It is with great pleasure that I join you all for today’s KCOBA reunion Gala Celebration. I am truly excited to be here. Yesterday was my daughter’s graduation ceremony, and the initial plan was to spend two nights in Washington, but I had to seek my daughter’s leave to depart DC a day earlier so that I could be here.
This is my first time in Texas. Even while I was Senate President and was invited to Houston to attend the Oil Producers Trade Section and other events, I did not visit. But as stated in our school song, ” When the call is sounded, all must answer, “here. “The KCOBA North America chapter has sounded the call, and I have no option but to answer. I knew I had to be here.
I am happy to connect with all of you because we share the same roots. You have invited me here to talk about my experiences and ideas on the issue of leadership so that we can all see how we could help to improve the state of affairs in our dear country.
All of us gathered here, with our King’s College background, are privileged people, at least to some extent. A lot of investment has gone into building the people that we all are. We have had good education, good training, good upbringing, and good opportunities to excel. Thus, all of us are leaders of our society in various respects.
As members of the KCOBA, let me remind you that one of the privileges of attending that great, distinctive, exclusive, and pre-eminent college is that we were, from a young age, groomed to be leaders in our society and champions of the development of our country.
One of the aims and objectives of founding our alma mater in 1909 was to “cultivate a generation of well-educated, character-driven individuals who could contribute to the development of a future Nigeria” and that is why it “emphasized the development of strong character and leadership qualities believing that these were essential for building a successful and independent Nigeria”. The school was therefore envisioned as “a national institution aimed to produce a generation of leaders who would contribute to the growth and development of the nation”. So you can see that All KCOB is a born and trained leader. Right?
What this means is that KC was envisaged to be like Eton College, Harrow and Tonbridge Schools in the UK. It is therefore not a coincidence, for instance, that Eton College has produced 20 of the UK’s Prime Ministers. It is an indication that the British are deliberate about grooming people for leadership, and they catch them young, too. That was the plan behind the establishment of the KC and perhaps other colleges like Government College, Ibadan, Government College, Umuahia, Barewa College, Zaria, Igbobi College, Lagos, to mention a few, in Nigeria.
Going by history, while the KC has only produced a Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme (1979 – 1983), and me as Senate President (2015 – 2019), the Barewa College produced our first Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, and President Shehu Shagari. It also produced two military heads of state, Generals Yakubu Gowon and Murtala Muhammed. The Igbobi College produced ex-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. It is believed that if leadership is the problem of Nigeria, it is also because we have abandoned the leadership grooming and evolution plans that we inherited from the colonialists and the founding fathers of our country. There is a failure in our leadership evolution, grooming, and development program. As you know, any country that misses the opportunity of being led by its best and most prepared, while accidental and ill-prepared people force their way into leadership positions, often will face tough challenges of development. Our country has had more accidental leaders who just found leadership trusted in them by strange circumstances, not people who have been prepared and are prepared to lead.
It is very gratifying to see that all of you KCOB in North America are excelling as individual professionals – medical doctors, engineers, computer experts, accountants, financial gurus, legal practitioners, and so on – businessmen, bureaucrats, and other endeavors. Apart from those of us gathered here and those trained in KC, we have our fellow countrymen who are world-beaters across the globe. Adewale ‘Wally’ Adeyemo was Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Adebayo Ogunlesi, chairman of Global Infrastructures Partners, Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, the renowned Nigerian-American pediatric surgeon and a leading expert in fetal surgery, and Brig. Gen. Amanda Azubuike, the first and only black US female army general, to name a few. And of course, Kemi Badenoch, the current leader of the Conservative Party in the UK.
Everywhere, Nigerians are excelling. What this scenario further tells us is that as individuals, we are successful, but as a collective, we have failed because our country has remained unable to fulfill its manifest destiny as a leader in Africa and the world. How can a country produce this constellation of global stars, and it is not a leading country even in Africa? This is food for thought. It is something I want all of us to ruminate about after we leave this event. I want the conversation to continue beyond this event. This is necessary because the issue of why we have not produced leaders who will take the country to the promised land or achieve genuine development with a high standard of living for the people is one question that will not go away.
We have failed because our best hands and heads refuse to venture and offer themselves for leadership. Those who constitute the followership have also failed to play their good roles by being discerning in choosing leaders. They often fail to hold the leadership accountable. There is an argument as to whether every society is a reflection of its leaders or if the leaders are a reflection of the general society from which they emerge. Whichever side of this debate we take, what is certain is that no leader can achieve success by accident or bring about positive changes by accident. Development can only be achieved in any society by intentional actions and well-designed, carefully thought-out, and efficiently implemented policies, programs, plans, and projects introduced by the leadership and supported by the followership.
