Last week, we started a series on the kind of leader Nigerians need to elect as president in the 2023 elections so as to put the nation on the path of greatness and the people on the path of prosperity and wellness. We continue today.
In 2023, Nigerians need to elect a visionary president.
Vision is the leader’s edge over those he leads. Without a great vision, a leader is not better than others. But with a great vision, a leader is able to unleash the potentialities of the people, create possibilities for them and connect them with greatness. Without a visionary leader who creates possibilities, talents are wasted, potential is rubbished, opportunities are mismanaged and poverty becomes the reality of the people. So, electing a leader whose vision is his ambition is synonymous to condemning the people to a life of hardship and frustration.
Vision is travelling into the future to see what is possible. Without vision nothing great can be accomplished. Without vision, we cannot alter our experience. Changes would be illusory and elusive without a vision. Having a vision makes the decision-making process quite easy because you know where you are headed. Focus will be difficult without vision because a nation without a well-thought out vision is not different from a ship without a rudder, a disaster going somewhere to happen. Hence, great leaders are strong in envisioning the future. They live in the possibilities of the future, not the limitations of the moment. They do not allow the realities of the present to muffle them, rather they are motivated by the prospects the future offers and allow the possibilities to dictate their course of actions. Vision is the compass that guides an individual, an organization or a nation into its desired destination. Vision is the encapsulation of a country’s aspiration; where it wants to be and what it wants to become. Without a compelling vision, a company cannot record sustained success.
Vision makes all the difference in a country. Without a great vision, nature’s endowments are turned into a burden. Without a compelling vision, huge population becomes a grave albatross. Without a coordinated vision, natural resources become a curse. But when a country is blessed with a visionary leader, adversities are converted to opportunities, stumbling blocks are turned into stepping stones, lemon is turned into lemonade and a place of peril is transformed into a haven.
Nations don’t become great by accident. Every country that is great today had, at one point or the other, leaders that sat down to cast a vision for the nation, leaders who answered some germane questions concerning the future of the country. Questions like: What kind of country do we want to build? How are we going to build the nation of our dream? How do we want to be seen by the rest of the world? What kind of culture do we want to promote? How do we want to conduct our business? What will be our reward system? Etc.
That is what happened in Singapore.
Lee Kuan Yew, the first Prime Minister of the Republic of Singapore, inherited a weak, wobbling and very corrupt country from the British colonialists. He and his comrades realised that if the future of the new country would hold any promise for the people, the leadership had to answer some very difficult questions and follow through with sincerity of purpose on the answers to the questions so as to come up with a vision. They decided that they had to build a new country that would be very different from the one handed over to them. They decided to canvass an attitudinal change, focusing on three major areas of the Singaporean life, which are work ethics, social and religious harmony and political freedom. These were well articulated and communicated to the people. The government did not just play lip service to the vision; it took the lead in exhibiting commitment to ensuring its success.
In Singapore, as a result of the determination of the government to promote the right work ethics, people are rewarded based on their ability and not their ethnic or religious affiliation; nobody needs any godfather to move up. Neither quota system nor federal character has any place in the country; everybody gets their due. What this has done is to throw up the best people from the country and attract the best hands to the country; there is a healthy competition among all categories of people because they know that what they get eventually is a function of what they contribute. Most people put in their best knowing that the system would not allow their efforts to go down the drain.
Because the reward system was (and still is) just, the people were able to build the Singaporean economy into a very strong one. Singapore, with no known natural resource, is regarded as one of the fastest growing economies in the world with a per capita income of $86, 480, as of 2020. Also sequel to the determination of the country’s leadership to promote social and religious harmony as well as encourage political freedom, there is mutual respect among the people, irrespective of their religious, social or political persuasion.
A better Nigeria is possible. But for Nigeria to be better than it is, we need to have a leadership that is more visionary than the current one. So, electing a visionary president in 2023 is the key to unlocking Nigeria’s greatness.
With a visionary president, the journey to solving Nigeria’s lingering energy crisis will begin.
With a visionary president, converting Nigeria’s huge population to advantage would become a reality.
With a visionary president, avoidable incessant strike actions by university lecturers would become a thing of the past.
With a visionary president, insecurity would be defeated.
With a visionary leader, wealth would be created.
With a visionary president, the possibilities are endless.
But it starts with Nigerians electing someone whose vision is beyond himself, his family, his region and his religion. We need a president with the vision to make Nigeria great.
Fellow Nigerians, if we elect a president with a great vision in 2023, Nigeria will become a great nation in our lifetime.
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and then