Leadership Major Problem Of Nigeria – El-Rufai

The immediate past governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has said leadership is the major problem of Nigeria, as the country has all it takes to be developed like its contemporaries such as China, Malaysia, and South Korea.

Delivering a lead paper at a capacity-building workshop on enhancing the skills of Government officials in policy implementation and productive human resources management in Borno State on Monday, El-Rufai said. “Nigeria has always had the opportunity to develop like its contemporaries but leadership has been the problem.

“Nigeria’s problem starts and ends with leadership and to be a successful leader you have to operate as a team, set your goals, identify the problems to achieve your goals, allow for open debate before arriving on a decision, generation of options and monitoring the delivery of policy “, he said.

The former Kaduna Governor, said ” I am a guy supporter of state police and restructuring. In the 1960s Nigeria was at the same level of development as South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore but our major problem is leadership occasioned by series of polity instability, “.

” There is no way that the son of a political leader goes to school different school from that poor. We went to the same school as the son of a then-governor of Northern Nigeria. So the current trend has to change for us to get it right. So I urge all in this Hall not to send your children to schools or hospitals abroad, he added.

On the removal of fuel subsidy, Mallam Ekrufai said ” the Federal Government is spending N8 trillion monthly in subsidizing the petroleum. If you want to know, the price of PMS is supposed to be more expensive than dusel but now Nigerians are paying more on dusel than petroleum “.

He said, “Whether Nigerians know or not, the subsidy is back an FG ay more on as subsidizing petroleum. After the removal government knew the policy implementation had a problem,

He also said scarce resources, lack of trust from stakeholders, management of expectation, opposition, capacity of team, time and environment are the major problems of leadership in Nigeria.

Mallam El Rufai said for a leader to be successful in quality education and legitimacy, be committed, develop policies and be pragmatic, invest in primary, secondary, tertiary and vocational education physical infrastructure, public service and market.

According to him, some projects need more than 5 years to be implemented, as such he is a strong supporter of 7 years single term for the President, Vice President, Governors, Deputy governors and other political leaders.

Speaking at the occasion, the Borno state Governor, Prof Babagana Zulum said ” I deliberately directed the Head of Service to invite all the top echelon of the service and indeed my administration in general to be the target participants at this workshop.

It is also interesting to note that the participants at this workshop i.e. members of the State Executive Council, the Special Advisers, the Chief Executive of Boards and Parastatals, and the Permanent Secretaries amongst others are the drivers of our economy in the state.

He therefore urged the participants to ensure that the knowledge and skills gained today are reflected in the management and operations of their Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

Before I conclude it is pertinent to reiterate that since coming on board my administration has attached the highest priority ever to capacity building across the entire operations and architecture of public administration, especially in the civil service.”

“We have always recognized the need to have in place competent hands in all sectors and across all the MDAS. From May 2019 to date, my administration has introduced several new policies and reforms in the civil service to entrench competence enhance productivity and align the operators to the global standard and system of doing things. We have introduced promotion examinations for all the civil servants in the State which is being applied as a benchmark for promotion”, he said.

” Today senior civil servants aspiring for the position of permanent Secretaries in the State must first undergo tutorial and examinations to determine their academic and professional eligibility as well as confirm their mental, physical, and managerial ability in particular. We shall continue to consolidate these matrixes as the basis for a reformed, efficient, and effective civil service in the State, ” he further said.

Governor Zulum further said my administration does not stop at the level of imposing rules and regulations but follows and balances all our policies and reforms with the provision of welfare, incentives and a conducive working environment for our civil servants.

It is on this premise; that the State Government has remained committed to the payment of their monthly salaries and allowances. No civil servant is being owned any salary. We have also introduced other packages such as loans released through the NLC/TUC.

“We have introduced Government-owned buses at a subsidized rate that fly the roads through which civil servants and other citizens in the State use as part of our commitment to cushion the removal of petroleum subsidies which hiked the cost of all forms of transportation in the country. These and others we would continue to improve upon.”.