Leaders must be honest – Addo Kufuor

Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor former Defence Minister and MP for the Manhyia constituency has said that quality leadership is a prerequisite for nation-building.

Dr. Kwame Addo-Kufuor said this when he was speaking during the 7th Transformational Leadership Conference organized by the Young Professionals and Youth Coalition on the theme “Understanding the Values of Leadership in Nation-Building”.

Nation-building in developing countries requires leaders who are imbued with values such as honesty, integrity, selflessness, commitment and dedication, he said.

These qualities, he said, enable a leader to successfully get the people to buy into his vision and to mobilize them towards achieving national goals.

It is these qualities which made it possible, as he put it, for Lee Kuan Yew to transform Singapore from the third world to the first world.

These same qualities he went on “seem to be making it possible for President Buhari to initiate positive changes in Nigeria within the few months he has been in office” adding that whether a country would progress or not depends on the quality of leadership.

Building a nation, he indicated, is not a one-day affair “but rather a continuous process of mobilizing people and resources, and applying them strategically over a period of time to achieve goals.”

“Those who aspire to be leaders must prepare themselves to be acceptable to the majority of the people through the ballot box,” he emphasised.

He was quick to add however that “Africa abounds with nations where elections are regularly held and yet people live in poverty and the leaders go around the globe with begging bowls.”

The reason for this, he said, is because “we have allowed party loyalty to override competence, integrity, experience and patriotism when appointments to important national leadership positions are made.”

When a leader is unable to fulfill the aspirations of his people in-between elections, he loses credibility, he told his audience, pointing out that without credibility and consequential ability to inspire, the support and co-operation of the people needed for national development are lost and the nation stagnates.

African leaders, he noted, must learn from the Buhari phenomenon that a lot can be achieved for our people if the hands of the leaders are clean.