THERE are few qualities to define a purposeful, goal-oriented leadership as clear-thinking, careful planning and execution. The amount of these qualities a leader and/or government possesses should at most times be indicative of their/its preparedness or otherwise for leadership

By this I mean Nigerians from the North-West and North-East of this country. What I must now call a lazy way of explaining this apparently well-organised and outer-directed violence, is to attribute it to joblessness, poverty or any of those social vices and disjunctions we are too quick to identify as being at the root of the violence. Poverty or joblessness is not peculiar to the North.

The number of political murders has reduced, and the culture of following due process in the resolution of political and other conflicts is being nurtured. Still, it is doubtful if all the election petitions in the world, assuming they are credibly conducted, can shovel up all the mess dumped on us in 2007.

Various sectors of the economy are on strike or about to start one; people are hungry and angry. How does this government propose to lead Nigeria out of this state of unrelieving pain? It says one thing today and another tomorrow, ambles forward an inch and engages the reverse gear for a mile, almost in the same breath.

They grew organically and are waxing stronger. We all know that the poorly conceived and hastily created contraption called Transcorp PLC has not grown much since its birth. The question now is : What do we do then? How do we replicate the Korean paradigm? Here is how. The government must create a level playing field for Nigerian companies.

Yet, the present administration chose to make light of the whole matter, pretending that a visit from America’s first black president was no more or, perhaps, was worth less than a jaunt to a PDP retreat in Obudu.

Is there anything like zero-corruption? What initiatives do we adopt to reduce, control and manage corruption whilst we pursue policies and programmes aimed at accelerating our pace of growth and development?

Not many Nigerians would disagree with Dokubo’s claim, knowing Obasanjo for the kind of wily fox he was. Dokubo has been, more or less, tamed so that the recent spat between him and the intelligence department during which he was detained (?) might be a baiting trick to see if there is any fire left in him.

He came into office with a lot of goodwill, a goodwill which extended beyond Ondo State as was evident when he made a late appearance, days after being sworn-in, at the Obafemi Awolowo Centenary Lecture that was delivered by Professor Wole Soyinka at the NIIA in March.

Perhaps it is even time to question the euphoria that has followed what may seem like the exaggerated importance of the mere rap on the offending wrist of oil multinational, Shell, by the American court that heard the suit brought by the families of the slain Ogoni activists.