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| President Goodluck Jonathan and David Moyes: 2 under-fire leaders based on bad results, One was fired recently |
Nigerians
are football freaks and there is nothing that unites us more than it especially
when our senior national team, the Super Eagles are playing. However, this post
is not about the Super Eagles, it is more about Manchester United and David
Moyes who was unceremoniously sacked as manager on Tuesday for poor performance.
The keyword
here is performance, Manchester United is a great football club and much of its
greatness can be attributed to their legendary manager who handpicked Moyes as
his successor, Sir Alex Ferguson. He left the club at the end of the 2012/13
season with the English Premier League title after spending 26 years at the
club winning 38 trophies including 13 Premier League titles and 2 UEFA Champions
League trophies.
Hence, a
lack-lustre season without winning any major trophy and failure to qualify for
next season’s UEFA Champions League cost David Moyes his job after a lot of
pressure from Manchester United fans including the large number from Nigeria.
They just could not tolerate the failure.
This brings
me nicely to our country, Nigeria, performance of a leader and tolerance of
failure. The Nigerian constitution states in Section 14 Subsection 2b (as amended)
that: “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of
government…” Essentially this implies that if government fails at everything
else, it must not fail at providing security for Nigerians.
Therefore,
it is shocking that Nigeria’s federal government under President Goodluck
Jonathan continues to play ignorance of this sacred duty and perpetually
positions itself as a “victim” of the violence that has killed thousands of
Nigerians since his election in 2011 under different manifestations; electoral
violence, Boko Haram, Fulani herdsmen vs. farmers, extra-judicial killings by
security forces, even the recruitment exercise under the direct supervision of
the Minister of Interior, Abba Moro. For each and every one of these problems,
the government of President Jonathan cannot be said to have met the standard
set by the constitution which he swore to uphold.
This piece
is not meant to ask for a dramatic change in Aso Rock because we have elections
in 2015 to sort that out and I will God-willing have enough time to write about
that later. However, it is absolutely imperative that Nigerians put immense
pressure on President Jonathan to ensure that he uses the considerable
resources and tools at his disposal as President and Commander-in-Chief of our
armed forces to quell the wanton killings, maiming and kidnapping that ravages
our country even as I type. We must learn from Manchester United and not settle
for abysmal failure, we are not yet at the end of our season (4-year term) but
we should make it absolutely clear to the president that he has to start
delivering as our leader not because he expects to be rewarded with a second
term but it because it is solemn duty and we demand it.
We citizens
of Nigeria as followers need to start holding our leaders accountable and
demand performance at all levels from the local government chairman to the
highest office because as we have learnt through Manchester United, not every
man is “man” enough to be a leader; some have to be pushed to do their duty and
should be changed at the earliest opportunity through constitutional means.
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