Senior Pastor, Daystar Christian, Pastor Sam Adeyemi, speaks to Seun Akinbaloye on his Mic On podcast series on Sunday, where he talked about his recent relocation to the United States, the #EndSARS protests of 2020, and the Nigerian leadership crisis, amongst other issues. GODFREY GEORGE brings excerpts
How true is it that leadership is a major problem in Nigeria?
Absolutely! Leadership is a major problem in Nigeria and Africa. It is actually a global problem. Now, the starting point is getting an accurate understanding of leadership. The moment one says ‘leadership’, people’s minds go to the people at the top, especially in government. Secondly, a lot of people believe that being a leader makes you superior to the people you lead. So, the leaders are those who rule over us. But, the thinking about leadership has moved from there. Leadership is the ability to influence one or more people to achieve goals. When you look at that, you ask yourself, “Is Nigeria achieving her goals? What really is even Nigeria’s goals in the first place?” You will see that when we get into the real discussion of leadership, we are faltering on a big level.
Most people in Nigeria don’t believe that their lives are moving forward. Yet, some people said their policies are moving people from Point A to Point B. So, if my life is not improving, there is no leadership. Where there is no movement, there is no leadership.
In fact, it does look like we take a step forward and take two steps backward, and it reminds me of the song of the Juju maestro, King Sunny Ade, “I don’t know where the drive is taking me. (I don’t know whether) he is driving me forward or backward. So, yes, we have a big leadership problem in Nigeria.
Does it look like we are moving forward, or are we just moving in circles?
Will I even call it a circle? The whole world is moving. In this world, even when you say you are not moving, you actually are. This is because the very ground you are standing on is spinning through space. Everybody is moving. The whole world is not static. Other countries are moving. In the year 2000, my wife and I went to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for the first time. We were blown away. Walking on the street I pulled my wife close to me and I said, “Stop”. She said, “What is it?” And I said she should look at the police car – a brand new Mercedez Benz E-class. I was coming from Nigeria and I was just shocked to see that. That was 24 years ago. Today, Dubai is not like the city of 24 years ago.
The first thing I would ask is, “What even is the basis for the evaluation of our progress?” One of the most important characteristics of a leader is vision. In fact, I would love to use the word ‘leadership’, because, when we discuss the subject, usually, the mind of the average African goes to personalities, but we have got to go beyond personalities and focus on the principles.
Vision is the ability to see with the inner eye. Some people describe the vision as a mental picture of a preferable future. George Banner, a leadership consultant, defines vision as foresight based on insight with the benefit of hindsight. I define vision as the ability to see people, places, and things, not just how they are, but how they could be.
So, one would ask, “What is Nigeria’s vision?” This is because I believe that that vision is the basis for evaluation. There is no success without goals. How can football players be playing on pitches without goalposts? Which team would win? Nobody would, because it wouldn’t matter the direction in which you kick the ball. There has to be that small space that is defined as the goal post, and when the ball goes through there, everyone is excited one has scored a goal. When you don’t have a clear vision for a nation, it becomes difficult to define success.
Some people will make some money. The rest of the people will be impoverished and you find out most people are angry. So, I am asking, “What is Nigeria’ Where are we going as a nation?
As a people, we have to discuss development. Until we hold that discussion, I don’t think we have found a road, we are still in the bush. Vision is the basis for unity.
Right now, Nigeria needs to evolve that vision of development, which incorporates the aspirations of the many groups in the country. We are pulling in different directions.
How do we as a people define our vision? Where do we start from?
I see it as a huge opportunity. Where do we find people with open eyes? Presently, we are not seeing many of them at the top. The big question is, “Can we find them amongst the people?” It is a tough game because culturally speaking, the environment makes it difficult for you even to see. The level of deprivation and struggle for survival makes it difficult for Nigerians to even deal with vision in the first place.
An American psychologist said all human needs were not at the same level. At the lowest level, there is the need for food, drink, and air. Next level, there is the need for safety and security. At the third level, there is the need for love and belonging to a group, because humans were created for connection and not isolation. At the fourth level, there is the need for esteem which is derived from being successful. At the final level, there is the need for self-actualisation. This is the point at which one is asking, “I have food to eat, and drive my car; what is life even all about?” At that point, one is addressing the purpose of one’s life, trying to give his/her life meaning.
But the psychologist said until the lower level needs are met, one should not prioritise the higher level needs. Most Nigerians and Africans are still at level one – struggling to find what to eat.
You will notice that the first two levels address material needs. Once you hit level three, the needs become intangible – love, esteem, self-actualisation, which is where you unleash your creativity. That is where you stop focusing on yourself, you turn on other people and empower their lives. Most Nigerians are finding it difficult to handle vision.
