Anambra State governor-elect Prof Charles Soludo, on Saturday said politics has become a big business platform to make easy and quick money instead of a platform for selfless service.
Soludo said this while speaking in Abuja at the 2021 pioneer class graduation of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance, with the theme, ‘Emergence of the unconventionals’.
“Politics has become big business. Appointment or election into public office is seen largely as an opportunity to ‘eat’ rather than a call to selfless service. There is an army of rich (big men) who have never worked or done any productive work in their life but believe that it is their right to expect something for nothing”.
The former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) also raised the alarm that drug barons have invaded the political terrain because of the global clampdown on criminal activities like internet fraud and illicit drug business.
“As the noose tightened globally on other rentier/criminal enterprises such as drug trafficking or internet scam, many of the barons flocked into politics as the next easy alternative”.
Soludo recalled that as the CBN governor, he and his family members received threats owing to the banking revolution he supervised.
He added, “At a personal level, undertaking the banking revolution in Nigeria came with 19 written threats to me and my family, including physical attacks. Disrupting the existing social order is dangerous. Beneficiaries of the current order are powerful enough to organise and viciously fight back to protect their privileges. On the contrary, the masses who are the ultimate beneficiaries are not organised enough to act as a bulwark against the special interests.”
Soludo charged the graduands to display honesty always and use their knowledge to contribute to making a new Nigeria a possibility, adding that fixing politics requires talents, skills and citizens’ cooperation.