Events recently unfolding in one of the world’s oldest and unarguably, most stable democratic nations drive home the fundamental leadership roles in evolutionary development of any country.

It calls for critical evaluation of individual persona with recourse to a given task. For the first time in history, the United States’ post-election turmoil almost imperiled its democracy save for the well-entrenched institutions and a healthy dose of ideologically-oriented and nationalistically-inclined actors. A commentator, Angela Rye in an interview concluded that, a prejudiced consideration fueled rabid determination to annihilate any affiliation to the Obama presidency that political actors and agents overlooked requisite background checks and available records of his replacement. This discretional inability bequeathed Donald Trump to America and with him, the consequences of Trumpism on American Presidency, America’s global rank and America’s unity and coercion.

The kind of 2016 election in caution which ushered Trump into the white house is an inflexible bane across some other countries of the world, especially Nigeria. As a country, Nigeria has been unlucky with transformational leadership at the topmost echelon and for this reason, most

Presidents and administrations barely settle to work before their incompetence, vague vision and inadequate strategy manifests. Since ever, the natural reaction has been to seek replacements without due thought for the quality of such replacement. At best, replacements are mostly considered in ethnic and religious stead to the detriment of records, competence, character and capacity- the central thrust of this piece.

Meanwhile, the question as to the attributes and expectations from the next President of Nigeria is beyond necessitation, an imperative determinant factor sin-qua-non to economic emancipation, social etiquette and political reform. It inadvertently bears a strategic template critical to resonating the country’s decaying system.

For decades, Nigeria continued to see the rise and fall of hope for a country of our dreams and one impoverished by sheer lack of leadership capacity and disadvantaged by the declining inability of the public to set standards for its onboarded and onboarding leaders. This state-of-affairs portray and portend fundamental challenges to upsetting our current inertia, unlocking our enterprise spirits and setting the country on the path to impacting the world economically and socio-politically.

Nigeria is a household name. As the largest in Africa and regrettably the 30th largest economy in the world, its potentially gigantic economy is widely recognized along a line of great significances that only an excellent leadership can unlock. Yet, a trait of declining economy and social instability undermining developments has been Nigeria’s common feature, a situation which is not limited to particular tenurial leadership or regime but resonates around and along our faulty or non-existent recruitment process.

It was bad leadership that shifted Nigeria’s focus to oil revenue from being agriculture  dependent nation. Consequently, the fluctuating crude oil prices in the market among other

factors consistently flops visioning efforts at stabilizing the country’s economic mainstream,

thereby portending it as victims of a monolithic economy. Analysts had for umpteenth time for downturns, and there seems to be no end in sight. According to the United state Aid for International development- USAID (September 22, 2020), Nigeria’s economic potential is

constrained by ‘structural issues’ such as, inadequate infrastructure, tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, obstacles to investment, lack of confidence in currency evaluation, and limited foreign

exchange capacity. Financial times UK in a December 22, 2020 editorial also described Nigeria as “close to becoming a failed state” sighting an economy plagued with terrorism, illiteracy,

poverty, banditry, and kidnapping.

Evolving thesis from assertions therein, Nigeria’s extant challenges are apparently caused by leadership. Other attributable factors include unemployment, inflation,

government/monetary policies, etc. Apparently, a replete of cluelessness, parochial, uninspiring,

attitudinal debauchery and selfishness forms the kernel to which ineffective leadership marred

development in Nigeria. Lack of transparency to critical financial and other information key to economic development, accountability, absence of political will, overbearing political interest, looting and diversion of public funds, and lack of projectable economic foresights, gave rise to corruption and corrupt practices in the country, leaving behind infrastructural decay, insecurity,

low power supply and investment drive. However, the mendacious effect of the country’s security upheavals is so manifesting. It left many believing the country is too big to be governed by one man, putting the thresholds at the mercy of diverse ethnic interests. Nigeria’s slacked security architecture is because of bad governance, unemployment, poverty, inequitable distribution of national wealth and illiteracy.

At the moment, Nigeria harbors the world’s second most deadly terrorist groups- Boko-Haram insurgency (global terrorism index 2019), among its variables such as Bandits and kidnappers. As a matter of fact, the rising insecurity poises emergent threats to National continuity, unless crucial

checkmate measures are put in place. And while billions of Naira is lost daily to Boko-hara attacks, the perplexing tension of bandits and kidnappers held the economy to ransom. Moreover,

it transcends beyond crime, hunger holds sway. The cost of living is high due to inflationary measures and demand compendium. Statistics shows a very high percentage of Nigerian

populations living below minimum of dietary energy consumption (amount of food that should be taken in order to sustain energy). But then, this piece does not dwell on these challenges or the causes, it focuses only on an ambience of revival remedy which is sacrosanct, as stipulated by financial time UK.

Remember, Singapore as we know it today was not like this. In the 1960s, there was racial tension that led to several destructions and countless fatalities; the economy was in comatose and unstable and without natural resources, high unemployment and huge housing deficit. In the midst of all these, Singapore had to decide its own fate and today, it sits in the comity of the most developed countries in the world. Leadership made all the differences.

There is this anecdote in the British Navy that says, “Anyone can captain a ship when it is sitting safe in the harbor but out at sea, where things get dangerous, you need a real leader”. Nigeria is

currently at sea and things are dangerous and requiring a leadership that can plough through the prevailing realities to make something useful out of almost nothing. Having said this, we must

look forward to the leadership that can overcome Nigeria’s lingering socioeconomic and political challenges.