There is an illustration of what Jesus Christ said to the Pharisees in the Bible. He said, “Leave them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And when the blind follows the blind, both of them will fall into the ditch.”
So, in Nigeria, we just need to challenge individuals. We have opportunities through our families, religious institutions, and schools. At the end of the day, when we have the Martin Luther King Jr.’s of this world that can say, “I have a dream!” then we have begun the journey.
I got a book by the ruler of Dubai. He spoke about how his dad described how his dad described for him the vision of a developed Dubai and how his dad took him to the seaside and told him how he would love to build a seaport in Dubai. Goods are produced in Asia but they need routes in the West. He wanted Dubai to be the connecting point and earn their money from there. Eventually, after the man had passed, they built that seaport.
We have to ask ourselves a question, “Where are the people that can see the Nigeria of tomorrow?” I would prefer a possibility – Nigerians in the Diaspora. This is because development is not abstract to them. I need to make a special call to Nigerians in the Diaspora who are living in development, which is not abstract to them.
The average Nigerian who is about 21 years or younger, probably, doesn’t know what a post office looks like, not to talk of how it runs. But, for the person living in a developed economy; they know what it is like to get a driving license, passport, etcetera. There are Nigerians who are leading in the hospitals, educational systems, waterworks, and airports in the Diaspora. These people can easily envision Nigeria as a developed economy. I want to challenge them to describe to all other Nigerians what a developed Nigeria will look like.
Where do we begin that vision of Nigeria?
I started on radio 29 years ago, teaching people basic principles for success, and believing that, when we had enough people amongst the masses who had that mentality, it would be easy to create change. But then, with time, I found out that at the highest level of success, you help others to succeed. That is leadership – inspiring other people to be successful. That was where my passion for leadership began from. Even though my background was in Engineering, I decided to do my post-graduate studies in Leadership Studies. I did my master’s and a PhD in Strategic Leadership. I tell you that, as I moved on, my views began to change gradually.
I discovered the power of the people at the top — One person influencing the destinies of one, two million, and 200 million people.
To effect a change in Nigeria, we need to do a bottom-up and top-down approach. We need to speak to the citizens and inspire leadership from the citizens. We have a big shortfall there.
In countries where there is good leadership, there has to be good followership which is also leadership. There are a lot of things that leaders do in Nigeria and get away with it but citizens don’t even bother because we are the same. The leaders don’t drop from heaven; they evolve from amongst the people.
I was on a flight with Pastor Enoch Adeboye many years ago. We sat side-by-side. When we were in the air, it was Nigeria I wanted to ask about. He said, “What we should pray and work towards is having more righteous people in the country. If you had a group of armed robbers, and they had the opportunity of electing a leader, would they elect a policeman?”
That concept that he described, I met it during my doctoral leadership programme. It is called prototypicality – when you have a group of people who have an opportunity to elect a leader elects someone that approximates the ideal member of that group.
We need to work on the followership and the leadership. How do we get this vision? Leadership is part of the curriculum from kindergarten in the countries that want to develop. You don’t bother kids with theories on leadership. It is to give those young people a sense of service. Make them volunteer. In the United Kingdom and the US, they make young people go to orphanages, and prisons and do things for free. In the US, people get credits for doing community work. When you want to get into the university, they’d ask you to write a personal statement. One of the things they are looking for is the volunteering that one did. One can lose an opportunity if they don’t see volunteering in your statement. It kills that tendency of selfishness that every human being has, and it makes you become someone who values contribution to the community.
The one major thing that Nigeria lacks is the capacity to come together and succeed together as a community. We value individual success. Look at our country; you’ll see powerful houses by individuals. Sadly, they are walled up. You cannot even see what is in there but you will see potholes on the road. That sense of coming together and sacrificing to build the community is dead in most of our people. We need to awaken it.
My call to the citizens is that they will be part of the problem for a long time as long as they are selfish, self-centered, and let their vision to big enough to accommodate everybody.
The other part we need to address is the leadership. You spoke about autocratic leadership – benevolent dictator. The beautiful advantage they have in the Middle East is that their leaders are monarchies, not democracies. So, the rulers can decide what to do – Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, UAE, and the like. They like leaders who decide to be good to their citizens.
However, we decided that we were having a democracy. That simply means that the citizens will have to have a leash on the leaders. I want to challenge those in the political class. Failure is already guaranteed if you don’t have laws that guarantee care and empathy for the citizens. To those of us in leadership now, there will come a day, you won’t be able to control it. It is either you are out of power or out of this world. History books will still be written and you may not be able to control the narrative. Stop trying to impress people, stop focusing on your family; it is time to think about legacy.
We need to push through the national assembly. We have to agree, first, that Nigeria is becoming a developed country. The young people need to ask for a developed Nigeria.
It has been one year that this government has been voted into office, does it look like we have leadership?
