Kalu gave the advice on Thursday in Lagos while speaking at the 2nd Annual Lecture of Swaaya Limited, publishers of FreedomOnline.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the lecture was ”Fixing The Economy: Less Politics, More Substance”.
The former governor pointed out that the purpose of elections was to elect leaders to make positive changes in the society and not to play politics for eternity.
He said that the coming of President Muhammadu Buhari was one good thing that had happened to the country, as he was committed to service to the people, NAN reports.
Kalu urged poilitical leaders to emulate the president and dedicate themselves to the service of the people.
He said now that elections were over, the people expected their leaders to face the real issues of governance to improve their lot.
Kalu said it was surprising that some politicians were already talking about 2023, rather than commencing earnest work to justify the mandate given to them in the last election.
He said though politics and governance were almost inseparable, the latter was more important than the former.
”I want to advise our political leaders that elections are gone, we should now think about governance.
”Nigerian politicians have forgotten about governance and are still talking about politics after the elections.
”Some people are already talking about 2023 even when they have not done anything about the mandate they got in the last election .
”There is time for everything .There is time for politics and there is time for governance.
“This is the time for governance and that is what we should focus on as political leaders across parties,” he said.
On the economy, the former governor said there was the need to diversify and expand it to achieve growth and sustainable development.
He said there was the need for government to allow the private sector to control most businesses, as they had the expertise to do so and create jobs.
”We need to expand the economy for growth, and I have always argued that we need to remove every business from government for better economic performance.
”It is better for Aliko Dangote to own everything than government owing a business.
”It is not possible for government to do policy formulation and do policy implementation at the same time, so businesses are better left with the private sector,” he said.
Kalu said there was an urgent need for the country to practice true fiscal restructuring to address the myriads of challenges facing the country.
