The campaign for political offices towards the 2023 general elections provides Nigerians with an opportunity for deep and sober reflection. Yes, to sit back and think through our experience with leadership, especially since the return to civil rule in 1999. Civil rule has provided us with the opportunity to go to the polls in six consecutive electoral cycles. What have we done or achieved with the opportunity to choose? Have we made the right choice at every opportunity to vote? This discourse seeks to remind Nigerians that the level of poverty, poor governance, infrastructure decay, etc., that we witness today is a direct product of the choice we made with our votes.

Essentially, every electoral choice comes with its consequences and this is a good part of the inexorable law of sowing and reaping. It has, therefore, become imperative to remind Nigerians of the qualities necessary to turn around our economic, political and social fortunes. We are already at ground zero and there is no more space to move to a new bottom. The only reasonable thing to do is to start the race to the top. But what qualities do we need in leadership, especially at the topmost presidential level? The first is a clear understanding of the enormity of the challenges facing Nigeria. An understanding of the rot, the decay, and the putrefaction that has set into our system, and which has created a sense of hopelessness, despair, and despondency in the country, especially among the youth who see no future in the present arrangements. An appreciation of the challenges will create a sense of urgency to take action to begin the process of renewal.

From the first quality, the second will arise which is the design of pragmatic and workable policy frameworks, laws, administrative frameworks, and solutions that will fit our challenges and our level of development. It is not about mantras and cliches. This will involve a deep understanding of the resources available to the nation. Resources are not just about money. They include human, information, technological, ecological, etc., resources. That deep understanding is about how to galvanise these resources and put them to work to resolve economic and social challenges. What we lack in finances may be compensated by trained human resources; the ecological resources that have been untapped will need to be harnessed with great local value addition before export so that they command a higher price in the international market. Human resource management must come with putting square pegs in square holes. We need leadership that will use our first 11 to deliver the dividends of democracy and development while not compromising our federal character principles. Thus, in wealth creation, we need to use our best to make the cake as big as possible, whilst ensuring equity in its sharing. This is in contradistinction to the current approach of using our fifth and tenth eleven at the cake-baking stage. It produces a smaller cake and makes the competition for a slice very intense.

The third quality, which is cross-cutting, is about integrity and honesty. A beautiful policy framework that succeeds everywhere in the world will fail in Nigeria when there is no honesty of purpose and volition in its implementation. This is a quality that has been consistently lacking in Nigeria’s leadership since 1999. The leader must have a practical experience in honesty and integrity. He must not be a thief, a corrupt person, or a person whom everyone knows to be very rich but cannot account for the source of his wealth. The fact that such a person has not been convicted of a crime of corruption, fraud, etc., cannot be a reason to choose a shady character.

The campaign offers the candidates enough opportunities to provide explanations on the source of their wealth. Part of integrity and honesty requires that we know the full history of a proposed leader. Where is he or she from? Who are or were his parents? Which schools did he attend? Where are his classmates who can validate his claims and vouch for his integrity? Men do not just drop from the sky, they have relatives, friends, brothers, and sisters before they go into public life. Nigeria cannot afford a leader whose past is shrouded in secrecy or who will make Nigeria amenable to blackmail in future. A deepening of integrity is the issue of experience. The experience Nigeria needs should be founded on democratic norms. A candidate who is marketed as a profound democrat but whose record is that of a suppressant of democratic norms through unbridled god-father practices, abuse of state resources, etc., cannot fit the bill. Candidates who emerged through bazaars in the name of presidential primaries do not fit this bill. A candidate who cannot condemn the fundamental crime of murder due to ethnic and religious considerations is not a fit and proper person for the office of the president. If he cannot condemn murder, he will not take action as president when his favoured murderers rampage the land.

The fourth is that Nigerians need a leader who is fit and proper in all respects, who is healthy, willing and able to lead from the front. The experience with the Major General Muhammadu Buhari(retd.) regime where the leader spent a good part of his time in foreign hospitals cannot be allowed to recur. It should be recalled that by the 1999 Constitution, where the president is suffering from such infirmity of body or mind as renders him permanently incapable of discharging the functions of his office, he can be removed from office. If a sitting president can be removed from office for the above reason, any candidate who has lost the ability to give a coherent speech, understand issues, and respond to them cannot be our president. It will be a great disservice at this critical point in our history. Nigerians want to elect a president and not a president by proxy. We can no longer afford to be a laughing stock of the comity of nations because of the quality of the leadership we vote.

The fifth quality is that of a unifier. Nigeria needs unity of its various component parts. Unity can only be a product of accommodation, a sense of belonging as well as equity, and fairness based on our federal character principles. Passing the presidential torch from a member of a particular group to another member of the same group in such a diverse environment cannot promote integration. It can only promote alienation and the deepening of the divides that have kept Nigerians from achieving unity of purpose.

In the final analysis, the major presidential candidates have presented their credentials and qualities before Nigerians. It is no use to vote persons who do not possess leadership qualities and who have no solutions to the myriad of our challenges to assume the number one position. Thereafter, the complaints and protests will continue. We must understand that our actions and votes have very fundamental and serious consequences.