If this headline looks strange to you, I borrowed it from my friend and colleague, PUNCH columnist, Lekan Shote. See Lekan’s “This article has no title” of 19 March, 2025! There are occasions one struggles to headline a piece but the right choice of words keeps eluding one. So why not borrow a leaf from Lekan by simply saying, “This article has no title”! Or I can add my own angle, like I have done here, by asking the reader to affix whatever title he deems appropriate!
Published here today is Idowu Ephraim Faleye’s article titled “When your seat becomes the target of your competitors, your performance doesn’t inspire – it infuriates!”. Reading it, I laughed and laughed but it also gave me food for thought. How true! I have experienced it again and again. And only those who don’t mind throwing the baby away with the bathwater will not agree with the points made by Faleye. Excerpts:
“When the seat you occupy is the target of your competitors, there is nothing you can do to please those who are contending for the seat. It doesn’t matter how hard you try or how sincere your intentions are; they will always find a reason to complain. Your good deeds will be questioned, your motives will be misinterpreted, and your achievements will be viewed through the lens of suspicion. This is the bitter reality of political rivalry where ambition clouds appreciation and success becomes a threat.
“Imagine someone eyeing your job at work. No matter how much you excel, they’re not going to clap for you. Instead, your promotion becomes a source of bitterness. That’s exactly how political opponents behave when they want the seat you are occupying. They don’t see your achievements as progress but as obstacles to their (own) ambition. The more you do, the more uncomfortable they become. The more you deliver, the harder they work to discredit you because every milestone you hit weakens their case against you.
“This isn’t unique to Nigeria. Across the world, when leaders occupy powerful positions, their seats attract envy and ambition. The unfortunate truth is that many people don’t want to build; they (only) want to inherit. They don’t want to contribute to solutions; they want to reap the benefits of being in charge. So instead of supporting the incumbent to succeed, they work tirelessly to ensure he fails. That way, they can say, ‘We told you he couldn’t do it.’
“What makes this worse is that some members of the public, driven by hardship or misinformation, join the bandwagon. They forget that governing a nation or state is not a magic show. It requires patience, planning, and consistency. When a leader is making tough decisions that may not look glamorous at the moment, it is easy to misunderstand him if you’re not seeing the full picture. And unfortunately, opposition figures capitalize on this. They spread narratives that fit their ambition, not the truth.
“It is not wrong to aspire for leadership, but ambition must be guided by ethics. Politics should be about service, not sabotage. If your only strategy to win is to ensure the current leader fails, then your motive is not leadership—it is conquest. We cannot build a great nation on the back of envy and destruction. We must rise above partisan hatred and see governance as a collective responsibility.
“As we reflect on our roles as citizens, commentators, and stakeholders, let us remember that politics is not war. It is not a game of who can destroy whom. It is a platform for service. When we understand this, we will start to hold our leaders accountable with dignity, not with hatred. We will begin to see that supporting good policies, no matter who introduces them, is not weakness but wisdom.
“Let us rise as a people who can separate ambition from truth. Let us not be pawns in the hands of those who seek power at all costs. And to the leaders under fire today, remember: even when your seat is the target, do not be distracted. Lead with courage. Lead with conscience. Because in the end, it is not the noise of your opponents that will define you, but the testimony of your impact. And that, history never forgets.”
Do you disagree with anything he has said here? I can tell you the only reason some would agree or even took the pains to read this to the very end is because, to make even the jaundiced to read it, I removed the two examples Faleye cited in his beautiful piece: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Gov. Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji of Ekiti state, whose performance he considers to be so far, so good! Not that I disagree with his judgment, though! Some in position of leadership make no effort to lead at all. Those seen to be making efforts deserve encouragement, which, I think, is what Faleye strove to do here. Not resting on their oars, Tinubu and Oyebanji should continue to strive to do more because it is not yet “uhuru”.
