The letters behind your name mean nothing to me!

I was reading a blog of a fellow Nigerian alluding to the fact that our current president is the first Nigerian to have attended University, and although I am a product of the university myself I think such thinking is seriously flawed. The fact that you went to university does not make you a better candidate to run an organisation or country than a non graduate, neither does it make you an effective leader.

For many years we have given adulation to people with many letters before and after their names. We tend to think that they have the ability to bring better and higher standards to the environment in which they operate. Its only in Nigeria that we prefix a person's name with Eng orEngr, if they have an engineering qualification, which is a load of tosh!

I have learnt that having many letters after your name or a title before your name does not necessarily make you an effective person. In fact it tends to make you a less effective person because you begin to think of yourself more highly than you should. I have worked with many highly effective leaders that have never set foot in a university, and have contributed immensely to the growth of the organisations they have worked in.

So let us ditch the titles and letters and become more effective leaders by walking the walk, and not just talking the talk, because talking achieves very little.

Who are our leaders that are visionaries?

I have been out of the country for over 20 years, prior to that I remember as a child that Nigeria had great visionaries like Obafemi Awolowo who introduced free quality education. Other leaders included Tai Solarin, Nnamdi Azikwe, General Idi Agbon, General Murtala Muhammed just to name a few.

My question is do we really have any leaders who are visionaries today? Do we call the leaders we currently have leaders because they are in a position of authority or because they want to see Nigeria rise to greatness again? What are these leaders doing right now for them to qualify as leaders and visionaries?

It will be interesting to hear from you.