A professor at the Wits School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Adebayo Olukoshi has said that leadership crisis is one of the major causes hindering development in the region.
The don made this assertion on Tuesday.
He spoke as the keynote speaker at the opening of the second annual Ibadan International Social Science Conference.
The conference organised by the Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan was held on the university campus on Tuesday.
Olukoshi while speaking on the topic “Social Science in a changing World: Challenges, Socio-Economic Adaptation and Resilience”, said that successive governments and regimes in most of the African countries have been marred with leadership crisis and lack of vision.
The don maintained that purposely governance that can change the status quo have eluded the continent for many years.
Olukoshi who said that most of the western ideologies and theories have failed to address the peculiar problems in Africa, charged African leaders and scholars to develop African-based solutions to solve the array of social problems confronting the continent.
He charged African leaders and scholars to develop African-based curriculum that will be used to train future leaders in the continent.
The don while speaking further, also charged Nigerian government to develop curriculum that will address the needs to of the people.
Olukoshi said, “By now, we should begin to think of how to have our own solutions. For us in Africa, it is time to train people who will think in a way to provide solutions.
“Our curriculum and reward system have to be changed. We are in the position to change it. There is no continent that has been enslaved more than Africans. But if Africa withdrawal its resources, I can tell you that the whole of Europe e will be in crisis.
“It is about leadership. Every government comes in with his own agent. Nobody is looking at what has happened in the past. No country transform in such way.
“Chinese know where they want to be at the end of 21st century. Some people are now thinking on how to populate the Mars. They will leave us behind, then we will be going there as tourists with Visa to enter there. So, it is about leadership, it is about thinking about the future, thinking of many years to come.
