Muhammadu Sanusi, Emir of Kano, has accused Nigeria’s political elite of deliberately undermining national progress by treating public office as a personal and family enterprise rather than a responsibility to citizens.
Gatekeepers News reports that speaking on Wednesday at the 15th anniversary event of Enough is Enough (EiE) Nigeria in Lagos, Sanusi said the political class has consistently ignored opportunities for national development because their priorities are self-serving.
“We have done enough damage and maybe we need to stop,” he said. “And I think this is the point Omobola is making about missed opportunities. Not just missed opportunities, I think sometimes deliberately missed opportunities.”
He argued that Nigeria misses critical openings for growth because its leaders see governance through a narrow, personal lens.
“The reason we miss these opportunities is because we have people who think public office is about themselves, it’s about their families, it’s about people close to them, it’s not about the country,” Sanusi said. “But public office is about the citizens.”
The former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) urged young Nigerians to reject the dysfunctional system they have inherited and work toward building a nation that realises its true potential. He described the current structure as one entrenched in “ethnic rivalries, religious conflicts, and competition for personal aggrandizement”.
“The important thing for me is that as citizens, each and every one of us will remember that the nation belongs to us,” he said. “It does not belong to the government, it does not belong to politicians, it belongs to us.”
Sanusi urged Nigerian youths to unite across ethnic, religious, and social lines and articulate a clear ideological vision for the kind of country they want to build.
“What we need to do is try to come together and articulate a clear and achievable ideological position, a vision for what kind of Nigeria we want to have,” he added.
“And it has to be a Nigeria different from the Nigeria that has been manufactured for us — a Nigeria of ethnic rivalries, religious conflicts, rent seeking, competition for aggrandizement. It has to be a country that realises its potential in the committee of nations.”
