The Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II, lamented that Nigerians have been unfortunate to have successively produced lousy and incompetent leaders.
Mr Sanusi stated this at the second edition of Kano International Poetry Festival, KAPFEST, organised by the Creative Wednesday Initiative on Saturday.
The monarch also expressed concern that Nigerians are still stuck in religious and tribal discussions when other countries focus on more significant issues like AI and climate change.
According to the emir, good governance is key to salvaging the country from its current condition.
He said: “You rise and fall with the quality of your leadership and Nigeria has had lousy leadership for a long time. You cannot give what you do not have until we begin to look at the people who we choose to lead us.
“And that’s the truth. I mean, in most parts of this country, you look at people who are leading you and you say, oh God, is this really the person? How did we end up here? You see it every day on the newspapers.
“You see it in the news. You see what happens in the legislature. You see the kind of debates that we are having, the kind of arguments that we have, the kind of time we waste on issues that are totally unimportant, the pettiness.
“You look at other countries, you look at other parts of the world, people are discussing climate change, discussing artificial intelligence.
“We are still talking about Yoruba or Igbo or Hausa, Northern or Christian, you know, that is, we are still mired in that debate. We are still in conversations that we had in the 1960s,” he added.
The emir, however, challenged the youths to rise up and takeover the country from the old people that have been managing it, saying with will, the youths could easily retire all them and takeover.
He also said the country would have been bankrupt if President Bola Tinubu had not removed fuel subsidy.
According to him, subsidising fuel was never sustainable saying, “If you look at the billions and billions that were spent on subsidy, if that money had been spent on refineries, I have nothing against subsidies.
“If you are subsidizing production, I said it very clearly, my objection is the subsidy on consumption because we’re keeping refineries in Europe open. We’re giving jobs to refiners.
“And if we had taken 2012, we would not be where we are today. Now, people say to me, why aren’t you talking? I say, what am I to say? This is exactly what I said would happen because beyond a point, government revenue will not be enough to pay the subsidy. You have to borrow to pay the subsidy,” he added.
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