Stakeholders across various sectors have called on political leaders to make personal sacrifices and embrace selfless service for nation-building.

They made the call in separate interviews with journalists on the sidelines of the 2025 International Leadership Conference and Awards on Friday in Abuja.

The theme of the conference is ‘Strategic Leadership for Nation Building”.

The stakeholders, which include leadership experts, clerics, scholars, and women’s rights advocates, said leadership was a call to service, urging leaders to prioritise national interest over personal or partisan gain to facilitate genuine nation-building.

According to them, as Nigeria grapples with various challenges, there is a need for a united, selfless and intentional leadership at all levels to reposition it on the path of peace and prosperity.

A cleric, Oloche King-Adaji, senior pastor of the City of Refuge International Church, Abuja, said sacrificial leadership was a critical requirement in building an egalitarian and progressive nation.

The cleric also called for mentorship for emerging leaders to ensure that the virtues of good leadership are passed to the next generation of Nigerians.

“I believe that the missing link in our society is visionary leadership, as we have people in various spheres of leadership in our nation leading us nowhere.

“For many people, leadership is the occupation of a seat or the fulfilment of an ambition, but leadership is actually about making sacrifices.

“The truth of the matter is, leadership must be sacrificial to make a meaningful impact, sacrificing personal gains for nationhood and national development.

“That sacrifice must be made if our nation is to make any meaningful progress, and leaders must understand that this is not all about them,” he said.

Esther Adelana, a leadership coach and executive director of Tea-Prime Leadership Academy, organisers of the event, said there was a need for transformational leaders in all sectors of society for progressive change.

“The theme for this event is strategic leadership for nation building, and we believe that strategic leadership will provide solutions to the problems in Africa, and Nigeria in particular.

“It will help us to initiate innovative solutions to those problems and also come up with initiatives that will lift Nigeria from a third-world country to a leader on the global stage.

“ Sacrificial and selfless leadership is key to achieving this, and that is why we should catch the youths earlier and then imbibe in them the culture of transformational leadership,” she said.

Earlier, in his keynote speech, Udenta. O. Udenta said, besides the political arena, good leadership was needed in all strata of society, including the school system, security and others, to transform society.

He identified clarity of vision, capacity development, ‘disruption of the old order,’ and convergence of different ideas as veritable keys to nation-building.

“No matter how small or big your agency is, your organisation is, you must have a clear vision of what you want to achieve.

“Vision is when you have even compelling limit situations that will hamper your ability to perform, but you overcome them because your vision is very clear and very intentional.

“As young people, we must strive to question, to decompose the old order, to talk about proposals.

“We must harass conventions in order to have another picture to find your voice and through your voice employ a leadership potential for the growth of the nation,” he said.

In his opening remarks, Denja Abdullahi, award-winning poet and former national president of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), commended the conveners of the conference.

According to him, the task of nation-building demands the contribution of everybody; a sacrificial leadership mindset was needed to set right priorities by those in charge of national affairs.

The event featured various panel discussions on key thematic areas in national development, as well as the presentation of awards to outstanding leaders from diverse sectors.

(NAN)