'Obasanjo, Yar’Adua, Jonathan, Buhari are accidental leaders' - Former House of reps speaker, Na’Abba

The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Umar Na’Abba, has taken a swipe at all the leaders that governed Nigeria since May 1999 and the current government, describing them as accidental leaders.

According to him, accidental leadership brings about trial and error in governance, which has been the problem of Nigeria since 1999.

He also expressed regret that leadership recruitment process in the country had been hijacked by a few politicians. He spoke at the 2016/2017 Matriculation and Fellowship Endowment ceremony of National Institute for Legislative Studies, NILS, in Abuja this weekend saying the situation in the country is different from the prepared and vision-driven leadership obtainable in other democracies of the world.

To address the problem of leadership in Nigeria, the former speaker called for regular ‘tutorials’ for political leaders at all levels and implored more Nigerians to participate in politics to open up the political space.

Na’Abba said: “Circumstances at hand or situations on ground have, to a large extent, over determined who and who was elected into office in Nigeria as President since 1999, against level of preparedness on the part of the leaders in terms of clear vision and programmes obtainable in most democracies of the world, culminating in accidental leadership for the country’.

‘I believe that not just the legislature, but every arm of government serving the purpose of governance, must invest in exposing democracy to the people.

“It is a sad commentary on our political life that today, recruitment into leadership has been subverted by a few politicians because they deny Nigerians opportunity to contest elections and achieve their aspirations through the systematic appropriation of political parties to themselves.

These politicians have stopped the growth of democracy. And it is true that unless democracy is allowed to grow, we cannot achieve the desired political growth, we cannot achieve the desired economic growth and we can also not achieve the desired social growth in our country.

That is why we are still in political, economic and social doldrums. We have been having successive accidental leaders since 1999’.