CONVERSATION ON LEADERSHIP
CONVERSATION ON LEADERSHIP
Nick Agule
Twitter: @NickAgule
Email: nick.agule@yahoo.co.uk
Friends, permit me to share with you a conversation I had with a Facebook friend (FBF) on the leadership question in Nigeria. It is unedited. Enjoy. Feel free to weigh-in with your perspectives. No insults please. These conversations are meant to build a cohesiveness of minds without which we cannot generate a critical mass to move our country forward! Nice day!
FBF: this whole excessive need to get everyone to drum condemnation of Buhari is what I don’t get. That is why, apart from people who share in that, none will agree with some of these narratives we throw around
Me: Buhari is our president an office he sought so desperately for 16 years! We as a people have handed him humongous powers as our commander in chief. The buck stops at his table whether it’s going well or not with the country. Try as we may but we can’t shield him from this supreme responsibility! He should have stayed back in Katsina tending to his cows if he didn’t want to be condemned when things are going bad under his watch!
FBF: we as a people? How did you come to that conclusion for a nation of about 200 million people? I will not contest your opinion and will always respect it. But the moment you begin to foist that opinion as a universal and absolute truth, I will readily voice my objection.
Me: it’s not an opinion. It’s the constitution of Nigeria.
FBF: the constitution of Nigeria says the president takes responsibility for every wrong thing that happens in Nigeria? Sorry if I am sounding daft; we learn from these things.
Me: Yes Sir!
The constitution says the main duty of Govt whom the president heads is to provide security and welfare to the citizens. We therefore give the president trillions of naira to perform this job. On the other hand we are also aware that there are saboteurs who will want to scuttle the president’s ability to perform his constitutional roles so we’ve given the president humongous powers as commander in chief of the armed forces to deal shrewdly with these saboteurs! All bucks stops at the president’s table Sir!
FBF: still waiting for the conclusion
Me: conclusion on what Sir?
FBF: where the constitution says the president of Nigeria will be held responsible for every security problem in Nigeria
Me: I already stated it that the constitution prescribes that the main duty of Govt is to provide security and welfare nah! Is it not clear enough? If I get a job as a security man and there’s breach of security, who else will be held responsible apart from me?
FBF: let me tell you how you sound: in Nigeria, the criminal is not to be blamed but the president.
Me: the only way to blame a criminal is to hunt him down, arrest him, bring him to justice and incarcerate him if found guilty!
FBF: I know that your security man will be prosecuted if there is a robbery at your house
Me: he’ll sure come under the spotlight and be questioned where he was when the robbery took place. His explanation will decide the next line of action if he was guilty or not guilty and if guilty it’ll be stupid to keep him in his post!
FBF: so now you giving your security man a benefit 🤣, I thought there is no exception to the rule. You see the problem with analogy. Anyway seems you’ve punctured your own argument. By the way, please don’t use that analogy of a security man for the president again.
Me: giving the benefit does not remove responsibility. The president is always given the benefit. When herdsmen attack farmers, we give the president the benefit that he is not sponsoring them or working with them. But when he fails to use the humongous powers we have given him as the commander in chief and chief security officer of Nigeria to deal with the herdsmen, he becomes complicit and it’s dangerous to continue to keep him in his post!
FBF: I don’t want this to come and be like I am defending Buhari, so I will stop here. I converse on the level of principle and I think I have put that across. Whatever is your problem with Buhari is not my business here. I have allowed u take me out of the scope of my comment, but for now if you want to talk to my comment, on the level of principle, I will gladly continue with the conversation. Though remember not to use the analogy of a security man in your house for a president of a country at another time
Me: the president of Nigeria is the chief security man of the house of Nigeria Sir! Perhaps you underrate the enormity of the responsibility he swore on oath to undertake! We as a people are supporting the president by given him the budget and command of the armed forces and the entire security architecture in the country! If security and law and order are breaking down the buck stops at only one table — the president’s!!!
FBF: 🤣🤣🤣 please stop this now. He is the chief security officer not in the same way with your security man in the house! He is also like the head of your house who hires the security man. In essence you are the chief security officer of your house, because your security man takes orders from you. If there is a problem with security in your house, according to you, it should be you who should be answering for…
Please leave that matter now🤣🤣. Please don’t compare the president of a country to your security man in the house coz e no match, biko
Me: president Buhari is the chief security man of the house of Nigeria Sir! In the same way I hire a security man for my house is the same WE NIGERIANS have hired president Buhari as our chief security officer! He attended the interview 3 times and failed but we decided to try him on the 4th attempt. President Buhari is our servant and not the other way round as you think!
FBF: bye for now
Me: bye Sir. Nice day!
Over to you friends. What do you think? this is not the time to be sitting on the fence, because the wind will soon blow you off the fence into a lions den!!!
