Where Buhari failed and why Tinubu may also fail (2), By Sunday Adelaja

A miracle didn’t happen despite the best efforts of the present APC government of Muhammadu Buhari; there will be no need to wait for such miracles from Tinubu’s government, if the right things are not done… Any nation could be viewed as a pot from where its most active, zealous or talented representatives would emerge as leaders. If the pot is corrupt, only corrupt leaders will come out of it. If the pot, however, is clean and righteous…the leaders…will reflect the nature and environment of the pot itself.

Any government that wants to rescue Nigeria must come up with a whole system of values that will effectively address the moral failure of our society. This is our greatest problem as a country. It is out of this that we have all other issues, including leadership failure. The point I am trying to pass across is that leadership is not the biggest problem of Nigeria. Our biggest problem is a corrupt value system. In the past few years, I have personally taken it upon myself to develop a new set of values for the Nigerian nation. I ended up with 20 of them. We have a National Orientation Agency in Nigeria, we have a National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Nigeria, these national organisations and others must be tasked to come up with a fully developed set of values to give the correct orientation to every citizen of Nigeria.

National values are a set of core principles ingrained into the mental and social structures of society, which help to dictate the action and behaviour of the citizenry. These are qualities, principles and behaviours every nation holds in high esteem as it seeks to achieve its ultimate objectives.

Let’s get this straight. There is no point waiting for a miracle from the Tinubu presidency if he and his team do not incorporate this into their programmes. A miracle didn’t happen despite the best efforts of the present APC government of Muhammadu Buhari; there will be no need to wait for such miracles from Tinubu’s government, if the right things are not done. Please let me prove this to you through an illustration. Any nation could be viewed as a pot from where its most active, zealous or talented representatives would emerge as leaders. If the pot is corrupt, only corrupt leaders will come out of it. If the pot, however, is clean and righteous and everybody in that nation is living by a righteous value system, naturally the leaders that will come out of that pot will reflect the nature and environment of the pot itself. They will be clean, they will be trustworthy and they will be righteous. This is the reason you, dear reader, will probably not be able to count as few as ten heads of states presently in Europe. Because they don’t need to have super leaders, since the societies are averagely upright. So, it doesn’t matter much who becomes the leader; anyone you pick will perform in accordance to the upright standards of the countries.

There is sometimes an exemption to this trend though. That is when a remnant leader manages to prove his or her worth to convince the people of the nation of his or her good intentions. In such a situation, when the populace accepts such an exceptional leader, his or her most important duty must be to change the nature of the pot by changing the value system of the nation. Our leaders come from our societies.

If the generality of our people are corrupt in their values, then this will be reflected in all areas of our society. Bad behaviour will manifest its ugly heads everywhere, from bottom to the top. There will be evil and corrupt citizens everywhere. In such a situation, even if the president is Jesus Christ himself, the majority of corrupt citizens will sabotage his best efforts. As long as the masses of citizens lack the moral virtues necessary for progress and development, the best efforts of leaders will amount to nothing. As long as our leaders, on every level, are produced from this society whose moral values are completely broken down, it means only morally broken leaders could emerge. The society will always produce leaders that reflect the state of that society. If it’s a morally and ethically healthy society, then these are the type of leaders that will emerge. If the society is corrupt and the thinking of ordinary citizens is that of selfishness, egocentrism and instant gratification, then these are the types of leaders who will emerge to become their rulers.

There is sometimes an exemption to this trend though. That is when a remnant leader manages to prove his or her worth to convince the people of the nation of his or her good intentions. In such a situation, when the populace accepts such an exceptional leader, his or her most important duty must be to change the nature of the pot by changing the value system of the nation. Our leaders come from our societies. The leadership of any nation is only a reflection of the prevailing value system of that society. As such, if a nation is corrupt, it will only produce corrupt leaders, because the citizenry in general live by corrupt values in their daily lives and endeavours. An unclean pot will keep on reproducing unclean content. If the system of values of Nigeria and Nigerians don’t change, we will keep on recycling and reproducing only those types of leaders we have been seeing so far. Miracles will not happen. Leaders are neither angels nor spirits. They live and grow from among the people; their existence is given expression and influenced by happenings in the environment in which they live. Expecting leaders who live in a largely corrupt and morally lax society to be above board, while carrying out the urgent task of changing and re-orientating the citizenry, will be putting the cart before the horse.

The greatest challenge for Nigerians who desire to see a changed society is to focus first on their value system as a people. If the value system of the citizens is right, they would not select corrupt or bad leaders. For example, in societies where there are good moral values, people would not elect corrupt politicians or collect money to get the wrong people into office. Even if a corrupt politician finds his way, by hook or by crook, into the government, since the moral values of the masses contradict the corrupt values of the politician, he would be exposed and easily dismissed.

…what we need in Nigeria and Africa, in general, are not just good messianic leaders, but good sets of virtues and value systems inculcated in the masses, which would make them abhor and reject manifestations of corruption in their leaders and would-be leaders. Thus, we should not expect, and we will not have the kind of improvements or the leadership that we seek as a nation, if we don’t work on our value system.

Therefore, what we need in Nigeria and Africa, in general, are not just good messianic leaders, but good sets of virtues and value systems inculcated in the masses, which would make them abhor and reject manifestations of corruption in their leaders and would-be leaders. Thus, we should not expect, and we will not have the kind of improvements or the leadership that we seek as a nation, if we don’t work on our value system. For example, under the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua administration, a bold step was made towards changing the negative perception of Nigeria, both locally and internationally, through the Rebranding Project. Unfortunately, this brilliant programme failed to achieve its set objectives because it did not first attempt to establish and promote good national values in citizens within the country. Rebranding is not the issue but changing the content of the character of our citizens; when we become people of virtues, we will be automatically rebranded all over the world.

The Bible makes an emphatic statement concerning the secret of national greatness in Proverbs 14:34: “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a reproach to any people.”

This passage is not just an admonition to the nation of Israel but an instruction and a forewarning counsel to all nations on the earth, without distinction, and without exception. It is a universal principle. So, when the Bible says that righteousness exalts a nation, it means that righteousness brings a country into favour with God who, in turn, lifts up such nation. Disobedience to God and rebellion against God brings God’s curse upon a nation. God withdraws his blessings and protection from a sinful nation, and the consequences are unimaginable. The universal testimony of history attests to the veracity of the principle that the true greatness of a nation and that which determines the progress, peace and prosperity of its future lies not in the quality of its civilised population, nor its intellectual or technological advancement, nor yet in its political sagacity and tolerance; but in the quality of its moral rectitude in all its conducts, both in its private, public and international life, as dictated by a national set of values of the country.

Sunday Adelaja is a Nigeria born leader, transformation strategist, pastor and innovator. He was based in Kiev, Ukraine.