I believe that Nigeria really and desperately need Leadership Training School[s]. Leadership requires a certain abilities; abilities that can be discover, unlock and nourish in an environment dedicated solely to such. It may be as the editorial stated, "serve as a useful platform where state chief executives may compare notes on the challenges of governance, share experiences and generate broad-minded solutions that build their states and strengthen the nation, as an institutional part of our democracy". I think it will be more than that. I think a laudable move that will positively impact our future.

Setting up a school[s] to these function will not only ensure continuous crop of prepared leaders but will also weed out if handle properly those that do not possess in any measure qualities, mental or intellectual capabilities and abilities characteristics of a leader; a recurring factor that have darkened our political landscape since independence. If lecturers of different political leaning/philosophies, drawn from all part of the world, will expose the future potential leaders to such thinkers as Confucianism, Plato, Mencius, Laws of Manu and Chanakya in India to Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, John Locke, John Adams, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and even Karl Marx; it will not only bring to their attention the different political ideas but will also correct their present archaic and primitive notions of what it means to be a leader.

Given the comatose state of our educational system which have progressively gone from bad to worst with each successive government, this concept wouldn't have come at any other better time. Developed nations like Japan and the US [apart from their healthy and vibrant tertiary institutions] have schools designed purely to train would-be leaders. In Japan, it is often a cause taken up by corporate giants [and that include hours of meditation] and in the US, every political shade and character, be it liberal, conservative, libertarian, green or evangelical have institutions that inculcate those ideals that they will want to see in their national identity.

Desperate times demands desperate move and ideas. It demands new ways to deal with issues. Nigeria is sitting on a lit gun-powder keg flirting with its own destruction and impending doom. While the present crop of leaders [by their evidently increasing flagrant disregard to morality, virtues and pains of those they claim they lead] are bent in pushing us towards the precipice, we must as the young ones with so much at stake see it fit to think differently, more broadly and more decisively. Have we not lost enough? When can we learn to direct our anger at the right places?

If by training these men in the arts of leadership can help in finding capable hands to direct the affairs of that country, then by all means lets start with Harvard. Talking about the risk to national security is just laughable. Anyone with an intelligence of a crow knows that most of our military and civilian elite are on the pay-roll of the British, American and even Chinese. And by Josh, what do we have left to conceal when all the intelligence needed about Nigeria can be gleamed so easily from different sources?

The truth is that we are in dire need for intelligent, articulate young ones in the leadership of that country. Individuals with vision, groomed and prepared for excellence in their calling. Individuals who can take that country to where it belong. For God's sake, leadership might not be rocket science but it sure is more than that. An ability to manage, control and direct the energy of a 150 million people is certainly above the mere calling of a rocket scientist. It is the destiny of a nation!

Search before you create a thread https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-282651.0.html

My apologizes! Wish I can delete it but can't see any Edit or Delete button. Thanks for the correction!