Across our nation, a pattern emerges. Those entrusted with power increasingly govern not for we the people, but for the institutions they inhabit. They master technicalities while abandoning moral purpose. They become administrators of systems, rather than servants of those the systems were built to help.
This is not leadership. It is a failure of power’s fundamental purpose.
What leadership is for
Leadership exists for one reason only: to serve. Every position of authority is not a reward but a solemn covenant. A sacred agreement that says: I will use this power for your wellbeing.
Institutions do not exist for themselves. They exist for the worker who laboured a lifetime and deserves dignity in old age.
For the mataqali who entrusted their heritage and deserves to share in its benefits. For the citizen who placed hope in a leader and deserves to see that hope honoured.
When leaders forget this, they do not simply fail. They betray.
The worldview of the insulated
This failure flows from a worldview that divides humanity into two groups: those with us, and those who must wait.
The “with us” circle includes leaders themselves—the comfortable, the connected, the insulated. It includes the rituals they perform for one another: the courtesy visits, the formal briefings, the press releases. Entire ministry delegations travel to the capital to brief the Prime Minister on rural development, while the rural and maritime communities they serve, remain unseen.
Divisional Commissioners are summoned to Suva to recite challenges, rather than being empowered to solve them where they occur. This is not governance. It is theatre disguised as work.
And then there is everyone else. The ones who placed their trust in the system and now find themselves waiting
Told the institution is sound. Told to be patient. Told to wait for a future that never arrives.
The 1400 surviving pensioners of the 2012 FNPF saga, know this waiting. They are the ones the state now refuses to compensate, citing a $582million cost and a constitutional provision, while offering not “so much as a single word of sympathy or remorse.” They are the ones who watched 4600 of their fellow pensioners die over 14 years, still waiting for justice that never came.
This is failed leadership: insulation from consequences. Those at the top manage risk for their institutions by forcing ordinary people to bear the weight of living, alone.
The values we print and the values we practice
The 2013 Constitution, for all its flaws, lists beautiful values: human dignity, respect for the individual, equality for all, care for the less fortunate, transparency, and accountability. These words are not hidden; they are the foundation of Chapter 1, the promises the state makes to every citizen.
Yet these same values are invoked selectively — celebrated in press releases, ignored in cabinet rooms.
The state finds $1.5billion for what one critic called “reckless and wasteful spending” — $666million on peacekeeping, $274m on motor vehicle leases, $125m on broadcasting, $433m on communications. It finds money to award its MPs a 90 per cent allowance increase, granting each $2639 for every one of the 36 days they sit in Parliament each year.
But it cannot find $582m over 14 years to restore what it took from its own elderly.
When a struggling person asks why their situation does not improve, and the answer is a technical explanation of why nothing can change — that is not leadership.
That is deflection. When a constitution’s values are printed on paper but abandoned in practice, that is not governance. It is a moral vacuum wrapped in legal language.
The aristocracy of office
What we are witnessing is the emergence of a leadership class that has made itself immune to the suffering it oversees.
They perform the rituals of tradition — publicly revering chiefs, speaking the language of the vanua — while governing by the coldest logic of the colonial state. They become experts in managing expectations downward, in explaining why justice must be delayed, in defending the indefensible with precision and without remorse.
The values of the vanua are communal. They demand reciprocity. They hold that the elderly are not burdens but treasures, that the vulnerable are not line items but relations. A chief who failed to provide for the widows and elders of his clan would lose his legitimacy.
He would be seen as sega ni taukena na vanua — unfit to hold the people. Yet the modern state, led by those who claim to honour these traditions, has done exactly that. It has abandoned its elders. It has used a constitution it controls to sever its obligation to those who built this nation with their labour. It has chosen institutional stability over human dignity.
This is not leadership. It is betrayal dressed in formalities.
Leading to serve
Leading to serve begins with seeing. Truly seeing people behind the numbers. Not as statistics or line items. As human beings with dignity, with hopes, with claims on the trust placed in leaders.
Seeing leads to acknowledgment. Not defensiveness or deflection. Honest recognition: “We see you. The system is not working. This is wrong, and we will fix it.”
Acknowledgment leads to action. Action that may be difficult. That may require changing laws, confronting comfortable assumptions, admitting that past decisions—however technically sound —have failed in their human purpose.
This is the missing courage: not defending the status quo with precision, but admitting the status quo is failing those it was designed to serve.
Serving to lead
We serve best when we lead with courage. Serving to lead means having moral clarity to see what is broken and fortitude to fix it — even when the path forward is uncertain. Serving to lead means measuring success not by institutional stability but by people’s wellbeing. Not by transactions processed but by dignity preserved. Not by absence of complaint but by resolution with empathy.
This is the standard by which every leader will be judged: Did the people entrusted to your care become better off because you led?
The choice before every leader
Every person in power faces a choice: Will you lead to serve, or lead to be served? Leading to serve means placing people’s wellbeing above position’s comfort. Asking constantly: Is this just? Is this serving? Is this worthy of the trust placed in me?
Leading to be served means protecting yourself while people are unprotected.
Defending processes while people are disregarded. Preserving your position while the vulnerable erode.
The FNPF pensioners represent a clear test of this choice. For 14 years, two administrations have failed it.
The current government’s cabinet decision not to backdate their pensions, citing cost and constitutional constraints, is not a resolution. It is an abandonment. It tells every Fijian: your lifetime of contribution can be disregarded. Your dignity can be discounted. Your government will prioritize its own balance sheet over your basic humanity.
The measure
The measure of leadership is simple: Did the people entrusted to you become better off because you led?
By this measure, too many are failing. The struggling are worse off, burdens heavier. The trusting are disillusioned, faith eroded. The hopeful are cynical, hope replaced by resignation. The elderly are dying, still waiting.
This is the predictable result of a leadership class that has forgotten why it exists.
A call to remember
To every person entrusted with power: You are there to serve. Not to be served. Not to defend the status quo. Not to manage expectations. Not to explain why justice must wait. To serve.
This is the covenant. And it is being broken.
Leading to serve. Serving to lead. These are not slogans. They are the only foundation on which legitimate leadership stands. Without them, power becomes self-serving and people become means rather than ends.
The moral vacuum must be filled. Not with more explanations of why nothing can change. Not with more courtesy visits and formal briefings.
Not with more press releases announcing plans while people wait. But with leaders who remember why they are there — and who have the courage to act on that memory.
A nation is watching. Its elders are dying. Its trust is eroding.
RO NAULU MATAITINI is a former military officer and a UN retiree. He is a member of the Bose Levu Vakaturaga
