I was stirred to comment on the above issue by the recent statement credited to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi , in one of the national newspapers, where he reeled out reasons why Nigeria may remain underdeveloped.

Mallam Sanusi blamed the problem of Nigeria’s underdevelopment on faulty structures that make the states spend about 96% percent of their resources paying salaries and allowances as against making capital investments.

As a person in a position to know all these things, being the Central Bank Governor, Sanusi also wondered how the Federal Government can successfully carry out capital Projects that will impact on the lives of 150 million Nigerians with only 30% percent of its revenue when it has expended 70 percent of its revenue paying salaries and overhead. And based on this, he called for the merging of the states, local council authorities and the Federal ministries as the only thing that can help Nigeria develop.

Those who understand the history of this country may agree with the Central Bank Governor that most of the states and local government councils were created by the military based on sentiments rather than viability but that is where their agreement will cease. Nigerians are rather in agreement that the problems of the country’s development lies squarely on the door steps of poor leadership, high cost of governance and corruption, as well as constitutional constraints that have made the states and local governments very unviable.

In Nigeria, the crises of leadership can readily be noticed by the absence of sound moral and value system at the individual level of leadership which makes our leaders make wrong leadership choices. Aristotle’s theory of leadership since 350BC remains relevant at all times in its timelessness and simplicity. That a good leader must have ethos, integrity and moral character which confers on him the credibility to ask for followership. That a good leader must have pathos or emotional connection with his followers. It will not be wrong for leaders to cry if it is genuine and when heroes fall and followers mourn, leaders must be seen to mourn with them. Good leaders must also have Logos-they must be able to give solid, compelling reasons for their actions in relation to common good, to persuade people to follow them.

But it’s unfortunate that in spite of the abundant natural resources God endowed Nigeria with, our ruling classes have failed to use these to transform the lives of the people. Thus, we have today a country so blessed in natural resources that cannot translate her blessing into prosperity for her people. We have a nation so blessed in human talents yet cannot educate its children. We have a nation that produces oil, yet imports petroleum to fuel its cars. We have a country with abundant sunshine yet remain in darkness, Nigeria needs transformational leaders who will transform the nation and make the lives of their people better. We perhaps may have heard about the Dubai Miracle. Let me inform you, that it did not happen by chance; it was carefully nurtured and driven by a relentless political architect. Their ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed. That is why Dubai sits atop world development index today and Nigeria occupies the bottom. Instead, in Nigeria we have leaders seeped very deep in corruption and profligacy.

The cost of governance has been allowed to go through the roof and there is little left to develop the country or how do you explain a situation where a state governor will have a retinue of over 500 advisers and assistants on the government pay roll, or where the same governor will not be ashamed to award the few contracts he decides to do to himself, his menservants and maidservants at prohibitively high inflated rates. We have not also forgotten so soon the squander mania of the members of the National Assembly who the CBN Governor alerted the nation last year that their salaries and overhead gulps 25% of the yearly national budget. It should be noted that what these legislators collect as salaries and allowances are not as approved for them by the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, statutorily but that these legislators arrogate to themselves glut of privileges to pillage the national till. It is only members of the National Assembly that must change their furniture every year and ride the latest cars produced abroad, providing millions of jobs for foreigners while unemployment and poverty dehumanize their people at home.

Nigeria’s best assets are its people and our entrepreneurial abilities are recognised across the world. Our institutions and government are however our weakness and underlying this is corruption and incompetence.

However, here I must make bold to point out that faulty structures or not some progressive governors across the country have picked the gauntlet and are leading their people through the transformational agenda they have been yearning for.

Dr. Simon Okolo,  immediate past National President of NACCIMA, wrote from Aba, Abia State.