”Leadership is a choice you make, not a place you sit…You may be able to grant someone a position, but you cannot grant him real leadership. Influence must be earned. “–John Maxwell
Most likely you have had a conversation about political leadership in Nigeria and either you or someone asked, “When would these old men give the youths a chance?” My answer will be, “Never!” I have observed that the majority of Nigeria’s youths have a fundamental misconception of leadership. They view political leadership as the only form of leadership and to become one, a position or title must be bestowed. They believe that once they are made a senator, governor and/or president, they will magically transform the country from a Third World Country to a First World Country.
Can our youths be wiser than our political leaders? Can the quality of inputs be better than the product? Did the current political class appear at the helms of affairs as old men from another planet? I don’t think so. They are a product of society. They were once youths that criticized the leadership of their time and without preparation in the trenches forced their way up there and created a mess for everyone; garbage in garbage out. It is a self-perpetuating vicious cycle that must be stopped by answering the following salient questions. What is the trouble with Nigeria? Do the youths understand the meaning of leadership? Can the leadership problem be solved by youthful political leaders?
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My goal is to establish that our leadership conundrum cannot be solved by replacing the old political leaders with youthful leaders. The youths believe that it is only in Nigeria the old lead while the rest of the world has their youths leading them. How true is this? If the average age of the world’s political leaders is 62 years old and those of Nigerian governors and senators are 60 and 61 respectively, this simply means that our political leaders are younger than the rest of the world. Average age means we have most leaders around that age with a few exceptions.
For example, the youngest world leader is 26 years old Giocomo Simoncini, one of the Captains Regent of San Marino, the tiny independent state of northern Italy. The oldest serving world leader is President Paul Biya of Cameroon. You may want to point out that he is African and it is a thing that is peculiar to us. What will you say about the ages of the current US President, Joe Biden who is 78 today and the immediate past president, Donald Trump, who was 71 when he became president?
Historically and contemporarily, it is established that the quality of leadership increases with age and experience. The Nigeria Population Commission, NPC, defines a youth as the proportion of the population that falls within the age bracket of 15-35 years with an average age of 25 years. Can a 25-year-old leader be more effective than a 60-year-old leader? The average age of famous Nigerian religious leaders is 67, which is higher than that of the political leaders but somehow the youths are not clamoring to replace them. Why? What is the attraction with political leadership? Society is multi-faceted and each component needs good leadership for the whole to thrive.
Political leadership receives the greatest criticism because it is the custodian of the rights of the citizens and defender of the sovereignty of the nation. However, the failure of the political class is symptomatic of a greater malaise of poor quality citizens. We have one of the lowest levels of civic responsibility in the world. We keep asking what Nigeria can do for us without playing our part. Our political leaders mirror the quality of our youths.
Waiting to become a political leader to fix the country is evident the youths do not grasp the meaning of leadership. Who is a leader? He is one who does not need a title, position or incentive to get things done. He is full of initiative with the ability to organize men and material to achieve altruistic goals. John Maxwell, in his book, Developing the Leader Within You and The 360 ?Leader, talked about the five steps of leadership. The least level of leadership is leadership by position or title, an example is political leadership. The next level is leadership by permission.
A leader at this level is allowed to lead beyond his defined limits by virtue of the relationships he has built with people. The third level is leadership by results. Here the leader never fails to produce results with his team. The people and organization depend on him to deliver. The fourth level is leadership by production. Here the leader becomes a leader of leaders as he produces more leaders. And the final level is the personhood leader. This is a larger than life level and cannot be attained by personal effort, only by a lifetime of effective leadership. The people enthrone the leader to this level. Examples are Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Wole Soyinka, etc.
Finally, Nigeria youths must understand that leadership is more of disposition than position and political leadership is the lowest form of leadership because it is about titles and positions. When many of our political leaders leave office they usually fade into oblivion because they were never leaders in the first place. If you cannot inspire your community to improve your immediate environment and living conditions you will not achieve anything when given a political title.
In 1983, Chinua Achebe in his book, The Trouble with Nigeria, concluded that, “The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.” He was right. John Maxwell concurred, “Everything rises and falls squarely on Leadership.” Today, if we take the political process as a manufacturing line we will understand that a bad product/leader is a function of bad raw material/youths. So, the trouble with Nigeria today is squarely a failure of the youths.