Leadership and storytelling in election season, by Azu Ishiekwene

I keep a weekly diary, which is my own way of telling different stories about Nigeria and the world, encompassing politics, the economy, society, and our endless search for leaders who can make promises and deliver results. Sometimes, I stir the pot of Nigeria’s public life. Of course, we know about the danger of the single story, but that’s not what I will address today.

Compelling stories create impact that shapes the future. And leaders who fail to tell honest stories shape nothing but frustration and disappointment. A Story from the Trenches In 2004, in a bedroom in Kaduna, Sam Nda-Isaiah and his wife, Zainab, conceived the idea of a newspaper.

She told the story before of how her husband got up in the wee hours, scribbled a few things in a jotter, and asked what she thought. That idea, born in intimacy and nurtured with courage, later became LEADERSHIP newspaper. The question before us is simple: What stories are today’s leaders telling, and what leaders will those stories produce tomorrow?

Anatomy of Impactful Storytelling I have learned over the years that storytelling is not decoration. Every leader – whether in government, business, civil society, or the media – is a storyteller. The question is not whether you tell stories, but what kind of stories you tell, how you tell them, and whether they have the impact you intend.

Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Mahmoud Jega are some of my favourite storytellers. Also, I have watched politicians craft narratives that have lifted nations, as I have seen them tell stories that inflame, incite, and destroy. I have seen corporate leaders build empires on the back of compelling visions, and others lose everything to the gravity of their own contradictions.

But let me start from home, with a story my mother told me, which I have often shared with my two wonderful grandchildren, Ezhinne, 7, and Ekeneolise, 5. It’s about two siblings who ventured into a forbidden forest in defiance of their mother’s advice. Thanks to the older sibling’s pressure, the two young girls’ curiosity led them into an evil forest, where evil men captured them.