Nigeria: The Servant Leader

To my mind it is an over indulgence and self-serving skepticism to dismiss "Servant Leader" as a cynical ploy, flaky gimmick, vacuous slogan or outright hoax. What would be far more patriotic is to be sufficiently gracious and constructive to accept that our chosen leaders do have the right to present us with the template of their thinking and their vision………. To expect "ready made" or "ready to serve" is an exercise in puerile futility and grandiose illusion.………. the leader has to be the leader and be seen to lead from the front ! Perhaps, in the Western world and other developed continents where prosperity, stability and democracy are taken for granted there is tolerance for the "Servant" who merely wants to serve while wearing the toga of the leader - or vice versa.For our continent, the menu is not so appetizing. To start with, let us take a cursory look at the state of education in our continent………………….
"Africa's best universities, the grand institutions that educated a revolutionary generation of nation builders and statesmen, doctors, and engineers, writers and intellectuals are collapsing. It is partly a self-inflicted crisis of mismanagement and neglect, but it is also the result of international development policies that for decades have favoured basic education over higher learning even as a population explosion propels more young people than ever towards the already strained institutions. The decrepitude is forcing the best and brightest from countries across Africa to seek their education and fortunes abroad and depriving dozens of nations of the homegrown expertise that could lift millions out of poverty."………..It is instructive that none of the Asian "tigers" has ever been ruled by a Servant Leader !! On the contrary, their leaders were generally pretty much authoritarian - and that is putting matters mildly.….."African universities are in a state of crisis and are failing to produce the professionals desperately needed to develop the poorest continent. [View Full Article]