Nigeria needs new leaders not “recycled leaders” - Gumi

A Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheik Ahmed Abubakar-Gumi, has asked those he described as “recycled leaders” to give way to young men to occupy leadership positions in the 2015 elections.



The cleric, who told the leadership of the Kaduna State Chapter of the Ohaneze Ndigbo during a consultative meeting with him over fear of violence during the 2015 polls, said “complete new leaders” were needed to emerge to lead the country.

He said, “I want to say that Nigeria should bring complete new leaders who have not served this country before because we keep on recycling old leaders who don’t have the interest of the country at heart, but their personal interest.


“I also want to tell Nigerians that they should not see the ruling Peoples Democratic Party and the All Progressives Congress as opposing religious party, but purely political parties which are doing things the way they like, either personal or political.

“The political awareness of 2011 is different from the awareness of 2015; and by the next 20 years, every Nigerian will be fully aware of his political rights to the extent that nobody can cheat another person on the issue of elections in the country.

“We should not allow politicians to use religion to divide us, we should be relating together because our security is that if our neighbour is safe, we are also safe.”

Gumi, a retired Major of the Nigerian Army, also said that retired military Generals that had over the years subverted civilian administrations had no moral justification to complain of rigging in the 2015 general elections.

He said the nation would have been far better off by now if the military had not interrupted civil rule in the past, stressing that those who brushed aside the nation’s constitution had turned around to use it.

Earlier, the President, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Kaduna, Mr. Austin Amaechi, had commended the cleric for his efforts in ensuring that there would be peace during and after 2015 elections.