What We Need

Four short phrases summarize Buhari: He is an incorruptible man. He is a patriotic Nigerian devoid of any trace of ethnicism and parochialism. He is a deeply religious man and a stern disciplinarian. We talk of the giant strides the Asian Tigers have taken to leap from the state of underdevelopment to developed nations. Little do we know or appreciate the agonizing hardship, pains and sufferings all Singaporeans, Chinese, Malays, Indians and other ethnic nationalities, had to endure for Singapore to attain its present height as a respected nation. Gold must be smelted in hot burning furnaces before unleashing its shine and purity.

Lee Kuan Yew was a benevolent democratic autocrat. He subjected his people to a good dose of rigorous healthy discipline. No country makes the kind of progress Singapore made without an unwavering sense of disciplined direction. Moreover, Lee Kuan Yew was an inspirational leader of his people. He governed by example.

It is not just the question of the number of kilometers of roads you build that elevates a nation. It is not a matter of the megawatts of power you generate or the number of buildings you erect for the populace; not even the refineries you build or the volume of agricultural products produced and exported. These are important. Any leader surrounded by brilliant experts, excellent technocrats and loyal advisers can achieve those basic and essential needs. Leadership calls for much greater attributes than the performance of those feats. A leader must have a strong, solid, moral and disciplined background, the inspirational ability to galvanize his people to higher, lofty and common purpose. These are not ordinary attributes available to every man. They are uncommon gifts and talents dispensed and bestowed only to a few. This makes the difference between one man and the other.

It is only a pity that fate thrust Buhari into the leadership limelight at a period in time when military revolution and coup d’états were in vogue. In a democratic setting as we have now, I believe that the real worth and essence of this man, encapsulated in an exemplary and enigmatic personal life, will blaze through and shine forth. It will soon be clear that those of his followers of questionable and dubious pedigree who think they can latch on to the reputation of this rare Nigerian would be the first to be highly disappointed.

I also believe that what is badly needed at this stage of our national development is a leadership that will turn the country round and rescue us from the depth of chronic indiscipline, disorder and decadence we have over the years, gradually descended and then slipped into. What I believe we need is a strong hand at the helm, with the support of our people, who will instill in us a much needed sense of order and discipline; inspire us into patriotic zeal and sacrifice; bring out the best in each and every one of us and encourage in us the love of Nation.

Buhari represents, in my opinion, the last opportunity we have to get it right. He should be given the chance to restore and consolidate the disappearing values of that golden age, so sadly disrupted by the military to which paradoxically and tragically, he and those in that generation and those before him were willy nilly pressed into being a part of. He carries on his frail ageing but reliable shoulders a historic responsibility and burden of getting it right. He has a duty to realign the nation towards achieving its manifest destiny. He has no excuses for failure. Otherwise why should he be seeking power at his age? History will judge him very harshly should he fail.

The immediate challenge before him is how to curb the excesses of the teaming masses of followers who undoubtedly adore him. The next is to rein in the display of empty, hollow pompousness and offensive arrogance by a few of his elitist, lazy patronage seeking associates, who if victorious will flock to him without discrimination.

I think it is time for us to begin anew. We should start to live as normal human beings and not in self-delusion and self-deceit. This is the real transformation needed. This is the revolution we yearn for at this time in our national life. One now understands what drove past Chinese leaders into staging the “cultural revolution”. Nigeria is ripe for a non-violent revolution, which will shake us up like a volcanic eruption from our present national stupor and sweep out the quacks and charlatans from our midst.

What we need is to get out there and March (28) for Buhari.

WHEN TRUST IS LOST

We Nigerians should have had enough by now! We are at a place where politicians exist, purely because they exist; purely because there is scope for them in our constitution. I am sure that whoever fashioned this system of government did not intend for the 3 arms to government to be a cancer to us, to our freedoms, to our security and to our prosperity. I am quite sure that the opposite was intended. But look at us, look where we are, we have been so ravaged by bad leadership that the connotative word for ‘politician’ is ‘deceit.’

