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“It also symbolic that today we celebrate 24 years of democracy in the country, one that equally draws remembrance of the infamous June 12, 1993 election. There are varied leadership scars turned lessons from that event we ought to keep eternally within memory to ensure the disaster of what should have been the most peaceful and transparent election in the country does not reoccur. Ethnicity, religion, politics or whatever other sentimental reasons there are to public governance should never take the place of the will and interest of the people. Today is a day to remind ourselves what leadership is all about: service to the people.”
Leadership is measured on the metric of impacts on the people. If the impacts are lost on them, or worse, misplaced, there is bound to be an overwhelming air of resentment, grievance and apathy.
Ushered in the country is a new wave of leadership that has remotely rekindled the dwindled hope of Nigerians, and thus far, boded well. However, it bears reminding the Achilles’s heels of Nigeria and Nigerians over the years; which the people are otherwise optimistic the current government will solve lastingly.
Starting with security, we’ve suffered too gravely and bear too much a cost for our frailties in this all-important front in the society. There are many threads that hold the security of the country together, starting from the local, up to the state and then bunching it up at the federal. In other words, if we are to tackle the root-causes of security, then it is not an up-down approach, but a down-up one. Security is local, and when you are able to pin it from therein, you have a secure nation undistracted to pursue development that accelerates the nation.
Theoretically, it comes off as an easy-to-do task, but practically, it is one that involves contemporary security skills which our leaders, especially at the local and state level, must be furnished with to apply for the sanity of the people, the progress of the nation.
There is also the oddity of ethnic rivalry that has silently tugged at the country’s unity and loudly threatened to disintegrate its fading bonds. It behooves on our elected leaders to rip into these differences and dissensions with the right fixes to the widening cracks fueling the gratuitous ethnic strife that has been allowed to fester for way too long. Herein is where the skills of tacts, diplomacy and conflict-resolution which past leaders have failed at to broker sustained peace for the future of the nation becomes exigent.
We can’t keep pretending as though these issues are without breath, papering over them while they fester menacingly to become one insurmountable monster that might some day conquer the country owing to our negligence and indifference to look out for Nigeria. And by then, no one will be more worthy of blame, but leaders who could not bring the people together under one roof to resolve their differences for one big Nigeria where everyone co-exist in peace deepened by oneness.
It also symbolic that today we celebrate 24 years of democracy in the country, one that equally draws remembrance of the infamous June 12, 1993 election. There are varied leadership scars turned lessons from that event we ought to keep eternally within memory to ensure the disaster of what should have been the most peaceful and transparent election in the country does not reoccur. Ethnicity, religion, politics or whatever other sentimental reasons there are to public governance should never take the place of the will and interest of the people. Today is a day to remind ourselves what leadership is all about: service to the people.
1 Corinthians 1:10-17 (KJV)
Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
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Dr. Ofonime Emmanuel Bassey is a Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution coach with decades of experience in the practice and promotion of Law Enforcement, Peace and Security through the Nigeria Police and the United Nations.
He is a professor in Leadership, Peace and Conflict Resolution, a certified United Nation’s Trainer, and currently the Director of ICOF Institute of Leadership, Peace and Conflict Resolution in Africa.
Prof. Bassey has served and interacted at the top-level management of the Nigeria Police as well as internationally as a United Nation’s Monitor/Mentor in Kosovo, Europe.
With his marks well-established in Peace Leadership both in Nigeria and Africa, he is currently the President, NISSI Safety Management Institute: An Institute of Peace Leadership.
To his many humanitarian acts, he currently spearheads a campaign tagged “The Next Peace Leaders” billed to run from 2022-2023 with a target of training 37,000 young peace leaders.
For peace and security tips, consultations and trainings, reach him via:
Facebook: Dr. O.E Bassey
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