A former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Dimeji Bankole, has called on Nigerians to elect leaders who are responsible and have an interest in the Nigerian project irrespective of their age.
The former speaker made the call in Kaduna on Saturday while speaking as the Special Guest of Honour at the 16th Annual Ramadan Lecture organized by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and Voice of Nigeria.
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Bankole said what is more important for Nigeria is responsible leadership made up of people who are interested and committed to the Nigerian project, rather than the debate over the age of the candidates.
“We will continue to pray and take part in the process and try as much as possible to have responsible people interested in the Nigerian project to lead irrespective of their age,” he said.
Speaking on the topic of the lecture, ‘Social Media; Effects on Morality’, Hon. Bankole said social media is not the cause of Nigeria’s problems, but rather a consequence of its problems, adding that, “without a proper diagnostic experience, we cannot begin to proffer solutions to Nigeria’s problems.”
He said, “If we get our responsibilities in the right order, from home, this thing can be treated from primary schools, secondary schools, formative years of young people, parents getting involved, empowering the local governments to make sure this thing work, then we will begin to get the proper foundation that would be very difficult for anyone to dissuade into bad immoral behaviour.”
He, therefore, recommended that as believers, Nigerians should go back to the books for solutions to myriads of challenges confronting the nation.
According to him, “Islam is a wonderful religion, which is not complicated at all. It has solved problems from day one till now, yet the Quran is still the same book, irrespective of different developments in this world, we still apply it and it gives us solutions.”
He said the Holy book has laid down the rules and the order of their application, “the problem here is that we are putting number five as number one and we expect peace to reign. We cannot begin to skim and think we are better skimmers than Allah.”
“We all came from communities before we came from local governments, and states before we identified as Nigerians. So, while we continue to pray in this month, we should stick to those tenets, and we will restore the glory of Nigeria,” he said.
