Nigerian leaders lack blueprint to tackle challenges – Igbuzor

The Director of the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) Dr Otive Igbuzor has call for attitudinal change saying the nation’s leaders lack the knowledge of systematic planning, organizing, and managing change thus failing to address the challenges facing the citizenry. He made the call on Friday in Abuja at the public […]

The Director of the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development (Centre LSD) Dr Otive Igbuzor has call for attitudinal change saying the nation’s leaders lack the knowledge of systematic planning, organizing, and managing change thus failing to address the challenges facing the citizenry.

He made the call on Friday in Abuja at the public presentation of his 307-page book titled “Leadership, Development and Change”.

He said that he does not write to make money but to provoke development that will midwife emancipation of the poor in the society.

“As a nation, we need to be systematic in terms of planning, organizing, and managing change. This is because there is a deficit of knowledge of what to do and that is why you see that all over the world, 70 percent of all change programmes fail; and part of the reason is that even people who want change do not know what to do. Therefore, this book is out to fill that identified gap,” Igbuzor said.

He said that the book is the seventh volume in the series of books he plans to write.

“It took 34 years after the death of the intellectual sage, Karl Marx- 1883-1917 before people began to appreciate his enormous contributions to knowledge,” he said.

In his remarks, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development Dr Kayode Fayemi said the author is a positive, consistent and resilient citizen who is passionate about leadership, development and democratic ideals.

The former governor of Ekiti State said that the author helped his administration in Ekiti State develop a strategic plan for the development of the state during his tenure as governor.

He however said that leadership is not just about those in public offices but even those heading town unions, churches, neighbourhood watch, sports associations, and student unions are leaders, arguing that leadership is not all about politics.

Reviewing the book, a lecturer at the Federal University Lafia, Dr Okoli Chukwuma, said statesmen worldwide are expected to possess requisite endowments to provide leadership, drive development, and manage change and that the author broadly situate the functional relationship between leadership, development and change, to fostering theoretical and practical understandings.

He said, “The book is a veritable compendium on topical aspects of leadership, development, and change in Nigeria. Thoughts generously shared by the author in the book fit nicely into the contemporary discourse on achieving national transformation through progressive change in Nigeria. To that extent, the book is both timely and germane.

“Nonetheless, the book is not without blemish; it has some manifest structural shortcomings. Firstly, it lacks a standard introduction that speaks to its general theme and constituent chapters in a systematic and coherent manner.”