by Mina Ogbanga

Tomorrow’s men must be futuristic, criticise constructively and be willing and committed to practising what they preach even in the confines of their homes!

In writing this piece, my major challenge was crafting an appropriate title as opposed to refining its content. My dilemma arose essentially because I had my thoughts already distilled. It is embarrassingly tragic that over 50 years after independence, our national discourse is still plagued by the seeming State of the Nation that appears to a few, irreparable.  This explains why I needed a title that would buttress the ferocity of my thoughts and musings on going forward on our state of affairs. It has indeed, become imperative to declare a State of Emergency with a view to addressing the salient issues in our polity.  This is important if we are keen on safeguarding the future generations.

As diverse as the readers of Reuben Abati’s recent piece on the “Hypocrisy of Yesterday’s men”, I am assured, will also be as diverse as their reactions and translation. The unity in the diversity we may share will simply be the need to protect a fragile nation from the claws of pretentious wolves and hand it over to a more prepared, result-oriented, sincere, committed citizenry. That we ultimately would have no upright Nigerian standing will be a big blow to our entire existence. Gladly, this is avoidable.  What the country needs now is the impetus to inspire the emergence of those  crop of Nigerians, who, at the risk of perhaps losing existential essence, or today’s gains, will have to be saddled with redirecting the steps of a 52-year-old man and prevent any further loss of his sight, mobility and intellectual prowess and not get caught up in any form of squabbles between yesterday or today’s men.

I will be highlighting 10 points to serve as revision akin to a good student preparing for an exam towards ensuring that tomorrow’s men are prepared and do not experience any form of failure. The core points will be picked with references from Abati’s piece and the choice, in no small way, will be left to us to decide on where we hope to stand going forward in the story called Nigeria. To be forewarned, as it is normally said, is to be forearmed.

1. What is a leader if so censorious, contrarian and supercilious and yet lives a life of hypocrisy? It is often said that the fact that everyone is doing the same thing doesn’t necessarily make it the right thing. Tomorrow’s men must be futuristic, criticise constructively and be willing and committed to practising what they preach even in the confines of their homes! They must be weary of skeletons in their cupboards and appreciate any aspects of a good structure when they see one. Also, knowing that no man is perfect, it becomes ideal to own up to and commit to correcting early, any sins of the past with a remorse evident in humility therefore subjecting  tomorrow’s men little to the depressing reality that they are after all, not better “than the rest”. It is long known that our forefathers before they abuse another, give ample time to exposing their own weaknesses and in that state places the opponents in a state of helplessness with little or nothing as reference for the attack.

2. How committed and loyal are we to the sovereignty of the nation? This is especially considering the current state of our polity. This is important because in a reasonable quotient, you can’t lead a nation you are not passionate about. The shaky state of things has somewhat made “throwing the baby and the bathwater” the norm. Are we willing to be used as tools to “cleaning up the perceived mess”? In our subscription to being the change agent will lie the strength and courage to pursuing this to a logical conclusion and following the legitimate steps that provide a platform for action.

Even the bible recognises that, “When the righteous rule, the people rejoice”. Who the cap fits…

3.Ruling Nigeria, as we read, should not be a full-time job. So, if agreeable to this, then tomorrow’s men will have to start now to think through what they represent devoid of Power. What is your livelihood? What are your aspirations? Tomorrow’s men should recognise that many a Nigerian is Nigerian simply because they were born as “citizens and indigenes ” and not necessarily that Nigeria gave them anything else that formed what they own or are and therefore in that regard, must see hard work amidst the odd as their watchword. To many, Nigeria has remained a mere geographical representation of another African country. Tomorrow’s men should strive for educational or related accomplishments irrespective of the limiting factors that may pose as deterrents with potential to reduce loyalty factor as many could reason that they owe the country nothing.

4. Like accidental discharge and without a school that propels a potential leader from being a mere citizen to an accomplished public servant, tomorrow’s leader may strive to seek ways to be prepared if such should that be an interest. One of which is to start NOW to place community, environment or related interest above self. This is akin to being a selfless being even within your immediate environment. To a large extent, this may reduce the potent impact of power which could corrupt and absolute power which could corrupt absolutely.

5. Tomorrow’s men should be weary of the ethnic crush whose fear is indeed the beginning of wisdom. Whether we can live devoid of ethnic bias will be a discourse for another day but that we haven’t seen the pain and loss posed by destructive approaches to ethnicity will be one of the lies of tomorrow’s men. So, what can be done about these? The taxpayers, for which tomorrow’s men must be one, should steer clear of being hangers-on, crumb eaters and so on. Also, while leadership should not be seen as a right nor privilege, it is no news what awaits a prepared student during any test and in the leadership plain, it could be ascertained they can give taxpayers, whom I term investors, a comforting reason for handing tomorrow’s men such privileges to lead.

6. Aha! Social network! Any tomorrow’s man who doesn’t know the road to a Twitter, Facebook or any related social network site is preparing to dance without a clue to how his backside looks like or if there is a torn piece in need of mending. In his state of messianic delusion, there are chances that he may be beating the drums and dancing himself to an endless direction with no hope of returning from his hypnotic heights when it matters most. As simple as the social network platform may seem, tomorrow’s men need to start today to STAND out on it….in a positive kind of way that serves a platform for which they may be remembered long after they become another level of men.

7. Tomorrow’s men need to be fearless. Speaking your mind is one of the few privileges being enjoyed by citizens of many African countries though how it is said defines who you are and separates a true leader from a tout! Words come back to haunt us, so the words of tomorrow’s men need to be laced with wisdom and then can serve as instructive but sweet wine to the listeners’ ears to evoke a desire for change. Different strokes though. It is obvious that no tomorrow’s man will want to neither hold the nation hostage nor tolerate any whose mission is to propel selfish interest like the architects of odious disinformation.

8. Tomorrow’s leaders should possess a map to know their location! If you don’t know where you are coming from, chances are, you may not know where you are going to. What is your current location in the order of things? What are your Strengths and Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats? These would guide your planning for which the fishbone analysis and other strategies may be adopted. It is no more news that he who fails to plan…

9.National development is akin to infrastructural development. Tomorrow’s leaders need to place a premium on genuine development via a functional development plan. For tomorrow’s men, cluelessness will be an unforgiveable sin irrespective of the political clime considering all these   steps above would have served as teachers in themselves. Tomorrow’s leaders will have zero tolerance for infrastructural decay and atrocious mimicry to project implementation through divergence of priorities by contractors of related stakeholders.

10. Tomorrow’s men need not be fooled! They need to be environmental conscious. They need to always remember that anyone who has directly or indirectly contributed to destroying Nigeria unduly with no remorse whatsoever will NOT go scot free. Not necessarily because we have the Nigerian Army nor military cantonment but because like it or not, just like the tailless cow for whom God drives away the flies, God surely is fighting for Nigeria. Why? In addition to million other reasons, why on earth has all the generous looting still not destroyed Nigeria totally? Why has the religious wars and more not disintegrated the nation? Why has the crashland of the image not torn to shreds what is left of the helm of our garment. That is what Yesterday’s men haven’t realised and what Tomorrow’s men need to see in whatever context. They majorly may be technocrats but surely not power point technocrats “who simply master the rhetoric of public grandstanding”.

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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.