A university don, Professor Olatunji Oyeshile, has blamed Nigeria’s slow progress on its dependency on money, arguing that as long as wealth determines who leads and who gets political opportunities, the country will remain stuck.
Speaking on the lead paper at an international conference at the Osun State University (UNIOSUN), Ikire campus, Tuesday, Oyeshile said the nation cannot develop unless politics is reoriented toward serving people rather than individuals.
He argued that Nigeria’s party system encourages competition for power instead of collaboration, noting that many people contest elections even when they lack support or resources.
Prof. Oyeshile noted that Nigeria has many presidential candidates because individuals are not working together but they are mainly seeking power.
He said that in Nigeria, anyone who wants to contest elections without belonging to a particular “group” or being rich enough will be excluded regardless of intelligence.
According to him, this exclusion harms the state because it prevents the country from benefiting from capable knowledge and expertise.
He urged political parties to be structured as “dividend yielding” organisations—focused on delivering benefits to citizens rather than power struggles.
He said: “Unless, we turn party politics to dividend yielding organisation, that would cater for the needs of the people, then we can not develop.”
She also disclosed a plan to develop a memorandum of understanding to enable Nigerian students to study in Bulgaria, describing education in Europe as increasingly digital and more affordable.
The conference, titled “Political and Institutional Values and the Quest for Development in Developing Democracies,” was organised by UNIOSUN’s Department of Philosophy (Ikire campus) and Department of Political Science (Okuku campus), in conjunction with Faculty of Philosophy, St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.