LAGOS PDP GUBER ASPIRANT, JIMI AGBAJE: “NIGERIA AND THE FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP”!

The 2nd City People Monthly Lecture held today, 7th September 2014 at  Planet One Event Centre, Maryland in Lagos.The guest speaker was Mr. Jimi Agbaje, a PDP gubernatorial aspirant in Lagos, while the chairman was Akogun Tola Adeniyi. To set the ball rolling, the Publisher/Editor-In-Chief of City People Magazine, Dr. Seye Kehinde gave the opening remarks which was followed by the keynote address. In the preamble, Agbaje said, “I am indeed honoured to be found worthy to deliver this lecture at the City People Monthly Lecture series. Most magazines in our country tend to have a lifecycle of no more than five years. City People, which over many years has become a staple, is obviously not in this category and so must be doing something right. Seye Kehinde and his team are to be congratulated.”

Speaking on the theme ‘Nigeria and the Failure of Leadership’, Agbaje said: “Leaders must inspire others – be it within the family, office, club, association, community, nation or on a global level. Truth be told, true leaders are few and far between in our country. However, there is always the erroneous impression that failure of leadership is restricted to those in government alone. The general belief that Nigeria has not been able to maximise its potential is usually attributed to bad leadership by politicians and civil servants alike. This cannot be correct. It is lazy thinking to blame failure of leadership by politicians alone for the vicious cycle of poor education. Those in this school of thought forget that education is on the concurrent list in our constitution.”

On the vision for Nigeria, Agbaje further added that, “There cannot be good leadership without vision…For us to be a true giant of Africa, we need to transform from being a people interested in just sharing the national cake as it is today to a people realising that the way forward is in baking a much larger cake. Oil prices may be high but the reality is that the citizen’s average share of the cake is not just getting smaller, his and her ability to bake a bigger cake is diminishing by the day.Today, our citizens can be categorised into those that do not even know how to contribute to the baking(these are in the majority), those who cannot be bothered and the last group being those that know how to bake a much larger and tastier cake but are being edged out by the system in different ways. To bring about any envisaged national transformation, education and moral values will play key roles.”

According to Agbaje,”We as a people haven’t been able to address some basic issues like ‘How to focus the energies of elites and average citizens for common goals of development’; ‘How to induce Nigerians to forego the rents and favours that bring personal gain for today only; ‘How to develop a sense of public purpose and accountability among public employees and elected officials;’How to put in place systems that churn out our very best”. And the reason for being unable to address these is a failure of leadership at all levels of our private and public lives”.

In conclusion, Agbaje said, “The country is crying out for leaders that model integrity, excellence, compassion and responsibility. The vision is to develop “no excuse” leaders of integrity and exceptional organizational skills fromm both the private and public sectors in Nigeria and the diaspora who will perform instead of just pronounce; give expertise and competence instead of title and position; initiate bold developmental programmes instead of seeking handouts; respect and honour our people instead of dictatorship, control and abuse; and leave legendary positive impact in our country instead of failures and excuses. Can we get there? And how do we get there? First of all, we must believe that we can! Second, we must understand that we must! And third, we must recognise that getting there requires a quantum leap in many areas!”

Watch Out For The Full Text In CITY PEOPLE MAGAZINE 

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About Unknown

Deji Sadiq, a.k.a DEJI OF LAGOS is a LASU trained Economist turned freelance journalist, a Blogger, an information strategist, a public affairs analyst and a committed activist with a passion for equal opportunities.