What I am waiting to hear, honestly, is a national discussion of where Nigeria is going long term. Anybody who is working for what they can do in four years may have a short-term vision in the life of a nation. If you are going to be building development in a nation, we have got to be thinking decades and centuries. To that extent, I put it for those in government and citizens, it looks, to me, like we have not even started the journey. So, I am waiting to hear any leader describing what a developed Nigeria would look like.
So, today, you have not seen anything that looks like a focused vision from the present government that we have in Nigeria?
I don’t think so. The country is very divided right now. I am saying this very carefully, because, when you discuss leadership, most Africans think about personalities, not issues or principles. Even though I am trying to discuss principles, some people who are prejudiced or biased would think I am attacking this party or that party. I am not. I am saying this collectively as a nation.
When you come down to the sub-government, or at the ministerial level, you will see some people demonstrating vision. The big issue is some of the things they are doing may be reversed when they leave office. You see some governors are showing signs of vision, trying to create development here and there. In Africa, the community dominates the individual. At the end of the day, what they are doing is not going to count because they are going to be out of office before they know it.
Some people are showing good signs at the individual level. They are few but they are showing good signs. We should not apportion blame. If we are expecting so much from leaders, where did they learn the leadership from? Is leadership in our curriculum in school? Did they attend a seminar? How many books on leadership have they read? My advice is that if you are on the job already they get leadership coaches. They need to get an adviser on the issue of leadership. This is the improvement in the quality of the people and the quality of their lives.
Are you disappointed in the average Nigerian youth in how they relate to politics and governance?
I am not at all. This is because I remember how, as a teenager, I read my dad’s books on Nigeria. They were books about the military coups of 1966 and the Nigerian Civil War. Understanding those issues that divide us and all those things in me created a passion in me to see Nigeria change. In the first place, to see young people in Nigeria passionate about seeing the country change gives me phenomenal hope. The response of leadership to that aspiration dashed the hope of a lot of young people, and that saddens me. Now, a lot of our young people have decided that Nigeria is not worth dying for and they need to get their lives to be better personally. I think a lot of our young people are there. They are dealing with a very difficult environment, very very difficult environment. I am glad they have tools that my generation did not have.
I am seeing right now that Nigeria is hanging on a balance. Nigeria is bottom-heavy. The average age is between 17 and 18. We have an implosion coming. We cannot afford to build a country of people who are not skilled or passionate enough for the country. We cannot afford to build a country where millions of people are angry. Look at the people fighting the country as terrorists. They are young, hungry, and uneducated people. So, we have a big crisis looming if we don’t create the right environment for young people to flourish. I think they want to flourish. In the spaces where they are free to express their creativity, they are showing what they can do.
Our young people are some of the biggest techpreneurs that we have in Africa and around the world right now. Silicon Valley has acknowledged some of them. Their potential is phenomenal. I have great hope for them, but I think the older generation needs to do something fast, or else we’ll have a big crisis we’d find very difficult to manage.
What would you say was the biggest lesson that you saw out of the #EndSARS phenomenon?
It was just a confirmation of the Nigeria that I have known. The structure, ultimately, the political class, uses the military to shut down voices of dissent and maintain the status quo. The young people didn’t know that. Most of the young people who went out on the streets did not grow up like our generation did. They were fearless. Sadly, they did not recognise that potential threat. If they did, they’d have managed things differently.
The technologies that these young people are leveraging were developed in countries where we have freedom of speech, and where power is democratised. The young people were trying to manage it, but they were not strategic enough and they should not give up. They need to retain their voices, keep speaking, keep strategising, and not think only of themselves. Our own place is to lay foundations so the people after us can build.
So, I’d say the lessons are learnt that when leaders don’t listen to people or see leadership as service, they are going to struggle and have crises on their hands. The essence of leadership is service. Those of us at the top need to stop using power to dominate people. We will not have rest, as long as we don’t allow the people to flourish and be the best that they can be. We need to turn around to serve people and stop using power to acquire wealth just for ourselves and our families.
For citizens, we have got to be more strategic. Technologies give us more speed. I was tweeting during the #EndSARS protest. What they were asking for was legitimate. I told them to stop the street protest and move back on social media because changing the country is a long-term game. There are vested interests. We make it look like generating power in Nigeria is rocket science; it is a vested interest. Once people are making big money from something, even though it is dysfunctional, they are not going to want it to change. Youths must also join political parties and get involved in politicking.
How did you receive the lawsuit?
I found it very ridiculous. What did I do? I wasn’t even out on the streets. I was just advising young people. The gentleman who filed the lawsuit said the crisis that evolved from the protest made people destroy his goods and business premises. I empathise with everyone that lost something during that period. It was sad, but then, I felt that everybody was trying to create their own narrative of what happened. If we didn’t unleash violence on the young people, there was no way that level of violence would have existed. Period! I would never agree to the unleashing of violence that was meted out on the young people.
