“Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.”
Leaders are not perfect; they are human after all. However, what they are is responsible to the people they have chosen to lead and their mission. A mission best captured in the following quote: “Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfill themselves.” This is a mission of a leader. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was such a leader. 
In a few days, we will join the world in celebration of the man fondly known as Madiba; a celebration that has taken place every year on July 18 since 2010 following an official declaration by the United Nations in November 2009 to honour Mandela. As the day draws closer, it is a good time for world leaders, international organisations and communities to re-examine what leadership is and how leaders are chosen. I am reminded that, two years ago, during the United Nations-declared Nelson Mandela International day, I wrote a piece in this column, titled “In search of another Mandela: a mirage or a possibility?” I had stated in the article that we must look north and south, east and west to find another Madiba because, if only a very small percentage of Africa can be like Madiba, the world and our continent will be a better place. The search, it seems, is still on.
Mandela spent 57 years of his life fighting for the emancipation of his people. Out of those years, he spent 27 in prison. Before his imprisonment, he said, and I quote, “Freedom and the emancipation of people is an ideal I hope to leave and achieve but, if need be, it is an ideal for which I’m prepared to die for.”
This was a man ready to stand for what he stood for to the very end. If there is anything Nigerians can take away from the life Mandela lived, it was in the way he focused on his mission to emancipate his people and didn’t stop until he successfully achieved that goal. There are many among us who have a coherent vision for Nigeria but are stifled by a lack of courage. Madiba is a man who started with virtually no one behind him and preached his gospel until he had a congregation of followers echoing his words wherever they can. Start where you are, and if your objectives are in the interest of the people, I have no doubt that you can have a movement as great as Mandela.
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”
For those Nigerians aspiring to lead me, my children and grandchildren, this should serve as a reminder that Madiba demonstrated leadership at a very early age and did so without much in terms of wealth. He also didn’t expect to be rewarded for his fight with a position, he was elected by the people choosing him to lead them. He believed that “there is a universal respect and even admiration for those who are humble and simple by nature, and who have absolute confidence in all human beings, irrespective of their social status.”
A number of our leaders in Nigeria can learn from him, as wealth or a desire to lead does not entitle one to a position of power. leadership demands that, in all our innovations and hard work, we work towards something that will do more than line our pockets but will benefit many.
There are many currently in leadership positions who seem to have forgotten that legacies are not about building monuments to be remembered by but by the impressions we leave in the minds of those we led on the basis of our achievements, not promises. People remember ‘what’ but they also remember ‘who’. Do we still have leaders who can inspire change and cause a revolution like Mandela did, not for selfish reasons but for altruistic ones? Sadly, I don’t see any standing among my mates, even though they seem unable to relinquish power at the eleventh hour.
This year, Nelson Mandela International Day will be highlighting the plight of food security and climate change, with the tagline “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” After 27 years in prison for fighting injustice, any ordinary man will come out of that ordeal with bitterness, anger and a taste for revenge but not Mandela; he walked out of prison with his shoulders high and a heart ready to forgive. In his own words, “I am working now with the same people who threw me into jail, persecuted my wife, hounded my children from one school to the other…and I am one of those who are saying, ‘Let us forget the past, and think of the present.’”
He served his time but maintained his party membership while in prison and on May 10, 1994, Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black President. He did all that with nothing in his pockets, very unlike what is experienced now when everyone feels they need billions to make a difference.
As we look forward to July 18 with excitement, I am reminded by this quote that until a man is ready to die for what he believes in, he isn’t truly ready to stand for what he believes in. “I was prepared for the death penalty. To be truly prepared for something, one must actually expect it. One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen. We were all prepared, not because we were brave but because we were realistic.”
– From “Long Walk to Freedom,” 1994