The Catholic Archbishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Kukah, has described President Bola Tinubu, his predecessor Muhammadu Buhari, and other previous heads of state as leaders who found themselves in power by accident.
Kukah said they needed to be fully prepared before assuming office, especially in a world where leadership demands are rapidly evolving.
Kukah stated these in his keynote address at the 4th Amaka Ndoma-Egba Memorial Lecture in Abuja at the weekend with the theme, “Leaders of Tomorrow: Creating Lasting Change In A Complex World.”
Amaka, the deceased wife of the former Senate Leader Ndoma Egba, died in an auto crash in Ondo State in 2020.
She was the Visioner of Start-Rite Schools, Abuja, where the event was held after the governor of Cross River, Senator Bassey Otu, commissioned a legacy building in her honour.
Kukah said Nigeria’s leadership crisis was caused by its leaders’ lack of knowledge, capacity, and preparation.
He stated that Nigeria’s presidents since independence, except President Bola Tinubu, emerged by accident, but that even with Tinubu 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 the result of one accident or the other.
“President Tinubu, well, he is 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 thought that after becoming deputy governor, he would go somewhere else, and something happened.
“Jonathan took over from Yar’Adua, who had said he would teach at Ahmadu Bello University as he was finishing his term as governor. Yar’Adua took over from Obasanjo, who was in prison and was not expecting to come out, but somehow found himself out of prison. Obasanjo took over from Abacha, who, sadly, nature took him even though the five political parties had said he would rule forever.
“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 knowledge is fundamental to governance,” Kukah said.
The bishop emphasised the need for leaders to set goals and be bold, courageous, and patriotic, adding that authentic leadership was about influencing citizens, not just holding office.
He said Nigerians were impatient with the current state of democracy in the country, as it was hardly meeting the people’s wishes and aspirations.
“We have chosen to live with democracy as it is. We know that our democracy is hardly working or functioning, although I’d say that we are very impatient with ourselves.
“Nigerians are surprised when I say we have done pretty well. We are not happy and will probably never be satisfied 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 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.”