The sad thing is that the protest was peaceful. The leaders of those young people were educated. Some of them were even educated out of Nigeria. Some of them were educated in countries where they had freedom of speech and they wanted the same for their country. But then, we had a complication. The mass of young people who were not educated also joined the protest and began to introduce violence into the protest. That is the point where the leaders of the protest were supposed to stop the protests and move back online.
When the violence started, the ones from educated homes retreated to their homes. It is the uneducated ones who moved out on the streets and unleashed terrible violence in the country. There are lessons to learn. You can’t go faster as a leader than the weakest person on your team. If our country is going to develop, it cannot do so with uneducated and unskilled citizens.
Is your recent relocation to the US linked to the #EndSARS protests and its aftermath?
Interestingly not. It so happened that for 10 years now, my wife and I shifted our work to global work. So, we established offices in Atlanta, US, 10 years ago to be able to leverage the technology and systems of the Western world to be able to reach the world. Reaching the whole world does not require one to go everywhere. All our children were in the US when the COVID-19 lockdown started. So, we stayed with our children here as a family. The week that DayStar resumed services was the week that the #EndSARS protest started.
We were preparing to return. When the #EndSARS thing ended in violence, we stayed back a bit. When we wanted to come back to Nigeria, a different experience altogether happened. My wife had a dream, and in that dream, she travelled to Nigeria and returned to the US. The dream was a bad dream. I told her I didn’t like the dream. Three days later, I had mine. In that dream, both of us traveled to Nigeria and I was in a big fight. I was being attacked violently. I had to ask the Holy Spirit in my heart what I should do and he instructed me to shout the name of Jesus. I shouted the name of Jesus in that dream and didn’t realise that I shouted out in real life. My shout woke my wife, Pastor Nike, up and she woke me. It was 2 am. So, I woke up and both of us decided that we were not taking it lightly especially in the light of her own dream three days before.
We prayed and prayed, but whatever it was, it was indicating danger. Three hours later, I slept back and I had another dream, where both of us were in Nigeria and I had a fight. It was another scenario. When I woke up, I said to her that I had never had two dreams about the same thing. A few days later, we called a few family members in Nigeria and one of them said they were feeling uncomfortable for us to travel back to Nigeria. From that point onwards, whenever we booked a flight, I would have a bad dream that something bad would happen to me in Nigeria.
I have been a Christian for 40 years. At this point, if God is speaking to me, I should have an idea that it is God speaking. Something is going on and I want to pray more about it. I met the top 120 leaders in Day Star on Zoom and I told them about the experience. I told them to keep the church going and they agreed with me. The experience helped us to discover the strength of Day Star. The church did not collapse. We called it an organisational miracle.
Before now, the longest I had ever been out of Nigeria was eight weeks. To now be away for over two years and more was tearing me apart.
What the Holy Spirit told me when I got clearance after three years was that he wanted me to shift my focus to global work.
If you are given the chance, would you consider running for public office?
(Laughs) What a question! Honestly, I am so passionate about Nigeria as I have said. I am passionate about seeing change in Nigeria and Africa and it is something that I’d love to do. I would want to contribute my bit because the waste of human potential is phenomenal and it really breaks my heart. The whole world is looking at Africa and they know we are the next big deal. I want to be a part of that. But, the question would be, “In what role?”
If asked to contest for presidency, would you take it?
(Laughs) I’d love to say, honestly, the ultimate decider is God. The role that I am playing now is that I had to abandon my training to be a pastor. I also have this gift for teaching and operating in the business sector but only as a consultant and trainer. So, until I have an alternative instruction…
I see work in the business sector and government as a sacrifice. For now, I am not seeing that. But, I will not mind being the pastor of the president. I am investing my time in raising future presidents and governors until I get an alternative instruction.
If your nation calls you and God inspires you, what will you do?
If God inspires me to do it, and if the nation wants me to do it, it is going to be a sacrifice. But, I will do it if God inspires me to do it.
You advised that people should join political parties; have you joined one?
No, I haven’t. This is for sensitive reasons. I asked members of Day Star how many of them were card-carrying members of political parties; only a few hands went up. I said it was sad but I didn’t blame them. I told them to go join political systems. Usually, I will not ask people to do something I have not done but for this particular one, I decided not to do it yet, because in Nigeria it is a sensitive issue. As a pastor, I cannot afford to be partisan, especially on the pulpit. Privately, I can, but publicly, I cannot. But, I am encouraging our church members to do it.
What are your thoughts on the current government and how will you rate their performance in the last year?
That is a bit tough to do. Honestly, I’d allow Nigerians to do it. What did they promise they were going to do? How well have they done? My assessment will just be limited to leadership.
