According to Rotimi Amaechi, a former minister of transportation, Olusegun Obasanjo is the only former president who is close to nationalism; all other individuals are ethnic leaders.
Amaechi made this claim during her speech at the 2023 TheNiche Annual Lecture, which was held on Thursday in Lagos and had as its theme “Why We Stride and Slip: Leadership, Nationalism, and the Nigerian Condition,” according to Anaedoonline.ng.
According to the former governor of Rivers State, Nigeria is still in need of national leaders and has to seriously reconsider the scope and direction of its democracy.
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Amaechi stated that true patriotic leadership transcends ethnicity and praised the Nigerian nationalists who battled for freedom.
He said, “The only person near that point of Nationalism, with all due respect, is Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. The rest are ethnic leaders.
“Truly remarkable national leadership is the ability of a leader to galvanise the totality of a nation around the common national banner with a vision and a sense of mission.
“The truly remarkable national leader is the one who can rise above limitations to take the nation and its people to that place they long for but have never been before.
“It is a place of national greatness, pride, achievements, and shared goals, aspirations, and prosperity.”
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Amaechi emphasised further that many countries have attempted to address the issue of internal diversity and that the majority of them are the result of the blending of several nationalities under a single sovereignty.
He claimed that many Nigerian officials hold positions of authority in order to further the interests of their ethnic groupings, pointing out that ethnicity continues to be a source of pain for Nigerian identity.
He added, “There can be no credible leadership for a diverse nation without some form of resolution of the national questions as it pertains to the particular nation in question.”
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