Ladipo Adamolekun, a professor of public administration, has called on political parties to stop adopting former military leaders as presidential and gubernatorial candidates.
Adamolekun said the “two recycled military leaders” who served as presidents in the post-1999 era — Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari — have demonstrated that a “civilianised” military leader “cannot be a democrat”.
The professor spoke on Wednesday at a press conference held in Akure, Ondo state, to present his latest monograph titled ‘Nigeria and I: Getting Politics Right to Make Nigeria Work’. The event was part of the activities to celebrate his 80th birthday celebration.
Adamolekun listed “devolved federation, good democratic practice, and administrative competence” as the three critical ingredients for getting politics right.
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He said: “First, a major reason why Nigeria is not working is because we have maintained a unitary federalism oxymoron inherited from the military at the inception of civilian rule in 1999. To enhance our chances of keeping Nigeria one, consolidating democracy, tackling insecurity effectively, and achieving accelerated socio-economic progress, Nigeria needs to urgently adopt and function as a devolved federal system.
“This political system will have the following defining characteristics: six federating units; assignment of functions between the central government and the federating units based on the principle of subsidiarity similar, to a considerable extent, to the assignment of functions in the country’s 1963 Constitution; and allocation of resources that is consistent with both the imperative of fiscal federalism and the proposed increased functions for subnational governments.”
The octogenarian noted that Nigeria’s current poor scores with respect to key measures of good democratic practice need to be reversed.
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“Specifically, improvements are required concerning electoral legitimacy, functioning of the party system, scope of political participation, respect for the rule of law, protection of human rights, and freedom of speech and association. The goal should be to ensure the legitimacy of governments and a functioning law-based state that would help promote accountable governance,” he said.
Adamolekun said Nigeria needs a development-oriented political leader to grow the economy, reduce poverty, ensure security, and work towards achieving prosperity for all the citizens.
“To the imperative of development-orientation, I would add four essential leadership attributes to the characteristics of the political leaders that would make Nigeria work: integrity, intelligence, competence, and vision,” he said.
“Whilst maintenance of the good practice of producing political leaders through the ballot box must be maintained, political parties should, henceforth, agree not to adopt former military leaders as party leaders or as presidential/gubernatorial candidates.”
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Adamolekun said for Nigeria to achieve federal democracy and economic prosperity, political leaders at both the central and sub-national levels must adopt and implement a devolved federal system and commit, in word and in deed, to good democratic practice, combined with administrative competence.
In his remarks, Gbenga Adefaye, the general manager/editor-in-chief, Vanguard Media Ltd, expressed dismay that the nation is not listening to the voice of reasoning and wisdom from intellects and academics.
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