We slide down a slippery slope to anarchy when, apart from breaking promises of delivery, leaders start to toy with our rights to give them a scorecard on performance, by not keeping to a timetable as ascribed by them, by whom I mean the federal government, INEC, the PDP. This highlights the impunity with which these same promises are broken. The very mandate, which elevated them to power, is what they toy with, for their own selfish interests. It is a disgrace. They are beneficiaries of our democracy and should defend it with their lives and not abuse the trust that we had given them.

INEC chairman, Attahiru Jega, the man in the eye of the storm, is a personality. He is not INEC. We must build institutions. This body must be independent and apolitical. The pressure that has been brought to bear on that institution is a further indictment on the ruling party, and the president’s utterances that he was not consulted in this mess, shows how weak a captain he is in steering this ship to calm waters. INEC was bullied into postponing the elections by the combined forces of the Presidency, the NSA, the PDP and the military. This is unfortunate.

The PDP have gone from telling us that General Buhari did not go to school to alleging that more PVCs have been distributed in the north than in the south. They should however not forget that the whole country, including the North, voted overwhelmingly for President Jonathan in 2011. What has changed? A failure to deliver on the promises made. They have themselves to blame, so they should look inwards and hang their heads in shame, roll up those sleeves and look hard at what they got wrong this time. Bringing in orators like the forked tongued Fani Kayode as spokesman only exposes their desperation to hold on to power by any means possible. They would do well to be wary of the fragility of our democracy in bringing in the army into matters that do not concern them. They should reverse acts and understand that the country is bigger than they are and we all have a right to choose, whoever we feel. After all, we did choose Mr. President in 2011. That is democracy.

6 weeks to salvage the north east? This is the same region that the PDP is claiming has received more voters’ cards than the south. This is the segment of the country that has suffered most in the PDPs hands, why are they so suddenly concerned about their right to vote? We have refugees in Niger, Chad and Cameroun. They have lost their homes and livelihoods. They have lost their kith and kin. It is most unlikely they will vote for a PDP led government. Bakassi in Cross River State where we have the IDPs in the south have suddenly also come to the fore. They are suddenly important, I wonder why. Do they want to practice stomach infrastructure there too! Highlighting these areas only serves to highlight to us how much the ruling party has failed us.

When in 2011, the president was widely voted into power with a breath of fresh air, there was no issue of North, South, East or West.  He secured as much votes in the North as he did in the East. But this time around, desperation is blurring his vision of One Nigeria.  What we are concerned with is who is Boko Haram and how do we rid ourselves of this resident evil. Why is our economy suffering and what have you done with our external reserves? They have been mismanaged and we only see private jets on our tarmac as we watch ourselves getting weaker and poorer.  

We should however not despair. I am particularly impressed by how we have composed ourselves with dignity. We refuse to lose faith and have made calls for only peaceful assembly. Here on a platter of gold is the opposition’s opportunity to show true leadership by eschewing violence and not reacting negatively to anything that is thrown at them. As for the naysayers of our democratic process, March 28 will soon be here. 

AMERICA’S VISA THREAT

When the United States of America’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, threatened that masterminds of election violence would be denied visas to America, I was caught between laughing and crying. I really felt embarrassed that this was the best that they could do. I suppose it is not their place to threaten us with the ICC, as they have not signed up to it. More importantly, he succeeded in highlighting to us how charity does not start at home over here, as our politician’s playground is overseas and the only way to punish them is to threaten like one would do with little children, “if you fight, I shall not give you sweet.”

We really should hearken to the advise of our erstwhile Finance Minister, that we should cut down on foreign trips. Mr. Kerry exposed our leaders’ love for foreign travel where they can conveniently spend and stack their looted funds in banks and on premium properties abroad. He understands that denying them this visa is like snatching “akara” from a toddler.

A Yoruba adage says a deity who cannot improve one’s lot should at least not compound it. I listened to the KOWA Party presidential candidate, Prof. Oluremi Sonaiya, making her case during the signing of the Abuja Peace Accord. The wonderful woman chastised the audience for washing our dirty linen in the presence of Western observers. We were behaving like children; our presidential candidates were called together to sign a treaty that they and their supporters would not resort to violence. But we hear calls to violence daily. Supposed elder statesmen like Edwin Clark, Walter Ofonagoro and thugs like Tompolo and Asari-Dokubo are swearing fire and brimstone if their son, the president, does not win the election. Are we in a democracy and why is the president answering such incendiary utterances with silence?

