By Emmanuel Onwubiko
Since independence on
October 1st 1960, one question that has continued to be asked without
appropriate response is: why is Nigeria
so cursed with poor leadership? Another corollary to this interrogatory is:
What is the leadership recruitment process in Nigeria ? These key questions are
germane and hold the magic wand to the bigger question of why Nigeria is in
rapid decline from all indexes of human development.
(pix: thesheet) |
To go straight to providing
answers to the above interrogatories, the beginning point is to take a cursory
look at the work of the renowned writer Professor Chinua Achebe of blessed
memory which he titled- “The Trouble with Nigeria ”:
Professor Achebe summed up the trouble with Nigeria as that of poor leadership.
Professor Achebe quickly added that poor followership is also a major issue. I
agree.
The consequence of this distorted and crime infested leadership recruitment process is the near- state of collapse that
Corruption, ineptitude, indiscipline and above all impunity are some of the
cocktails of this poor leadership system that Nigeria is contending with.
Because of the urgent need to salvage Nigeria
from impending implosion and collapse, a number of patriotic but scholarly
minds have often intervened intellectually by proffering pragmatic panaceas to
this debilitating virus of poor and naughty political leadership in Nigeria .
A fine gentleman of global
repute and a priest of the Catholic Church by name Matthew Hassan Kukah was so
alarmed about the serious negative impacts that poor political leadership has
unleashed on Nigeria that he
had to write a treatise calling for a paradigm shift in the leadership
recruitment process in use in Nigeria .
Sadly, Nigeria
keeps getting some of the most unqualified and indeed rogue political
leadership that can be rated as the worst in modern political history.
Mathew Hassan Kukah the
Bishop of Sokoto has called for change in the leadership recruitment process of
Nigeria .
The country faces a severe
challenge of leadership because of flawed recruitment, so argued Reverend
Father Kukah.
Speaking on the theme: “After the insurgency: some thoughts on reconciliation inNigeria ” as the
Convocation Lecturer for the 43rd Convocation of the University of Nigeria ,
Nsukka, Kukah decried the current situation.
Speaking on the theme: “After the insurgency: some thoughts on reconciliation in
His Words: “Too many people from top to bottom are coming into public life with
no preparation and no pedigree or evidence of exposure and success in any other
form of endeavor beyond the patronage of politics. Too many people are therefore
in Office but not in Power. With too many key actors with limited capacity,
ability and exposure, we see that our public officers are soon weighed down by
raw power, leading to manufacturing of election results, tinkering with the
processes and wanting to stay in power far too long”.
Of all the political
leaders in our contemporary Nigeria ,
the governors of the 36 federating states are some of the worst species of
political animals that can be found in the whole wide world. Aristotle the
Greek philosopher had stated that man by nature is a political animal. If truth
be told, Nigerian political recruits into leadership positions are indeed
irrational political animals who must be tamed constructively.
The Nigerian governors are
the most disturbing agents of underdevelopment and have constituted themselves
into cogs in the wheel of economic and political progress of Nigeria .
Since 1999 till date, the
36 states have had the misfortune of churning out the greediest breeds of
people as their state governors simply because of the crisis of leadership
recruitment process in Nigeria
as highlighted above. In terms of heists of public fund, the combined levels of
theft of public funds by these governors from 1999 till date have reached a
definitive calamitous stage to a deadly extent that almost 90 percent of these
states can’t meet their respective financial obligations to their people.
To compound these crises of
underdevelopment foisted on their respective states, these governors have also
set up different cartels known as governors forum which they use to plot
sinister ways of keeping the masses enslaved and mortally divided alongside
ethno-religious lines.
This dangerous fact of
governors ganging up to plot the destabilization of Nigeria emerged last few
days when a group of governors from the North met in Kaduna to deliberate on
the spate of violent attacks of farming communities by armed Fulani herdsmen.
The Northern governors met against the backdrop of the killings of over 1000
persons in Agatu, Benue State and Nimbo, Uzo-Uwani local government area of Enugu State .
But what the Northern governors say or did during and after thisKaduna meeting will shock
even Satan the king of hell himself.
But what the Northern governors say or did during and after this
The Northern governors did
not raise their voices in strong condemnation of the killer Fulani herdsmen nor
did they protest the gross security failures by all facets of national security
architecture but they defended the mass murderers and cautioned commentators on
the dangers of profiling Fulanis’ as criminals. Commonsense tells me that these
governors are insensitive and naughty.
This also calls for
immediate psychiatric tests to be carried out on these misbehaving governors to
determine if they indeed qualify to occupy these offices because the
constitution listed out one of the disqualifications from office of governors
to include section 182 (2) (a) (b) if adjudged to be of unsound mind and/or one
is a lunatic.
Barely twenty four hours
after these incoherent ramblings by the northern governors forum, the killer
Fulani herdsmen took the bloody attacks to the host Kaduna state with the killing of a
traditional ruler in Sanga local government area and his relation.
These Northern governors
just like their counterparts elsewhere in Southern Nigeria
have a common denominator- to map up strategy for the continuous pillaging of
our commonwealth.
Will the ordinary Nigerians
bury the hatchets of artificial ethno-religious divides created by the
political elites to liberate themselves from the clutches of oppression and
mental slavery? Only time can tell since time is said to be the wisest
counselor.
*Emmanuel
Onwubiko is head of Human Rights Writers Association of (Nigeriawww.huriwa.blogspot.com).
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