It’s so easy to be strong when other people are giving us their support. When everyone agrees with our point of view, when we are being praised and applauded for our actions, when we feel sure that our course of action is correct, we can march bravely ahead in spirit of determination. It’s not so easy though, when we feel vulnerable, unsure of ourselves and doubtful of our ability to make an accurate judgement. President Obasanjo can and must be strong about what he sees as important, but is he doing the right thing now?

All of us want to do ‘the right thing’.  Given that such a noble aspiration runs through the heart of every human – and that the right thing is surely what we were placed here to do, we’d think our world be full with ‘right things’. Where, then, do all those wrongs come from? Presumably, from our propensity to think that wrong things are right things and vice versa. If our President really wants to do the right thing, now, he should be open to the idea that he could be doing the wrong thing.

Like all great powers, the power of creativity can be a tremendous force for good – or for bad, depending on how it is applied. We can all cook up false fears, silly conflicts and irrelevant problems. Nigerian politicians should some caution to the wind and be careful with what they allow themselves to create and develop. President Obasanjo on the other hand, should not put himself in a situation where he could lose everything. He is not only being highly ambitious and upsetting people with alternative views but he is also refusing to be distracted from a goal he has set. The question now is not,’ Will he attain his target?’ He might. The question is, quite how tactfully will he do it? How are things going to turn out? Will they go one way – or another? Will President Obasanjo gain what he hopes to gain? Or will he, in the process of attempting to succeed, lose something that is precious to him?

He might not attain an outright victory that brings all he hopes for. But if he does what is right and appropriate, he will get a result that is fair and just. Mr. President should let that be encouraging enough now to do the right thing in the interest of Nigerians that are suffering and smiling. He should avoid the use of coercive diplomacy; allow peace into his life and the lives of others. Nigerians want a solution – and a resolution. This generation wants a convincing, conclusive answer to a pressing question. We want to come to an arrangement and start a brand new regime. Nigerians are tired of things just trundling on in the same old unsatisfactory way.

Many would argue that tyrants, corrupt governors and other abusers of power and authority are not leaders at all- at least not the word is currently used. This assumption is dangerously naïve. Bad leadership compels us to see leadership in its entirety. The dark side of leadership – from rigidity and callousness to corruption and cruelty – is not an aberration. Bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious – and so must be more carefully examined and better understood. Bad leadership makes it clear that we need to face the dark side in order to become better leaders and followers ourselves. Many disasters are preceded by clear warning signals that leaders either miss or purposely ignore. There is always a systematic framework that leaders can use to recognize and prioritise brewing disasters and mobilize their institutions or governments to prevent them.

Our leaders should always find the courage to act before it’s too late. People who are in the wrong never say so! On the contrary, they loudly proclaim themselves to be in the right. If they cannot get away with pretending that no mistake has been made, they’ll turn their energy towards the task of blaming someone else. What is even more ironic is that there are other people who, despite being in the right, feel too shy – unnecessarily guilty to defend themselves.

President Obasanjo can stabilize a situation in our country now or he can stir it up. With all due respect, he is quite entitled to take either course of action as long as he understands what he is doing. What he doesn’t want is to pick a route that seems to lead in one direction, only to find that it takes him somewhere else. Some of the political disasters currently parading themselves as the makers of heaven and earth, without the tools of parliamentary diplomacy, think of themselves as reasonable sort of souls. Sometimes though, their actions are slightly less reasonable than their words. They are very good at explanations. They can make almost any wild course of action sound sensible and well thought through. But just between you and I, I have to ask, is their current strategy in danger of causing them to go just a little too far?  

We are entering special territory now. Let’s think of ourselves travelers in a foreign land ‘called democracy’, and adapt to the different culture. The words we might use will mean nothing here and the gestures we may feel inclined to make may carry no weight. Our money won’t help us either because their currency is entirely different or cheap things are costly and vice-versa. However, only one thing remains the same, ‘Sincerity’.

In this land where honesty and simplicity reign supreme, we need to summon those qualities and we’ll get everything we need in addition to the fruits of democracy. Democracy is like any other mutual relationship - what you've got to do is to work at it. The success of any relationship turns on the spirit in which it is conducted, and not on the performance of its minimum obligations. And the relationship between government and the people also turns on obligations.

