•‘The way out of Nigeria’s leadership crisis’
•Speaks on Peter Obi, Adebayo
By Olayinka Latona
Pastor Ituah Ighodalo is Senior Pastor of Trinity House, Lagos. Ighodalo is also the founder, African Leadership Group (ALG), a platform which seeks to inform and find solutions to the leadership problems plaguing Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. In this interview, the respected man of God talks about the ALG, the ingredients that a good leader must possess, the allegation of Christian genocide made by the United States (US) against Nigeria, insecurity in Nigeria and two of the candidates that participated in the 2023 presidential election, Prince Adewole Adebayo (Social Democratic Party, SDP) and Mr Peter Obi (Labour Party), among other issues in the polity. Excerpts:
You have a platform for discussing leadership traits that can benefit government and governance. What inspired its formation?
The African Leadership Group (ALG), that’s what it is called under the auspices of the Tri Africa Foundation, and it is our response to try to solve three or four issues in Nigeria and in Africa. Number one, what are the people’s thoughts on an effective and efficient society? Number two, how do we resolve our leadership question and get the right leaders? Number three, how do we better inform the people about what is going on around them? Number four, how do we identify leadership potential and potential leaders? That’s what the African Leadership Group is set up to do? It does that through about three or four different kinds of activities. The first activity is the discussion that we have once a week where we identify people who speak on the subject matter that we have identified in terms of leadership. We do this through this conversation and that conversation, inform and identify potential leaders and advise leadership. Two, we have some town hall meetings where we go around the whole world educating Africans and Africans in Diaspora about what the situation is.
Three, we have some trainings in the School of Leadership and Development. And also the community impact activities that we do. Then, we have a fund, Hope Alive Fund, that we use in empowering indigent people who qualify.
Adewole Adebayo and Peter Obi, both former presidential candidates and possibly aspiring to run again in 2027, were among your guests on the platform. What is your assessment of their grasp of the issues affecting the country, and do you think they have the capacity to lead?
I think both Peter Obi and and Adewole Adebayo have the capacity and the knowledge and the determination to lead the country. Peter Obi is not even young anymore. He’s 64. That’s not a young man. Maybe relative to what we’ve experienced in Nigeria, he may look young. But 64 years of age is not young. Adewole Adebayo is 53 years, he is young. He has the energy and the strength and the knowledge. What he probably may not have is the wide bandwidth. You know, the wide bandwidth of interrelationships and connections. But that is what a party system does for you. If, for example, he was in a party that was a broad-based party, a strong party, they will make up for his lack of bandwidth and they will pull the party together and promote him as a good candidate. Adebayo speaks very well. He’s very knowledgeable. Although I have not tested his capacity to implement things, (but) in terms of his knowledge, his enthusiasm, and his roadmap, he does, he’s spoken very well.
Peter Obi is another individual with a huge followership. What is your opinion of him?
Peter Obi has the added advantage that he has been tested before as a governor in Anambra State. He claims that he left a very good record there. He did very well. When you talk to the people of the state, they’re in two opinions. Some think he did well, some think he could have done better. But also he’s a hard-working man. He has the reputation of being frugal, a good manager of money and so on and so forth. I think he would have done a decent job if he were president. But I still think that in Nigeria, we’re still looking for that man who has the capacity, wherewithal, compassion,
determination, who has the energy, and who has the love for Nigeria, genuine and really, really wants to turn Nigeria around, a person with energy, you know with some level of maturity. So, you can’t be too young. I think a person between the ages of 45 and 65 should be able to do this job. A candidate below 40 might be a bit too inexperienced and not have the network and the broad base to handle a complex place like Nigeria. But if we have 40 and 45 years above and is surrounded by a very good party system or good social system, good team of advisors who have seen different aspects of Nigeria, such candidate should be able to run the country.
What does it really take to effectively govern Nigeria?
The person must understand the history of Nigeria, the background of Nigeria, the formation of Nigeria, the different tribes and persons, and their complexities, and their interests, the religions of Nigeria. You must be a very accommodating person, very honest, corruption-free and hard-working. You must be visionary, see a great future for Nigeria. You must be bold, have the capacity for international relations and interconnections. And you must be determined to see Nigeria work. You must not be a greedy, selfish, self-oriented person, which is the unfortunate lot of our leaders today. They’re more interested in themselves and what they want to do for themselves and not in the collective good of the average Nigerian.
Looking at these leadership qualities, do you think we have someone that can fill into this gap?
