Nigeria leadership crisis: because the titles will not be saved by Ezenwa Nwagwu

During a recent session with the set 23 class at the African center for leadership, strategy and development school (Center-LSD), where I had the privilege of being a member of the faculty and teaching aspiring leaders for several years, I felt a profound need to return to the basic principles that truly define leadership: service, empathy and responsibility.

Why is this important? My purpose for this speech, as I also said to the class, is simple but urgent: to trigger a deeper reflection that can help us rethink our understanding of the leadership. I believe that only by having this conversation and having a change in the mentality can we start redirecting the course that our country is currently up to.

Too often, the Nigerians speak of the constant decline of the intentional leadership between the political class. However, the greatest challenge for me is that in all the spheres of our national life, from the leadership of the community to organizational and religious leadership, there is a growing decline in the intentional leadership.

This conversation, therefore, is to challenge us to have a paradigm shift that puts the impact above office possession, to go beyond our understanding of the leadership and build a new harvest of leaders who embrace humility, sacrifice, responsibility and empathy.

Unfortunately, in today’s Nigeria, we confuse leadership with the location. We measure it for titles, convoys and ceremonies. But as I said to the class, the real leadership does not concern the decoration of the titles. It is a matter of setting examples, sacrificing for others, guiding future leaders and not being in personal interest.

However, what is even more worrying is that we have a leadership externalized only to politicians. Too many citizens believe that leadership begins and ends with politicians or owners of public offices. That belief is not only misleading. It is dangerous.

It is dangerous because, in my opinion, it has become an excuse for people at different levels of responsibility to escape responsibility. My point is if you live in a community where the roads are bad and collect the neighbors to repair them, you have provided leadership. If you help a child staying at school, you have guided. If you constantly pay for real estate security withdrawal and contribute to the association of your residents, you are showing leadership. These are not great acts, but they are significant and count.

As I said to the class, the motivation for leadership should not be to drive. The motivation for leadership is not the title but service.

Unfortunately, if today we had to perform a random survey on how the aspiring generation perceives leadership, the results would probably be worrying. Somewhere along the line, in the noise and in the struggle of our national life, it seems that we have lost both the meaning and the true purpose of leadership.

For me, this is worrying. But the question of role models is also more worrying. If we ask: “Who are the role models?” The answers are not always encouraging. Many people under the eyes of the public, both in politics, affairs and in community life, seem more concentrated on power and personal gain and on the service. When the examples we see rewarding wealth and connections for honesty and hard work, it becomes difficult for young people to understand how real leadership should be.

This decline is not accidental. It is the product of a culture that rewards the state with respect to substance, loyalty with respect to skills and short -term gain as well as long -term. In politics, in business and even in our communities, we have normalized leadership as a position to be enjoyed rather than a duty to be discharged. The result is a leadership void that leaves too many Nigerians without guidance, hope or protection.

So how do we go back to the bases?
This is the reason why I define leadership as a “response capacity”: the ability and the will to respond to the needs and challenges around you. For me, this conversation is important, not only for its content but for its times. Nigeria is a crossroads, facing both a governance crisis and a leadership crisis.

The real leadership begins with humility. It is led by empathy: the ability to feel the pain of others and to be moved to act. If you do not show concern for your immediate environment, if you move away from the needs of your neighbor, if you expect the government to do everything, then you are not preparing to drive, you are avoiding it.
It has been time that we redefine the real leadership. Leadership is not limited to political appointments or public offices.

It is not the exclusive reserve of those who win the elections or bring titles. If you are waiting to hold the assignment before serving people, then you have completely misunderstood the leadership.

I challenged the students and challenge every Nigerian to read this: did you bring a child from the street? Did you get up for a neighboring neighbor? Who are you mentor?

Personally, I believe that the footprints we leave behind are not in the skyscrapers that we build or in the wealth we accumulate. Although there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, what matters most is in the lives we touch and in the communities we lift.

Today in Nigeria, we have too many monuments and too few living testaments of compassion. Can roads and buildings bring our names, but do people feel our presence in our streets?

During my interaction, I reminded the class that when history reminds us, it will not remember how many convoys we commanded or how many chieftancy titles we collected. He will remember the lives we have touched, the vulnerable we have protected and the hope we have restored.

This is the reason why I told the class that each of us belongs to three key communities: the community of our birth, the community of our residence and the community in which we work. And I asked: what are you going back to each of these?

If you ignore the struggles of your community, you refuse to engage in its development or believe that “is someone else’s work”, then you have lost the point. Leadership is not something that lights up after winning an election: it is a habit that you build long before the spotlight finds you.

At the end of my class, I asked students to perform a simple act of kindness. The feedback I received was powerful. Many said how well they felt after doing something useful for someone else. It didn’t matter if it was large or small. What mattered was the spirit behind it. This, for me, is how leadership appears: empathy in action.

Ezenwa Nwagwu is the executive director,
Advocacy Center and Peering Avocation in Africa (Paaca)