Ekerete Udoh: Nigerians have no purposeful leaders like Mandela

by Ekerete Udoh

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Now the question is:  If Nigeria was able to conquer the world with her pop culture, and presents a new side, a new narrative about or country, why has it been so difficult for us to have leaders who are so selfless, so invested in the Nigerian project, so willing to buck conventional wisdom and use the bullying pulpit that the presidency offers to move the people in  a different direction-away from parochial attachments…

I am unapologetically a proud Nigerian. I wear my Nigerian bonafides and stripes like a badge of honor. In my world view and without sounding  ultra-nationalist, Nigerian is the heart beat of Africa, the land of proud , creative, propose-driven people- a land suffused with human capital, ready to be appropriated for greater national purpose- a land that dictates trends, style and entrepreneurial spirit for the rest of the African Continent. My love for Nigeria is not an isolated occurrence; it’s a passion that is shared by millions of other Nigerians.

Nigerians may lambaste their leaders, they may decry the paucity or near stone age infrastructural amenities, they may huff and puff about everything that is going on in the country, they may lob grenades at the ruling class, but they will be quick to tell you that there is no other country like Nigeria, in terms of a sense of community and the ‘can-do’ attitude of its people. And they are right! In terms of fashion, pop culture, drive and motivations, no country can match Nigeria. All over the African continent, our Nollywood has become the defining cultural tool, people are speaking the Nigerian lingo, behaving like Nigerians and like Nollywood did for America, falling in love with Nigeria and desiring to visit and discover the country. I remember on a trip to South Africa in April, and eating at a Nigerian restaurant on Wale Street in Cape Town, and seeing the patrons, made up of mostly South Africans, overdoing each other to sound and project their borrowed Nigerian aplomb.  They listen to Nigerian music, watch our Nigerian movies and desire to date Nigerian men or women. Similar sentiments pervades the Caribbean community- from Monte-go-Bay to Ochio-Rios  to Kingston, from the sandy shores of Nassau, The Bahamas, to the streets in Port-au-Prince , Haiti, Nigerian pop culture is  consuming passion.

Now the question is:  If Nigeria was able to conquer the world with her pop culture, and presents a new side, a new narrative about or country, why has it been so difficult for us to have leaders who are so selfless, so invested in the Nigerian project, so willing to buck conventional wisdom and use the bullying pulpit that the presidency offers to move the people in  a different direction-away from parochial attachments, away for  jingoistic passions, away from seeing public service as an opportunity to indulge in conspicuous consumption, but to see such , as a call to duty, to offer your country a selfless service- service that add value to the larger mass and help engender deep trust in the capacity for government as an agent for good.

Throughout last week, like millions of others the world over, I was taken in by the way the world stood still for Mandela, the late president of South Africa, and as an African, I felt proud. Mandela’s life could have taken a different route upon his release from prison in February 1990 and eventual election as the President of South Africa. He could have elected to be vindictive, vengeful and pit one group after the other. He could have decided to teach the Afrikaners, who had subjected him to all manner of abuse, physical, emotional and psychological a lesson in how bestiality and inhumanity to fellow being is not the sole-preserve of any race.  If he had chosen to do so, he wouldn’t have been alone in that league of angry former inmates of an oppressed racist government-his next door neighbor, Robert Mugabe was already “teaching the whites some lessons” on reverse oppression.

But Mandela decided to wear his Christian masculinity, and to build a rainbow nation of different colors and stripes. He embraced those who had persecuted him and at the end of his first term, he voluntarily relinquished power and handed over to a younger person.  Watching the world leaders overdoing each other in praising Mandela and his legacy, I couldn’t help but wonder  why we can’t have an authentic hero- a leader of the Mandela’s’ stripe in Nigeria?

How is it difficult to have a leader who would forswear parochialism, a leader who would weld and meld our diversity into a national symphony and pull us all out of our little cocoon of ethnic and religious comfort zones? Like Nigeria, South Africa is a deeply heterogeneous society, where zero-sum tendencies and passion are very strong, but through the force of personality of Mandela, those passions were neutered or subsumed for a greater national cause.
If Mandela had decide to play one tribe against the other or given undue advantage in political appointment or the post- apartheid reconstruction to his own tribe, chances are that South Africa today would have taken a different trajectory and when he died, the world have looked at him as just another leader who had passed on, a few may have attended his funeral, and his legacy would have been defined by a divided and fractured nation, but Mandela rose above those sentiments and showed that Africans can be motivated by a cause that is greater  than personal .

Can our leaders learn from the Mandela example? Can they be propelled by issues that are greater than personal? Can they stare the gods of ethnicity, of small –mindedness, of unbridled corruption and tell them, no, I won’t bow at your altar, I won’t recite your catechism, I will do what is good for the larger Nigerian community.

As a proud Nigerian I am sad that though we have so many people that can replicate what Mandela did, in South Arica, these leaders unfortunately are still being shaped, defined and motivated and furnaced by the passions of their ethnic and religious entities. I pray for a day when a Nigerian hero will emerge and activates our nationalistic fervor through his deeds and actions.

51 hearty cheers to a Promise Keeper

Monday-December 9, Governor Godswill Akpabio, the governor of my dear state of Akwa Ibom turned 51, and the good people of Akwa Ibom state rolled out the drums and celebrated him with songs and solidarity march that practically shut down the major roads in Uyo.

Governor Akpabio is an example of the kind of leader I hope someday in the future will play a role on the national scene. He has changed Akwa Ibom state forever, and when the history of the state shall be written, his gubernatorial stewardship will be draped in glowing colors.

Leaders are born and when the task of leadership is thrust upon them, they usually rise up with uncommon passion and determination. Governor Akpbio has uncommonly responded to the myriad of problems that affected and afflicted the Akwa Ibom enterprise and has succeeded in turning it around, and showing that government indeed, can be a force for good.

As the good people of Akwa Ibom state celebrated him last Monday, I could do nothing, but to join in the singing the symphony of appreciation, of gratitude to God for making His will manifest in Akwa Ibom at a point and trajectory that was most needed. Now, a template of governance has been established, and Akwa Ibom will never be the same again. Here’s wishing a hearty 51 cheers to the Uncommon Transformer-in-Chief and the man who kept his promise to change the tenor, texture and tone of governance in Akwa Ibom state-Governor Godswill Obot Akapbio.

 

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Read this article in the Thisday Newspapers

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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