By 
By Hashim Suleiman
For avoidance of sounding like a former state governor, who publicly stated that Nigeria’s woes are a result of the sins that the numerous citizens committed, I wish to agree in another way but certainly not his own narrative and submission. Little wonder he was not able to formulate critical strategy that could ensure his retaining the state even after serving eight years as governor with four of them as the chairman of the Nigeria Governors forum. He felt the victory was going to be sent from above miraculously, can’t remember when I saw or heard of any miracle happening anywhere in the current times, we however read of them during the prophetic times.
The only area where I could relate to his submission is the fact that apart from competence which must form the fulcrum of choices for leaders, we indeed need them be sound in faith and character and of-course not necessarily a faith that is lip based but one that has been practically demonstrated. I have observed with keen interest how there was heightened worship during this holy month with the mosques daily filled and the so much energy exhibited towards prayers even though I’m sure most will be for prosperity and perhaps national stability and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sweet life is something everyone would crave.
However, what has been missing all along our years of intense prayers is genuine faith exhibited through character. How much have individuals contributed to the wellbeing and sanity of their brethren before seeking for God’s intervention and that way it becomes easy for God himself to intervene knowing certain virtues He appreciates have been adhered to and exhibited. The height of it is people who have never had any inkling with religion during their years of service automatically becoming clerics overnight for the sake of hoodwinking the voters for electoral victory. This purely smacks of hypocrisy and voting such kind of character deficient hypocrites will certainly come with nothing other than chaos and further retrogression.
These are the issues bedeviling us as a nation and issues that are requiring urgent intervention in order that meaningful progress was to be made in our nation. Isn’t it ironic how regardless of your intent to do good in leadership, it is always almost impossible to achieve? The fact is you get subdued by the sort of characters that you will surround yourself with and they will get you to eventually give up and righty so because it will be too late by the time, you’ll recognize that’s if you have what it takes to do so. Any leaders first intent to genuinely succeed would first have to be the choice of people to surround self with.
Let me use the case study of Kashifu Inuwa, the Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency to buttress my point. I met the young technocrat in the line of street hustle and his character was enough to melt me into recognizing I had met a different breed from the everyday people I meet. And to also show you Prof Pantami was one of those who pays apt attention to succeeding, he first brought him close as his aide and finally recommended him for the post of the Director General of same Agency. The success that resulted this amazing combination of competence, faith and character is there for anybody to see through NITDA and Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy or through my several articles on the duo.
Furthermore, apart from my 2015 open letter article to Badaru Talamiz, the executive governor of Jigawa State, I had not followed up so much on his governance considering that he had vindicated the letter by appointing and empowering as much youths to help steer the affairs of the state with him, he finally knocked me off when through his several interviews where he had revealed the sort of individual, he wanted to succeed him as governor. He mentioned characters like competence, faithfulness, humility, patriotism amongst others and lately rumors started to trickle that such choice had been narrowed down to Kashifu Inuwa and I said he was indeed deserving of my standing ovation because he had just set the state on the path of genuine progress because the man in question embodies all the characters he itemized and he had exemplified them at NITDA and before.
Consequently, in the spirit of the just concluded Ramadan and the celebration of the Eid, it was expedient to reecho the fact that Nigeria requires more and more genuinely faithful and competent individuals to steer affairs of state so meaningful progress would be achieved with assurances of sustainability too.
Eid Mubarak Nigeria
Hashim Suleiman: [email protected]
