by Michael Ogundana

If you live in your own doubts and underestimate what men of vision can do and achieve, this quote is for you: “Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery, against ignorance, or injustice and violence. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the territory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and 32 year old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal. ‘Give me a place to stand,’ said Archimedes, ‘and I will move the world.’ These men moved the world, and so can we all.” –Robert F. Kennedy

Like many other countries in the world, Nigeria has her own challenges. The challenges we face are not peculiar to us alone but there are so many countries in the world that have witnessed similar challenges and have come out stronger and better. The difference between us and some of these countries is that we are faced with challenges that we know so much about yet do little in resolving them.

Nigeria has a rich history and background (which I might not likely want to discuss deeper) and started full of hope and aspirations for greatness, rising to become the giant of Africa in a short time after independence.

Suddenly, there were issues; leadership failure crushed the country like a canker-worm does to a plant and sooner than imagined, many other issues crawled in and in no time we dropped from the high ranking position of dignity we attained to mere collaborators.

Power became a do or die affair, corruption became a norm in the society, the economy became crippled, social amenities deteriorated, tribalism heat up the political system and it became fragile, terrorism sprang up from nowhere and many others. All these are as a result of leadership failure that engulfed the country for a long period of time.

However, the challenges we bear as a nation can be addressed if we have Visionary Leaders championing the course of this nation from the local government level through the state level and to the federal level.

Visionary Leaders are not just Leaders but are special kind of Leaders with integrity, with the passion for excellence, leaders with high sensitivity, leaders that are open to new information, leaders with good predictions, leaders with vivid imagination and with the ability to differentiate a good advice from a selfish advice.

In addition, these Leaders work on the premise that all times is the best time to deliver good governance to the people, they believe that the world is full of opportunities and that most things are possible.

Furthermore, these Leaders also have a strong sense of having much control of destiny- that success and greatness are not negotiable.

These are the kind of leaders that can pull out this nation from the shackles of corruption and bad governance that she has dwelt for a while and these are the leaders we need!

Fortunately, as the election year roles in again, it gives us yet another Golden Opportunity that comes once in four years- The Golden Opportunity to elect our leaders. This opportunity springs up a special kind of hope in me that gives me the feeling that we can rewrite our wrongs, we can correct our choices by collectively taking the advantage which another election season brings to us to elect who actually leads us.

The choices are ours to elect at all levels those who will champion the course of our nation for the next 4 years and bring back the lost glory of our land.

Though, we have the choice to elect whosoever pleases us but it is my uttermost wish in the interest of our nation and for posterity sake that we elect leaders that are visionary to lead our dear nation.

It is my uttermost wish that we realise that our votes is the only tool we have to move this nation to the right direction and that we would use these votes to elect visionary candidates irrespective of their religious, socio or political affiliations.

It is my uttermost wish that we vote visionary leaders that will understand the nature of our challenges and take the right decision in solving it.

It is my uttermost wish that we vote for visionary leaders that will look outside the rich oil wells and develop other resources in the country.

It is my uttermost wish that we vote visionary leaders that will tackle corruption completely.

When we have Visionaries Leaders, it creates conditions of trust and responsibility which empower the masses and brings out the patriotism in them. These conditions also hand back trust, responsibility, support and applause from the masses to the leaders.

With Visionary Leaders our problems are half solved and until we found and elect them, we actually still have a long way to go.

God Bless Nigeria

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.