The former Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr Muda Yusuf, has called on the academia to interrogate how leaders emerge in Nigeria, with the aim of developing a model that ensures only quality persons occupy positions of authority.
He called on them to stop being on the fringe and dig into the several macroeconomic issues the country was grappling with, noting that academia had not been active enough in the key areas of the economy.
Speaking recently at a colloquium organised by the Department of Sociology, University of Lagos, Yusuf stated that Nigerians must realise that leadership plays a huge role in determining what becomes of their future as they equally bear the consequences of poor decisions made by mediocre leaders.
The programme had the theme ‘Perspectives on the development crisis in Nigeria’.
Yusuf, who is the Chief Executive Officer, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise, said, “For too long, academia has not been active enough in key issues in the country. A lot of things are falling apart and I think academia has a very important role to play in policy discussions and direction.
“When we talk about development crisis, the quality of political governance is very important. It affects the quality of appointments and composition of cabinets at state and federal levels. Those cabinet members make decisions and if the leader is mediocre, the quality of discussions won’t be good, the output will be affected, which eventually affects everybody, and the quality of institutions will also be affected., which will affect the results.
“These leaders determine the destiny of all of us, so we need to interrogate how they emerge. We need a model that can work for this country. We need a model that would enable people with character, capacity, competence and integrity to emerge as leaders at all levels of government.”
The Head of the Department, Dr Franca Attoh, said the colloquium was to proffer solutions to some of the challenges bedevilling the country. She added, “The colloquium will become an institutionalised platform where sociologists tackle the problems of the society.”
