Former Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has lamented that Nigeria has not been fortunate with quality leadership for decades, describing many of the country’s past and present leaders as “lousy.”
Speaking on Saturday at the second Kano International Poetry Festival (KAPFEST), organised by the Poetic Wednesdays Initiative (PWI), Sanusi said Nigeria’s development has been crippled by poor governance and a lack of visionary leaders.
“You rise and fall with the quality of your leadership and Nigeria has had lousy leadership for a long time. You cannot give what you do not have until we begin to look at the people who we choose to lead us,” the former emir said.
“And that’s the truth. I mean, in most parts of this country, you look at people who are leading you and you say, oh God, is this really the person? How did we end up here? You see it every day on the newspapers.
“You see it in the news. You see what happens in the legislature. You see the kind of debates that we are having, the kind of arguments that we have, the kind of time we waste on issues that are totally unimportant, the pettiness. You look at other countries, you look at other parts of the world, people are discussing climate change, discussing artificial intelligence.
“We are still talking about Yoruba or Igbo or Hausa, Northern or Christian, you know, that is, we are still mired in that debate. We are still in conversations that we had in the 1960s,” he added.
Sanusi called on Nigerian youths to rise up and take over the country’s leadership from older politicians who, he said, have mismanaged it for decades. According to him, with determination and collective will, young Nigerians could “retire all of them” and rescue the nation from its downward spiral.
He also defended President Bola Tinubu’s decision to remove fuel subsidy, saying the country would have been bankrupt if the policy had continued.
He said, “If you look at the billions and billions that were spent on subsidy, if that money had been spent on refineries, I have nothing against subsidies. If you are subsidizing production, I said it very clearly, my objection is the subsidy on consumption because we’re keeping refineries in Europe open. We’re giving jobs to refiners.
“And if we had taken 2012, we would not be where we are today. Now, people say to me, why aren’t you talking? I say, what am I to say? This is exactly what I said would happen because beyond a point, government revenue will not be enough to pay the subsidy. You have to borrow to pay the subsidy.”
Sanusi further warned that the current rate at which Nigerian governments borrow and squander public funds would have dire consequences for the country’s economy in the years ahead.
Earlier at the event, PWI Creative Director, Nasiba Babale, said this year’s KAPFEST, themed “Poetry in a Time of Crisis”, aimed to inspire poets and artists to use their craft to advocate for peace amid the crises bedeviling Northern Nigeria.