Recruitment and consent

There is no social animal group, therefore, in which the leadership phenomenon is naturally more manifest than in the human group: families, villages, towns, and states. Leadership among humans, whether by nomination or by election, has a very positive significance. According to the veteran political theorists

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The purpose of the state is the promotion of the general, political common good, which consists in the establishment of justice and order, the securing of domestic tranquility, the provision of common defence, the promotion of general welfare, and the ensuring of the blessings of liberty for all.¹²

and anthropologists, humans unlike the lower animals, act in view of realising purposes.⁶ Aristotle rightly states that “ every state is a community of some kind, and every community is established with a view to some good, for everyone acts in order to obtain that which they think good.”⁷ The ultimate purpose of politics pivots on how to manage or organise the affairs of a state for the common good. A. Appadorai, rightly points out that politics is concerned with the state and of the conditions essential to its existence and development.⁸ In the review of the book on Politics, Leadership and Development, Sam Amadi observed that

“politics is the handmaid of leadership and development”⁹

According to Thomas Aquinas, “that which is particular differentiates, while that which is common unites”.¹⁰ The common good refers to the efforts individuals make for the attainment of those things that are necessary for man‟s physical, mental and moral well being.¹¹ The Catholic Church states it clearly that;

“The common good is a good to which all members of society have access, and from whose enjoyments no one can be easily excluded‟.¹³ In the view of Katrina Vanden Heuvel, common good can only be spoken of if it is orientated towards the concrete promotion of the welfare of people.

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Yes, common good but only if it means economic dignity and social justice and the ending of corruption and the special privileges that have allowed the very richest to amass great fortunes while the vast majority of Americans struggle to make ends meet without any of the security of affordable health care, good jobs and a quality education. Common good if it means making the government more responsive to the needs of the majority of Americans. Common good if it means public investment in our people, in our infrastructure, in research and development that serves human needs. Common good, if it means political reform and making every person‟s vote count. Common good, if it means being a good neighbour to the world and a force for building common security and common property.¹⁴

“The realisation of the common good does not depend on the government of a state alone. It demands for “the responsibility of all to work towards the provision and realisation of the common good”.¹⁵

The rationality of the common good calls on political office holders to engineer and organise the social mechanisms inevitable for the social good. If the common good is paramount, it underscores the fact that political positions are not meant to

“create” demi-gods who instead of serving the expected intentions of their offices, must wait, in reverse, to be served by their subjects. The political leader is an elected or appointed servant of the people. The leaders constitute not only the functional brain-box of the given polity, but also the symbol of unity, peace and confraternity among the people. The government of any human community is chosen for the entire welfare of the community in

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question. The people did not choose to enthrone dictators and oppressors over themselves, but those who through their creative leadership would establish environments for full human flourishing. The common good is paramount in every social set-up without which societies would be nothing but gangs of wolves, lions, tigers and vipers.

Politics then is not an overall egoistic profit-making adventure. Leadership is tied-up with governance – the art of conducting the activities of the state to their fruitful ends – the well being of each and every member of the state. The leader tasks himself/herself to see to the fulfillment of the dreams and visions of the human association, which placed him in power. The leader is a mandated servant of a group. The leader is supposed to have acquired the art of governance. Politics is the art of governing a society to the attainment of its ultimate goals.

Leadership is thus tied with the moral responsibility of seeing to the total welfare of society. The leader is expected to have developed the spirit of self-sacrifice and fore-sightedness. He is supposed to be fatherly, non-discriminatory, protective and seen working assiduously for the material, moral and physical welfare of both the society and the individuals.