The present crop of political leaders in Nigeria are a disappointment to the country’s founding fathers, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo, has said.
Adebayo, who made the remarks recently while speaking to the Arewa Movement for Good Governance in Kaduna State, said the leaders like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Ahmadu Bello, Herbert Macaulay, Obafemi Awolowo and Tafawa Balewa, who fought for and took over the country’s leadership at independence, would be turning in their graves over the state of the country today.
He said, “The kind of conversation that is going on in Nigeria today is one that will make our ancestors turn in their graves and wonder who trained the present crop of politicians,” he said.
Adebayo lamented that successive leaders after the founding fathers have lost bearing and have been walking in circles ever since.
“Our leaders in the past had many of the visions. They knew what the world would be – that we would have to fend for ourselves; that we would have a large population. And that the large population if not empowered with resources will be a big problem.
“None of these problems that we are facing today that our leaders are saying they didn’t know were unknown to our leaders even with minimum education 60 years ago; they knew that these were the challenges we would face,” he said.
Addressing the specific challenges currently facing the northern part of the country, he said: “Sir Ahmadu Bello knew what the population in the north would be like about this time. The past leaders in the north also knew that we have diversity; there was no pretence about that.
“None of the leaders in the north was unaware that there were different religions in the north. None of them was unaware that we have different ethnicities in the north, but the slogan was one north one people. It was not just a slogan, it was a government policy.
“So, when you enter the Government House in Kaduna, you will see Muslims, Christians and everybody doing their work. If there was a programme being launched in Kaduna, you will find it in Potiskum, Zungeru, Idda and everywhere in the north. That was the situation.
“There were minimal rail services, a few airports, only in Kano and Kaduna, but if you asked anybody you found anywhere in Funtua what the government policy on any issue was, he would tell you.
If a decision was made in the northern region House of Assembly, and you went as far as Gusau, they would tell you. If you went to Ilorin, they would tell you. And they were able to do it effectively. They had so many civil servants in the north. The number of doctors in northern Nigeria at independence was less than 50 but today, almost every family has a doctor.
“So, how many Dams were in the north when they took over? We were just struggling to do Kainji Dam at that time. Now, we have the River Basin Authority everywhere.
“So, the new narrative that we are talking about is actually a narrative to take us back in the past. If today, we have elderly people and you ask them what they want, they are mostly going to say give me back Saduana and leave me alone. It means that the politics we have done in the last 50 years is probably a waste of time. And maybe now is the time for harvesting.”
He said the current crop of politicians caused division among Nigerians instead of promoting peace and unity as the founding fathers did.
He said: “The problem with the Nigerian politicians of today is that they have made the people hate them because we are a united people with disunited leaders. But the unity of the Nigerian leaders is an alibi to escape responsibility. When you have children who are hungry, the mother and father will start fighting, so the children will start to ask, ‘We are hungry, who will feed us.’ So, the Nigerian leaders know what they are doing.
“The Nigerian masses are wiser than the elite. They know that what we are fighting are the grievances of the elites. That Bola Tinubu is president today is the conspiracy of the elites, because somebody spent billions and trillions and at the end of the day, he got eight millions votes; that is not how Nigerians vote. It is the conspiracy of the elite and that conspiracy has collapsed at the end of the day.
“So, Nigerians are watching the elites and saying let them sort themselves out because when the economy was balanced, the poor did not get anything.”
While noting that the meeting was not about a conspiracy to remove Tinubu from office, Adebayo said it was about the need for a new conversation to get a national consensus on governance and unite the north and south.
“This meeting is not about Tinubu. It is not a conspiracy to remove Tinubu from power because Tinubu removed himself a long time ago by himself. What we are doing now is to get a national consensus for governance.
“This is not a conspiracy against one person. Leave Tinubu alone; he himself has quit power long ago. What we are discussing now is how to have a new conversation where nobody can escape and say I am from the south or the north; I am a Christian or I am a Muslim,” he stated.
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