Christopher Isiguzo
16 November 2008
opinion
Abakaliki — Former Nigeria High Commissioner to the Republic of Australia, Dr. Icha Ituma, has identified poor understanding of the concept of leadership by the nation's leaders at both the federal, state and local governments as the cause of the myriads of challenges facing the country's fledging democracy.
Speaking during the formal opening of a two-day international leadership conference being organised by the Eternity in Focus Christian Training Center, Incorporated, at the Women Development Center (WDC), Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, the former envoy noted that for thereto be an effective leadership, there must be transparency, accountability, honesty and integrity, among others.
Ituma, who is also the President and Founder of the Training Centre stated further: "one of the challenges before us as we face the task of true leadership is our understanding of what true leadership is, to be able to effectively lead.
This is because; we cannot give what we don't have. The truth remains that the term leadership means different thing to different people.
"Thus, leadership has not been precisely defined, and it still carries extraneous connotations that create ambiguity of meaning," he stated, adding that however that no matter how one looks at the true meaning of leadership, Jesus Christ remains the greatest leader and as such for a leader to succeed, he/she must always look up to him (Jesus Christ).
Speaking further on the theme of the two-day conference, which is "Challenges of Christian Leadership in the 21st Century", Ituma, a former Deputy Governor of the old Enugu State, stated that the choice of the theme was informed by the obvious moral decadence in the society, where "old times are no more".
He disclosed that the conference is expected to provide a cutting-edge information to the participants who were mainly drawn from the Christian community in the state, government workers, political office holders, among others, adding that the lectures at the event would offer great opportunity to hear from world class speakers, messages that would provide people already in positions of influence and responsibility the opportunity to enhance their leadership and management capacities.
According to him, leaders today in both secular and religious endeavours are facing what he called enormous challenges.
In a key note address, the General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God Church Nigeria, Rev. Charles Osueke, summed up the major challenges facing the human race, especially those in authority to include, the challenge of having the right concept of God, the challenge of maintaining the right relationship with God and the challenge of having right attitude towards of God.
"Once we are able to put these challenges in right perspective and also fall in line with what they require, we would have gone a long way in resolving the many problems confronting the nation's leaders," he stated.
The special guest of honour at the event and Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Augustine Nwankwegu stressed the need for Nigerian leaders to embrace God, by turning away from their wicked or evil ways as that was the only way for the country to succeed.
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