportunity to correct historical injustices against women, the youth, the poor, micro-minorities and minorities.  It is an opportunity to stop oil theft, kidnapping, illegal-bunkering, arson, assassinations, money laundering, hostage taking and other forms of violence in the much neglected and exploited Niger Delta.  It is an opportunity to produce the document that will engender peace, stability, dialogue, tolerance, diversity, unity, democracy and progress in Nigeria.

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, I doubt if this will happen if the process is opportunistic, elitist and complicated.  We must draw lessons from Uganda, South Africa, Eritrea, Ghana and other parts of the world by adopting a truly open, consultative, transparent, accountable, process-driven and people-led approach to constitution-making.  This is the only way to produce a constitution that we can all understand and all own and defend with our lives.  This is the way to build the architecture to deepen, widen, promote, sustain and reproduce democracy and democratization.  The process of refederalisation will be possible and much more viable with a true constitutional consultation and process that brings our people together and restructures our political compact.  It is also the only way to build a culture of constitutionalism, the process publicises it, mobilises the people, and wins buy-in from the people.  If we do not get the politics right, we can never get our development right.  Political uncertainty, contradictions, distrust, violence and instability will continue to challenge well-intentioned programmes and policies and thus reproduce underdevelopment.  Given the challenges of growth and development in Nigeria today, this is not the time to fight over chairmanship versus deputy or vice-chairmanship or even the right to amendment the constitution.  Just involve the people, provide leadership and let the open process flow.

The failure of leaders, especially at the formal sphere has increased the relevance of ethnic leaders, militants and primordial warlords.  Of course, the masses themselves live as if under a spell.  Disappointed by regime after regime, government after government and leader after leader, they give obedience on the surface, more to avoid oppression and death than out of loyalty, love and patriotism.  Their souls have been so mangled and corrupted that they have nothing but cynicism and disregard for the state, the custodians of power and state policies.  They have adopted coping and survival mechanisms to make it through the confusion and uncertainty in which they find themselves. To get any service from government agencies, they first prepare the bribe, then the required fee.  They know that if they do not do so, there is no chance on earth that they would get any service: job applications, national passport, driver’s licence, import licence, building permit, vehicle licence, tax clearance, national ID card, you name it.  Many have retreated into community, ethnic, religious and other demonic and occultic enclaves as they hope endlessly for political rationality, sensitive leadership, and adequate democratic spaces in which to survive.  In other instances, Nigerians abuse the name of God as the Almighty is invoked at the slightest opportunity even while perpetrating evil against individuals, community and the entire nation.  A few have designed ways to use religion, especially Christianity to get rich and further impoverish the already poor.  It is no wonder that one can find twenty branches of the same church or denomination worshipping the same God on a single street in most of our major cities!  Only recently have some church leaders come to declare that fasting and prayers can not change Nigeria.  In large measure, where is the leadership from the religious leaders?  It is not enough to speak after every religious clash.  Prevention is better than lamentation!

The “elasticity of hope” in Nigeria is just incredible.  In spite of the rascality, corruption, arrogance, insensitivity and socio-economic violence unleashed on the majority by the minority power-elite, a revolution has not taken place even if anger and disillusionment often result to pockets of open resistance.  Hope is almost becoming the opium of the Nigerian: e go beta, God dey, “tomorrow will be better”, “when my child grows up I will eat my share of the cake” are used to rationalise tolerance for bad leadership, corruption and bad governance!

So, in conclusion, what brand of leaders do we need in Nigeria?  No one can deny the positive value of good leadership to a family, business, community, or nation. Even religious bodies and NGOs cannot thrive without good leadership. This is because good, accountable, efficient, effective, sensitive and God-fearing leadership brings hope, courage, peace, and encourages productivity, creativity and innovation.

Good leadership builds bridges and bonds of tolerance, inclusion, pluralism, love, friendship and partnership.  Good leadership helps people to bear the pains of setbacks while inspiring the generality to reach the highest points of their productive and creative abilities.  Good leadership is pro-people especially the youth, women and physically challenged.  It is pro-community, pro-environmental protection, pro-social justice, pro-accountability, and pro-democratic in disposition. We have lived through all brands of leadership in Nigeria and we all know the opposite of good leadership.  The consequences, pains, frustrations and embarrassment of bad leadership, at times quite demonic in manifestation, are there for all to see.  This means that we cannot afford to continue to test the waters, give another chance to known crooks, accommodate incompetence, experiment with perpetual underachievers, tolerate persons that have no respect for the people and communities, consider persons with no democratic credentials, and give room, by acts of omission or commission to toy with our present and future again.  We must remember, as one young African leader put it recently, that “one year of bad leadership can take us back ten to twenty years. In other words, one year of bad leadership can contaminate and destroy ten solid years of progress.”

