A call for peaceful elections, responsible citizenship and leadership that delivers

(Continued from last edition)

The commonwealth is a sacred trust

The word commonwealth contains a philosophy: the wealth held in common. Nigeria’s oil, gas, minerals, taxes, public lands, institutions and collective opportunities do not belong to the government of the day. They belong to present and future generations. Leaders are managers of a trust whose beneficiaries include citizens not yet born. To waste public resources is therefore more than financial carelessness; it is an injustice against both the living and the unborn.

Good governance begins with this moral understanding of stewardship. Public money must be budgeted transparently, spent prudently and accounted for rigorously. Procurement must deliver value rather than political reward. Borrowing must finance productive assets and human development, not vanity or recurrent extravagance. Leakages that appear as numbers in audit reports translate into medicines not purchased, classrooms not repaired, roads not completed, jobs not created and lives not protected.

Nigeria does not suffer only from scarcity. It also suffers from choices—what we prioritise, what we tolerate and what we fail to measure. Even abundant resources become insufficient when waste is institutionalised. Conversely, disciplined leadership can multiply limited resources through sound planning, competent execution and public trust. The difference between nations is often not what they possess beneath the ground, but what their institutions and leaders build above it.

Those seeking office should therefore tell Nigerians how they will manage the commonwealth. Manifestos must move beyond attractive aspirations to priorities, costs, timelines, responsible institutions and indicators of success. Citizens should be able to ask, after one hundred days, one year and four years: what was promised, what was funded, what was completed, what changed and why? Accountability becomes meaningful when promises can be measured.

Democratic dividends must be visible in ordinary lives

Democracy cannot live permanently on the glory of elections. Its legitimacy is renewed daily through service. The dividend of democracy is not the number of political appointments made, convoys purchased or ceremonies conducted. It is the practical improvement that citizens experience: safer streets, reliable electricity, passable roads, functional schools, accessible healthcare, clean water, dignified employment, fair taxation and justice that does not depend on status.

The constitutional declaration that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government provides a simple but demanding standard. Government exists for the governed. Economic growth that never reaches households is incomplete. Infrastructure that is announced but not completed is not a dividend. Policies may require sacrifice, but leaders who ask citizens to endure hardship must demonstrate competence, fairness and personal restraint. Sacrifice loses legitimacy when it is demanded from the many while privilege expands for the few.

Nigeria needs governments that understand implementation. Our shelves are crowded with policies and development plans; the deficit is often continuity, coordination and execution. Vision without implementation is an elegant dream. Activity without direction is expensive motion. Effective leadership joins purpose to priorities, priorities to budgets, budgets to capable people and capable people to measurable results.

The dividends of democracy must also reach beyond capital cities. A country is not transformed when islands of privilege are surrounded by oceans of neglect. Local government matters because citizens encounter the state most directly through primary schools, health centres, sanitation, rural roads, markets, water systems and community security. Bringing accountable power and resources closer to the people can make democracy tangible, provided local institutions are transparent and citizens remain watchful.

The leadership Nigeria requires

Election seasons encourage leaders to speak about what people want to hear. Nation-building requires leaders who can also explain what people need to understand. Visionary leadership sees beyond the next election to the next generation. It anticipates threats, recognises opportunities and mobilises citizens around a future larger than partisan survival.

But vision alone is insufficient. Nigeria needs effective leadership: leadership that selects competent people, sets clear goals, coordinates institutions, makes evidence-based decisions, communicates honestly and corrects mistakes quickly. It needs ethical leadership that recognises limits, avoids conflicts of interest and treats public power as responsibility rather than entitlement. It needs compassionate leadership that sees statistics as human beings and understands that every policy has consequences at the kitchen table.

We also need leaders who unite. Unity does not require uniformity; it requires fairness, belonging and confidence that no group must diminish for another to rise. Appointments should reflect inclusion without sacrificing merit. Development should be balanced without being wastefully duplicated. National language should calm rather than inflame. A president or governor is not the leader only of those who voted for him or her. Victory transfers a candidate from the camp of a party to the service of the whole polity.

Those who lose also have a patriotic role. They should pursue legitimate complaints firmly but peacefully, congratulate fairly when the process is credible, and provide a vigilant, constructive opposition thereafter. Democracy is weakened when winners attempt to silence all criticism, but it is equally weakened when losers seek to make the country ungovernable. Opposition should expose failure, propose alternatives and defend institutions—not merely wait for misfortune that can be converted into political advantage.

The responsibilities do not end when voting closes

Too often, Nigerian citizenship becomes intense during campaigns and retreats after inauguration. Yet democracy is not a four-year festival; it is a continuous relationship of delegated power and public scrutiny. After the votes are counted, citizens must track budgets, attend community meetings, demand reports, use freedom-of-information mechanisms, support credible civil society and insist that legislators represent rather than merely visit their constituencies.

Professional associations, universities, businesses, trade unions, religious bodies and the media should establish nonpartisan platforms for monitoring campaign commitments. Governance should be discussed with facts, not only with sentiment. Where governments perform, society should acknowledge progress; where they fail, criticism should be specific, evidence-based and persistent. Accountability is strongest when it is fair enough to command moral authority.

The private sector and professional class must reject the habit of condemning corruption publicly while facilitating it privately. Contractors who inflate invoices, professionals who certify defective work, businesses that evade lawful obligations and citizens who offer bribes all feed the same system they blame. National renewal cannot be outsourced entirely to elected officials. Leadership sets the tone, but society supplies many of the habits from which government is formed.

Let Nigeria be the ultimate winner

As the campaigns gather momentum, candidates will promise rescue, renewal, restoration and hope. Nigerians should listen, question, compare and decide. But we must remember that no politician is a messiah and no party has a monopoly on patriotism. Institutions are more enduring than personalities; national interest is larger than any ambition; and peace is the ground upon which every other achievement must stand.

Let candidates campaign as competitors, not conquerors. Let supporters argue without hatred. Let election officials act with competence and courage. Let security agencies protect without prejudice. Let judges decide without fear or favour. Let the media inform without inflaming. Let citizens vote according to conscience rather than coercion, inducement or inherited prejudice.

And when winners emerge, let them understand that celebration must quickly give way to service. The true certificate of return is not merely the document issued after collation; it is the trust conferred by millions of people. The true victory parade is a child returning safely from a good school, a patient receiving competent care, a farmer reaching the market, a graduate finding productive work, a business operating with power, and a family living without fear of hunger or violence.

Elections determine who holds office. Governance determines whether that choice becomes a blessing. History will not be impressed by the noise of our campaigns if the silence of abandoned hopes follows. The coming polls must therefore mark more than another transfer or renewal of authority. They should become a covenant: that political competition will not destroy national community; that public wealth will be managed for the public good; that leadership will be judged by results; and that democracy will finally be felt in the dignity of ordinary lives.

Parties will win and lose. Candidates will rise and fall. Power will pass, as all power eventually does. Nigeria must remain. Nigeria must heal. Nigeria must work. Above every slogan, ambition and affiliation, let this be our common declaration: in the election ahead, let peace prevail, let the people’s will count, let good governance follow—and let Nigeria be the ultimate win

By Pharm. (Dr)  Lolu Ojo, BPharm, MBA, PharmD, FPCPharm, FPSN, FNAPharm