The burden of leadership: EL Rufai, Babangida and Akpabio

"Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of God of Jacob and the sweet psalmist of Israel.

The Spirit of the LORD spake by me and his word was in my tongue.

The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.

He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even as a morning without clouds; as a tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain".

David was the quintessential king of Israel. Though long dead he remains the model king in Israel. He is still most respected in Israel. It was reported about two decades ago that a parliamentarian in Israel spoke disparagingly against David in parliament called Knesset. He did not last that very day he made his disparaging remarks; he was removed by the Knesset. That was the importance of the impact of David as a king in Israel. David built the nation of Israel. He welded twelve warring and ruderless tribes into one by what another verse of the Bible calls: "So he ( David ) fed ( led) them according to the integrity of his heart and guided them by the skillfulnes of his of his hands". David was of integrity, not totally without faults but with full integrity and skill. He ruled with high moral standard and had also skill. He possessed the technical know how.

Elsewhere in the bible David was recorded as praying to his God: "Rid me and deliver me from the hands of strange children whose mouth speak vanity and their hand is a right hand of falsehood

That our son might be as plants grown up in their youth, that our daughters may be as corner stones polished after the similitude of the palace.

That our garners may be full affording all manner of store, that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets.

That our oxen may be strong in labour; that there be no breaking in nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets". ( Ps 144:11-14)

Leadership for David is nothing to be taken simply and for selfish reasons. Leadership of nations determine the future of that nation. Leadership harness the strength of youth for national integration and productivity. David knew these and deployed very great skill and integrity. He won't leave the youth at the mercy of "strangers" that is youth from foreign cultures. If the youth of Israel can be delivered from suffocating and corrupting influence of youth from foreign nations, the youth of Israel will mature in their youth, if they could be delivered from foreign youth, the daughters of Israel will be as polished like beautiful pillars of the palaces. It is only when the youths and the daughters have been so matured and well focused that there can be productivity in the nation. Agriculture will boom and animal husbandry will be so great. The nation will be secured and be happy. David accomplished all these in Israel and that is why the word of God became the last word on the tongue of David. When an old man who has accomplished so much for his family is about to die, he calls his children to his bedside and gives them his last word. Such words don't fall to the ground. Children who are cursed during such time are never recovered from the curse; so are children on whom blessings of the father are pronounced.

So it was with David on his death bed, the whole elders of Israel and his children gathered at his bed side. But as David spoke, he spoke not only to Isreal but generations of men and women in the whole word who will either desire to lead other men or find themselves at the helm of affairs in their countries by Providence. It was God himself who implanted his words on the tongues of David, it was God who spoke to mankind. What God said, what David said was crucial to success in leadership and in nation building. Whoever must rule must be just and must rule in the fear God. To be just means to be fair in his dealings with men and women in the country. He must be a man of integrity and character and must be a man or woman of justice. He or she must rule in the fear of God. To fear God means to depart from evil. A man or woman who has not learned the fear of God has no place in the rulership. I have just finished Bisi Akande's book My Participations and I'm reading both Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida's “Journey In Service” and Nasir El- Rufai's “ACCIDENTAL PUBLIC SERVANT”. I have come across many leaders in those books who if Nigeria were demanding just and justice should not come near leadership. Last week, in Abuja Nigeria and Nigerians were treated to a gory of insults when past leaders in Nigeria from General Yakubu Gowon, past military head of state, General Olusegun Obasanjo, two times leader both as military head of state and again president of the country, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, self-styled president who no Nigerian voted for. He imposed himself on the nation by guns bought for him and the Army from taxes of Nigerians and yet decided he would be president and will name the library he plans to build "presidential library." Yet no Nigerian except the classical and fiery Femi Falana, lawyer and activist that drew the attention of the nation to that absurdity. What an insult from a man that was paid from our taxes to insult our collective dignity. Yet everybody gathered at that event where Babangida sought to whitewash his ingloriois reign in lies and upon lies and where Professor Yemi Osinbajo who must go down rapidly by his presence and performance as the reviewer of that insulting book as the literary comedian of the nation. He made the insulters laugh and laugh. Many have said that Professor Yemi Osibajo the Vice President to Buhari in their blemished eight year despoiling of Nigeria should have avoided that event as his boss did.

