Professor Kingsley Moghalu, former Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria and foremost political economist, has advocated for consistent citizen response and engagement, calling for Nigerians to wake up to their responsibilities by taking action to elect better leaders rather than complaining about the country’s leadership.
Moghalu, a global leader with contributions to the stability and wealth of nations, societies and individuals across such domains as academia, economic policy, banking and finance, entrepreneurship, law, and diplomacy, is also a professor of International Business and Public Policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, United States of America.
Speaking in an interview, the economic expert said that Nigerians have contributed to the leadership crisis facing the country. He emphasized that the country, with an intensive push by its citizens, needs technocratic leadership with the knowledge, experience and the global network base that can address practical problems.
“There is no other solution to the leadership deficit in Nigeria than a fundamental citizen response, and we need citizen action and responsibility to hold leadership accountable. Broadly speaking, we don’t have good leaders in Nigeria because our democracy is all politics and no leadership. Politics is used to entrench vested interests, where people are either just ethnic irredentists or godfathers trying to get returns on their political investments”, he said.
As Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria from 2009-2014, Moghalu led the execution of extensive reforms in the Nigerian banking system after the global financial crisis. He was also member of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee that brought inflation down into single digits.
“We have 29 million Nigerians unemployed; 10 million children out of school, which is the highest in the world. Nigeria is 187 out of 189 in the global health systems’ ranking of the World Health Organisations – these are practical problems that need to be solved.
If our leaders are those who have spent their political careers distributing bags of rice or hiring thugs, how can they address these problems?” said Moghalu.
The founder of the Institute for Governance and Economic Transformation (IGET) further emphasized the importance of leadership training, citizenship action for accountability and citizenship education, with an intensive focus on educating the citizens on governance and economics and empowering them with the knowledge to demand for their rights.
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