Former speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has berated majority of Nigerian politicians who he said had refused to mature into leaders, but instead chose to be godfathers operating like scowling vulgarians.
“So many of us politicians, if we are to appear before a governor or president, we find ourselves laughing like gas even when nothing funny is going on or nodding our heads like an alligator lizard even when what is being said violates our personal principles,” Dogara said.
In a press release issued by his media aide, Turaki Hassan yesterday, Dogara in a keynote address at the National Mentoring and Coaching Conference in Abuja quoted Isaac Newton, saying, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.
Dogara described the situation as “a validation of the fact that we are led by fear not by inspiration. The truth is that we have become a nation of enablers”.
He said; “Godfathers don’t develop people much less a nation, they use them instead. If progress must be made, we need a pool of true leaders who will lead us to build a nation and serve others not godfathers who demand that we always ran to them to kiss the ring”.
According to him, godfathers always see the masses around them as objects to be manipulated for their own empowerment and often sadistic entertainment.
Under the grip of godfathers, he said, leadership is seen as a zero sum game where only the person in office shines and the light must not reflect on others around him/her, with the godfather dropping an elbow on the throat of any of his followers who tries to raise his/her head.
