Olasunkanmi Akoni & Pamela Alimonu
20 November 2008
GOVERNOR Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, Pastors Taiwo Odukoya and Pastor Sam Adeyemi of Fountain of Life and Daystar Christian Church respectively have argued that lack of patriotic leadership has hampered Nigeria's dream of getting to the desired height, stressing that quality leadership must not be compromised.
Speaking yesterday at the two-day excellence leadership conference, organised by Daystar Christian Church, Fashola submitted that leadership quality remained endless and listed honesty, confidence, trust and responsibility as tenets of good leadership.
His words: "Anybody aspiring to attain leadership must have skills whose foundation rest on education which could be in form of learning, training and exposure. Once acquired, we need character to make sure that we exercise these skills."
He lamented that in spite of several leaderships that have emerged in the country at different times, Nigerians still console themselves with statement like "we don't have leadership."
According to him, rather than call their leadership to questioning, Nigerians often standby and watch their leaders commit series of atrocities that could have ordinarily be challenged in any civilised society, "there is no Nigerian ethos; there is no target for the country because the leader who exercises authority does so we permit; that is why we must look back because if there is no followership there can't be leadership.
"It cannot be over emphasised that the responsibility of ensuring that our country fulfils its obvious developmental potential is purely ours".
We can all consciously begin to build and nurture the qualities that would propel the desired change that we all yearn for by reinvigorating our institutions that spurn our core values.
"Therefore, the process of selection and appointment of people into critical roles of responsibility is a very serious one that must never be compromised on the altar of nepotism or favouritism. It must promote merit while recognising diversity, but it must never fail to inspire competition because this is the basis of productivity," he urged.
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