By Gift Chapi Odekina
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that unless those in leadership position in the country do something to address the situation of the over 15 million out of school children in the country, the problems facing the nation will remain.
He said this category of persons must be taken on board as ignoring them will always create a drag in the society irrespective of the leaves of leadership training offered by leadership development centres.
The Former President who spoke at the GOTNI Leadership Centre in Abuja on Thursday also said that the problem of leadership facing the country can be addressed when all steps are taken to do so.
The former President admitted that that leadership question has been bane of development on the African continent
He said while addressing the issue of leadership training and development, concurrent efforts must be made to ensure that those who are supposed to be in school receiving education are in school.
He said “You see, whatever anybody may say about Africa, we use accept It, especially if they are genuinely rely us what we need to do or what we do wrong. When people come to me and say you are doing well, I say no, that is not what I want because I am in a place to do well.
“Don’t come and tell me that I am doing well. I want you to tel me what I need to do and to d better. That is what I want to hear an not for you to come and tel I am doing well.
“The truth is that there is nobody that is born without some amount of innate leadership capacity and it is development that is needed. By the time we come to GOTNI leadership center, a bit of it is late.
“We should not forget that a lot start from home, a lot in the school, a lot in the Church and the Mosque; a lot within the community itself. If we fail in all those areas, you wont even get them to come here.
“This is one aspect of our life. The other aspect is what we do. I am worried because no matter what we do here, as long as we have the type of situation we have now of 15 million children that should be in school that are not in school.
“If all those of us in school are graduates of GOTNI leadership centre, there will still be that gap of those who should be in school and educated that are not educated. There will be a drag ad there is nothing we can do about it. We must take that on board.
“I have said when you talk about the problem of an African country and particularly of Nigeria, they will say, it is leadership. Leadership deficit and leadership deficiency. And both can be taken care of in this GOTNI Leadership Centre.
“Leadership can be taught. Leadership can be acquired. Anything that can be taught can be learnt. So, if leadership can be taught, it can be learnt. So people must be ready to teach and learn leadership.”
He commended the proprietor of the GOTNI Leadership Institute, Linus Okorie “for the splendid work that he has been quietly doing without singing and shouting about it. And he’s filling a void in the leadership training in this country, a very important void”.
The Proprietor of the Centre, Linus Okorie said the vision of the centre was to create a crop of professional leaders for the country in all aspect of life by ensuring that they understand leadership competences.
He said “the investment that we are making today, some of it might not speaking right now in the political space but in the organizations, we are already seeing stories of transformation and change going on.
“All I want is a critical mass of human being investing in this journey where we can grow leadership from high school up to political level. In fact, now that we are in the political period, anybody who wants seek for political office at whatever level, it is important that they will come and sit down and understand what leadership is about so that when they get into leadership position, they will do well because they have been groomed.
“They understand leadership competences. They are visionary, men and women of honour and they can make things happen. For me, it’s in my agenda to transfer leaders and creating values, we must invest in them.”
Chairman of the Board of the Centre, Chief Sam Ohuabuwa express happiness that the dream of the centre was being fulfilled, saying “we are not only teaching but we are modeling leadership.”
He said former “President Obasanjo represents one of the best we have in leadership today. Of course, we still need to improve on that level and that’s why some of us are working on that to take our leadership to the next level.
“This thing he has done today demonstrates that this centre is validated as a very competent and versatile leadership centre that compares with the best in the world. Like some people said, we have brought what they would gone to Dubai of US to look for.
“We have agreed that as a country, we haven’t done well in leadership. Our leadership stock is very thin. We have not had consistent, enlightened, visionary, competent, courageous leadership integrity that should take our country from the third world situation, stagnated poverty ridden nation to a nation that is globally competitive, to a first world nation like Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Germany.
“Why can we be like them? So, we aspiring in the new dispensation to make sure that we emerge at that global level because there is nothing better for Nigeria except to be at the top.”
On hid part the Regional Director UNIDO Jean Bakole said Africa needs to promote leadership.
He said” Leadership means how people can be engaged properly and to manage a country in a very efficient manner.”
“This cannot be possible if we cannot engage our young people and help them to acquire the skill in terms of management and the best vision and strategy that we can put in place economically, politically, socially to live ahead with development. For African problems, we need African solutions”
“That is not to say that we cannot benchmark other countries because we need to bring the best experience to our countries. But this cannot be possible if we are not all collectively engaged to improve our skills and continue in the system which is running a continuous system to improve our skills”
