THE report about wealthy Nigerians and their companies spearheading fundraising efforts to help Nigeria and its government combat, limit and overcome the effects of the current coronavirus pandemic should ordinarily invite commendation as a reflection of the social sensitivity, responsibility and generosity of the wealthy class in Nigeria. But we all know that Nigeria would not be in its very sorry state, development wise, if its leaders, at all levels spanning political, economic, traditional, intellectual, and so on, were to exhibit or reflect the tiniest flavor of sensitivity and concern for collective wellbeing. This is because, in the last analysis, a society is defined by and reflective of its leadership, such that any society could only be prosperous to the extent permitted and provided for by its leadership. As Harry Truman has said, ‘society stands still where there is no good leadership, as progress occurs only when skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.’ In which case, it would be illogical and out of place to credit the leadership in Nigeria with good vision and sensitivity when and where the country has remained at the bottom of the ladder of development overtime with the visionlessness of its leadership as the main cause and sustenance of this lack of development.

Yet, there’s no better time to see the true nature of anything than during the time of emergency! Which is why the ongoing COVID-19 is helping Nigerians come to grips with the true nature of their leaders. To be sure, social media is now replete with distressed Nigerians bemoaning the sorry nature of the Nigerian leadership, especially at the political level, with the glaring lack of health facilities and infrastructure to present a credible response to the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, the President, Muhammadu Buhari, would rather embark on countless personal health trips abroad than build a single competently equipped hospital to take care of himself and thus be able to extend such care to other Nigerians. In any case, other leaders, including those private wealthy Nigerians, are all united in this their approach of seeing Nigeria as no more than a place from which to siphon resources to be used to take care of themselves and all theirs abroad.  Which is why it is understandable that not even a single well-furnished hospital is in Nigeria in spite of the country calling itself the largest economy in Africa and boasting of many dollar-billionaires including the richest African among its population. In truth, Nigeria has these multi billionaires and also has petro dollars flushing its budget every year, but is it not ironic that all these dollars have not translated to any worthy infrastructure in the country?

Unfortunately for the Nigerian leaders, the coronavirus pandemic has propelled the closure of national borders and the need for people to stay within their countries to take care of themselves. The implication is that we are seeing Nigerian leaders in their nakedness as they become afraid not knowing where to run to in the absence of good health facilities in the country. We see the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, after testing positive for the coronavirus, become the butt of national condemnation for not knowing where to go for care as the Aso Rock Villa clinic does not have necessary equipment in spite of the voting of humongous funds to it every year. Besides, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, asked Nigerians to pray for his son who also tested positive for the virus as he got quarantined in the Gwagwalada General Hospital that we all know is ill-equipped. It is not just that the leaders and their families are the one importing the coronavirus into the country, they are unfortunately met with unsafe and underfunded health facilities in the country which of course is the result of their own insensitivity and lack of proper vision.

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And if we think that Nigerian leaders would have learnt something from the unfortunate situation in which they find themselves with the coronavirus pandemic and become chastened, we would be missing the depth of the insensitivity of this class of leaders. One would think that Nigerian leaders would be very apologetic about their mediocre leadership and strive to turn a new leaf by seizing the opportunity of the current pandemic to focus on how to provide concrete and effective infrastructure going forward. But no, what we witnessed is Folorunso Alakija, the richest female Nigerian, espousing divine declaration on coronavirus, until Nigerians attacked her and told her that billionaires in other climes were using their resources to provide needed facilities and equipments to combat the pandemic before she elected to join other billionaires in the country to commit to donating to the special funds for the coronavirus. And even when the billionaire club in Nigeria decided to pledge toward the Coronavirus Special Funds, members were more concerned about letting Nigerians know about their contributions rather than simply doing what is right. In this regard, we had the report that representatives of the billionaire club visited President Muhammadu Buhari to tell him about their donations and ended up having a photo-op with the President. And here the depth of the lack of vision and knowledge of even the billionaire class was on full display: while the admonition everywhere in the world is to observe social distancing as a way of checking the rate of spread of the coronavirus, here we see the highest elements of the Nigerian leadership, the President and his billionaire visitors, relishing telling us that social distancing is not for them!

John Maxwell succinctly captures it best, ‘A leader is the one, who knows the way, goes the way and show the way’. The truth is that across all levels, Nigerian leaders are simply ill-equipped to provide qualitative leadership. Good and quality leadership is predicated on superb vision and great examples, but here we have in Nigeria a leadership that is prostrate and unable to inspire any positive reworking of values since the leaders themselves are bereft of values. Even under the current emergency where they are pretending to be interested in the collective and ostensibly churning out policies to cater to the interests of all, they have been exposed as utterly selfish, bereft of vision and lacking in inspiring examples. Nigerians have a duty to keep exposing and focusing on the shenanigans of their leaders if they are to have the chance of pricking them to change their ways. And this is one one positive unintended outgrowth of the coronavirus pandemic that we must seize on to further expose the limitations and deficiencies of the Nigerian leadership if only to show that there is more to leadership than the pretense we have at the moment in Nigeria.

• Yakubu is of the Department of Mass Communication, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria.