by Isqil Najim
We've turned Aso Rock into a shrine of scapegoating for our personal failures. We've used the scriptures to justify our quest for miracles and quick fixes, but ignored the scriptures that command our working. Every day and night, we lament how things are deteriorating. While attention is often placed, rightly, on leadership. But the leadership we seek is not in a ballot box; it's in the mirror.
Just imagine trying to influence 200 million people with one stroke of a pen and policy on paper—99.9% of whom you never knew existed and may never meet. All of them have their own axis of influence: religion, education, culture, and personal convictions.
In a university of 7,000 students, we don't demand the head of the Vice Chancellor for failure of students in some departments. We understand that some will bag First Class and others will barely scrape by. When a student fails, it’s on them. When they bag First Class, they’re the ones we celebrate, not the Dean or the HOD. But for some reason, the moment we talk politics or national development, that logic goes out the window. We think in the reverse
In politics, our fixations goes to one man. The man in Aso Rock. He is God like in our eyes because of what we called "leadership." If your LG roads is bad, it is one man. If your Governor failed to do his jobs, it is one man that must pay for it. If your boss in private enterprise under pay you, it is one man that must account for it. If a greedy traders inflat the goods, it is one man who must bear the consequences.
I was recently involved in a conversation where religion verses were used to analyze these issues and, as a result, I had no choice but to walk that road to advance my position.
What the Scriptures Say — and What They Don't
Both the Bible and the Quran are aligned on the need to follow our leaders. We are commanded to respect those in authority. Romans 13:1 states that there is no authority except that permitted by God. Surah An-Nisa (4:59) commands believers to obey Allah, the Messenger, and those in authority among them.
So yes—leaders matter. Governance matters. Anyone in authority who fails this nation must answer for it. This is not an essay giving bad governance a clean bill of health; it is an essay asking followers to look at the mirror. To remind them that leadership is not one man but a collection of leaders who are strategically important in their respective positions. It is a call to demand that followers be not emotional about one man only but channel their concern to the leaders in charge of the specific authority.
Acts 5:29 reminds us: "We must obey God rather than any human authority." In Islam, obedience is conditional—a Muslim must hear and obey unless commanded to sin. Leaders are accountable to God. But so are we.
One feature of modern leadership is that we are responsible for the leaders we have, unless they took power by the barrel of a gun. It appears everyone is now hiding behind "leadership" to evade taking responsibility for their own personal decisions. It is also diverse, especially in democracy, with each leader duties clearly spellers out.
What God Will and Will Not Do
Expecting a president to "fix" people's hearts is asking for a form of control that God Himself declined to exercise. In Deuteronomy 30:19, God says, "I have set before you life and death… therefore choose life."
Even the Almighty does not lead by overriding personal choice. He provides the law; the movement depends on individual decision. God created water, but there is still scarcity. Man must invest innovation and use his head to pump out or purify that water. God did not do this for us. He provides land and resources but does not extract them for us. If God will not do for men what they must do by themselves, how much more a man who has no such divine power?
What One Man in Aso Rock Cannot Do
He cannot lead you to seize opportunity. He cannot lead you to score an A when thousands sit the same paper. He cannot lead you to reject a bribe, refuse to sell your vote, raise your children with values, or become successful.
The structural problems are real. But the civil servant who refuses a ‘kickback’ even when his salary hasn't been paid is also real. The mother who hawks in traffic to keep her kids in school while others wait for a ‘palliative’ is also real. These people did not wait for Aso Rock to give them their character. Surah Al-Ra’d (13:11) settles the matter: “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.”
Aso Rock Is a Mirror, Not a Source
Hosea 13:11 says: "I gave you a king in my anger." Leaders are a reflection of the people's collective heart—a mirror, not a gift. If a people value money over character, God allows money-over-character leaders to emerge. A nation is a family multiplied by millions.
Leadership is not one man; it is a system. A family gives a child a character. If that child grows up to be corrupt in office, it is not the fault of a president who spent eight years in power and never knew that child existed.
The Leaders Closest to You Are Failing You
We obsess over Aso Rock while ignoring the leaders within arm's reach. Your religious leader is failing you if every sermon ends at Abuja and never turns the mirror on the congregation. Your place of worship should produce people who refuse bribes and vote based on character.
Your Governors are failing you, yet you turn a blind eye to them. Your LG chairmen are failing you—and their roles are often more important to your daily life than the man in Aso Rock. Your Senators are failing you. They are all leaders.
Your family leader is failing you if they teach you to blame the economy for every failure but never teach you discipline or delayed gratification. We are so busy checking if the President is doing his job that we haven't noticed our own children are learning to lie by watching us negotiate bribes at police checkpoints, inflate prices to innocent customers, or spread propaganda.
The Office of the Citizen
The most important decisions of your life—to be honest in business, to treat others with dignity regardless of tribe—are made alone, in private. No leader in Aso Rock is in the room. Only your character is.
There are thousands of articles on political leadership, but few addressing the "cluster leadership" that sustains a nation: the father, the pastor, the imam, the employer, the citizen. The "office of the citizen" is the most crucial, yet most neglected, level of power in the land.
I am not giving the man in Aso Rock a pass. But I am refusing to give you one—because your role is the one that has been left untaught. The leadership we are looking for is inside us. When we begin to examine that, we will finally get Aso Rock right.
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