Former Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has raised concerns about the current leadership structure in Nigeria, warning that the nation is facing its most serious crisis since its amalgamation in 1914.
Speaking in Abuja on Saturday, May 31, at the 60th birthday lecture of former Rivers State governor Rotimi Amaechi, themed “Weaponization of Poverty in Nigeria,” El-Rufai criticised what he described as the dominance of “urban bandits” in positions of power.
“Nigeria is in its biggest trouble since 1914 and that is why we are together working and conspiring to build a coalition to take Nigeria back on track because it is off track,” El-Rufai said.
He described the country’s leadership problem as rooted not in rural criminality, but in a failure to address the rise of self-serving political elites in cities. “It has turned to this level because we have allowed bandits, not the ones in the bushes but the ones in the urban areas called the urban bandits to take over leadership,” he said.
El-Rufai attributed the country’s stagnation to a pattern of entrusting power to individuals lacking vision and competence. “I believe that the problem that we have, which I think (former) Governor Babangida referred to, is that we just get incompetent people and we hand over leadership to them. Most of them don’t really know what to do. They just know how to grab power but don’t know what to do with it,” he said.
He urged Nigerians to resist this trend by electing leaders with proven competence, capacity, and commitment to national development.
The former governor’s remarks add to a growing chorus of political voices calling for a reevaluation of Nigeria’s leadership culture and the need to prioritise governance over power struggles.
