Leaders Must Be Competent To Turn Ideas Into Action – Jerry Gana

Former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, has called on Nigerian leaders to demonstrate competence, integrity and wisdom in governance, stressing that leadership failure is a major obstacle to the country’s development.

Gana made the call on Tuesday while delivering the keynote address at the 2026 conference of the Forum of Former Deputy Governors of Nigeria.

He said effective leadership was critical to national development, noting that competent leaders could achieve significant results within a short period if they were committed to serving the people.

‘’Leadership building has a tremendous power of good leadership. Good leaders can get so much done in such a little time. This is what is missing in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

I’m telling you, if only leaders can really resolve to be good leaders. I want you to have my paper because I produced my paper. I hope they will reproduce it.

I spent a lot of time on my section of my paper on this issue of leadership. Extremely important. We take it lightly in Nigeria.

But leadership is so important, it’s so central. Nothing happens without leadership. And you people that are listening today, you belong to the class of the leaders.

Leaders are the ones who get things moving. Disconnect? No, it’s not a disconnect. It’s a failure of leadership.’’

The professor said Nigerian leaders must understand the needs of the people and develop the capacity to translate their aspirations into tangible results.

According to him, the country’s development challenges cannot be addressed without leaders who understand their responsibilities and possess the necessary skills to deliver on their mandates.

Gana, a renowned scholar and former senator, said competence and character were among the most important qualities expected of anyone entrusted with leadership.

He criticised situations where elected officials spend several years in office without producing meaningful results for the people they were elected to serve.

‘’Leaders must be competent. You are elected, you spend 2, 3, 4 years doing nothing. Some people even spend about 8 years.

Oh, I shouldn’t go there. But it’s real. At the end of it, there’s nothing to see.

I’m not campaigning. Because you know, I’m 80, 81 now. I’m going away.

I’m not campaigning. You people ask me to come, and when I come, I want to speak my mind. Can I go on? Leaders must be competent.

Competence or the sheer capacity to get things done. For God’s sake. If you are a leader, you have the capacity to turn ideas into action.

Not just going around doing nothing.’’

He also warned against placing people in positions of authority solely because of their financial resources, insisting that character must remain a major consideration in the selection of leaders.

According to him, the declining emphasis on integrity has contributed to governance challenges and weakened the country’s ability to achieve meaningful development.

‘’You must also have character. I heard this thing with Petron talking about character.

Character is so important. And here, I defined it so much because I love character. Character is so important, so profound.

And in our communities, you know, people, they train us to be men and women of character. As far as they are concerned, they admire character more than other things. But we’ve not turned it around.

So that people without character, because they have money, they are leading. That is wrong. Extremely wrong.

And they give a lot of serious problems. You cannot perform. It is extremely important.’’

The former minister further emphasised the importance of wisdom in leadership, explaining that leaders must be capable of identifying and appointing competent individuals to help them achieve their objectives.

He said poor decisions in selecting people for public office could undermine governance and waste opportunities to rebuild the nation.

The former minister called for a value-based leadership model that prioritises good governance, accountability, transparency and service delivery.

He said such a model would strengthen the rule of law, promote peace and security, tackle corruption, improve productivity, create wealth and reduce poverty.

‘’So, in this paper, I’m urging for a value-based leadership excellence in Nigeria. This kind of leadership excellence, I want to summarise research has shown, I reveal, that this value-based model of leadership promotes good governance, ensures the rule of law, insists on maintaining peace and security, it emphasises transparency in due process, insists on accountability, tackles corruption firmly, elevates excellence in service delivery, facilitates productivity to create wealth, reduces poverty, and delivers development.’’

Gana also called for a reassessment of Nigeria’s understanding of development, arguing that development should not be measured solely by modernisation, economic growth or the volume of infrastructure projects undertaken.

He maintained that genuine development must involve transformation, particularly the ability to produce goods and services locally.

‘’And now, I also emphasise in my paper, I’m rethinking in nation building, we have to rethink what is the meaning of development.

For me, development is not just doing modern things. It’s not modernisation. No, that’s not development.

It’s not even economic growth. It’s not the kind of things we think is this. That’s why we are just wasting time, borrowing money here, borrowing money there.

That is not development. Development is transformation.’’

He explained that transformation required building the technological capacity to manufacture goods, provide services and utilise local resources to strengthen the economy.

To illustrate the importance of productive capacity, Gana cited Malaysia’s palm oil industry as an example of how countries could transform their agricultural resources into major sources of revenue.

He recalled visiting Malaysia while serving as chairman of the Mass Mobilisation for Social Justice and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), where he observed extensive plantations of palm produce and rubber trees.

According to him, the similarities between Nigeria’s environment and Malaysia’s made the country’s agricultural achievements particularly instructive.

‘’When I was chairman of MAMSA, I went to Malaysia. And I saw Malaysia, something, an environment that’s similar to us. And what I saw, I was taken out.

And I saw, you know, rows and hectares and hectares and hectares of palm produce and rubber trees. But I said this environment is just like our own. Why can’t we do this? They said, yes.

In fact, we came to pick the seedlings from Nigeria way back in 1957. I said, you did? He said, yeah.’’

Gana said Malaysia established the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) to support agricultural development, adding that the country had demonstrated the economic potential of investing in palm oil production.

He recalled that the Nigerian government subsequently established the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA) following a memorandum he submitted to former military President Ibrahim Babangida.

However, he lamented that the programme was discontinued after some years, despite its potential to boost agricultural production and generate revenue.

‘’And in Malaysia, they created the Federal Land Development Authority, FEDA. You can see it for hectares. And if you think it’s a very simple thing, believe you me, the money they make from sale of palm oil, the simple palm oil to the world now is $24 billion last year. $24 billion.

How much is our oil? How much is our oil? 8, 12 billion, I don’t know. This is all just from oil. Not oil and gas that we sell.

Just palm oil. Selling to the world. $24 billion.’’

He said Nigeria could generate significantly more revenue from palm oil if it invested adequately in agricultural development and allowed institutions such as NALDA to operate effectively.

‘’And I’m telling you, if you have NALDA in Nigeria, if you’re allowed to work, we won’t be doing it because Nigeria is vast, bigger than Malaysia. They’re doing 24 billion. Maybe we should be doing 40, 60 billion.

Just from palm oil alone.’’

Gana urged the government to prioritise agricultural production, strengthen relevant institutions and create an environment that would enable local industries to thrive.

The former minister also identified Nigeria’s large population as a major economic advantage that could support industrialisation and domestic production.

He said the country’s market size offered opportunities for businesses and industries to expand, provided the government adopted policies that encouraged local manufacturing and productive investment.

‘’My friends, lastly, if you want to rethink and build industry, you have to be bold. You know Nigeria, we are 200 million plus.

We have the biggest market in Africa. It’s a leverage. We have the biggest market.’’He said.

Gana is a Nigerian professor, political scientist and statesman who served as a senator in the Second Republic and held several ministerial positions, including Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Minister of Information and Culture, Minister of Cooperation and Integration in Africa, and Minister of Information and National Orientation.

He also served as chairman of MAMSER under the administration of former military President Ibrahim Babangida and as political adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He is widely recognised for his contributions to Nigeria’s political development and public service.