Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, a prominent man of God who superintends Trinity House, a non-denominational Christian fellowship centre. He is also the founder, African Leadership, a platform which seeks to informs and finds solutions to the leadership problems plaguing Nigeria. In this interview, he talks about the ingredients that a good leader must possess, U.S. alleged Christian genocide and threat, why younger people like Adewole Adebayo and others should be prominent in power. Excerpts:
You have a platform for discussing leadership traits that can benefit government and governance. What inspired its formation?
The African Leadership Group, ALG, that’s what it is called under the auspices of the Tri-Africa Foundation, is our response to trying to solve three or four issues in Nigeria and Africa. Number one, what are the people’s thoughts on an effective and efficient society?
Two; how do we resolve our leadership question and get the right leaders? Three; how do we better inform the people about what is going on around them? And number four; how do we identify leadership potential and potential leaders. That’s what the African Leadership Group is set up to do. It does that through about three or four different kinds of activities.
The first activity is the discussion that we have once a week where we identify people who speak on the subject matter that we have identified in terms of leadership. We do this through this conversation and that conversation, informs and identifies potential leaders and advises leadership.
Two; we have some town hall meetings where we go around the whole world educating Africans and Africans in the Diaspora about what the situation is.
Three; we have some trainings in the school of leadership and development. And also the community impact activities that we do. Then, we have a fund, Hope Alive Fund that we use in empowering indigent people who qualify.
Adewole Adebayo, Peter Obi were some of your guests on the platform. What is your assessment of their grasp of the issues affecting the country, and do you think they have the capacity to lead?
I think both Peter Obi and and Adewole Adebayo have the capacity and the knowledge and the determination to lead the country. I think they do. Peter Obi is not even young anymore. He’s 64. That’s not a young man. Maybe relative to what we’ve experienced in Nigeria, he may look young. But 64 is not young.
Adewole Adebayo is 53 years, he is young. He has the energy and the strength and the knowledge. What he probably may not have is the wide bandwidth. You know, the wide bandwidth of interrelationships and connections. But that is what a party system does for you.
If for example, he was in a party that was a broad-based party, a strong party, they will make up for his lack of bandwidth and they will pull the party together and promote him as a good candidate.
Adebayo speaks very well. He’s very knowledgeable. Although I have not tested his capacity to implement things. But in terms of his knowledge, his enthusiasm, and his roadmap, he does.
Peter Obi is another individual with a huge followership. What is your opinion of him?
A.Peter Obi has the added advantage that he has been tested before as a governor in Anambra State. He claims that he left a very good record there. He did very well. When you talk to the people of the state, they’re in two opinions. Some think he did well, some think he could have done better.
But also he’s a hard-working man. He has the reputation of being frugal, a good manager of money and so and so forth. I think he would have done a decent job as the president of Nigeria if he were president.
But I still think that in Nigeria, we’re still looking for that man who has the capacity, wherewithal, compassion, determination, who has the energy, and who has the love for Nigeria, genuine and sincere love for Nigeria that really wants to turn Nigeria around.
Younger person, a person with energy, you know with some level of maturity. So you can’t be too young. I think a person between the ages of 45 and 65 should be able to do this job. I think there is need for some maturity.
What does it really take to effectively govern Nigeria?
The person must understand the history of Nigeria, the background of Nigeria, the formation of Nigeria, the different tribes and persons, and their complexities, and their interests, the religions of Nigeria. You must be a very accommodating person. Very honest, corruption-free, hard-working. Must be a visionary, who sees a great future for Nigeria. Must be bold. Have the capacity for international relations and interconnections. And you must be determined to see Nigeria work. You must not be a greedy, selfish, self-oriented person, which is the unfortunate lot of our leaders today. They’re more interested in themselves and what they want to do for themselves and not in the collective good of the average Nigerian.
Nigeria and leadership challenge. What’s the way out?
There’s a way out. We are just in a moment in time. We don’t know what’s going to happen in 30 years’ time, 40 years’ time, 50 years’ time. Nigeria is evolving and definitely there is a way out. Right now we have even a new crop of young Nigerians below 20, below 25. Their thinking is different. In another 30 40 years, they’ll be the ones in leadership. They will be able to clear us out. This cannot continue.
But what I think for the present time, what we need to do is one; educate Nigerians. A lot of people get away with what they do in Nigeria because a lot of people are not informed. They’re not educated. They don’t know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. So, if you educate Nigerians and get them informed, they’ll be able to take a much stronger stake in in their well-being and in their production.
