Abuja, Nigeria - November 14, 2025 Stakeholders from diverse sectors have urged political leaders to prioritise personal sacrifice and selfless service in the pursuit of nation-building. They made the call in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of the 2025 International Leadership Conference and Awards in Abuja. The theme of the conference is ‘Strategic Leadership for Nation Building”. The stakeholders, which include leadership experts, clerics, scholars and women rights advocates said leadership is a call-to-service, urging leaders to prioritise national interest over personal or partisan gain to facilitate genuine nation-building. According to them, as Nigeria grapples with various challenges, there is a need for a united, selfless and intentional leadership at all levels to reposition it on the path of peace and prosperity. A cleric, Pastor Oloche King-Adaji, Senior Pastor of the City of Refuge International Church Abuja, said sacrificial leadership was a critical requirement in building an egalitarian and progressive nation. The cleric also called for mentorship for emerging leaders to ensure that virtues of good leadership are passed to the next generation of Nigerians. “I believe that the missing link in our society is visionary leadership, as we have people in various spheres of leadership in our nation leading us to nowhere. “For many people, leadership is the occupation of a seat or the fulfillment of an ambition, but leadership is actually about making sacrifices. “The truth of the matter is leadership must be sacrificial to make a meaningful impact, sacrificing personal gains for nationhood and national development. “That sacrifice must be made if our nation is to make any meaningful progress, and leaders must understand that this is not all about them,” he said. Esther Adelana, a Leadership Coach and Executive Director of Tea-Prime Leadership Academy, organisers of the event, said there was a need for transformational leaders in all sectors of the society for a progressive change. “The theme for this event is strategic leadership for nation building, and we believe that strategic leadership will provide solutions to the problem in Africa, and Nigeria in particular. “It will help us to initiate innovative solutions to those problems and also come up with initiatives that will lift Nigeria from a third-world country to a leader on the global stage. “ Sacrificial and selfless leadership is key to achieving this, and that is why we should catch the youths earlier and then imbibe in them the culture of transformational leadership,” she said. Earlier, in his keynote speech, Prof. Udenta .O. Udenta, said beside the political arena, good leadership was needed in all strata of society including the school system, security and others to have transformed society. He identified clarity of vision, capacity development; ‘disruption of the old order’ and convergence of different ideas as veritable keys to nation building. NAN reports that the event featured various panel discussions on key thematic areas in national development, and the presentation of awards to outstanding leaders from the various sectors.