Donald Duke blames military for Nigeria’s misfortunes

A former Governor of Cross River, Donald Duke, has blamed past military administrations for instituting the transfer of senior personnel to states they were not familiar with.

He said they should have allowed administrators to remain in the state in order to govern properly since they know the terrain.

Duke who spoke on Friday at a lecture organised by the Brotherhood of the Cross and Star in Calabar, insisted that local policing is the only way to ensure effective security in Nigeria.

He described policing as “a very local thing which requires a lot of intelligence and knowing the people who you work with.’’

“If you send someone from Edo to come and become the Commissioner of Police in Cross River and the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) is from a different state, how do you expect him to understand the peculiarities of the people?

“The failure of the military administration in Nigeria was posting someone from Sokoto to be an administrator in Cross River. It will take him a long time to understand the nuances of the people of the locality,’’ he said.

On the concept of a servant leader, Duke said: “If you are a leader whose entire outlook is for the betterment of his or her people, they will still look up to you even when you are not in the position of authority.

“We must demand loyalty from our leaders because they come to us, demand our votes and immediately they become leaders, they become tigers.

“Loyalty is a two-way thing; it starts from the top and comes down to the bottom and when it gets to the bottom, what you get back is reciprocity”.