By Gbenga Ojo, News/Comments
The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Arcdiocese, Rt. Rv. (Dr) Mathew Hassan Kukah, in his outspoken manner has hits hard on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’ government, reechoing his statement made more than 12 years ago that only very few Nigerian leaders were prepared for leadership, while many had come into power by luck. This time, the Bishop calls it “ accidental leadership’
The Bishop regretted that President Bola Tinubu and his predecessors, Former Presidents, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, rtd, others, were unprepared for governance before taking over power.
Kukah, who stressed the unusual noted however, that no leader can succeed without good knowledge and that is terribly missing in leadership in Nigeria, and it is unfortunate, that President Tinubu, other past heads of state found themselves in power by accident without knowing what to do with power.
His words: ‘Their actions and activities had shown that none of them was fully prepared before assumption of office”, President Tinubu, who said he was prepared for the role, is struggling. We are still trying to get off the ground. He took over from Buhari, who had already given up. Buhari succeeded Jonathan, who thought he would retire after being deputy governor, but circumstances thrust him into power. Jonathan succeeded Yar’Adua, who had planned to return to teaching at Ahmadu Bello University after his governorship.”
“Yar’Adua, in turn, succeeded Obasanjo, who was unexpectedly released from prison to become president. Obasanjo took over after Abacha, who was being positioned by five political parties to rule indefinitely until nature intervened.
“Abacha succeeded Shonekan, who was a business executive at UAC before being called to serve as Head of State. We can go on and on, but the fundamental issue in governance is knowledge. Leaders need a deep understanding of their environment.”
The bishop spoke on Sunday in a keynote address at the official commissioning of Start-Rite School’s new building and the 4th Amaka Ndoma-Egba Memorial Lecture in Abuja.
On his part, Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), , Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa (retd.), said that early leadership qualities among the young ones will bring development while lamenting that some of the societal issues are drug and societal related, including failures of leadership and accountability. He went further to say:
“We recently dismantled a drug trafficking cartel involving visually impaired individuals. A blind man was caught transporting cannabis from Lagos to Kano, claiming ignorance of the package’s contents. This led us to uncover more blind individuals in Lagos and beyond, all linked to the same operation. Interestingly, even the ultimate handler was also blind.”
This is even as the General refrained from concluding the story but concluded by saying “I won’t tell you the rest of the story.”
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