Dennis Amachree, a retired Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), has advised Nigerians to seek a new leadership that will give Nigeria a new sense of direction where hope can emerge.
He enjoined Nigerians to kick against the recycling of leaders, whose families have been in the political space for years and have nothing to show for it, and as such, a new Nigeria of hope cannot emerge.
Speaking as the guest speaker of the Afrikanwatch Network annual lecture titled, “A New Nigeria, with innovative ideology, devoid of hypocritical leaders”, at Lagos, he noted that the current politicians in the country lack the ideology to give birth to a new nation.
He lamented that since independence, “Mention one president that actually led this country, and think of how many rulers Nigeria have got, at the presidential level, since independence.”
He opined that it is very apparent that most of the politicians see the opportunity of public service as a chance to rule over what he called “the slaves or subjects” of Nigeria, saying that Nigeria is not a monarchy to be ruled over; neither are Nigerians slaves in their own country.
He opined that most of the country’s politicians say one thing, but do something else, stressing that Nigerians are used to all the campaign promises of what they will do for the populace but continue to behave in a different way.
Under such leadership, he emphasized that the citizens can see barefaced corruption, nepotism, unimaginable fraud and total disappearance of integrity, saying that Nigerians have been caught up in the quagmire of hypocritical leadership, where we are at the mercy of the politicians.
He lamented that in a democratic system where the people are supposed to be the repository of power, politicians have relegated the citizens to the background where, pointing out that if a politician built five kilometres of road, Nigerians come out with their drums, dancing and thanking the governor or president for providing that infrastructure, as if he built the road with his own personal money.
He believed that most of the politicians today are ignorant of or devoid of leadership skills and qualities as very few of them do understand what leadership is all about, lamenting that most politicians are in public office to appropriate their commonwealth into their personal pockets.
He noted that that is why leadership for development becomes a big problem because the fundamental objectives of being in public office are not for development but for personal aggrandizement.
Amachree reiterated that the political landscape in Nigeria lacks cognitive rigidity when it comes to ideology, adding that ideological extremism is totally shady, where carpet crossing is a commonality.
In the United States, he explained that the Democrats are pro-choice (support abortion), while their Republican counterparts are totally against abortion, saying that in such rigidly held beliefs or ideologies, it is rare to see politicians crossing the carpet.
He lamented that in Nigeria, it’s easy to cross the carpet because there are no ideologies or strongly held beliefs that can change the conviction of a Republican to be a Democrat overnight or vice versa.
