- By Leonard Karshima Shilgba
Sir: When discussing Nigeria’s enduring national crises, fingers instinctively point to the failure of leadership. Yet, beneath this well-worn narrative lies a greater, more dangerous tragedy: the poverty of enlightened, rational, and intelligent followership. Leadership, after all, does not materialize in a vacuum. It is a mirror of the intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of the society from which it emerges. A shallow, uninformed populace will invariably produce shallow, uninformed leaders.
Nigeria’s leadership crisis is not merely about corrupt individuals or broken institutions. It is a systemic crisis rooted in the deficiencies of the followership. Emotional reactions to complex national issues, widespread embrace of rumours, and a pervasive reluctance to read or study critically characterize a large portion of the Nigerian citizenry. Thus, the pool from which leaders are recruited is dominated by individuals who themselves lack enlightenment, rationality, and depth.
This reality makes it almost impossible for consistently visionary, strategic, and competent leadership to thrive.
One might expect that Nigeria’s educated class would anchor the nation’s critical reasoning and demand for accountability. Sadly, academic education often does not translate into intellectual rigour. Many degree holders react emotionally rather than analytically, rely on hearsay rather than verified facts, amplify rumours without cross-checking sources, even on national television or radio, demonstrate tribal and religious bias even in professional discussions.
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Instead of using education as a springboard for independent thought, too many treat it as a badge of social status devoid of corresponding civic responsibility.
The Nigerian public discourse is awash with emotionalism and rumour-mongering. Politicians, recognizing this weakness, manipulate public sentiments—ethnic loyalty, religious identity, and historical grievances—at the expense of rational dialogue and policy debate.
A citizenry addicted to emotional triggers, sensationalism, and conspiracy theories cannot consistently demand accountable leadership. Instead, it rewards emotional populists and punishes thoughtful reformers.
Critical reading, which cultivates informed decision-making, patience, and nuanced understanding, is increasingly rare. A society allergic to reading is a society allergic to thinking.
Without a culture of sustained study, citizens fall for simplistic explanations of complex issues, public debate remains shallow, electoral choices are based on charisma, ethnic affiliation, or fleeting anger rather than reasoned policy analysis.
This intellectual famine ensures that public conversations remain superficial—and so too does leadership selection.
The consequence is a self-perpetuating vicious cycle: poor followership produces poor leadership, poor leadership destroys educational systems (we see this even within our universities and other higher education institutions, where leadership selection has been reduced to political patronage), a deteriorated educational system breeds more intellectually weak citizens, and these citizens reproduce poor leadership again and again.
Without a deliberate effort to break this cycle, Nigeria risks remaining trapped in a downward spiral of underdevelopment, no matter how many elections are held or how many constitutions are rewritten.
True national transformation must begin at the foundation of followership. To break the vicious cycle, critical thinking must be introduced early in education and reinforced throughout life (academic institutions must insist on, and introduce a pragmatic general education portfolio where courses relating to critical thinking are offered and must be taken by all students irrespective of their chosen majors. Additionally, students must be allowed the latitude of independent studies), national reading campaigns must be launched to revive a culture of study, civic education must go beyond patriotism and focus on evidence-based reasoning, media literacy must be taught to equip citizens to verify facts and resist emotional manipulation, especially by television and radio hosts and guests that specialize in spinning truth on the head, and manipulating the citizenry, and intellectual achievement must be celebrated, and thoughtful dissent protected and honoured.
Sadly, every so often, Nigerians descend upon holders of views with which they disagree with excoriating vulgarities and imputation of unholy motives. What public intolerance! Some highly cerebral Nigerian minds, who can’t stand this public ridicule, have decided to “siddon look”, and the nation loses thereby.
Only an enlightened, rational, and intelligent populace can elect, support, and sustain enlightened leadership. Nigerians are often too quick to give up on the leaders they elect, because, being undiscerning and amenable to easy manipulation, they can’t discern the deep-rooted administration of solutions to the complex national problems, but being impatient that the symptoms linger in spite, they become easy prey to predatory manipulators who point to the lingering symptoms as evidence that their leaders have not applied the right remedies.
Until Nigerians demand depth, competence, and vision from themselves first, they will continue to receive from their leaders what they themselves embody: emotionalism, mediocrity, and short-sightedness.
•Prof Leonard Karshima Shilgba,
Admiralty University of Nigeria, Ibusa, Delta State.
