Former governor of Rivers State and immediate past minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has blamed followers, not leaders for the mess in the country. He said the greatest problem with Nigeria is the followership. “Blame Nigerians for country’s failure,” he submitted.
Amaechi noted that ethnicity, faulty foundation, selfish motive and lack of political will were limiting the growth and progress of the country.
Amaechi spoke at the 2023 TheNiche Annual Lecture, themed: “Why We Stride and Slip: Leadership, Nationalism and Nigerian Condition,” in Lagos, yesterday. He said Nigeria’s nationalism and nation-building were younger than the nation as an independent entity and there had been more rulers than nationalistic leaders.
The lecture, in its fourth edition, was organised by TheNiche Foundation for Development Journalism to engage Nigerians and proffer solutions to some of the countries most difficult questions.
While lauding Nigerian nationalists who fought for the independence, the former Rivers governor took a swipe at the followership, which he said lacked direction and remains enablers of bad leadership.
Amaechi also undertook a graphic analysis of the Nigerian condition, arguing that those in position of leadership have failed to deliver the right type of leadership because they are selfish and ethnic-rooted in their actions.
He questioned the extent to which Nigerian leadership had been imbued with the necessary sense of national unity.
“The only person near that point of Nationalism with all respect is ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo. The rest are ethnic leaders. Truly, remarkable national leadership is the ability of a leader to galvanise the totality of a nation around the common national banner with a vision and a sense of mission.
“The truly remarkable national leader is the one that is able to rise above limitations to take the
nation and its people to that place where they long for but have never been before. It is a place of national greatness, pride, achievements and shared goals, aspirations and prosperity,” he said.
He said most nations were products of amalgamation of diverse nationality under a common sovereignty and many had tried to resolve the problem of internal diversity.
Amaechi said many Nigerian leaders were at the corridors of power for the interest of their ethnic groups, noting that the identity of Nigeria was still being tormented by ethnicity.
“There can be no credible leadership for a diverse nation without some forms of resolutions on the national questions as it pertains to the particular nation in question,” he added.
Amaechi said it was in Nigeria a governor once boasted that what money could not do, more money would do it.
“A governor once said that anybody who doesn’t take money from you, what you do, he said put more money. That was a governor,” Amaechi said to buttress his case that the followers were the enablers of bad leadership.
On what could be done, he hinted on citizen’s revolt. “How many are the leaders? Maximum 15,000. If the one hundred and something million storm Lagos, storm Abuja, it will stop. How do you see a governor who has never worked before at all, and he is the richest man in his state, and his state is very rich and everybody is hailing him that he is tough man. What did you do?”
Amaechi also used the occasion to hit Hadiza Bala Usman, former Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) managing director.
He queried Nigerians for celebrating Bala, after she wrote her book, saying, “Hadiza Bala is a liar on her claims and at appropriate time I will respond to it in the book I am writing.”
Chairman of the occasion, Dr. Uma Eleazu, elder statesman and chairman of the Board of Trustees of Anya-Ndi-Igbo, a non-partisan, socio-political and economic development-oriented organization, said it was toxic living in Nigeria, just as he noted further that corruption has reached high heavens as the angels are weeping.
Eleazu, teacher, consultant, writer and commentator on public affairs, set up the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru.
Dr. Uma Eleazu, chairman of the lecture said that in spite of all the problems the country is facing, the future generation still has hope.
Questioning how the country got to its present point, Eleazu said the toxicity of living in Nigeria had birthed the ‘Japa Syndrome’ among the youth.
“Once the boundaries of national social order are removed, there will be problems. Men and women of goodwill must make the necessary investment of time and energy to counter these forces to build within the next generation lasting values.
“These values are embodied in politics of character, self-discipline, respect for authority and for one another, commitment to speaking the truth always no matter whose horses is gored, and unshakeable love for God and humanity,” he said.
Earlier in his remark, Mr Ikechukwu Amaechi, managing director/chief executive officer of TheNiche said the lecture was organised to have various opinions that would shed light on why Nigeria’s enormous potential are not realised.
Amaechi and Eleazu were inducted into TheNiche Hall of Fame, joining other prominent Nigerians including Prof. Remi Sonaiya, Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, among others.
