A Professor of African Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Professor Wale Adebanwi, on Friday, said the vote-buying culture among Nigerians cannot produce good and sustainable leaders for the country.
The don, who delivered the 2026 Obafemi Awolowo Lecture, titled “Politics Future-Making: Awolowo and Leadership as Theory of Action”, said the “pay me to vote for you culture” is depriving the country of the opportunity of producing good leaders.
According to him, the country has failed to produce good leadership because of some factors that include the nature and dynamics of state composition, the nature of the political economy, the nature of social composition, and the nature of elite composition.
Adebanwi explained that while the elite is mostly responsible for the absence of good leaders in the country, the masses as well cannot be absolved completely.
He said, “Indeed, while much of the blame must go to the political class and the elite, the people-as-electorate cannot be absolved of their share of the blame. It is difficult for a pay-me-to-vote-for-you political culture to produce sustainable good leadership.
Speaking on the nature of social composition, he said, “The emergent social formation is a product of our collective refusal to transform the nature and dynamics of state composition and the political economy that have produced the current social dynamics.
“We have developed a beggarly culture which has not only deepened in the last few decades, particularly since the era of “settlement” as a “directive principle of state policy,” but it has also been federalized and canonized. We have worked hard toward the near-total destruction of the ethical basis of public culture.
“We have taken the worst aspects of our socio-cultural notions and practices, which have been exacerbated by the cultural ill-logic of oil wealth, and expanded and extended them while ignoring the best and the most positive aspects of existing ethno-cultural formations and practices”.
He, however, said finding solutions to the problems would involve adopting some of the approaches of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
According to Adebanwi, “Chief Awolowo already showed us the path. We need to adopt and adapt his methods, tactics, and strategies for the present and reverse-engineer how he delivered effective leadership and governance in the Western region”.
He stated that there could be no sustainable leadership in Nigeria if there is no true federalism, saying this would form the foundation upon which good leadership can stand.
The guest lecturer also advocated a new democratic constitution for the country as a step towards having sustainable leadership.