Virtues at Easter As Standard for Statesmanship

By ISAAC OLUSESI

The nations of the world have been urged to imbibe the ever living lessons of the life, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ in order not to be embroiled continuously in a series of civil wars, internecine wars, or international wars and be ranked atop the world happiness charts.

Dr Thomas Ogungbangbe who’s currently on business holiday overseas spoke at a Christian gathering in Amsterdam, the Dutch capital city of Netherlands on the occasion of this year’s Easter celebration. He listed love, sacrifice, humility, perseverance, and endurance or courage as the virtues exemplified by Jesus Christ in the face of ultimate sacrificial death as atonement for the sins of the world that reconciled man to his Maker.

He opined that the internalization of the virtues by the leaderships of the global nations through integrated process of socialization could make the war torn region of the world boast of peaceful lifestyle, high quality of life and longer life expectancy; low threats rate, low crime index and strong sense of public safety; and offer political stability and excellent public service.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at CITA Energies Limited stated that Nigeria remains safer with potential threats and crimes being kept to a minimum and vouched, tourists and business investors would feel much safer than they would elsewhere in African continent where social ruptures, political twists and turns, religious dissensions, other disquiets, oscillations and hesitations rage unabated, outrun with inter- nations’ politics, law and diplomacy as well as security, balance of power and balance of terror, their alliances or alignments and realignments.

Prince Ogungbangbe who’s also a politician of the Osun State All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Obokun/Oriade federal constituency, however, declared that Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu understands the idiom, shrewdness and calculations of international politics and views Nigeria and her relations with other nations realistically that has continued to earn her the respect of the West African sub- region and global leadership.

According to Ogungbangbe, the ace of the dynasty of Ajagbusi Ekun Royal House of Iloko-Ijesa, the recently re- opened Nigeria’s land and air boarders with the Republic of Niger and sanctions – commercial, financial, utility and electricity transactions against Niger, lifted upon the decisions of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government at its extra ordinary Summit in Abuja, capital city of Nigeria, were the Tinubu gestures of goodwill and optimism, described as the deployment of the virtues of love, peace, empathy, forgiveness and generosity exemplified by Jesus Christ that birthed Easter celebration.

“For Nigeria to maintain her good neighbourliness in peace and harmony, President Tinubu and his brother Heads of State and Government in the evaluation of international politics, had done accurate assessment of the political situation in the West African sub-region by rational statesmanship that had the boarders with Niger reopened and sanctions against her lifted ,” Ogungbangbe remarked.

Indeed, Tinubu’s political realism impels, he must work with those other forces and not against them if he must improve the Easter peace, love and harmony in the world. He must be balanced with other interests, certain and precarious, for the world’s absolute good. And back at home, Tinubu’s positive action on Niger has increased Nigeria’s strength, influence and power, determined in proper perspectives, the potentialities of Nigeria to remove the dangers of economic imbalance in Niger and make such basic things as financial – commercial transactions, utility services, other invaluable resources available to that country.

While the West Africa sub- region keeps abreast of economic growth and development in its member- states to be able to assess the sub-region’s economic capabilities, a potent determinant of power, to affect the share of the sub- region in the world trade and its faculty or potency to earn rewards, stave off any diplomatic sanctions, and mount sophisticated defence.

That’s the axiom in international politics as properly understood by Tinubu who knows too well that a weakling Republic of Niger cannot be granted the right to precedence to expect much to gain unilaterally from the world economy and politics even if that meanscountry were to appeal to self pity and sentimental idealism. Niger stands crushed by the god of international politics who’s always on the side of the concerted nations, big populations in terms, as basic element of power, the substratum on which the superstructure of political power and commitment is constructed. Niger, if left alone by Tinubu, can only embark on limited power committal.

But Tinubu with forgiveness, empathy, the virtue of Easter interred in him, fundamentally seeks to beef up the economy of Niger, West Africa at large and free the economies from the constraints that had long inhibited progress. In Nigeria, his Renewed Hope Agenda has established the foundation for a new experiment in economic nation building in the well conceived and articulated 2024 Appropriation Budget, seeking to “achieve job- rich economic growth, macro- economic stability, better investment economy, enhanced human capital development as well as poverty reduction and greater access to social security.”

Ogungbangbe who felicitated Christians and the faithfuls of other religions on the Easter celebration, insisted the virtues at Easter are a standard for statesmanship with the economy of the nation, Nigeria, moving in the desired direction of recovery, the fiscal surplus being channelled into the productive sectors of the economy to improve the socio- economic conditions of the governed and bring about appreciable socio-political stability in the country.

OLUSESI writes via isaacolusesi@gmail.com