“Nigeria won’t make progress until it stops choosing leaders tribe and religion” — Jonathan
Forme Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, has warned that Nigeria cannot move forward if it continues to pick its leaders based on religion, ethnicity, language, and denomination instead of competence.
Jonathan spoke on Saturday in Lagos at the Herbert Macaulay Colloquium held to celebrate the 162nd birthday of the nationalist pioneer, Herbert Macaulay, who was born on November 14, 1864.
He said Nigeria’s leadership recruitment process remains primitive, and no matter how qualified a person is, the country will not progress until that system changes.
“We are still suffering from political leaders being recruited based on religion, language and all kinds of things,” Jonathan said.
“Sometimes it is even beyond Muslim or Christian. I know of a particular state in southern Nigeria that 99.9 per cent of them are Christians. But if you don’t belong to one particular denomination, you cannot be the governor of the state.
“That is the kind of thing we do. So no matter how good you are, until we move away from these primitive ways of recruiting political leaders, this country cannot go.”
Jonathan also pointed to poor leadership, weak institutions, corruption, policy inconsistency, poor infrastructure, and insecurity as major reasons Nigeria is not developing as it should.
He called for deep democratic reforms, describing Nigeria’s present democracy as “opaque and amorphous.”
According to him, the system must be rebuilt around popular participation, rule of law, respect for human rights, independent judiciary, accountability, pluralism, and a vibrant civil society.
On education, Jonathan said Nigeria cannot go far with weak schools and universities. He urged the country to invest in its best brains and build research-intensive, world-class universities like India, Singapore, and South Korea did.
“You can’t go anywhere with weak educational institutions,” he said.
He concluded by paying tribute to Herbert Macaulay and other founding nationalists, saying the best way to honour them is not just to celebrate their sacrifices, but to build the kind of nation they fought for.