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The Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Most Rev. Matthew Kukah, has said that one of the most fundamental things that is missing in Nigeria is knowledge.
According to the cleric, without requisite knowledge and adequate preparation, many leaders in the country emerged by historical accident or one circumstances or the other.
Kukah stated this in his keynote address at the 4th Amaka Ndoma-Egba Memorial Lecture with the theme, “Leaders of Tomorrow: Creating Lasting Change In A Complex World”, held in Abuja at the weekend.
Amaka, a deceased wife of the former Senate Leader, Senator Ndoma Egba, died in an auto crash in Ondo State in 2020.
She was a visioneer of the Start-Rite Schools, Abuja where the event was held after commissioning of a legacy building in her honour by the Governor of Cross River, Senator Bassey Otu.
Kukah said Nigeria’s leadership crisis was due to the lack of knowledge, capacity, and preparation of its leaders.
He noted that Nigeria’s Presidents since independence, except President Bola Tinubu, emerged by accident but the country was still suffering despite the president’s perceived preparedness to govern the nation.
“I don’t want to bore you, but run through, from the beginning, you’ll find that almost everybody who came to power in Nigeria was as the result of one accident or the other.
“President Tinubu, well, he prepared for it… However, we’re still trying to get off the ground. But he took over from Buhari, who had already given up. Buhari took over from Jonathan, who was thinking that after finishing being deputy governor, he would go somewhere else and then something happened.
“Jonathan took over from Yaradua, who had actually said he was going to teach at Ahmadu Bello University as he was finishing his term as governor. Yaradua took over from Obasanjo, who was in prison, and was not expecting to come out but he somehow found himself out of prison. Obansanjo took over from Abacha, who, sadly, even though the five political parties had said he would rule forever, nature took him.
“Abacha took over from Ernest Shonekan, who was busy at the United African Company of Nigeria, and then they told him to come and be head of state. We can go all the way down but fundamental to governance is knowledge,” Kukah said.
The Catholic Bishop emphasised the need for leaders to have set goals, boldness, courage, and patriotism, adding that true leadership is about influencing citizens and not just holding office.
He said Nigerians were impatient with the current state of democracy in the country as it was hardly working against the wishes and aspirations of the people.
“We have made a choice to live with democracy as it is, we know that our democracy is hardly working, hardly functioning, although I’d make quick to say that we are very impatient with ourselves, very, very impatient.
“Nigerians are surprised when I say we have done pretty well. We are absolutely not happy and we will probably never be happy, because that’s not how the world is. You’ve got this, you want this, you want that. We are insatiable.
“Now, we are not in a perfect place, because perfect places don’t exist, and we shouldn’t be looking for leaders who will take us to a place of perfection, because nobody has found that kind of place. However, there are minimum conditions that we require in a leader, and I think we need to use them to measure the whole concept of leadership,” he stated.
On his part, chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Buba Marwa, who chaired the event, urged students to shun drug abuse, which was a bane of personal and national development.
The retired general said drug abuse was the number one challenge facing the country presently and called on stakeholders to invest in the advancement of youth to ensure that their potential is properly harnessed.
Marwa paid tributes to the late Amaka Ndoma-Egba describe her as a visionary agent who established Start-Rite schools to ensure that students learn and imbibe the necessary life skills needed for surve in the ever challenging world.
In a vote of thanks, former Senate President and chairman, Start-Rite Schools Advisory Board granted the request of the Cross River Governor to establish a similar school in the South-south state.
He emphasised the need to prioritise education through adequate investments and serene location to ensure the whole development of an individual, adequately equipped for national development.
