A former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana has reasoned that Nigeria is experiencing underdevelopment and churning out wrong policies because mediocres have been entrusted with the leadership of the country.

He made this assertion at Uzere, Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State at the Second Session of the Sixth Synod of the Oleh Diocese of the Anglican Communion at the weekend.

The elder statesman, who presented a lecture entitled, “The Role Of The Church In Building A Good Society In Nigeria,”stressed that aside ensuring good governance, the church must take its social responsibility of fighting corruption seriously.

While calling on the church to raise leaders who are courageous, competent, disciplined, focused and strategic in thinking, he said: “The problem with the Federal Republic of Nigeria is that Nigeria produces mediocre leaders.

“Elections are supposed to be a process of electing good leaders who will give good governance and governance will give good development. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, we are electing wrong leaders, so we have wrong policies and wrong development.

“In view of the critical importance of leadership in the development process, raising good leaders is an extremely important role for the Church. No other institution is better placed than the Church in promoting such core values such as truth, justice, righteousness, honesty, integrity, love, kindness, peace, compassion and respect for human dignity.”
While lamenting that Nigerians were “so severely poor in a potentially rich and wealthy nation,” Gana said: “The sights, sounds and realities of human deprivation are so pervasive throughout our land that we cannot ignore this social tragedy of poverty.

“Poverty is a social evil that must be abolished or eradicated, but certainly not tolerated. Through sustained programmes of wealth creation and fair distribution, the current high levels of poverty can be reduced. We must seek to remove obstacles to greater production of goods and services.

“Wealth creation strategies must always be backed-up by fair distribution mechanism; otherwise, the severe greed for accumulation in our society could even intensify poverty in the midst of prosperity.”