Why We Need A President With The Ruthlessness of A Sani Abacha – By Kashim Shettima

The obsession with distorting one’s views to settle partisan scores brings to mind a certain WBC Commentary. “The trouble with deliberate bias,” it says, “is that it cannot be erased by sound education”.

The video of my speech in Lagos is out there for those sincerely curious. never attributed hospitality to Abacha in my speech. I did a rundown of our past Presidents and played up “the taciturnity and a dose of ruthlessness of a Sani Abacha” to show we need strongmen to deal with the nonstate actors who’ve turned Nigeria into a vast killing-field.

I was quick to tease the audience, appreciating the humour hovering around the hall, with the familiar jibe that nice men don’t make good leaders. By nice men I meant those who get easily manipulated and pressured to divert state resources to appeal to private expectations.