As Nigeria continues to totter its way through myriad leadership challenges, former Editor of The Guardian, Abraham Ogbodo, has said the inter-dependency of the human spirit in value creation was one of the conditions that make life more liveable, while also listing honesty, intelligence, courage, fair-mindedness, firmness, selflessness, vision, diligence and generosity as some qualities expected of good leadership.
Ogbodo, who was keynote speaker at the investiture of Rotarian Julius Abuda as the fourth President of Rotary Club of Abijo, Ibeju-Lekki, recently, advocated the abnegation of all forms of class discriminations and the enthronement of equality among all the peoples of the world while preserving the diversities that make for a balanced ecosystem.
Good leadership, he said, is not about decreeing equality across different segments of society, but that which enthrones “conditions for happiness among peoples of diverse orientations and inclinations,” emphasising that in such an arrangement, “the element that ensures peace and happiness is justice and not draconian laws.”
While referring to the endless excuses by many in the political class that Nigeria’s democracy is “nascent”, Ogbodo blamed the challenge of progress in leadership on prevalent tendencies by people to resist the natural call to be good to one another and to the society.
“When goodness is resisted, leadership becomes an unending learning curve and as a consequence, leadership theories are being constantly invented and reinvented to explain issues that do not require explanation.”
Ogbodo lamented the feeling of hopelessness in the country, blaming it on dishonest leadership.
He advised for a change of values that will see people show more interest in the legacies they would leave for posterity, adding that society will be better when people contribute to the solutions than act in ways that exacerbate the problems.