2019: Oba Cautions Against Divisive Actions, Utterances

A former member of the defunct National Political Reform Conference and Pioneer President of the Traditional Rulers of Oil Mineral Producing Communities of Nigeria (TROMPCON), Oba Chukumela Nnam Obi 11 has warned politicians against divisive actions and utterances, saying they have a lot to learn from Nigeria’s Second Republic President, Shehu Shagari who gave a nation just emerging from the stranglehold of the military an uncommon moral leadership and selfless service”.
In a statement in Port Harcourt yesterday, Oba Nnam Obi 11 recalled “Shagari’s nationalistic disposition and unblemished meritorious service to the nation, and regretted that most of the present crop of politicians, rather than being more nationalistic, are so extremely sectional and incompetent to steer the ship of state away from the troubled waters in which we presently find ourselves”.
The two-time Chairman of Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers lamented that “Central to Nigeria’s problems in the misfortune of having come under leaders, almost all of whom have proved far too incompetent, and far too steeped in corruption to meaningfully tackle the country’s myriad problems, and give our beleaguered people an abiding sense of direction”.
He said although Shagari can be excused for presiding over the nation at a period when our optimism about what was possible far out-stripped our capacities to build and to persevere, most public men and those seeking political positions lack the deceased’s pristine virtues which they almost unanimously but shamelessly extolled at his demise last December”.
The monarch noted that rather than imbibe the legacy of selfless and purposeful service which Shagari beaqueathed most of our politicians are being so mindlessly desperate for power that they incapable of identifying the nation’s key problems, assess their magnitudes, analyse them with a clear-minded, clearheaded objectivity, and profer a long-term corporate approach towards their solution.
Oba Nnam Obi 11, who is also the Oba, Eze Ogba of Ogbaland, stated that at any rate, the times demand from the country’s politicians fresh insights and far-reaching solutions to the nation’s problems instead of merely dressing up old remedies that appear to only exercabate the problems”.
Expressing regrets that politicians have been usually taciturn about how the economy can be turned around and the years of waste healed, he stated that no government anywhere in the world can enjoy the blessings of legitimacy and popular support while the economy is frail and recovery not in sight.
Noting that four years are enough for an administration to prove whether it can compound the peoples’ problems or ameliorate their anguish, Oba Nnam Obi 11 urged the electorate to seize yet another opportunity offered by the forthcoming general elections to elect leaders capable of tackling the parlous state of our economy, deprivation, pervasive scarcity, and degradation of individual well-being”.
Explaining further, the monarch said: “Most fundamentally, we need to elect leaders with a driving vision of where the nation is, where it should be heading and why. This is the only way we can save the nation from going aimlessly from one detour after another.
Wishing Nigerians the love, peace and protection of God in 2019, the monarch charged the populace to set their sights high, very high, for the greatness of our nation.