Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said that Nigeria suffered for too long under the dictates of bad leaders who nearly ran the aground with their poor leadership skills.
Osinbajo noted that the country is yet to recover from the negative effects of the poor leadership.
He stated this in Abuja at the book launch of the biography of late Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari titled: ‘The First Regular Combatant: Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari”
Osinbajo, who was represented by the Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu said: “so dominant has appalling examples of poor leadership and bad governance been that our youth can be misled into feeling that there is a total absence of idealism and heroism in our society.
“Yet, nothing can be further from the truth, in our past and in our present, we can find exceptional examples of selfless service and notable deeds with which we can inspire in our youth.”
Osinbajo added that “the example of Maimalari, particularly, his growth from humble beginnings, through diligence and hard work, to the dizzy heights of public service success is worth sharing. History can thus be a useful tool in the propagation of good examples. ‘“History as a subject in our schools has become fairly infamous, with students often feeling that the subject has no practical value.
“Yet, without a grounding in history, how do we know we who we are, where we come from, and more importantly, as a people, where we are going to?
“As a government, we have been concerned with the decline in the society and the study of history and this has seen us recover history from the place where it has been ignored for too long and placed it back firmly in school curriculum.”