As a guest speaker on a radio programme on Easter Monday, one of the questions I was asked was ‘How Can Leaders Govern Well?’. My answer to the question was swift and unambiguous because it was a question that had consumed my thoughts over the last couple of months. Quoting the Bible assessment of ‘President (I mean ,King)David Jesse’s rule in the Book of Psalms 78:72 I quipped, ’Leaders must lead with the integrity of heart much more than the skill of their hands’.To which my hosts could not agree more.
Whether it was King David or King Solomon (his son) or Mahatma Ghandi or the sage Obafemi Awolowo, it is clear that all great leaders ruled with the heart. They identified with the pains of the people. Even in the old account ,Bible records that God let Isreal off the oppression of Pharaoh’s Egypt simply because He heard the cries of the people and bled in His heart for their travails.
When in the Book of 1 Kings 3,Solomon was responding to God’s permission to him to ask what he would , he was quick to point out that he recognized that his late father succeeded only because of an upright heart .See,there it is agin;Heart! And as if to show that the lesson of his father’s success was not lost on him, Solomon accurately knew what to ask for: a discerning heart ; one that can distinguish between right and wrong.
The twin factor to a discerning heart is integrity of heart. That’s why the earlier scripture I quoted Ps 78:72” And David shepherded them with integrity of heart ; with skillful hands he led them” holds so true.
How then can leaders lead in the face of compromise and risk to their lives ? Any leader worth its salt will know that the only way he can ever live up to his leadership assignment is to shun all personal gains to himself and be willing to sacrifice for the led to live. Is this not the whole essence of Easter .In this season of the year when the whole world celebrate the greatest leader of all times : Jesus ,the Son of God with power .They do, not because of the vastness of His loot or personal enrichment rather because He died the worst death ,so that others(his constituents) may live.
