The Emir of Kano and former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Muhammadu Sanusi II, has warned Nigerians against electing into offices, people with no education.
He said electing such people into offices in the past was responsible for the poor attention given to education in the country over the years.
The Emir of Kano who spoke at the 6th convocation of Nile University of Nigeria, Abuja said that putting people with education into public offices would impact positively on the education sector.
“We have to take an interest in the quality of our leaders and representatives in the level of education. If you look around this country at many levels of leadership, we have elected and we have chosen to elect people who do not have an education. And because they are not educated, they cannot give an education.
“We need to lay more emphasis on the quality of people we elect to executive and legislative offices and we need to make sure that those to whom we entrust policy are themselves educated and know the value of education,” he said.
He stressed the need for the Federal Government to invest in educating the people instead of building roads and other infrastructure.
According to him, it was necessary to build the people first before other things.
His words: “Let us invest more in education and let us give up some of the privileges that we have such as the trillions we are spending subsiding petroleum products. That money should go into educating our young people.
“We are spending too much monies on roads and bridges and trains and too little money educating our children. Let us educate these young people and they will build the roads, train and bridges. We do not need to invite the Chinese to do that for us. The leadership at all levels in this country and the followership should understand that this is what is most important, because I do understand sometimes that if a governor does not build roads or bridges, he is seen as not have been performed by the people.
“We build all these highways and there are more pedestrians on the highways than cars and those pedestrians are most often people without education and help. Development is first and foremost about people.”
