Nigeria Unlucky Since 1960 With Leaders Who Focus On Their Pockets — Wariboko

Story/Photo Credit: channelstv.com

A Professor of Social Ethics at Boston University, Nimi Wariboko, says Nigeria has been unlucky since its independence on October 1, 1960, to have leaders who focus on their pockets.

“Politics is the major means of production in Nigeria,” the author and investment banker said on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande, aired on Channels Television on Friday.

“The bulk of the responsibility for our failure lies with the political elite; the governance structure, because we’ve been unlucky since independence to
have leaders who focus on their own pockets, who focus on capturing the state and using the state to extract resources from Nigeria,” he said.

“So, the state power has become the means of production and in that process, every other form of economic activity is almost inhibited. So, as long as we have leaders who use the state as their means of production rather than creating a proper functioning capitalist economy or a market economy that will unleash the resources of Nigeria, we will continue to experience the problems.

“The major obstacle to our economic development is politics. So, the lack of appropriate leadership is the major cause of our ongoing underdevelopment and suffering.”

According to him, Nigeria claims to be operating the federal system but what is operational in the country is the unitary system of government. In this light, he said the federating units, especially the states and the local government areas should be given some breathing space.

Wariboko also said Nigeria is heading the wrong way and that the country has not started its journey to greatness.

He said, “I don’t think we are on course; we are still heading the wrong way until we make a course correction and come back, we are not going anywhere. It’s like somebody going from Lagos to Sokoto and then you decide to go to Port Harcourt first and you are even going down to the Atlantic so that is the kind of movement we have and we have not yet started the journey to our greatness.

“There are about eight things that we need to urgently do or to reorient ourselves. Our philosophy of governance of existence has to change.

“First, in the sense that there has to be a commitment that the government or society is to enable every Nigerian to become the best that he or she can be. That is what is called human flourishing; how do we create the institutions the environment the capabilities that will enable every Nigerian to become the best that he or she can be?

“We have to invest heavily in human capital development. We need to create our investment process to say, ‘Are we creating the fiscal infrastructure that will enable us to develop indigenously?’ That is every local area in Nigeria should be drawing resources from itself to develop but these are things that we are not doing.”

Culled from channelstv.com