Also at the event was General Abdusalam Abubakar who has the singular dishonor of foistering on the nation a Constitution in which he smuggled 77 mentions of Islam, Islamic or Sharia without the country knowing or suspecting because the civilian wanted his military government to go by all means and so they had no time to scrutinize the forced Constitution. It has surfaced that Obasanjo who took over as the first president of Nigeria's Fourth Republic was not sworn in with any constitution. It was being stuffed up with Islamic doctrines and so even the Minister of Information, John Nwodo whose ministry should print the constitution did not see it. Illegality and oddity, reasonable men and women will call that. Goodluck Jonathan who described himself at that inglorious event as the youngest in terms of arrival at the National Council of State. Jonathan said he was awaiting Bola Ahmed Tinubu the current president who he expected to join the Council after his tenure. The leaders past and present all laughed. They were joined by other invitees, not knowing the stupidity of what they did. Laughing when those who literally killed Nigeria were gathered. Somebody said he felt as if a bomb should drop on that gathering and end Nigeria's problems once and for all because gathered under that roof were the problems of Nigeria. But no bomb dropped. Nigeria will continue to suffer indignity until deliverance will come from somewhere Nigeria can't think of now. Babangida collected close to 18 billion Naira as donations for his library. He reaped what he had done with the resources of the country when he was "president." One of the donors said "he ( Babangida) called us into a room and asked us to bring one million dollars and he gave us oil blocks." Babangida distributed Nigeria's oil blocks to a few cronies as if he was distributing akara among his children. He fixed the amount to be paid; no transparency and no competition; no Nigerian knew and others Nigerians who might have been interested and perhaps bidded more that a million dollars were shut out of the game. That is why today you hear cries of marginalization from the Niger Delta under whose land the oil flows. That is why you have Igbos complaining they were shut out of mainstream Nigeria; why you have every tribe wanting a turn at the presidency so that they also will have their turn to suck the nation for themselves in the name of their tribes. That is why when Muhammadu Buhari was president he was more a Fulani president than a Nigeria president, why he built a railway line to Maradi in the Niger Republic with money borrowed from China because his kith and kin lived in Maradi and are from there. That is why Bola Ahmed Tinubu, current president has almost all his appointees from among his Yoruba tribe. And that is why there is no Nigeria yet.

Nasir El-Rufai a man who said he's sworn on a united Nigeria where tribalism and religion plays no role has demonstrated how that can be done, you only have to read his book to find out. Do you doubt Nasir El-Rufai? Don't; he built a brewery in Kaduna state. What the hell does that mean? That is a bold challenge on the Islamic fundamentalism in the North, a demonstration that nobody has to help any man or woman to go to hell or heaven, that those matters must be left in the hands of the individual. The North where leaders secretly consume alcohol but hypocritically send Sharia police to destroy any bar where alcohol is sold. Nasir El-Rufai will tell you that the founder of the North and it's first and only premier, Ahmadu Bello built guest houses where beer was sold. El-Rufai will tell you that Ahmadu Bello resisted all pressures to impose Sharia on the North. He ran an all inclusive government because he knew there were Christians in the North. You only need to read El-Rufai's 2013 book "Accidental Public Servant" to appreciate the hard work, the hard focus, the hard thinking and the hard fighting that is required to be a public servant in a dying nation like Nigeria which is crying for builders to harness its potential.

But you also have Godswill Akpabio, former governor of Akwa-Ibom state, former minister of the Niger Delta and now the president of the 10th Senate who is fighting the fight of his life with Senator Natasha Akpoti Iduaghan who has publicly alleged that Akpabio has spat with her at the Senate because she refused all entreaties of the senate president to sleep with her, one such incidence which was witnessed by her husband, Mr Iduaghan who is a former governor of Delta state. Can we belive the lady senator? Of course not so difficult to believe because a former acting Managing Director of Nigeria Delta Development Commission, NNDC, Joy Nunieh had also made similar allegation that she resisted sexual advances of Akpabio by slapping him. Did such personalities as Babangida, Obasanjo, Abdusalam Abubakar, Goodluck Jonathan and Bola Tinubu care about the next generation of Nigeria, care about the youth as David did? Certainly not because if they had, the present decadence of the youth in Nigeria wouldn't have been. They govern for themselves, their families, their cronies and their friends. Morality was not on their shopping list. We have youth who are anything but polished and mature. We have daughters who are prostitutes. We have boys and girls whose future have been ruined by the internet because government cannot be bothered by what is happening there. China bothered by what will happen to her youth by exposure to internet just as David did and asked advice from Lee Kuan Yew, late former prime minister of Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew’s advice was like the advice of the bible: teach your child the way he should go and when he grows old he will not depart from it. Today Facebook is not in China. It took Muhammadu Buhari a calamity of an abuse from a Twitter user for his government through his minister of Information, Layi Mohammed to realize that Twitter now called X and Facebook and other social media had been ripping the nation off in taxes. A very careless government, careless about its youths. That is why the country has not been productive. The Central Bank has been joggling figures. We hear about increased GDP but we see empty stomachs and groaning faces on the streets. We hear about a performing economy but the youths are unemployed and millions are running away from the country. We heard the president say that government can't fund universities but still establishing more federal universities with some states having three.

Malam Nasir El-Rufai is a one man riot squad. He learnt to fight bullies right in his elementary school where he took on Sunday the bully whom he fought to a standstill until the parents of Sunday came to beg the surrogate father of tiny framed El-Rufai. Rufai has taken on Bola Tinubu and his one-time friend, Nuhu Ribadu, Tinubu's National Security Adviser in a fight. He has accused Nuhu Ribadu of wanting to tarnish his reputation but promised him and Tinubu that in any fight with him one of the parties, either him or his opponent must drop dead. But Nasir El- Rufai needs not direct his war against Tinubu or Nuhu Ribadu. Both of them are offsprings of a decadent system, a decadent system that gathered to mock Nigeria and Nigerians during the launching of Babangida's tale of lies in the name of a book launch where Nigerians were robbed again of 17 billion naira. To this system, El-Rufai must dedicate his boundless energy. To this fight Nigerians of similar fighting spirit as El-Rufai must join until that system is utterly destroyed and replaced with a Davidic system that truly serve and care about the youth, unity, justice and meritocracy.

Tunde Akande is both a journalist and pastor. He earned a Master's degree in Mass Communication from the University of Lagos