Anambra State Governor-elect, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, yesterday, said that the inability of political leaders to initiate and execute necessary disruptive changes was responsible for the nation’s economic crisis.
Speaking in Abuja, yesterday, at the 2021 Pioneer Class Graduation of the School of Politics, Policy, and Governance (SPPG) with the theme: “Emergence of the Unconventionals,” the former Central Bank Nigeria (CBN) governor said that the country is now at a fiscal cliff with a crunching solvency challenge.
He said: “Youth unemployment, insecurity, poverty, and inflation threaten the social fabric.
But disruptions will come at great costs, and could indeed be dangerous. It is not far to imagine what could befall serious disruptors.
“In Nigeria, we remember what happened to Murtala Muhammed, and the history books are replete with hundreds of examples of the inherent risks.
“At a personal level, undertaking the banking revolution in Nigeria came with 19 written threats to me and my family, including physical attacks. Disrupting the existing social order is dangerous. Beneficiaries of the current order are powerful enough to organise and viciously fight back to protect their privileges,” he said.
The governor-elect continued: “On the contrary, the masses who are the ultimate beneficiaries are not organised enough to act as a bulwark against the special interests. As things stand currently, we are standing between the rock and the hard place. With the objective to retain power within the context of short electoral cycles, politicians are afraid to undertake the necessary disruptive changes to guarantee long-term safety and prosperity for all.
The Founder of SPPG and Former Minister of Education, Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, said Nigeria would not have a high number of out-of-school children and maternity deaths if the nation had the right politics.
“It is politics that has made the economy of the society to be bad within the context of all the endowment that we have. Yet we are the world capital of poverty. It is politics that has distorted all the possibilities of our society…You cannot play with the lowest degree of your citizens as political leaders in the public space and expect that something will just happen,” she stated.
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