It is not a co-incidence that while Kerry was prescribing his hilarious visa punishment; President Barack Obama was in India to attend the country’s Republican Day celebrations. The photo-ops and body language of Obama and the Indian Prime Minister show America’s diplomatic directions. We really are the worlds circus and they would all be laughing if people were not dying daily in this country.

The effectiveness of the Chadians and the Cameroonians in combating Boko Haram and protecting the lives and property of their citizens and ours is a spot light on the failure of our leaders to protect us and is a clarion call to the Western powers that we are children who do not understand the folly of our ways and are in capable of understanding the consequences of our selfish actions. We are showing clearly that our leadership is not fit to lead. It is costing us dear and reflects on our diplomatic relationship within and outside our shores.

Meanwhile, colorful political campaigns go on. Thank God, the world is now privy to the ongoing massacre in the North East and watches those who should be rolling up their sleeves and strategizing on how to purge us of this evil, instead dance in half empty stadiums in a show of ill prepared elections which in itself testifies to our unserious immature persona. Less than two weeks to the elections, and INEC has not distributed permanent voter’s card (PVC) to a third of the voting population – that is some 30 million electorate! The PDP, the party in power, is asking that the presidential polls be suspended even though INEC has had 4 years to prepare. I think the questions that we should be asking are: why they are not ready and who is losing his head over the poor show?

An African adage says when a big calamity befalls a giant; hitherto dwarfed challenges would seem insurmountable. We need capacity, we need change. We cannot keep making excuses for poor leadership and roll with the punches anytime something else goes wrong. Our candidates in this election stand, as symbols of a broken political system, which makes all our problems seem even more intractable.

I think it is fair to say that whomever we end up with will preside over a very difficult period in our nation. Much damage has been done to the country in the hands of these same players. My sadness is that I am one of those who do not have PVC but if I did, I would vote for Buhari, as I believe that with his humility and genuine love for Nigeria, he may be able to in the most difficult circumstances, introduce the type of discipline that will save us from fracture. This is not the army, mind you, and he should be prepared to fight a different fight. This time he must deal with politicians.

For those of you who are lucky enough to have that PVC, make sure you go out there and vote for Nigeria.  Politicians and supporters of the PDP and APC should eschew violence during and after the elections.  DO not leave your PVC unclaimed. Travel to get it if you have to; for it is the surest means to end the disappointment and insults that we receive daily by being Nigerians.         

SECURE ECONOMIC COMMONSENSE

It is oft said that commonsense – that intuition to respond in a conventionally ideal way to certain stimuli – is the most uncommon thing in the world. Following the reduction of petroleum pump price from 97 naira to 87 naira per litre, many Nigerians misunderstood it as a political inducement by President Goodluck Jonathan. However, those who understand the dynamics of global oil prices and its economic implications to oil-producing countries are in a better position to educate the general public on how the government is not doing us any favour by reviewing downward the price of petrol.

Great empires and countries are feared and respected for their ability to sustain themselves. In the holy books, records of prudent empires abound. We know for certain that one of the greatest empires of all time, the Roman Empire, had the resources to feed its people and prosecute wars for years, even if the production process was disrupted or earnings dropped. It is ancient practice to store wealth in times of surplus, to save for times of paucity. It is indeed for this reason that sustainability is one of the basic prerequisites for national security. 

It is actually basic math: When oil sold at $110 per barrel, Nigerians were buying subsidized petrol at 97 naira per litre. Now that the same oil is sold at less than $50 (i.e. over 50 percent price drop) we should be buying petrol for somewhere around 48 naira per litre. Even if subsidy is completely removed, a litre of PMS should not sell above 60 naira according to current market trends. However, the contradiction of our situation is that we are an exporting and importing country. We produce crude oil but import refined products because we lack the capacity to refine what we produce and consume.

While other Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) were busy studying the markets and devising stopgap measures to tackle dwindling oil prices, we were depleting our meager foreign reserves and lobbying for our beautiful Petroleum goddess to become OPEC Chairman. From the standpoint of moral appropriateness, isn’t it a shame that Nigeria is presiding over an organization of self-sustained countries while we ourselves import fuel for use? It is a fancy position for the minister, but its futility is exposed when the same OPEC has refused to cut down oil production. This is because they are protecting their future by ensuring that the price is too low for countries that are engaged in fracking to pursue their course.

