Leadership is so critical in human endeavor that the lack of it exposes any society to degradation, destruction and depravity. Leaders of homes, communities, corporate organizations and nations have invested so much time, energy, rhetoric and resources to build or pretending to build trust in their children and people to no avail.

It has often been wondered that with increasing opportunities, resources and intelligence quotient, human beings have continued to slide into the abyss of poverty, murderous behavior, insanity and failure. It beats the imagination that the early man who had limited opportunities and skill is proving to have a better quality life than the modern man who has not just the information, but also the skill to do far better.

Leadership failure in the family, community, corporate organizations and national levels of the humankind seem to make beasts ashamed.

Parental guidance has been mortgaged on the altar of pursuit of money. Both parents are out there hustling for money leaving their children at the mercy of housemaids and house helps who are mostly people who could not do well for themselves in the first place. The few of them who could do well are mostly likely those who are angry at the circumstance that made housemaids and house help.

Order in the local communities has been mortgaged on the altar of corruption. Local chiefs and elders have sold titles to armed robbers and fraudsters to get gain. This has quickly metamorphosed into a situation where the robbers are in charge in all our communities as the chiefs and elders of the land.

The quest for success at the corporate has led educated men and women to become mere thieves and robbers stealing shareholders blind. In the last few years, pension funds and people's livelihood and lives have been lost to executive miscreants who have robbed others to enrich themselves with their position as corporate leaders.

In the name of God, religious bigots have not just stolen from the people; they have raped women and children and murdered for selfish interest but guising same as acting in the pursuit of the commission of their God by whatever name they call him.

Nations have wept in the hands of political leaders who have corrupted the political process. The corrupt political processes produces nothing but a bunch of nitwits who has skill only on how to rob the citizenry of all the natural resources of the land and even their hard earned income through obnoxious taxation with a thousand and one heads and subheads.

How else can one describe today's politicians but as a bunch of nitwits. Instead of working the process in such a way that the people of the land are included in the exploitation of natural resources that is enough and to spare, the only way they can find is to exclude the citizenry using a few criminal and questionable experts from other lands. They despise their own people and enrich criminal gangs from other lands in the name of expatriates.

The disturbing aspect is that the natural endowments of many nations are so enormous that all that is needed is to involve the people in the process. Develop needed infrastructure such as electricity, roads, communication and healthcare.

It is a sad discovery that many of these nitwits on gaining access to power and learning the enormous resources at their disposal as leaders immediately go insane and remember nothing afterwards except give me, give me, give me. Isn't it sad that one with power to give is now begging to be given?

The dilemma as I see it is that self leadership is lacking in the people. From the citizenry to the nitwits who sit as presidents, governors, senators and civil servants. People who cannot lead themselves are not just aspiring to be leaders; they have taken over as leaders of families, communities, corporate organizations and nations.

Leadership is about trust, stewardship, care, concern, service, humility and understanding. It starts with self leadership. If you cannot trust yourself to know what is good for you, if you act in ways that sabotage your self-interest, if you are so careless of what happens to your name when you are gone, if you are not concerned where you spend eternity, if you steal all the money meant to build infrastructure which you would need, if you are not able to be humble in the opportunity to lead, if you cannot understand yourself anymore, how can you provide these things for others.

Are these not what is happening with our so called leaders today worldwide but especially in Africa? How can you aspire to public office just to steal money? How can people not see what happened to those who stole money in the past who ended in ignominy? Are we really looking to see at all?

It is lack of self leadership that will lead a man to continue to steal public funds. Self leadership would help men and women know that if they do good, they do it for themselves and that if they do bad they also do it for themselves. It is a foolish person that would load a gun, and aim it at his or her own toe and pull the trigger.