Former Emir of Kano, Mohammed Lamido Sanusi has said that incompetent leadership and Nepotism is fueling the raging fire of corruption in Nigeria.
Sanusi made his views known while speaking at a Webinar, ‘The sustainability of Society,’ organized by the Emmanuel Chapel.
According to the former Central Bank Governor, corruption will never leave Nigeria as long as incompetent people continue to occupy positions of authority in the country. He said Nigerians must choose leaders based on merit and competence otherwise the country will never develop.
He stated further that despite the principle of Federal Character enshrined in the constitution, Nigerians must make sure that only the best brains from different part of the country should be selected and elected into positions of authority.
According to Sanusi;
“Morally and religiously speaking, corruption is a problem. But let us look at it from the angle of economics and we (would) begin to understand that it is not just the corruption itself but the type of corruption.
Part of the problem we have is incompetence and that is why I keep saying we must pay attention to merit. We have a system called Federal Character and I believe we should have Nigerians from all over the country in public office, but all those Nigerians must be people that are competent. There must be a merit test; a competence test.
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“For me, I think the root of corruption is when we begin to de-emphasise merit, competence and performance and so long as we don’t bring the best in this country to do the job and hold them to account, we won’t go anywhere.
“The worst form of corruption we have in this country is nepotism; when people get into positions by virtue of personal loyalty, friendship and who they know, rather than what they can actually deliver by virtue of their competence for that office. We need people who can deliver for this country, I mean the majority.”
Speaking further, Sanusi said political reforms such as amendment of the constitution was required to reduce the cost of governance and promote efficiency.
“The second thing, which is extremely important, is that we must respect merit and the third thing is we need patience and we, especially those of us not in government, should put in our contributions that would help the leaders manage those challenges.