The Vice Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 elections, Mr Peter Obi, has explained that Nigeria’s economy can be turned around for good if every Nigerian leader imbibes the virtues of hard work and discipline and eschew the wastages now associated with public service in Nigeria.

Obi who was speaking during his appearance on Channels Television, said the work of rebuilding Nigeria, especially the economy, laid, not only with the leaders, but with the led too. Obi said, Nigeria must, at this point, stop celebrating criminality that had pervaded the nation’s public services and political space. He said such attitude had continued to stagnate the country.

“Politics in our nation today is very transactional and lacks the true definition of a democracy as government of the people, by the people and for the people. Nigerians can no longer continue to stand aloof and believe that the burden of re-building the country is entirely for the leaders. Such will only lead to complacency and docility. The decision of the leaders always have overreaching impacts on the masses. That is why Nigerians must stop celebrating failures in government and demand accountability from the leaders,” Obi said.

He explained that the economic challenges the country is facing, are as a result of leadership failure.

“Our country has continued to go from bad to worse because incompetent hands are managing the affairs of this nation. The increasing rate of poverty and unemployment, infrastructural decay, insecurity of lives and property, high debt profile and so on, all stem from the leadership failure that we are currently experiencing in the country,” he stated.

The Former Governor of Anambra State criticised the “undue sharing of national resources”, ranging from total dependent on, and sharing of oil revenues, consumption of borrowed funds and vote buying, which, he said, opened the corridors of power to incompetent people. Obi called on Nigerians, especially the leaders, to sincerely sacrifice their efforts on building a productive and sustainable economy rather than the consumption based economy currently being experienced in the country.

“Tomorrow’s success can only be achieved through today’s sacrifice. If we continue borrowing for consumption, while extravagantly wasting the little available resources we have on high cost of governance, then our nation's economy will continue to go south. With sincere hard work, financial discipline and leadership competence, our economy can be turned around for the better.

“I keep emphasising competence in leadership because a lot are dependent on it. Our people cannot freely go to their farms today due to insecurity in the country. The small businesses that would have boosted our economy with jobs creation, revenue generation, etc, are not being adequately supported by the government, with the right fiscal and monetary policies. A whole lot really goes into leadership, and if we get competent people to steer the affairs of this nation, we will enjoy a very productive and progressive economy,” he concluded.