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, the leaders that we choose at all levels and sectors must not be those that will undermine democracy, terrorise society, loot the treasury, build their own mansions and keep their own children abroad while making life hell on earth for the majority.  We must pick leaders that value education, industrialization, infrastructural development, capacity building, and information and communication technology. We must pick leaders that understand globalization and glocalization; leaders that know the value of environmental protection, and understand that health is wealth. We must, set the local, sub-structural and internal facilities, policies and programmes in place appropriately and investors will come on their own rather than daily runs around the globe at huge public cost in search of investors that we never see.  Once we restructure our society, strengthen structures of accountability and service delivery, have the right leaders in place, feed and employ our people, we would have fully re-branded our country.  Tourists and investors would come on their own or with little motivation.

Our leaders, with all due respect, must have education, exposure, experience, competence, vision, integrity, dignity, commitment, and moral depth. They must have compassion, sensitivity, track record of service and identification with the people, and capable of privileging accountability, transparency, due process and service delivery. Our leaders of the future must be God-fearing, morally sound, spiritually confident, credible, honest, reliable, progressive, and with a sense of mission and sense of nation.  Their loyalty must be to the State and not to a godfather, some shrine or to a hidden bank account. Their commitment to uplifting the conditions of the people, rehabilitating our dilapidated infrastructure and institutions, empowering communities and constituencies and building lasting bonds of friendship and partnership across ethnic, religious, regional and gender lines must be absolute.
The leaders we identify and pick to manage our lives, resources and future must have courage to admit mistakes, correct errors, alter our decadent past, build new opportunities, support radical ideas, attract investments, and bring our nation at par with the rest of the world in every way.  Nigeria’s future leaders must know Nigeria and the world.

In this era of globalization and instant information, we cannot afford to manage ignoramuses, people who hate reading, and those that will rather die than think.  Our leaders must understand and appreciate good governance as the foundation of social justice, rule of law, equity, popular participation, mobilisation, and sustainable development.  Good governance enhances patriotism, honesty, new leadership and unity because it puts the people as the core of politics, policies and social actions.  Ladies and Gentlemen, our new leaders must be humble but tough, caring without being careless, and loving without being stupid.

Finally, our new leaders must be persons that can appreciate the beauty of our communities and country, the sacrifices of our past heroes and heroines, the central place of women in our national development, the boundless energy of our youth, the productivity and energy of our workers, the indomitable spirit of our armed forces, the creativity of our traders, the strength of character of our traditional and religious leaders, and the innocence, purity and smiles of our babies, who invariably represent our boundless future.

For those of us in this room today, I have the following prescriptions for you:
“ If you cannot be a leader, be an informed, active and alert follower;
“ Set goals in life and identify the methods or mechanisms for achieving them;
“ Prioritize goals and strategies;
“ Rediscover yourself, learn to strategise, identify partners and always have a plan B;
“ Re-examine your approach to work, life, neighbours, associates, community and the nation;
“ Learn to share responsibilities, learn to give and not always expect back on the spot;
“ Build good will: it is much more durable and rewarding that kickbacks or instant bribe;
“ Re-dedicate yourself to family, community and nation;
“ Develop a guiding philosophy for relating to colleagues, community and nation;
“ Have a world-view and try to understand the world from a patriotic;
“  perspective and be sure to do some reading to expand your horizon;
“ Learn to listen to those around you, irrespective of class, gender or identity;
“ Be willing to tap into the pool of knowledge, experience, and ideas around you;
“ Respect yourself, respect those around you, avoid negative cliques, and petty attitudes e.g. backbiting and lies;
“ Learn to be a team player; do not underrate or ignore anyone or ideas that you are not familiar with;
“ Put the people and the nation first.

I thank you for your patience and may god continue to remain with you all.
Ibadan, March 12, 2009

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