From Godwin Agia, Jalingo
The Ter Tiv Zamfara, leader of the Tiv ethnic group in Zamfara State, His highness, Zaki Dr. Abaver Joel Terkuram has called for the establishment of inter-ethnic peace building committee in Taraba State to help tame the incessant crisis between the various ethnic groups in the State.
The monarch made this call while presenting a paper titled; Principles of Effective Leadership Among Tiv Traditional Leadership in the Maintenance of Peace, Unity and Progress in a Divided and Multi-lingual Society at the occasion of the celebration of Silver Jubilee of Tiv Traditional leadership in Bali.
The monarch cum university don, pointed out that establishing a committee of that kind would go along way to resolve skirmishes at their early stage and set the entire state on the fast lane of development and prosperity.
He encouraged inter-ethnic dialogues and visitations, development of joint economic empowerment initiatives and development projects as well as provision of modern mediation techniques, saying they would serve in no small measure in resolving inter-ethnic conflicts between waring parties in any part of the state.
While charging leaders to always show the way and guide their people towards attaining peaceful and sustainable development, the monarch noted that “leaders are everywhere but there is scarcity of quality leadership of building people in our time”.
Citing Biblical injunctions to buttress his position, Dr Terkuram, urged leaders to emulate the leadership style of Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David and Apostle Paul, stating that the effective roles they played in their leadership positions relieved their subjects from dreaded jaws of frustration.
He lamented that instead of having transformational leaders, our societies were pathetically and ironically, engulfed with transactional leaders, hence development is retarded in most of our communities.
“A transformational leader is that who inspires and empowers his followers to achieved a shared vision, fostering innovations and positive changes within an environment or community”. He explained.
Dr Terkuram lauded the leadership of Tiv ethnic group of Bali LGA for transforming their stoolship to an enviable position through an effective traditional and socio cultural leadership that has remained robust, resolute, resilience and has much more been preserves over the decades and urged others to emulate them.
Meanwhile, the Jubilee celebration which commenced on Thursday, is expected to climaxed with presentation of awards, book launch, crowning of Face of Tiv known as “Kumashe U Tiv” and conferment of traditional titles on distinguished personalities among other things on Saturday, 30th November, 2024.
It is nice if our people whom want to lead must not just be leaders but must be quality leaders.