THE LEADER (9): Reform and Lead for Posterity

Matthew Ujah-Peter

When I was a boy growing up I listened to good and well-meaning people talking about leaving one’s foot prints on the sands of time. But as thought-provoking as that idea may sound, it often left question marks in my head. The amusing question that popped in my head in those days and even now when I hear such statements (and people use it profusely today than ever) is, ''don't sands get washed away by rains and winds?'' In my own estimate, sands aren’t always good materials to build lasting investments on, especially when it has something to do with posterity. So I preferred saying that I'd like to carve my name on the rocks of times. That sounded more concrete to me. But that was then.

The point is not about carving one’s name on stones or leaving ones footsteps on the sands of times. Those are by-products. Those aren’t what you seek. Those aren’t even the end-results. The quest to make life comfortable for oneself and family is a honourable one but also an easy route to becoming self-centred and missing the path that leads to creating a lasting legacy beyond the boundaries of private achievements.

When Henry Ford ventured into mass production of the T-Model Ford cars he wasn't about it for just himself, otherwise the face of the automobile industry would have been a little different today. His aim for mass production of cheap affordable cars was to make sure that everyone can afford cars. He put a program in place for his staffs to own their own cars at the time when owning a car was the exclusive privilege of the few wealthy upper class citizens in his country. By making it easy for the ordinary man to own a car, he created the catalyst for infrastructural development such as roads, fuel stations, more mechanic workshops and service stations, etc. The commercial and economic life of his city and nation began to improve on the account of those amenities. With improved infrastructures social amenities improved, villages developed into towns, and towns into cities.

The men who first thought of mass-producing shoes and clothing; those who thought of mass housing, those who first thought of electricity in every home; those who first came up with the idea of connecting telephone to every home, gas to every home, television and radio for every home and so on - whether their names are known and remembered or not - are the ones who helped in making life more easier to live today. These are people who thought of the good of others.

If our desires and thoughts are focused on helping to make life better for others, Providence would give us life-saving ideas. But what we do from ancient generation to date is to use what we have to dominate, exploit and oppress others. This is why despite our huge reserves of natural resources; Africa is still impoverished and struggling. Yet a country whose population is no more than one of the smallest African countries with little or no natural resources could come into our midst and take our men and women slaves to their country and colonize the rest of us for years. African is rich in resources and culture; strong in body, numerous in numbers but weak against a nation as small in population as the Great Britain. The British didn’t colonize us because they’re more in number; it was because we didn’t value our fellow men's lives. And do we today?

How were they able to buy slaves from Africa? You could argue that that was the past and that we should put the past behind us. So I used to think. But as I observed our leadership system and the general condition of the continent with all the educational institutions, educationists and educated people, I fear we have not learned much. Let’s assume that there’s no law against slavery today in the west, do you think our people and our leaders would stop slave trade with the way things are today? You could argue that the ones that bought slaves were guilty. Granted! But what value did we place on ourselves to tell outsiders that we weren’t for sale?

Africans weren’t the only people colonized by the British. America was, too. So were India and other nations. But I never read or heard these sold their own kinds to the British as slaves as we did. Prior to their coming we were killing our twins, calling them bad omens. We were sacrificing our fellow men to deities. We were and are still calling some people outcasts. Some people pride themselves in the culture of burying certain dead in the evil forest. Thus we gave the West the impression that we are inferior humans by the inhuman ways we treated ourselves

They were the ones who stopped slave-trade on their own, not us. We did not stop selling, they stopped buying. They made a law against it in their own land. Mary Slessor went on a crusade and successfully stopped the killing of twins. Missionary introduced schools and hospitals. And all we could say to that is that they brought foreign religion and supplanted our culture and religion. Some people tenaciously held on to the old degrading ways. Yet we haven’t given ourselves any better systems. The Chinese gave themselves an educational system that experts says helped the Chinese learn mathematics better and faster than even the western system. The Indians too, have gone ahead to fashion out better systems for themselves. We have not given ourselves anything better than the west gave us. Not even the way we govern ourselves.

Why is it so with them and not so with us? I think it’s the eye they have for values. Their value system gave them their economic systems. The price they place on human being is the result of the worth they believe humans have. When you value human being you will want to do the best for them. So, it is not a question of whether you are remembered. No. It’s about solving human problems with the investment of your abilities, gifts and skills on the bases of what you think people are worth. When you are dead you will still live. When you are gone you will still be here. It’s not about fame or name. It’s about your good work born out of a desire to meet humanity's need. This is how great leaders outlived themselves: They carved their names on the hearts of men.

MAXIMUM RESPECT!