Nigeria Deserves the Best Captain No Matter Where He Comes From, Says Yahaya Bello
The Governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, has said that rather engage on the unconstitutional issue of rotational presidency, what Nigerians should focus on is look for that Nigerian, no matter where he comes, who can be the captain to pilot the country to the promised land.
The governor who stated this at the First Annual Governor Yahaya Bello (GYB) Seminar for Nigeria’s Political and Crime Correspondents/Editors at the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, said that even after 16 years of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and another six years of All Progressives Congress (APC), in the country, the problems of the nation has not been solved by the rotational presidency that has taken place over the years.
Bello insisted that the political party must not limit the choice of Nigerians to any region, adding the nation must not continue on the sentiment of rotation as it is a setback to the development of the nation.
Bello in his paper, Perspectives on Leadership and Aspiration’, admitted that “there is no denying the fact therefore that we need to urgently rearrange in the ways and manners in which we relate if we are to arrest the dangerous slide in conÀdence and team-building amongst Nigerians caused by years and years of mismanaged diversity.”
Giving Kogi as example of a place where merit is the order of the day instead of where you come from, the governor said that “within the context of Kogi State which is a microcosm of Nigeria itself, our diversity was enough to tear us apart as a government in the same manner it had divided our people for decades before our coming, but that is if we allowed it. We refused to allow them, and by working together instead, we were able to leverage on our diversity.”
He stated that “tribe, religion, geography and class no longer play role in the measure of anyone among us. We have Nigerians from everywhere helping us to move Kogi State forward, right from our cabinet and into other areas and position.
Today, we have managed to improve the sociopolitical outlook for our people and state and created an intra-state legacy of cooperation and integration which will outlast us. This achievement did not come from wishful thinking but by the deployment of Àve foundational mindsets from my day one in oce.