Delivering an excellent election is not a walk in the park, especially in Nigeria. People are often willing to do anything to get an election victory, and this is the problem. However, it calls for a fight, a fight for excellence, and this is the fight that INEC failed.

In the last one week, conversations in Nigeria have been awash by politics, elections and the expectations of a new national leader. In every corner of every medium, people are talking, typing and posting their thoughts. The consciousness of almost everyone is fully engaged. In fact, to have a feel of the level of engagements politics has had in the last few weeks, one only needs to scroll through a medium like Twitter. Line after line, tweet after tweet, it is nothing but politics, and the events of the elections.

While it is easy to simply gloss over the entire subject and focus on the emotions that surrounds the major players, it is important to learn some lessons from the entire exercise; applicative lessons for career development.

Lessons like “Never Give Up; Believe in yourself” can be learnt from the Labour Party candidate, Obi; lessons like “Keep building and creating loyal networks” can even be learnt from All Progressives Congress’ Candidate, Tinubu; or “Stay Consistent” can also be a lesson from the People’s Democratic Party’s candidate, Atiku. But my focus will be on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and why we should always fight for excellence.

You see, Nigeria’s elections have a reputation for corruption and vote tampering. It is believed that the votes always go to the highest bidder, and this is why only the ultra-rich can swing the elections. But this year’s election was different. Or at least, it was sold to Nigerians as a different one. INEC claimed that it has advanced its processes using technology, and that the process will be credible and trusted… The outcome is sorry.

Beyond the politics and emotions around the election outcome, my interest is in how INEC failed to fight for excellence.

Delivering an excellent election is not a walk in the park, especially in Nigeria. People are often willing to do anything to get an election victory, and this is the problem. However, it calls for a fight, a fight for excellence, and this is the fight that INEC failed.

In my assessment, INEC failed in the neutrality game, they failed in the process integrity game, they failed in the hiring game, and overall, they failed to be excellent. Now, this does not speak to any particular individual, but the entire institution, and this is why we must learn, as leaders, to fight hard for excellence.

Are you a Team-Lead? Manager? Chief Executive? Director? There is a daily fight to be excellent. Craft your visions with excellence in mind; plan the deliverables with excellence in mind; budget and apply resources with excellence in mind; evaluate the outcome with excellence in mind. Don’t be a leader that lets anything go… Don’t be like INEC that conducts a terrible election bearing in mind that it will end up in court…

Fight hard. Fight for excellence.

Cheers.