Nigerian Politicians Lack Visionary Leadership – Okupe

Nigerian politicians, including the candidates for the 2023 presidential election, have been described as politically visionless. The convener of Mindshift Advocacy for Development Initiative, Mr. Joko Okupe, made this declaration in a media interaction held recently at the Mindshift corporate office in Ikeja, Lagos.

Fielding questions from the press the Mindshift Convener argues that none of the candidates has informed the Nigerian people of their vision for the country before talking about what they will do.

He said that they lack the understanding that one cannot build a beautiful mansion without first envisioning how the mansion will look like; and this is a problem in our politics. For him, Vision comes before construction. He said that this administration, just like the previous ones, has failed.

“Therefore, anyone who wants to be Nigeria’s next president in 2023 must be properly vetted and scrutinised, to ensure that we are not bringing in someone who does not have a vision. For me, although some of the candidates show a flash of brilliance, but I do not concretely see their vision for Nigeria and the people.”

According to him, “There is no political party in Nigeria today you can say is a shining example of what a political party should be. So far, what I hear the candidates talk about is what they will do, infrastructures they will build. They are talking about doing things in education, health and all that. But we know that those are activities; and activities are not vision. Activities rather stream from vision. Activities demonstrated as infrastructure may make peoples’ lives better, but they do not make people.”

He cited an example that no Nigerian political party has an ideology – whether economic, political or cultural.

Continuing, he said that, “We are in a Nigerian state variously described by political scientists as predatory, prebendal, parasitic, patrimonial, neo-patrimonial, crony, kleptocratic, venal, greedy, etc., that has created a crop of leaders who in themselves are selfish and do not understand their own historical mission.” Under this situation he posited that we need a certain kind of leader.

“We need a leader who is sufficiently knowledgeable of the task ahead, and understands the context behind Nigeria’s current historical trajectory, and would be ready to tackle it headlong. We need a leader who is bold, brave, and courageous – who can break the bounds of our stranglehold. A leader who understands the need to build cohesion in a multiethnic and multicultural society. We need someone who can confront orthodoxy and demolish our fault lines without diminishing our disparate cultural and ethnic values. Such a leader needs to have a clarity of his or her vision, and how he or she wants to achieve it. I have not seen much of that in the present crop of party contenders for the post of the president come 2023.”

Speaking on the solution to the Nigerian leadership problem, he said that Nigeria needs an upgrade and a reformulation of the state, the leadership class, and the citizens.

“The state is malfunctioning because of its hackneyed structure which tilts towards centrality and unitary-federalism. That in itself is a self-destructive aberration in a multiethnic and multicultural state. The leaders are selfish and visionless, attracted only by the fancy of their kleptomaniac tendencies. They do not understand the very purpose of life, and hence can hardly understand the essence of leadership. The followers are famished and lack the understanding of what liberal democracy is all about.

“In the most part, they lack enough knowledge to appreciate that they are actually the king, while the politicians are their servants. They mistake the concept of leadership in a political setting with the concept of kingship in a traditional setting; and this makes them subservient to the politicians who should be accountable to them. This contradiction makes democracy difficult to practice in Nigeria. Under this scenario the politicians weaponize poverty as an instrument of domination against the citizens,” he added.

Following this, Okupe advocates for the mass enlightenment of the political class and the citizens. For him, both the political class and the citizens are under bondage, and need to be enlightened so that they can be liberated to develop the country, without which Nigeria remains undeveloped forever. This is the reason he convened the Mindshift movement.

Explaining further, Okupe said that, “Mindshift Advocacy for Development Initiative was created out of the vision and understanding that our response to whatever situation we find ourselves, either in our individual terrain, group terrain or national terrain, is directly a result of how we think. The bible says, as a man thinks in his heart so he is or becomes.

“So, if we understand that, we will all push for a Mindshift or a change of how we think. That is what will actually move us away from where we are now. So, the Mindshift movement is actually focused on shifting mind-sets from negative to positive. It is a non-governmental and non-partisan organization. It is focused on redirecting the mind-set of Nigerians from the route of destruction in every area of lives. “If a man wants to be destructive or disruptive, it is through the power of his mind.”

“There is so much capacity in the power of the mind that the way and manner that the mind is directed determines a man’s outcome. Even for us, as a lesson, other nations of the world are doing incredibly well is due to the different mind-sets that they have. The average Nigerian mindset is anti-progress and anti-development. How can we have progress and development without working on the re-orientation of the mindset we have?   Even when government decides to run a campaign on changing attitudes, the success will depend on how people think.” We must have that clear understanding. That, essentially, is the mandate of the Mindshift advocacy.

Joko Okupe who is a brand management and marketing communications expert of about 35 years, and who has consulted for many globally reckoned organisations, is set to bring that knowledge and experience to the front burner in the management of the Mindshift advocacy, with the sole aim of galvanizing the Nigerian people to a new way of thinking and reasoning that will lift this country from one milestone of development to a higher milestone of development.