The second is that by divine providence, something can happen that can put somebody of reasonable quality and depth in leadership in Nigeria. And it has happened before. At least three or four times. Divine providence brought in Obasanjo his first time. He was second to Murtala Muhammed, unfortunately, Muhammed who was also a great leader, lost his life and that made Obasanjo becoming president, it was divine providence. God brought him again the second time. The second time around, it was Abiola that was running for presidency. Between Babangida and Abacha, they prevented Abiola from claiming his mandate.
Then all of a sudden, Abacha died, Abiola died, and again, we brought in Abdul Salam. Because divine providence that brought in Abdul Salam who for fear of his life and international community in about 11 months conducted an election and divine providence also brought Obasanjo out of prison with no money to become president of Nigeria.
This is probably divine providence. A lot of things are providential, and then somehow God can also make that happen again. Divine providence made Jonathan president.
And that’s why prayer is important. Calling upon the name of the Lord is important. Everybody who’s thinking that people are wasting their time praying, they don’t know that God walks through a process.
You mean Nigeria is not doing bad despite economy challenges, perceived genocide against Christians, terrorist having free rein in the country?
Well, there’s a lot of poverty in Nigeria. But thank God, it’s not at the level of starvation. There’s some countries today where there’s a whole lot of starvation. You can’t live in Gaza right now. There are some parts of Lebanon you can’t leave in. You can’t go to Southern Sudan. It’s terrible. And there’s some parts of South Africa with black people living there that is really horrible.
But in Nigeria, there is a lot of resilience and people still keep coping. Lives are wasted, no doubt. People are hungry, no doubt. But people keep going and keep going. So, I’m even grateful to God that we are not at the point of war or the point of starvation where we experience disease outbreak, or kwashiorkor. That gives us a lot of energy and a lot of hope and a lot of potential. There’s nobody in Nigeria that cannot be productive.
And on insecurity?
To the insecurity, it’s all politics. some people are using religion and and banditry and destruction of people to play politics, to make places ungovernable for people, to make some people lose elections, to make some people look bad in terms of governance. That is part of the origin.
Then some people are insisting that unless they have power in one way or the other, then they will continue to ferment this crisis and make Nigeria look terrible until they are in power.
The third is that some people are misled in terms of their religion thinking that this is the right thing to do, but some people know the right thing, but they are deliberately misleading them and getting them to cause this havoc. But the most painful thing now is that people are making money from it. People are making money on both sides, the bandits are making a lot of money. They have never seen that kind of money before. Then, the people sponsoring them are making money and then the people who are supposed to capture them, some of the leaders in security forces are making money. They’re doing their best to make sure that they sabotage the process. It is going to take a lot of determination. It will take very sincere leader, determined and objective leader to change this scenario.
The United States has designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” due to religious freedom issues. What are the implications of this, and what is your take on the speculation about the US government intervening in Nigeria over perceived genocide against Christians?
The first effect is what it is having now. Our government is waking up and getting a bit anxious that America is putting their eyes on them. That’s the first effect. The second effect is that America has told the whole world that I am interested in Nigeria. There’s not been a time in our history that America has shown so much interest in Nigeria.
The third implication that there are sanctions, against the country and against individuals. There are some people now on what they call a watch list by America. That means that their movement, finances, activity is being watched. And some of them may not be allowed to come into America. Maybe at some stages there’s enough evidence they will track their money and they may confiscate their assets. Okay? If they think that the assets or monies were wrongly obtained here and there, they will confiscate it. So things that they would never have bothered with before they are now bothering with.
And then finally there’s a threat of some kind of military action not to cause a war against Nigeria, at least we haven’t got into that level, but to rescue these people that we have not been able to rescue or to capture the bandits, you know? So there’s that threat. There’s no way that sort of a thing would happen that would not destabilize our own internal security and all of our people.
And the danger with America is that once they start and they begin to taste blood, they don’t stop. They may begin to look for ways of even destabilizing our politics and causing us trouble. They’ve done it before in Afghanistan, Iraq, Southern Sudan, Libya. They removed Gaddafi on a false pretext and or whatever it is.
Any message to Nigerians?
My message to Nigerians as a minister of God is for them to know God and fear Him because the Bible also says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of outstanding things. It’s the beginning of wisdom, it’s the beginning of knowledge. is beginning of being who God wants you to be.
Anybody who fears God will also respect men and treat them well. If Nigerians can fear God and respect men, we’ll have a beautiful Nigeria. What is wrong with Nigeria right now is that not enough people fear God and respect men.
