In every human endeavour, the type of leadership that is available often determines what measure of success or failure that is achieved. This principle applies equally to the family, businesses, the nation, e.t.
c.One of the most glaring problems in the world today is incompetent leadership. It has accounted for the decline/collapse of previously powerful giant monopolies.
In the developing countries of the world, incompetent or mediocre leadership is the major bane of these societies. Thus, even when you have huge human and material resources on ground, at the end of the day, little real progress can be shown for it.Take Nigeria for example. With a huge natural market of over 100 million people as well as abundant oil and agricultural resources, this nation cannot yet provide food, basic primary education, electricity or adequate health facilities for her citizens. As if to highlight the inadequacies of leadership, the foremost oil-producing nation in Black Africa has no single functioning oil refinery!.Contrast this with the situation of smaller nations with more modest resources, such as Denmark and the Netherlands whose citizens live comfortably.
Even in Biblical times, Leadership has been God's strategy in taking a society forward. This is why God laid great emphasis on the kind of leadership Abraham offered his household. In Genesis 18:17-19, He said: "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do; seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgement; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him".If you are looking for further proof of the unique leverage that leadership provides, you check the story of Saul and Jonathan in 1 Samuel chapters 14 and 15. Under Saul's incompetent leadership, the army of Israel was hiding in caves and thickets and in rocks, and in high places and in pits. But by the time you come to the next chapter under Jonathan's bold and accurate leadership, this same people came out of hiding to inflict a decisive defeat upon the enemy.
In the midst of a terrible shipwreck and hopelessness, Apostle Paul offered creative and effective leadership to the men on board the ship, which salvaged the lives of the entire crew and passengers and brought them ashore safely (Acts 27).In this end-time, as nations reel like drunken men from the staggering effects of one crisis after another, what manner of men can salvage the nations and take them forward? These times require men of a particular calibre: those who have the fear of God, the wisdom of God and have compassion for people. Men like Joseph who will understand and interprete Pharaoh's dreams, build necessary structures to secure the harvest and thereby prevent a catastrophic famine instead of hoarding grain to become overnight billionaires.
Men like Nehemiah who are willing to leave the privileges of the king's palace to help re-build the desolate walls while not pre-occupying themselves with filthy lucre. Men like Moses who ".esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt".In times like this, God give us such men.
.Olumuyiwa Adebanjo is a Christian lawyer, political activist and author http://www.ryze.com/go/Tirshatha. His profile is as follows:.1.
State Secretary, National Union of Public Corporations Employees (N.U.P.C.E) Lagos State, Nigeria.
1988-1990.2. Senatorial Candidate of the National Conscience Party (N.C.
P) for Lagos East Senatorial Constituency in the 2003 General Elections in Nigeria.3. President; Nehemiah Resource Centre, Lagos, Nigeria.
4. Principal Counsel in the solicitors' firm of Olumuyiwa Adebanjo & Co. (Shekinah Chambers), Lagos, Nigeria.
By: Olumuyiwa Adebanjo