By Admin
A former minister of education, Dr Oby -Ezekwesili and the Serving Overseers of the Citadel Global Community Church (CGCC) Pastor Thunder Bakare have identified corruption and leadership crisis as major challenges of Nigeria.
The duo spoke on Saturday in Lagos at an onboarding ceremony of the pioneer class of Advanced Diploma in Public Leadership and Statecraft Programme offered by the Citadel School of Governance in Partnership with the University of Lagos Business School (ULBS).
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that no fewer than 70 students made the first set for the nine-month programme subsidised by Bakare.
Ezekwesili stated that some people are comfortable with the challenges of Nigeria, pointing out that Nigeria has no business in failure.
The former minister who lauded Bakare, noted that all institutions in Nigeria, both in the public and private sector are struggling because of the deep-seated corruption in the country.
“Failure is not our destiny. And so if you decided that you’re going to join with him, whether as a facilitator or as an institution, you should in fact be paying him for agreeing to connect.
“The truth is that all existing institutions in our country, whether private sector, civil society, public sector, are struggling.
“I was a young co-founder of Transparency International and in those days, we began to say to the world that corruption is corrosive and if you don’t do anything about it, it becomes a monster. We in fact equated corruption with cancer.
“That’s why we talk about the cancer of corruption. And this carried on and people pretended they were not seeing what was going on until it infested and became systemic.
“And before you knew it, it became democratised. So everybody thinks, how else can we survive? If we cannot beat them, then join, join who? You’re draining off generations for a mesh of porridge.”
Also speaking, Bakare said that leaders are learners and learners are leaders, saying: “God forbid that Nigeria should continue to have less qualified people at the helm of its affairs.
Bakare said that he came up with the idea of the school to facilitate the emergence of Nigerian and African leaders empowered to rise to the demand of governance.
“This is what gave rise to the Citadel school of governance, to become a renowned global institution facilitating the emergence of great leaders,” he said.
The clergyman said the motivation for setting up the school was not born out of pecuniary gain or political ambition.
“All I want is a nation that works, a Nigeria that works for every Nigerian and I am confident such a nation will emerge in my life time,” he added.
Bakare stated that at the Citadel School “we have a bold and clear vision to become a globally renowned institution, facilitating the emergence of cutting-edge nations, beginning with Nigeria.”
“These are nations with agile and responsive governments whose impact is closely felt by the people.
” Nations that adopt, adapt and author technological innovations; where knowledge and wisdom guide decisions, and where service is at the heart of leadership; nations whose leaders and people think globally while acting locally.
“By taking this initial step, we are on course to bridge the leadership gap in public sector governance in Nigeria, Africa and, by extension, across the globe.
“We will do this by providing current public sector leaders with exposure to cutting-edge tools for continuous development, and by facilitating the mobility of quality leadership from the private to the public sector.”
The Executive Director of the University of Lagos Business School, Prof. Michael Adebamowo said the course would adopt a problem-solving approach to train the students.
