Former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, has blamed Nigeria’s underdevelopment and economic woes on entrusting mediocres with its leadership.
Speaking at Uzere, Isoko South Local Government Area, Delta State at the Second Session of the Sixth Synod of the Oleh Diocese of the Anglican Communion at the weekend, Gana said that “The problem with the Federal Republic of Nigeria is that Nigeria produces mediocre leaders.
“Elections are supposed to be a process of electing good leaders who will give good governance and governance will give good development. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, we are electing wrong leaders, so we have wrong policies and wrong development.”
Gana, who presented a lecture entitled “The Role Of The Church In Building A Good Society In Nigeria”, charged the church to raise leaders who are courageous, competent, disciplined, focused and strategic in thinking.
“In view of the critical importance of leadership in the development process, raising good leaders is an extremely important role for the Church. No other institution is better placed than the Church in promoting such core values such as truth, justice, righteousness, honesty, integrity, love, kindness, peace, compassion and respect for human dignity.”
He said the Church, apart from ensuring good governance, must take its social responsibility of fighting corruption seriously, adding; “we must seek to sanitize society against corruption and seek to expose the darkness of evil forces in society.”
While lamenting that Nigerians were “so severely poor in a potentially rich and wealthy nation,” he said: “The sights, sounds and realities of human deprivation are so pervasive throughout our land that we cannot ignore this social tragedy of poverty.
“Poverty is a social evil that must be abolished or eradicated, but certainly not tolerated. Through sustained programmes of wealth creation and fair distribution, the current high levels of poverty can be reduced. We must seek to remove obstacles to greater production of goods and services.
“Wealth creation strategies must always be backed-up by fair distribution mechanism; otherwise, the severe greed for accumulation in our society could even intensify poverty in the midst of prosperity.”
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