Duty call is often a privileged to serve simply because out of the multitude, you are singled out to occupy a position which comes with a title and other incentives. One could be called to serve in any sector cutting across public service, politics, corporate, religion and voluntary service. In the same vein, one could be called to serve in different capacity. Beyond the title that goes with an office, the primary objective of being appointed or elected or nominated or even selected as the case may be is to discharge certain duties.

Different titles have been coined for different services; Honourable, Excellency, Bishop, Senator, Reverend, Imam, Manager, Executive Director, Chief Executive Officer, Colonel, Superintendent, Sergeant, Chief of Staff, Special Adviser, to mention but a few. All these are human ideologies to rank the level of each person in the organisation and the society at large.

In all these, irrespective of the title, one thing that is demanded or required from each person given a title is to discharge the duties and responsibilities that are attached to such position. Anyone called to serve is assumed to have some sense of responsibility and integrity.

Every title comes with some form of authority and Nigeria has been beguiled with title leadership who have used the opportunity to exercise excessive power in the discharge of their duties. A number of people have argued that the time for a new generation of visionary leaders who will discharge their duties efficiently has come.

This reasWe have been bamboozled in a number of ways owing to failure on the parts of our leaders. For over three decades of my being, I have repeatedly heard the phrase, ‘the youths are the leaders of tomorrow’. Repeatedly I have asked; ‘when will these tomorrow(s) come or will this tomorrow ever come’? For me, the tomorrow is now but how can we get the youths into the politics of the country which is in the hands of the egocentric and rigid grandparents who have refused to take a bow.

As 2019 is gradually knocking on our doors, if we indeed hope to go into the future with the expectation of a better Nigeria, we have to rejuvenate a new vision and hope. From independence, we have been riding on experience, which has resulted to the recycling of old heads in governance who have abused positions of authority. These recycled leaders have lost their visions and hence unable to figure out that Nigerians need a positive transformation.

Yearly, we express disappointment over the actions of our lawmakers’ and executives. The express reason is that visionary hands in the corporate sectors have refused to embrace the politics of the land. While we are busy with our private lives, these same set of people and their followers who comprise of the semi-literate and illiterates (area boys) are already holding meetings from the ward level to the federal level strategizing on the way forward. They have cajoled their followers who are ready to lay down their lives for the big man to remain on top while they feed on the crumbs whenever he visits town.

This trend needs to change; the era of honourable members throwing caution into thin air and throw chairs at each other or witch-hunt each other has got to come to an end. Young executives who have risen to board levels emerge into the political scene of our fatherland. Hence experience has failed us, let us resort to new ideologies and visionary leaders who are plying their trade in the private sector.

Recently, events were lined up to mark Lagos @50, the organised colloquium where I expected to see a retinue of youths was flooded by the usual ‘egbons’. The educated and vibrant youths of this country should wake up now at once for time is of the essence. We have been laid back for ages while young men are taking up political leadership in other climes, young men in Nigerian are busy minding their business at the detriment of the future.

The clamour for youths emancipation in politics is laudable, but how many of our learned and professional youths have begun to nurse the ambition of joining or starting any political party. I have taken learning from 39 years old Emmanuel Macron who will be 40 in December. Whilst he served as the Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs, he founded and registered a political party in April 2016 and by May 2017; he won the presidential election to become the president of France. If we don’t start taking bold steps now, the certainties of 2019 and subsequent elections will not be different from that of 2015.
Let’s arise and build this nation.