Responsibility

By: Rocky Noe

"For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice--no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service."

-    John Burroughs



When I think of the word Responsibility I think of taking care of what you are supposed to take care of. We all feel a sense of responsibilty when it comes to our families. Every loving parent wants to do things for their children. They want them to have better things than they had for themselves. A loving parent wants their children to have a good quality education, be trained with skills to help them live a good and prosperous life. Every loving husband wants to treat his wife to the finer things in life. Every child wants to make their parents happy. We all have a sense of responsibility for the things we own. We are diligent about working to pay our bills on time and so on. We all understand the idea of responsibility and we all want to teach those lessons to the ones we care about. 

On rare occassions we get the opportunity to meet people that have a greater sense of responsibility. Those that go beyond caring for simply what is theirs. Truly great leaders, dare I say great people, seem to have higher calling in this sense of responsibility. They tend to have a great sense of responsibility toward their fellow man. I have been privileged to meet such a person. His name is Adetokunbo "Toks" Obayan.

Toks Lives in Nigeria. He is absolutely passionate about his people and the opportunities that are available in his country. However, he realizes that leadership is needed in order to make some necessary changes.He describes his situation this way:

 " A sense of responsibility is just one thing that leadership needs and no where more so than in my country. Nigeria is Africa's most populated country with a population of between 120 and 140 million. It is also the most populous black nation in the world. It is said that 1 in every 5 Africans is a Nigeran and 1 in every 4 black men. This means that what affects this nation has reverberating effects in the lives of many other peoples. For example, we belong to the West Afgrican sub region where we account for about 80% of the sub region. Nigeria has 36 states and one of them, Lagos exceeds Ghana in population. Add to this that the nation has the highest endowment of resources, human or mineral. We have Oil, Coal and Natural gas. We have extensive iron ore and marble. The major challenge though, is that these endowments come with some other baggage.
1. our population means that leading this nation is very much like driving a supertanker.
2. we have over 250 mutually indiscernible languages which means unity is a major handicap.
3. Our endowments resulted in the colonial masters planting seeds of dicord, or as Lord Lugard the man who ironically gave it its name called it, Divide and rule. Seeds which have a continuing effect on the land.
For this, and other reasons, some of us have made a commitment to help grow leadership capacity because we are convinced that if we don't take personal responsibilty for our future, it will remain unattainable.

I would like to say that even though in my country we experience what we call "Brain drain" I have kept on coming back whenever I have had to stay abroad because I feel a sense of responsibilty, that if not me, who?
This has kept me coming back. Two years ago we started this venture, A leadership consulting firm working with people and organisations to build leadership capacity. Because it is new it has been hard work, but it is geting better.
At the same time I am trying to develop programs linked for non profit purpose to help expand the principle of leadership and in those principles the sense of responsibility is essential. If my people can be persuaded that the events in their lives are a result of their own action then the innate sense of responsibility will be integral to building leaders." 

WOW! I really am in awe of the sheer determination and passion he has for his fellow man. He really takes the notion of responsibility and puts it into a higher gear. He has a great sense of responsibility to help everyone around him. Moreover, he puts it into action. Toks could easily turn his head the other way and live a very nice life. I suppose it would be easy to move away and simply take responsibility for what is his. But, then again, I guess Nigeria is his. It is his home, his people, and his responsibility to make it better. For this, Toks is truly a TERRIFIC person.  


View Toks full bio at www.rattle-the-cage.com



 About the Author: Rocky Noe is a founding member of Rattle The Cage. He can be reached by e-mail at
 roger.noe@rattle-the-cage.com