President Bola Tinubu on Thursday urged African leaders to embrace homegrown development models instead of foreign plans.
Tinubu made call at the former Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi’s commemorative symposium and inauguration of the Amandla Institute for Policy and Leadership Advancement in Abuja.
The President, who was represented at the symposium by his deputy, Kashim Shettima, said the continent was in dire need of leaders who implemented appropriate policies instead of chanting slogans.
He said: “The tragedy of our time is that African leaders do not only confine themselves to foreign blueprints but have also refused to emancipate themselves from client-state mentalities and governance by hashtag activism.
“Whatever our differences across the continent, one fact that cannot be eroded by our infighting is that we are in the age of machines.
“And we can’t fight our development dilemma with spears and arrows, while the rest of the world is fighting the same battle with missiles and tanks. The world is not waiting for Africa to catch up.”
Tinubu pointed out that it would be wishful thinking to think that Africa’s renaissance would happen as a gift.
He expressed regret that African leaders have for long outsourced their thinking, relied on institutions and ideologies that treated countries on the continent as consumers and not creators.