Opinion | 20²3 Election : A Leader with Age of Ideas We Need, Not Biological one : Beware !

By Inah Stephen E, Columnist @Koginfo

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A nation that shares no heroes will not long be a nation. And a democracy that demands blind devotion to heroes will not long be a democracy. 

The problem with Nigerian leaders is not their biological age. It is the age of their ideas. In the United States, Bill Clinton became President at 47. President Barack Obama at 48. But after Obama, Americans elected Donald Trump, a 71-year old man. Current President Joe Biden came into office at 78.

We need a mixture of every demographic category to move Nigeria forward from the old order to a new place. It is time for Nigeria and Nigerian to shun psychosocial “moratorium”—a stage in which we hover “between the morality learned by the child and the ethics to be developed by the adult.” For how long shall we continue to experiment our democracy and peace of the country ?.  The moratorium is a period of trial and error that society allows doubt, exuberant lifestyle, infant or  adolescents politics , which are permitted to take risks without fear of consequence, in hopes that doing so will clarify a “core self—a personal sense of what gives life meaning.”

 The Internet interrupts the privacy of this era particularly the digital media; it tends to scale up mistakes to monumental proportions, and to put them on our permanent records of bad leadership.

 The Electorates, statesmen and statutory delegates  now look at social-media accounts for evidence of character of a leader to choose for 2023 presidency. 

What are the ramifications when an entire generation never gets the chance to experiment freely or to remake themselves?. There is nothing wrong in experimenting leaders for a period of time but not all the time. Steve Jobs famously said, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” As much as we use anecdotal prescription (2023 president must be Youth) to inform our leaders and leadership experimentation, it’s important not to rely on it  exclusively, as it can mislead us if it’s not weighted correctly.