Democracy And Global Peace: A Leadership Challenge

May 23, 2015 Samuel Issues 0

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I am sincerely grateful to the Integrity International Magazine for selecting me to be the keynote speaker in the 9th International Leadership Conference of the Organization holding today in this prestigious arena. I note, with a deep sense of humility and responsibility, that this invitation speaks volumes about the organization’s confidence in my person to do justice to the topic and offer my humble contributions towards the search for peace and good governance in the world in general and Nigeria, our dear country in particular.

Let me start by re-iterating the familiar definitions of the key words in this title namely: Democracy, Peace and Leadership. Abraham Lincoln, a one-time President of the United States of America defined Democracy as the Government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is a form of government that has been practices by several countries of the world including the United States of America where it has been in vogue for the past 2 centuries. Because of its inherent positive attributes, it has been globally accepted as the best form of government.

Peace can be defined as a social situation prevailing in any nation, community or other human environment or geographical entity, characterized by absence of war, conflict, friction or other social disturbances or upheavals.

Leadership simply refers to the art of governance or directing the affairs of a nation, a people, a community or an organization, in order to achieve set objectives and ensure peace, orderly development, and the attainment of security of life and property of the people involved.

Global peace is dependent on the peace prevailing in the individual countries or nations of the world under different forms of governance. The peace in the individual countries of the world is in turn a function of the quality of governance and leadership. Very often, people associate peace with absence of a shooting war. Noting can be further from the truth. A country may be peaceful yet is being plagued by myriads of problems such as mass poverty, unemployment, astronomical cost of living, high rate of illiteracy amongst the citizenry, monopoly of natural resources and power by a section or some sections of the society, and consequent marginalization of another or others, rancid corruption by the ruling class, neglect of the welfare of the masses especially in the area of health-care, education and infrastructural development, intimidation or oppression of the masses, tribal hatred which could graduate into massive extra-judicial killings of the weaker or minority group, terrorism, oppression or suppresson of the women folk, police or army brutality, kidnapping, etc. These and many more are categorized as structural violence.

Any nation experiencing all or some of these forms of structural violence but not a civil war cannot be said to be peaceful.

In the contemporary world, different nations of the world have come together under different organizations or unions so as to forge unity, peace, good neighbourliness, good governance, trade, cultural exchanges and peaceful exploitation of common natural resources and rapid economic development, amongst other aims and objectives. Thus we have the United Nations Organization with several service agencies, The African Union (formerly the Organization of African Unity), The Arab League, The British Commonwealth, The ACP, ECOWAS, EU, etc. Despite the presence of all these bodies, conflicts and wars are still rampant on the globe.

Available statistics have shown that most of the conflicts/crises that occur in the world are found in the African continent.

CAUSES OF CONFLICTS, WARS AND OTHER FORMS OF INSTABILITY IN THE GLOBE

The following are some of the causative factors for the different forms of crisis that have enveloped the world:

1. Territorial Annexation
2. Struggle for Self-Determination
3. Succession/Self-Determination
4. Middle-East Conflict
5. Attempts to Remove Wicked and Autocratic Leaders from Office
6. The Liberian Crisis
7. Crises in Libya and Iraq
8. Attempts to end Military Rule and bring in Civilian Democratic Government

NIGERIA’S DEMOCRATIC EXPERIMENT, THE JOURNEY SO FAR

As the keynote speaker in this particular conference, I feel safer and more competent to dwell on democracy and peace in Nigeria, a leadership challenge, rather than global peace and leadership challenge. This is because we should try to put our house in order before trying to put the world in order, if at all that is achievable:

An excerpt from the defunct National Concorde Newspaper of Thursday, July 1, 1999 issue (p.7) stated as follows, and I quote: “The political class is largely unprincipled and opportunistic, paying only lip service to democracy; the country’s public service requires serious overhaul and re-orientation; the police and other internal security outfits remain authoritarian and lawless. The rule of law is not yet sacrosanct, and draconian decrees remain in the statue books; a large segment of the civil society is docile and fatalistic and still harbouring antidemocratic or fascistic tendencies inherited from decades of military tyranny; the economy remains prostrate and corruption is rife; and the predatory and violent character of the state has yet to be changed”. Unquote.

