TheCable

The unsightly drama (governorship party-primary) in Lagos State that lasted for some dayssucceeded in dwarfing some other occurrences in Nigeria, especially the ongoing bloodletting in the City of Jos, Plateau State. Plateau State is considered a second home to me, because I once lived there and till now, I do have some families living and working on the Plateau.

As an effect of this, I do have first-hand information on virtually every happening on the Plateau, but I do not goal today to write on the ongoing evil that is being almost daily perpetrated in that once peaceful State. My focus today is on the administration of President Buhari and the event that made the second-coming of Governor Ambode it impossible and unattainable.

For some days now, Lagos State’s governorship primary became as a school and it behooves me to share some life-changing lessons with every emerging political leader of Nigeria. This makes this piece a very important one for everyone who is planning to become spiritual, corporate and political leader in the days to come. If you read through what I am sharing here and you do not apply it to your life and leadership, you are going to become history, instead of going down in history.

To start with, any spiritual, political and corporate leader—who deliberately makes himself or herself inaccessible, unapproachable will regret it in the days to come, when he or she needs same people to lift his or her hands. Remember one of the profound laws of leadership: touch a heart before you ask for a hand. Any leader—who does not help the people should not expect same people to help him.

His Excellency, Governor Akinwumi Ambode did not lose because he is a ‘saint’ and those who worked against him aren’t ‘saints’ too. He lost, becauselong ago, he deliberately chose to lose. Leaders—political, spiritual and corporate—who don’t listen and aren’t empathic hardly finish strong. I do not know His Excellency, Bola Tinubu from Adam, but this is the difference between him and other political leaders: he listens while others don’t. If he hadn’t listened to his party members, they would have rebelled against him and his influence in Lagos would have gone to dogs!

Also, no one suddenly fails in politics. As a matter of fact, failure and crash in politics is a long process. And no matter what happens, never you try to drown those who taught you how to swim, especially in their own river. I have seen n mass of emerging generation of leaders in Nigeria, who are biting the finger that once fed them. This is very wrong and incorrect. As a budding leader, on the condition thatyou are all-in of swimming in a river, instead of trying to drown those who brought you in, elegantly and nattily negotiate your release and go look for another river to swim in.

Away from the version of politics that folks play in Lagos, I want to hastily and synoptically address a burning national issue that is giving our people what I have chosen to call—false hope. I heard over the radio that the vice president of Nigeria, His Excellency, Professor Yemi Osinbajo reiterated that the administration of President Buhari would lift more people out of poverty. I was horrified and horror-struck when I heard that, because I do know that we play politics with every area of our national life. They daily tell us that they are pulling Nigerians out of poverty yet the rich-poor gap has refused to narrow. Virtually every Nigerian is still stuck in poverty!

Pulling people out of poverty is not something we are allowed to play politics with. Some days back, a Federal Minister came on air to announce to the whole world that about three hundred thousand (300,000)Nigerians have been pulled out of poverty. The yardstick that was used to establish that those people have been lifted out of poverty was not mentioned. In every year that comes before the election year in Nigeria, politicians usually play for the gallery—to enliven the people in order to vote for them.

Doling some cash out because a presidential election is fast approaching is not going to truly lift our people out of poverty. To truly pull them out of poverty, the government needs to focus on these four (4) critical areas and this must be devoid of our version shallow-politics: one, means-tested welfare benefitsmust truly go to the poorest in Nigeria; for example, unemployment benefit, food, income support and housing benefit. The first challenge is how we are going to determine the poorest of our people. To establish this, we need to gather the data. Anything below this will be an exercise in futility. Two, we need to consistently increase the minimum wage of our people every five year. Three, we need to urgently design free market policies to promote economic growth.  This will surely improve living standards and will definitely filter to the poorest in our society. Four, we need to deliberately subsidize housing, make free education and world-class healthcare accessible to the poor.

Lastly, since President Buhari came to power, if you have been pulled out of poverty, kindly raise your hand up, so you can be counted. Our political leaders—need to stop playing politics with the issue of poverty that is daily killing our people in large number. Our people are not happy with it.