The traditional ruler of Isiama autonomous community and chairman Okigwe Elders Council, Imo State, HRH Eze Oliver Ohanwe has identified poverty of managerial skills, brazen greed,stinking bribery and corruption as the worst obstacle impeding the nation’s march to greater heights.
The monarch in an exclusive interview with our correspondent in Owerri on Wednesday argued that as the acclaimed giant of Africa in the largest populous black nation on earth, endowed with bounteous human and natural resources, effective and judicious management of resources, renewed act of patriotism still remain the only panacea to salvage the nation from her current economic doldrum.
He said: “At 64, we have undoubtedly made progress in some areas but our greatest obstacle as a nation is sheer lack of patriotism, greed, bribery and corruption being perpetrated by many of us without qualms and until we begin to place interest of the nation above all other considerations, we will continue to stagnate.”
He noted that such nagging issues as hunger, inflation, unstable power supply, insecurity would have been nipped in the bud if patriotism had been allowed to take the centre stage by both the leaders and the led.
He said: “for the past 64 years that Britain left the shores of this country,every angle is supposed to be productive but our economy had been mortgaged to foreign borrowing and our refineries are no longer functioning despite huge funds being invested in them for reactivation and maintenance.”
Eze Ohanwe who is also the Vice Chairman of Eastern Traditional Rulers Council also faulted the nation’s rail way system that had been left to rotten away, skewed admission policies for candidates into the nation’s tertiary institutions.
He stressed need for a paradigm shift to be put in place to reposition the nation for growth and development.
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