That is why we also have to be deliberate in improving the quality of leadership and be ready to hold those who emerge as leaders responsible for delivering on the promises of good governance to the people. To do this, we should all come out of our shells. Let us stop the idea that politics is dirty, too rigorous, demanding, and invasive of our privacy. German poet and playwright, Bertolt Brecht, warned that when competent professionals stay off politics, they allow incompetent people who can dare to decide how their society will progress and what obtains in their communities.
My observation is that with the way the military perpetuated itself in power between 1983 and 1999 through frequent shifts of the promise to hand over power to civilians, when they eventually chose to exit power, many serious-minded Nigerians, particularly top professionals, did not believe them. Thus, the best of the country, young and old, stayed off the politics of transition that led to the birth of democracy in 1999. The people who dominated the politics that led to the return of democracy were not the best the country could provide. They were mainly those who had nothing to do and saw politics as an end in itself or a means to earn their survival. They came in with all the dirty tricks and deadly tactics that the populace had learnt from the military.
Since then, every effort by top professionals, truly progressive, forward looking and decent people to reclaim control of politics from the rough necks has failed or ended up in misery. If you look at it critically, there are only a few people of my ilk, from a good school like KC, who read medicine and have a good background in the financial sector, that have broken into the top power circle. I was particularly lucky to have come from a political family and inherited a platform that readily helped me to get elected into a top position like that of a state governor.
Instead of a situation where the best gets to power and govern by enunciating policies, programmes, and projects that can make life better for the ordinary people and move the country forward, we elect or appoint people into office who have no plan for the country. These are people who are only interested in occupying office to become the new Nigerian big men or women. No plan for the people.
Let me use myself as an example, most of the landmark projects that we initiated and executed in Kwara State came from a central objective to change the story of the state from that of a civil service state to one with active private sector participation, bubbling commerce, and commercial agriculture which can feed the rest of the country. That was the dominant plan, and everything that we did was directed towards achieving this central objective. Each project, therefore, was a result of careful planning in which we sought to answer the question: How will this help to achieve that overall objective of creating a productive economy that can employ and empower people outside the jobs in the civil service?
From rebuilding and equipping the Ilorin Airport and forming a partnership with private airlines to fly passengers in and out of the state capital, to building an aviation college equipped to train commercial pilots, an opportunity not available anywhere in West Africa as at then, we aimed to create and aviation hub and direct quality traffic into our state, thereby boosting commerce. We added the incentive that attracted Shoprite Shopping Mall to Ilorin. The Mall today accommodates businesses that employ hundreds of young people and also defines the skyline in the state capital. We also started the commercial agriculture project in Shonga Farms, where today you have the largest chicken producer in Nigeria. These, among others, were all products of critical thinking, various out-of-the-box ideas, and sticking to a viable and enduring plan.
Also, as a medical doctor, I gave a lot of thought to how we could create a healthcare system that would take care of the masses. I became convinced that our focus should be on primary health care. It was the answer to the question of how to provide good healthcare to the rural people who just battle ailments like malaria, hypertension, typhoid fever, body aches resulting from hours of working in the farms, diarrhea, and treatment of wounds and snake bites. We then came up with the idea of a Community Health Insurance Scheme. It was the first attempt to ensure health care was made available through low-premium insurance coverage to people who were not government employees. We also concentrated efforts on building and equipping primary health care centres (PHCs) as well as providing welfare facilities that will enable us to retain doctors in the rural areas. This was a good strategy to implement the universal health coverage plan. We must also invest in the primary health care Programme by giving effect to the provision of the National Health Act 2014, which provided that one percent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund should be devoted to funding primary health care every year. It should be recalled that it was only when I was Senate President that the 8th National Assembly forced compliance with this provision in the 2018 Appropriation Act. This was a move that earned the 8th Senate accolades from across the world, including from the UN, UNICEF, WHO, and the Bill Gates Foundation.
Whenever I look back at the tempestuous period that I had as Senate President and how I survived, my appreciation usually goes to three sources – Almighty God, my parents, and my old school, KC. You may ask why this is so. The legislature is an institution created to make laws, oversight the executive, and represent the people. A legislative leader must have character. He must be bold to speak truth to power. For me, the confidence to act in this manner came from these three sources. Why would I be a Senate President and could not lead the Senate to ask questions on what the loans the executive branch is seeking approval is meant to be spent for?
As Senate President, I made it a priority to have a Legislative Agenda that dictates what we give more attention, time, and resources. Our focus was the economy, security of lives and properties, and anti-corruption in line with the agenda of our party, the APC, which had the majority of the members. We spent more time on economic issues and set up the National Assembly Business Roundtable (NASSBER), which consisted of legislators, members of the organised private sector, members of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), and academics. They were charged with the responsibility of looking at all the laws relating to running businesses and making recommendations on those that needed to be abrogated, amended, retained, or enacted anew. They ended up identifying 53 such laws, and we focused on working on them as they also presented draft bills for the ones that deserved amendment. Unfortunately, key ones like CAMA, PIB, and some of them were not signed into law by the executive.
