Valentine Ozigbo Reacts As Amaechi Blames Nigerians For Leadership Failure

Nigerian politician, Valentine Ozigbo, has disagreed with the former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, over the claim that Nigerians are responsible for the decay in the country.

Naija News reports that Amaechi, while speaking at TheNiche Annual Lecture on the topic: “Why we Stride and Slip: Leadership, Nationalism and the Nigerian Condition,” dismissed the argument that only leaders are responsible for the country’s failure.

Amaechi insisted that Nigeria’s most significant problem is followership that is comfortable with the poor state of affairs, adding that ethnicity, faulty foundation, selfish motives, and lack of political will were limiting the growth and progress of the country.

However, Ozigbo, in an interview with Daily Sun, submitted that leaders and followers need to take responsibility for their errors.

The Labour Party (LP) chieftain noted that it is important for Nigerians to live beyond tribe, stop being passive, start speaking up and hold their leaders accountable.

He said, “He has a right to his views, but for me, I tend to disagree a bit, and the reason is not far-fetched. This is a very important discussion, it is about nation-building, it is about looking at our past and asking the question: How did we get here from there, you examine your mistakes and know what should be done to get the right result. This is a topic we have debated over and over for a long time. It is an issue we have rehearsed over and over. Some of us have since stopped discussing it. It is not that we should not go back to the past to know where the problem started, but because the issues are well documented and well-spoken about.

“What we now need is people accepting responsibility for their own errors, whether you are a leader, whether you are a citizen and doing the needful, including playing your own part in changing the story. So, leaders are to be blamed, and followers have their own share of the blame, but if we want to deal with the issue, focus on leadership because the way it is in life, you can’t deal with the whole world at the same time, you deal with the few, and those are the leaders. They are the ones that give direction, influence and shape the future, then followers will now follow, that is why it is followership, leading and followership. So, from the literary meaning, anybody making the debate against it is totally out of it.

“The truth is that both are to be blamed, but leaders should even be blamed more because the responsibility to correct is in their hands. What we now need to do as citizens is to stop being idiots, and when I say idiots, I am quoting the Greek word to describe people who are self-centred. You become a national leader, and then all others who are followers can actually hold those people responsible and accountable and stop being passive. When things go wrong, let us shout, let’s speak the truth, when these things are done, the stories will change. When you have good, quality leaders who lead with sincerity and total commitment to service for the good of all, followership will key into their vision.”