Odita Sunday 
By Ewere Okonta
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eobnewsmedia@gmail.com
eob.org.ng
There is a dangerous disease spreading across our society. It is not malaria. It is not cancer. It is not even poverty. The real disease eating deep into the soul of our nation is the collapse of leadership, the death of mentorship, and the prostitution of politics.
Everywhere you turn today, everybody wants to lead, but nobody wants to learn. Everybody wants power, but few want preparation. Everybody wants the microphone, but nobody wants the mentoring process that builds character, wisdom, patience, competence, and emotional stability.
And that is why our politics has become a jungle.
Today, politics is no longer a noble call to service. It has become an emergency business venture for desperate men and women who see public office as a shortcut to wealth, revenge, social validation, and celebrity status. The tragedy is not even that bad people are entering politics. The real tragedy is that prepared people are running away from politics while unprepared people are taking over the system.
That is the crisis.
Before we continue, let us first understand these three concepts that are central to today’s sermon: leadership, mentorship, and politics.
Leadership is the ability to influence, guide, inspire, and direct people toward a common purpose. A leader is not merely somebody occupying an office. Leadership is not a title. Leadership is responsibility. It is vision. It is sacrifice. It is accountability. A true leader is somebody who carries people, not somebody who uses people.
Mentorship, on the other hand, is the deliberate transfer of wisdom, experience, knowledge, discipline, and values from one person to another. A mentor helps to shape character and sharpen capacity. Mentorship is the bridge between raw potential and mature performance. Nobody becomes great without learning under somebody.
Politics is the process through which a society organizes power, governance, leadership, and public resources for the collective good of the people. Ideally, politics should be about service, development, justice, and nation-building. But in many societies today, politics has been reduced to manipulation, propaganda, thuggery, betrayal, and primitive accumulation of wealth.
Now look at the dangerous convergence.
When leadership lacks vision, mentorship disappears. When mentorship disappears, politics becomes dirty. And when politics becomes dirty, society begins to decay morally, economically, intellectually, and spiritually.
That is exactly where we are today.
Our society is suffering because we have many rulers but few leaders. We have many office holders but few statesmen. We have many influencers but few mentors. We have many political actors but very few nation-builders.
Everybody wants to “arrive,” but nobody wants to “develop.”
That is why people wake up today and suddenly declare themselves governorship aspirants, senatorial aspirants, House of Representatives aspirants, local government chairmanship aspirants, without any visible preparation, ideological foundation, administrative experience, emotional intelligence, or mentorship background.
Politics has now become a beauty pageant of noise and arrogance.
People who cannot manage their homes want to manage states. People who cannot run small businesses want to run national economies. People who cannot mentor even one child want to lead millions of citizens.
And because society now worships money more than competence, many citizens no longer ask: “Who is prepared?” They ask: “Who is rich?” They no longer ask: “Who has character?” They ask: “Who can share money?”
That is why the political space has been invaded by entertainers of power rather than builders of institutions.
In the past, leadership was a sacred journey. Young people passed through ideological schools. They learned under elders. They studied governance. They respected process. They earned experience gradually. Today, many people want to jump from social media popularity directly into governance.
That is dangerous.
A society without mentorship produces arrogant leaders. And arrogant leaders are dangerous because they do not listen, they do not learn, and they do not grow.
Mentorship teaches humility. It teaches emotional discipline. It teaches strategic thinking. It teaches patience. It teaches the difference between ambition and purpose.
Even in the Bible, mentorship was central to destiny. Moses mentored Joshua. Elijah mentored Elisha. Paul mentored Timothy. Jesus mentored the disciples. Greatness has always moved through mentorship.
But today, mentorship is dying because many young people no longer want correction. They only want applause.
Social media has worsened the crisis. A young man insults elders online for one week and suddenly becomes a “political analyst.” A young woman trends for controversy and suddenly becomes a “public intellectual.” Noise has replaced knowledge. Visibility has replaced value. Popularity has replaced preparation.
That is why governance keeps failing.
A nation cannot rise above the quality of its leadership. And leadership cannot rise above the quality of mentorship available in society.
This is why many nations are stuck in circles of corruption, insecurity, unemployment, poor infrastructure, broken educational systems, and collapsing institutions. When leadership is weak, everything becomes weak.
Look around.
Many politicians today do not even understand policy. Some do not understand economics. Some cannot defend basic governance ideas without scripts. Some surround themselves with praise singers rather than thinkers. Many enter office without ideology, without conviction, and without vision.
And when leaders have no vision, citizens suffer confusion.
The painful thing is that good people are retreating from politics. Intellectuals are withdrawing. Professionals are silent. Ethical men and women are scared of entering the political arena because politics has become toxic.
But evil triumphs when good people stay away.
Clean politics can never emerge from dirty minds. And dirty politics cannot produce healthy societies.
That is why the society urgently needs a rebirth of leadership and mentorship.
We need leaders who see politics as service, not investment.
We need mentors who can raise disciplined and competent younger generations.
We need political parties that reward preparation rather than propaganda.
We need followers who stop worshipping wealth and start rewarding character.
We need a generation that understands that leadership is not about wearing expensive clothes, driving convoys, or speaking big English. Leadership is about solving problems.
The future of our society depends on whether we can reconnect leadership, mentorship, and politics together again.
A good mentor can produce a good leader. A good leader can clean up politics. And clean politics can rebuild society.
That is the formula.
Sadly, many people today hate mentorship because mentorship is uncomfortable. A true mentor will challenge you. A true mentor will correct you. A true mentor will expose your weaknesses. But many people prefer flatterers to mentors. They prefer admirers to teachers.
That is why mediocrity is growing.
The tragedy of our generation is not the absence of talented people. The tragedy is the absence of guided people.
Potential without mentorship is dangerous.
Power without mentorship is catastrophic.
Politics without mentorship is destructive.
Leadership without mentorship becomes dictatorship. Mentorship without leadership becomes theory. Politics without both becomes chaos.
Our society must return to the culture of grooming people before giving them power.
No pilot enters the cockpit without training. No doctor enters surgery without mentorship. No lawyer becomes a Senior Advocate overnight. But in politics, people suddenly appear from nowhere and begin to control budgets, institutions, security structures, and public destinies.
And we wonder why society is collapsing.
This Sunday, the message is simple and direct: society does not merely need politicians; society needs prepared leaders. Society needs mentors. Society needs builders of people and institutions.
The noise in politics today is not a shortage of people. It is a shortage of quality people.
Until leadership becomes responsible, mentorship becomes intentional, and politics becomes clean, our society will continue to recycle confusion.
And that is the bitter truth many people do not want to hear.
This is the Sunday sermon from my holy pulpit!
Ewere Okonta is the CEO of EOB Media. He is a family values advocate. He writes from the Department of Business Administration, University of Delta, Agbor.
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