No Country Employs More Than 5% of its Citizens, Says Kukah

Most Rev. Mathew Hassan Kukah

Kasim Sumaina and  Awazi Augustine in Abuja

The Bishop of Sokoto Dioceses, Most Rev. Mathew Hassan Kukah stated Friday that no country in the world employed more than 5% of its citizens, arguing that not everyone must be an office holder before exercising leadership.

Kukah noted that, the assertion in some quarters that one must either be President, Governor, and Local Government Chairman before exercising leadership was absolute nonsense and urged the youths to be problem solvers rather than being the problem.

He disclosed this yesterday while speaking to newsmen at the Opening Ceremony of the 3rd National Mission Congress of Nigeria (NAMICON III), held in Abuja.

According to the Reverend, the first thing to say was that, leadership was based on some certain beliefs which were sometimes based also on certain sets of values. Those that were based on deep convictions were put down in writing and so on.

“Office holding sometimes is purely by accident. You can be in an office based on appointment and there are those who use office to exercise leadership which includes many factors. For instance, out of 170 million Nigerians, only one can be President at a time.

“So, the assumption that, if you are not holding an office then you cannot exercise leadership is wrong. If you are a good mother, your children will follow you.

"If you are a good father, your children will obey you and if you are a senior prefect, other children will learn from your example. All of us are called to exercise leadership in our chosen fields. Leadership is seeing the problem and having the capacity to solve it.

“I hear people often say the future of young people, in the whole world, there is no country that employs 5% of it its citizens or even 10%. Many states in Nigeria with population of about 6-7 million, employs between 30-60,000 civil servants despite being ghost workers. So, it is evidently clear that no government can employ its entire people. What all of us need to do is to work hard where ever we finds ourselves as none was born a government child.

"We all came by the grace of God and His purpose and success for each of us lies in our cooperation to achieve our set goals”, he said.