MWAY- Erecting Platforms for community involvement in leadership

BY UKPONG UKPONG

There is no better time to participate in leadership than during the process of its emergence. In doing so, both the leader and his follower(s) interact, understand themselves and work together to foster good governance, develop communities and leave sustainable legacy for the future. According to late Myles Munroe, such leadership which invests in building people, mentoring them to continue the good work is ideal. 

Unfortunately, in Nigeria such an ideal has been very elusive as leaders and followers seems to live in worlds apart only meeting when there is a need to be met. This has been the situation since independence and as a matter of fact, the colonial masters, who themselves operated a strict hierarchical system in their homeland, created this system of keeping followers at a distance. When they handed over, they bequeathed this crude way of relationship to us.  

Subsequent decades of military interregnum made situation worse as political power took on a monstrous appearance. Instead of promoting  development of the people and their communities, peace and harmony, which are essential ingredients of good leadership, politics became a tool for actualizing self serving ambition and with it sprung strife, rancor, fear, suspicion, death, disunity, underdevelopment, restiveness especially among young people. 

Eventually, democracy returned in 1999 and gradually, Nigeria is set on a course to greatness once more. This time, there must be conscious inclusion of the people. Men, women and youths in communities across Nigeria, form the bulk of demos. They must be involved in leadership, empowered to participate in decision making processes that will invariably affect them and their children. 

The system of leadership in Akwa Ibom State, is also opening up, allowing shared experience in governance by participation. However, after many decades of regimental military rule there is the need for continuous orientation of men, women and youths on the concept of getting practically involved in leadership since this is the way forward. 

In a post, promoting participatory leadership, Sean Blair, an entrepreneur, co-founder of the Nowhere Group and renowned advisor to governments including that of the United Kingdom, wrote, “The participatory leadership paradigm is based on respect and engagement. It constructively focuses energy in every human to human encounter.  

Participatory leadership is a more advanced, more democratic and more effective model of leadership; it harnesses diversity, builds community, and creates shared responsibility for action. It deepens individual and collective learning yielding real development and growth.” 

This advanced form of leadership is an ideal a group of young professionals, under the aegis of Men Women and Youths, MWAY, are committed to advocating. 

As an advocacy organization, MWAY, is poised to sensitize the people, focusing mainly on our communities, where every policy made in boardrooms or executive council chambers means the most. The group has built formidable network for effective contact all the way from the state to the local government right to the ward level. 

Apart from cross fertilizing ideas through interaction with the led,  MWAY, whose slogan is “Connectivity for Continuity”, aims to utilize sufficient knowledge of individual needs of their contacts in engaging constructively with those serving as leaders in the arena of politics, the objective is to create a nexus between these two groups for realizing growth. They are actively providing enabling platform for community participation in leadership. 

Like participatory leaders, members of MWAY are typically post conventional leaders, their action logic uses every organizational interaction to make meaning, live purpose, grow self, others and transform organizations. 

In these period of transition, MWAY is applying methods that are sustainable and they are empowering communities become more assertive in their choice of leaders that will work with them towards attaining development and long term change.