Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, a former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has heaped the blame of Nigeria’s problems on past and present leaders.
While speaking at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University recently during the school’s 11th convocation, Ribadu noted that bad leadership in Nigeria continues to be the country’s greatest challenge since its independence in 1960.
In his lecture titled ‘Leadership and Challenges of National Unity in Nigeria’, delivered at the event in Awka, Ribadu said leadership is particularly responsible for “compounding a number of problems, from widening the parochial divisions among the citizens to active participation in plundering our patrimony.”
While condemning calls for a breakup of the country along regional lines, the former EFCC boss enjoined Nigerians to take charge of the ownership of their country, emphasizing that a complacent outlook by citizens was tantamount to abuse by leaders.
Ribadu also noted that breaking up Nigeria, as some groups are clamouring for, is not the solution to the problems, citing Somalia, Rwanda, and Sudan as examples that do not guarantee national peace despite a common language and culture of the people.
In his speech, Ribadu also noted that years have been wasted since independence as Nigeria has yet to achieve competency in self-governance.
“On this issue, I have been an advocate of top-bottom approach to solving societal problems, convinced that leadership is key to whatever social change is desired. It is the leader that charts and navigates the way for the flock to follow and it is the leader’s action, inaction and body language that dictate the tunes for the dance steps the public will take.”
He also highlighted the lack of a unifying leader in the country, noting that a non-divisive leader will be able to harness the strengths of the different regions and powerful groups into moving the nation forward. “Having a unifying person would have been one big leap because it would have taken care of the most central challenges of our country,” he said.
“Modern nation states, as we have seen from examples in sister African countries and elsewhere, succeed largely when you have a leader that is focused, open-minded, cosmopolitan, yet firm and unrelenting.
“The leader of the Nigerian renaissance must, therefore, be strong, tough, and inclusive in his or her own capacity. He or she must not be an opportunist who grows on the back of citizens to entrench a regime of dictatorship that weakens our institutions and in turn, end up annulling our democracy and its values of freedom.”
He added that “There should be a deliberate policy on campaign for the love of Nigeria and patriotism in various ways, including promotion of religious and cultural tolerance. To achieve this, we should build more bridges and strengthen the existing ones like the NYSC and Unity Schools. The demography in our universities should also as much as possible reflect our ethnocultural diversities. I am sad to note how our universities are becoming increasingly provincial in terms of students and teachers’ population, thereby ending up producing narrow-minded graduates.”
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