From Adanna Nnamani, Abuja
A political organization founded by former Minister of Education, Obiageli Ezekwesili has bemoaned the growing leadership gap in the nation and asserted that the 2023 elections will be a crucial turning point in Nigeria’s efforts to overcome its current problems.
The organization known as the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG) warned Nigerians to choose only candidates they could trust with public funds.
The Chief Executive Officer of the SPPG, Alero Ayida-Otobo while speaking to Journalists, in Abuja during the launch of its Alumni association. Orono highlighted character, competency, and ability deficits as major hindrances to the nation’s advancement in terms of leadership.
According to her, Nigerians must make conscious decisions to reject money politics and only support candidates who are credible and capable if they want excellent leaders to emerge.
She said, “The most important thing right now is to use criteria based on three things: Can the person solve the problems on ground? Are they knowledgeable? Can people trust him or her with money? Governance is about using state resources judiciously and then we should ask if the person have the track record to use resources judiciously and implement projects that will benefits the people.
“We must ask ourselves if we are interested to rescue the nation from the current challenges. We must educate the man on the street who allows money politics to work on the need to change the narrative. Yes, money is needed to run elections in any part of the world, but that should be money to run the system, not to bribe the people. If we are to change the way things are done then we need to pay the price.
“If we look at the current situation, something seems to be changing. People are being activated. Today, they can be ‘Obi-dient’ or any other name. What that movement is saying is we have had enough. And we better have enough. Many times I wonder how people even survive. “We have to push the narrative that enough is enough and that we are tired.”
While emphasising that the country’s leadership recruitment process was faulty, Ayida-Otobo said it was a major factor that had retarded Nigeria’s progress for quite some time now.
Speaking about the rationale behind the institution’s founding, Ayida-Otobo stated that the SPPG was committed to filling the gaps present in the deficit sectors due to the growing demand for quality leadership in Africa, particularly in Nigeria.
The SPPG, according to her, is a novel branch of the research-based #FixPolitics movement, which aims to improve the caliber of political and public leadership in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.
“So that gap of competence is a real gap. And then the third pillar of democracy is the constitutional and electoral framework which we are also trying to improve upon”, she said.