Nigeria must abandon identity politics to develop, says Jonathan
Former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has warned that the country will continue to struggle with development until it discards “primitive methods” of selecting political leaders based on religion, ethnicity and language.
Speaking on Saturday in Lagos at the Herbert Macaulay Colloquium, which marked the 162nd anniversary of the birth of the nationalist pioneer, Mr Jonathan said Nigeria must prioritise competence and merit in leadership recruitment.
“We are still suffering from political leaders being recruited based on religion, language and all kinds of things,” Mr Jonathan told the audience. “Sometimes it is even beyond Muslim or Christian. I know of a particular state in southern Nigeria that 99.9 per cent of them are Christians. But if you don’t belong to one particular denomination, you cannot be the governor of the state.”
“That is the kind of thing we do. So no matter how good you are, until we move away from these primitive ways of recruiting political leaders, this country cannot go.”
The former president identified institutional weaknesses, corruption, policy inconsistency, inadequate infrastructure and insecurity as additional factors impeding national progress. He also called for comprehensive democratic reforms, describing the current system as “opaque and amorphous”.
According to Mr Jonathan, Nigeria’s democratic framework must be reviewed to ensure popular participation, the rule of law, respect for human rights, judicial independence, accountability, pluralism and a vibrant civil society.
Turning to human capital development, he stressed the need to prioritise functional education and establish research-intensive universities capable of driving technological advancement and innovation. Citing India, Singapore and South Korea as examples, he noted that those nations had leveraged quality education to achieve remarkable growth.
“You can’t go anywhere with weak educational institutions,” he said, adding that Nigeria must deliberately invest in its best minds and build world-class universities to compete globally.
Concluding his address, Mr Jonathan paid tribute to Herbert Macaulay and other founding nationalists, stating that the greatest honour the country could accord them was not merely celebrating their sacrifices, but building a nation that reflected the ideals for which they fought.