I just said that we’re still looking for that person. But I can assure you that people like that exist. It’s just that we may not know them because they’ve not been loud. They’ve not made noise all over the place. They’ve not been exposed to public attention and all that, but they do exist. They’re very, very competent people in Nigeria. And if you go all over the world, a lot of Nigerians are doing extremely well. They are available, which is part of what we are trying to do at ALG to find these people, to bring them out, to talk to them, to find out where they are, what they are doing. And even if they are not president, they can be support material because, to run Nigeria, you need quite a good team of different kinds of people.
Adewole Adebayo and Peter Obi, both former presidential candidates and possibly aspiring to run again in 2027, were among your guests on the platform. What is your assessment of their grasp of the issues affecting the country, and do you think they have the capacity to lead?
I think both Peter Obi and and Adewole Adebayo have the capacity and the knowledge and the determination to lead the country. Peter Obi is not even young anymore. He’s 64. That’s not a young man. Maybe relative to what we’ve experienced in Nigeria, he may look young. But 64 years of age is not young. Adewole Adebayo is 53 years, he is young. He has the energy and the strength and the knowledge. What he probably may not have is the wide bandwidth. You know, the wide bandwidth of interrelationships and connections. But that is what a party system does for you. If, for example, he was in a party that was a broad-based party, a strong party, they will make up for his lack of bandwidth and they will pull the party together and promote him as a good candidate. Adebayo speaks very well. He’s very knowledgeable. Although I have not tested his capacity to implement things, (but) in terms of his knowledge, his enthusiasm, and his roadmap, he does, he’s spoken very well.
Peter Obi is another individual with a huge followership. What is your opinion of him?
Peter Obi has the added advantage that he has been tested before as a governor in Anambra State. He claims that he left a very good record there. He did very well. When you talk to the people of the state, they’re in two opinions. Some think he did well, some think he could have done better. But also he’s a hard-working man. He has the reputation of being frugal, a good manager of money and so on and so forth. I think he would have done a decent job if he were president. But I still think that in Nigeria, we’re still looking for that man who has the capacity, wherewithal, compassion,
determination, who has the energy, and who has the love for Nigeria, genuine and really, really wants to turn Nigeria around, a person with energy, you know with some level of maturity. So, you can’t be too young. I think a person between the ages of 45 and 65 should be able to do this job. A candidate below 40 might be a bit too inexperienced and not have the network and the broad base to handle a complex place like Nigeria. But if we have 40 and 45 years above and is surrounded by a very good party system or good social system, good team of advisors who have seen different aspects of Nigeria, such candidate should be able to run the country.
What does it really take to effectively govern Nigeria?
The person must understand the history of Nigeria, the background of Nigeria, the formation of Nigeria, the different tribes and persons, and their complexities, and their interests, the religions of Nigeria. You must be a very accommodating person, very honest, corruption-free and hard-working. You must be visionary, see a great future for Nigeria. You must be bold, have the capacity for international relations and interconnections. And you must be determined to see Nigeria work. You must not be a greedy, selfish, self-oriented person, which is the unfortunate lot of our leaders today. They’re more interested in themselves and what they want to do for themselves and not in the collective good of the average Nigerian.
Looking at these leadership qualities, do you think we have someone that can fill into this gap?
I just said that we’re still looking for that person. But I can assure you that people like that exist. It’s just that we may not know them because they’ve not been loud. They’ve not made noise all over the place. They’ve not been exposed to public attention and all that, but they do exist. They’re very, very competent people in Nigeria. And if you go all over the world, a lot of Nigerians are doing extremely well. They are available, which is part of what we are trying to do at ALG to find these people, to bring them out, to talk to them, to find out where they are, what they are doing. And even if they are not president, they can be support material because, to run Nigeria, you need quite a good team of different kinds of people.
Nigeria and leadership challenge. What’s the way out?
There’s a way out. We are just in a moment in time. We don’t know what’s going to happen in 30 years’ time, 40 years’ time, 50 years’ time. Nigeria is evolving and definitely there is a way out. Right now, we have even a new crop of young Nigerians below 20, below 25. Their thinking is different. In another 30, 40 years, they’ll be the ones in leadership. They will be able to clear us out. This cannot continue.
But what I think for the present time, what we need to do is one; educate Nigerians. A lot of people (leaders) get away with what they do in Nigeria because a lot of people are not informed, they’re not educated, they don’t know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. So, if you educate Nigerians and get them informed, they’ll be able to take a much stronger stake in their well-being and in their production. This is what changed France and took them out of feudal rulership of monarchs. It took them out of the monarchy because, over time, the French people became much more educated, much more aware, much more informed. And one day, there was enough people who were very well informed who led the revolution against King Louis XVI. He was beheaded. His execution by guillotine on January 21, 1793, at the Palace de la Révolution in Paris, marked a dramatic and irreversible end to centuries of a continuous monarchy, including the earlier feudal period. That kind of thing will also happen in Nigeria such that, by the time a lot more people are well informed, they will stand and say, “We are not going to take this anymore”. They will define properly the kind of president or leader they want and they will not allow their votes to be bought, not allow votes to be manipulated and then taken advantage of. It would happen over time, when you have enough people that are educated and bold enough, a lot of what is going on now will not be possible in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world.
