Oil Wealth: A "Blessing" or "Curse"?

Having a lot of oil (which translates to "Oil Wealth") shouldn't be a "curse" but rather a "blessing" if the resultant "oil wealth" is well managed and concrete effort is made to diversify the economy (e.g investments in agriculture, small/medium & large scale industries, qualitative education + health & social infrastructures, holistic community & individual... empowerment programs, etc) as we have seen in some other countries equally blessed with vast oil resources and who have managed same very well (e.g Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Quatar, UAE/Dubai, Venezuela, Libya, Gabon, Algeria, Iran, Indonesia etc)! 

 Our problem/challenge in Nigeria is basically that of a very self centered & myopic leadership class intent on perpetuating mass generational wastage, under development, mass impoverishment, alongside chronically under enlightened + under educated populace so that such evil & wicked "leadership class" can continue to hold the hapless Nigerian populace "HOSTAGE" & "INTERNALLY ENSLAVED" in order to siphon our "Oil Wealth" (and wealth from other sources/resources) into their individual pockets/accounts while simultaneously perpetuating the worst forms of human rights abuses on the helpless Nigerian populace who have become pawns in their criminal and atrocious "power play" for self aggrandizement as these sets of criminals compete amongst themselves for who can steal the most from our COMMONWEALTH!
I believe it is time we put a permanent end to this iniquity in our land and generation and we begin to use OUR COMMONWEALTH for OUR COMMON GOOD!
Anything short of this change in the scheme of things in The Federal Republic of Nigeria is an open invitation to anarchy, a failed state and dissolution of the current system that has refused to yield the long awaited dividends of Independence & Democracy to the vast generality of Nigerians more than fifty years after independence and I for one will never support the perpetuation of such evil system!
Yours in the quest for a better Nigerian Nation, African Continent & Global Community;
'Gbolahan 'Gbolaga Olubowale MSW,
President & CEO,
Nigeria & Africa Renaissance Initiative Inc,
USA.
http://nigeriaandafricarenaissanceinitiative.blogspot.com/2011/02/introducingnigeria-africa-renaissance.html

http://www.nigeria2africa4transformation2011.com/

5 Leadership Lessons: Joseph Nye on Leadership

5 Leadership Lessons: Joseph Nye on Leadership

Joseph S. Nye is University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. In The Powers to Lead, he relates leadership and power. He expands further on his concept of soft power—co-opting people rather than coercing them—and hard power—influence involving pressure or threats—but he shows how effective leadership in the real world requires a mixture of both. Hard and soft power are related because they are both aspects of the ability to achieve one’s purpose by affecting the behavior of others. They sometimes reinforce each other and sometimes they interfere with each other. The use of either one or the other depends on context. The ability to know which to use when is what he calls smart power. We need to know our context. He says, “Soft power is not good per se, and it is not always better than hard power. Nobody likes to feel manipulated, even by soft power. Like any form of power, it can be wielded for good or bad purposes, and these often vary with the eye of the beholder.” Here are five leadership lessons from The Powers to Lead:

1# Almost anyone can become a leader. Leadership can be learned. It depends on nature and nurture. Leadership can exist at any level, with or without formal authority. Most people are both leader and followers. They “lead from the middle."
2# Smart leaders need both soft and hard power skills: co-optive and command styles. Both transformational and transactional objectives and styles can be useful. One is not automatically better than the other. Leaders depend on and are partly shaped by followers. Some degree of soft power is necessary. Presence/magnetism is inherent in some personalities more than others, but “charisma” is largely bestowed by followers.
3# Appropriate style depends on the context. There are “autocratic situations” and “democratic situations,” normal and crisis conditions, and routine and novel crises. Good diagnosis of the need for change (or not) is essential for contextual intelligence.
4# Leadership for crisis conditions requires advance preparation, emotional maturity, and the ability to distinguish the roles of operational, analytical, and political work. The appropriate mix of styles and skills varies with the stage of the crisis.
5# The information revolution and democratization are causing a long-term secular shift in the context of postmodern organizations—a shift along the continuum from command to co-optive style. Network organizations require a more consultative style. While sometimes stereotyped as a feminine style, both men and women face this change and need to adapt to it. A consultative style is more costly in terms of time, but it provides more information, creates buy-in, and empowers followers.

