Babalola: Poor Leadership Cause of Nigeria’s Problems

* ABUAD,TWU sign MoU

Gbenga Sodeinde in Ado Ekiti

Legal icon, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN, yesterday, reiterated that the major cause of Nigeria’s problems was poor leadership qualities.
He, therefore, urged politicians and African leaders to see their position as an opportunity to serve the people and sacrifice, rather than use the position to enrich themselves.

The elder statesman spoke at the University yesterday during an international conference on Leadership and Governance for Sustainable Change and Wealth jointly organized by ABUAD and Trinity Western University (TWU), Canada.
lola, who is the founder of the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), said Nigeria was facing so much challenges because politicians lacked the education of knowing that their offices were for service.

“Man, because of poor leadership, has gone through two World Wars (1914-1918 and 1939-1945). These avoidable World Wars led to the loss of millions of people all of which could be traced to bad leadership.

“Adolf Hitler derisively called the ‘bad guy of history’ was a tragic example of bad leadership. We also have the tragic Russian invasion of Ukraine with Putin (the Russian leader) turning deaf ears to entreaties by the United Nations, the Security Council, the injunction by the World Court at the Hague and various appeals by world leaders including the Pope
“Africa is not left out of this tragedy. There have been series of coups and counter coups which happen almost every six months. Again, the reason for all these is poor leadership.

“Since the rush to partition Africa in 1884, there had been no peace. Unfortunately, the poorest countries in the world are in Africa, including my own country, Nigeria, a country that is well-endowed in everything.
“Today, Nigeria is rated as number 2 poorest country in the world. The Naira has gone down to as much as N1,000 to a Dollar. There is no electricity, no water and most of the roads are impassable, which often leads to avoidable death,” he said.

Meanwhile, at the event being part of the activities lined up for the 11th convocation ceremony of ABUAD, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the two world class universities.

Babalola said the partnership with Trinity University would widen the  hope of changing the mind of the students in Canada and the world.

On the view of  politicians to their offices he said, “The answer is not a matter of debate. What is lacking is education which allows our leaders to see politics as the only lucrative business in town, when in fact, from the Greek days, politics has always be known to be for service to the people and not business.”