Guardian

THE various definitions of leadership now available are enough if put together and referred to as a book upon publication. It is vexatious to see people criticise without proper review, speak without reasoning or processing of thoughts; state facts without verification or ascertaining same.

Let us consider this scenario to put things in perspective, as an example: Question one, was it President Barrack Obama who found the bomb suspects in Boston? Answer: No. Question two; was it the FBI that actually found the same Boston bomb suspects? Answer: Not exactly. Question three, who found the suspects? Answer: Leadership did. Question four: Which leadership and how did it find the suspects? Answer: The Leadership of Obama with his firm and instructive directive to the FBI whose expertise and intelligence or ‘A game’ as it has been referred to would have been useless without the support of the ever-growing proactive, responsive, objective and courageous American public or citizenry, if you wish. Here is how it all played out as extracted from yahoo news of April 20, 2013.

“Weary officials lifted a daylong order that had kept residents in their homes, saying it was fruitless to keep an entire city locked down. Then ‘one man’ emerged from his home and noticed blood on the pleasure boat parked in his backyard. He lifted the tarp and found the wounded 19-year-old college student known the world over as Suspect No. 2. The resident who spotted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his boat in his Watertown yard called police, who tried to persuade the suspect to get out of the boat,’’ said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis…

“He was not communicative,” Davis said. Instead, he said, there was an exchange of gunfire — the final volley of one of the biggest manhunts in American history. The violent endgame unfolded just a day after the FBI released surveillance-camera images of two young men suspected of planting the pressure-cooker explosives at the marathon’s finish line, an attack that put the nation on edge for the week. Watertown residents who had been told Friday morning to stay inside behind locked doors poured out of their homes and lined the streets to cheer police vehicles as they rolled away from the scene. Celebratory bells rang from a church tower. Teenagers waved American flags. Drivers honked. Every time an emergency vehicle went by, people cheered loudly.’’

The fundamental issue is, do we have ‘a one man’ in Nigeria? On issues such as this we all like to mind our business, we don’t want wahala o. We will say, “If you speak now or call the police you will be arrested; the police will interrogate you and sometimes detain you because you want to be the one man.’’ These are fears our people have which I very well understand. However, that is the more reason why we should not blame our President when we don’t get the same kind of moving success that the Americans achieved. We are not on the same pedestal; we can only strive to get there. What with the infrared technology they employed. Do we have it? The answer may be no, and even if we do how functional is it? The robot that flipped the boat open, do we have it? The answer may be no? And even if we do, how many do we have and where would they be stationed?

Having occupied a position of leadership, from experience, I understand the difficulty a leader can encounter in trying to solve numerous problems. In this country, we are cynical; people will never give you a chance, they will just talk because they feel like talking. The truth is, we all will die someday whether we like it or not, the only difference is we will die at different times or maybe same time if it is so destined. As such the earlier we begin to make meaningful impact to our society the better for us all. We live in a society where people watched four young boys gruesomely murdered and ‘no one man’ thought it wise to swiftly call the police except those related to the boys or connected to them. The role of the ‘one man’ is an objective one. In America, if you see someone who is about to perpetuate a crime you call the police immediately. That’s how the American ‘one man’ would act, but here sentiments would come in the moment you know it may be the son of this, that, or the other brother. You rather keep quiet and would not be the one to blow the whistle.

Rather than see how we can improve on our system to make it proactive, responsive and protective we are busy blaming the President. People say things like ‘it took them i.e. America just 48 hours, but here we will be setting up committee to look into it’  ‘then they will say they are on top of it.’’ ‘On top of what?’ All this I have heard in the past in different circles. It bears reminding ourselves that for every man we see unleashing terror on our people, a woman carried him tirelessly in her womb not for two days but for nine months, raised him and watched him grow and in some cases, she did this alone without the support of a man for some reason. Now, the child is grown up and he believes the best thing he can do is to take the life of other people who have done him no wrong! My question is where is the woman or women who carried these people in their wombs? Where are they? Whatever the cause maybe it is wrong to take the life of innocent people. Those behind the Madala bombing, by whatever name called, are not spirits, they were men born of women, same as the Boston bombers. These bombers, born of women, are depriving other women the joy of the children they brought to the world. All hands must be on deck to stop the evil. It should not be the time any longer for us to mind our business because some day any of us could be victims, caught in the evil machination of bomb throwing.

The next time you hear someone criticising the President for not swiftly bringing the perpetrators of an act of terror on the citizens, ask the person ‘are you that “one man”?  Have you supplied the police with information, if you have any? A 19-year-old teenager was involved in the Boston bombing. If we do not do something about all this, there will be many 19 year olds in our midst, and we may wonder what happens when the 19 year old of today is 30? One man emerged from his home and noticed blood… what have you noticed from your home? In the face of all the bombings we have been going through at home in Nigeria what did you do about it? In crisis, all America is one, always united. There no Democrats and there are no Republicans. It’s all about America and that is why they achieve result. However, is that the case here at home—with PDP, ACN, CPC?

It really doesn’t matter who the President is or where he comes from. What matters is where Nigeria stands in the League of Nations and whether or not her citizens are safe, whether equity thrives, justice, and fairness is sustained, peace reigns, hard work is rewarded. If we have a man or a woman who can take us there we have to support him or her and his team, irrespective of who they are or where they come from, provided they get into office legitimately. Without support there can be no performance. That’s the reason President needs ministers; doctors need nurses, lawyers need paralegals, and architects need brick layers and the Police need information.

•˜Amaran, a legal practitioner, an unpublished author, lives in Port Harcourt