By Johnson Adebowale
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, director-general, World Trade Organisation, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and former president, of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olisa Agbakoba, among other prominent Nigerians, have given the electorate a clue on how to get it right at the forthcoming polls.
They all offered solutions to the challenges facing the country in their various analyses while speaking as panelists at the 2022 colloquium to commemorate the 113th anniversary of Kings College, Lagos. The event, themed “Building the Nigeria of our dreams,” was organised by the Kings College Old Boys’ Association (KGOBA).
Obasanjo said Nigeria was poor, insecure and had other challenges because of its choice of leaders. According to him, ‘‘We are politically divided, economically disunited, we are nowhere, we are down the drain. Diplomatically, Nigeria is not at the table. Before, we had sent troops to Sudan and Sierra Leone, but today we can’t send troops to the Republic of Benin. There are three races in the world, white, yellow and black. For now, America is leading the whites, the Chinese are leading the yellow race, and Nigeria, with 225 million people, was created by God to lead the black race. When we stop disappointing ourselves, we can take care of the continent and the black race. Nigeria has no business with poverty, insecurity or political division.
“It is the deliberate or inadvertent choice of our leaders. It is not God’s choice for us. If God hasn’t chosen that for us, we can do better. In Nigeria, we have done a few things right, but we have not continued to do them right. We need a government that understands Nigeria and Africa and will be fair and sincere with Nigerians. Together, with the right government, this nation can become the right leading country to develop Africa.”
In her speech, Okonjo-Iweala said her dream was for a Nigeria in which 95 per cent of the people had access to potable water, quality education and more women’s participation in the political and economic life of the country.
She said: “Nigeria can fight poverty and improve people’s lives, if it is properly managed. Our revenue sources are not diversified; we depend only on one revenue stream. Nigeria lacks a sacrosanct social compact in the country. There should be a guideline that dictates certain things that should be sacrosanct.
“We should have guiding principles to decide how we will manage, save, spend and take vigorous action on our revenues. As a country, we need to have certain indicators of how our economy should be governed. If we do this, we have so much to gain.
‘‘If we build strong governance, we need to choose our leaders wisely. We need to ensure we build a strong foundation and we need to get our leaders to accept social compacts that will take us into the future.”
Agbakoba said: “We have been to many conferences and it is time for us to face the real question. We will never come out of this if we don’t sit and ask ourselves if we are really one until the infractions are tackled. Do we wish to be one because this marriage was imposed on us? What marriage do we really want? Why have we excluded all the nationals at our national conferences? “
Former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, enjoined Nigerians to get involved in the political and electoral processes of the country, saying the lack of appropriate and quality leadership selection process and criteria while choosing leaders was a major challenge in the country.
According to him, “Since 1999 till date, there has been a remarkable decline in the quality of leaders. Lack of appropriate selection and criteria in Nigeria’s leadership and electoral process. The country’s challenges cannot be addressed by bad leaders who have come into power through a faulty recruitment process.”