Saudi authorities said they could sustain their economy for the next 6 years if oil prices slide to 20 dollar per barrel. The country has over $700 billion reserve fund. Other forward-thinking OPEC countries, such as Kuwait and the UAE, are also prepared.

Our economic planners don’t seem to appreciate the significance of sharp revenue loss. We may not all drive cars and motorcycles or run generators, but we all rely on petrol in one way or the other. If the nation’s revenue continues to drop and there are no alternative sources to make up for it, demand for goods and services will drastically reduce and prompt redundancy. Big companies will downsize; many SMEs will pack up. When these happen and poverty levels increase, national security will be threatened. This is why sustainability is a matter of national security. We are already witnessing the effect of this in the NE and government shows its lack of capacity to secure the situation.

Countries whose wealth heavily relies on oil prices, such as the Gulf States, are diversifying their economies. Huge oil consumer-countries, such as USA and China, are seeking alternative ways of sourcing for energy. We, Africa’s largest oil-producing country, are standing by watching the world move away from us. For how long will our less than $40 billion foreign reserves sustain us if prices continue to drop? What plans have we to revamp our decrepit refineries and build new ones so that we can earn more on our exports by selling refined oil and gas, as well as attaining self-sufficiency in local consumption? Commonsense is indeed uncommon! 

 

There are other worries associated with the drop of oil prices. Oil prices are denominated in dollars, and since our economy solely depends on oil, a strengthened dollar indicates a devalued naira; a further source of inflation. Today, our biggest challenge as a nation – insecurity – is proving insurmountable. It will be dangerous to slum into economic recession while fighting insurgency on another front. We simply cannot allow ourselves to get into a situation whereby both battles are fought simultaneously. Already, some trade unions are feeling the impact of the nation’s dwindling income. Judicial and health workers have been on strike since 2014, while colorful and expensive political rallies persist.

   

Successive governments have shown a complete lack of understanding of what is required of them to do. They really do act as if we do not exist and the lack of Permanent Voter’s Card for 30 million of us is just another attempt at perpetuating themselves in power. We cannot agree to this and must insist on INEC producing our birthright. Meanwhile the soil in the NE runs red with the blood of our brethren. This situation requires change and change now.

BETWEEN BAGA AND PARIS

When terrorists attacked Paris, it evoked the most amazing national and international solidarity movement. It was truly heartwarming to see the response of the common man on the street and that of the French government in immediately beefing up their security and hunting down the perpetrators of this evil. They have not stopped there. They, along with the other members of the EU, are already looking to putting in measures to further improve their surveillance of this threat. They have engaged the Muslim and Jewish communities to again look into inclusion, racism, religious tolerance and the Ultra Right. They show clearly that whatever the reasons for what is happening, whatever anybody’s views, they must respond fast in securing the lives of their citizens. This is the primary function of a state.

The news of Boko Haram razing of Baga and the killing 2000 people in its wake filtered in and has crushed my spirit. I use the term “filtered” because if I had not sought the news, I most probably wouldn’t have heard of the harvest of destruction and deaths which took place in Nigeria.

The passive mention of the Baga massacre on BBC’s Outside Source was even justified by the presenter, who reckoned that the difficulty in getting accurate information from Nigeria often reduces the potency of events grabbing the headlines. He is justified; we all know how difficult it is here to get to the bottom of things! Defense spokespersons have put the death toll in Baga at 150 as against 2000 reported and shown by major international media!

However, nothing justifies why 22 deaths were more horrific – and trigger a louder international response – than 2000!!! For too long, the international community has ignored the atrocities going on in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. The people in these areas are terrorized daily; death, destruction, trauma, grief and hardship have become their new normal. Our rulers use their lives as political pawns and show no empathy. Is this who we are?

Countries around the world rallied round France, its government and its people. They attracted 60 world leaders to Paris to stand in solidarity and say no, not in our name.  Is the international community’s response to Nigeria as a result of our own heartlessness at the plight of an “ethnic” group in the North East? 

