The former Minister of Education, Mrs Obiageli Ezekwesili, on Saturday, decried how bad leadership has continued to be a big challenge affecting the economic development of Africa as a continent.

According to her, except urgent measures are taken to ensure structural transformation of African politics by leaders of the private sector and civil society to change the negative narrative, good leadership would continue to elude Africa.

Ezekwesili made the disclosure at the graduation ceremony of the 2023 School of Politics, Policy and Governance.

She affirmed that data had proven that development would not be feasible with the current state of affairs on the continent.

She noted, “As you listen to our brothers and sisters from various countries on the continent, you can see that it is a common denominator for Africans to mourn the absence of quality leadership.

“Africa has chosen the path of democracy and if we look at historical numbers, more countries that have enjoyed prosperity have come through the democratic path.

“So, democracy is a very important thing because democracy comes with political freedom. With political freedom, there is a rule of law and that rule of law is the cornerstone of economic freedom.

“It is economic freedom that leads to the proliferation of ideas, innovations, creativity and therefore, the two most important economic agendas for countries are solved faster and better.

“Competitiveness and productivity are all based on empirical data. So, if we know all those things as evidence abounds, we can not then sit back and hope that somehow change will come.

“So if Africans need to transform our politics and we just sit back as citizens, hoping that those who have entrenched poor governance as a matter of political culture will someday fall in the kind of Apostle Paul and have a Damascus experience we will wait forever and that is not something that this generation should do,” she said.