Blunt and unflattering, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has hit a raw nerve with his Easter message that centred on the question of leadership in Nigeria. The fiery priest blamed Nigeria’s underdevelopment on its leadership – military and civilian– in the past six decades post-flag independence from Britain. He is right. This reopens the debate on the selection process, elections and the political system.

Advising Tinubu to reverse the sad augury, Kukah said, “For over 60 years, our leaders have looked like men in a drunken stupor, staggering, stumbling and fumbling, slurring in speech, with blurred visions searching for the way home. The corruption of the years of a life of immoral and sordid debauchery has spread like cancer destroying all our vital organs. The result is a state of a hangover that has left our nation comatose.” This is sobering.

As far as leadership is concerned, Nigeria is in a very bad place. Despite its vast oil resources and formidable human capital, Nigeria’s political leadership has failed to harness the potential for the greater good. Accordingly, in development, it is a laggard.

In 2018, it unceremoniously attained the status of the capital poverty of the world, usurping India with 86.7 million citizens plunged into the extreme poverty hole. In 2022, an NBS survey estimated 133 million citizens living in multidimensional poverty. The World Bank aggregated this at 140 million in 2023 based on the removal of petrol subsidy and the naira floatation by President Bola Tinubu mid-2023.

Instead of deploying the resources to benefit society, it is only the political class that appropriates them to itself. The Economist said Nigerian lawmakers are the highest paid in the world. Senators in the 10th National Assembly received between N75 million and N500 million for constituency projects, which Tinubu did not question.

Insecurity has rendered life toxic, meaningless, short, brutal and nasty. Since 2009, Boko Haram insurgents have terrorised Nigeria, engaging in bombings and kidnapping. Bandits number 120,000 in the North-West alone, displacing farmers and residents. In the last dispensation, 63,111 Nigerians died in violence under President Muhammadu Buhari. Violence still plagues Nigeria extensively under Tinubu. According to the Fund for Peace, Nigeria is the 15th most fragile state in the world in 2023 out of 179 countries.

It is another ghastly story in infrastructure. The World Bank says Nigeria needs $100 billion annually for the next 30 years to bridge its infrastructure deficit. With supply around 4,000 megawatts, electricity is near comatose.

It is Africa’s largest crude oil exporter, but its refineries have been run down for decades. So, it imports white products at a great cost to its economy.

For a long period, the military took centre stage after it illegally usurped power in January 1966. Leadership is the same after 25 years of unbroken democratic rule.

Among others, the leadership recruitment process is skewed and compromised, making it difficult to produce effective leaders. Elections are akin to war, featuring rigging, violence, brazen ballot distortions and voter suppression. Elections end up in vicious litigation. The judiciary is part of the rot, with many of its judgements confounding reason.

The political class is corrupt, nepotistic and self-serving. In Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perception Index for 2023, Nigeria listed 145 out of 180 countries.

In contrast, just one person, Lee Kuan Yew, transformed Singapore from the Third World to the First World by his perspective leadership.

Nigeria’s worst problem is the national folly of operating a unitary constitution in a country that is a natural federation. Therefore, the magic wand to clear the leadership of its drunken stupor is to return Nigeria to true federalism in which the states will control their resources and the centre will be far less powerful and attractive than it is currently.

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