Ituah Ighodalo: Several Nigerian leaders emerged accidentally

Ituah Ighodalo, senior pastor at Trinity House, says several Nigerian leaders got into positions of leadership accidentally.

Ighodalo said this on Friday during a Channels Television programme to mark Nigeria’s independence anniversary.

The cleric said the first coup in the country prevented the leaders from plotting a road map for Nigeria.

“Nobody at the top has had the responsibility of defining for us what Nigeria should be doing,” he said, 

“Several Nigerian leaders were either accidental leaders or had limited time to define what Nigeria should be.

“We have not really had any transition in leadership. Many of the current leaders have been in governance since I was a child.”

Ighodalo, who said the problem of Nigeria is the lack of a unifying culture and principles, blamed the military for the failure to create the right governance mentality among Nigerians.

“If you go to other countries of the world, you will find that there is a dominant culture, a dominant ethos but in Nigeria, we have not been able to organise a national ethos and a set of principles under which we bring up our children,” he said.

“So we have a very laissez-faire environment.  We’re in a bit of a jingle unfortunately, and until we get that thought right from the top driving down to the bottom, everybody will be doing as they like.

“We’ve not really had any transition in leadership and now that we seem to be beginning to transit, the culture is totally wrong.”