A retired Assistant Director of the Department of State Services (DSS), Dennis Amachree has advised Nigerians to seek a new leadership that will give a new sense of direction where hope can emerge.
He enjoined Nigerians to kick against the recycling of leaders, whose families have been in the political space for years and have nothing to show for it, and as such, a new Nigeria of hope cannot emerge.
Speaking as the guest speaker of the Afrikanwatch Network annual lecture titled, “A New Nigeria, With Innovative Ideology, Devoid Of Hypocritical Leaders”, at Lagos, he noted that the current politicians in the country lack the ideology to give birth to a new nation.
Nigerians have been caught up in the quagmire of hypocritical leadership, where we are at the mercy of the politicians.
Corruption, nepotism, unimaginable fraud and total disappearance of integrity, is now the order of the day.
He lamented that in a democratic system where the people are supposed to be the repository of power, politicians have relegated the citizens to the background where, pointing out that if a politician built five kilometres of road, Nigerians come out with their drums, dancing and thanking the governor or president for providing that infrastructure, as if he built the road with his own personal money.
He lamented that most politicians are in public office to appropriate their commonwealth into their personal pockets and lacked the leadership skills and qualities needed to steer the affairs of the nation.
He noted that today leadership for development becomes a big problem because the fundamental objectives of being in public office are not for development but for personal aggrandizement.
Amachree reiterated that the political landscape in Nigeria lacks cognitive rigidity when it comes to ideology, adding that ideological extremism is totally shady, where cross carpeting is a commonality.
In the United States, he explained that the Democrats are pro-choice (support abortion), while their Republican counterparts are totally against abortion, saying that in such rigidly held beliefs or ideologies, it is rare to see politicians cross carpeting.
He lamented that in Nigeria, it’s easy to cross carpet because there are no ideologies or strongly held beliefs that can change the conviction of a Republican to be a Democrat overnight or vice versa.