The second one is that by divine providence, something can happen that can put somebody of reasonable quality and depth in leadership in Nigeria. And it has happened before, at least three or four times. Divine providence brought in Obasanjo for his first time. He was second in command to Murtala Muhammed, unfortunately, Muhammed, who was also a great leader, lost his life and that made Obasanjo becoming the head of state, it was divine providence. God brought him again the second time. The second time around, it was Abiola that was running for presidency. Between Babangida and Abacha, they prevented Abiola from claiming his mandate. Then all of a sudden, Abacha died, Abiola died, and, again, we brought in Abdulsalami. Because of divine providence that brought in Abdulsalam, who, for fear of his life and the international community, in about 11 months, conducted an election and divine providence also brought Obasanjo out of prison, with no money, to become president of Nigeria. A lot of things are providential, and then somehow God can also make that happen again. Divine providence made Jonathan president. Jonathan, on his own, wouldn’t say he wanted to be president of Nigeria, and that never could have happened based on his exposure and his background at that time. But, somehow, Obasanjo handpicked him to be number two to Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who was sick and died and providence brought Jonathan into leadership and so on and so forth. To be honest, almost everything that has happened or not happened, there’s been providence in it. Okay, even President Bola Tinubu was pushed in there by divine providence. To become governor of Lagos State, it was divine providence. And that changed the trajectory of his life. That hand of providence is still working and has not failed and will not fail. And that’s why prayer is important. Calling upon the name of the Lord is important. Everybody who’s thinking that people are wasting their time praying, they don’t know that God works through a process. Pharaoh was still very much in charge of Egypt, but Moses was growing also in the same Egypt. And when the time came, Moses took his place and let the children of Israel out of Egypt. When Israelites were going to leave Egypt, they didn’t know.
They thought it was impossible. They didn’t see the way out. They didn’t know that there was a Moses in the wilderness just waiting to come and about to speak to Pharaoh and challenge him. Nobody else had the guts or the authority to do that. But Moses had to be in the wilderness to come back and do it. And he did it with the backing of God. So, God is still alive. Joseph was living happily in the same Egypt. They didn’t know that he wanted to become the leader of Egypt. He was even in prison just like Obasanjo. And we have a lot of Davids all over the place, waiting to be discovered. Divine providence brought David too and he killed Goliath and his fame grew. So, that hand is still available and that hand can only be moved by prayer and righteousness of a few. You know it doesn’t even have to be the whole country. God is still alive. And what he says in 2 Chronicles 71:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land”. I have no doubt about it. Nigeria is too blessed. Nigeria is too important to God. Nigeria is too favored for it not to succeed. There is a lot of hope.
To be honest, if we look at the country critically, one can still go out there and work and make some money…It’s still a big economy in spite of the level of not so good leadership because God has been extremely gracious to us. There are worse countries than Nigeria. Even in terms of human rights, the human rights record is not terrible. The banditry is horrible now. The insecurity is disastrous. The level of infrastructure is so poor and so on and so forth. But all these things can change very quickly if we get the right kind of people who are saying the right kind of things.
You mean Nigeria is not doing badly despite the economic challenges, perceived genocide against Christians, terrorists having a field day in the country?
Well, there’s a lot of poverty in Nigeria. But thank God, it’s not at the level of starvation. There are some countries today where there’s a whole lot of starvation. You can’t live in Gaza right now. There are some parts of Lebanon you can’t live in. You can’t go to Southern Sudan. It’s terrible. And there are some parts of South Africa with black people living there that are really horrible. But in Nigeria, there is a lot of resilience and people still keep coping. Lives are wasted, no doubt. People are hungry, no doubt. But people keep going and keep going. So, I’m even grateful to God that we are not at the point of war or the point of starvation where we experience disease outbreak or kwashiorkor. That gives us a lot of energy and a lot of hope and a lot of potential. To be honest, we’ve a bit of orientation. We can up our game very quickly. There’s nobody in Nigeria that cannot be productive.
And on insecurity
On insecurity, it’s all politics. Some people are using religion and banditry and destruction of people to play politics, to make places ungovernable for people, to make some people lose election, to make some people look bad in terms of governance. That is part of the origin.
