As the 2023 general elections hold in just seven months from date, more Nigerians than ever before are keenly interested in taking part in determining the quality of leadership that emerges, even as the socio-economy falters in dire straits.
Hence, NATIONAL ECONOMY has sought to gauge the opinions of economists to ascertain the quality of leadership that Nigeria would need to pull the country out of the current economic quagmire.
Consequently, the chief executive officer of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), and former director-general of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr. Muda Yusuf said, “Nigeria needs a person who understands how the economy works and how the private sector functions, somebody who has some exposure in the private sector because from experience, when you have people who do not have private sector experience, most times they do not appreciate the experience of investors.
“For any economy to progress you need investments; for investments to grow you need to have confidence in the economy, and if you have leaders who don’t understand the needs of investors you have a big problem. We need somebody who has that disposition.
“Secondly, we need somebody who has the capacity to assemble a good team, particularly in critical positions who can deliver value to governance, people who have the competence and character to deliver.
“We also need somebody who has a good handle on key economic policies, because some of the problems we have on our hands now are policy-related, which is critical to be able to stimulate investments. We need somebody who can create a framework for the formulation of the right kind of policies. We also need somebody who has a listening ear to get quality feedback, both from the people and investors, not somebody who will build a wall around himself and be listening to sycophants.
“We also need to have somebody to deal with the current issue of insecurity in the right way, somebody who can do something completely different from what the current leadership is doing as far as insecurity is concerned because if the environment is not secure there will be little or no inflow investments. Insecurity is creating a country-risk problem for Nigeria as it is scaring a lot of investors since not all investors have high risk appetite; and we are losing that segment of investors daily.”
Also, economist, founder and CEO of Global Analytics Consulting Limited, Dr. Tope Fasua told NATIONAL ECONOMY that in considering the best person to lead Nigeria, we need to look at where we are coming from because it is not only that the economy has collapsed, but also, society seems to have collapsed as we have insecurity, lack of cohesion, insurgencies and separatism. He said the world economy is falling into a recession; and there is a new wave of economic nationalism where everyone is taking care of his own economy. So, whoever will be Nigeria’s next president must be able to tackle some of the country’s problems, someone who can secure the country, someone who is decisive to the level of being crazy.
“What we’ve found ourselves in since 1999 is being ruled by a crop of people who are only interested in making themselves comfortable.
“We need somebody who can understand the urgency of now, somebody who can make and enforce decisions.
“We also need someone who can hit the ground running on Day 1, not like a wet towel. We need someone who can tackle the corruption problem as well because there is so much money being lost every day. We need someone with very fertile imagination, and a communicator who can speak to Nigerians on a weekly basis, telling Nigerians where you want to take the country to, instructing us on what he expects from us, and how we can contribute to that building process.
“We also need someone who can command international and local respect, someone with experience in the arts and science of leadership, and someone who can rally global support to fight the problems in Nigeria,” Fasua said.
Associate professor of law, and director of Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Dr. Sam Amadi, said Nigeria’s next president should be someone who can bring Nigerians together and persuade each segment of a plural society to pursue the collective social and economic well-being of all Nigerians in a spirit of justice and fairness.
“He or she should be a person who is able to lead a broad coalition of policymakers and managers who are determined to recreate Nigeria’s political economy to institutionalise productivity and focus resources on sustainable development instead of rewarding fixers and royals.
“The next president should have the capacity and commitment to be effective and functional, not ceremonial, governance. It should be a Nigerian whose statements and actions in the past gives real hope that he or she understands the importance of rules and will professionalise the state to deliver on social and economic goods to all Nigerians, only on the basis of citizenship, not ethnicity, not religion,” he said.
Lecturer at Adeleke University, Professor Tayo Bello said Nigeria’s next president should have integrity as that quality matters in anything anyone wants to do, adding that it is an essential character of leadership. He also said Nigeria’s next leader must be able to have the right crop of leaders and be able to delegate responsibility to them.
Bello stressed that the next president must be able to communicate with the people, adding that it is very essential to tell the populace what happens when things happen and how they occurred. He also said the leader should be able to translate information by inspiring others, which will cause them to have a direction.
Bello said the next president must reward people based on merit. He added that the president must have empathy–must be able to improve work conditions.
According to him,the next president must have the courage to accept responsibility and not shift the blame to other people when things go awry.
