Nigerian Leaders Not Ready To Work For All – Peterside

A former director-general of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr Dakuku Peterside, has declared that Nigerian leaders are not patriotic enough to institute systems that work for all.

Peterside made the declaration yesterday while delivering a keynote address at the first international conference organised by the Department of Business Administration, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Rumuolumeni, Port Harcourt.

The theme of the conference, which was held at the multi-purpose hall of the University’s Post-Graduate School was: “Business Re-engineering: A Catalyst For Economic Development”.

“When a system is shutdown; when a system is broken, in an attempt to fix it, you never tell what the outcome will be. We can completely design a new system. When systems are dependent on powerful individuals, it will never work. That means if anything happen to those individuals, the system goes down.

“If you have system in place that is functional, that is efficient, whether with individual ‘A’ or individual ‘B’, that system will work with that individual.

If the system of government is not working, we can change our system than impose a new system.

“If the market system is not working, we approve a new market system. The question is: how come it is so difficult for us to change our system since we all know that the system is not working?

“Unfortunately, it is two dimensions; we have not had critical minds of Nigerians who demand for a new system. I blame the fact that we have not had the critical mind of Nigerians, who demand a new system. That is on the side of the masses.

“On the side of leadership, we have not had the good fortune of having leaders who are patriotic enough to put in place a system that works for everybody and will not serve their own personal interest.”

Declaring the conference open, acting vice chancellor of the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Professor Okechuku Onuchuku, expressed regret that some scholars attain the level of professors without attending conferences.

Onuchuku said: “One aspect in my academic leadership is to ensure that we hold conferences here.

“You know that some of our people become professors without attending conferences. Some of them we don’t even know them with their professional associations.

“So, that is why when departments, professional associations and even faculties come to me that they want to organize conference, I support them. And this is one of them.”