The President Nigeria needs

At every phase of human history, leadership is required to change the world: authentic, visionary, assertive, creative, transformative, sincere and disruptive leaders are required to fix and forge their societies forward. At the peak of public leadership is presidential leadership, either a prime minister, a president, or a monarch. Every nation looks up to the […]

At every phase of human history, leadership is required to change the world: authentic, visionary, assertive, creative, transformative, sincere and disruptive leaders are required to fix and forge their societies forward. At the peak of public leadership is presidential leadership, either a prime minister, a president, or a monarch. Every nation looks up to the head of state to provide hope, optimism and shared-social possibilities. 

To lead a country in a time of chaos and complex crisis, the head of a state requires more than just the desire to lead. It requires the trusted ability to simplify complex conversations; take tough decisions; embody firm convictions of patriotism and act decisively in national interest. 

As Nigeria holds her sevenths general election in 2023 since the advent of the fourth republic in 1999, the presidential candidates have a duty to understand that with every stroke of a president’s pen, every word of a president and every action or inaction of a president, a life is at stake, either to be bettered or marred. To perform the premium duties and demands of the presidency, the disciplined leadership of the Commander-in-Chief is required to uphold and protect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in engendering national security, galvanize our diverse peculiarities for nation-building, build a productive economy and go for a foreign policy that advances our national interest.  

With Nigeria’s fiscal crisis, high debt profile, high unemployment level, insecurity, climate crisis, among other core challenges, certain questions will resonate at every point of the ongoing presidential campaign in Nigeria. The questioners owe the electorate a duty to firmly question the candidates on how they will diversify Nigeria’s economy and boost revenue earnings, reduce corruption, secure Nigeria, develop critical socio-economic infrastructure, strengthen institutions, build local productivity capacity (including local refinery) and end fuel subsidy and oil theft.  

To fix Nigeria’s current crisis will not be easy nor will it emanate from the barrel of cheap political proposals that presidential candidates are firing at the moment. Nigeria’s next president must be assertive in the best interest of Nigeria by taking tough decisions and ensure conclusive policy implementation in all sectors of the State.  

Nigeria’s next president has plethora of presidential leadership precedents to follow and there is nothing wrong in borrowing such good case studies of good governance from other political climes, in order to advance our systems. Our next president must mould a mental model for shared state productivity and prosperity, clearly communicate national policy agenda for transformation and situate sustainable systems of good governance for enduring development legacies.  

At a point in the history of Singapore, it appeared change was impossible until Lee Kwan Yew exercised presidential leadership to do the art of possibilities. He transformed Singapore from one of the poorest countries in the world in the 1960s to a global economic giant. 

Like Nigeria, Singapore faced severe unemployment and other socio-economic crisis, with the challenge of Bukit Ho Swee fire, when Lee Kwan Yew’s government embarked on a modernization programme that focused on establishing it as a manufacturing hub, investing in public infrastructure, ensured political stability, transparent public institutions and low level of corruption.   

Given that countries undergo transformative development either through evolutionary or revolutionary trajectories, transformational presidential leadership is not achieved in a vacuum it is usually anchored on known presidential leadership practices and realities.

Development is seen as interaction, action and a process, that can only be achieved when a president who has the mindset to run a development, productive and people-centred state is elected. No president, no matter how cultured, can create a functional country without efficient institutions, active citizens and committed civil society sector who play complementary roles in nation building.

Unfortunately, campaign for Nigeria’s 2023 general elections is already beclouded with populism, sentiments and misinformation. Should these factors be the deciding factors for influencing the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, the tendencies are high that Nigeria’s developmental and existential crisis will continue unresolved for decades. For development delayed in a generation is development denied of the generation.  

Nigeria’s next president must be grounded in the ongoing life of the people, as well as the realities of the society. It is criminally irresponsible for our president to live in the luxury of State House for the pleasure of power and to maintain the interests of vested power brokers at the expense of the people’s well-being. Nigeria’s next president cannot afford to continue medical tourism and other shameful obsession for foreign luxury. It is time to invest, build and secure Nigeria’s greatness and shared prosperity.

The next president of Nigeria must prioritise and focus his or her development agenda on specific sectors – security, power sector, industrialisation and manufacturing, education, healthcare, anti-corruption and public infrastructure.  More importantly, the next president must search for enduring solutions through the provisions of Chapter Two of the 1999 Constitution.

The next president should be optimistic, confident and self-assured that Nigeria is capable of changing and it can change within a given period of time.

There is sufficient legal framework that must guide such a revolutionary president, including the PIA, Startup Act, among others local content development, transparency and productivity laws.

A new Nigeria is possible if our next president understands the politics of this possibility.  

 

Ekpa, Stanley Ekpa, Editor-in-Chief, Nigerian Code of Conduct Law Report