  

Why has the international community ignored Nigeria? The question is in the answer. My initial thought was that outside the country the extent of the attacks was not fully understood. But that’s just not the case. The simple truth is that we are being ignored because we do not care. Life is cheap here. Presidential candidates of the two major political parties are averaging three states a day campaigning for either “continuity” or “change”. What continuity, what change? We should allow them to have rallies in empty stadiums. We should show them that we do not approve. An African proverb says the owner of a heavy load prompts help by being the first person to lift it.

It took France 52 hours to track down and neutralize their attackers. Here in Nigeria, our security forces have killed the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, three times and still counting! It took weeks before government officially accepted that 200+ girls were abducted from their hostels in Chibok, now they are lying about Baga.

Our president sent words of condolence and solidarity to the French government; we begin to imagine who should feel the sense of loss more. When we should be busy burying our innocent dead, rescuing our abducted citizens, resettling our displaced persons, we are trending #JeSuisCharlie.  An Abuja High Court threw out the case of the mastermind of one of the deadliest attacks –the Nyanya bomb blast – who was arrested on the run by Interpol in Sudan, because infighting among our security agencies resulted in evidence hoarding. I weep. 

When the #BringBackOurGirls campaign brought international attention to our plight, what did our government do? Rather than leverage it and seek global support against terrorism, presidential spokespersons and political bootlickers made the campaigners the President’s enemies. 

      

 We should hearken the advice of John Stuart Mill that, “War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings, which think that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” 

We must dispense with rulers and look for leaders. Make sure this time we choose carefully and make our votes count, or there may not be a next time.    

What A Country!

“Oil below $60 as FG presents 2015 budget to N’Assembly” was the headline in one of the national dailies on Wednesday, December 17. The question I asked myself was: How come we squandered our petrodollars in times of plenty and now that crude oil price has slumped, we are biting our fingers and imposing short-sighted austerity measures? The same crude oil selling for less than $60 per barrel sold for well over $100 dollars consistently in the past four years. What did we do with its proceeds? Those who think we will continue to accrue bumper oil money should think again, as things have changed on the international market.  Things are changing fast, but like the bad planner that we are, we haven’t changed our economic dance steps to the rhythm of global realities.

Characteristic of our leaders, what we get is contradicting reports. Today, the President says “no shaking, oil prices will not affect us”, tomorrow the Minister of Finance would say “brace up for austerity measures”! Talk is cheap; all we do is talk about diversifying our economy to depend less on oil. But it ends there; nobody is thinking about the devastating disaster a sharp and continued drop in global demand for our crude oil would portend. The value of the naira drops daily, we all know the effect that has on our economy. Here we are!  Our appetite for immediate gratification has ensured that our country’s resources are plundered. As a result, we its people have become blind to sustainable routes to economic growth and development.

Now the queues have returned to filling stations, just in time when people are making plans to travel for Christmas and New Year festivities. Nigerians are still being charged the expensive old petroleum price when it has crashed. The truth is, at 97 naira per litre, even with total removal of subsidy, we are still paying too much for petrol going by the present reality. But our immediate gratification assumes topmost priority when we sell our God-given petroleum as crude oil and import it as finished products through some unwholesome middlemen. That is what we are paying for. So whilst I agree with PENGASSAN, we groan at the pain it causes us. But we must bear it and support them.

There are no measures attesting to our ability to ask: “what-if?” We do not even follow global trends to understand that today’s global economy does not support and cannot sustain our leaders’ avarice.  While we spend our petrodollars on concurrent luxuries such as exorbitant salaries and allowances for political office holders, those we sell to are getting closer and closer to energy self-sufficiency. In practical terms, our crude oil may be worth a lot less in an ever-changing world. Developed nations are dealing with this situation as they have lost so much of their manufacturing base to the Far East. We cannot afford to get caught with our pants down.       

Nigeria’s earnings from oil continue to plummet this year. It has been estimated that this might result in a $12billion shortfall of budgetary estimates, or more. And despite dipping our hands into the Excess Crude Account (ECA) to augment the deficit, we are still playing catch up. State governments have experienced as much as a 50 percent reduction in their allocations. The account that is supposed to be our Sovereign Wealth Fund, which should insulate our economy from external shocks, has also been plundered and drained. 

If oil price continues its free fall, production is disrupted and the 80,000-barrels-a-day oil theft goes on unabated, we will keep dipping into the ECA until it runs dry, as there is no magic to progress.

