Nigeria needs visionary, proactive leadership — Gov Inuwa

Governor of Gombe and Chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF), Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, has said Nigeria urgently requires purposeful and forward-looking leadership capable of uniting the people and addressing the nation’s mounting challenges.

The governor made the remarks while launching the distribution of food items as palliatives to support Muslims observing Ramadan and Christians undertaking the Lenten season in Gombe State.

According to Gov Inuwa, leadership at any level demands patience, inclusiveness, and a commitment to doing what is right at all times.

He stressed that leaders must carry the people along and ensure decisions reflect the collective interest.

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Yahaya particularly called on Nigerian youths, noting that they make up nearly 65 per cent of the country’s population and therefore represent its greatest strength and driving force.

He urged them to play active roles in nation-building and to embrace responsibility for the country’s future.

The NSGF chairman attributed Nigeria’s current socio-economic difficulties to years of inadequate planning by successive administrations.

He observed that the country’s population has grown significantly since independence in 1960, rising from about 47 million people to over 100 million more today, without commensurate long-term strategies to manage the growth.

Despite Nigeria’s abundant natural and human resources, he lamented that the absence of sustained planning has resulted in persistent insecurity, hunger, corruption, indiscipline, and declining living standards.

Yahaya further warned that demographic projections indicate Nigeria could become the third most populous country in the world in the next 24 years, behind China and India, overtaking nations such as the United States and others.

He cautioned that without deliberate population and economic planning, the nation may face even more severe pressures in the coming decades.

He also decried what he described as low productivity, poor technological optimisation, and insufficient response to climate change, stressing that Nigerians must take responsibility for fixing the country’s problems rather than expecting external solutions.

“If outsiders come in, it is often to exploit our resources and leave us worse off,” he said, pointing to widespread vandalism of public infrastructure as a major setback to development.

The governor cited the deterioration of federal highways linking Ashaka to Yobe and Maiduguri, as well as the vandalisation of public utilities and abandoned industrial assets, as examples of self-inflicted damage hindering economic growth.

He disclosed that over N26 billion had been invested in the Muhammadu Buhari Industrial Park, but noted with regret that critical electricity installations meant to power the facility were vandalised even before commissioning.

According to him, such acts ultimately harm both government and citizens, as they deprive the state of revenue while denying the public access to essential services and opportunities.

Yahaya urged Nigerians to change their attitude towards public assets and national development, warning that continued negligence and destruction of infrastructure would only deepen the country’s economic and social challenges.