Also, our efforts in the National Assembly to promote the concept of Buy Made in Nigeria goods were another bold move that did not record the desired success. Today, when I read about the Make America Great Again (MAGA) plan and the recent announcement by the Tinubu government to introduce an Executive Order to promote the Nigeria First policy, I shudder at what the country would have gained if our efforts in the 8th Senate in this direction had enjoyed executive support. We initiated the idea of promoting Made in Nigeria products in 2017 after I attended a Made in Aba Trade Fair in Abuja, sponsored by one of our colleagues, Sen. Enyinnaya Abaribe. I marveled at the quality and variety of products on display and then decided to amend the Public Procurement Act to compel all government agencies to patronize only Nigerian goods, manufacturers, and suppliers, except when the product or service was not locally available. This will stimulate local production, motivate the growth of local manufacturers, and yield increased employment. We were not successful because the bill got caught in the politics leading to the 2019 elections and thus, did not get the required attention from the House of Representatives.
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The legislature under my leadership was silenced, harassed, assaulted, bullied, and blackmailed, and the executive deliberately frustrated the passage of good laws, initiatives, and recommendations that would have been highly beneficial to our society. We were like orphans. The elite and ordinary people kept quiet, were nonchalant, and stayed aloof. Now, years after we left office, subsequent leadership of the National Assembly would rather be a rubber stamp and play dumb because they do not want to go through the harrowing experience that Saraki went through. I could have agreed with everything the Presidency under Buhari wanted and cut deals with them all the way. I would have been a good ally. Thus, when I read posts on social media or stories in the traditional media criticising the current National Assembly and praising our tenure, I just shrug my shoulders and feel unconcerned. This is a big failure of followership, and it is an enabler for the continuous failure of leadership. These sad developments are indications that our institutions are weak. Instead of building institutions, we are building strong men and women.
My experience in governance has shown that many people elected into key offices got there without any idea or plan of what policies, programmes, and projects they want to execute, what changes they want to effect, what ideas they want to initiate, and who and who can help them bring these plans to fruition. They run the government on whims and caprices, or at best rely on proposals from the government scammers who patronize every government in power.
My advice is that all of us in this room should show more interest because there is a lot of value in it. We should decide that from today, we will no longer keep quiet while our country is being mis-governed. We must always intervene when we see a wrong candidate being fielded, a wrong policy being implemented, or a wrong project being sited. We must leave our comfort zone. With the level of education, experience, and exposure available to those of you present here, Nigeria needs your involvement in her governance. You can participate by either contesting elections or supporting the emergence of those you believe are capable and can make a difference. Your voice and resources can push good candidates into offices. All of you here must play key roles at the various levels – wards where a councilor is elected, Local Government Area where a chairman is elected, a state constituency which produces a member of the state House of Assembly, the federal constituency, where the House of Reps members is elected, the senatorial district where senators emerge from, the State which elects a governor before the president who has the entire country as his or her constituency. Nigerians in diaspora like you constitute a very influential and respected constituency back home in Nigeria. Your opinions count. Contribute to the search for leadership, participate in discussions on policies, programmes, and projects.
We must avoid the use of ethnicity and religion to keep dividing our people. In Nigeria, when the power elite want to undermine a good leader or sabotage his good policies, they employ tribal or religious sentiments. Those of you in the Diaspora should help to preach against this tendency by telling our people to avoid that trap and maintain their focus on the big picture. We must strive at all times to make people in leadership accountable, ensure honest enforcement of the law, make people bear the consequences of their actions and inactions, institute electoral reform so that leadership selection process is free, fair, transparent and peaceful, entrench unity of purpose, rebuild our infrastructure, and create opportunities for people to realise their positive goals, while also plugging the loopholes for waste of state resources. If we can do all of these, the story of our country and its people will change for the better, and you will all be proud.
Let me conclude this address by appreciating the organisers of this annual reunion and gala celebration. From the pre-event materials, up to the setting I am seeing here and the plan you have going forward, the organisers have done a wonderful job in hosting all of us and giving us a beautiful experience this night. They have demonstrated the class for which our great school is known. Well done.
I urge all of us present to support the endowment fund being set up by the KCOBA, North America, to help produce new stars from our old school. It is an idea that deserves our contributions because the positive effect will be felt across our country.
May God bless our great school. Up KC, Up School. Thank you all.
. Being an address by a former President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, at the 2025 Reunion Gala Celebration of King’s College Old Boys Association (KCOBA) of North America at the National Space Centre, Houston, Texas, United States of America on May 17, 2025.
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