Nigeria Cannot Progress With Primitive Leadership Selection, Jonathan Warns

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has warned that Nigeria will continue to struggle with development unless it abandons what he described as primitive methods of selecting political leaders based on religion, ethnicity, language and other divisive considerations.

Jonathan said the country must prioritise competence, merit and ability in leadership recruitment rather than allowing religious and ethnic affiliations to determine who occupies political offices.

He maintained that even the most qualified individuals would be unable to drive meaningful national development if leadership selection continued to be influenced by narrow interests.

The former president spoke on Saturday at the Herbert Macaulay Colloquium in Lagos, organised to commemorate the 162nd anniversary of the birth of the Nigerian nationalist.

Macaulay, born on November 14, 1864, is widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of Nigerian nationalism.

Speaking at the event, Jonathan lamented that religious considerations had continued to undermine the country’s political development, with some communities allegedly restricting leadership opportunities to members of particular religious denominations.

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“We are still suffering from political leaders being recruited based on religion, language and all kinds of things. Sometimes it is even beyond Muslim or Christian. I know of a particular state in southern Nigeria that 99.9 per cent of them are Christians. But if you don’t belong to one particular denomination, you cannot be the governor of the state.

“That is the kind of thing we do. So no matter how good you are, until we move away from these primitive ways of recruiting political leaders, this country cannot go,” he said.

Jonathan identified poor leadership, weak institutions, corruption, policy inconsistency, inadequate infrastructure and insecurity as major obstacles to Nigeria’s development.

He also called for comprehensive democratic reforms, describing the country’s current democratic system as “opaque and amorphous”.

According to him, Nigeria must strengthen its democratic institutions to guarantee popular participation, the rule of law, respect for human rights, judicial independence, accountability, pluralism and a vibrant civil society.

The former president further emphasised the importance of functional education and research-driven universities in accelerating national development.

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Citing India, Singapore and South Korea as examples, Jonathan noted that the countries had achieved significant progress by investing in quality education and developing institutions capable of driving technological advancement and innovation.

“You can’t go anywhere with weak educational institutions,” he said.

He urged Nigeria to invest deliberately in its brightest minds and establish world-class universities capable of competing internationally.

Paying tribute to Herbert Macaulay and other nationalist pioneers, Jonathan said the greatest way to honour their sacrifices was not simply to celebrate their achievements but to build a country that reflected the ideals and aspirations for which they fought.

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