by Mahfuz Mundadu
The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah al-Uzma, Sayyid, Qaid, Ali Khamenei walks not behind his soldiers but ahead of them. He does not issue commands from bunkers but breathes the dust of the battlefield. His authority is not built by microphones or polished speeches but by scars, silence, and certainty. His name does not need to be screamed in propaganda for it to echo in the hearts of the oppressed across the globe. He needs not to say “I assure you”, because he is the essence of assurance and reassurance. He is more than a title, more than a uniform; he is a servant of truth, a battle tested general forged by hardship, and the roaring embodiment of resistance. When a man leads for God, the world cannot withstand his shadow.
A man like this does not rise through power hungry political games. He rises through the trenches. He stands in uniform, dusty, sun scorched, walking shoulder to shoulder with soldiers, with no crown on his head, only resolve in his eyes. While others perform photo ops in safety, he walks barefoot where martyrs bled. While others rule with puppetry, he commands with presence. Decades ago, while serving as a president, he refused the cosiness and safety of his office and chose the danger of the frontlines during the Iran-Iraq war, earning the right to be called a leader not because of position, but because of proximity to pain. The pain of a people, the pain of a legacy waiting for redemption.
When the hour came, his words were not empty promises but previews of action, and when missiles rained down, they were not born of rage but of reason. In that moment, everything changed: empires hesitated, arrogance melted, and a new resolve spread among those who watched him stand. In twelve days, he taught the world’s arrogance a crash course on dignity as he beat the hell out of their god damned souls blue and silly.
Such leadership humbles the heart because it shows what is possible when someone puts the cause above himself. He reflects the cry, the hunger, the longing of those he leads. The people stand behind him not out of fear but trust, the kind of trust only a commander who tastes hardship before others can earn. He did not inherit palaces; he inherited a covenant with God. His beauty is in his stillness in storms, his calm when missiles fall, his refusal to raise his voice when he can raise the spirit of a nation instead. He is a living proof that leadership and sacrifice are twins, that dignity is still possible in a world drowning in cowardice.
Now turn your eyes to a land of wasted gold and wasted years. Turn to those who sit in power in Nigeria. They rule not by scars but by schemes. They sit in halls lined with stolen wealth, issuing decrees while the hospitals crumble, while schools decay, while roads swallow lives. They do not lead from the front, they do not even know where the front is. They hide behind convoys and protocol, yet when sickness comes, they flee to foreign hospitals because even they know the systems they built are death traps. They have spent decades in power yet could not give their own country a health system fit for themselves, let alone for their people. They have turned a land of promise into a land where even the rulers trust only foreign soil for healing and see their own soil as fit only for burial. In Nigeria, twelve trillion in twelve years is yet to fight a ragtag band of bandits to a standstill. Such is the difference between real leadership and the politricks of aggrandizement garnished with the doctrine of kleptocracy.
Leadership is not about how many bow before you but about how many rise because of you. It is not about years in office but about the life you pour into those years. One man on the battlefield proves that faith, courage, and vision can move nations. Meanwhile, in Nigeria, countless men in suits and brocade prove that greed, negligence, and cowardice can bury them. They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity, wasting the wealth of generations while the people suffer. They do not build for their citizens, and not even for themselves. They have no hospitals worthy of their own bodies, no schools worthy of their own children, no dignity left in the land they claim to lead.
Yet death waits for them too. The Angel of Death does not recognize titles. It does not accept bribes. One day the same ground they ignored will hold their bodies. One day, their names will be whispered, not with respect, but with the memory of chances squandered and hopes betrayed. The measure of a leader is in what remains when he is gone. For some, there are monuments, victories, and prayers. For others, only curses and sighs of relief.
It does not have to remain this way. Leadership does not demand perfection, but it demands presence. It demands that those entrusted with power build systems that outlive them. It demands that even if they cannot heal every wound, they should not be the ones inflicting new ones. It demands that if they cannot bring smiles, they should at least not cause tears. The greatest shame is that they have ruled all these years and left nothing but decay. They have done nothing to spare the nation the embarrassment of rulers who run abroad for survival, leaving citizens to die in silence.
There are men who lead revolutions, who turn pain into power and betrayal into courage. There are others who lead only in title, their names remembered not for what they built but for what they destroyed. When Gaza bled, a leader stood up and made the world tremble. When Nigeria bleeds, its rulers write speeches. When others bend to pressure, a true leader stands firm. When others drown in alliances, he stays anchored in principle. And when he bows, it is only before God, not before empires.
This is the difference between leadership that inspires and rulership that embarrasses. One walks in storms, the other hides in shadows. One turns a war into a statement, the other turns a country into a cautionary tale. One stands as a lighthouse in an ocean of deceit, the other as a sinking ship in calm waters. One leaves behind dignity, the other leaves behind disgrace.
Time is running for all of us. Death is not far. It does not a matter how high your walls are, how loud your titles, how long your convoy. One day the soil will claim you. Let us not waste the time we have left. Let us build where others have broken. Let us lead where others have failed. Let us live in such a way that when our names are spoken, they bring hope, not bitterness.
No one gets out of this life alive. But some leave as lights, and others as shadows. May we choose to be light. May those in power awaken before their final breath. May we all strive to be the kind of people whose departure leaves behind a trail of blessings, not a record of wasted years. Let us be the soldiers worthy of the footsteps of those who truly lead from the front and let us build a country that will not be remembered only for its graves, but for the life and dignity it gave to its people.