    

According to the Gross Summary of Statutory Revenue Allocation and VAT released by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) in March 2013, apart from Akwa Ibom (N22, 205,383,781); Bayelsa (N13, 350,351,654); Delta (N17, 057,045,907); Rivers (N20, 934,686,737); Kano (N12, 333,095,855) and Lagos (N14, 219,026,551), no other state got up to 10billion naira from the Federation Account. In many of these states, internally generated revenue is near zero. For instance, Plateau State got N6, 099,168,412 during the month in review, and has only succeeded in generating just over 6billion in IGR between January and October. The state makes roughly 600million in IGR per month; a paltry 10 percent of its monthly allocation. This is why any reduction in the Federation Account allocation creates panic among states. This simply is not good enough.

The way to go is to look inwards. The Minister of Agriculture has promised that agric would be Nigeria’s petrol. Enugu should be saying the same about coal and Zamfara about gold. I could go on and on. But where will we find the investment today to make this a reality?

We need sound leadership, so apart from our security challenges, the economy should be another crucial reason why we must “shine our eyes” before casting our votes come February and thereafter protect those votes. 

OUR MEDIOCRE SITUATION

We are just having primaries and look at the rigging that is going on already. These are people of the same party, flouting their own rules; cheating themselves. Internal democracy has eluded both the ruling party and the so-called opposition party. What hope for the common man on the street? Where will we find this discipline that we so badly lack? This is why things just don’t work the way that they are supposed to over here. We are so insincere. We can turn it around in a very short time and very quickly enjoy the standards that we only witness elsewhere in the world. But are we prepared to do what it takes to achieve that?

We cannot think that we have either come to this world to only suffer or purely to enjoy. We must collectively all make sacrifices, otherwise our situation will implode and we will not have a country, either to lead or to be led in.  Remember the deal we have with God? He gave us something called “A free will.” A huge responsibility, we are allowed to do as we please but there are always consequences, either for the good or the bad. We shall atone for our actions. But it goes even further than that.  Each one of us has a built-in success mechanism, we are actually built to succeed but we have a free will! We are human and we will make mistakes and or make right or wrong choices. The quantum of these right or wrong decisions determines whether we are successful or not in the long term.

Why do some societies do better than others? It is because they are better prepared.  What patterns in our behaviour, in our environment make one set of people or certain individuals more disciplined, quicker to learn and more success-orientated than others?  Are we too uncomfortable or maybe even too comfortable? Do we feel that we have ownership of our society or do we feel powerless and on the fringes?

I think that the problem is that some of us are just able to hold the rest to ransom.  We think we are powerless to change the status quo, so if we cannot beat them then we join them or cower in fear, muttering “God dey”. Our structures have therefore been compromised. There are no consequences for bending rules or openly flouting them. Protocols have been broken. Impunity reigns and even judges collect money. If we still wonder why our democracy still fits into Fela’s definition of it as a “demonstration of craze”, the answer is in our inability do things the right way.

Do we have the kind of leadership that can properly enforce the structures that are in place, improve on them, give us ownership and create wealth for the nation? Is the infrastructure there to allow for this enabling environment? Do our current leaders understand that we need this infrastructure and without it cannot make progress? Do we have the brainpower to implement these sets of rules and give adequate consideration for the contract between us all? Are our taxes properly applied so that we all can take ownership of this big society and feel secure in the sense that our toil will not be in vain and will provide for our future?

We need to be able to answer all these questions in the affirmative, otherwise we will continue to fracture and live in the mess that is this mediocrity.  We are already experiencing the results of the negativity that is our society. We shall continue to be impoverished and will soon be beggars and cripples, orphans and widows, prematurely in our own land. Nothing in government is done on merit anymore. Imagine what it is to be up in arms as we become more desperate. It is being experienced all around us now. There is no dignity in it.

We must be interested in the polity around us and get up and be counted. We should not allow our destinies to be dictated by a cabal. We should be more resolute each time a bomb goes off and people are killed or maimed. We should hold our leaders to account for the failure in our society. And ensure that step by step we demand equity in the polity. We should choose and associate ourselves with potential leaders based on merit. Our future depends on it.