A few days ago, while scrolling through Instagram, I came across a video that has refused to leave my mind. It was the inauguration ceremony of a university’s Student Union Government President and what caught my attention was not the inauguration ooo… Student leadership should indeed be celebrated, in fact, leadership at every level deserves honour and respect but it was everything surrounding it, a convoy of about ten exotic cars, political-style fanfare, the grand entrance, the symbolism of status. For a moment, I paused. I honestly couldn’t tell whether I was surprised, disappointed, worried or perhaps all three at once because as I watched, one question kept echoing in my mind “If this is what leadership already looks like at the undergraduate level, what exactly will it become twenty years from now when these same young people hold real political power?” As in, them occupying the offices of governors, ministers, legislators and presidents?
There is a common saying that tomorrow belongs to today’s young people, that is true. But tomorrow’s leaders are not created tomorrow, they are being shaped today. Leadership is not something people suddenly discover after winning elections, it is built gradually through values, habits, incentives, role models and repeated behaviours. Every generation learns what leadership means by watching those ahead of them and by observing what society celebrates.
Which raises an uncomfortable question, what future are we actually preparing? Exactly what are today’s young people learning from today’s leaders?
For over twenty years, my life’s work in the nonprofit has centered on developing leaders, individuals capable of building families, organisations, communities and nations through values, responsibility and service. So, I could not ignore the implications because leadership is never simply about occupying an office, titles, or position, but actually about first becoming a certain kind of person…and becoming, begins long before power arrives.
One lesson has become increasingly clear, people rarely become different simply because they acquire more authority. Power rarely changes character, more often, power reveals and amplifies what already exists.
A student leader who associates leadership with status may become a politician who governs through prestige. A student leader who learns that influence is demonstrated through convoy size may later measure success by the length of official motorcades. Someone who begins to enjoy excessive protocol at twenty or twenty-two may not suddenly embrace servant leadership at forty-five or thereabout because the seeds were planted early, and so power merely waters them.
Leadership culture is not created by politicians or leaders alone, it is created collectively by parents, schools, religious institutions, media, and all of us. Leadership is caught before it is taught. The culture we celebrate becomes the leadership we produce. Every society teaches leadership not only through classrooms but through applause. Whatever receives applause becomes aspiration. If we celebrate flamboyance and celebrate wealth without questioning its source, young people will pursue wealth and flamboyance at any cost. If we celebrate office more than service, young people pursue positions rather than purpose. If prestige earns more admiration than performance, prestige becomes the goal. Culture is constantly teaching, even when nobody is speaking.
This is where I believe Nigeria faces one of its greatest leadership contradictions. We constantly pray for humble leaders, we ask for servant leadership, we desire accountable public officials. We criticise abuse of office yet we also celebrate the very behaviours that eventually produce these outcomes. We admire unnecessary displays of power, we cheer extravagant political entrances, we associate importance with visible luxury and quietly normalise symbols of superiority.
Then, years later, we wonder why public office has become a platform for privilege rather than responsibility, isn’t it obvious that we perhaps might have spent years teaching exactly that.
I am not suggesting that leaders should not be respected, respect is important, honour matters and I agree that ceremony has its place but then there is an important distinction between honour and spectacle, between dignity and extravagance, between respect and ostentation. True leadership legitimacy comes from service, its authority comes from trust, its influence comes from character and its credibility comes from results.
The greatest leaders in history are remembered less for the size of their convoys than for the size of their contributions and the lasting positive impact they made.
Student government should be one of the most important leadership classrooms in society. Universities should be laboratories of leadership that should teach how to build consensus, solve problems, how to serve and lead ethically in order to produce leaders whose understanding of power is rooted in service, responsibility rather than privilege. Instead, if student politics increasingly becomes a rehearsal for political pageantry, then we may unintentionally be institutionalising the wrong lessons.
My Thoughts,
Atinuke Odjenima
Transformational Growth Catalyst
….love is all I have
