A former Minister of External Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, has said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Nigerians are paying the price of bad leadership handed down by former leaders of the country including former Presidents Muhammadu Buhari and Goodluck Jonathan.
The former Minister spoke in an interview with Arise TV on Tinubu’s trip to New Delhi in India for the G20 Summit.
The Eagle Online recalls that the President, who returned to Abuja, the country’s capital, on Tuesday night, attended the two-day summit on the special invitation of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and had a stopover in the United Arab Emirates, a diplomatic shuttle that saw to the lifting of visa and flights bans on Nigeria.
Speaking with Arise TV, Akinyemi said the ways Nigeria can be respected in the comity of nations include providing quality leadership, conducting its affairs properly and for Nigerians to stop de-marketing the country.
He said: “We must stop de-marketing Nigeria, irrespective of what the government does.
“If we as people have no faith in our own country, in our own government, it will backfire.
“Let me, however, deal now with what I would call the international aspect of that summit and the implications for Nigeria.
“We are not members of the G20.
“Why?
“The reasons are many.
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“One is the bad leadership that has driven our economy to the ground.
“Now that we know the cost of bad leadership, I hope we will give our country a decent leadership that can promote Nigeria.
“We must stop Boko Haram and all the things that destabilise and give Nigeria a bad image.”
Professor Akinyemi said President Tinubu is paying the price of the bad leadership that characterised Nigeria’s past governments and should work hard towards getting the country a permanent membership of the G20 before the next summit.
He said: “Tinubu and Nigeria are paying the price for the bad leadership of the past.
“We tend to say that it started with Jonathan and Buhari.
“But forgive me, it started before that.
“I won’t, however, go into that now.
“But the good news is that President Tinubu is starting at a time when he can maximise the goodwill of the international communities.
“Number one, the new President of G20 is from Brazil.
“And Brazil is a friend of Nigeria.
“We have a very good relationship with Brazil.
“That good relationship should be cultivated because the president of the G20 actually has a lot of influence on his fellow members in terms of what he would like to do or not to.
“Therefore, President Tinubu should set up a task force whose objective should be that by the next summit, Nigeria should actually be sponsored for permanent membership of the G20.”
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