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We, Leaders Are Nigeria’s Problem - Sen Ojudu Tells Colleagues

Senator Babafemi Ojudu representing Ekiti Central Senatorial district and in the upper chamber and spokesperson of the APC Senators today at the Senate told his colleagues that Nigeria’s bane is that of leadership. He said, whenever you have weak, visionless and feckless leadership, you cannot but have these kind of problems we have in the country today.

Senator Babafemi Ojudu representing Ekiti Central Senatorial district and in the upper chamber and spokesperson of the APC Senators today at the Senate told his colleagues that Nigeria’s bane is that of leadership. He said, whenever you have weak, visionless and feckless leadership, you cannot but have these kind of problems we have in the country today.

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Senator Ojudu made this statement while contributing to a motion moved by Senator Barnabas Gemade and supported by all the Senators on the recent but regrettable spate of killings in Plateau, Benue, Kduna, Kastina, Kebbi and other parts of Nigeria.

The motion which is detailed and has been the longest so far in the Senate contains information and statistics on the killings so far across the country.

Ojudu, who said, in reaction to opinions by his colleagues that an emergency be declared on the state of security in Nigeria argues that this is not the problem but that of leadership.  He argued, “How many issues are we going to declare emergency on? We have declared emergency in some states and it is not working. We have called for emergency in education, unemployment and on the economy. These emergencies will not solve our problems rather we should look inwards as our problem is that of failure of leadership”.

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Ojudu said he is not talking about leadership in Aso Rock but also amongst lawmakers and in the States and all other levels of leadership in the country. He said, it is because we have failed as leaders that this nation is collapsing under our watch. His claims were followed by shouts of No by some Senators who raised a point of order to stop him from continuing from making his points.

However, he continued in his speech calling on Senator Ike Ekweremadu presiding to protect him from those of his colleagues who are uncomfortable with his arguments.

Going further to make his contribution Ojudu cited the situation in Russia when President Boris Yeltsin almost ran Russia aground until President Putin took over and instilled some level of sanity.

Yeltsin, he said , "was always drunk and do not know what to do with Russia and Russia became a fiefdom for brigands. We may be having a similar situation in our country today."

Again, there were shouts of No and another point of order raised again to stop him from proceeding. At this point the President of the Senate asked him to stick to the issues at hand. Ojudu, insisted that all, he has said are still very much within the purview of the issues raised by the motion.

Ojudu called his colleagues to see the hand writing on the wall. The nation he said is tottering and if "we are not careful we may lose it as we leaders are taking so much for granted.”

He called the attention of the Senate to a "Letter to Nigeria" issued on March 17th by Odua Foundation, an organization of over 5,000 Yoruba professionals and academics from across the world expressing dissatisfaction with the way the country is at the moment.

He said the letter contained subtle threats and warnings to the nation and quoted a conclusion arrived at by the Foundation which that the "way matters stand today,we either all join hands and sort out the colossal mess that Nigeria has become, or we separate."

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