Ladies and gentlemen, a cursory examination of the above analysis made 15 years ago will reveal the fact that most of these observations are still valid today, which seems to suggest that we have learnt or nothing from the mistakes of the past. In fact some of the challenges have doubled or even trebled in magnitude while new ones such as BokoHaramism, Niger Delta militancy have arrived at our political doorsteps.

At this juncture, what should be the qualities of an ideal leader in Nigeria, so as to reverse the subsisting situation of things? Before going into this aspect of the discourse, let me first of all commend our President, His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for his patriotic and selfless efforts in giving Nigeria the right leadership during the past 4 years despite daunting challenges strewn on his way. I also appreciate his efforts to transform and reposition Nigeria towards joining the league of 20 most developed economies of the world.

QUALITIES OF AN IDEAL LEADER IN NIGERIA OR ELSEWHERE IN THE WORLD

1. A leader must be strong and courageous at all times.
2. He must exude self confidence and command both the respect, love support and loyalty of his subjects at all times through his action and utterances.
3. He must be weary about making promises and ensure that whatever promise or promises he makes to his subjects or to the nation are fulfilled. He should therefore avoid making promises that he knows he cannot fulfill.
4. A leader must watch out for sycophants, praise singers and political jobbers whose ulterior motive in their actions is to extract something from him and possibly lead him into failure.
5. A leader must be honest. He should avoid embezzlement of state funds or misapplication of the resources of the nation or people. He should see himself as a servant of the people rather than a task master.
6. A leader must build up a strong security system to protect not only himself but also the very people that he governs. And like the America leader, if any bonafide Nigerian is kidnapped or abducted, he should not rest until that very person regains his/her freedom.
7. A leader must do everything in his power to check crime and fight corruption, bearing in mind the fact that no meaningful development can take place in any nation or state that is neck-deep in crime and corruption.
8. A leader, if he is a President of a country, must build up a strong national army and maintain it at top strength and capability at all times in order to defend the nation against external attack or internal uprising/insurgency.
9. A leader must display honesty, fairness, transparency and accountability in governance. He must eschew sectionalism and ethnicity in appointments and in citing of developmental projects across the nations.
10. A leader, once he emerges through a free, fair and credible election, should see himself not as the leader of a section of the country or political party on whose platform he contested the Presidential election, but as the President of the entire nation and leader of all other political parties that took part in the nation’s elections, showing interest in their development and not showing antagonism to them, particularly the opposition political party.
11. A leader must recognize the significance of other political parties in the polity. He should therefore avoid actions or policies that lead to members of other political parties cross-carpeting from their political parties to the party to which the leader belongs. This brings about disharmony and tension in the polity and can turn a section of the citizenry against the leader.
12. A leader must rule with the fear of God. He must have strong confidence in God to give him or her needed wisdom to pilot the affairs of the nation.
13. A leader must at all times exercise appropriate control over his lieutenants or subordinate staff. He must work extra hard to ensure that democracy thrives and that true federalism is established in the country. He must work for unity, peace and progress of the nation at all times. He must neither condone nor cover up corruption on the part of his Ministers, Governors or other support staff. He must be a man of conscience and integrity.
14. Finally, a leader must respect the wishes and choices of the people as expressed through the ballot box. He must not insist that his political party must win at all cost and at all times. He must not seek to perpetuate himself in office. He must create the enabling environment for a free press, independent judiciary and free, fair and credible election at all times. He must uphold the principle of the rule of law at all times.

A leader who brings all the above traits to office is bound to inspire good followership and citizenry loyalty which will certainly propel the nation on the path of progress and greatness. There is no doubt that Nigeria has been in search of leaders with above qualities at all tiers of Government since independence in 1960.

Prof. Ebong Thomas Eshett is of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri.

Being excerpts of lecture delivered on the occasion of the 9th International Leadership Conference/Awards conferment organized by Integrity International Magazine held at the National Merit House, Abuja, Nigeria Last Year

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