NIGERIANS MUST DO AWAY WITH CORRUPT, SELF-SERVING LEADERS – BUHARI

Former military Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday re-echoed the need for Nigerians to do away with corrupt and self-serving leaders and rather embrace those who will use national resources in a most honourable way.
Buhari, who chaired a special colloquium at the Eko Hotel Expo Centre in Lagos to mark the 75th birthday of the Interim National Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Bisi Akande, reiterated that Nigeria was in dire need of leaders with proven and unquestionable integrity to draw it out of the myriad of challenges confronting it.
The special colloquium with the theme, ‘Developing a New Leadership: An Imperative for National Development in Nigeria’, also witnessed the presentation of two key note papers by Professor Akin Oyebode of the University of Lagos and Professor Olu Obafemi of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Jos.
Obafemi, in his lecture, said “Nigeria needs new leaders with new vision for new Nigeria”, and that the nation needs a true national leader and not a sectional leader, who will be ready to challenge the status quo no matter whose ox is gored.
He said considering the political developments in the country, a true national leader who will be courageous enough to fight for the people is desperately needed.
“There must be mutual trust and confidence between the people and the leaders. In fact, the people must buy into the vision of the leader before they can key into the developmental ideals of such leader,” Obafemi stressed.
Also, Oyebode, who is a Professor of International Law, said there was no gainsaying the need for a new leadership group in Nigeria if the country is to chalk up success along the ladder of true socio-economic and political transformation.
For that to happen, Oyebode insisted that the people must have a new thinking and a new attitude in terms of their relationship to the leaders.
He noted that Nigerians now “have to reject hypocritical, self-opinionated and self-perpetuating persons masquerading as their leaders and replace such with selfless, tested and trustworthy persons to take charge of their destiny.
“The time is ripe for the people to do away with a slave mentality by abandoning their false consciousness and exude requisite self-confidence but becoming truly masters of destiny.”
The event was attended by most of the APC Governors, including Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, who spoke on behalf of the other APC Governors.
Okorocha said the major reasons for the emergence of APC was to correct the bad bad leadership that had plagued the nation for long.
While assuring that APC would not fail Nigerians, Okorocha said the party did not emerge by accident, but that the members were carefully chosen by destiny.
“By 2015, we assure Nigerians that the songs of poverty, corruption and so on that we sing today, we shall sing them no more because APC is on a fast-track to change this nation for good.”
While stressing that APC has come to stay, Okorocha hinted that members of the party were determined to make Nigeria better and great.
Source: Daily Independent