I wrote this piece 5 years ago. 5 years seems to be a trending timeline on this blog I just started, since I just wrote a brief experience of mine after going back to Nigeria since 5 years before. Anyways, as you read, I hope it sets your mind on fire!!!

P.S. My 2017 edits will be in color.

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Leadership. I cannot count how many times I’ve heard that word. Leadership. Born just 21 years ago(…now 26), a young soul (…please I’m still young, no?), I know nothing and in my 80-100 years to come (…the Lord said you will have 120 years, I want all) I know that leadership is something that cannot be betrothed to or just taken up easily. It is something that someone has to decide on and determine to take up with everything they’ve got. A leader is someone that brings out the voice of the voiceless because he/she has chosen to do so and because he/she will not let anything get in the way of achieving the goal for others and for their well being. A leader is someone who is ready to take the risk against all odds of others who puts them down. A leader is someone who believes that the team they serve deserves better. A leader is someone who will most definitely use their ideas and voice as a weapon to deal with issues they see wrong. A leader is someone who is not just trying to clone others with ideas they have had in the past but nurture other potential leaders in what they can bring forth.

But we all already know this right???

In Nigeria, today a Leader is someone we need, a leader that has these qualities and many others that have not been mentioned. (DUHH!!) As Dr. Wole Soyinka states in an interview “Nigeria is frustratingly endowed with amazing talents”. Where in the world would you not find a Nigerian? We have contributed to the world’s history in several ways. We have done so through our resources, bountiful vegetation, entertainment and knowledge. The question is why can’t we emerge from the so called African country that carries the highest level of corruption in possibly the entire world. Our people, our lives, our notion, our voices are put aside by the so called leaders that we have in top position sitting over the government today. It is sad to think that since my father’s years, Nigeria has been promised so many wonderful beginnings that have yet to begun even till now and until NOW. Electricity, Security, Education, Employment; these are among the most important necessities as humans in a society. My father’s years and grandfather’s years were probably more filled with “milk and honey” as compared to these years of the millennium. We have a nation of emerging minds that do not have the voice to express their minds. How will a country grow when the government is filled with doubles of past corrupted leaders? There are implantations of corruption in every section of the government. We have elections every 4 years hoping for a brighter tomorrow but yet, when their terms begin, we fall back into the deepest part of the tunnel not moving forward. We try to absorb the ways of the western culture without even looking deep into our roots to bring the country out with the people She’s made of.

What a waste.

I am angry. I am angry because even my generation has clones from the “Oga at the top“. How are we supposed to emerge and come out of this bondage we have bestowed on ourselves? He mentions potential; Wole Soyinka states that “potential is the word that is problematic in this country” because Nigeria has had potential even since the years of our first president after our independence, but this potential has yet to be worked on.

I read a quote just recently (…back when I wrote this) which states “we cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are”. This should be the motor of the heart of the “changing Nigerian”. This quote says a lot about this country as She pretty much remains stagnant or as some people will say, it is becoming progressively worse.  We know politics is full of words and more words and less action when the candidate is elected in place, but politics in this country is absolutely devastating. We claim to be a free democratic African country and we condemn the likes of Cuban government and other countries that have a one person/family government when blind in sight we might as well be classified as one of them. I state this because from what I can remember in my pre-teens and teenage years, from president Obasanjo, which is as far as most of my knowledge started building up, he still controls the country. This is not a secret neither is it something that is news. He left the office but has kept someone on the “throne” to continue what he sees as a better way to handle Nigeria. Despite the fact that a new president is in and we might have seen a few changes since he came in office, the fact of the matter still remains that the current president is being ordered by the president behind the scenes. This may no longer be true, but for those Lagosians, what do you think? Does former Governor Tinubu still run Lagos?

Citizens and the non-citizens-citizens of Nigeria (…that’s correct for someone like me) know that the country has to change but there is no change that is going to be made unless we have that one leader with the team and the mind to commence with CHANGE at no cost. There is no doubt that a few changes have been going on in the Nigeria but significant change begins from the root of all the problems She faces.

Drop your comments below.