By David Okpashi.
Mr.Mike Omeri.
(C). World Heart Federation.
LAFIA –Former Director General, National Orientation Agency, Dr. Mike Omeri has urged President Ahmed Bola Tinubu to review his strategies to enable him provide enduring governance for the good of Nigeria to avert total disappointment of Nigerians.
Omeri, while exchanging views with Journalists in Lafia on Friday, said the zeal and commitment of the president would remain a mirage unless Nigerians with goal- driven ideas and passion for national development were replaced with those toying with the good intension of the president and the future of the country.
According to him, national growth continued to suffer set back, because competent Nigerians are being sacrificed for those who who won elections or given opportunity to decide the fate of the country without anything to offer.
He said,”People are yearning for change, things that would make life better for them and the communities. When politicians come, we have those with ideas and those with promises, most times, it is the people with promises that win the election without ideas of what to put together for the good of the country and it’s people”.
He explained further that the biggest bane of the nation’s progress is that, politicians come to govern without understanding the idea of what the institutions are all about, adding that what preoccupied their mind is what they will get and leave.
“When politicians win the election, they don’t understand the institution, they are just there to make it. Like someone said, politics has become an industry which people come to harvest, forgetting that after 4 years, they become ordinary citizens and they come to face the promises they made and never fulfilled.
“People believe they can make money that will last them for life in the Nigerian system. The system has become weak with little capacity to check institutional lapses. politicians have succeeded in weakening the stronger instructions that would have protected the system to work in Nigeria”
The former NOA DG while appealing to leaders at all levels to re-institutionalize the nation’s values and tradition, also urged them to deemphasize appointment being made based on who you know, if the nation must make progress.
“Similarly,our universities should be made more engaging in tasks and product development. They should be involved as partners not rivals. Their research outcomes must be put to the test to ensure backward integration, inward capacity to elicit competition, build confidence and display competences for the progress of self, nation, and rest of the world.
According to him, this will curb “Japa syndrome”, create employment and steady the things Nigerians value including, their culture, heritage and the environment.
Edited by Dawud Ahmed.
