By Femi Odere
On Monday, December 5, 2022, Nigeria’s leadership tectonic plate shifted in faraway London in the United Kingdom.
It was on this day that the presidential candidate of the All Prohressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, delivered a speech at the London’s Chatham House, where he enunciated some of his policy directions in accordance with his Action Plan to his audience and the entire world, if he’s given the opportunity to preside over the affairs of Nigeria as President in the 2023 election.
After a flawlessly delivered speech, the APC presidential candidate, in maintaining fidelity to his trademark as a strategic thinker, builder of men and women, who sees a leader’s success as the collective efforts of the leader and those who surrounds him, delegated some questions that were meant for him to some of his close aides, whom he had groomed over the years during a Question and Answer session.
While this highly unusual leadership style was much to the chagrin, if not utter perplexion of the vacuous, the gullible and the uninitiated, it deepened the understanding of the discerning about the concept of leadership.
The opposition parties and their candidates’ hopeless predisposition to constantly exhibiting what’s essentially Neanderthalic leadership styles, yet expecting society to thrive – and their media carpetbaggers – became so confused to the extent that they asked for Asiwaju’s head on a platter because of this disruptive innovation in the nation’s electioneering campaign.
But very recently at a Town Hall meeting with the Nigerian students, the Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Peter Gregory Obi, was asked several education-related questions.
Mr. Obi, whose social media OBI-dients were the most vociferous in calling into question Asiwaju’s competence – no thanks to their gullibility – called out Pat Utomi, an educationist, to answer one of the questions. And Mr. Utomi did. Since then, mum has been the word from the parent party of the OBI-dients, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
In any case, we expect the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to follow suit in what we had predicated would be an addition to the many ‘firsts’ of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in leadership and accomplishments.
Asiwaju Tinubu has proven that the true measure of a good leader is when he sometimes takes a back seat on a global stage for his aides to take the spotlight in the spirit of teamwork, in the overarching objective of achieving success and prosperity for the greatest number in a society. This is the Tinubu-Chatham hypothesis.
This leadership style was what played out at Chatham that completely disoriented the oppositions and their media carpetbaggers for several days. But it now gladdens our hearts that the opposition parties are now beginning to ‘borrow themselves some brains’ (in a manner of Nigerian speak) by adopting Asiwaju’s Q & A format.
We will continue to thank God for little mercies!
•Odere is Head of Media and Publicity of the Diaspora Directorate of the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Abuja.
