Back to business as usual?

By Kene Obiezu

Sir: With the Supreme Court handing down its verdicts in the governorship elections of a number of states, the election season gradually draws to a close.

The wounds will linger  for some time as seen in the protests the People Democratic Party are holding against the verdict of the apex court in the governorship election of Imo State, but  ultimately,  the clamour will die down and the delicately serious business of governance will resume in full.

When the business of governance does resume in full, free from the distractions of litigation, those entrusted with the people‘s mandate must be alive to their responsibilities.

They must keep to their effusive campaign promises. They must do all in their power to lift the most vulnerable people out of poverty.

They must do all within their power to ensure that structures and systems are put in place to secure the future. When they are able to do this, they would have been said to have achieved during their terms of office, if not overachieved.

It is no secret that good leadership has been Nigeria‘s greatest challenge. The absence of good leadership over many years, leadership which would have driven the wheels of prosperity, is directly responsible for the sore straits Nigeria finds itself in.

Because good leadership has been nonexistent at worse, or at best, epileptic, Nigeria for all its size and resources has been like a very big ship that is also rudderless. It has tottered on the brink of disaster severally and more than once it has come perilously close to a full and fatal shipwreck.

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Institutions that should form the backbone of any serious government   are deliberately weakened; national values and ethics are eroded; the public weal is plundered at will and used to feather and festoon private nests, and all the while, most disconcertingly, those who should act are held in the throes of inertia, ineptitude   and incompetence or are just plain corrupt.

All these hit hardest at those left out in the cold which would be the most vulnerable Nigerians. They are those who cannot have three proper meals every day; they are those who cannot pay off the minutest of bills; they are those for whom decent accommodations remain castles in the air; they  are those for whom every day conceives fresh vulnerabilities and brings fresh worries.

It is this class of people who form the single largest class in Nigeria that the leaders must bear in mind while acting or failing to act. The plight of this class, which includes most Nigerians, must keep leaders in whatever capacity up at night, planning and thinking.

For this to happen, it can no longer be business as usual anywhere. All those who because they have access to government offices and public resources elect to do nothing but eat must be put far and away from those offices.

The wheels of accountability, transparency and public responsibility must continue to grind and expose those who seek to turn government to personal ventures and public resources to personal funds.

For the sake of Nigeria and its future, leaders in whatever capacity must ensure that it   can no longer be business as usual.

• Kene Obiezu, Abuja.