5 Leadership Lessons: Joseph Nye on Leadership

5 Leadership Lessons: Joseph Nye on Leadership

Almost anyone can become a leader. Leadership can be learned. It depends on nature and nurture. Leadership can exist at any level, with or without formal authority. Most people are both leader and followers. They “lead from the middle."
Smart leaders need both soft and hard power skills: co-optive and command styles. Both transformational and transactional objectives and styles can be useful. One is not automatically better than the other. Leaders depend on and are partly shaped by followers. Some degree of soft power is necessary. Presence/magnetism is inherent in some personalities more than others, but “charisma” is largely bestowed by followers.
Appropriate style depends on the context. There are “autocratic situations” and “democratic situations,” normal and crisis conditions, and routine and novel crises. Good diagnosis of the need for change (or not) is essential for contextual intelligence.
Leadership for crisis conditions requires advance preparation, emotional maturity, and the ability to distinguish the roles of operational, analytical, and political work. The appropriate mix of styles and skills varies with the stage of the crisis.
The information revolution and democratization are causing a long-term secular shift in the context of postmodern organizations—a shift along the continuum from command to co-optive style. Network organizations require a more consultative style. While sometimes stereotyped as a feminine style, both men and women face this change and need to adapt to it. A consultative style is more costly in terms of time, but it provides more information, creates buy-in, and empowers followers.
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/2010/07/5_leadership_lessons_joseph_ny.html

Happy Valentine's Day to the Human Race all over the Global Village!

.....may the Love being celebrated on this year's St. Valentine's Day become a massive force for good to make the Human Race all over the Global Village united with a common purpose to make this Global Village much better for all and sundry!
Happy Val's Day to you.....!

Yours in the quest for a better Nigerian Nation, African Continent & Global Community;
'Gbolahan 'Gbolaga Olubowale MSW,
President & CEO,
Nigeria & Africa Renaissance Initiative Inc,
USA.
http://nigeriaandafricarenaissanceinitiative.blogspot.com/2011/02/introducingnigeria-africa-renaissance.html

http://www.nigeria2africa4transformation2011.com/

Excerpts of "Open Letter to African Leaders"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/equatorial_guinea/5894024592/

.....I have personally been monitoring events (social, political, economic, educational, developmental, human capacity development, etc) all over the African Continent for a couple of decades now and from my objective observational and empirical analysis of events on the continent, one can conclude without any doubt that things have only gone from bad to worst in virtually all African countries (with the exception of very few African countries that have stood out as a beacon of hope in the Continent where our Leaders seems content and comfortable maintaining the despicable status quo of our ignoble past)!
Your Excellencies; the "report cards" of your stewardships ( and that of most of your like minded predecessors; with the exception of still a few Leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, Leopold Senghor, Kenneth Kaunda, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Nelson Mandela, Obafemi Awolowo, Gamal Abdel Nassar, Jerry Rawlings, Moamar Ghaddafi, etc;) to your country and citizens has been nothing to write home about over most of the past 50 years of independent African countries. The general outcome of your "brand of leadership and mindset" has been a general failure and callous waste of golden opportunities to gallantly lift Africa and Africans up to an enviable heights after independence (as some leaders elsewhere have shown us around the Global Community as being possible; e.g the Asian Tiger nations which were, sad to say, way behind most African countries in the '60s when these countries also got their independence from their own colonial masters!).
As a group (with the exception of a few); Your Excellencies have continually and consistently followed a "development/leadership template" deeply rooted in Africa's unenviable traditional past and have mostly done nothing (or maybe made only cosmetic/superficial token gestures) to remove entrenched impediments to Africa's transformation which would have facilitated/promote a massive human capacity development and empowerment of Africans (the engine room of any sustainable socio economic development and growth) and which would have subsequently lift vast millions out of humanly engineered and entrenched poverty, deprivations, misery, abuse and sub human existence not much different from what obtains all over the African Continent in year "1220"!
This "development/leadership template" is what was used in centuries gone by by our "forefathers" and leaders like you folks, to keep their people subjected to their continued autocratic rule and exploitation of their hapless subjects; the same despicable "template" facilitated the evil and wicked slave trade; actively promote the inhuman trade of human beings as "commodities" and did virtually nothing to end this ignominious era internally! This same "template" facilitated the colonization of virtually the whole of the African continent (with a few exception of courageous leaders who vigorously resisted the colonialists exploitative adventure/incursion into Africa)! The same "leadership/development template" gave rise to neo-colonial Africa and African leaders who took (and are still taking) a perverted delight in keeping their people poor, unenlightened, uneducated, deprived, dependent and internally enslaved - since these "modern day" leaders are no longer able to "sell" their people across the ocean as "human cargoes", they now do so internally and pretend to the outside world that slavery no longer exists on the continent!!!
I am totally baffled beyond comprehension trying to fathom the rational or logic behind the unimaginable salaries & allowances "Your Excellencies" and other elected or appointed leaders allocate to yourselves from the commonwealths of your nations (uncountable times more than what hard working leaders with concrete proofs of achievements receives in developed nations where promoting the well being of their citizens is a leaders first and only duty!).

.....watch out for full letter soon.

Yours in the quest for a better Nigerian nation, African Continent & Global Community;

'Gbolahan 'Gbolaga Olubowale MSW,
President & CEO,
Nigeria & Africa Renaissance Initiative Inc,
USA.
http://nigeriaandafricarenaissanceinitiative.blogspot.com/2011/02/introducingnigeria-africa-renaissance.html

http://www.nigeria2africa4transformation2011.com/