By Sunday Enikanselu

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I am inclined to drive this article in a manner that will make the reading  public to have a fair understanding of my thought process and feelings, l will provide simple meanings of the main concepts of this article. These are insensitivity, leadership and governance.

A simple definition of insensitivity is lack of concern for others feeling and experiences . It can be described as not showing sympathy for others feelings. Refusing to give importance to something that does not affect one . An insensitive person is a cross heartless individual. A person with bloodless cold hearted feeling. In short, insensitive persons are those who only show and feel concern for their own feelings and not the feelings of others.

Leadership can simply be looked at as the process of influencing group activities towards the accomplishment of goals in a given situation. In this context, the leader is the person in the group who is elected , selected, or appointed to direct and influence the group activities with regard to goal formation and accomplishment.

Governance is the action or manner of governing a state, organization etc. It is the act or process of governing or overseeing the control and direction of something. It can also be referred to as a system that provides a framework for managing organizations.

In this article, the concept of governance shall be applied to social, political and economic entities.

 On the social group front,  l will review social entities from family, traditional institutions and religious institutions leadership. From the economic entity, l will look into corporate governance and leadership behavior, and from the state and government perspective, l will touch some actions and inactions of government that border on insensitivity. In all these establishments and institutions, attempts will be made to highlight our leader’s attitude and behavior that glaringly manifest insensitivity.

From the family front, there are many homes where the heads of the family either the father or the mother will display high level of insensitivity to the plight of the children and the wards. How best will you describe a father who fully filled himself outside the home and even have some drinks to support the meal without bordering whether the other family members including his children have eaten or not. Many homes witness this sort  of insensitivity behavior on a daily basis. In short it is as regular and common as day and night. Also how best will you explain and interpret a married woman behavior who eloped with another man and dropped the children he had for his husband without showing any motherly concern to the plight of the children.

In the same vein, some men will run out of their matrimonial home to relocate to another single mother’s home without giving a hoot to the wellness and wellbeing of the children he had abandoned. The likes of this insensitivity abounds across the face of Nigeria in different shades and shapes.

Our traditional rulers too are not excused in this rather uncaring and unconcerned behavioral anomaly.

Some of our traditional rulers jettison the contractual agreement they have with their clients before creeping on to the throne. There is  a particular high profile traditional ruler in the south west of Nigeria who was into property and estate development business. This particular Kabiyesi before he stepped into the throne, hundreds of his company clients deposited massive amounts of money to his company for the delivery of apartments and houses in the estates he was developing. Unfortunately, immediately he was selected as an Oba and received his staff of office, he abandoned hundreds of his clients who had deposited prodigious amount of money in his company. He became unreachable and incommunicado. He was not ready to meet the persons he was indebted to so as to structure out a way forward. He was indebted to his customers in billions of naira. No visible efforts were deployed by the Kabiyesi to redeem his obligations to his customers. No machinery was fashioned to assuage his clients. In short, he was very unconcerned and unprepared to solve the problem deliberately.

He gallivants round the globe in opulence at the detriment of hundreds of his clients. This is criminally insensitive.

Our religious leaders are not exempted in this unkind, painful and unwholesome act of insensitivity to their members.  Most members of these religious organizations are living in penury while the leaders and their family members are living in unspeakable opulence and luxury. Without denial, the poor church members or mosque members are those that are baking the bread that the religious leaders are living on. Most of the members have been psychologically cajoled and pummeled to a point of losing their consciousness. The religious leaders are building ginormous wealth for themselves and their family members even yet unborn. What an irony. What our religious leaders preach against are what they  practice openly without self-caution.

I think it is possible for these religious institutions to create a special window for this class of members where their children and wards can enjoy good education with significantly reduced fees.

I hereby propose a part time arrangement for this class of students both at the secondary school and university levels. One possible advantage is the possibility of the poor students to assist their parents to source the money to be paid for their schooling. If consulted, l can structure out very feasible model to the religious institutions without any fee as my contribution to realizing this dream.

The religious leaders through their administrators, can develop the template to identify the genuine members of the organizations that can benefit from this arrangement.

One very common observed behavior of our leaders whether in church, mosque, or politics,  is that at their early days of their venturing, they exhibited some high level of concern and sensitivity to the plight of their followers but as their wealth or political strength increases, their sensitivity petered out. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that the sensitivity of Nigerian leaders is inversely related to their wealth and political strength.

Oh my God, you see many of these claimed men of God who are leaders of the religious bodies positioning their relations in the very juicy and economically prodigious offices brazenly with careless audacity and unmindful of the feelings of the congregation.

Another noticeable area where our religious leaders goof insensitively, is, the manipulation of preparing their family member to succeed them after they might have exited this sinful world, particularly Pentecostal churches.

Members who are foundation members at inception or who have joined the church long before the emergence of the family member, who are equally committed and spiritually blessed but working closely and tirelessly in the lord, nursing the ambition of taking up the leadership of the church, even in the contemplation of the church members, is presumed to be the likely heir to the throne, may be framed with fathomed  accusations that will damage his integrity, personality and puncture his ambition.

Members who are outspoken and that are likely to query or confront the inglorious manipulation of the leader may equally be rubbished through crooked allegation that will paint him conspicuously black to the membership of the church which will make his voice irrelevant and damage his personality tremendously.

The likes of Pastor AKINDAYOMI, the founding leader of Redeem Christian Church of God have

almost completely evaporated from the leadership of the modern day Pentecostal churches in Nigeria.

Leadership baton of the Pentecostal churches are mostly domiciled in the family circle of the leader through all forms of inglorious manipulation loaded  with arrant insensitivity.

 In the context of economic entities, corporate governance is concerned with the structures and systems of control by which managers are held accountable to those who have legitimate stake in an organization. It can also be looked at as processes and structures put in place by the owners and regulatory agencies, to moderate on the executives of the organization, so as to improve and sustain long term shareholders value by enhancing corporate performance and accountability while mindful of their stakeholder’s interest.

In a responsive corporate governance environment, the system will enthrone the following:

*Transparency and accountability to various stakeholders

* Compliance with the applicable legal and regulatory requirements

* Disclosure of all material information to stakeholders

* Viability and solvency is sustainable through adequate internal control and appropriate management framework.

The question to ask in this article is that, how many of our corporate executives operate within the framework listed above?

 In real and to be candid, the number of our corporate executives that are operating within the framework listed above are quite insignificant

Most of our corporate executives exhibit some traits of Emefielism(disregard to corporate governance), while Head of states, were possessed with Abachaism spirit (unending thieving).

 Emefiele insensitivity was unparalleled in the history of corporate governance of public institutions in Nigeria. How else can you describe his careless concern for public opinion on his ambition and activities of struggling to contest the 2023 Presidential election as a sitting governor of Central bank of Nigeria. What an affront and disregard cum disrespect to the sensibilities of Nigerians

While Emefiele was in office as the central bank governor of Nigeria, he  bought thousands of brand new vehicles that he planned to deploy for use for his campaign, unmindful of the general public reactions to such an inglorious ambition and activities. Ha, what a dead hearted irritant.

If the value of the expenses he incurred in preparation for his presidential campaign was cumulated, the value will be far more than his legitimate income all through his work life.

Emefiele corporate governance practice was a paradigm shift from the norm.

His model of corporate governance should be developed into a course and taught in business schools as what corporate governance should not be.

Insensitivity in corporate governance of economic entities is not limited to large corporate establishments. The chief executives/ entrepreneurs of small enterprises are not exempted from acts that are tantamount to insensitivity.

Prof. Sunday Enikanselu, a native of Ijuodo and renowned author with over 20 titles sent in this piece from Lagos.