I dream of a country piloted by a selfless leadership - Pat Utomi

"IN the first 50 years of Nigeria as a country, Nigeria failed to realise its potentials. Nigeria has enormous potentials and tremendous possibility of being one of the fastest growing economies of the world.

You probably would ask me to name few. Look very well, every populous country in the world has taken off economically. Let us name them: China, India, Indonesia and Brazil. The only exception is Nigeria. But the truth is that this trend can be reversed because of its obvious advantages. All it requires is good leadership.

"Currently, Nigeria has a leadership that is disconnected from the people, from Nigerians. And the question is why? It is disconnected from them because the motive for leadership is self-interest or what is called selfishness.

"But unfortunately, it is the short-sighted concept of self-interest that they are neck-deep into. In other parts of the world, there is self-interest as a concept. There, their leaders see the serving of the interest of the larger society as the best opportunity to serve their own self interest. But here, the reverse is the case. Nigerian leadership has not known this. So essentially, my dream is a country where the leadership will find and be driven by the realization that it is only in the pursuit of the interest of the wider society and the generality of the people that they can and will find their own self-interest fulfilled. It is only then that a transformation that will shock everybody with very short time will take place.

"Take for example, the fact that the country has been led by the leadership provided by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last 11 and a half years. Ordinarily, the PDP is made up of good people, but the culture of PDP as a party makes sustainable progress unlikely if not impossible. And the question is why?

The culture of the party emphasizes elite accommodation for the sharing of bounty. The PDP displays the hunter philosophy. The hunter has this mentality of wanting to share what is seen as bounty. The spoil is lying there; let us share it here and now. Such a philosophy and mentality inhibits nation-building and growth.

"But nation-building has a different mentality and philosophy. The philosophy of nation-building is the farmer’s approach. It is the one which believes that let us plant this seedling today so that it can grow and we will have a bountiful harvest tomorrow. It is the philosophy of deferred gratification. The leadership that has been at the helms of affairs of this country since 1999 is such that has no place and time for the farmer’s approach. Its own approach is immediate gratification, such as buying and driving a four-wheel jeep now; sending their children to schools abroad and so on. But the implication of this is usually felt at the general level of the people. At the end we are all sunk. "If we have the right leadership, Nigeria will be one of the dominant economies in the world in 50 years time. With such a leadership, there will be a strong and virile population of extremely educated people living in good health and enjoying good health care delivery. This will spin off an industrial revolutionary and tremendous economic growth in just less than 50 years"___________ By Prof. Pat Utomi