Bakare Urges Buhari to Shun ‘Our Turn’ Politics, Appoint Technocrats

Tunde Bakare

Festus Akanbi and Obinna Chima  

The Convener of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has advised the incoming president, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) to ensure that he appoints technocrats into strategic positions in his government, just as he urged him to shun ‘it is our turn’ politics.

Bakare, made the veiled remark to the president-elect, while speaking among a set of panellists at Wema Bank Plc’s 70th anniversary commemorative lecture titled: “Why Nations Succeed,” that took place in Lagos monday.

According to Bakare, although several nations have been commending the outcome of Nigeria’s recently concluded presidential elections, the “undercurrents in the nation today is the idea that it is ‘our turn.’”

He added: “We just have to wait for few weeks to see how things would go. I pray that the north that has been out of power for some time will not say, ‘now it is our turn,’ whether we would see round pegs in square holes and begin to attract incompetent people. The most competent, the fittest and people with capacity and ideas should be the ones to go for.

“It would look beautiful to put things together if you have the mind to do it and if you have the right people to occupy these places, regardless of their religion, regardless of their agenda and what part of the country they are from, as long as they are able to deliver what would bring us out of this backwardness.”

According to Bakare: “It is the choices that you make that will make you poor or rich. We must make the right choices as we have the opportunity now. We have campaigned on ‘change,’ Nigerians have trusted us on ‘change,’ but I want to look at those that would be the agents of the change.  The choices we made in the past are the cause of the consequences we are dealing with today,” he added.
On her part, the Co-convener of the Bring Back Our Girls group, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili, stressed the need for the building of lasting institutions in the country.

According to the former Minister of Education, institutions are accumulated practices based on common sense of shared purpose and destination.

“What we have seen in that in institution building, there is the supply and demand side of the matter. So, in our society, we have had supply side activities for building institutions, but we have not seen the commensurate demand activities. It is the demand activities of the citizens of any society that would push the frontiers of the extractors, who monopolise power. But when the citizens are completely disengaged, nobody will do it for them. So, we need to become active participants in governance.

“There is need for strong institutions that are functional, that thrive on the rule of law, that are predictable in the way they behave. Also, there is need for sound macro-economic policies and then effective and efficient investments, whether public investments or private sector investments. These are the framework for economic growth.

“We have serious issues of poor governance of resources, so that public investment don’t end up producing the kind of output we produce because of the quality of individuals. So, what quality of individuals are involved in the process of institution building?” she aske.

Earlier, the guest lecturer, who is the co-author of the book: “Why Nations Fail,” Prof. James Robinson, noted that the failure of Nigerian leaders and other African leaders to organise their economies the way they should be were responsible for the poor output and slow pace of development by the continent.

According to Robinson, Nigeria had suffered from a long history of exploitative and extractive institutions. However, he acknowledged that since 1999 when the country returned to democracy, it has recorded a lot of progress economically as well as the strengthening of some institutions due to reforms.

He stressed the need for inclusiveness for any nation to attain its potential.

“All countries which now have inclusive institutions, historically had extractive institutions,” he said.

   Also, the Dean, of Lagos Business School of the Pan-Atlantic University, Mrs. Enase Okonebo, noted that for any nation to develop, it has to focus on education, saying that Nigeria is one of the poorest in terms of out-of-school children.

In his remark, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos, Prof. Oyewusi Ibidapo-Obe, said “we need to dislodge the elites from their comfort zones.”