For its part, the government is determined to increase the rights of people in their relation to the state itself. Many Nigerian presidents have failed not at creating a vision but at implementing it. In our system, compromise, inclusion, and some tolerance of dissenting views are essential to developing a practical pathway to success. As words, tolerance and civility carry a certain semantic baggage, the product of use and sometimes misuse. As is often the case, the best definition is a clear statement of what the word does not mean. It must be clear that tolerance is not a surrender of conviction. Tolerance does not require one to sacrifice personal ideals or water down beliefs to a toothless “least common denominator.  To be tolerant is by no means the same thing as to believe that any proposition is as true as any other. Nigerian Constitution does not reduce tolerance to some form of moral equivalence, to degrade the truth of things. At its best, tolerance promotes a marketplace of ideas where diverse viewpoints collide to create a higher level of understanding. If we can listen to each other with humility, the positive—almost sacred—accomplishments and qualities of the Nigerian experience can enrich and fortify us to live the fullness of the Nigerian dream. 

Other people and nations have their ideas about what we should be doing, where we should be heading and who should be leading us now. We though, have our own. Or, at least, it is to be hoped that we do. It is fine to feel inspired to make compromises on behalf of other people but it’s dreadful to feel obliged to do this. The political, social and emotional pressure that Nigerians are under now should not be so much resisted as addressed. We need to re-educate those who seem to think that we (Nigerians) ought to be at their beck and call. By doing this, we will see that, a little explanation goes a long way sometimes. We might not realize it, but Nigerians are remarkably well equipped and blessed. Among the resources we take for granted are some exceptional assets – one that other people and nations would dearly love to have at their disposal. Admittedly, if we are unable to use these to our advantage, there’s nothing so enviable about our situation and us. However, we can now. It’s time to take an inventory of our opportunities and then start seizing the best of these. Let’s never mind what’s not possible, let’s look at what is FEASIBLE….and our tomorrow will prove immensely rewarding.

Few people go to law school. Of those, few are called to the bar. Even less of these rare beings become elevated to the judiciary. And yet…we are all judges. We all keep, in our back pockets, a little olde worlde wig, a portable gavel and a pair of spectacles. Several times a day in our imagination, we don the appropriate apparel and pass judgement on our fellow humans. Nobody stops us. Everyone else is too busy playing the same game. We (Nigerians) need to watch out now for many convictions based on wildly insufficient evidence. Some people know how to lay down the law. They also get a kick out of doing things by the book. So much so that sometimes, even when there really is no book to do things by, they invent one. They cite rules that have not actually been passed.  

Nigerians are not such a stickler for protocol. Indeed, we can be and what about our actors? Don’t they do much the same thing; day after day, week after week? Some of us though, are not actors, so we don’t have to live other people’s lives without having to pay the price. If actors are appearing in a long-running play, they will speak precisely the same lines whilst making identical gestures. Throughout the run of the show, additional nuances in the script will be discovered. Even the writers may be surprised by what they later realise were the true depth of their words.  

Nigerians, I believe are not now stuck in any kind of rut, nor are we going round in circles like our politicians. Nigerians are just getting ready to make an enormous, amazing breakthrough that’s long overdue. It’s so funny that, whenever we play it too safe, we sell ourselves short. We end up settling for the tried and tested, when we could be…. the mixed magic of the glorious unknown. Whilst the opposite also applies – and if we dance too close to the edge for too long, we might fall over it. There are times though, when it’s wiser to take a risk than to wallow in the mud of mundanity. However, is it true that, Heavens help those who help themselves?

Well, I believe it rather depends on what they happen to be helping themselves to. It’s not that the Heavens discriminate, they really don’t judge. But if people are helping themselves to the things that aren’t so good for them, the Heavens can’t help them. Or can they do much for those who are doing little or nothing.

How exactly do we help ourselves now? By looking to see how the Most High is trying to help us. But should we go out of our ways to give others especially poor Nigerians and those children a tough time? Some people seem to think so. They argue that life is often sad and stressful. On that basis, we may as well help prepare our offspring for their own inevitable brush with difficulty and disappointment. On the other hand, we can all do what is within our power to create a comfortable, cosseted environment in the hope that this will give them a happy memory to refer back to later life.  I believe it’s not too late for us to start doing what pleases God and then, Heavens will be too pleased to help us.

You may not be responsible for your heritage, but you are definitely responsible for your future and to trust yourself, to test your limit, that is the courage to succeed.