Some of the attributes of transformative leadership are courage, vision, depth and preparedness for the role.

These qualities often help launch the career of aspiring transformative leaders and go the distance in ingratiating them to their supporters.

In some weird way too, they help in winning over to the side of such leaders critics and opponents along the way, since the depth of their thoughts, accuracy of their vision and pragmatism of their ideas hold them up and identify them as undeniably gifted people, whose opinions cannot be spurned in any effort at leading a people or building a nation – the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was one of such in Nigeria.

Chief Obafemi Awolowo transformed the defunct Western Region of Nigeria with several innovative ideas and strategic people-oriented policies.

But, make no mistake about it, those four attributes are by no means wholly representative of the concept of leadership, let alone the transformative leadership that Nigeria needs at the moment.

To be sure, the four attributes were only purposively selected because they are critical to the discourse at hand, which centers on Mr Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party for the 2023 presidential election in Nigeria; and also because this piece adopted them as parameters to analyze his candidature as portrayed by some of his engagements at different fora within and outside the country.

According to a number of pre-election polls conducted to feel the pulse of the Nigerian electorate in respect of the 2023 presidential election, Mr Peter Obi, leads other contestants by a very wide margin, suggesting that he is the preferred choice of those who participated in the polls.

In the NoiPolls commissioned by ANAP Foundation in early December 2022, Mr Peter Obi led other candidates with 23%, while Asiwaju Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar trailed with 13% and 10% respectively.

Similarly, in another opinion poll conducted for Bloomberg by Premise Data Corp between 26th January and 4th February, 2023, Peter Obi led with 66% of the 93% of respondents while Asiwaju Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar brought up the rear with a paltry 18% and 10% of the votes.

No doubt, going by the numbers, Peter Obi is the obvious front runner where opinion polls are concerned, but one thing is clear, opinion polls are exactly what they are by nature: opinions. They are not reality and many a time they fall flat when reality bites into them. In the instant case, however, we will have to wait and see whether opinion will this time turn the tide against reality. It is a matter of time but we shall soon see!

And, lest we forget, even in the USA – a country noted for adequate and serious data collection, Hilary Clinton was polled to be ahead of Donald Trump by double digits in 2016 only for Hilary to lose the election in hard, stark reality.

In most major cities in Nigeria today, particularly in the south of the country, Mr Peter Obi is seen as extremely popular among the youths and the elite; plus he holds himself out as the main candidate of the youths and city dwellers, insisting on the need to oust the older generation of Nigerian politicians and relying on his own experience as a former governor to lead the country out of the woods to the promised land.

He very easily assumed this prime position, probably because he is younger than the other two front liners contesting in the election i.e. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; or maybe because the average Nigerian supporter of the Obidient Movement foisted it on him, having become disillusioned by the Buhari administration that promised so much but only ironically delivered more woes than blessings to the man on the street.

However, at the age of sixty-one going on sixty-two, one wonders what youthfulness Mr Peter Obi’s supporters taut for him and what freshness above all others he himself proposes to bring to the table.

For, given his age and antecedents, there is not much difference between him and the other two front liners, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who are both seventy and seventy-six years old as well as being capitalists respectively.

I should think Omoyele Sowore, who is actually younger than the trio ought to be the one to fly the flag of the youths better and higher than any of the three front liners!

As a realistic Nigerian, I don’t care much about the age of my president; what he/she must bring to the table is what matters most to me. Therefore, whether s/he is young or old, Christian, Muslim or traditionalist, he/she must function to the optimum and let the nation benefit from his/her service and wealth of experience.

But, that is not to say that an obviously incapable vegetable should be pushed into the arena of leadership! Nothing, I reckon, should however stop anyone if they are advanced in years and have what it takes to lead the country.

Owing to all the noise made about Mr Peter Obi and his ‘extra-ordinary’ capacity to solve Nigeria’s problems in one fell swoop, I keenly watched him with a view to making a sense of the frenzy that erupts whenever his name is mentioned and to determine whether he in fact deserves my support or not.

I also itched to know if he actually deserves the accolades his supporters heap on him. I tried to understand the workings of his mind from his utterances as well as the answers he gives to questions posed to him during interviews and interactive sessions.

That was the reason I carefully followed his campaigns and watched his interviews, speeches and engagements, and while doing this, I noticed something really disturbing! And, I am not talking about the wrong statistics Mr Peter Obi often quoted!

What I noticed is not out of the ordinary though – and I am sure other keen watchers would have noticed it too. It is a fault so carefully veiled that those blinded by cultic support for the candidate would let pass as nothing serious. But to the discerning mind, it demonstrates a dearth of ideas and depth as well as a lack of preparedness for the post being contested for because it kept recurring!

The fault is Mr Peter Obi’s propensity to make light of any question that flusters him – a clever quirk to hoodwink the audience and divert attention from the question asked and his answer to it.

While not humbly admitting ignorance on the matter, he often jocularly pushes it back to the questioner and everyone laughs it off, while using other details (stories and anecdotes) to fill in the gap!

We all understand that nobody knows it all, but when you are aspiring to the highest office of the land, you need to know something at least about everything and then rely on expert advice to do the rest.

It definitely would not serve your interest if you were asked how you would fix a particular sector of the nation’s economy and your answer continued to catalogue problems and challenges that we all know about! Wait! Excuse me sir, we’re actually looking for solutions here!

It also would show you as an ill prepared candidate, if, as Mr Peter Obi did at the NESG dialogue, you replied jocularly, when asked why your manifesto was light in some areas, that you were waiting for the group which you ought to have contacted for ideas while having your political consultations to help you fill it up!

How on earth would you be asked a serious question about the behemoth NNPCL and because you did not have an answer to it, your reply would simply be “I’ll get your phone number, so we can talk better on how to fix NNPCL”!

But, why not reel out real life, practical solutions and a workable action plan for a change? Or put forward your well researched ideas cross-fertilized with those of your team and allow their soundness do the rest for you?

I cannot fault Mr Peter Obi’s courage because daring to challenge for the position of the president of Nigeria takes a lot of courage, and being able to even rally the present number of supporters is but a highly commendable feat.

However, the depth of Mr Peter Obi’s ideas and his preparedness for the office of the president of Federal Republic of Nigeria, based on some of his answers to citizens’ questions are, in my opinion, inadequate and lacklustre.

The country, Nigeria, needs more than just any leader who will in much the same way as his predecessors fill up the position and administer mediocrity as medication to the ailing nation.

It doesn’t need another trial and error technician of a president who would, after running the nation aground, complain that he was waiting for citizens to point him in the right direction simply because afterall he couldn’t have known it all!

Nigeria cannot afford another calamity of a president who would come highly recommended but then fall our hand as is said in local parlance, and then bind us all to the Philistines!

Nigeria, on the contrary, needs a visionary, capable, well prepared and well rounded leader to take it out of its present doldrums to the enviable place it deserves to be among the comity of nations.

The clamour is much, the stakes are high, but does Mr Peter Obi, in spite of the numbers he is aggregating, have the perspicacity on issues that our challenges actually require?

Please ask yourselves!