Ezekwesili laments decade of failed leadership

                                       

Former vice president of World Bank, Oby Ezekwesili, yesterday lamented decades of failed leadership in the country, describing it as antithetical to national economic development. 

She said the annals of Nigerian history had been blurred by a repeated cycle of failure that had left the country in a cheerless quagmire.

Ezekwesili made the observation at the ongoing Nigeria Leadership Summit at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island Lagos. Over 5,000 youths from different parts of the country are participating in the summit, organized by Nicholas Okoye, the founder of Empower Nigeria Initiative.

The Minister of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, Edem Duke, the former head of interim national government, Chief Ernest Shonekan and a host of other dignitaries, captains of industry attended the three-day event.

Speaking on the topic, Empowering the Nigerian Youth Population, Ezekwesili noted with regrets that Nigeria was richer than China in the 60s but sadly, the reverse had become the case. She argued that political institutions drove the process of defining the vision for economic transformation in a country. She noted that the noticeable poor quality outcomes in policies in the country were convincing signs of the absence of good governance.

“No nation is able to express its shared vision without leadership that understands sacrifice. As long as our political incentives are wrongly aligned, and the action of leadership is in itself a reward for work not done, to that extent, we do not have what everybody calls good governance,” she said.

Ezekwesili lamented poor policy choices and absence of strong institutions, saying they had robbed the country of the right platform to drive private investment and entrepreneurship.

While dissecting the numerous challenges facing economic development of the country, she noted that the unemployment rate in Nigeria presently stood at 29 per cent, with 60 per cent  of youths as victims. To worsen the situation, she said an additional two million youths were addd to the pool of the unemployed population annually in African continent, spreading the tide of poverty to innumerable people.

The former minister of education urged youths in the country to wake up to the call of demanding accountability from public office holders on why some processes initiated to drive the economy out of the doldrums never yielded the desired results.

She argued that the discovery of oil in Nigeria had resulted to poor policy choices, saying the nation was contented with the easy revenue flowing from the oil sector. She said the absolute reliance on oil had also succeeded in grooming an elite political class that fed fat on oil revenue.

While explaining the need for entrepreneurship, the former secretary of Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, said youth unemployment had become one of the present challenges facing the country, with more graduates being churned out annually from the over 120 universities and tertiary institutions in the country.

Aside the social consequences of the high level of unemployment, Anyaoku said it brought a debilitating frustration on youthful population, resulting to kidnappers, armed robbers and fraudsters. He described the summit as highly relevant to the country and expressed gladness that such a platform came at the right time to promote entrepreneurship among young people.

Also speaking, Chief Shonekan decried the Boko Haram insurgency, which he said had brought untold negative effects on the country’s image, particularly in the international media and the perception of Nigeria by foreign investors. He also stressed the need to weed out corruption to win the confidence of foreign investors.

Shonekan urged the government to harness the energies of existing entrepreneurs to fast track the development of the country. He further explained that political and economic stability were important for local and foreign investment.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         posted by Emanto Ngaloru Nov 10, 2013.