Then some people are insisting that unless they have power one way or the other, then they will continue to foment crisis and make Nigeria look terrible. The third is that some people are misled in terms of their religion, thinking that this is the right thing to do, but some people know the right thing, but they are deliberately misleading others and getting them to cause this havoc. But the most painful thing now is that people are making money from it. People are making money on both sides. Bandits are making a lot of money. They have never seen that kind of money before. Then, the people sponsoring them are making money and then the people who are supposed to capture them, some of the leaders in security forces, are also making money. They’re doing their best to make sure that they sabotage the process. It is going to take a lot of determination. It will take a very sincere leader, determined and objective leader to change this scenario. (But) those getting benefit from it and making other people homeless and unhappy should remember God is not asleep. He is the right judge who will judge everyone accordingly. People should think for posterity, legacy, think for things that will happen after they are gone. We should learn to fear God and leave behind something that the world will celebrate them for.
The United States has designated Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ due to religious freedom issues. What are the implications of this, and what is your take on the speculation about the US government intervening in Nigeria over perceived genocide against Christians?
The first effect is what we are having now. Our government is waking up and getting a bit anxious that America is putting their eyes on them. That’s the first effect. The second effect is that America has told the whole world that “I am interested in Nigeria”. There’s not been a time in our history that America has shown so much interest in Nigeria. The third implication is that there are sanctions against the country and against some individuals. There are some people now on what they call ‘a watch list’ by America. That means that their movement, finances and activities are being watched. And some of them may not be allowed to go into America. Maybe at some stage, there’s enough evidence they will track their money and they may confiscate their assets. If they think that the assets or monies were wrongly obtained here and there, they will confiscate them. So, things that they would never have bothered about before, they are now bothering with. And then finally, there’s a threat of some kind of military action, not to cause a war against Nigeria, at least we haven’t got into that level, but to rescue these people that we have not been able to rescue or to capture the bandits, you know? So there’s that threat. There’s no way that sort of a thing would happen that would not destabilize our own internal security and all of our people. And the danger with America is that once they start and they begin to taste blood, they don’t stop. They may begin to look for ways of even destabilizing our politics and causing us trouble. They’ve done it before in Afghanistan, Iraq, Southern Sudan and Libya. They removed Gaddafi on a false pretext and or whatever it is. It was all wrong what they did. It was all politics and they’ve left Libya prostrate now. Libya is like a ghost of itself. Places where education was free, resources were free, petrol was almost free, now they are almost like a barren land, and that’s America for you. They will cause this array so that they can take advantage of places and resources and they’re now looking at Nigeria that way. We must come together as reasonable Nigerians and resist this by doing whatever we need to do. The first thing is to do the right thing. Our leaders know the right thing to do. Let them do it.
How has it been running the ministry, especially in the absence of your dear wife?
It is God’s ministry and God is doing His work. We are just there as instruments in His hands. People ask me, “How do we do it?” I say I do it one day at a time. We have set ourselves a vision, direction that God is taking us through and we’re running the ministry. I thank God for my late wife. She did an awesome job. She worked with a group of women that are truly outstanding. And most of the things that she was doing, she didn’t do alone. She did it in consultation with people. And the people are still with us and they’re running along with it and doing it much as they can and even as well as she did, if not even a bit better. I am thankful to God that God has been able to fill in the gap that she left and kept the ministry going. And I do know that even on my own demise or retirement or whatever, the ministry will continue to go and work strong. There’s nobody that is indispensable and nobody has monopoly of everything. Just make sure that you are an instrument in God’s hands and you will continue to run His own ministry and you continue to play your part. I still feel very much the effect and the influence of my late wife. She got people to do a lot of things that she was not physically able to do. So, I think that the benefit of that relationship is still around me and around the children that God gave to us.
Any message to Nigerians?
My message to Nigerians as a minister of God is for them to know God and fear Him because the Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of outstanding things. It’s the beginning of wisdom, it is the beginning of knowledge, and it is the beginning of being who God wants you to be. Anybody who fears God will also respect men and treat them well. If Nigerians can fear God and respect men, we’ll have a beautiful Nigeria. What is wrong with Nigeria right now is that not enough people fear God and respect men. A lot of people fear their herbalists. But they have no regard for ordinary men. They are more interested in themselves and that’s what weighs Nigeria down. Whereas, most developed societies have been able to evolve a system where there’s self-respect, people’s lives matter, people’s opinions matter, people are not unnecessarily looked down upon by a few and taken advantage of and you can hold leaders to account and responsibility.
That is what is missing in Nigeria.
The post INSECURITY:Our leaders know the right thing to do, let them do it — Pastor Ituah Ighodalo appeared first on Vanguard News.
