Leading Nigeria right

                      By Bayo Ogunmupe

    Leading Right, Nigeria is a book in two volumes by Philip Ejiofor. Published just this year by The Exclusive Edge magazine, Ogudu, Lagos. Leading Right explores the challenges and solutions of leadership and governance in Nigeria. The book is autobiographical, being the collation of Ejiofor's thirty years experience i Nigeria's corporate governance; reaching into government, business, teaching and as an observer of the debilitating socio-economic condition of the Nigerian people.

    Leading Right is a compelling review of Nigeria's vision and delusion in the past 56 years of our independence. It contains thought provoking nuggets of leadership principles and practices. Written in simple and clear language, the book explains what it takes to make leadership an interesting skill to be embraced by aspiring Nigerians. The book shows why our people are dying needlessly within Nigeria as a result of the poor handling of our armaments. It blamed insecurity on the embezzlement of military budgets by the top echelons of the military and the politicians.

    Accordingly, Ejiofor resonates the Tel Aviv District judge in Israel, Justice David Rozen who said: "Bribery by its nature, does not limit itself, but spread out, erodes and causes the collapse of public institutions and the rule of law." Based on this premise, Ejiofor argues that the idea of giving corrupt public officials a soft landing on accountability was tantamount to encouraging corruption in the country. The combined pagination of the two volumes of Leading Right is 906 pages, they have 26 chapters; 49 pages of appendix, 26 pages of references and 18 pages of index.

    The author dedicated the book to groups of people among them Nigerians at home and those in the Diaspora  who have suffered from corruption and poor leadership, the twin evils that have bedeviled Nigeria since 1960. Another cluster Ejiofor mentioned are the disgruntled Nigerians who continued to die without realizing their dreams. He also hailed those who have died from poorly conceived infrastructure owing to ineptitude and lack of foresight by the leaders.

    The last group that earned Ejiofor's dedication are the men and women who failed to emerge from subsistence economy because the elite has stolen or appropriated to itself the socio-economic good of the country. However, the author remembered the politicians, the public officials and entrepreneurs who have acted in good faith but whose services were sabotaged by political jobbers at the corridors of power.

    This book is modeled after the Nigerian Constitution. The first five chapters discussed the vision and the ideals of the nation. It covered service delivery, leadership principles, political party ideologies and federalism. Chapter six was devoted to explaining the executive arm of his dreams. But in Nigeria the executive power remains nebulous and poorly defined. In the United States executive authority is laid bare by the Executive Powers Act. There the executive is immutable in moments of crisis or war.

    Chapter seven covered the legislature. Except otherwise omitted, every appointment, policy option and military adventure must be approved by the senate, which epitomizes the equality of the federating states of the union. In the Nigerian Constitution, the legislature comes first, which signifies it as first among the three arms of government. As usual the judiciary is treated last. He chronicled the vicissitudes of the judiciary with citizens habitually having to buy judgments detailing other character deficiencies of the Nigerian elite.

      Surprisingly, Ejiofor treats the civil service ahead of the media: the Fourth Estate of the Realm. Here, with her poor leadership competencies, Nigeria is viewed as lost in the storm of global competitiveness where nations slug it out in the interest of their citizens. He characterizes Nigeria's greatest drawback as the inability of our leaders to escape from primordial attachments hinged on ethnic and religious bigotry. The Fulani through Ahmadu Bello having plans to dominate by dipping the Quran to the sea of Atlantic Ocean. On the hand, the Igbo, through Nnamdi Azikiwe avowed the domination of the lazy tribes of the Sahel.

    Accordingly, where some leaders would have succeeded, they faltered because sycophants within their social milieu hoodwinked them into taking parochial decisions. In the opinion of Ejiofor, one of several reasons Nigeria has been stuck in this political quagmire is because, aware of their own injustice, past Nigerian leaders archived history as a course of study in school,preventing new generation of Nigerians from knowing the challenges of their nation.

    This lack of historical knowledge prevented citizens from discerning the quality of political leaders put forward by political leaders. The author amplified his exegesis by quoting John Maxwell in his book: Turning Mistakes Into Stepping Stones for Success; thus:"Mistakes (history) are messages that give us feedback about life. Interruptions that should cause us to reflect and think; signposts that direct us to the right path; keys that we can use to unlock the next door of opportunity; explorations that let us journey where we have never been before."  

    Those are the advantages of the study of history which previous leaders denied us. Leading Right closed the conversation with his analysis of non-governmental organizations. Just like the judiciary citizens and non governmental organizations were made to undermine the enthronement of a great Nigerian nation. Ikechukwu Philip Ejiofor had his first degree in History and Political Science from the Onafemi Awolowo University. He gained his master's in Public Administration from the University of Lagos while he is now pursuing his doctorate in public policy Walden University, Minnesota in the United States. I commend the book onto your perusal for knowledge and wisdom. It is a must read for all.