‘SET UP LEADERSHIP PROGRAMMES IN VARSITIES’
‘SET UP LEADERSHIP PROGRAMMES IN VARSITIES’

First female Vice Chancellor of Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State Prof Aize Imouokhome Obayan has advised the National Universities Commission (NUC) to encourage the establishment of schools of governance/leadership as well as leadership development screening in universities.
She made the
suggestion in her inaugural lecture at CU at the weekend.
She sought the
establishment of a leadership academy in each of the six geo-political zones.
This, she argued, would kick-start a revolution in right leadership which is
critical to development.
Obayan spoke on the
topic: ‘Lengthening cords and strengthening stakes: Leadership praxis and
transcendence in counseling practice”
As the first female
VC of CU and the first VC of two private universities (CU and Landamrk
University, Omu Aran, Kwara State), and the Education Secretary of
Living Faith Worldwide, Mrs Obayan said her forays into management positions
gave her the impetus into leadership lacuna in Nigeria and Africa.
Mrs Obayan listed
four leadership gaps – absence of committed drive to leadership agenda; poor
amount of leadership in a particular system to drive agenda; inability of a
system to cultivate right leadership and miseries genda divide which often
places females at the lower rung of leadership ladder.
Obayan, a professor
of Counselling, lamented that the country has continued to demonstrate
negative tendencies, adding that there is a surge in crime, insecurity, ritual
killings, kidnapping and terrorism and poverty, indices that mark development.
“Nigeria ranks 152
among the 188 United Nations member-states in the latest Human Development
Index for 2017. Nigeria in the last 50 years has been battling problems of
development in spite of huge human, natural and material resources in her
possession. Development is critical and essential to the growth of any action,
and the quality of leadership plays a critical role in seeing to the
fulfillment of such developmental aspirations. In addressing this, the state of
leadership will need to be strengthened and the cords that bind the parts
together lengthened”
The don argued
against the popular notion that the Nigerian family is extended.
According to her,
rather than being ‘extended’, it is ‘extensive” as the family takes into description
from the ancestral ties. This is in sharp contrast to the West where extended
family is broken down by edges of separation from the individual.
This, Mrs Obayan
illustrated via a ‘cobweb concept’ which, she said, aside being secure, plays
an absorbing and supportive role.
“The cobweb concept
shows that the family, in formation, is like a cobweb which, no matter at what
angle or spot it is touched, vibrates to the centre. The extensive family in
Nigeria serves as a secure and holding base, playing shock-absorbing role in
portraying the care and supportive nature of the Nigerian family and its
members.”